Spaceship Thrive (Thrive Space Colony Adventures Book 2)

by Ginger Booth

  In this, the two men weren’t so different.

  In the end, they recruited Benjy, at 20 the closest in age to the hypothetical 18, to stand in for that future Nico as the three recorded the message together. Copeland simply spoke to him.

  Benjy shared the same mystery genetics as Copeland and the baby. He steered the monologue to say more about that. He vetoed true confessions of where the dad screwed up along the way. He wanted to hear more about Copeland’s successes and visions for Nico.

  “You’ve got to remember how self-centered a kid is,” Benjy urged. “I mean, future-Nico wants to know who you are, sure. But only because it’s about him. And whether he can get laid today.”

  That kept things in perspective. The safekeeping video for Nico turned out pretty well. Copeland felt guilty about wasting so much of their time, though.

  Clay assured him over supper, “Don’t apologize. I told Hunter. Made for one of the best conversations I’ve ever had with him. He told me what he’d say to his kids, why Dad worked for the resistance. His dreams. His own dad coming to Mahina – me. I should be thanking you.”

  The last morning at Mahina Orbital dawned much the same as any other. The programmed lights turned on over the plants. Sass yawned mightily, threw off her blankets, and donned her workout togs.

  In shorts and worn old T-shirt and running shoes, she started stretching on the catwalk. Mercilessly, she hailed the ship public address system.

  “Good morning, Thrive! This is your captain. For the next who-knows-how-long, we will be stuck in a very small ship. I fancy a run first. Through Mahina Orbital. Ladies’ run! We leave in 5 minutes. Guys, you can tag along after us.”

  Jules popped her head out the galley door. “Captain?”

  Sass grinned at her. “Ready to run?”

  Jules glanced over her shoulder at her breakfast preparations.

  “Jules, any adult who can’t feed himself is too stupid to live,” Sass assured her. “You’re running with me. And Kassidy!” The one and only popped her tousled sleepy head out of her cabin door. Cortez burst out of her berthing door as well. “We’re all here! Let’s go!”

  “Can I –?” Benjy said, peeking out timidly.

  “I’ll lead the guys, cap,” Wilder offered, emerging behind Cortez. “Unless you want backup?”

  “No. You and Griffith to guard the Thrive,” Sass ordered. “You can run after we get back. Let’s go, ladies!”

  “Really?” Jules asked Kassidy skeptically. Cortez didn’t hesitate a moment. She warmed up with deep knee bends and a few quick push-ups.

  Kassidy nodded gamely. After warmup, the two of them fell in behind Sass to thunder down the main stairway, three of the four with their gravity cranked to 1.2 g for a workout. For Cortez, bringing up the rear, the personal gravity generator had been love at first sight for exercise.

  Sass grabbed a radiation dosimeter as she passed, and Jules and Kassidy followed suit. Sass led them on a slow jog three times around the docking area while the men fell in behind, and then headed up the stairs. Up to deck 2 engineering, and across the middle. And repeat.

  They encountered some gawkers on deck 3. One of them made a grab for Sass. She chopped his hand from the air, grabbed him by the belt, and slid him down the corridor. Jules toed his knee before he rolled away.

  “Anyone else want to play?” Sass challenged the other onlookers. They made the smart choice.

  The corridors began filling nicely as she passed Alohan in the halls of deck 5, flanked by her guards, clearly headed for an early workout herself. “Join us, commander?” Sass invited, jogging in place.

  At the holdup, Cortez broke into burpees behind her, quickly followed by Kassidy. Jules opted to kick in place.

  Alohan grinned, and fell in beside Sass. “Not a bad idea.”

  “I felt so,” Sass agreed with a grin. And they were off, with a fling around the open space handball courts. With Alohan in the lead, no one else dared to grab at them. As endorphins kicked in, Jules got braver and kicked out at any men who stared too hard.

  “Fall out if you’ve had enough!” Sass called out as they reached the Thrive’s dock again, having run the entire station. Jules took her up on the early out, along with Eli from their male train. Wilder and Griffith hastily joined the rear, leaving them on the door. Then they ran another full lap of the station, using the opposite set of stairwells and cross-corridors. By then even Sass had enough.

  She laughingly shook hands with Alohan, as her people stretched and filtered back into the Thrive. “Good to meet you, commander.”

  “And you, Captain Collier. I had my doubts about you. But you’ve left MO a better place than you found it. Even before those extra shipments arrive. Thank you. You’re welcome back any time.”

  19

  Colonies varied on how long children remained in creches, and whether they ever graduated to a family environment.

  Sass took position behind Abel on the pilot chair, Benjy on the guns, as relief for both. After a hectic few days of last-minute preparations, time to leave Mahina Orbital had arrived. Their trajectory solution called for exiting MO gun interdiction in a few minutes.

  “OK, guys, we’ve done this before, coming up from Mahina. This should be easier. You understand what we’re trying to accomplish for this first stage. Undock from the station. Take the right bearing. Move out at cautious speed to get above the ecliptic of the rings. In just a hundred kilometers or so we should be out of the ring debris. It gets harder to pay attention, though, when there are fewer obstacles.”

  “And when we’re going faster,” Abel murmured, reviewing the acceleration plan Gossamer sent them.

  “That too,” Sass agreed. She wished she could wipe the sweat from her palms, but they wore pressure suits for this maneuver. “T minus 5. Copeland? Ready in the hold?”

  “That’s affirm, cap.” He didn’t belabor his response. She’d already asked, after all. All compartments and passengers already reported status. In the event of catastrophic loss of bridge crew, the plan even said Copeland and Clay were supposed to decelerate the ship to a stop outside of the rings and holler to Gossamer to come save them.

  “Question,” Benjy interjected. “What is different about Gossamer’s flight plan than what we figured out on our own?”

  “Abel, release docking clamps and start positioning,” Sass said first. Then to Benjy, “We forgot to take gravity into account, Pono, Mahina, and the rings themselves. In two ways. One, they’re pulling us off the trajectory we want to go. Two, if we lose the star drive, if at all possible, we want to fall into an orbit around Pono instead of flying off into deep space. In orbit Gossamer can come fetch survivors. Deep space, we wave bye-bye. Gossamer couldn’t catch us if they tried.”

  “Ah,” Benjy breathed faintly.

  “I could do without the morbid conversation,” Abel noted. He completed the sideways and upward thrusts to separate them from the station and its solar arrays, but still inside its bubble of clean space. The frequent firing of the station guns at incursions bothered him the least of the trio. He was used to them from his near-daily spacewalks.

  Benjy hated his sole spacewalk, and as a gunner, truly preferred to be on the side dishing out, not watching. “Predictable evasive pattern, Abel.”

  “Right. Sorry.” Abel hastily told the Thrive to bob a bit around his heading to allow the station guns to shoot past them at any rocks headed their way. “Should I stop at the envelope?”

  “If we’re aligned, just keep going,” Sass replied. “That’s a minor correction compared to dodging rocks. Benjy, guns free, practice now.”

  Benjy lined up a few distant rocks and shattered them to smithereens with the forward guns. “Guns ready.”

  “Cross out of interdiction in 30 seconds,” Abel estimated.

  He gave no further countdown. The exact moment didn’t matter to Benjy on guns. He needed to shoot threats long before they were upon them. Added stress and drama didn’t help.

  “Now l
eaving MO space,” Sass reported to the ship at large. “We expect a couple hours for maneuvers. Report problems to Copeland, not the bridge. Captain out.”

  By the time she finished speaking, Benjy was already shooting up a storm, and passed a few larger rocks for Abel to dodge. “Busy space,” he noted.

  “Close in, they fall toward Mahina,” Sass agreed. “The rings get a little more crowded, then a lot less as we exit upward.”

  Neither of the men before her were listening. They were too busy sweating bullets as they shot and dodged. They’d gotten better at this dance on the way up from Mahina. But the struggle was life or death. Benjy in particular was awfully young for that sort of responsibility. She was tempted to offer to relieve him. She’d prefer he ask her, though, rather than undermine his confidence.

  “Thinning,” the younger man reported in surprise. He aimed a couple more relaxed shots, having time to track them until the shards would fall out of their path. That was the hell of gunning these objects. The big ones broke into a random number of smaller ones that were still too big. The problems multiplied like rabbits in the thick of things. A few rocks here and there were ever so much easier to cope with.

  Benjy leisurely passed a big rock to Abel. The first mate made only the slightest course correction to safely sail on past.

  “Holes!” Copeland yelled suddenly.

  Benjy threw up his hands in dismay. “How? Nothing got past me bigger than my fist.” The skyship’s electromagnetic defenses fought off stray rocks as much as radiation.

  Sass patted his shoulder, monitoring Copeland’s progress instead.

  While Abel was still jimmying out from Mahina Orbital, Copeland took position in the hold in his pressure suit. He waited until the bridge was sealed, and everyone reported they were safe behind their various pressure doors. Then he evacuated the air in the hold into storage. Easily the largest volume of atmosphere in the ship, he preferred not to risk losing any.

  Clay chose to join him in the hold this time. On the way up from Mahina, he took station in the galley-dining area, the third largest air volume. Second largest was the star engine grow room, somewhat more protected at the ship’s rear. This time they had the luxury of posting the technician Seitz back there, likewise in a pressure suit. Sergeant Wilder stood watch in the kitchen behind a pressure door. Cortez and Griffith stood by in berthing, doors open to the evacuated hold. Copeland claimed the front of the catwalk, closest to the bridge. Clay chose the middle of the cargo floor, perched on the bottom of the slide.

  “Now we wait,” Copeland told his team.

  “Wrong circuit,” Sass murmured from the bridge. “Listen to me and them, but chat with them, Mr. Copeland.”

  “Sorry.” Copeland switched to his team. “Now we wait a few hours. Know any good jokes?”

  “Knock knock,” replied Griffith.

  “Not his knock-knock jokes!” Cortez groaned.

  “Anything but knock-knock jokes,” Clay begged.

  “Do we have to just stand here?” Wilder asked.

  Copeland replied. “I don’t care where you are in your assigned space. You alive back there, Seitz?”

  “Playing with gravity,” Seitz confirmed. “I love your personal grav generators.”

  Copeland frowned. He couldn’t recall a time without his personal grav attached to him. They were waterproof. He wore his in the shower, and had as far back as he could remember. But the MO crew lived in Mahina Actual, then the orbital. Their housing supplied the gravity, not a personal device. Hard to believe these urbs grew up on the same world sometimes.

  “Watch out, Griffith,” Wilder teased. “The geek is getting better than you.”

  “Hey!” Griffith objected.

  Copeland chuckled at the reminder. Sass finally took pity on the bruiser and explained how he kept going so wrong on his generator practice. The idiot didn’t understand how the device operated on his center of gravity. He didn’t even know what the phrase meant. So he hung his generator on a cord around his neck. Which worked fine until he tried to spin around Kassidy’s guylines and the long pendant swung too far from his bellybutton. He must have hit the deck like a ton of bricks three times without figuring it out.

  Sass shouldn’t have told him. Spoilsport.

  In a city where science and technology ruled, MA educated its children within an inch of their lives. The urbs relegated to security weren’t very bright.

  “We could dance,” Clay suggested. “Jog in place. Get that adrenaline pumping to move on a moment’s notice.”

  Copeland and the other two upstairs spread out for a can-can number on the catwalk, Clay playing along below. Their choreography was weak, but they still managed to drum like elephants.

  “Copeland,” Sass barked. “Problem?”

  “Just dancing, cap.”

  “Copeland, report!”

  He switched his channel, shaking his head at his mistake. “Sorry, cap. All good. Just playing.”

  “Play quieter. Not scary.”

  “That’s affirm. Copeland out.” He switch circuits. “New game, gang. We’re going to practice switching comms channels between 3 and 4. Clay, you want to be game-master? Because I suck at –”

  He heard the hits to the hull over his helmet speakers, at least two in staccato rapid succession. “Smoke bomb,” he interrupted himself. He pulled the tab on the grenade, waited for it to pour magenta smoke on his own location for a couple seconds, then launched it arching up, to fall into the hold. The grenades were specifically designed for hunting leaks at low pressure. He’d left enough air in the hold for diagnostic purposes.

  But the magenta haze was clearing all too rapidly. He gazed around searching for a line of it reaching out of the ship. “Seitz? Wilder?”

  “Engine pressure fine,” Seitz reported.

  “Galley boring,” said Wilder.

  “Your bunkroom,” Cortez said, excited. “On it.”

  “Holes! Captain, we have at least one hole,” Copeland reported. Twice, because he forgot to switch channels again first. “Clay, did you see anything?”

  “Sorry. There’s a hole right under you. Pretty sure. Trying to get stuff out of the way. Griffith, I could use your help.”

  The guard hopped down from mid-catwalk, using his grav generator correctly this time.

  “Thanks, Clay,” Copeland said. “Popping more smoke.” He held it longer, a billowing cloud of blue this time, then lobbed it toward Clay. “Dammit.” He stepped closer to the galley to make sure. Yup. The hole was directly above where he’d been standing. He hated working upside-down. He’d forget and set his tools aside, only to fall to the deck below the instant they escaped his personal grav field.

  “Copeland?” Clay inquired.

  “Sec.” The mechanic cut his grav to zero, jumped up lightly, flipped his feet toward the ceiling, then slowly coaxed his gravity negative, landing at one g opposite to everyone else. From his perspective he climbed up the bowl sides of the ceiling looking for a hole.

  He finally remembered Clay. “Whatcha got, Clay?”

  “It’s a hole somewhere,” Clay complained. “I’ve got stuff out of the way now. Maybe more smoke?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Copeland said. “Griffith, try to catch the canister when it comes down.” From closer vantage with the green smoke this time, he was able to find his offending patch of ceiling. Then he considered the gravity traversal a moment, and called, “Catch. I’ve found mine. Cortez? I haven’t heard from you. Want smoke?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” she reported. “I’m not seeing anything. But the first smoke went here.”

  Copeland’s own hole was thinner than a pencil. He squirted in the equivalent of super-glue, smeared the same on a small metal patch, and slapped them together. “Wilder? Check in on the passengers for me, would you? Kinda busy out here.”

  “Can do, Copeland. Switching to channel two.”

  Copeland used a smaller gas-jet flame to test his handiwork. “I’m set with my hole. Who
needs a hand?”

  Cortez and Clay both requested assistance. “Clay, use Griffith. Griffith, catch another grenade. Cortez, I’m headed for you.”

  He stepped back to above the catwalk, and played with his grav to flip down to a feather landing. Griffith won through from the accumulation of clutter forward of the slide. Copeland gently tossed him an unopened grenade, and on second thought, “Take two. Still no luck, Clay? Mine was small. Only a few millimeters.”

  “How could that be? I thought the hull was supposed to handle the small stuff.”

  “Too many at once? I’m guessing.”

  Eli intruded on the channel. “Good guess. The electromagnetic shielding can’t handle two simultaneous rocks if they’re ferrous. Iron.”

  Copeland kept walking. “Fascinating. Eli, off this channel.” He popped his smoke several steps before his bunkroom door and watched. Cortez was right, the pink smoke sucked in his door. He stepped in to find the bulk of their female guard in his way. “Cortez, move left.”

  The smoke was sucking toward Benjy’s lower bunk, but he couldn’t quite… He held the smoke canister out at arm’s length. Both of them squatted and stretched right and left trying to follow the path. “Hold this.” There were only a few dribbles of pink left. Copeland got on the bed where he knew the hole was not, and pulled Benjy’s junk out of the way. “Because there’s two holes,” he muttered to himself. That’s why it was so tough to pinpoint.

  He quickly squirted more glue in the one awkwardly positioned right behind the mattress. “Patch that for me, Cortez.”

  “On it.”

  Copeland lay on the deck and hunted for the other hole with his little gaslight under the bed. Right at the deck join, he found a pinprick and squirted some glue on it. That one stopped sucking.

  But his gaslight still showed something sucking. Maybe two somethings? He tested along the floor. First join. Second join. “Dammit, I’ve got a hole between decks.”