Blue and Green Persuasion

Chapter 1 The starship Midnight Ride had been hobbling through space for centuries, but lately conditions on her had been getting worse—much worse. Hart, chief scout—at this point the only scout—on the ship, went down to the flight deck. The lone scout pod as well as the tenders intended for the refugees the Midnight Ride carried could barely be seen in the dim light. They conserved energy however they could. And as usual, the deck was deserted. There was nothing for the mech techs to do there. Hart crossed the deck to the scout pod. The Sarah O. was his one true love. She filled his dreams with the memory of what it had felt like flying in her, and she never demanded things he couldn’t give her—like s*x. He’d deny it with his last breath, but he’d rather have had a man in his bed. The problem was, none of the men on the Midnight Ride appealed to him. And even if they had, such an act would have seen him confined to the brig on a diet more Spartan than he now…enjoyed. In spite of the threat of incarceration, he’d hoped one of the refugees, when they finally defrosted, might find him attractive. “Yeah, sure,” he muttered to himself. He’d lost weight due to the conditions on the Midnight Ride. His sperm had been collected before things had gone further down the tubes than anyone had ever anticipated, but as it stood now, that seemed to be as futile a hope as everything else. “I’ve missed you, Sarah.” I’ve missed you, too, Hart. Hart wasn’t surprised when she answered. No, her interface hadn’t been activated—wouldn’t be activated, due to the need to conserve power—but he’d held conversations with her from the time she’d been the last chief scout’s pod. He patted Sarah O.’s sleek, gray side, and then huffed a breath over the spot he’d caressed and ran the sleeve of his shipsuit over it. In spite of the fact they were so short of fuel he couldn’t run simulations in her, he kept her spotless and ready for a drop at a moment’s notice. He knew that moment wasn’t likely to come. It had been too long since he’d trod a planet’s surface. None of the systems they’d passed through in recent years supported oxygen-breathing life. Centuries before, while on the run from rebels, the Midnight Ride had hit a spacial anomaly that hurled her to the far end of the farthest galaxy, damaging her main drive and leaving them no option but to limp home on auxiliary engines. However, the drive wasn’t the only thing in need of repair. The nav system’s computer was useless, and by the time they’d realized they could no longer depend on it and switched to the backup computer, they’d become well and truly lost. Generations were born, grew old, and died while they searched for a way home. Hart’s generation would probably be the last. No new life had been born since he and his crèche mates had been taken from the neonatal wing of the med lab two and a half decades before. The Midnight Ride herself wasn’t going to last much longer. The hydroponics gardens were barely providing enough plants to scrub the carbon dioxide from the ship’s atmosphere and produce the oxygen they needed; the crew had no choice but to wear masks. The water recyclers functioned, if it could be called that, and they kept the crew alive, but even the sci techs were unsure for how long. As for the atomic core that powered her auxiliary engines, it was almost depleted. It had reached the point where unless the sci techs found a way to create some kind of alternative fuel to run the Midnight Ride, within a matter of weeks if they were lucky, days if they weren’t, her engines would fall silent, and she would drift aimlessly in space, her corridors soundless and dead, along with her crew and passengers. With a sigh, Hart placed his palm on the plate that opened the hatch and waited while it sluggishly slid up. Thinking about that would do him no good. He wasn’t any kind of tech. His job had been to take a scout pod down to a planet’s surface and explore, bringing back specimens that could restock the gardens. And if fortune smiled on him, he’d also be able to find some protein source that would augment their food stores a while longer. Now, though… There was nowhere else to go, even if they had the fuel to go there. The solar system they’d entered did have a G class star, but the planets they’d passed were ice dwarfs or gas giants. Hart pulled down the steps that would let him enter the pod and swung himself up and into her cabin. He settled himself in the pilot’s seat and made himself comfortable in it. The Sarah O. was a two-seater. It only made sense to have two crewmembers scout unfamiliar terrain, and hopefully, if they came across local nasties or a hostile environment, at least one of them would make it back to the Sarah O. and get her up to the Midnight Ride. That was how he’d come to be chief scout in spite of his age—a matter of attrition. Not that it really meant anything. With his fellow scouts gone one by one along with their pods and none of the other crewmembers with the temperament, skill set, or inclination to do his type of work, the captain had refused him permission to take the last of the scout pods to explore what had seemed a promising world. “But Father—” “No. I will not lose you, too, Hart.” The chief scout before Hart assumed that position had been his mother, and her loss had nearly broken the captain. There was no point in challenging him. “What will I do, sir?” “Keep the tenders in good repair. We’ll continue searching for a planet that will sustain life for us. If we find it, we’ll need those tenders to transfer our passengers to the planet’s surface.” * * * * Shortly before the Midnight Ride left on this final, futile, unending journey, a thousand refugees had been ferried up to her. Hart never understood why a star class battle cruiser had been assigned such a menial task, but for whatever reason, that captain—his great grandfather’s great grandfather—had agreed to take the refugees to the Fortis system. As large as the Midnight Ride was, she didn’t have the capacity to hold that many civilians in addition to her crew; the crew had had no choice but to turn their quarters over to the refugees. Just as they were approaching the Fortis system, the Third Confederation of Planets—the one they’d said would last until the end of time—collapsed. Rebels took over parts of the Ventru galaxy and local warlords controlled the rest. And what little was left became the property of pirates. With all those civilians on board, there was no way they could stand and fight, so they’d been forced to run. Over vociferous objections, the captain of the Midnight Ride had ordered the refugees into the cryo tubes. And since the tubes couldn’t be left lying around, they were stacked in the storage bay. Interesting fact discovered at that time: storage had been outfitted to handle all the wires and tubes that would keep the refugees alive, although in suspended animation. And all the supplies and equipment that should have been in the storage bay? Deity alone knew what had happened to them. Sold most likely, and the profit lining the pockets of some third-rate politico. That was when the spacial anomaly had caught the Midnight Ride, and the rest, as they said, was history. * * * * Hart had pitched in where he could, but his own skill set ran more toward starting fires with what was at hand, or bringing down indigenous wildlife for food—he swallowed heavily, recalling the time the furred, short-legged, long-bodied creatures had proved to be a planet’s sentient race—or taking samples of the atmosphere. His fingers twitched with the desire to put the Sarah O. through a dry run. The flight deck was large enough and she was compact enough that he could extend her wings and let her do a little gliding, but there just wasn’t the fuel. Everything was geared toward keeping the Midnight Run going for as long as they could. He ran his palm over her control panel and decided, when the time came, he’d spend his last minutes with her. Right then, though, he wasn’t needed anywhere on the ship. He lowered the seat and stared up at the screen embedded in the ceiling of the pod. It was blank, but when it was activated, the screen gave a panoramic view of the sky. His eyelids grew heavy. Perhaps he’d have that recurring dream where he and his partner made love while they soared through a cloudless sky. Smiling, hoping he’d programmed his brain for that dream, he dozed off.