by Ginger Booth
“Bingo.” He sighed. “That was a revelation at your birthday party. Sass, I never felt superior to you. But I was your boss. So you were off limits. Now I’m not. I’m not your subordinate either. Our nanites are free to play. But you don’t like me.”
She gazed at him solemnly, took a moment to really absorb the hurt in his eyes. “Clay, I wouldn’t want to make anyone feel that way. Least of all you.” She offered a hand. “I do appreciate you. We just got in the habit of sniping.”
He swallowed and nodded, looking away. He clenched her hand a bit too hard, sandpaper dust still coating his fingers. “That’s not –”
“I like you,” Sass amended. “Probably love you. How the hell not? So many years squabbling, Rocha. Two worlds shared. Three counting Vitality. Four counting Thrive. Sagamore and Denali make five and six. We’ve shared a lot of lives.”
“Sagamore wasn’t a life, just a bad day,” Clay quibbled. “This regolith before atmosphere, though, that was another life. Same count.” His voice drifted off, and tears welled in his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Sass murmured, giving his hand a squeeze.
His return squeeze was a vise grip. “I still mourn Earth. I look out over this regolith and it’s still unbearable. I tell myself where a stream will go, a field, a rise of forest. But it won’t. This moon will never be Earth. Nothing will be. You’re the only one left who remembers.”
“But I don’t really,” Sass said softly. “You surprised me at our party. How you still remembered playing in the woods. I have an early memory, just a fragment, of playing at a park once on a sunny day. I understand this idea of a nurturing planet. But Mahina is kinder than the Earth I knew, Clay.”
“Selective memory,” Clay suggested. He sighed raggedly and retrieved his hand. “So I was wrong. I’m already alone.” He scrambled up abruptly.
Sass seized his hand again to pull herself up, and didn’t let go. “You’re not alone. I’m right here. So OK, I’m not into deep thought and living in the past. I do remember, Clay. Not quite the same world, maybe. Maybe you’ll like Denali better.” She flung her free arm out to encompass the sunbaked view of mushroom toned rock and dust. “But this world is the one we committed to.”
“Together? Or apart? I could be a silent partner on the Thrive.”
“Maybe I’m not OK with leaving you alone here to mope,” Sass argued. “Maybe I’d wait another year to get you on that ship. Although I’d lose Copeland that way. He hopes to be back before Nico turns three.”
“Maybe I’m not OK with you facing Denali alone,” Clay allowed. “Still torn.”
“We jump down, right?” Sass asked.
“Absolutely. Lowest non-zero g.”
Sass pulled out her generator and set it, then clamped her arms around Clay’s waist. “Together. Do we still need three nights?”
“At least. If you still need to ask.” He bent his knees, and launched them out into thin air to drift like petals down toward the rocks below.
Dear Reader,
Thank you for reading Spaceship Thrive!
Has Sass grown wiser from this trip to Sagamore?
She and the gang are headed to Denali next. The voracious biome of the hothouse planet makes them long for the cold lifeless rings of Pono. And a year cooped up on the ship is way too much of a good thing.
The prizes to be won on Denali can’t be worth the agony of their toughest challenges yet. Or can they?
And will the crew grow closer, or be torn apart?
That next book isn’t available yet. If you’d like to be notified, please join my reader’s group, or follow me on Amazon or BookBub.
If you enjoyed the story, won’t you please leave a review? Indie authors like me rely on readers like you. Reviews fuel the next book!
Best wishes,
Ginger Booth
P.S. If you’d like to try my climate apocalypse series in the meantime, start with Feral Recruit if you like action with a morally challenged hero who kicks butt. Or try End Game if you prefer a tech whisperer who demands safety for ordinary people in a world gone mad.
Also by Ginger Booth
Calm Act Feral America: Ava Panic
Feral Recruit
Feral Agent
Feral Courier
Feral Carolina
Feral America Begins: Books 1-2 & Prequel
Calm Act, Books 1-4 : Dee Baker
End Game
Project Reunion
Martial Lawless
Tsunami Wake
The Calm Act Books 1-3 (box set)
Short Prequels
Civilly Disobedient (Dee) **
Dust of Kansas (Emmett) **
Road to Humble Texas (Kayden)
Ebola Day (Ava & Cade)
** free for reader group
Thrive Space Colony Adventures
Skyship Thrive
Spaceship Thrive
Starship Thrive (summer 2019)
Nonfiction:
Indoor Salad: How to Grow Vegetables Indoors
Acknowledgments
I’m deeply grateful to my test readers. The hard-working beta team for Spaceship Thrive included Jim Hunt, Ron Kaminski, Karen Reinertsen, Barton Schindel, Jim Seals, Kate Travis, and WMH Cheryl. Thank you so much for your time and insights, and most importantly for your friendship, and urging me on.
Thanks as well to the advance review copy readers, who read the almost-final manuscript, ready to post reviews for book launch.
And thank you, for reading my book. Without you, I couldn't do what I do, so I really appreciate that you give my work a chance. Drop me a line! I personally respond to all messages. Books take a long time to write. Feedback is the fuel that powers the next story.
Ginger Booth
[email protected]