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

by Ginger Booth

  She stared at him open-mouthed. Stranded here? “Not really.” But he’d be evacuating Waterfalls for months, a losing battle. She shouldn’t burden him with more.

  “Sorry to hear that. I hoped to speak to Floki. To see if he has any advice for me, to get Loki to help out. I don’t have the fuel for this, Sass. And I can use every ship I can get. Loki’s the man. Or whatever. How did their talk go?”

  “Not well, I gather. But I didn’t get to hear about it.” She briefly recounted her tale of woe since last they’d spoken. He listened grimly, as though she piled new bricks onto his shoulders to weigh him down.

  When she paused, he held up a wait finger. A second later, he added another finger to it. “I can talk to Zan for you. But don’t you have Floki’s memories?”

  “I felt bad about replaying them.”

  “To respect his privacy? Hell with that,” Ben opined. “Find it. Play it. Sass, Abel and I are running the numbers. We’re short on fuel, ships, food, and time. I’m ready to deal with the devil. Or tens of thousands will die.”

  Sass nodded slowly. “I’ll play it and call you back.”

  And she did, feeling sorrier still for the poor little emu. She felt pretty lousy about Loki, too. Once she professed undying friendship to him. She hadn’t been much of a friend since then. He only wanted to not be left behind, alone, his entire reason for existence fled. And who could blame him? Eternity with no one to share it with – Sass shared that fear.

  But this crisis in Waterfalls was exactly the ripe opportunity that Floki recommended Loki should watch for. Ben said as much. He’d agree to anything for Loki’s transports and tenders of fuel. And she agreed with Ben.

  She called him back. “You lucky son of a bitch.” She replayed the segment she’d bookmarked for him.

  Ben sat back, fingers digging through his hair as he thought fast. “I’ll come get you then. If I can land that deal with Loki. I’ll send one transport ahead to Denali. They can use that to shuttle people from Waterfalls to Denali Prime. Got to be better than those ground caravans in the heat. And they have pilots for Nanomage. Might take a few days to train them up. Or leave one of our guys. Anyway, I’ll swing by Sylvan to get you, because I need qualified captains. You’ve got three.”

  “Including Zan,” Sass quibbled sourly.

  Ben shrugged. “Sounds to me like his issue is political. And I’d probably agree with him. Not his actions. But trust him to ferry refugees? Probably. Let me talk to him.”

  “And Tarana?”

  “I don’t give a flying flip what Tarana wants,” Ben retorted. “Gorey can order her to stand down. Or just take the ones willing to help with Waterfalls, and strand the rest on Sylvan. They wouldn’t have lasted a week without you. Surely they know that by now.”

  Sass smirked. “True.”

  “What do you say, old cap? Help me save the world again?”

  She sighed theatrically. “Another week, another world.”

  That won a chuckle from him. Then he sobered. “I’m not making a mistake, am I? Offering Loki a foothold in the rings?”

  “Probably,” Sass reasoned. “But it’s a mistake we have to make. We’ll face the music as it plays.”

  “Thanks. Call me with Zan if you need help. Wish me luck with Loki.”

  Sass smiled, eyes scrunched a bit. “Give him my love. Oh, don’t mention Floki. I don’t think he’d like it, that we corroded his grandson.”

  Ben laughed. “Point. Nico must be… Gah! Other problems to solve now. Acosta out.”

  Sass sat back, and breathed relief. Her lover was on the mend. The ringleaders were apprehended, and yes, that was every bit as messy as she expected. She had more mop-up to catch the underlings, but that was mostly passing names to Tarana. But most of all, Sylvan was over, and she didn’t have to choose. They were done here. Beautiful as this planet was, the idea of flying away forever in a few days felt like liberation.

  Can I sleep yet? She could question Tikka Gena and Zan in the morning. She didn’t care to think what it would be like to fly again with Zan as a fellow captain.

  They wouldn’t have lasted a week without you.

  Not without her – without Thrive! And now the entire expedition was on board.

  She slowly sat erect at a horrifying thought. As captain, she could wipe out this expedition in a single stroke, and guarantee Ben Acosta never, ever agreed to a colonization project again. She could simply blow up Thrive.

  She recalled a drunken conversation one night when the three of them discussed how to rig it, in case their ships fell into enemy hands. Zan’s variant relied on a dead man’s switch. Once a day, the ship would ask him to postpone a self-destruct sequence for another 24 hours. He’d hide the daemon in the ship’s AI. Then if he wasn’t around to give that order, KABOOM.

  Oh, hell. Yeah, she needed to deal with Zan now.

  42

  “Just help me drag him into his cabin. Then you can go to bed, Darren,” Sass urged.

  “No, I’ll help Nico with Floki,” Darren disagreed, though he was asleep on his feet when Sass rejoined him in the corridor. Wouldn’t that have been chaos, if Darren nodded off and dropped the stunner where Zan could reach it. The ex-hunter’s physical prowess was preternatural.

  “What the rego hell’s going on?” Clay’s voice.

  Crouched by Zan, Sass spun on her heels and beamed at him, hanging from their cabin door. “Good to see you up! So much going on. Want to help interrogate our lead saboteur?”

  “Always up for that,” Clay agreed. The way he hung on the bulkhead for support belied his words. But he opened Zan’s cabin door for them.

  The traitor’s face remained stony and gave away nothing. Sass and Darren used their three combined grav generators to lift him by feet and shoulders and carry him to his bunk.

  Darren ordered, “Computer, Mr. Zan is a prisoner. He can issue no orders, access no systems, and pass no pressure doors.”

  Sass was grateful one of them remembered that step, and added her authority to the command. She wondered what other oversights her tiredness might cause. Good thing Clay’s here. Although his warm complexion looked pale from the effort of crossing the hall. He slumped to the foot of Zan’s bed and eyed his ankle bungees warily.

  “So Zan,” she began brightly. “Just spoke to Ben. Congratulations. Sylvan is over. He’s coming to pick us up in a few days.”

  His expression changed not a bit. That worried her.

  “I don’t get it. You got what you wanted. No reaction at all?” No response. “I’ve arrested Benek, Tikki Cook, Tikka Gena, you. Your co-conspirator Giari is dead. Tikki’s sub-cell. I need the names in your sub-cell, of course.” No reaction.

  Clay compensated for Zan’s refusal to converse. “Tarana gave up on Sylvan?”

  “No, Gorey bailed on Waterfalls,” Sass explained. “They’re evacuating the city. Time’s up. They need all the transport they can get to reach safety on Mahina. Sylvan is now irrelevant.”

  Clay’s brow furrowed. “Why would Ben grab us instead of spend the summer rescuing Denali?”

  Zan nodded microscopically. Apparently he wondered that too.

  “Three qualified captains,” Sass explained. “Me, thee, him. Though Zan needs to get a little more forthcoming first.”

  Clay wiggled the man’s booted feet. “Come forth, Zan.” The ex-hunter shook his head, another tiny movement. “I don’t think he believes you.”

  “Hm, let me think,” Sass hummed. Then she had the ship computer replay the audio segment she’d marked, the one where Loki told Floki he’d stockpiled four more Sardine-class transports, a fuel tender, and three loads of star drive fuel. At the end of the salient facts, she clicked it off.

  Zan finally appeared disturbed.

  Clay sighed. Sass didn’t blame him. Speaking for the accused wasn’t nearly as good as getting the damned man to talk for himself. He ventured, “But surely Ben wouldn’t trust Zan with a starship again? After this?”

  Zan smirke
d for a fleeting instant, then looked sad.

  “Ben wants to save lives,” she told Zan firmly. “He wants that so badly, he’s willing to transport Loki to Pono’s rings. He’ll fly, daily, month after month, for years if he has to, to save Waterfalls.” She leaned on the bed and put her face within inches of his. “Don’t you dare smirk again!”

  She pulled back and examined the current contents of her belt. “You know, torture isn’t very effective. But when someone pisses me off enough…”

  “It is cathartic,” Clay encouraged. “His knife collection is in that drawer. Zan’s proud of his knives.”

  Sass pulled the drawer open and admired the bloodthirsty collection. She selected a blade nearly as long as her arm, its hilt a gnarled purple Denali hardwood, ornately carved with the planet’s monsters. She yanked her own hair and used it to test the blade for razor sharpness. “Maybe we should put Zan in the mop closet. Or cryo.”

  “Prudent,” her beloved agreed. “I bet he has more weapons stashed in here. Can I see that? Oh, what a beauty!” He tested it on Zan’s tight pant leg over his thigh, which parted effortlessly, the skin beneath bleeding copiously. He nodded. “Very satisfying.” He offered the knife back to Sass, hilt first. “You know, I’ve wondered what a hunter might do if threatened with losing a foot.”

  Zan’s face somehow grew blander.

  Sass asked point-blank, “Did you install a self-destruct daemon in my ship?”

  His eyes flicked to hers in alarm, then returned to neutral.

  “Because if you have, and you don’t disarm it right now,” she lay the blade on his bare hairless chest, drawing a line of beaded blood, “Ben won’t save you. And Teke, Aurora, Reza, your entire homeworld will curse your name. Zan the Traitor. Because you’ve already won. Yet you won’t concede.”

  She got into his face again. “Is this knife strong enough to cut off your hands? I wonder.” She drew back and tossed the knife on his dresser. “Not that I care.” She opened her comms. “Darren, Nico. I suspect Zan may have hidden a self-destruct dead man’s switch –”

  “Stop!” Zan finally cried out.

  “Hold that thought. Sass out,” she said, canceling the comms call. “Ready to speak at last?”

  “I don’t believe you, that Tarana has given up. Let me hear it from her!”

  Clay rose and belted him across the jaw, then sank back to the bed, out of breath.

  “Clay’s point, Zan, is that you’re in no position to make demands. What traps have you yet to spring? Out with it.”

  He shook his head bitterly. “Ben would never trust me with a ship again! Teke will curse my name the instant he hears a single precious academic was harmed!”

  Sass tilted her head. “It’s true that I damn you to hell for all eternity. For refusing to save Waterfalls. I must say, Zan, you’re being a very sore winner. I want my ship and my crew to live. You? I’d happily draw and quarter you, and feed your guts to the fishies.”

  “Except,” Clay noted, “three PO-3’s plus six Sardines and one fuel tender to evacuate Waterfalls. That’s ten captains. Do you think Ben’s desperate enough to let Loki fly one?”

  “No!” Sass and Zan barked in unison.

  Zan suggested, “But there’s Lavelle and Gorky,” those two were rival captains in the rings, “Ben, Abel, Sass, Clay, Judge… Hm.” His brow furrowed. “He does need me, doesn’t he. Assuming I believed you.”

  Sass thumbed her comms again. “Nico, Darren, he’s stubborn. Fire up Floki’s backup to hunt for a self-destruct hidden in the ship AI. And disable it. Sass out.”

  Zan stared at her. “You’d let Floki loose in your ship?”

  “Right now, I trust Floki a lot more than you. Am I wrong?”

  She folded her arms and stared into his eyes, steely with intent.

  He caved. “I need voice access to the computer.”

  “Not gonna happen. Where do I find it?”

  He scowled. But Sass read his expression as trying to puzzle out how she could access it without him. “It’s voice-locked to me. Code name ‘Procedure Bali Koala.’”

  She stared at him. Her suspicion being confirmed was not good news. “How long? When did you install that on my ship?”

  He swallowed. “Just last night. Tarana…nothing else would work! Only complete annihilation.”

  Rather than play twenty questions with the computer herself, Sass forwarded the clue to Darren and Nico, Procedure Bali Koala.

  From there, it was straightforward if grueling to extract everything else she needed to know from Zan. He cooperated. But her brain was turning to congealed axle grease from lack of sleep. She might have dropped the chore, except then she needed to haul him somewhere for storage.

  She got names. She got a list of what other tricks they had up their sleeves. And she got a full confession. He also apologized fully.

  “Ben will forgive him,” Clay opined. “Are we sure we want that?”

  Zan murmured, “Ben’s less forgiving than you think. And Tarana rules this colony.”

  What a beguiling thought, Sass mused. Tarana could take him off her hands, remove his grav generator, and toss him overboard. Which would require carrying him, getting him through an airlock – sounded like too much effort.

  Where was I? Oh, yeah! “Darren, making headway?”

  “We’ve… Not really.”

  “Zan, what is the cancellation command? Complete cancel, erase, never come back.”

  “ ‘Cancel Procedure Bali Koala, authorization Teke and Ben. Erase process.’ ”

  Clay scratched his nose. “Sass, you now have a recording of him saying it. Play it to the computer. If you trust him.”

  “You need to trust me soon,” Zan noted. “I’m supposed to give the suspend command by 06:30, when I wake for the day.”

  She stared at him dully. “On your honor?” She wasn’t sure what honor meant to Zan.

  “I vote trust him,” Darren offered, still on the comms. “Nico says so too. If you’re taking a vote.”

  “Thank you, gentlemen. I’m not. Sass out. Kaol? Could you bring Tikki to Zan’s cabin, please?”

  Clay cocked an eyebrow, but otherwise they waited in silence until the other two Denali arrived. “Ah, good. Tikki, do you want to live?”

  “Y-yes. Is that an option?”

  “Everything is still possible,” she assured him. “I need you to tell me if this man is telling the truth. He’s given me a command that he says will disable a process to blow up the ship.”

  Alarmed, Kaol looked to Zan. “Who is your cohort?”

  “Bali Koala,” Zan supplied bitterly. “Not that I’m a member anymore.”

  “And the command?”

  Zan repeated it while Kaol and Tikki Cook studied his expression intently. “On my honor as an ex-Bali Koala, and a hunter of Glassworks. Then Waterfalls.”

  Kaol judged, “An ex-hunter of a dead city. Who are you now?”

  Zan gulped. “On my honor as a captain of Thrive Spaceways.”

  Tikki shook his head. “You have no honor left to swear by, do you?”

  At that, Zan’s eyes welled. “No. But I can save this ship. I gave you the command that lets you live. All of you. Me? Not an option. But I did it for the future of Denali.”

  “Why did you blow up that fuel barrel, Zan?” Sass whispered. “And burn the academics?”

  “I can show you my calculations. It should never have reached that platform! I screwed up somehow. Or Giari placed it wrong. I don’t know which.”

  At his direction, Sass pulled up the file where he’d done his work. She read through his numbers.

  “Eight more minutes, Sass,” Clay reminded her.

  She accessed the last known location of Floki’s false signal. “Where did you put Floki’s transmitter?”

  “Inside the fuel barrel,” Tikki supplied. “Then Zan and I left to change back into our space suits. Giari placed the barrel.”

  Zan’s calculations were correct. But the final ping from that
barrel was forty meters closer to the academic platform, inside the sonic perimeter instead of outside the outer force field. With Giari dead, they’d never know why.

  She believed Zan. Because at last this was consistent with the capable officer she knew him to be.

  “Darren, do the deed,” Sass ordered. “Use Zan’s order to cancel the self-destruct.”

  Zan breathed deeply, and relaxed. She’d made the right call. And they waited.

  With only a minute to spare, Darren called back to report success. Thrive was safe. Or at least, safe as anywhere on Sylvan.

  43

  Two days later, and 40 light years away, Kassidy Yang watched the faces of her dearest old friends as they in turn watched her latest video. Her masterpiece, her haiku, her one-minute spot, asking the people of Mahina, Sagamore, and the Rings to open their hearts and homes to the refugees of Denali.

  Across the big dining room monitor in Merchant Thrive, Ben’s Spaceways flagship, images flashed by of current conditions in Waterfalls. People prostrate from the heat. Sufferers wore blotchy unkempt bakkra of red, purple, and black in the cosmo dome where once Aurora taught them the cosmo tricks of cultivating a serene and attractive pattern, accented with the feel-good hallucinogenic peach species. Only the largest cosmo dome remained habitable, and not by much. The farmers and hunters took refuge there too, with no one left outside to battle the raging monsters. It was simply too hot for the hunters to survive outside. And the north pole summer had just begun. The sun blazed down on them mercilessly 24 hours a day

  Pot-bellied emaciated children, unable to sweat anymore, were a slam-dunk close. Ironically, in this her greatest offering, Kassidy filmed none of the footage in person. She only composed it to maximum effect, building upon her decades of art to persuade the peoples of the Aloha system to perceive themselves as one.

  When the closing pitch hit the screen, she paused her commercial. “So? What do you think?”

  “Absolutely devastating,” Hunter Burke breathed, Clay Rocha’s son. “I have the database ready to start the matchmaking, homes to refugees.”