Flotsam

by R J Theodore

  Come on, girl, she urged her ship. Just a little farther.

  But Wind Sabre had gone as far as she could. Her heart gave out.

  Chapter 44

  All the promises that Talis made to her ship couldn’t keep it together. Wind Sabre’s death knell was an understated staccato ping of something critical failing within the engine’s complex system.

  Sophie cried out and let go of the line. Talis and Dug lurched forward and scrambled to take up the slack. Sophie stripped off her gloves and dropped them on the deck behind her as she ran back toward the Number One engine’s deck house.

  There was a growl from midship. Then, louder, a chuffing sound. Then an outright howl of metal on metal, and the grinding screech as working engine parts fought others that had stopped moving.

  Sophie, halfway across the deck, skidded to a stop. Took a tentative step backward.

  There was a hiss, then a whine like a massive teapot angry at being forgotten.

  Sophie ran straight past the engines.

  Waving her arms, she shouted for them to find cover. Her voice was nearly drowned out by the screams of the failing mechanics. She made it to the wheelhouse, skidding in and pushing Tisker down behind the bulk of the wheel’s supporting pedestal. She crouched there, her arms around him, making them as small as she could behind the narrow shelter.

  Dug let go of the rope and grabbed Talis by the shoulders as the line lurched free of her hands. There was nothing to hide behind on the forward deck, and the hatch to the forecastle cabin below was sealed from the other side. He forced her down flat on the decking and shielded her body with his.

  She felt the entire ship heave, lurching, trembling with the force of the explosion. Heard the fireball that the engine expelled, a whoosh and a clap of thunder as metal warped. The momentary whine of the metal housing as it was torn open from within, wrenched apart by the built-up energy from moving components straining against their deadened counterparts.

  A moment later she felt the heat of it on her exposed skin.

  Shrapnel hit the deck around them, and Dug flinched beside her. The shrapnel was hitting him, too. His torso was bare, except for the safety harness he hadn’t bothered to remove. She struggled against his weight, trying to move out from beneath him so he could lay flatter, but he held her fast, pinning her to the deck where he’d braced her.

  The hull beneath them felt like it was dragging on gravel. It shuddered. They rocked forward as momentum suddenly slowed.

  Talis’s ears rang. Dug shook her, and she realized he was talking to her. She tried to answer that she couldn’t hear what he said, but she couldn’t hear herself either. She shook her head at him, but he was looking away already. Away and up.

  Something flapped over their heads. She blinked the fog from her vision and could see a twisted section of the catwalk, and the responsible chunk of the engine housing that had destroyed it, tangled in the shredded canvas of the lift balloon. She saw Wind Sabre’s hot breath as it escaped the envelope. More puffs of steaming air came from other portions around the curve of the balloon from where she was.

  Patching the canvas had just taken priority over the lift lines, to keep what hot air they could and help the remaining engine do the work of two.

  Dug helped her to her feet. The ringing in Talis’s ears turned to an incessant whine, but the awful noises Wind Sabre was making were starting to resolve. Between the headache and the heartache, Talis felt like she was going to be sick.

  She looked across the deck. It was an expanse of flaming puddles of grease and smoking scraps of metal. Sophie left Tisker’s side to throw back the hatch on the second engine compartment, which was dented and blackened by its proximity to the blast of its twin. She could hear another malfunctioning part clattering within.

  Dug climbed backward down the port-side ladder to the middle deck, and Talis followed, not waiting for him to clear it beneath her.

  When the Number Two engine exploded, something heavy and hard slammed Talis forward. Her forehead struck one of the ladder steps, and she let go of the rails, falling the last few steps. Dug caught her under the arms and kept her from slumping into an undignified mess.

  She struggled to her feet. Her head swam, but through the lights that swirled in her vision, she saw Sophie crumpled against the railing. Thrown by the blast. Red, where a dozen wounds bloomed, soaking the fabric of her coveralls.

  Talis ran. The deck swung and lurched beneath her feet, forcing her to struggle for balance with every step. She felt the upward slide of her guts, which meant the ship was losing altitude, fast.

  They needed to get to the lifeboats. They needed to abandon Wind Sabre.

  Her heart wrenched, as much from the altitude loss as the thought of her dying ship.

  She reached Sophie’s side. The girl was breathing. She moved. She feebly put her hands on the deck and tried to lift herself up, but Talis put a hand on her shoulder. Dug was right behind her. He bent and scooped Sophie up, and they turned to follow Tisker, who was already running for the aft port lifeboat.

  The curving shape of Nexus slid upward across her field of vision. They wouldn’t have time to set up the small boat’s butane tank and get its hot air balloon filled. Wind Sabre was sinking, and she was going to take them down with her.

  Maybe. Maybe Wind Sabre’s hull would protect them from the worst of a crash into flotsam. Maybe they could get the lifeboat running, get aloft again before they froze to death in the thin atmo. She tried to remember the steps necessary, and the order. Not like she’d thought to keep up on drills. They’d only used the lifeboats to fly undetected runs, and they’d never hurried.

  “Talis, here!”

  It took her longer to recognize the voice than to turn her head toward its source. She had forgotten all about Hankirk. As they ran clear of the central deckhouses, their starboard view opened up again. Either the lifeboat on that side of the ship was lifting up, or Wind Sabre’s deck was dropping away from it. Hankirk leaned out and motioned to them with his good hand, bracing his shoulder against one of the balloon’s lines to keep from tumbling out.

  Tisker veered in that direction, running faster to reach the dinghy before it was out of reach. Hankirk tossed down a line, and Tisker fastened it to a cleat in the railing. The little balloon danced, struggling against the weight of the larger ship, and the rope went taut.

  Talis and Dug reached their side as Tisker grabbed Hankirk’s offered hand and clambered up into the dinghy. Three arms reached down, pulling Sophie out of Dug’s arms and into the lifeboat. Tisker reached back for Talis. Dug lifted her up, and then Tisker’s bandaged hands were gripping her upper arms. She gripped back. He pulled as she scrambled to get her legs up over the side. Together they tumbled into it, Talis landing on top of Tisker. Their faces were inches away from Scrimshaw’s unconscious one. She spared a moment as she untangled herself, trying not to put her knees or hands down anywhere fragile, to marvel at how Hankirk had prepared the dinghy for launch and even managed to load the unconscious alien into it.

  He might have saved them all.

  Talis turned back to help Dug. She and Tisker leaned out, each grabbing one of his forearms. He gripped back, they hauled, he pulled up. And they were all aboard.

  Dug used his boot knife to sever the line pulling them down with Wind Sabre. Sophie pushed her feet against the curved bottom of the dinghy, struggling to brace her elbows on the benches to either side of her. She bit her lip, pained by the movement, and Tisker helped her sit up. She twisted onto one hip, turned and got her arms on the railing of the dinghy, and rested her chin on her forearm.

  The hot air balloon expanded again with a snap, and the little boat lifted away as they watched their ship drop to its grave.

  There was only silence for a while, save for the puff of flame from the tank above them. Hankirk sat in the bow of the lifeboat, his eyes closed. His face was
pale. The fingers peeking out from the sling across his chest were dark purple.

  Tisker sat on the next bench, to one side. Sophie sat on the bottom of the dinghy beside Scrimshaw, her knees curled up and her head resting on Tisker’s leg. The blood on her coveralls was dull, dry. The wounds she’d sustained in the Number Two engine blast, thank the gods, were clotting.

  Dug sat between Talis and Tisker. He picked a piece of shrapnel out of a wound in his arm and tossed it over the side of the dinghy. Talis almost stopped him, desperate to hold on to one piece of her lost ship, but she held her tongue. There was plenty of shrapnel between Dug and Sophie. Not really how she wanted to remember Wind Sabre, anyway.

  Tisker adjusted the flame as they regained Horizon’s traveling altitude. Talis reached back to the miniature outboard engine and started flipping the switches to prime its fuel line.

  A cry, coarse and high pitched, sounded in the sky next to the little dinghy. Talis blinked in confusion, but Dug craned his neck around to look for the source, as if he’d been waiting for it.

  Maybe he had.

  The six-eyed raven that had once been Onaya Bone flapped her color-shifting wings and settled onto the bench in front of Dug. She regarded him, then ruffled her feathers up around her and settled in like any other raven in its roost. Another refugee.

  Talis tugged the motor’s cord, and the silence was drowned out by the grumbling roar of the little outboard turbine. The ship tugged ahead as if eager to transport them to safety. She leaned her forearm against the tiller and brought the little ship around in a lazy circle.

  The green-edged silhouette of Heddard Bay hung like an emerald in the sky, near enough that Talis could see the sway of treetops along the slopes of a volcano that dominated the island’s skyline.

  They’d lost their ship. Their home. Lost the fortune in its hold. Lost blood. Lost their gods, and with them, no small amount of hope.

  But while she still had a heartbeat, Talis was going to see to it that they hadn’t lost everything.

  The End of Book One of the Peridot Shift

  Acknowledgements

  I would never have completed this novel if not for the support of the following people. No matter how profusely I thank them, it will be insufficient to express what their support means to me.

  Thanks go to my husband Matt, who encouraged me for so many years while I struggled to discover that I was, indeed, a writer. And then kicked me in the pants when I needed it most. The words “maybe it’s time to really finish it” snapped me out of the rinse-revise-repeat cycle and moved a decade of work forward to this moment.

  To Jillian Iris and Jillianne Frances, who read and gave feedback on countless early drafts and supported me with enthusiasm no matter how many times they watched me go back and start over.

  To John Adamus, without whom this would have been a very different book. His experience, passion, and guidance helped me realize the potential of a million-or-so messy words and craft the book that FLOTSAM is now.

  To the authors and reviewers who provided Parvus with wonderful blurbs in support to this first-time author.

  To Oriana Leckert, for far more than a proof read.

  To Julie Dillon, for her enthusiasm as much as for the stunning, amazing, totally brilliant cover illustration.

  To the team at Parvus Press, for getting as excited as I do about my genre-bending absurdities.

  To Mary Robinette Kowal, for applying her talent to the fantastic performance of FLOTSAM's audio edition, and for the moral fortitude that bolstered my own.

  To my parents, Bud and Tricia, to Mel and Kathy Jay, Brett Schmidt, John Sotherland and Juliana Fajoses, Frie Van Raevels, Dave D’Alessio, the Wilson family, David and Selena Toback, and Juan Henao. Each provided generous support and warm encouragement which made final ­publication possible.

  My sincerest gratitude to each of you.

  Thank you for being awesome.

  About the Author

  R J Theodore is hell bent on keeping herself busy. No, really, if she has two minutes to rub together at the end of the day, she invents a new project with which to ­occupy them.

  She enjoys reading, design, illustration, video games (she will take you down in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo), binging on movies and streaming series, napping with her cats, and cooking. She is passionate about art and coffee.

  R J Theodore lives in New England with her family.

  Book One of the Peridot Shift series, FLOTSAM, is Theodore’s debut novel.

  Read about her writing process, find her on social media, and subscribe to her reader list for updates, announcements, and free books by visiting rjtheodore.com

  A Word From Parvus Press

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  Thanks for being Parvus People,

  —The Parvus Press Team

  Glossary

  Characters

  (Entries for Peridot’s deities are listed under the “Religion” section of this glossary)

  Cormack - Business associate of Talis operating out of Subrosa. Rakkar.

  Dug - First mate of Wind Sabre and Talis's closest friend. Full name is Dukkhat Kheri. Bone.

  Ellanis - Business associate of Talis operating out of Subrosa. Cutter.

  Fens Yarrow - A Cutter man from the nineteenth generation post-Recreation who built a weapon with the intent to kill The Five. Executed by Onaya Bone for his intended deicide. His weapon disappeared, but some Veritors hold that it was completed, and that it is possible to find and use it.

  Hankirk - Imperial Captain with whom Talis has a once-romantic history. Claims to be a descendent of Fens Yarrow. Tasked with retrieving the ring of Lindent Vein. Cutter.

  Illiya - High Priestess of Onaya Bone at the Temple of the Feathered Stone on Fall Island in Bone territory. Formerly an interrogator for hire. Bone.

  Jasper - Merchant and fence operating out of Subrosa’s Corrugated District. Breaker.

  Meran - A mysterious woman who wields alchemy and a stranger, unknown power. Seems pissed about something.

  Scrimshaw - Nickname given to the linguist who accompanies Wind Sabre's crew during their escort mission to Fall Island. Artisan class. Pronouns: xe/xin/xist (among others). Yu'Nyun.

  Sophie - Wrench for Wind Sabre. Grew up on a colony airship with too many siblings and overprotective aunts. Cutter.

  Talis - Captain of Wind Sabre. Left the Imperial academy due to philosophical differences. Ran with a group of mercs for a time. Has more stories she hasn't told you. Cutter.

  Tisker - Pilot of Wind Sabre. Grew up as an orphan in Subrosa until he asked Talis for work aboard her ship. Cutter.

  Talbot - Business associate of Talis. Captains a ship but also operates a smuggling ring out of Subrosa. Passionate about grooming and pickpocketing. Likes a challenge. Cutter.

  Zeela - Businesswoman offering expensive and hard-to-find items out of the Platform District of Subrosa. Owns Zeela's House of Antiquities. Vein.

  Vessels

  The Emerald Empress - Galleon-hulled private merchant ship that sank to the flotsam layer with a certain artifact among its cargo.

  The Serpent Rose - Imperial hunter class airship
under the command of Captain Hankirk, tasked with retrieving the ring of Lindent Vein. Equipped with arms and cannons and at least seventy-five hands. Not equipped with descent gear.

  Wind Sabre - Carrack hulled airship crewed by Talis, Dug, Tisker, and Sophie.

  Locations

  Assessor’s Hall - A long stretch of alley in Subrosa, adjacent to the Corrugated District, where pawnshop kiosks crowd the relatively dark passages.

  Corrugated District - A section of Subrosa. High traffic. Named for the corrugated metal sheets used to construct much of its walls and flooring.

  Diadem - The Cutter territory capital and home to the Emperor and his family.

  Fall Island - Bone desert island, as close to Nexus as many dare to settle. Sand continuously flows from the center of the island, over its edges. Home of the High Holy Bone Temple of the Feathered Stone and the trade port Talonpoint.

  Hartham - Moderately sized border island on the Cutter side of the Bone-Cutter border. Day-and-a-half journey from Subrosa at cruising speeds.

  Horizon - The centralized altitude at which most cities and settlements on Peridot have been positioned. There was an organized effort across all four territories to migrate all activity on the planet to one plane, as maps were almost impossible to manage and read when altitude and overlapping landmasses had to be accounted for. However, some poorer communities, or those dependent on features of a non-Horizon island, still live off this plane.