First two chapters of Abandoned Ships, Hijacked Minds
I just finished final edits on book 3 in the Settler Chronicles series, Abandoned Ships, Hijacked Minds, so I thought I'd share the first two chapters. The book will be out 29 August 2019 (but it is up for pre-order now).
Here's the book description:
Against the odds, the Thesan colony—Margo’s new home—is starting to thrive.
However the group wasn’t the first colony ship sent through the wormhole to settle a new solar system. Two other ships came before, and repeated efforts to communicate with them only return silence.
Margo wants to remain a recluse hiding in her greenhouse away from the other colonists, especially her husband Gary. She wants to keep the side-effects of her last battle with the megalomaniac leader of The Conglomerate to herself. She certainly doesn’t want to go traipsing across the solar system in search of the missing colonists.
But nothing ever goes how she wants it to—especially now that they have a space-worthy, if antiquated, ship to investigate what happened to those other colonies.
Reluctantly, she joins an awkward coalition of colonists and former insurgents on a mission to solve the mystery of what happened to the colonies that came before.
In the end, what Margo finds changes everything.
Click to read the first two chapters...
Chapter 1
Ignoring the knot churning in her gut, Margo gripped the shuttle’s controls tighter and tried to focus—the three-dimensional world of flying was more disorientating than she’d expected. She glanced over her left shoulder and out the cockpit’s side window. The planet’s two suns sat high in the sky. Far beneath, the rubble surface of Thesan, grey as always, stretched to the horizon. She shifted her gaze back out the forward window and saw more of the same landscape. The colony must be behind the shuttle.
Her hands started to shudder from the strain. How do pilots make flying one of these contraptions look effortless? Relaxing her grip on the w-shaped controls as much as she dared, she banked the shuttle to the left until their settlement came into view. The surfaces of the greenhouses reflected light from the suns overhead—a glittering effect that obscured the thick ring of the original spaceship, Settler III.
“Time to try a landing,” said Max from the seat beside her.
He sounded calm for someone who’d spent the last week teaching beginners how to fly. Only the translucent sheen of moisture on his forehead betrayed any unease about her flying ability. She’d be surprised if Max had yet celebrated his nineteenth birthday, but his mom, Ash Jones, had taught him well in both the necessary patience to teach beginners and in essential flying skills.
“Where do you want me to put the shuttle down?” Margo returned her gaze to the landscape below. Extending out on opposite sides of the colony’s original ring were two newly constructed long, thin greenhouses. Gan had described them as ‘spokes on Settler’s wheel’ and the name had stuck. The nearest spoke was her greenhouse where she nurtured banana plants and all manner of insects. She wished she was there instead of learning to fly. Flying spaceships wasn’t what she’d signed up for when she joined this mission.
“See the circle to the west of the colony’s main entrance?”
“Yeah, I see it.” The not-subtle flashing lights circling Max’s practice landing pad made it impossible to miss—even in the bright sunlight. Of course that’s where I should land. She edged the shuttle’s nose down on a path for the circle.
“Lower the landing gear,” said Max in a neutral tone.
Margo flipped a switch and the shuttle’s landing gear extended beneath them. She held her breath until she heard the click that told her the skids were fully extended. On the dash before her, a green light blinked. The landing gear were down.
On the shuttle training schedule, Abigail was next. The head of terraforming’s abrasive personality might test Max’s patience more than Margo’s lack of flying skills. Margo suppressed a chuckle as she checked her altitude. The thought of Abigail taking direction from a teenager seemed as ludicrous and sure to fail as the tentative friendship the she and Abigail had forged—yet the other woman had excelled at flying under Max’s guidance.
An acrid scent diverted her attention from the landing pad. She sniffed, trying to get a handle on what it was. Twisting in her seat, she looked back into the aft section of the shuttle and saw a wisp of smoke snaking out of the port access panel. She blinked, and the smoke vanished.
“What the…”
With a jerk, Margo struggled to level off the shuttle. She over compensated, pointing the shuttle up towards the sky. Trying to keep her motions smooth in the midst of her rising panic, she brought the nose parallel to the horizon.
“Focus on your landing,” coached Max.
“But something is burning!” Margo faced forward again as the knot in her gut tightened. “Smoke is coming out of the port access panel.”
Max turned and glanced back. “I don’t see anything,” he said, before looking at the diagnostic screen in front of him. “The shuttle’s fine. I’ll take over.”
“No, I got this.” Margo swallowed. She couldn’t smell smoke anymore. Did I imagine it?
Angling the nose down, she banked right to line up with the landing pad a second time.On the ground, their two shadows, one from each sun, moved in tandem with the shuttle, growing as they descended until the outlines merged. Over the undulating terrain, the combined shadows looked like a butterfly in flight—but, the shuttle’s utilitarian design was not remotely butterfly-like. Her chest tightened as her breathing sped up. Why in the hell am I seeing butterflies everywhere I look?
Max was talking, but she couldn’t process his words; instead, her entire focus was on the shuttle’s twin shadows. Watching the butterfly form was making her insides churn. Get a grip Murphy!
She took a deep breath, then another, before her heart rate started to slow. Max wanted her to land and she wanted to prove she could do it. With a glance, she saw more sweat beading on Max’s brow, making his dark skin look slick. Even after more than a dozen lessons, she hadn’t grasped the basics.
Pushing her distracting thoughts away, she assessed the distance to the landing pad. The ground was coming up fast, and Max’s hands hovered over the other set of controls ready to take over if she botched it. Taking a deep breath, Margo mentally went through the landing checklist Max had drilled into his students that week.
Keep the shuttle level. She feathered the controls until the horizon once again lined up with artificial horizon heads-up display. Check. Slow down. She checked her speed, then decelerated some more. Check. The landing pad was dead ahead. She was perfectly lined up for a smooth landing
“Okay, you’re looking good,” said Max. Margo detected more than a hint of tension in his voice. “Keep focused on where you want to put the shuttle down.”
She looked at the lights around the landing pad but then gasped when the landscape around her disappeared behind a kaleidoscope of shimmering butterflies rising from the ground. She yanked the controls, once again nosing the shuttle towards the sky, but the butterflies moved with her, clustering into a loose formation and heading towards them. It wasn’t the first time hordes of these insects had come for her.
Not real, not real, not real.
“What are you doing?” Max’s cool demeanour was gone. To Margo, his words didn’t register.
The silver butterflies glinted in the intense light of the twin suns as they approached the shuttle. They moved as if with purpose—like they were on a vendetta. Their behaviour made no sense to Margo’s lepidopterist mind—butterflies weren’t evil and weren’t anyone’s worst nightmares—yet she knew they were coming for her. Her heart rate raced as she jammed the controls to the left to avoid the approaching swarm. The shuttle lurched sideways.
“I’m taking control,” said Max as he levelled the shuttle.
“They’re going to catch us!” exclaimed Margo, working her controls. Nothing happened.
“I locked you out,” said Max, his voice calm again. “You’re freaking out again, Margo. For no reason. We’re the only ones out here.”
“But…” Margo’s words trailed off as she dropped her hands and stared out the cockpit window. The plateau and white sky were empty. She gave her head a shake, but the view didn’t change. Nothing outside looked remotely butterfly-like.
Her mind raced as she tried to figure out why anytime she did anything remotely stressful, butterflies appeared. Am I losing my mind?
“I’m okay now,” she said, feigning confidence.
“Good.” Max banked starboard then levelled out. Under his expert control, the shuttle moved smoothly.
“Let me try again,” Margo suggested, before looking at her hands. They were shaking. What the hell is wrong with me?
“No, we’re done.” Max guided the shuttle past the training landing site and headed for the colony.
“How about we try again after lunch?” she suggested. Perhaps if she spent some time before then focusing on calming her breathing, she could avoid any butterfly hallucinations.
“Look, I don’t want to do this...” He paused and licked his lips.
In that moment, Margo remembered how young he was.
“I’m grounding you until Dr. Dogan clears you. Today wasn’t the first time you did something weird.”
“But the colony needs more pilots.”
“And we only have the one shuttle,” he said. “We can’t afford to lose it.”
“Crap,” Margo muttered. She’d been avoiding talking with Paul Dogan since his arrival with the other insergents-turned-refugees from the destroyed lunar base. Had they arrived only a month ago? It seemed like they’d been at the colony for much longer.
“What?” asked Max.
Crap! She’d talked out loud, now Max would think she was even crazier. “Nothing.”
Margo intertwined her fingers and held her hands against her chest as Max angled the shuttle down. His motions were smooth, a sharp contrast to her own erratic attempts at flying. Maybe I should give up on this pilot thing. Even if she stopped hallucinating butterflies, she couldn’t match his control over the craft—and likely never would. Swallowing back her disappointment, she watched the two-story colony loom ahead, the walls bleached white by the intense sunlight.
Too large for their hangar, the insurgent’s ship, the Staffelwalze, was parked just to the right of the twin hangar doors. More accurately, it was Ash Jones’ ship, as she was the one who put her heart and soul into keeping it flying. Its grey, chipped exterior clearly showed its age. Once the ferry of diplomats, it had long ago been decommissioned. For years it sat in a salvage yard until pressed into service once again. The Staffelwalze wasn’t the pretty ship it once was, but it was airtight and reliable.
As Margo attempted to distract herself by studying the ship, Max radioed the colony’s Control Room. A moment later a hangar door opened on the side of the structure. As the door slid upwards and out of view, the dark interior was revealed. Without hesitation, Max flew the shuttle past his mother’s ship and into the hangar, his landing perfect. As soon as they stopped, he began going through his post-flight checklist.
Margo unbuckled and stood, drawing a deep breath to say something. Should I apologize? She hesitated, but wasn’t able to come up with appropriate words. Max didn’t look up from the displays, so she turned aft and walked past the two benches that lined the interior walls of the shuttle. At the rear, the small vehicle-sized ramp remained closed.
Her eyes lingered on the cabinets left of the ramp as memories surfaced of two friends she’d lost—one perished in this very hangar on the day of their arrival, another died while flying this shuttle’s twin the day she’d discovered their colony’s saboteur. Biting her lip, she waited until the outside hangar door had closed and breathable air had circulated in before she opened the side door. The memories of everyone who’d died since departing Earth would continue to haunt her.
Margo descended the three steps to the hangar floor and walked away from the shuttle. Perhaps it was time to admit flying wasn’t for her—her ability to focus was gone. She might even be losing her mind. Max was right, the colony couldn’t risk letting an unfocused pilot control their only shuttle
Leaving the hangar bay, she turned right into the corridor that looped the colony. She barely noticed the coloured stripe on the Loop’s white wall, indicating the sector she was in, now red for operations. As she walked on autopilot towards her greenhouse, her mind raced with worry.
Her problems had started four months ago when she’d projected her consciousness to another solar system—the technique was only experimental and she’d done it way longer than recommended. Paul Dogan, the brains behind consciousness projection, spouted seemingly endless psychobabble whenever she got near him. She doubted his chemical cocktails would fix her head and was too afraid to try his experimental drugs. Maybe her fate was to gradually go mad, eventually clawing her own eyes out. Given her worrying thoughts, it was no surprise when, in the corners of her peripheral vision, butterflies started forming anew.
“Stupid, bloody hallucinations just let me be!” She stopped and leaned against the purple strip of their domestic quarter and took a deep breath. “Get a grip, Murphy.”
With a hand against the butterfly shaped birthmark on the side of her neck, she took a second deep breath and tipped her head back until it made contact with the wall. She knew giving in to her fears only made the hallucinations worse. These illusions started after she projecting her consciousness to another solar system. They made her feel as if she was losing her mind. Before that first projection, her husband Gary had made her promise never to do it. She’d broken her promise. Squeezing her eyes closed, she thought about the apology she owed him.
Gary Holbrook was one of the original doctors—along with his twin brother—and the man she’d married to get on the mission to colonize Thesan. They’d been mismatched from the start and hadn’t gotten along, but then they’d worked together to solve the mystery of the colony’s saboteur. She’d even felt hints that a romantic relationship between them would be possible. But she’d blown any chance of that when she broke her promise. Gary had barely spoken to her since she’d returned from her consciousness projection.
“Hey,” said Abigail.
Margo moved off the wall, turning to see Abigail come out the Hub’s doors just up ahead. She faked a casual smile at the woman whose dark skin had almost as many freckles as Margo’s pale skin. Abigail loved drawing attention to herself. Her hair was as big as always and the magenta scarf tied around her neck one of her flashiest. Like Gary, Margo and Abigail hadn’t hit it off in the first months of their colonization of Thesan, but Margo had lately come to realize Abigail’s gruff exterior was a front. She’d actually turned out to be a solid friend.
“Hey, Abigail,” Margo said.
“Wanna come with me? Gan’s latest brew is ready, and he’s invited us for a taste test.”
“It’s not even noon,” said Margo, trying to keep her tone light. The last thing she wanted was the forthright woman to notice Margo was off and start badgering her with questions.
“So what?” Abigail shrugged.
“Aren’t you scheduled for a flying lesson?”
“Max cancelled. You must’ve scared the kid.” Abigail put a hand on her hip and stared at Margo. “Come on, Gan’s stil is set up in Engineering.”
“I’ll might come by later,” said Margo.
“I doubt it.” Abigail eyed Margo as if she were a lost cause. “You’re going to go off and practice being a recluse.”
“It’s been that kind of day.” Margo rubbed the side of her neck. For some reason, her butterfly-shaped birthmark itched.
“I’m heading back to the Centre Module in the morning,” said Abigail. The Centre Module was a terraforming module about 10 kilometres away from their main colony. “Hannah’s itching for me to return.”
“I hear you’ve planted cold hardy rye in the valley there.”
“Yeah, the first shoots are just emerging from the soil.”
“If I don’t see you before you go, say hi to Hannah for me,” said Margo.
“Remember, you promised to come out next week and check on the work in the caves.” Abigail cocked her head.
A group of them had stumbled across the cave network during an exploratory reconnaissance of the valley in which the Centre Module of their spaceship had landed. Not only would it be useful for additional storage, it was a seriously lucky find given the threat Nigel Maximillian West and The Conglomerate, which he controlled, had made against their home. Nigel had vowed to come for them and, when he did, Margo felt certain he’d annihilate each and every one of the colonists, as well as the refugees who’d recently joined them.
A image of Nigel’s boyish features laughing at her surfaced in her mind. I’ll be back, he’d said before vanishing. She shook her head, banishing his image. Then she realized she was just standing there staring at Abigail.
“Hello??” Abigail didn’t hide her concern. “Thesan to Margo,” she added, snapping her fingers.
“Right, the caves. Sorry. Don’t worry, we’ll still get to go spelunking.” Margo’s smile didn’t feel sincere. For a moment, she entertained the idea of telling Abigail about her hallucinations. It would be nice to confide in someone, but Abigail was on a mission to taste Gan’s home-brew
“You’d better show up.” Abigail called over her shoulder as she headed down the Loop towards engineering.
Once Abigail was out of sight, Margo continued in the direction she’d been going before. As she passed the main entrance to sickbay, the door slid open.
Please don’t be Gary, please don’t be Gary.
A lanky black man stepped through. It was Abeo, their medic, and he nearly walked into her. He put his a hand on her arm as he stepped around her. “Margo, did you get the message about the meeting?” he asked. He put his a hand on her arm as he stepped around her.
“What meeting?”
“Lucas called a meeting in the Control Room. Your name is on the list,” he said. “We’re going to be late.”
Margo took a deep breath. “Dirty circuits! What is Lucas going on about now?” she demanded.
“No idea,” Abeo said as he started walking towards the Control Room.
Margo fell into step beside him, annoyed that her plan to go to her greenhouse and sulk had been thwarted.
Chapter 2
Gary dodged left as Neil swung a fist at his skull. Lunging forward, Gary tried to catch his twin with a hook, but Neil danced out of range. Gloved fists up, the two circled each other searching for opportunities to strike.
“Have you been to Margo’s greenhouse?” Neil ducked under Gary’s next punch.
“No,” said Gary as he moved back.
Although he tried not to glance beyond the clear walls of the gym, Gary couldn’t help it. In between dodging his twin’s fisted gloves, he kept sneaking peeks towards the large courtyard that served as the nerve centre for their domestic existence. Surrounded by apartments, the space was thick with lush plants, including a greenwall by the main entrance. But the verdant greens didn’t interest him; instead, he hoped to see a flash of iridescent blue. Margo’s contraband butterflies had once occupied the space, but it had been almost four months since he’d seen one. He missed them. He also missed the butterflies’ keeper.
Gary barely managed to block Neil’s next punch. Focus!
“You sure hold a grudge,” said Neil, sidestepping out of Gary’s reach.
“A grudge?” Gary dropped his fists for a moment and rolled his shoulders. He asked the question despite knowing exactly what Neil was talking about. Every covert attempt Neil made to dig into Gary’s love life—or lack of—left him with heightened tension in his shoulders. Sparring with his twin was supposed to lessen his stress, not increase it.
“Against Margo.” Neil pushed his sandy blond hair out of his eyes with the back of his gloved hand. Then he circled around as Gary raised his guard.
“That’s not true…” he knew his objection lacked sincerity.
“Bullshit,” said Neil, attacking with a right jab and a left hook, but his brother, as distracted as he seemed to be, danced away. After his failed strike, Neil backed away and dropped his arms. “There was a moment in time the two of you were practically inseparable.”
Gary stopped moving and stared at his twin. Neil never let things go. “We were working together on something.”
“You were working on something and Margo was working on something. Yet the two of you were together more than apart,” said Neil.
“You’re exaggerating.” Gary raised his fists and shuffled back and forth on his feet, taunting his twin to attack.
Neil stepped forward without raising his hands, giving Gary an opportunity. He took it, landing an uppercut to Neil’s chin. Gary dropped his fists and watched Neil stagger back a few paces before working his jaw back and forth.
“There was a spark between the two of you. I saw it. So did Amanda,” said Neil. Amanda was Neil’s pregnant wife, in charge of the colony’s kitchen. She was one of the kindest people Gary had ever met. “And then you stomped on it with your grudge.”
“I warned her not to do something, and she turned around and did it,” stated Gary, remembering the sinking feeling in his gut when he’d tried to bring Margo back from wherever her mind had gone. Her unconscious form had looked so helpless. He’d felt less than useless when he couldn’t help her.
“You mean when she tried the experimental consciousness projection,” said Neil.
“I told her about the risks,” complained Gary, looking down at the gloves enveloping his hands. For the millionth time, he tried to think of a way things could’ve gone differently. Why hadn’t she heeded his warning?
“You wanted her to be safe.”
“I thought I lost her once, and I didn’t want to lose her again,” snapped Gary. But now he’d said too much. He hadn’t come here to open up to his meddling twin, no matter how much Neil wanted him to.
Gary used his teeth to loosen the laces of his gloves, then yanked them off. “We’re done.”
He stormed out of the gym before his brother could say another word. There had never been anything between Margo and I. She was just a grubby entomologist who refused to clean under her nails. Gary wished that observation made him think less of Margo, the way it had when they’d first met. But his mental slur against his wife rang hollow.
Outside the gym, he stopped and took a deep breath of moist air from the Hub’s garden. As he exhaled, his whole body slumped forward and his gaze fell to his shoes. He was deceiving himself; Margo was the most fascinating person on their colony—even with all the new arrivals. How can I mend things now, after so much time has passed? The two of them had barely spoken in four months. The real question was, did he want to mend things? Their rift had been her fault, at least in his mind. She’d broken her promise. Even she would admit that, Gary knew. The problem was, how could he trust her not to break a promise again? He’d been-there-done-that with his first wife and he didn’t want to have that kind of relationship with Margo. So, instead, he simply froze her out. But after four months, that was even getting thin for him.
“Gary!”
At the sound of his name, Gary glanced up and saw Paul Dogan approach from the direction of sickbay. The insurgent doctor’s mass of white hair and custom of wearing a lab coat made him look like a mad scientist—which wasn’t far off the mark.
An urge to hide washed over Gary, but it was too late. Letting out a sigh, he turned towards his colleague. He hoped Paul wouldn’t go on and on and on again about his work, that was unpleasant in itself. But the fact that Paul’s work revolved around consciousness projection, the very thing that nearly took Margo’s life, made having to listen to the brilliant but boring man intolerable. Worst of all, Paul showed no remorse for the compromised health of his subjects as a result of his research—the man even wanted to continue the work. Gary felt his jaw cramp and realized he’d been gritting his teeth. He deliberately tried to relax and appear casual, hoping his disinterest would be off-putting.
“I was just heading to grab a quick lunch,” said Gary, seeking to pre-emptively escape. He wasn’t certain he had enough patience to listen. Turning towards the Hub’s exit, he started walking towards the dining room.
“I’ll join you.” Paul fell into step beside him. Gary exhaled sharply, but didn’t say a word. “I need to discuss the colony’s latest internal air quality readings.”
“What about them?” asked Gary. Paul stuck his nose into every aspect of their small community, regardless of whether it was his business.
“There are some trace gases.” As they walked, Paul pulled out his scroll and opened it up, displaying detailed readings collected from inside the colony. Seeing no polite way to escape, Gary stopped beside him and looked at the screen. Why am I being so polite? For a moment, he pictured himself turning and walking away, only to have the image replaced by a memory of his mother’s endless lectures about how he needed to be responsible.
“None of these are of any concern,” said Gary, after scanning through the list of constituents. And none of these were Paul’s business. Or Gary’s, for that matter.
“True, but we don’t need these gases. They offer no benefit. We should hunt down the sources and eliminate them.”
“Sure,” said Gary. “Why don’t you go ahead and do that.” What he wanted to say, rudely, was why bother? Why waste valuable resources hunting them down and eliminating trace gasses that posed no risk? But Paul seemed to take Gary’s neutral response for agreement and support, or so it seemed.
“Great. Now I need you to come with me and justify this work to Lucas. He wasn’t willing to consider it when I spoke to him this morning.”
“Why do you need Lucas’ permission?”
“I’ll need engineering support. When I asked Kat, Kate, Ka…” His voice trailed off as he struggled to remember the head of engineering’s name.
“Her name’s Kasume,” Gary responded, resuming walking, Paul practically jogging at his side.
“Right, Katsume. Anyway, she said no. I need Lucas to order her to help me.”
Gary rubbed the back of his neck. He could feel a headache coming on. “Why don’t you just monitor these gases over time and see if they change?”
“It’s not my job to do so. It’s our leader’s job to assign resources so that these sorts of details are benchmarked and tracked. Your leader isn’t anywhere near as thorough as Iago.”
Iago Ocon, leader of the recently arrived group of former insurgents, had the unshakable respect of the insurgents. A former cop forced into hiding, Iago had gained fame by leading protests against The Conglomerate back on Earth—his final campaign unforgettable given that it had cost him his left arm. He’d leveraged his misfortune though. The replacement prosthetic, more statement than a masquerade for a missing limb, seemed to enhance his aura rather than detract from it, and people took note of everything the charismatic man said.
Gary didn’t know Iago well, but it was clear the man was decisive. He didn’t strike Gary as the sort to put up with too much of Paul’s meddling. Perhaps, Iago had given Paul free reign just to keep him out of his hair, or lack of since Iago was bald.
“And there’s something else I wanted to ask you,” said Paul.
Gary stopped to face the other man, and raised an eyebrow.
“I need you to talk to Margo.”
Why does everyone want me to talk to Margo? Gary continued to stare at the other man, keeping his expression bland.
“Please talk her into letting me question her. Her consciousness projection was longer than any other. She might be experiencing multiple side effects.”
“You’ll have to ask her yourself,” said Gary.
“She refuses to talk with me.”
“That is her prerogative.” Gary started walking again. “I’m getting something to eat.” Paul stepped quickly to keep up with Gary’s long strides.
The two of them entered the dining room. The lunch buffet had just been set out—potato and kale soup, bean cakes and salad, according to the sign Amanda had mounted—all the result of their own gardening efforts. The scent of garlic and thyme tickled his nose. As he approached the selections, Gary noticed how appetizing the salad looked with its fresh greens and yellow petals, calendula if he recalled correctly. The food on their colony in this remote outpost of the galaxy seemed to be getting better every day.
Paul deflated at seeing the meal offerings. “Is all we’re going to get around here peasant food?”
“Looks good to me,” said Gary, taking a bowl and filling it with soup. Others started filing into the dining room behind them. “You can’t have been engaging in fine dining hiding out on the moon.”
“No, it was mostly hard rations there.” Paul continued to stare suspiciously at the vegetarian fare.
In that moment, Gary realized he hated Paul. The man found fault everywhere and, frankly, Gary was sick of it. Amanda, Gary’s sister-in-law, worked hard to ensure there was decent food on their table—even now while in the second trimester of her pregnancy. And the gardening efforts behind getting food into the kitchen and in their bellies consumed a great deal of the colonists’ time. Plus, the fact that there was now a steady supply of home-grown food meant their colony now had a good chance of succeeding—even with the additional mouths of the newcomers.
“I’m sure Amanda can find some hard rations for you.” Gary scanned the dining hall, searching for a table with only one unoccupied chair, but the place wasn’t busy enough yet.
“I’m going to go talk with Iago about the food.” Paul turned and left.
Tension drained from Gary as he watched the scientist leave. The colony was feeling smaller and smaller with Paul around.
Gary slumped into a chair at an unoccupied table along the windows and looked into the interior greenhouse. The original colony was comprised of a ring-shaped space ship that had traveled from Earth—or, more accurately, been sling shot through space—to land on their destination, the planet Thesan with its two suns. Since landing less than a year before, the colonists had, as intended, covered the interior of the ring with a massive dome, creating a farm-sized greenhouse in the hollow centre.
In the four months since what would hopefully be their last major power outage, the greenhouse garden had blossomed. The willow grove around the pump house already obscured the structure while the pond boasted a thriving shoreline ecosystem, including a flock of contraband ducks. Crops ranging from potatoes to beans to amaranth to edible flowers, and even an extensive collection of herbs, now filled the space, making it a moist and aromatic oasis. It looked like an Earth-based farm.
Margo’s bee hives caught his attention. He eyed the black dots swarming the little structures as he sipped his soup. A colony of bees within the colony humans. The sight of the bees reminded him he still hadn’t been to her greenhouse. He’d been avoiding her, and he couldn’t do that forever. Their colony was simply too small.
But, as he finished his soup, he still didn’t know the answer to the question he’d been asking himself for weeks. Assuming Margo is there, what would I say?
That's all I'm sharing, but if you are interested in the rest check out here.