Kakuloa — Alastair Mayer

In the Alpha Centauri trilogy, humans took their first steps to the stars, discovered terraformed worlds, and just maybe an anti-aging drug. Kakula, one of Alpha Centauri's planets and the only place that squidberries, the source of the drug, will grow, is about to see a massive economic boom...but only if Dr. Ellie Greystone, marine biologist, can figure out how to keep marauding tree squids out of the crops without disrupting the ecology that makes the berries possible. Meanwhile, since the area where the berries grow best reminds everyone of Hawaii, at least one developer thinks it's an ideal place to build a luxury vacation resort. William Blake, acting planetary administrator, has mixed feelings about that. Since Kakuloa is co-governed by Sawyer's World and Earth's Union de Terre, but the massive drug companies' joint venture Cenatauri Pharmaceuticals is paying for most of it, Blake has to try to keep three bosses happy and Kakuloa thriving.Successor to the Alpha Centauri trilogy, A Rising Tide is the first in the new Kakuloa series, set in Alastair Mayer's T-Space, when interstellar travel is just starting to become commonplace, some decades before The Chara Talisman.