Blue and Green Persuasion

By Tinnean

No government lasts forever, and the Third Confederation is no exception. With its collapse, the starship Midnight Ride has no choice but to run -- from rebels, pirates, and warlords, with a cargo bay of cryogenically frozen political refugees. Now, after centuries of drifting through space, trying to get home, the starship’s systems are failing, and her occupants don’t have much time left.

Fortunately they’ve wandered into a solar system containing a G-type star, and it’s left to Chief Scout Hart and his scout pod Sarah to explore the sole planet that seems it might be hospitable.

However, others call the blue and green planet home, and Hart must determine if they’re a threat.

Will what Hart finds on the planet be enough to ensure the survival of the Midnight Ride’s passengers and crew, or will the desire for power overtake the refugees and lead to disaster?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Jun 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781634869706

Tinnean

I’ve been writing since the 3rd grade. I was on the staff of my high school magazine, and then... I got married. There was a long interval when raising my kids took preference, although I would scribble sci fi, contemporary, or paranormal stories with very strong heroines. (This was before I discovered m/m. Don’t laugh, I led a very sheltered childhood.)It was with the advent of the family's second computer – the first intimidated everyone – that my writing took off. I discovered 1. Fanfiction; 2. m/m (yes, I know. Finally!); 3. the wonder that is copy and paste. Does anyone remember what typing up a manuscript on a manual typewriter was like? Okay then, nuff said.While I was involved in fandom, I was nominated for both Rerun and Light My Fire Awards. But even then, my original characters would come knocking, to the point I’ve left Jim and Blair, Rodney and John, and even Lyle and Mr. Taggart (Blazing Saddles) behind. I’ve been published by Nazca Plain, JMS Books, Dreamspinner, Wilde City Press, and Less Than Three Press, and now I’m taking the leap into the self-pubbing pool. My novel, Two Lips, Indifferent Red received honorable mention in the 2013 Rainbow Awards, and Home Before Sundown was a 2017 runner-up.Now I reside in SW Florida with my husband and three computers, but I’ll always be a Noo Yawk kinda gal.

Book preview

Blue and Green Persuasion

By Tinnean

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2019 Tinnean

ISBN 9781634869706

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission from the publisher, with the exception of excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

NOTE: Originally appeared in the anthology, Foolish Encounters.

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This is for Bob, because…Bob. It will always be for him. Thanks to Drew Hunt for the edits, to Trish for the brainstorming, and to Gail Morse for her friendship, encouragement, and betaing.

NOTE: The battle cruiser Midnight Ride got her name from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Paul Revere’s Ride. The scout pod Sarah O. was named after Paul Revere’s first wife, Sarah Orne.

Regarding weights, 1800 kilograms is roughly 3968 pounds; 6300 kilograms is roughly 13,889 pounds

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Blue and Green Persuasion

By Tinnean

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 sex. 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