Praise for Flotsam
Peridot Shift Book One
“Combining the best elements of steampunk and space opera, placed in a lavishly detailed and imagined world, FLOTSAM will hold you firmly till the final page.”
—Cat Rambo, author of Beasts of Tabat
“FLOTSAM tosses you headfirst into a fast-paced world of noir swashbuckling and intrigue. Airships, renegades, and plenty of action await within.”
—Scott Warren, author of the Union Earth Privateers series
“FLOTSAM sucked me in and wouldn’t let me go. R J Theodore is a fresh voice who will soon be on your must-read list!”
—Jennifer Foehner Wells, author of the Confluence series
“This author can paint a picture as vividly as if she had acrylics and a brush in hand and she isn’t afraid to use a cutting sense of humour . . . I can't wait to find out where the story goes next.”
—Tracey Stuart, Goodreads
“A powerfully imagined world which sucks you in, and a cast of characters that make the journey enjoyable.”
—Alan Brenik, NetGalley Review
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Flotsam
Copyright © 2018 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.
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[lawyerly catawumpus]
ISBN 13 978-0-9976613-7-8
Ebook ISBN 978-0-9976613-6-1
Cover art by Julie Dillon
Cover typography and interior illustrations by R J Theodore
Print design and typeset by Catspaw DTP Services
Digital Design by Parvus Press
Author photo credit Riley J Esposito
For my grandfather.
Ted, you never doubted me.
Chapter 1
The layer of trash below Talis’s feet sparkled as she descended toward it. Frost coated the generations of detritus and caught the light as it slowly shifted. She hung in open skies, a tiny dark figure on an impossibly thin thread. Her airship lurked in the shadow of a small island above her. Around her, the shrapnel of Peridot’s tectonic crust peppered the skies, tiny islands not big enough to park a chair on.
A soft click sounded in the comm of her helmet, and Dug’s voice cut through the quiet sounds of her heartbeat and steady breathing. The voice tube transmission made him sound small and far away. “Progressing well, Captain. How much farther do you need?”
Talis unclenched her jaw to answer. “I’d guess I’m just about halfway down. Can’t make out any details yet.”
“Understood. There is plenty of length on the winch.” Her first mate’s voice was low and even, though he clipped his consonants the way he often did when he was tense. Dug was worried about her.
The bulky descent suit didn’t make it any easier to see the view below her. It was a one-size-fits-all antique, big enough to wear over her clothes. Big enough that Dug could have worn it, if he was so worried. It was designed to keep her body heat in, and it was certainly doing that. The musty wool lining felt moist after the short time she’d had it on. Her breath fogged the glass dome that protected her from the thin air, even though she wore a scarf over her mouth. At the same time, her fingers were still getting stiff with the cold. She could have worn thicker gloves if she was just going down to strap up a large object to tow out. But this time her quarry was smaller than that, and thinner gloves provided better dexterity.
From this distance, the garbage below her looked deceptively beautiful. A lazy flow of icy shapes caught the green light from Nexus, and their reflected light sparkled through the fogging on her helmet. It wasn’t hard to imagine why there were so many stories about treasure down below.
And there was treasure down there. Or she wouldn’t be dropping into it. The flotsam layer was where the dead went to be forgotten. Dead people. Dead ships. Dead technologies. Gravity trapped it all there. Kept it from dropping out of Peridot’s atmosphere on the bottom side and drifting off into the stars.
If things went wrong, Talis would be trapped, too. But the contract for this salvage made it worth the risk. She could make a lot of overdue repairs on Wind Sabre with the payoff. Her crew—Dug, Tisker, and Sophie—had been enthusiastic about the operation when she proposed it, knowing what kind of money a salvage might bring in. Better than the jobs they’d scrounged up recently. None of them had volunteered to make the descent, though.
“You’re the reckless one, Cap,” Tisker told her at the time, his eyes sparkling. The cheeky helmsman got away with the comment. He always did. His infectious grin made every gibe seem like a morale boost.
Details emerged, just a couple lengths away. Large shapes at first. Broken hulls of ships tangled in their own lift canvasses. A roof, a wagon. An old tree trunk. Anything organic or burnable should have been composted or used for fuel, not pitched over island edge. But those hadn’t always been the rules. Seventy-something generations back to the Cataclysm that fractured Peridot and the Recreation that made it what it was now, for better or worse. Seventy-something generations of garbage and waste swirled in the gravity trap. And nothing ever decayed down here.
Evidence of that: she got close enough where she could see the faces. Glittering frosted skin with closed eyes. Dead open eyes on others. Mostly Cutter folk. Some Vein. Even a Rakkar. The Bone fed their dead to the ravens and kept the bones, but still, she saw some here and there. Likely lost with their ships. No Breakers, of course.
“Almost there. Slow it down.” She didn’t want to end up waist-deep in the flotsam. There was always the danger of her
