Migrant Thrive: Thrive Space Colony Adventures Box Set Books 7-9

by Ginger Booth

  “Pardon my manners, cap.” Kassidy’s voice held not the slightest remorse, as she sliced them free of the bubble. “But so far we’ve got three paths and two injuries. I’m staying out here until everyone’s out of the woods. So have fun playing medic.”

  “Understood. Thank you.” Sass checked her team, all present and accounted for. Eli and the hunters debated whether to kill one of the stunned deer and dissect it. Eli wanted to test some meat for edible proteins. Tonn wanted to toss some dross in a pile, and affix one of their suit dot cameras to a tree to observe the scavengers, and any other wildlife using their new path. Because the clear path through the hemlock grove proved mighty popular with the neighbors.

  She broke into the conversation. “Excellent idea, Tonn. All three of you, very impressed.” She nodded respect and met their eyes as they parted. And she opened a private channel to Teke as she walked away with Griez. “They’re brilliant, Teke. In their own way.”

  Sass parted ways with Griez, leaving her with Floki to repair her spacesuit, ready to go out and play again tomorrow. She paused thoughtfully under her air-scrubbing trees in the hold, and considered the hunters still inside.

  They needed a leader, one she could work with. If they didn’t choose one themselves, Tarana asked her to propose one. But her morning on the path revised her appreciation of their talents. If they followed Hadron, there was surely a reason. “Computer, where is Hadron?”

  “Hadron is in starboard crew berthing.”

  She decided to consult with her people before interrupting his nap, and she wasn’t about to talk personnel matters in the busiest traffic spot on the ship. She withdrew to her office. There she commed Cope, Darren, Nico, Eli, Kassidy, Tikka and Tikki in turn, asking each who they liked best for leadership of the hunters they’d worked with. This provided her a list of six names, with reasons, generous considering only twenty-four hunters remained alive.

  Then she called Hadron into her office, smiling at him warmly as he took his seat. “How are you feeling?”

  His face worked bitterly. “Tired from walking here. Heart damage.”

  That surprised her. But she tried to word her reaction as neutrally as she could. “Why hasn’t that been corrected by the auto-doc?”

  He stiffened. “I put myself last on the list. I am in no danger. And I failed my people.”

  Sass nodded, and attempted to look sympathetic. “There is no one in the auto-doc at this time. But let’s talk a few minutes before you take your turn. Hadron, I don’t understand. You’re essentially an officer. People depend on you –”

  “They do not. I failed them and deserve to die.”

  “I can’t afford for any more of you to die. If you won’t lead, I certainly hope you’re willing to fell trees rather than wallow in self-pity.”

  His eyes flashed fury, but she kept speaking. “Hadron, I know what it is to screw up and regret it. Anyone who leads has made mistakes. I’ve made plenty. But let’s review. What exactly did you do wrong the other night?”

  “I should have posted sentries inside the tents!”

  “But you did post sentries outside the tents. Two of them. And their quick reactions saved twenty-four lives.” She chose to stop speaking and wait him out.

  “That was a correct order,” Hadron allowed. “But my personal performance in the emergency was disgraceful. I woke when a sprout punctured my shin. Half the tent was evacuated before I got my leg bandaged and my suit sealed.”

  Sass tapped her desk. “And this is wrong how? Hadron, those steps were necessary.”

  “I should have sacrificed myself for my people!”

  “No, you should have taken responsibility for your own life and safety first. Then helped others, if you were able. Sounds to me like you couldn’t. And that happens. As a captain myself, it would frustrate me completely. And I would apologize to anyone I thought I had let down. And how do you think they would respond?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t understand Mahinans.”

  “Nor do I understand Denali. Because I still haven’t heard anything you did wrong. Hadron, stuff happens.”

  “And it is how you act in a crisis that demonstrates your mettle as a leader!”

  “Partly,” Sass allowed. “But it’s also how you train, respect, communicate, delegate, plan, and all the rest we spend our days doing.” She went ahead and listed those things on her desktop. She added personal bravery and crisis reaction on the bottom. “Let’s leave that aside for the moment. Tell me, why were you the leader of these hunters?”

  He didn’t respond quickly, so she prodded further. “My housekeeper suggests they follow you because you understand their frustration with life in the Pono rings. Does that sound right?”

  He nodded jerkily.

  “Do you also understand their joy to be here? Their eagerness to be heroes? Their over-eagerness to be martyrs? Need to curb that.”

  He snorted involuntary amused agreement. “Always, with hunters.”

  “See, Hadron, I have a list of six names here. These are hunters my crew suggests might make good leaders. We like them. They’ve demonstrated competence, judgment, and clear communication. But as a captain, you know what my greatest qualification is, to lead?”

  He frowned. “You bought a ship?”

  “Cute. True. But in the long run, my people stay because they like me. Because I like them. I take the time to understand what they want. I help them reach their goals in life. I believe in them. I treat them fairly. Do you believe in your folk, Hadron?”

  He sighed explosively. “They don’t have the skills they need.”

  “Yes, I see three things that require further training and drill. Get their pressure suits on and off in a tearing hurry.” Hadron nodded empathetically. “Switch comms channels. And use their grav generators to escape wildlife. I am willing to lead training on all of these. But then someone else should take over the drill, and make sure they practice every day, for at least a week.”

  “Agreed.”

  “I think grav training after supper, as recreation. Suit drill in the morning when they’re gearing up. Comms drill at lunchtime. Everyone learns best when it’s timely, and not too much all at once.”

  With a fingertip she dragged her list of six names around for him to read right-side-up. “They’d make good squad leaders to take over the drill. But are any of them a better choice for Selectman than you? The Selectman schedules these things, of course. And he coordinates with me and Tarana. With us, he advocates for his people. Then he turns around and coaxes, encourages, and kicks their butts. If he needs any coaching himself, any help to perform his role better? He contacts me or Tarana and asks for what he needs.”

  She stood abruptly. “Let’s get you into that auto-doc. Please consider what I’ve said.”

  “May I have this list?”

  “Computer, make this list available to Hadron. Just ask the ship.”

  “Thank you, captain. I, um, don’t know how to operate the auto-doc.”

  Sass smiled warmly. “I’ll escort you.”

  14

  At 04:30, the AI woke Sass as directed, and she pulled on her pressure suit. She racked her helmet on her shoulder for now. But she was fully suited to step outside. She could seal her helmet faster than the inner airlock door could close. She stepped into the corridor and headed aft to the hold.

  Coffee would be nice. But a stern sense of justice wouldn’t permit her. She strode past the dim galley and sleeping forms, to take station on the catwalk above the trapdoor.

  “Computer, damage control alarm, and ship’s address. All hands, pressure emergency! Repeat, pressure emergency! Don your suits. This is a drill! You are being timed! Captain out!”

  The klaxons resumed wailing, over lurid red emergency lights throbbing throughout the ship. Sass leaned her arms on the railing and watched pandemonium break out.

  The first of her new drill regimes, the grav generator games after supper, were a hit. Kassidy did them proud with aspiration
al gymnastics, to hint what was possible with mastery. She and Nico even swing-danced in mid-hold. Then hunter Tonn and physicist Teke presented a joint lecture on the math of gravity generators, with demonstrations to remind everyone of the tricky difference between velocity and acceleration, and adding and subtracting vector.

  Gravity meant acceleration, and woe to anyone who used it to go sideways without thinking it through. Teke had taught physics long enough to demonstrate these principles with crystal clarity. After practice leaping from hold to overhead, to catwalk to starboard bulkhead, they held an EVA ball game, Sass’s crew versus the hunters, a fairly even match. Sass’s team had all the skills, but Hadron’s were consummate athletes in their prime, and outnumbered the Thrive crew 24 to 13. That was a lot of flying bodies. Thrive narrowly won a hilarious and hard-fought contest.

  Everyone hit the sack early, happily tired.

  They weren’t happy now. The hunter pressure suits awaited on a rack by the cargo door. Most of the hunters were in hammocks, or lying on the catwalk or galley floor. Under stress, a couple misjudged their gravity to vault down to their suits, with minor injuries. Once they arrived, they couldn’t all unplug their suits at once. One guy tried to dole out suits before his own was sealed – an absolute no-no.

  Hadron caught him and flung him away before Sass could say anything. His hollering could have been nicer. But men at work tended to wax abusive when it hit the fan. Nothing personal, and guys were used to it. The thin leavening of female hunters made no difference. That caste was a boy’s club. Sass knew from experience how that went. A girl had to grow a pair.

  Around the 45 second mark, the first three hunters managed to get suited and sealed. The chaos resolved down at the rack.

  Sass’s own crew piled out of their cabins and lined up, backs to the bulkhead. Tikki and Kaol were a couple seconds slow, and Tikka Gena downright tardy. Floki didn’t have a pressure suit, but stood next to Nico. Sass smiled to see father and son nearly tied for time.

  Below, correct-sized suits now passed outward in bucket-brigade fashion. Once they claimed a suit, hunters cleared out to don them. Sass’s six picks for leaders, and Hadron, weren’t much slower than Kaol. Once suited, they expedited with others.

  Two hunters blew Saggy emergency airlock bubbles. Sass mentally awarded extra credit for creativity. But under the circumstances, she also docked them points because their giant pink bubbles worsened the crowding. Don and Griez helpfully chewed them out on that point.

  She checked the time and opened the public address channel again, to speak inside helmets as well as ship-wide. “On Sylvan, if you’re not sealed in your suit yet, you are unconscious. Without help, you will die. Everyone suited, please line up against the bulkhead. If you’re helping someone else, stop. Let them work it out themselves.”

  She gave those rules another timed minute. Three more hunters succeeded and got their backs against the wall. Two still struggled. Sass hopped the railing and gestured for Nico to help her. The guy hunter had been trying to don a too-small woman’s suit. The woman had a man’s suit and fouled the fasteners with the unfamiliar plumbing. They swapped and started over, Nico and Sass assisting.

  “Drill ends,” Sass announced when they were done. She brought the lights back to normal. “Remain at attention. Your goal is 30 seconds. Up to 45 seconds is acceptable.”

  She strolled to the suit rack and waved at it. “This bottleneck is a problem. Think about your tents the other day. Talk it over, find solutions.

  “My crew has an advantage. We keep suits in our cabins. Win yourself that advantage. It’s not just your own life at stake. Failure risks the guy who tries to save you from your mistake.”

  Angry grumbling grew at this point. Good to know what ticks them off.

  She spoke right over their griping. “I will forward you your time on this drill, and the average for the group. We will continue suit drill until you can meet the goal. Blindfolded in the dark.

  “One more thing. Your grav generator goes outside your suit. Otherwise you can’t use it. Try to remember next time.” She knew full well most muffed that step. Even her crew messed it up – often. “Well done! Dismissed.”

  She noticed that Nico took time to have his student remove his suit and take it from the top. The woman hunter Griez, the one Sass escorted in yesterday, took the same initiative with the woman Sass had helped.

  Good. She hopped up to the catwalk to find that coffee. Tikki the housekeeper beat her to it. He already had a generous pot brewing.

  After breakfast, as they started to get their gear together, she ran the drill again. This time everyone was sealed into their suits in one minute. Good.

  Then she made them take them off and don them again. The hunters were irate, but everyone was sealed in under 45 seconds, her own crew flawlessly under 30 seconds, with their grav generators on the outside. She smirked. Yes, she would have punished anyone on her crew who flubbed that step at this juncture.

  Hadron bitched at her about wasting so much time. She countered that she’d proven to each hunter that he could meet the standard. Now they needed to drill-baby-drill until they couldn’t forget if they tried, because their muscles remembered for them.

  And she demanded he assign Griez to supervise the suit drills. He assented to get rid of her.

  She took Griez aside and explained her parameters. Every single hunter must succeed, and feel good about it. They deserved every minute of training it took for mastery, plus four more drills to convert mastery to reflex. No shaming.

  “Not how we do it,” Griez argued. “We shame for failure.”

  Sass shook her head. “When you first wore breath masks, or faced the Denali wildlife. Did your teachers shame you?”

  “Not at first,” she conceded.

  “As adults on Denali, you’ve mastered all the skills. But when you left Denali, you became beginners again. You needed patience and practice. Not abuse.”

  Griez heard her. Sass was wholly satisfied with her drills when they began. The young hunter even asked permission to practice tricks with the cheap Saggy emergency bubbles for variety.

  Sass persuaded Ben and Clay to train the Denali in orbit, too.

  Darren Markley, Thrive’s chief engineer, suspected he’d gotten the poor bird’s hopes up too high. Floki was so excited to be invited outside today on the engineering team. Now they stood atop the foamcrete raised platform, while Cope and Nico manhandled the new saw.

  “This is the job I have in mind for you, Floki. It’s a shattered power generator. We only have three of them, you see.”

  The emu blinked at him, then regarded the enormous crate, easily big enough for him to squat inside if it weren’t full of broken machinery. His highly expressive long neck recoiled backward, then extended fully. He rose on his tiptoes, leaned his breast against the crate, and dipped his head in to gauge the challenge in dismay.

  “You like jigsaw puzzles?” Darren quipped.

  “Jigsaw puzzles are trivial. Do you have a schematic for this machine?”

  “No, but there’s a diagram in the maintenance manual.” Darren brought the document up on his tablet to show the bird, his dexterity hampered by space-grade gauntlets and helmet. Then he realized he was being silly. He could simply send the AI the address of the material in the ship’s database, and did so.

  But Floki extracted his head from the box and looked at the tablet, then back at the wreckage of parts. “I don’t know where to begin. Sar.”

  “Great question,” Darren encouraged. “There are these four or five main sub-assemblies, plus the controls and IO section here – inputs and outputs. Basic engineering principle, divide and conquer. For your first pass, sort all these parts by sub-assembly. Maybe with an extra box for don’t know.”

  Floki stretched his neck into the box and brought out a short screw in his beak. Then he spit it back into the box.

  “Right. The fasteners you sort into a screw tray. You’ll need to find a place to spread out with
the project inside the ship.” Darren shielded his helmet with a hand and looked up. Today, the gorgeous clear purple sky featured an abrupt line of cloud cover rolling in. The Denali hunters seemed wary about this and predicted rain ‘soon.’ They would know. Desert-born on Mahina, Darren had never experienced rain. He looked forward to it.

  Floki’s neck curved backward again as he perused the size and extent of the box, then arched his neck to pointedly glance down at the ground four meters below. “I can’t carry this. How much does it weigh?”

  Darren sighed. “It won’t fit through the bio-lock either, will it.” He opened another comm channel to ask Cope who dropped the generator. They should carry it into the ship for Floki. This was all complicated by the fact that Floki himself, and the parts, needed to take over the bio-lock to run through a nitrogen cycle instead of the human decontamination process.

  When he was finished, Floki sadly asked, “I won’t get to work outside today either, will I.”

  “Well, today it’s probably enough to get that project indoors. This might be your back-burner project for a week or so. We want to know whether it’s reclaimable. We should have two of these plus a spare at all times. And now we don’t.”

  “I understand, chief.”

  “Good bird. Your team will be along shortly.”

  Feeling rather guilty, Darren hopped off the platform with an easy flick of gravity, and headed for his main challenge of the day – getting that sawmill into operation. Sass wanted a wooden platform today for the hunters to camp outside again. He suspected his prospects depended on what ‘soon’ meant on the rain front.

  15

  The first plop of rain fell on Cope’s helmet as he directed his hunter team to heave at a block and tackle. The rain tracks rapidly interfered with his vision as Darren’s great circular saw blade angled up, then carefully settled on its temporary axle brackets.

  This was Darren’s machine, not his. He was simply directing the workforce so that Thrive’s chief could focus on his contraption. While the man tinkered with the next step of getting the saw engaged with its driving belts, Cope gazed around the work area to reconsider the building plans.