The Watchtower of Rustoria: the Chronicles of Omicron, #2 by Ash Gray

Author:Ash Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: black protagonist, steampunk, lesfic, lesbian protagonist, lesbian fantasy fiction, lesbian science fiction, science fantasy, humorous science fiction, humorous fantasy fiction, woman protagonist, woman main character, woman of color protagonist, funny fantasy, funny science fiction
Publisher: Ash Gray
Published: 2020-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Necessary Things

Storm clouds frothed across the sky, their edges glowing where beams of persistent sunlight broke through. Clockson Port was situated over the edge of a cliff, and airships glided over the chasm to dock at each jutting pier in a neat row, growling engines revving and dying as they landed and departed at intervals. Some were transport vessels unloading passengers, but most were freighters delivering produce from the floating greenhouses where crops grew, protected from the poisonous atmosphere.

The ground was wet and reflective from the night’s showers, a cold fog rolled across the water, and many people were wrapped against the chilly air in scarves, coats, and wool caps. Some faces were covered in gasmasks, others with kerchiefs. If there were aszet about, they were too covered up to be noticed. Corin glanced at Xandra and thought, given her profession, that she was lucky she’d been born a halfling: a full-blooded alteri who wanted to live in defiance of the Hand would have had a hard time hiding her large ram-like horns.

The milling crowds swarmed the docks, children bouncing as they clung to parents’ hands; women waiting for lovers as they stared wistfully, hopefully at the airships; women debating politics loudly and passionately; little girls offering to shine shoes; little girls skipping rocks into the water; women checking rusty gold pocket watches with frowns of consternation.

Above all the noise, mechanical pigeons screeched across the port. They were everywhere, looming on buildings, fluttering down onto ship railings, eying the crates of produce with eyes as eager and greedy as if their mechanical bellies were capable of hunger.

Corin wondered why humans didn’t simply let pigeons disappear entirely. They were rats with wings. Why create mechanical versions that were just as annoying? But then, she had also noticed that humans were nostalgic. They collected memorabilia, and if they could not, they created it artificially. Corin found it utterly bizarre, to say the least.

Corin noticed a rich old woman with a golden mechanical arm standing under an umbrella beside her primly dignified companion unit: a female robot in a crimson dress with a low bodice that offered her brown breasts in twin rising mounds. For a split second, Corin saw herself in the robot, only less dignified, less cared for, less lavishly decorated as she crawled about like a beast on a leash, dismally allowing her Artechian mistress to spank her at parties. She hated that Theodora had noticed her bitter reverie: when she looked up, the robot was watching her with its bulbous golden fish-eyes, its body language unreadable. Corin irritably looked away.

Crows stood at the end of every pier, rifles in hand, watching the crowds from behind long-beaked masks that gleamed with decorative gears and cogs. Their pointed black hoods were drawn up and their black coats lifting in the wind.

“So which ship are we jackin’, Xan?” Theodora asked, hands thrust in the deep pockets of her shorts.

“Say that a little louder, Theo,” said Xandra wearily. “I don’t think they heard you in Pairitog.

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