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    Dreamscapes #2: Black Jack Finnegan
    Dreamscapes #2: Black Jack Finnegan
    Dreamscapes #2: Black Jack Finnegan
    Ebook54 pages54 minutes

    Dreamscapes #2: Black Jack Finnegan

    By Astra Crompton

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    About this ebook

    Dreamscapes is a series of 12 short stories capturing Astra Crompton's real dreaming experiences. Each short story aims to recapture the visual presentation of the dream through different narration styles and points of view. There is no running theme between them, aside from a varying component of fantasy. All will be collected in a print volume due out December 2012.

    One Dreamscapes story will be epublished on the 7th of each month of 2012. February's offering is a rich Steampunk setting peopled with eccentric characters. A tale of treasure, mystery and magic, this dream spawned the Chronicles of Terrene world-setting that all began here, with "Black Jack Finnegan".This one is more novella than short story at 185 pages.

    In "Black Jack Finnegan" a pair of women are forced to make an emergency evacuation from their failing Aether Ship. They crash-land on the legendary Good Ship Ptarmigan - home to the timeless treasure hunter, Black Jack Finnegan - and so find themselves swept up in a world of mysteries.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAstra Crompton
    Release dateFeb 6, 2012
    ISBN9781465959140
    Dreamscapes #2: Black Jack Finnegan
    Author

    Astra Crompton

    Astra Crompton lives in Victoria. She is a queer author, illustrator, comic creator, and hobbyist costumer. Her passions include history, fantasy, books, tea, and story telling in all its many forms.

    Read more from Astra Crompton

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      Book preview

      Dreamscapes #2 - Astra Crompton

      Black Jack Finnegan

      Dreamscapes:

      Episode Two

      By Astra Crompton

      Mystic’s Blood, we have failed!

      Rosette tried hard to see if there was any glimmer of hope left, any possible chance of salvaging this mission. An explosion rocketed through the ship’s depths, the deck beneath her boots rolling like an invalid in fever. She bit back a curse and pressed herself tight against the wall, waiting for the rolling to stop. She stood, peering down the dark corridor with a desperate will that the door would open, and that through it would come Maggotty.

      Hurry, you slothful Gruub, or we will die on this ship!

      She could not wait much longer. Better to cut and run than go down empty-handed—

      There! The door! She held her breath, clinging to the shadows, hand on her aether pistol, ready, primed just in case a uniform found her hidden here. A shadowy, back-lit form filled the rectangle of light and she exhaled, recognizing the lumpish, misshapen shape of Maggotty.

      What took you so long? Rosette demanded, holstering her pistol.

      No time, must go! Maggotty grunted in reply, farthingale gathered in her spongy hands. As if on cue, another explosion wracked the ship, and with a sudden lurch, the entire vessel plummeted.

      Rosette let out an unbidden shriek as she and her Gruub cohort lost the floor beneath them -- the Gravity Core seemed to have let go its hold on atmospheric pressure. Just as quickly, it sputtered back to life and the two women found themselves stumbling along the deck planks, trying to reach the balcony. What exactly had the Gruub done to the workings of this Aether Ship?

      Maggotty, if we live through this… Rosette threatened impotently as they found the door and wrenched it open.

      Outside, the night was whipped past with icy speed beyond the golden film of the ship’s Aura. The clouds were reduced to torn streaks as the Aether Ship continued to plummet. Below, twinkling and smoky, the lights of Port Cardine were rising out of the inky darkness.

      Both women clung to the railing, and Rosette tossed a fearful glance over to her companion.

      "Tell me the ship can still fly, Maggotty. Tell me it has no need to crash." Maggotty’s pasty, flaccid face rippled under the force of the Gravity Core, the close proximity of the ship’s Aura – both so foreign for her kind. Her beady eyes were glassy and dull. All were signs that she was afraid. Rosette felt her heart sink. When a Gruub was concerned about free-fall, a Cascadian was sure to die imminently.

      We need new ship. Maggotty grunted, but Rosette just laughed – a nervous, sharp sound.

      "We boarded in berth, my Gruub, or has the low helium-content of my world addled your brain? How are we to suddenly manifest a secondary ship?"

      Maggotty stared with her unblinking seed-bead eyes and her antenna pulsed, sensing for adjacent matter, a sort of silent sonar that had always unnerved Rosette. The ship was still falling at a horrendous speed through the otherwise empty skies, the muffled sounds of the panicking crew and passengers just audible beneath the screech and drone of the Engine Chambers in duress. Only by the Aether Dust layer that made up the Ship’s Aura were the gentlewomen able to breathe, to remain relatively unruffled out here at the balcony railing. A small comfort, considering the circumstances.

      At last Maggotty sensed something and her doughy form perked a little. She craned over the edge of the platform, coming dangerously close to piercing the golden film of the Aura, but then she pulled back just shy of contact.

      We have chance, she murmured, looking pointedly at Rosette.

      Something tells me, I’m not going to like the sounds of it… The Cascadian winced, one hand characteristically bracing her hip. The Gruub just shrugged, a sinking of spongy face into torso rather than a rising of shoulders.

      We jump or we crash. Liking is not help to choosing. Ever so literal, so solemn, like most of her kind. Rosette sighed and looked out over the railing.

      Alright. What would you have us do?

      And so Maggotty explained – in that sparsely worded, not-to-be-rushed fashion of hers – that they would let the ship continue to fall, and when they were thus brought closer, they would jump to another ship’s balcony. The would-be landing pad in question was located beneath

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