Portsmouth Royal Dockyards – Admiralty Hall.
The Day of the Presentation.
The long mahogany table was flanked by men who controlled more ships than some nations had villages.
Admirals, ministers, treasury officials, naval architects — and at the head of them all sat the Prime Minister, Lord Percival Hawthorne, with Admiral Harrington Grant to his right and the Duke of Wellington to his left.
Phillip stood at the far end of the room. Behind him, wheeled in carefully by three apprentices, was a demonstration assembly — half of a working triple-expansion cylinder prototype. On another table sat one of the precision-milled steel shafts, gleaming faintly in the morning light.
No one spoke at first.
They didn't need to.
Everyone knew why they were here.
Admiral Grant broke the silence.
"Lord Wellington," he said, "you have seven minutes."
Seven minutes.
To propose a naval revolution.
Phillip nodded once, stepped forward, and began.
He did not launch into technical jargon.
