Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris

By Cameron Chapman

When war breaks out in the Russian Empire, airship captain Stig Rayner has little choice but to bring along the teenage girl he found hiding out in his hangar as he flees the opening skirmishes. He has every intention of just dropping her off in the next port, when he picks up his cargo.

Isabelle Feeney Hemsworth has different ideas. Rayner could be her ticket out of the Empire. If she could just get back to London, where her brother still lives, then maybe she can finally get off the streets.

Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris follows Isabelle and Stig from the East as they set out to deliver mysterious—and possibly dangerous—cargo to Iceland, before returning her to England.

Book One of The Steam and Steel Chronicles, Aboard the Unstoppable Aerostat Fenris details the adventures of Miss Isabelle Feeney Hemsworth and Captain Stig Rayner in an alternate steampunk Edwardian age.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cameron Chapman
• Release date: Feb 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9780982538210

Cameron Chapman

I'm a professional blogger, dealing primarily with technology, social media, and design. I also write fiction in various genres, including women's fiction, science fiction, and fantasy. I live in Vermont with my husband, two dogs, and a sometimes-ornery cat.

Book preview

Aboard the Unstoppable

Aerostat Fenris

Cameron Chapman

Published by Untime Press.

Smashwords Edition.

Copyright (c) 2011, Cameron Chapman.

All Rights Reserved.

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CHAPTER ONE

In Which a Young Lady Hides In an Airship Hangar

The sights and sounds of the market day in Guryev were an easy distraction that Isabelle just couldn’t afford. The smell of food permeated everything around her and left her stomach growling. There was shuzhuk sausage made from smoked horse meat and kuyrdak boiling in oil. Neither were particularly her favorite, but she eyed the vendors selling them just the same. As usual, they paid too much attention to their wares and their customers to bother with.

She moved on, studying the other stalls, looking for someone not paying attention. Finally, a few blocks down the street, she saw her mark.

Oy! Get out of here you little gutter rat!

Isabelle grabbed two bright green apples from the dingy market stand before the man selling them could grab the back of her dress. She slipped deftly into the crowd, running and keeping low, praying he wouldn’t follow. The odds were in her favor—if he chased after her, it would mean leaving his stand open to more thieves.

She dipped into an alleyway, glancing over her shoulder to see if he or anyone else was behind her. He wasn’t, not that she could see. To be safe, she hid behind a stack of old wooden crates that reeked of rotten cabbage halfway down the alley. It hid her well from the street and the throngs of people shopping there.

She looked down at the fruit in her hands as she caught her breath. They weren’t much, just a couple of wormy, unripe apples now that she looked closer at them, but it was better than nothing. And nothing was all she’d had for three days.

Rats scurried about the alley around her, picking through garbage bins and refuse, looking for a meal just as she was. It seemed like everyone was close to starving lately, even the animals. She’d tried going the legitimate route to get food, but there wasn’t much in the way of work for a girl her age. At least not the kind of work she wanted to take on.

Security was tightening in the city and had been for close to a month. The air was electric with anxiety, practically humming with it, and she’d overheard the word war on more than one occasion. Something was happening. Something big.

Isabelle just needed to make sure she wasn’t in the wrong place when whatever it was finally went down. She’d been in the wrong place enough lately.

When both apples were gone and the cores tossed into the corner for the rats to finish off, Isabelle went back to the alley entrance. She glanced around the market, scanning the crowd for the vendor she borrowed her lunch from. When she was sure the coast was clear, she ducked out of the alley and slipped in amongst the crowd, moving in the same direction as a group of girls about her age, hoping to blend in. Her worn-out, dirty dress stood out like a sore thumb among their clean and pressed dresses and fur-trimmed hats, but maybe no one would notice. Isabelle had practiced hard at blending in and escaping notice when it was to her benefit.

The waterfront was a few blocks away and the crowds thinned out some as Isabelle neared. The cold, late-fall weather and frigid breeze coming off the water were enough to keep most people away. Isabelle pulled her tattered sweater tighter around her shoulders and tried not to shiver.

There were a few ships anchored along the bank of the Ural River, mostly steam freighters, their hulls rusty and covered in barnacles. She’d considered stowing away on one more than once, but they never went anywhere more interesting than where she was. Mostly they just went further up the river or out to the Caspian Sea, but even those stuck closely to the Kazakh coastline.

Giant gulls circled overhead, occasionally diving into the water and plucking out a fish. As soon as one gull came up with a fish, the others would circle and start fighting for it. They were oblivious to the storm approaching on the horizon, its dark gray clouds filling the eastern sky. It would probably be there by nightfall, if not sooner. Isabelle needed to find a place to bunk down for the night. Preferably one that was dry, if not also warm. If the storm brought snow or freezing rain, she sure as hell didn’t want to end up sleeping in a doorway or under a crate in some alley.

The airfield wasn’t far ahead, maybe a mile, and the hangars there could shelter her for the night. The older hangars often had loose boards, and if you knew where they were, you could slip inside undetected. At least you could if you were as tiny as Isabelle. Being small for her age had presented plenty of problems in her days on the streets, but it also gave her a few advantages. If she got lucky, maybe she could even find a hangar with a wood stove or a kerosene heater.

The wind picked up more as she walked, and Isabelle regretted giving her coat away the week before to the mother of a little girl who was sick with a fever and on the verge of freezing to death at the same time. Now Isabelle might be the one to freeze to death.

The airfield was deserted when she got there, and she slipped through the fence at the back. There wasn’t much security on a good day, and with a storm approaching, the airfield’s administrator