Ten Thousand Miles Up is Rick Griffin's (of Housepets! and Argo) third published short story, basis of the Hayven Celestia universe.
After four centuries of travel, the geroo crew of the White Flower II, slaves of the krakun corporation Planetary Acquisitions, have found a potentially terraformable planet. However, events turn quickly when Captain Ateri makes contact with pirates who have been tailing them for years, but need his help pulling off the greatest heist of all time, stealing a krakun Terraformer. But, that same day the company replaces their krakun commissioner with a new one who has orders to scuttle the Terraformer at the first sign of theft. Can Ateri maintain the facade long enough attain what he desires most, the freedom of life outside the ship?
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Gre7g Luterman has written a series of Expanded Universe novels with Griffin's blessing known as The Kanti Cycle, following a geroo born in defiance of the population control laws.
In 2019 Griffin published a full-length novel, intended as the first of a trilogy, retelling the story as Final Days of the White Flower II.
Tropes:
- The Chessmaster: Ateri. Though he's also building on the plans of his predecessors, most notably his father-in-law.
- Curbstomp Battle: The battle between the pirate boarding party and the crew of the White Flower II who didn't take any combat training at the Academy because they learned it as children.
- Double Reverse Quadruple Agent: Ateri, and by extension the entire crew of the White Flower II, betray both the pirates and the krakun in order to seize the Terraformer for themselves without the krakun knowing.
- Eyepatch of Power: Ateri's left eye was removed as a "disciplinary action" at some point in the past.
- Generation Ship: The White Flower II has been in transit for four hundred years, the current geroo crew are at least three generations removed from the original ones.
- Intelligent Gerbil: Geroo seem to resemble large weasels or otters or kangaroos. While ringels could be said to be like raccoons.
- Long-Lived: The krakun live for twelve thousand years. Which might be why they don't mind sending slaves on multiple-century generation ships.
- Mile-Long Ship: The White Flower II is actually three miles in diameter, most of it is the gate and the rest of the ship is wrapped around the outer edge of the ring.
- Naming Your Colony World: One krakun colony is known as Krakuntec IX, formerly known as Gerootec. Pre-terraformed planets get mere alphanumeric designations like C18-3 which becomes New Gerootec.
- Our Dragons Are Different: Krakun are massive quadrupedal reptiles with wings who require atmospheres with a notable sulfur content.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Like all marriages on the ship, Ateri and Jakari's was arranged. They just happened to get along really, really well.
- Population Control: The White Flower II has had a constant crew population of 10,000 for centuries. There is a waiting list to reproduce, Ateri and Jakari took themselves off the list, giving up their chance at a child until the ending where they decide there's no reason to enforce the list anymore.
- Portal Network: The only means of FTL Travel. The krakun send gates crewed by slaves out as Generation Ships to explore, when they find inhabitable or potentially inhabitable worlds they use the gate to send more ships in.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ateri to pirate captain Sinon: "Did you think you were clever, planning this heist for the last five years? Ten? Your whole life? You couldn't possibly outplan us, because we've been here much, much longer.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: Krakun Terraformers are rigged to disperse into atoms at the first sign of boarders, with multiple failsafes.
- Slave Race: The geroo and many other species are enslaved by the krakun.
- Space Pirates: Ateri makes a deal with some pirates who've apparently been following them for years.
- Stealth in Space: The pirates' plan revolves around the use of layered cloaking fields. Ateri's own plan is to hide the Terraformer behind a cloak and make it look like it self-destructed.
- Terraform: The krakun have the technology, deployed from specialized ships.
- Hostile Terraforming: Krakun need significant atmospheric sulfur levels, they attempted to increase Gerootec's sulfur levels, and accidentally turned it into a volcanic hellhole.
- We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: Jakari admits that the use of slaves for deep space projects makes some sense, they can't be hacked. But she thinks commissioner Pokokuro's use to slaves to bathe her when machines could do it just as easily seems unnecessarily decadent.
- Xanatos Gambit: If the pirates win, Ateri and his crew get a split of the profits from the sale of the Terraformer and a ship to escape krakun tyranny in. When the pirates fail, they get blamed for the destruction of the Terraformer and commissioner Pokokuro finds out the planet they found is unsuitable for krakun (but not for geroo) and is convinced to give up the White Flower II as a waste of money and cut them off from Krakuntec. Then Ateri's men on the Terraformer drop the cloak and they prepare to turn the planet into New Gerootec.
