Salvage

by R J Theodore

  Table of Contents

  Also by R J Theodore

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Lyrics: Shiny Bright Captain

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  A Word From Parvus Press

  Glossary

  Also by R. J. Theodore

  PHANTOM TRAVELER:

  The Bantam

  The Silent Fringe

  THE PERIDOT SHIFT:

  Flotsam

  PERIDOT NOVELLAS:

  Hunger and the Green (October 2019)

  Salvage

  Peridot Shift Book Two

  R J Theodore

  Parvus Press, LLC

  PO Box 224

  Yardley, PA 19067

  ParvusPress.com

  Salvage

  Copyright © 2019 by R J Theodore

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, magical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

  Parvus Press supports our authors and encourages creatives of all stripes. If you have questions about fair use, duplication, or how to obtain donated copies of Parvus books, please visit our website. Thank you for purchasing this title and supporting the numerous people who worked to bring it together for your enjoyment.

  Do you think the tardigrades on the moon miss Earth or are they totally unaware of where they are?

  ISBN 13 978-1-7338119-3-4

  Ebook ISBN 978-1-7338119-2-7

  Cover art by Julie Dillon

  Interior Illustrations by R J Theodore

  Designed and typeset by Catspaw DTP Services

  Author photo credit Riley J Esposito

  For everyone doing the work

  to save the gods-rotted planet.

  Chapter 1

  Emeranth woke with a start. There was a hand over her mouth, and as she tried to sit up in surprise, it pushed her back down. The room was dark, and she could barely see the outline of her bed’s curtains and a person leaning in over her.

  “Sorry, Em. Sorry.” The voice was deep with a solid center, but it was raspy at this hushed volume.

  She nodded, and the man removed his hand, allowing her to sit up. “Uncle? Why are you—”

  Uncle pressed something soft and heavy into her hands. Her jacket. “We need to go. It’s not safe. I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “Where are my parents?” But she did as he said, sliding out of bed and into her slippers while pulling her jacket on over her nightgown in the dark. The fabric tangled around her hips and knees, and her sleeves bunched up around her elbows.

  “I’ll tell you on the way. Quietly. It’s not safe.”

  When an adult said things more than once, they were nervous or mad. Uncle sort of sounded both, and she obeyed without any more questions.

  He led them down the hall outside Em’s room. They didn’t pass anyone else. Em was even more alarmed than she had been to wake with a hand on her face. There should have been people in the corridors. Guards. Someone. The air seemed to buzz, and she thought she could make out distant shouting but couldn’t tell what direction it came from or what was being yelled. She clung tighter to Uncle.

  A familiar voice sounded from very nearby. Em almost yelled in fright. Uncle stopped them before they crossed in front of a doorway that spilled light across the hall. The silver fingers of his left hand reflected the meager glow of a lamp as he signaled her to be still. She focused on the words coming from within the room, staring at the familiar cogs and pins of Uncle’s beautiful gearwork knuckles.

  “She is nowhere to be found.” The voice was irritated. She recognized Lord Demir’s voice. He always sounded like he smelled something unpleasant.

  Another voice responded, heavily accented with throaty stops, hums, and hisses. This one, too, was familiar. Familiar and terrifying. She could imagine the tall Yu’Nyun Representative of Culture even without seeing xin. “Unacceptable. You were to have taken care of this first.”

  When the Yu’Nyun visitors had first arrived, Em had thought they were fascinating and pretty. They looked like living versions of the carvings airship sailors made from sirenia teeth and bones, and they walked with the kind of grace and poise the court folk tried to train into her. Their clothes were beautifully made, even with the burns and tears from the attack at Nexus. As if they were right at home in the royal court, though they looked very strange.

  Lately, though, she found it hard to breathe around the aliens. She could tell everyone was trying too hard to be nice to them.

  “The child must be found and secured. Search the grounds again.”

  They were looking for her! When she gasped for breath through her nose, Uncle tapped one finger on his earlobe. She nodded. He began to back away from the door, moving them into the shadows at the other side of the hall.

  Why were they looking for her? She gripped Uncle’s arm with both hands and stayed as close as she dared without tripping him.

  “She can’t have gotten far.” Lord Demir sounded like he was in trouble.

  “Be sure of it. With the Emperor and Empress dead, she is now the legitimate ruler of the Cutter Empire.”

  Em stumbled. She forgot about being quiet, but as she tried to repeat the words, no sound emerged from her constricted throat.

  Her parents couldn’t be dead. She had just said goodnight to them at bedtime. Maw’n sat with her as she finished her needlework, and then they talked about what they’d like for breakfast the next morning.

  That seemed like a strange dream now. The alien’s voice seemed all too real. Too sharp.

  Her parents were dead.

  Uncle tried to pick her up—even though she was nearly fourteen years old, and a princess—to keep them moving. She wrested her arms out of his grip. His metal arm was very pretty, but the joints were fragile. She heard a cog grind and strip in his elbow. She didn’t stop or calm down. She had to find her friend Annie. There were killers in the palace!

  She slipped away as Uncle chased after. She felt her hair snag in the joints of his fingers but didn’t care. No one else would make sure the palace servants were okay. But Annie was like a sister, and that meant she was the only family Em had left.

  Uncle didn’t shout, couldn’t say
a single word while hidden outside the room where the Yu’Nyun representative and Lord Demir argued. Uncle would be caught if he didn’t mind the noise of his steps.

  But Em was barefoot and could run as fast as she wanted without making a sound.

  She headed for the wing where Annie lived with their Breaker tutor, Catkin. Sometimes Em and Annie escaped Catkin’s lessons and hid in the palace’s secret rooms and passages to play until they got hungry and emerged to reprimands and a hot supper. If Annie knew anything was wrong, that’s where she’d be.

  There were more angry voices and more shouting. Em heard Uncle calling for her. She ran down the empty halls and ducked into side rooms and around corners whenever she heard people coming.

  It had to be the Yu’Nyun. She didn’t know why, but she knew it had to be. Everything had changed after they lost their ships at Nexus. Em wished they had their ships back, so they could leave Peridot and stay away from her family. Her face felt wet. She had no family left but Annie.

  She didn’t get why her parents’ advisors had kept inviting the Yu’Nyun representative back. The aliens didn’t behave like other refugees. They didn’t just want help, they wanted to live at the palace and help the Cutter folk govern. Her parents had told them no, and now her parents were dead.

  Em went straight for the most secret room she and Annie knew about, pulling a candelabra near a shelf, tipping an unassuming book about trade economics, and stepping on a pressure-sensitive floor tile. She winced as the stone door slid noisily back, then rushed inside and up the darkened stairwell within. She could hear Annie crying before she reached the hidden workshop above.

  Annie had curled up around her knees beneath a table against the wall. She clutched her arms, wrinkling the sleeve of her nightgown.

  “Annie, come! We have to go.”

  Annie wiped her face on the back of her forearm. “Em, thank the winds! What’s happening?”

  “We have to go.”

  Annie climbed out from under the table and seized Em’s outstretched hand. Her terrified whisper came out as a hiss. “Shouldn’t we stay hidden in here?”

  Uncle had given her a jacket, so he was going to get her out of the palace.

  “I don’t think it’s safe anymore.”

  Without giving Annie time to argue, Em hurried her down the stairs and back through the halls. Uncle was probably mad that she’d run off but she could still follow his plan. There was a back door to the garden, and if they could get outside and past the palace gates, they could hide in the city.

  “Em!” Annie was shaking. “What’s happened?”

  Em stopped, pulling them into a recess along the wall. They were outside the royal audience chamber, but everything that should have been familiar looked different in the shadows. The couch on which she’d spent so many idle moments waiting for Faw’n to finish his daily audiences so they could walk to dinner seemed the wrong color. The curling fern beside it looked threatening instead of frilly.

  “My parents are dead.”

  Annie didn’t speak. Her mouth just opened as if there were a word caught on the back of her tongue.

  “I think they were killed.” She swallowed. “Assassinated.”

  The word caught Annie’s attention. Their tutor had just been talking about historical assassinations that morning, and Em remembered too well how similar the described situations mirrored what was going on in the Empire since the aliens arrived.

  As realization took hold of Annie’s expression, Em nodded. “I think Catkin was trying to warn us. Have you seen them?”

  Annie shook her head, and her chin began to quiver. “Not since our lessons. What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to escape out the gardens and through the drainpipe.”

  Annie pulled her hand free and stopped short as a stubborn horse. “And then what?”

  Em didn’t know. She had been out into the streets of Diadem on many occasions, but never unescorted. It wasn’t proper. She was hardly ever far from the watchful eyes of one palace guard or another.

  “Hide. Find someone to help us.”

  Annie screwed up her face. “Shouldn’t there be people to help us here?”

  Somewhere, they heard voices shouting. Em couldn’t tell if they came from within the palace walls or without, but they were angry, in a way her father never got angry.

  “Annie, it was the aliens. I know it was. Anyone who helps them might hurt us.” Now that she’d gathered Annie, Em wished she knew where Uncle had gone.

  Em’s fingers were cramped and sweaty from gripping Annie’s hand. She wanted to squeeze her eyes shut and wish herself back into bed, to awake from this nightmare and run to Maw’n and Faw’n.

  She heard someone shouting Uncle’s name. Her heart lifted with hope. If they could find him again, they wouldn’t need to rush out into the night alone. The shouts sounded like they were coming from the floor above.

  “Wait here.”

  Annie pressed herself deeper into the shadows, blending with the darkened shapes of the furniture. Em moved toward the nearest stairwell to listen. Right into the hands of a palace guard.

  The woman seized Em’s shoulder. She tried to pull back, but the grip was like iron. “Here, now, Princess Emeranth, you’re safe.”

  “Go.” Em mouthed the word, and Annie nodded, crept out of the nook, and bolted. If Em hadn’t known she was there, she wouldn’t have been able to see her run in the direction of the kitchens.

  The guard shouted up the stairwell above them. “Here, m’Lord!”

  Uncle appeared at the railing, his face a mixture of concern and anger as he peered down. When he saw Em in the guard’s care, the expression changed, but in the shadows, Em couldn’t tell what emotion it described.

  He rushed down the steps to her side. “My little Em, you need to stay by me. There is a dangerous person in the castle. Perhaps many.”

  Sometimes it was even worse when adults did tell her what was going on, but she loved him for not lying to her. “My parents are dead.”

  Her voice sounded smaller than she would have liked. She swallowed to clear a lump in her throat, but it didn’t move.

  Uncle looked like he couldn’t remember the words he needed. He swallowed, too, and sounded strained when he finally spoke. “Yes. I’m sorry. I know this is painful.” He turned to the guard. “We need to take the princess to a secure room.”

  “Yes, Lord Hankirk.” The woman took a few steps away, and Uncle tried to lead Em out of the stairwell, but she couldn’t move.

  “No.” Her voice was shrinking on her. She repeated it, more firmly. “No.”

  Uncle pulled her into a hug. His coat felt strange against her skin. She was shaking.

  “No.” Again, as if she could convince herself not to believe him. Believe what she’d heard and believe what Catkin had tried to warn her about.

  He pulled back and held out his filigree-traced hand. “Come with me. I’ll keep you safe. They’ll catch whoever did this.”

  Uncle had lost his arm in the battle at Nexus. He told her he’d been fighting the aliens. And now the aliens had killed her parents because no one else would fight them. Everyone else wanted the aliens there. He was the only adult in the palace she could trust.

  She took Uncle’s hand and let him lead the way.

  Chapter 2

  A captain needs a crew.

  A crew needs an airship.

  An airship needs open skies.

  Talis ran her hand over the smooth wooden finish of the oak railing, appreciating its craftsmanship. This was a fine vessel. Not too big, but with room for a proper cargo. And it was packed full of worthwhile wares, crates lined with bolts of fabric (and a healthy amount of illicit goods folded away within those) as well as barrels of oil from aquatic fish that would turn a nice profit once they reached the perpetually sailing air
ships whose crews hadn’t been on land in months and were aching for the healthy fats you just couldn’t get from the gas-filled skyfauna. The ledgers were in order, both the real ones and the official ones. The engines purred, idling, eager to churn air. Steam hissed, rising from the great copper boilers amidship into the lift balloon system above Talis’s head, as the hull strained against the lines holding the ship to the docks. Ready to return to the freedom of open skies.

  Talis took a deep breath—her nose filling with the mingled scents of lacquered wood, burning coal, dusty rope, and oiled sailcloth—before she let it out again in a wistful sigh. Then rolled her eyes at her self-pity.

  She signed the inspection form, tore off the top copy, then tucked her pencil into the clipboard and stepped down the gangway to meet the airship’s waiting captain.

  “All set.” Talis masked her pain with a liberal coating of feigned disinterest and handed over the approved customs forms to the Bone captain. She was glad her eyes were hidden behind the thick Rakkar goggles. The captain handed over a calico purse of copper and turquoise-inlaid silver presscoins, which Talis bounced in her palm to feel that the sound was right and the weight accounted for local exchange rates. The captain ascended the gangway, and Talis walked back along the dock to shore as another airship departed Heddard Bay without her.

  Talis had a crew—best crew on the whole gods-rotted, alchemy-shattered planet—but no ship for them to prove their worth. She flinched, her face contorting into a disgusted wince before she wrestled it back under control. The whole situation was her own doing.

  For two years, she and her crew had kept their heads down on the island of Heddard Bay, trying to stay beneath notice in Lippen, its subterranean city.

  Ironic, that. She, Tisker, and Sophie were the only Cutter folk to be found living in the subterranean city where Rakkar citizens dominated the population, followed closely by their nearest Vein neighbors, and finally the Bone and Breaker people who filled in the rest of the numbers. At least Dug could blend in, to a degree; Talis and the younger Cutter pair could hardly go unnoticed.