Skyway

By K. C. Shaw

Ten-plus-one tales of fantasy and adventure in the sky! The adventures of airship pirates Jo and Lizzy have appeared in numerous anthologies since their debut in 2011. Now, they’re finally together in one collection, along with several stories never before published! Join Jo and Lizzy as they chase a necromancer under a full moon in "Plague Ship," fight fairy dogs and their eerie master in "Eggs Full of Flame," hunt a river monster to its mountain lair in "The Ice River's Teeth," fall in love with a fractious stolen unicorn in "Aniseed," and so much more! From the friends' first meeting to events set after the novel "Skytown," hop aboard an airship with Jo and Lizzy and soar along the SKYWAY! "Skyway" by K. C. Shaw is a short story collection published by Mannison Press, LLC.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mannison Press, LLC
• Release date: Feb 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463520475

K. C. Shaw

K.C. Shaw lives in East Tennessee, where she spends her valuable free time playing drums, producing Strange Animals Podcast, and attending conventions instead of actually writing. She also reads a lot of books other people wrote. Her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Daily Science Fiction and Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

Book preview

Skyway

By K. C. Shaw

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 K. C. Shaw

Published by Mannison Press, LLC at Smashwords

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Skyway

A Cloud Like a Bunny

Plague Ship

Ghosts and Hydrogen

Flying Shadows (an Interlude)

The Ice River's Teeth

A Bit of Cake

The Pukk-Pool

Eggs Full of Flame

Aniseed

Bonus: A Wrench in the Works

About the Author

Connect

Foreword

In 2011, I got interested in steampunk. It was the kind of obsession that burns bright and fades slowly. It's been nearly a decade now, but I still own a couple of corsets, and the junk drawer in my kitchen is full of tiny cogs and other metal doodads for decorating goggles.

People who are into steampunk, or its various offshoots, are drawn to different aspects of the fandom. Some love to dress up in elegant clothes. Some take on a rougher, more dashing persona. Some enjoy learning about history. In my case, I just wanted an airship.

And because I couldn't build an airship in my garage, I did the next best thing. I wrote a story called Skyway for an anthology open call, in which airships feature prominently.

The anthology was pirate themed, and it was the first of a series planned by a small UK publisher called Fox Spirit Books. There's nothing more challenging to an author than a themed anthology, and the members of my writers group decided to see just how many of us could make it into the table of contents of Piracy. Skyway was my story.

It was accepted, so while I was brainstorming ideas for the second anthology, I decided to keep writing about Jo, Lizzy, and their airship. A Cloud Like a Bunny was accepted for Fox Spirit's Shapeshifters anthology.

When I decided to write a third story about Jo and Lizzy, I set it just after the events of the previous story. I'm primarily a novel writer, so I had a vague idea that eventually I would take the short stories and work them into novel form. In the meantime, the stories were fun to write and many of them found homes in other anthologies, including another from Fox Spirit.

Every story stood alone but always took place after the previously written story, preserving a novel-like chronological order. The only exception was the novella The Ice River's Teeth and the short story Flying Shadows, which overlap in time with different points of view. But when I decided it was time to write a novel about Jo and Lizzy, I started from scratch—and again, just after the events in the story I'd just finished, Eggs Full of Flame.

The novel Skytown was published by Fox Spirit Books in 2017 and is still available, but I never considered collecting the stories for publication. As it happens, this collection was the result of a completely different anthology.

My friend J.B. Rockwell told me about Mannison Press's open call for their anthology Little Girl Lost. She had submitted a story that was being held for further consideration and urged me to send something in too.

I hadn't written a Jo and Lizzy story in a while, but this felt like a great opportunity. I dusted off a story idea and submitted A Wrench in the Works.

J.B. Rockwell's story was accepted to the anthology, but we weren't destined to share another table of contents. But we are sharing a publisher. Mannison politely declined A Wrench in the Works as not really fitting into the anthology's theme, but said they really liked the story. Did I perhaps have any other stories featuring Jo?

Oh boy, did I! With the blessings of Fox Spirit Books, all the Jo and Lizzy stories are now available in this volume—in the order I wrote them. I've made small changes to the earlier stories in particular, since I've learned an awful lot about lighter-than-air flight and how airships work since then, but the stories are otherwise very little changed from the original versions. And some, of course, are brand new in this collection and never before published.

Maybe I'll never have an airship, but I suspect an airship is a lot more fun to read about than to actually operate.

Skyway

Josephine Clarke stared at the ground, which by some trick of the mind seemed to be approaching the airship instead of the other way 'round. Either way, it was approaching much too fast. Her hands sweated on the control sticks.

Sam was silent behind her, manning the boiler. If she'd fouled up the landing—if they were both going to die in mangled wreckage, their bodies scalded by escaping steam—surely he would say something. But perhaps he had not yet noticed the danger.

She adjusted the Swallow's wing flap and slowed the propeller. Sam, please close the vents and drop ballast, she said, keeping her voice steady with difficulty.

She heard the thump as the vents closed, keeping all the hot air in the aluminum-strapped envelope. The airship responded by porpoising once before she steadied. Another bob as the ballast buckets emptied, and then the ground was approaching at a much more leisurely pace. But they were now too buoyant to land.

And vents open again, please, Jo said. She adjusted the flaps as steam spilled from the envelope's vents.

A cross-breeze caught the Swallow, but Jo corrected her course. She turned the prop speed down another tick, the engine's throb deepening in response. White flags marked the edges of the airfield just below them; fifty yards to their right the hangar roof flashed in the sun.

Jo set the Swallow down neatly on the airstrip, her wheels bouncing only once before rolling to a halt.

Very good, Sam said. Excellent control, Miss Clarke.

Jo unbent her cramped hands from the control sticks. Her knees felt wobbly. I brought us in too fast.

But you corrected properly. Sam smiled, his sun-seamed face creasing into a new pattern of wrinkles. Congratulations. Will we see you again next week?

Unfortunately not. Jo smoothed her skirts and tried to decide how much to tell Sam. She'd grown quite fond of him over the last few months, even though he always grew distressed when she asked to help repair the airships' engines. I'm getting married this Sunday and we'll be traveling afterwards, and after that...my husband doesn't wish for me to fly.

Many happy returns, Miss. Perhaps you can convince your husband to learn piloting. Then you could ride along. Sam's watery eyes blinked at her hopefully, and Jo thought he was probably thinking of more lesson fees.

"Don't worry, I will convince him to let me at the controls again. Eventually."

Sam opened the hatch—really just a door in the gondola's four-foot wall—and jumped down to fetch the mounting steps. They were on wheels and were some distance away, but Jo didn't have the heart to tell him she didn't need them. Sam thought women were frail. He was too old to despise for that old-fashioned attitude, too kind to discourage.

Jo had worn a walking dress as always to her lesson—bright blue, which complemented her brown skin—and her corset was properly fitted and not cinched too tightly. She might not look terribly fashionable, but she could maneuver quite well. Rather like the Swallow, in fact. She smiled.

She was about to take off her leather aviator's cap, a dreadful contraption with earflaps and goggles, unfortunately necessary in the open gondola, when a stranger loped up to the airship.

Jo thought it was a young man at first. But on second glance the figure, dressed in cotton trousers and shirt with a battered leather coat flapping around its legs, proved to be a tall woman. She had pale skin and short black hair, and a fierce expression on her face. And, Jo saw with a jump of alarm, pistols and a sword hung on a belt strapped around her narrow hips.

The woman was running straight for her. Jo glanced at Sam, who had reached the mounting steps and was pushing them toward the Swallow. He saw the woman and shouted, You there! What do you want?

The woman crossed the weedy runway in a few long strides and drew a pistol. She gestured with it and Jo moved aside just in time. The woman leaped into the airship.

You'd better be able to fly this thing, she growled, stumbling to a halt in the tiny gondola. She aimed the pistol at Jo. Get us off the ground or die.

I can't...not without a boilerman, Jo said, wide-eyed.

"Get us off the ground."

Jo knew nothing about pistols, but the tall woman smacked the top of hers and it made a click that sounded horribly significant. Jo was less concerned that the woman would shoot her than that she would shoot Sam. Poor Sam would try to rescue her, and he would die.

I'll fly, but you must follow my directions exactly, Jo said. Close the hatch.

To Jo's surprise, the woman did. Jo reached over and snapped the envelope vents closed, then grabbed the shovel and loaded more coal into the boiler. The indicator gauge showed they had just enough steam to take off.

Now! the woman shouted, glancing out between the top of the gondola and the envelope's bottom curve. Go now! Her deep voice had gone higher-pitched with panic.

Jo turned to the controls, but risked a glance across the field. Two men galloped toward the runway on horseback. Both wore the black uniforms of highway guards.

Jo started the prop and the airship began to move. Over the engine's throb and the prop's whine she said, There should be a pair of goggles hanging from a peg to your left. Put them on, and shovel coal into the boiler every time the indicator needle falls into the blue.

They were moving faster, the ship shaking as it bounced along the runway. As hot air filled the envelope, each bounce grew longer and each touch-down less jarring, until at last they were airborne.

Jo grinned. She had seen geese take off from ponds, flapping and paddling until their webbed feet barely touched the water. She always wondered if the birds felt like this when the air accepted them, lifting them free of the grim clutches of gravity.

The Swallow was a small airship and relatively nimble. She climbed quickly and cleared the trees surrounding the airfield.

When the altimeter read six hundred feet, Jo leveled their ascent. The countryside sailed along below them, green and gold fields patched with summer-glossy trees and ribbons of streams. The horizon lay ahead, a smudge of blue hills against white clouds.

Jo's heart felt as though it was pumped full of warmth like the envelope above her—or hydrogen like the big airships used. If she weren't holding the control sticks, she might bob up into the sky like an untethered balloon. She couldn't stop smiling.

She had almost forgotten about the tall woman, until she said, How far will this thing go before we have to land?

The Swallow wasn't meant for long flights and Jo's lesson had burned more than half the coal in the hopper. Perhaps fifty miles. My name's Jo.

The tall woman looked startled behind her goggles. She'd found Sam's heavy leather gloves too, and was gripping the short-handled shovel tightly. I'm Lizzy. How long will it take them to get another airship after us?

At least twenty minutes, assuming they didn't have another ship getting ready to go up already. I didn't see one out.

Some of the tension went out of Lizzy's stance. She wasn't just tall, she was remarkably thin, and her short hair was spiky with sweat and dust. Her skin was worm-pale, exaggerating the flush in her cheeks from the exertion and the heat radiating from the boiler.

Jo glanced down at her own arm, healthily plump and with warm brown skin. She tried not to feel smug. Not everyone could be a beauty.

Lizzy said, How fast are we going? Faster than a horse?

Oh, yes. We're doing about fifty knots.

Is that faster than a motorcar?

Most of them, yes, and we don't have to stay on a road. We're free. Jo surveyed the countryside drifting below them. Clouds drifted too, casting deep shadows across hillsides and meadows. Grazing cows looked like toys and houses looked like dollhouses.

What do we do when we run out of coal? Lizzy asked. Jo heard the scrape and clink as she added more fuel to the boiler. Crash?

We'll set down in a field somewhere. Where do you want me to take you?

I don't know.

Lizzy sounded so uncertain that Jo glanced at her in surprise. The tall woman seemed to have lost all her confidence; Jo thought she even looked close to tears. Her blue eyes were suspiciously bright behind the goggle lenses.

Jo said, What happened, if you don't mind me asking?

Lizzy turned away and made a show of inspecting the boiler gauge. The bloody highway guards, that's what happened. I thought I had a nice fat carriage to take and it turned out to be full of guards. They shot my horse right out from under me.

That's horrible, Jo said, thinking of the poor horse.

Now I've lost everything. Most of my belongings were in the saddlebags. I'll have to start all over again, steal a horse and some powder and balls for my pistols. Lizzy laughed mirthlessly. They aren't even loaded. I couldn't have shot you even if I'd wanted to.

It reassured Jo to know Lizzy couldn't kill her if she did something wrong—such as set them down in front of a police station.

I suppose we'd better come down near a town, in that case, Jo said. She wished the airship had a map. Do you prefer a larger town or a smaller one?

Larger. More traffic.

Jo tried to picture where they were. I think we're closest to Darlington. Is that big enough or should we try for Moorecroft?

Moorecroft, if we can reach it.

I'll try. Give me more steam.

Jo turned the Swallow farther east and brought her up again. They'd be more buoyant at a higher altitude, and with luck she could find a tailwind. She'd read that the best captains knew the major airflows across the entire continent, but she had barely thirty hours of experience aloft to draw on.

Once she'd steadied their heading at just over a thousand feet, she took a moment to scan the horizon carefully. I don't think they're after us yet. I don't see any smoke.

How far have we come?

Jo did a rough calculation. Just over twenty miles. It didn't sound like very far, not for someone who would be hanged if she were caught.

It was colder this far up and Jo envied Lizzy her long coat, although she knew such a garment would look silly on someone her height. The boiler's heat warmed her back, though, and she wouldn't give up the chill wind blowing at her for anything, not when it meant she was at the controls of an airship.

Another ten miles sped past. There was still no sign of pursuit, although Jo suspected that by now another airship was close to launch. They wouldn't have the sky to themselves much longer. That meant her last flight was nearing an end. At least she had gone out with a bang.

She noticed a telltale smudge of smoke ahead with a pang of misgiving. There was a telegraph station at the airfield. The highway guard might have wired requests for surrounding towns to send up airships. She might be flying into a trap, no matter which direction she turned.

Perhaps that was for the best. Lizzy was a highwayman, after all—not a nice person at all. Jo glanced at her.

Lizzy was monitoring the boiler's gauge. She had one foot braced against the gondola's rattan wall and had rested the shovel in the coal hopper the same way Sam did, one hand curled around its handle. She was completely focused on her task, evidently trusting Jo not to get her captured or killed.

Jo licked her lips and looked forward again. The