Hannah was helping Liddy into her dress, skipping any idle groping or kisses that normally would have been going on while putting clothes on a friend. Having reloaded the rifle, she escorted Liddy back to the lounge to find everyone safe. Ving was at the front door with her pistol in her hand. She smiled when she saw Hannah come into view with Liddy. Mari was back on the couch with Easy gently examining her bruised jaw. “...

Hannah said goodbye to her new friend and favoured him with a kiss in view of the carriage that had already collected his Lord. She went to join Liddy, who was relaxing in the lounge at the front of the ship counting money. “So is this part of the job better or what?” Hannah asked. “I enjoyed myself quite a lot last night, but this is fun, too.” Liddy smiled and teased the jewelled necklace resting between her marginally-...

Everyone expected a war between the old ways of magic and the new ways of steam upon the invention of the steam engine. However, people quickly learned that synthesizing the two did more than anyone realized. Instead of a steam engine that could merely power trains and factories, it was made to power airships and augment spells. There was a frenzy of development throughout the world, as every day brought a dozen new inven...

Sydney’s free settlers had limits, a regular blind eye was turned to the biblical invocation: Judge not, that ye be not judged. So, when it came to the likes of Brigid O’Sullivan, polite society couldn’t help itself: all freed convicts were skilamalink, but the Irish were beyond the pale. It was just as well the great and good didn’t know the half of it. The next stop for those who shaked a flannin of Sydney’s establishme...

Lieutenant-General Sir Richard George would never become accustomed to mornings in this god-forsaken colony. The squawking cockatoos’ addiction to slumber sundering meant he started every day on the wrong foot. Yawning, he slipped from their four-poster bed, careful not to disturb his more-sanguine wife, who, he’d always imagined, could sleep through anything, even mafficking parrots. However, despite Lady Elizabeth’s eye...

If the Blood Shirts wanted a fight, I was more than ready to shake a flannin. Despite the situation being dire and our moods dour, I couldn’t help but appreciate the majestic scenery. The rising sun painted the landscape in brilliant colors, mountains washed in gold sunlight, fertile fields awash in eye-boggling blooms and orange-red rays. Off in the distance, I could see the dark emerald canopy of the forest and the pict...

“You just had to get more Phlegm Cotton-gin,” I shouted as I ran. One hand clutched my fashionable chapeau, a ladies’ top hat that matched my green bodice. The other tightly gripped the hilt of my sword. Despite being armed, I was running for my life. “Phlebotinum. Bloody Phlebotinum,” Kayla shouted, her words sounding muted due to the deafening cacophony of the erupting volcanoes and the twenty-foot-tall fire demons chas...

After an eternity, the darkness began to dissipate. With glacial slowness, nothingness gradually brightened into something. As one epoch faded into the next, and, then, another, the void gave way to corporeal reality. The universe, all thought and emotion, and the realm of human experience manifested before my eyes and in my throbbing gray matter. The dim lights of the control panel, glowing amber and green, crashed into...

Penelope retightened the last bolt, checked the wiring one last time then typed some sample coordinates into the typesetter. She ran her fingertips over the shiny brass fittings. She looked at her reflection in the large grandfather clock face and pulled the goggles down over her hazel brown eyes. She watched the gyrosphere whirl, spinning faster and faster. The steam engine pumped the pistons faster and faster. The whirl...

The carriage bumped and jostled along the brick road. Adelia sat with her crossed hands in her lap, feeling apprehensive and more than a little angry at the reason for her journey. She remembered sitting passively, listening to her husband, even as she seethed inwardly. He had blandly informed her that he was sending her to a physician recommended by his acquaintance Lord Chapman. The good Lord had informed him that upon...