Skyship Thrive (Thrive Space Colony Adventures Book 1) Read online

  Skyship Thrive

  Thrive Space Colony Adventures Book 1

  Ginger Booth

  Copyright © 2019 Ginger Booth

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by www.rafidodigitalart.com

  Skyship image © Freestyleimages | Dreamstime.com

  Mahina week diagram by Ginger Booth

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  “Days” of the Mahina Week

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Afterword

  Also by Ginger Booth

  Acknowledgments

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  Prologue

  Humanity spread to the stars not with a bang,

  but a whimper.

  We gained control of gravity.

  We settled the Moon, Mars, and Ganymede.

  The star drive was discovered.

  Explorers sought out new solar systems.

  The best were colonized. Terraforming began.

  But behind them, Earth was failing.

  Time ran out.

  None of humanity’s new homes were ready.

  “Days” of the Mahina Week

  The Mahina ‘week’ is one orbit of Pono.

  Most settlements face the gas giant.

  They get sun for 3.5 days a week.

  A day is 24.87 Earth hours (24 local hours).

  1

  New Captain Sassafras Collier brought her skyship Thrive to hover on station. Gearing up, and simpler tests, had gradually built up to this, her fledgling business cashing in nicely along the way.

  The giant needle of an ozone generator spire impaled the full gas giant planet Pono hanging in the sky before her, bathing the moon below in the springlike green light of Glow.

  Why this weekly ‘full moon’ stirred the human heart the same way their primordial Moon once did, Sass hadn’t a clue. But everyone’s blood got up on Glow, final day of the local ‘week.’ Over her years in law enforcement, she’d experienced the phenomenon first-hand, busting up fights and ferrying rowdy idiots to the emergency room.

  Statistics concurred. Glow was the day to do something stupid.

  “Do you hear a hiss?” she asked her first mate Abel.

  “I don’t hear a hiss,” he replied, breathing deeply. He checked a telltale on the control panel. “Atmo is within tolerance. Bit low, but we’re at altitude.”

  Sass sighed. “Abel, with a positive seal it shouldn’t matter that we’re at altitude. Just keep her on station. I’ll help Kassidy leap to her death.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t put it that way. Are you sure we’re not –”

  “We’re not liable,” Sass confirmed yet again. “Kassidy signed a release.” Sass squeezed the young man’s shoulder and left, re-sealing the bridge door behind her.

  She paused on the catwalk above the hold to listen. She couldn’t pinpoint any hiss. But then, she was standing right next to the fan system. The machinery was blocked behind their client Kassidy’s beautifully inlaid wardrobe cabinet. So she wouldn’t be able to hear anything subtle.

  “Are we ready?” she called down into the cargo hold. She hopped the slide down, lately simplified to a dogleg with a banked curve. Only then did she notice Jules lurking at the galley door above, Abel’s young bride. “Jules, you should be in your sealed cabin. This is the captain speaking.”

  “But Eli gets to watch!”

  “Eli is a scientist. Who will wear an oxygen mask when the situation warrants it.”

  Eli sheepishly confirmed, “I’ll just go get that oxygen mask.”

  “Yes, you will.” Sass called back to him upstairs, where he was also lurking by his room. “You’ll seal those cabins, too, as ordered.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sass turned to Kassidy, encased head to toe in something black, much like a neoprene wetsuit, though who knew what the urbs made the things from these days. Her tidy athletic build looked great in the skintight outfit, whatever it was made of. The younger woman was most disappointed that her gorgeous hair wouldn’t fly free for the cameras.

  But the outdoor temperature was 10 below zero, as well as woefully low on oxygen, or any other gas. Kassidy would have risked it anyway. But Sass insisted she was training for a jump from 3,000 meters, nearly the top of Mahina’s modest atmosphere. Frostbite there would be nearly instantaneous.

  Kassidy rolled her eyes while Sass went through her checklist yet again. She tested buckles and gauges, and Kassidy’s backup gravity generator with its remote dead man’s switch control.

  “You will keep up a running commentary at all times,” Sass rehashed with her. “If you go silent so much as half a second, I abort remotely. And you float down like a flower petal.”

  “Yes, mom,” Kassidy agreed. “Just make sure the cameras stick with me.”

  Sass smiled as Eli joined them, wearing goggles and oxygen mask. Sass was fairly sure Eli didn’t need the protection any more than she did. But appearances must be maintained for the youngsters, lest they learn bad habits. She pulled her own roomy vacuum suit over her clothes, but didn’t seal it yet, leaving the gloves and helmet racked.

  “Eli, you stay here as my backup,” Sass told him. “I’m on the ramp with Kassidy.”

  Eli gave an exaggerated nod. “On a clamped line.”

  “Yes, dad,” Sass quipped, earning a grin from the wet-suited daredevil Kassidy. Sass was old enough to be Eli’s grandmother, Kassidy’s great-grandma. Hopefully the younger folk didn’t realize that. By Mahina standards, Sass appeared to be a remarkably well-preserved thirty. Looks were deceiving on all three of them.

  Sass hauled on a lever to bring down the airlock wall in front of the cargo ramp, usually retracted in atmosphere. She accessed the ship address system through her headset. “Captain speaking. Now testing cargo airlock. All hands verify pressure secure.”

  “Aye-aye, captain!” Jules returned eagerly over the intercom.

  “Bridge secure,” her husband Abel confirmed.

  “Jules, confirm location,” Sass prompted.

  “In my cabin, where you sent me.”
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  “Jules, next time report ‘first mate cabin secure,’ like Abel did,” Sass instructed.

  “Yes, ma’am. First mate cabin is secure. Galley secure.”

  “Just like that,” Sass encouraged her. “Good job, Jules.”

  “My cabins and the engine room secured before I joined you,” Eli reported at her elbow. “I didn’t check your cabin.”

  Sass nodded. “I secured my cabin and the empties before takeoff. Abel sealed the engineering spaces.” She took a mental stroll through the floor plan. “Abel, did you catch the med bay?”

  “Sorry, captain. Didn’t think of it.”

  Sass nodded to Eli, who scurried across the cargo bay to see to it. They tended to forget about the med bay, down here off the hold near the dangerous stuff. Most of the living space was upstairs along the catwalk. The large hold itself couldn’t be compartmentalized for air, though they could evacuate the atmosphere to restore later. These old skyships hailed from a time before Mahina hosted a breathable atmosphere. The ship was designed for use on airless moons and asteroids, and the voids between.

  This was their first real test of the pressure seals on her new used skyship, not just Kassidy’s ability to operate a grav generator to save her own skin. Sass was more confident of the latter.

  “Med bay sealed,” Eli reported.

  “All sealed spaces secure,” Sass acknowledged. “Evacuating air from cargo airlock now.” She pressed a button. A previously dead lamp blinked red over a lock the size of a barn door. Sass stepped to the side of the lock wall. She put her ear to the seal, waved her hand to feel for air currents, then repeated on the other side.

  “Aren’t we on the wrong side of the lock?” Kassidy inquired, fists on hips.

  “We are testing the lock before we put our soft squishy bodies in it,” Sass replied. “Do you hear a hiss?”

  “I hear air pumps.”

  After a few more seconds the blinking stopped, leaving the telltale steady red. Another red light glowed inside the airlock itself, as wide as the ramp but only a meter deep in this configuration, like the space between a door and storm door. Not that anyone needed a storm door on Mahina. The moon’s budding atmosphere didn’t support much weather. They took turns peering out through a window in the retractable wall.

  “Airlock evacuated,” Sass reported. “First mate, pressure check.”

  “Interior spaces no change, captain,” Abel reported. “Cargo lock at 70% to match exterior air pressure.”

  Sass stepped to the control panel to the left. “Extending cargo ramp.” She returned to join the other two heads watching out the window for fun. “First mate, we need to wash this window.” Fingerprints and suspected nose smears impaired her glorious view. Her new old ship was just too much fun for words.

  Abel chuckled. “I’ll make a note of that, captain.”

  The ramp lowered beautifully to its horizontal position. With no ground to rest on, it formed a gangplank straight into the glowing orb of the gas giant planet Pono.

  Abel prompted, “Captain, if you’re done admiring the view? All compartments unchanged on pressure.”

  “Right. Closing cargo ramp…. Sealed. Restoring atmo to cargo lock… Green light. Pressure check, Abel.”

  “Only change is that the cargo lock is nominal. A touch on the low side.”

  “How low?”

  “Says 97%,” Abel replied. “I’d risk it. Maintenance request noted.”

  Sass snorted appreciation of the first mate’s self-ticketing system. “Alright. Let’s do this. Kassidy and Captain proceeding into the airlock. Eli has lock-side controls.” She donned and sealed her own helmet and gloves. Cool canned air bathed her hairline, smelling metallic.

  “Eli at lock controls,” the scientist said, looking doubtful of his etiquette.

  Sass shot him a gauntleted thumb’s-up, and opened the door. Pushing down the door lever took more muscle than she would have liked. She asked Abel to note that for repair, too.

  In a moment, she and Kassidy were in the skinny slice of lock space, door shut and sealed behind them. Her young client folded arms and tapped a foot as Sass clamped their lines to a bar on the door with D-rings. Sass raised an eyebrow at her and received a confident nod in reply.

  Sass punched the airlock evacuate button on the interior side control panel. She grabbed the bar at the side. Kassidy clutched the bar on the door. A red light blinked on the panel, then went steady red as the lurid no-pressure lock light lit.

  Sass nodded at Kassidy, who returned a thumbs-up. The captain pressed the cargo ramp button. It was breezy up here as the ramp extended again, her roomy suit flapping at her.

  Sass wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Nothing stood between her and the enormous gas giant in the sky except the thinning air of Mahina’s atmosphere. It didn’t seem as though it should make much difference, but it did. The gas giant was clearer, brighter, seemingly just an arm’s reach away.

  Sass shot Kassidy a thumb’s-up. Your show now.

  “Damn, this is too cool,” Kassidy replied. “Sass, give me a couple minutes to deploy my cameras and talk to my fans… Broadcasting now. Hey, fans! This is Kassidy Yang, speaking to you from the tippy top of an ozone spire. I won’t tell you which one! Right ahead of me is the glory of full gas Pono on this brisk and glorious Glow. Aren’t you glad you subscribed to my livecast now, huh?”

  She continued in that vein. Sass almost wished the cameras weren’t recording, so she could creep out the ramp to peek down. But they agreed Sass wouldn’t appear on screen today. She craned her neck to see what she could glimpse out the side. As usual, the horizon looked unnervingly close. From this height she should see 75 kilometers into the distance. Only a single dark green settlement intersected her sliver of view, lonely against the gas-lit grey stretches of unterraformed regolith – raw rock and moon dust.

  Kassidy subtly waved her into her corner. Sass complied and lost her glimpse of the surface. But at this height, she saw a star, or maybe a moonlet, glimmering off to the right. She never saw stars from the ground during Glow. Too much light from the gas giant.

  “Now I’m approaching the edge, fans. Oh, my, isn’t that a long way down! I see Newer York, Albany, and Hutchins. I’m waving at you! That fainter settlement off to the left used to be Petticreek. Wow, the air is clear!

  “Gang, my heart is thudding a mile a minute! This is going to be great! OK, I’m unclamping my safety line – now! And ten. Nine. Eight. Can you stand it? Six. Five. I have backup safety measures. But nothing is sure but death and taxes! Three. Two. One. Jump!”

  At Mahina-normal one-sixth gravity, Kassidy bounded up into the air in a graceful arc, reminding Sass of a diver off the high board in slow motion. The stunt woman flattened as she disappeared below the ramp, her trio of camera drones keeping pace.

  Sass quickly hauled Kassidy’s safety line in. She punched the ramp retract button the moment the stunt woman vanished. Gauntleted finger poised over the next button, she stabbed it the instant the ramp sealed. The Thrive began maneuvering as soon as the ramp closed. Outside the ship’s interior grav field, Sass swayed and held on tight to the grab bar. She fidgeted with her D-ring, waiting for the pressure to restore in her now-claustrophobic air lock. She listened in on Kassidy’s steady patter. Come on! She wished she’d stayed inside to watch the show.

  But she couldn’t regret coming out to offer Kassidy emotional support. The young nut job probably didn’t need it. But you never knew. Sass smiled to think she might have added some courage.

  And the red wait light kept blinking. The damned lock wouldn’t open.

  “Woot! This feels amazing!” Kassidy told her fans over the livecast.

  From her falling vantage, the layout of the living towns in the distance was crystal clear. A tiny cluster of downtown buildings, then the farm fields spread, forested rims staggered outward like the scales of a spruce cone, or the petals of a zinnia blossom.

  Any neighboring atmosphere spires were beyond th
e horizon. The vast expanses of barren moon regolith left plenty of room for expansion between settlements. Featureless from the ground, the dust and rocks showed a faint crater from this height, with concentric rings and radiating fracture lines. The atmo plant itself, tucked in a ravine beneath her, included a green belt and Pono reflecting off a deep reservoir, the largest outdoor water she’d ever seen on Mahina. A half dozen scales of tree-rimmed fields spread toward her feet, a large solo farm flanking the atmo factory.

  The curve of the horizon showed clearly, with a light band between moon and sky, like the thickened base of a glass bottle.

  All this Kassidy drank in quick as breathing. She needed to keep up the banter.

  “I’m falling belly-down to increase wind resistance. That slows me down. But that atmo plant is getting bigger fast! Deploying parachute.” That gave her a strong jerk. The harness bit into her thighs and tightened across her chest, bobbing her upright to fall feet-first. The drone cameras briefly dipped below her, then adjusted to resume station-keeping with her slower speed.

  “Grav generators control this fall, friends,” Kassidy continued. “The parachute is to help me steer. And a do-si-do left,” she yanked on one line, then another, “and a do-si-do right. Very cool! Rapidly approaching the force field. The atmo plant is off-limits. Let’s aim left toward that big farm, shall we? Those fields look softer than bare regolith.” She laughed and swerved.