A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe (The Salvagers, #1)

by Alex White

“That would be exceedingly unhealthy.

“Shut up.” She clenched her teeth. “I… I don’t need to be touched… I mean, I do. I just don’t deserve it.”

that day, twenty years ago, when she lost him.

“You were right when you said the warships wouldn’t work. The grid didn’t hold.

Question

the blossoms of fire as they obliterated her home country.

And there he was, telling her to go AWOL,

Were there any willing surrenders, or had she been the only one to offer herself up to the consequences of war?

Question

An aubade

the Legends of the Landers,

He opened his mouth to speak. A strange flash bloomed from him, momentarily wilting the colors to gray.

Creepy

the woman in the exosuit poised behind him,

The woman’s appearance was exactly what Nilah had described:

Mother.

Simile creepy

Mother paused. There was something wrong with the spell; Boots could sense it, too.

Simile extended

Boots loosed a discus round into her would-be assassin’s torso.

Simile

The snowstorm took on a queer glow as the village’s first response unit mobilized in the distance.

The coward wouldn’t be back that day. Not while she’d lost the advantage of surprise.

Boots wondered if she’d ever see Mother’s face again, or if death would come swooping from the shadows with no warning.

From behind, like she did Didier.

The police would be there to help at first, but they’d be bought off in time.

Why not? Question. She’ll be accused of murder, like

Chilling

The pair of decades had taken their toll on her muscles, but her memories of the bad times were as youthful as ever.

Duke Thiollier

Nilah

almost everything complex enough could be described as “roughly glyph-shaped.”

he was a scribe and she was a mechanist.

There was always tension between scribes, who saw spellcraft as a natural art, and mechanists, who saw magic’s boundless potential.

The more frightening theory was simple. Maybe he was part of the conspiracy.

But if that was true, it would have made more sense to leave her in the prison, where criminals and police could both do unto her as they would.

Orna

Haha

Someone accustomed to the stress of races always had to know where to find bliss the night before.

Haha

She’d grown used to Orna’s constant jabs, and the more of them she suffered, the less painful they got.

Haha

“You really have no idea how tough I am.” “Tough enough for ship life?”

Haha good question

In the whole of the galaxy, there were precious few people she trusted to have her back.

Haha

when she thought of being back on the ship, her heart calmed.

Haha

Haha

Orna

Ranger

Nilah

the quartermaster wouldn’t cry. Quite the opposite: she possessed a violence in her countenance that Nilah hadn’t seen before.

the duke

Vayle sat behind a desk formed of glass blocks, inlaid with refractive pathways to channel magical systems to its surface.