Sunset Stays: Sci-Fi Sizzlers, #3

By Craig A. Falconer

The grass isn't always greener on the other side of the sun…


On their golden wedding anniversary, Lorraine Green and her husband made an unbreakable pact:

As the surviving partner, her life insurance payout will fund a one-way ticket to the solar system's most exclusive retirement community: Sunset Stays.

Her children say she is too old. Too vulnerable. Too frail to face the many risks of space travel.

But Lorraine Green is nothing of the sort.

Though the real reason for the pact can never cross Lorraine's lips, she leaves no doubt that her mind is made up.

The adventure of a lifetime calls... but so does a burning thirst for justice.

Because millions of miles from Earth, in a tranquil paradise of blue skies and golden fields, a painful score lies unsettled.

And in her seventy-fifth trip around the sun, Lorraine Green will do whatever it takes to put things right…


__________

Sunset Stays is the latest in a new series of Sci-Fi Sizzlers: standalone short stories from international bestselling author Craig A. Falconer. These stories can be read in any order — dive in today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Craig A. Falconer
• Release date: Nov 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223064275

Craig A. Falconer

Craig A. Falconer is a sci-fi author from Edinburgh, Scotland.

Book preview

Sunset Stays

SUNSET STAYS

CRAIG A. FALCONER

Sunset Stays

© 2020 Craig A. Falconer

This edition published November 2023.

The characters and events herein are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Contents

Books by Craig A. Falconer

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3

4

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8

9

10

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Arise With Us Preview

Author’s Notes

Books by Craig A. Falconer

THE EARTHBURST SAGA

Last Man Standing

Into The Fire

Operation Starshot

The Anomaly

Reason To Fear

The Last Horizon

Echoes Of Destiny

The Reckoning

All Or Nothing

NOT ALONE SERIES

Not Alone: First Encounter (Prequel)

Not Alone

Not Alone: Second Contact

Not Alone: The Final Call

~ Contact Trilogy box set ~

Not Alone: Fractured Union

Not Alone: Leap of Destiny

Not Alone: Revelations

~ Discovery Trilogy box set ~

Not Alone: The Awakening

Not Alone: Hidden Wonder

Not Alone: Endgame

~ Evolution Trilogy box set ~

Not Alone: Origins

TERRADOX SERIES

Terradox Zero: Before The Crash (Prequel)

Terradox

The Fall of Terradox

Terradox Reborn

Terradox Beyond

~ Worlds Away collection ~

~ Terradox Quadrilogy box set ~

CYBER SEED SERIES

Sycamore

Sycamore 2

Sycamore X

Sycamore XL

~ Cyber Seed Compendium Box Set ~

SCI-FI SIZZLERS

Wanderlust

Bound For Glory

Sunset Stays

Arise With Us

Whence They Came

Replica

Megaton Murphy

A Scent Of Man

Yester Year

Too Good To Be True

Happy, Inc.

Pamela 2.0

Funscreen

Pumpkin Splice

When Santa Slays

~ Chasing Tomorrows 15-Book Box Set ~

Seedling

Empty Nesters

A Savage In The Future

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"Old age hath yet

his honor and his toil."

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

1

As her suitcases were loaded into the taxi, Lorraine Greene took one last stroll around the only home she’d known for over fifty years.

Echoes of the heated arguments about Lorraine’s imminent move seemed to fill the hallway as she took one slow step after another. Neither of her children were there to see her off and their earlier goodbye-for-ever farewells had been regrettably sharp in light of their unbudging opposition to the move, but at no point did Lorraine reconsider.

A promise was a promise and a pact was a pact, while those made with her late husband Bill meant even more than any others.

Better memories from the couple’s lives well-lived and richly shared did much to silence lingering sadness about this lack of a send-off, as Lorraine stepped for the final time into their marital bedroom of all those decades.

Though the room was completely empty, her mind’s eye could still see the bed and the dresser. The thick carpet would have made their old positions clear enough to any observer, truth be told, courtesy of the indentations they had made as well as the discoloration of all the open areas where sunlight had worked its fading effects on the fabric.

Very few possessions had made their way into Lorraine’s clothing-filled suitcases, and the pact she had made with her husband meant there was no iota of guilt about any of that.

The couple had made several pacts in their final few years together, with the decision to offer everything to their adult children and donate the rest having been made long ago. The fact that they had never accumulated many trinkets or souvenirs made this process easier than it would have been for most others, but Lorraine had still felt pangs of regret in parting with some little items Bill had cherished more than the others.

Sticking to the pact was never difficult, though; although Bill had gone to a better place, the honesty and trust that had contributed so much to their fifty-four year marriage remained as strong as ever in Lorraine’s heart.

With only one partner still around to keep the plan going, she felt that their shared trust counted now more than ever.

The grandest pact of all — the one made on their Golden Wedding anniversary — was also the one responsible for the arguments and upset that had clouded the past few weeks, even though the couple had planned extensively for how to handle their family’s inevitable objections when the time came.

When she took a moment to think about it, Lorraine understood perfectly well why her family thought it was