Free Captain Albion Clemens and The Future that Never Was: A Steampunk Novel! (Lands Beyond Book 1) by Kin Law Page A

need them.”
                  For the life of me, it was difficult to fathom how somebody higher up in the British government could do anything but hang us more thoroughly.
                  Momentarily, I imagined this female Inspector: chiseled jaw, gray streaked through her hair, a riding crop in her knickers.
                  “No. I say we throw her overboard, we’re low enough and close enough to land.”
                  “Rosa, you know better than to ask that of me,” he chastised lightly. He pointed Blair to one of the narrow quarters nearby, and swept down the hall. Blair, the ginger, shrugged.
                  “It was very nice to meet you,” he said, entering the room.
                  “Eh. Albion!” I called, following my Captain.
                  I kept badgering the man, but as usual, his broad back seemed to deflect commentary as he stalked down the passages of his ship. We swept through, heading towards the bridge. The Berry hummed pleasantly, and it was hard not to think of her as my ship. I had spent the week with old man Cid Tanner, tuning her within an inch of her life. She was ready for anything.
                  “You have to give me something. What is this Inspector like? Old and dried up, I presume, with an axe to grind about some dirigible raiders who burned her house as a girl?” I hazarded a guess.
                  “Rosa, you have a habit of spinning tall tales. Was it all the frontier living?” He asked. “It wasn’t a command to stop, by the way. It’s very entertaining.”
                  “And you have a bad habit of not involving us in your plans,” I grumbled. It stopped him in his tracks.
                  “Yes,” he agreed. “I do. I’m working on that, all right? It’s hard for me to… share, with you all.”
                  Again, the dark cloud hovered over his brow. He had a million things behind the emotionless mask.
    T he people who even came close to understanding Albion were all on this ship. We didn’t ask what he was planning, because we always slipped by the noose, but this was different.
                  “Let’s start small,” I said gently. “What will you do with the Inspector?”
                  “I agreed not to harm her,” he began, grateful for a place to start. “Vanessa Hargreaves will likely be more flexible with her information after a few days in the brig. For now, let’s go investigate her claims. I never trusted a pretty blonde with a sound head on her shoulders.”
                  We had scoured the skies for information already, but if Albion had a lead from this Inspector, I was willing to comb every way station and seedy dive this side of the Atlantic, all over again. It took a moment for me to register the descriptor, and Albion’s implications.
    “Wait, what?” I yelled. “A pretty Inspector? A blonde, pretty female Inspector?”
    I fair flew down the hall, and while my Captain expected it, he could not dodge my expertly applied figure-four hold, launched like a vice from a cannon. As he gasped in pain, I applied the metaphorical thumbscrews.
    “Ack! Give! Give!”
                  “Now you tell me the who and the why of it. You had better have been honorable with this Hargreaves, or so help me, I will break your arm. You know I can put it back together!”
                  “I was, I was!”
                  “Bull!” Still, it was hard not to give in to the temptation. Albion had never called me ‘pretty,’ before.
    “Save your ra ncor for the rabble,” Albion gasped. I loosened my hold, slightly. “We’re sailing for the Hook. I just hope they won’t remember they banned me.”

5 :The Straight Hook, Kitty Desperado, Blair gets Lucky
     
    Floating somewhere near the Isle of Man is a motely collection of