Cast off, p.1
Cast Off, page 1
part #3 of The Peridot Shift Series
Praise for the Peridot Shift
“Solid, swashbuckling sci-fi/fantasy set in one of the most unique and alluring worlds I’ve ever read. [...] Then you add in a dash of truly alien beings, a race for treasure, floating island hopping adventure and AIRSHIPS? Sign me up. Sign yourself up. Sign your friends up. This is the Pirates of the Caribbean/Firefly crossover you didn’t know you needed.”
—Britta T, NetGalley Reviewer
“R J Theodore does a truly masterful job of heightening tension over the three books and bringing it to a satisfying conclusion.”
—Emmie Mears, author of the Stonebreaker series
“Science-fiction, alchemy, and airships. It’s magic.”
— Mary Robinette Kowal, author of the Lady Astronaut series
“A magical, high-tech, steampunk adventure.”
—Milliebot for Geek Girl Authority
“1,000% here for the merger of scifi steampunk with fantasy. This is exactly the sort of thing someone who grew up on underappreciated masterpieces like Treasure Planet craves!”
—Jenna R, NetGalley Reviewer
“You will definitely want to meet Talis and her crew if you like steampunk, science fiction, books that build fantastic worlds and magic systems, and space travel. R J Theodore transports you to the realm of Peridot flawlessly, the book drags you in and doesn’t let you go until the last page.”
—Shelley B, NetGalley Reviewer
Other Works by R J Theodore
The Phantom Traveler series
The Bantam
The Silent Fringe
Underway
The Peridot Shift series
Flotsam
Salvage
Cast Off
Tales from Peridot
Hunger and the Green
Find R J’s Short Stories in Anthologies & Magazines
An entire catalog of short fiction can be found at rjtheodore.com.
Robot Dinosaur Press is a trademark of Chipped Cup Collective.
www.robotdinosaurpress.com
Cast Off
Copyright © 2020 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.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, and events portrayed in this work are either products of the author’s or authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Interior and exterior cover illustrations by Julie Dillon (juliedillonart.com)
Author photo by Matthew Jay
Cover titling and interior illustrations by CreativeJay (creativejay.com)
Ring illustrations originally by inkshark (inkshark.net)
ISBN Data
Paperback: 978-1-956771-12-1
eBook: 978-1-956771-13-8
Large Print Paperback: 978-1-956771-14-5
Hardcover: 978-1-956771-11-4
For everyone whose support has driven me to this moment.
You are the wind that carries this ship forward.
PERIDOT
Map of Horizon
After the events of Salvage, the borders of Peridot are unpatrolled, which means they essentially do not exist.
The Five Rings of Peridot
. . . which were nailed (along with the hands of the monks who wore them) to a sacred tree to bind Meran’s soul and enact Cataclysm. The rings each contain a fragment of Meran’s soul, binding her will and her spirit. With Meran trapped, the Five Alchemists took control of the elements and built a new world from the remains of the planet they destroyed.
With the arrival of the Yu’Nyun and their technology, the pieces of Meran contained in those rings can be bound within the alien simula and the ring used to control her behavior.
As we begin the final entry in this adventure, here’s what we know:
Pewter signet ring with pearl and moonstone cabochons
Associated with Lindent Vein and the element of Water
Journey So Far: Nailed to the Tree of Meran during Cataclysm. Passed through many hands over the generations since re-Creation. Found in flotsam by Captain Talis on contract by Jasper of Subrosa. Its power was released into a Yu’Nyun simula on Fall Island to create a being named Meran. The empty ring is still in the possession of Captain Talis.
Tooled silver band with windswells breezing from either side of a polished azurite teardrop cabochon with malachite and copper inclusions
Associated with Silus Cutter and the element of Wind
Journey So Far: Nailed to the Tree of Meran during Cataclysm. Found by the Veritors of the Lost Codex (when and where, unknown). Re-possessed by Hankirk before departing Diadem to focus on leading the Tempest. Re-possessed by Captain Talis of Fortune’s Storm during Diadem’s collapse.
White brass and copper band with ruby zoisite cabochon and hidden compartment
Associated with Onaya Bone and the element of Earth
Journey So Far: Nailed to the Tree of Meran during Cataclysm. Following re-Creation, Onaya Bone hid it on a nearby moon in Peridot’s solar system.
Faceted citrine secured in a mounting of yellow gold, with smaller gems arranged to look like flames, set upon a gold band
Associated with Arthel Rak and the element of Fire
Journey So Far: Nailed to the Tree of Meran during Cataclysm. Gifted by Arthel Rak to the Rakkar. Path since, unclear.
Gold band with chromatic asterism-rich obsidian
Associated with Helsim Breaker and the element of Life
Journey So Far: Nailed to the Tree of Meran during Cataclysm. Path since, unclear. Zeela ni Pris, formerly of Zeela’s House of Antiquities in Subrosa, has been researching the ring and has the beginning hints of its location.
Chapter 1
× Talis ×
Talis stepped off the salvage platform onto the alien wreck. Getting closer to the ship did nothing for her optimism.
“The first Yu ship we find and it’s not giving me a good feeling.” She reached back with a gloved hand to help Zeela down after her.
Zeela chose her footing delicately and didn’t pull free of Talis’s support once she’d stepped off the platform. Behind the glass headgear, the lavender shadows on her pale cream face were exaggerated in the strange lighting of flotsam, making her concern look twice as deep. “That bad?”
“As bad as Wind Sabre. You could almost forgive someone for passing this one over.” The shadows across Talis’s own golden skin wouldn’t trouble the blind woman, so she let the concern in her voice resonate across their communication line. Not a habit she usually exercised as captain of her crew, but Zeela was different. For some reason, Talis always wanted Zeela to know how she was feeling.
And right now she was feeling like they were exposed. Flotsam was a realm where things went to be lost to the cold. And there were monsters here who had been designed to feed on the lost items. And bodies, whether they had a pulse or not. Still, sometimes it was worth the risk to drop down and see what could be reclaimed from Peridot’s gravity well.
A chunk of outer hull curved over them like a bowl thrown off-center on its wheel. Underneath, the metal and white synthetic surfaces of its bulkheads were scarred and melted, twisted and blackened. Had the others been in better shape, or had the crew of Fortune’s Storm finally gotten ahead of their unknown competition? And if the latter, by how far?
Like a dagger point between her shoulder blades, Talis could feel them running out of time.
Zeela’s hand on Talis’s arm had nothing to do with the fact that she was blind, and far more to do with the unsteady footing. Chunks of silver hull, coated in a thin layer of ice, and over that, remnants of seventy-five generations of trash caught up against the hull. They each took small steps on the tilted, treacherous decking.
“You want to wait here while I go ahead?”
Zeela’s sigh sounded in Talis’s helmet. She made a deliberately stern face and held up one delicate primary hand. The heavy descent suit couldn’t detract from the Vein woman’s grace. One might think that while their pilot and resident stitcher, Tisker, had added the extra pair of sleeves for her primary arms, he’d done some custom tailoring to compliment her beautiful form. There hadn’t been time for that, Talis knew. Zeela just always looked amazing. “Please, Talis.”
Talis had made the offer to go ahead alone a number of times already, before the platform even reached the wreck. “I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”
“Believe that, if I were able to do this from a distance, I would have stayed aboard Fortune’s Storm sipping tea and directing you over the comm line.”
Sophie’s Yu’Nyun data pad reported the ship was dead, but that didn’t mean every asset aboard was broken. With no luck finding other ships yet, they’d taken the bet that Zeela’s sensors would pick up electric impulses from the precious cargo they needed.
Simula. Gods-rotted simula. The aliens’ constructed bodies were disturbing as all five hells, and just what Talis and her crew needed.
“Talis, mind our footing.”
A pool of flotsam’s best offerings—a broken chunk of ship railing, a froz en tangle of line and fabric, torn bits of tree root, and a chair missing three legs—nearly camouflaged a hole in the decking. Talis squinted down the corridor ahead. At the other end was a vicious curl of metal she wouldn’t want to risk her descent suit’s pant legs on. The tiniest tear and she’d freeze to death down here. And that wasn’t all.
“We’ll need to move quietly, too, or we’ll summon the hoarbeasts.”
Zeela’s hand pulled back a little from Talis’s loose grip. “Whore . . . beasts?”
It took a moment for Talis to catch the source of the confusion. “Like hoar frost.”
“Oh.” Zeela’s face lit up with comprehension, and her lavender-tinted lips pulled back with a curve of amusement. “Oh. We just call them ‘viren sorlus’ . . . ice demons.”
“Huh. That’s actually way better.” Talis basked in the glow of Zeela’s smile, before dragging her attention back to the setting. They were, at that moment, in the realm of those ice demons, and whatever name given to them, they were the forms that had haunted Talis’s dreams since she was a child. No need to give them extra time to note the two warm bodies among the Yu’Nyun wreck. “We’ve got some sharp bits ahead, and gaps in the walkable area. It’s a little earlier than Sophie probably wanted us to break out the packs. Let’s find a way around.”
Fortune’s Storm’s engineer had developed mini airship turbines with shoulder straps, run on the same paraffin as the blowtorch clipped to Talis’s belt loop. Still prototypes, but Sophie had let them go along on this search after Talis promised to use them only if they had to, and to report back everything about how they worked. And then, Sophie had only truly relented after Zeela had promised to hold Talis to the bargain.
Nearer the inner bulkhead, there was a ledge of unbroken decking, and Talis led them along that, turning sideways to shuffle across so she could keep her arm out for Zeela.
Once across, she scanned the half-exposed corridor. Her pulse seemed loud in her ears.
She focused on the sound of Zeela’s breathing across their open radio line. The wireless radio that Zeela and Sophie had developed was a welcome change from the old days. If only the smell of lavender, rosemary, and mint Talis knew was there could come across as well. The calming mix was an omnipresent aura in the air around Zeela and the benefits extended to anyone in range of the scent.
But limited to her own canvas suit, inhaling only brought Talis the tang of galvanized metal hardware and the stale coffee on her own breath. The latter clung to the cotton scarf that kept her face warm and her breath from fogging the glass of her helmet. And whenever she moved, she also caught the blossoming scent of her own anxiety.
Scrimshaw, Fortune’s Storm’s alien crew member, had barely been able to identify the ship design from its twisted remains. Si had only been able to suggest they try this certain portion of the wreck and provide a handwritten version of the compartment they were looking for. At the first doors, Talis opened the flap on her sleeve and squinted at the Yu’keem characters. Scrimshaw’s handwriting was as different from the machined stamps on the door plaques as Talis’s logbook notes were from the chiseled nameboard on their ship.
“I can’t tell. This might be it.”
She hefted her sally bar and felt the life-learned impulse to tug her prayerlocks in the hope that they would find the ship’s inventory of simula. But she couldn’t reach them through the helmet and Silus Cutter was gone. Where did the wind carry her prayers when the god was dead and the winds were poison?
Talis ratcheted the neck of her sally bar, forcing a gap between the heavy sliding door panels.
“Anything?” Talis looked back at Zeela.
As part of their crew, and as Zeela developed new purposes for her assistive technology, she’d dropped the pretense of hiding the sensors among ribbons and beads. In Zeela’s shop in Subrosa, she’d had feedback panels in the floors and walls to help gather information. Aboard a ship, and out in the skies, she adapted new ways to cast her perception as far as possible and combat the dampening when she wore the insulated descent suit. Sophie and Scrimshaw had helped her mine parts from the alien technology in Fortune’s Storm’s cargo hold to create new, more powerful receptors.
Zeela leaned around the door frame and lifted her chin in the way that meant she was focused on measuring the space around her. The network of sensors clipped into the tightly braided strip of hair that ran from her high forehead to the nape of her neck gave no outward indication of what she sensed. She pursed her thin lips before replying. “Not from this cabin, but there is something close.”
Her nose, Talis noticed, had become quite pink. Talis’s own fingers and toes were going numb. They would have to head back to their airship soon to warm up, swap out their tanks, and dry out the air filters on their suits. The flotsam layer at the bottom of Peridot’s atmosphere trapped everything that fell into its swirl of garbage, except heat. These suits were the best money could buy—not Talis’s money, of course, they came with Fortune’s Storm when her crew stole it—but they wouldn’t protect them from the freezing temperatures of flotsam forever.
Talis cranked her torch to full brightness to give the open cabin one visual examination in case there was something valuable within to justify the effort she’d spent in getting the door open.
The aliens were efficient with their furnishings and had few unnecessary objects in their ship designs. Even fewer that weren’t fixed securely to the deck or bulkhead. The cabin looked as organized as it must have in better days. There was a glass-topped workstation with a single-legged seat, both affixed to the deck, facing the door. The seat had a very high back, with a sculpted narrow slit down the center and a backward curve at the top. Looked uncomfortable to Talis but made her wonder how uncomfortable Scrimshaw found the seats aboard Fortune’s Storm. She chuckled to herself, forgetting the sound wasn’t private.
“What do you see?”
Talis skimmed the rest of the space, shadows sweeping across the wall behind the furniture. “Just shopping for a new captain’s chair.”
Zeela made a small ah sound. “Perhaps we should move on to the next cabin.” Though her jaw trembled with involuntary shivers, she had complete control over her voice.
Guilt shot through Talis with a lurch. She’d known how cold it would be before they dropped. And she had the experience of a lesser descent suit that let her appreciate what warmth these fancy ones could hold. But this was Zeela’s first direct encounter with the chill of flotsam, and no words prepare you for it.
“Right.” Talis used her captain’s tone to cover being so insensitive. Probably doubling down on how insensitive it made her look. She was working on it. At least she knew she was doing it these days and could course-correct if it was going to make things worse. Right in this moment, she figured it could lend her a little bit of strength. Or at least the appearance thereof.
She flipped the sally bar’s release and the teeth retracted back together. The door slid closed with force as the bar fell free. It bounced on the deck and Talis scrambled to catch it before it tilted into Zeela’s leg.
“Next cabin,” she said, a touch breathless. She held her arm up beside the plaque. “This one . . . ? Yeah, I think it’s a match. Maybe?”
Talis sallied the door panels back, trying to give them as much clear space to dip under it. As Zeela lifted her chin, her sharp inhale rang like silver bells in Talis’s helmet.
She aimed the torch through the door, cranking its charger with her other hand as she braced herself in the entrance, trying to see what Zeela had already sensed.
Something stared back at them.
A partially constructed simula leaned out from a large basin on the left side of the compartment, hung over the edge as though it were attempting to crawl out half-realized. But it was no more than a skeleton of hydraulic pieces fit together with ball jointed rods and telescoping metal armatures. It wasn’t active. Its eyes might be pointed at them, but it did not truly stare back.
