Earth Legend

  EARTH LEGEND

  by

  Florence Witkop

  Cover by Laura Shinn Designs

  Published by Florence Witkop at Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 Florence Witkop

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people or reproduced except for allowable excerpts or for reviews. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Author's Note

  Earth Legend is the third and last of the 'Legends' series. Each book in the series is a stand-alone story, complete in itself and related to the others only in that the story is based on a legend that turns out to be true.

  Earth Legend tells the story of Elle Olmstead, descendant of Ceres, goddess of the harvest and fertility, who unwillingly stows away on the Destiny, a space ship filled with ten thousand people on their way to colonize a distant planet. She does so because she knows that her abilities are essential to keep the plants alive that keep the colonists alive and that will be the basis for their survival once they have reached their destination.

  She's caught and thrown in prison, where her powers are useless. Soon the plants begin to shrivel and die. Starvation is imminent, not to mention that the plants provide essential oxygen. But no one believes her when she tells them who she is and what she can do.

  Can she save the Destiny and, in the process, save herself? Or is everyone on the huge space ship doomed?

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One… I accidentally become a felon.

  Chapter Two… I find a hiding place.

  Chapter Three… I attend a launch party.

  Chapter Four… I adopt a kitten and get phony papers.

  Chapter Five… Cullen Vail visits.

  Chapter Six… I am discovered.

  Chapter Seven… I am thrown into prison.

  Chapter Eight… Cullen Vail helps me escape.

  Chapter Nine… I tell the captain my story.

  Chapter Ten… I am paroled.

  Chapter Eleven… The captain's wife comes to see me.

  Chapter Twelve… I am outed to everyone.

  Chapter Thirteen… I am almost killed.

  Chapter Fourteen… The captain declares martial law.

  Chapter Fifteen… I tell Cullen of his part in my future.

  About the author

  Chapter One

  I accidentally become a felon

  I shouldn't have been there. But …

  "We need someone to bring the Range Rover home for my sister." Betts looked at me through tearful eyes. "Because we're not coming back." She held out a slip of cardboard. "We have an extra ID."

  My shoulders sagged. "Okay." Betts and Todd and Shawn and Janet were ready to go, two couples in shorts and tee shirts. They looked like normal, average, nice people going on an outing. They weren't, of course, but if anyone was perfect for this job, it was my cousins. "I'll drive you there and bring the Range Rover back."

  Todd threw his arms around me. "Thanks, cousin." His voice was hoarse. He was pretending to be tough but that voice said it all. He was scared. Terrified. But determined.

  As were they all. Their chances of success were next to zero and if I was with them when they got caught, I could be thrown in jail too. But what they were planning was important, never mind that it was illegal. They'd tried legal channels and been shut out at every turn. There was no time left so there was nothing to do except become felons.

  We climbed into the Range Rover and I took it onto the freeway. The trip went smoothly until we neared the space complex, namely the building that housed the bottom of the elevator that took people and freight to the space station. The building was huge, having grown as the space program grew until now it was as large as several football fields. But it wasn't big enough to hold the entire complement of the Destiny and everyone who wanted to say goodbye to them at once so the colonists had to say their goodbyes in increments. Today's group was the last, which meant it was my cousins last chance to mingle with them and become stowaways.

  Near the complex, congestion was bad and quickly got worse. I had to slow to a crawl as people ran onto the freeway waving signs and yelling. Wannabe colonists who were passed over because their genes carried the potential for diseases that shouldn't be exported to the larger universe. People who believed their genes were superior enough that they should have been selected over those who were chosen to colonize the galaxy. Both groups were furious that they'd been ignored and were out in force and screaming epithets. All were angry enough to destroy the Destiny and everyone aboard rather than be left behind themselves.

  As we left the freeway and drew closer to the complex, the crowd turned ugly. I couldn't shut out the chanting any more than I could block the rotten vegetables smashing against our windows as I threaded the Range Rover through hoards of people spilling over the road and anywhere else they could fit.

  A tomato splashed across the windshield, forcing me to turn on the wipers. I stopped until it cleared, and then moved again, but slower as Shawn said quietly from the back seat, "We have to do this, you know. We have to."

  A face pasted itself to the window, trying to get in. To get us. Betts turned away and concentrated on the five of us in the car, chanting the mantra that had got them this far. "We must get through. We must be on the Destiny. If we aren't, they'll die. They'll all die."

  Shawn's face was drawn. "Don't worry, we'll make it. We'll stow away and when things get bad, we'll be there and we'll know what to do." Because we knew things no one else knew. Because we could do things no one else could do.

  We reached the complex. Men and women who'd chained themselves to the fence were dragged in the mud as the gates opened and guards checked our fake IDs. We all held our breaths until we passed inspection and were waved into the parking garage. Todd flexed his shoulders and took a gulp of air. "We made it this far." He took in all of us in a sweeping look. "We'll do it. We'll succeed."

  When we climbed from the car, we stood unmoving for a moment and savored the comparative quiet. We could still hear the calls, the chants, the concentrated howl from outside but it was lower. Quieter. We could ignore it.

  Todd squared his shoulders and led the way towards the doors beyond which the colonists and crew of the Destiny were saying goodbye to their loved ones. Whole families were going whenever possible so there weren't many relatives being left behind, but there were tons of friends and hoards of media types. He turned to us grimly. "It's time."

  We pushed open the doors in silence and stepped inside. If we didn't know better, we'd have thought we were watching any group of people saying goodbye to loved ones before leaving on a journey, and so we were, except that this journey would take ten thousand people far beyond the solar system. So this goodbye was permanent. Forever.

  This was the last group, the last five hundred. The rest had said their goodbyes and were already on board the Destiny so now was our last chance to sneak some of us on board. If we were to save their lives, failure wasn't an option.

  We looked over the room. People were already being separated into two groups at the urging of the security guards. Colonists were being shooed to the far side of the barricade a crew was erecting. Those staying behind were on the side nearest to us.

  "It took too long to get through the protesters. They are ready to leave."

  "We have to try."

  "The guards aren't looking."

  Todd and Betts sauntered ca
sually but deliberately towards the colonists, looking in every respect as if they belonged. Two people among five hundred. Surely they'd not be noticed.

  "Sir." A guard tapped Todd on the shoulder, and then Betts. "You too, Miss. Time to leave." He steered them politely back across the barricade, patting a lethal looking gun strapped to his side in a seemingly random gesture, but no one was fooled. He knew they didn't belong. He'd use that gun if necessary. No terrorists would get on board if he had anything to say about it.

  Todd and Betts retreated, Betts biting her lower lip to hold back tears and surreptitiously looking towards Shawn and Janet. She and Todd had been caught but maybe Shawn and Janet would make it.

  They didn't. Another guard, a pair of them actually, was already pushing Shawn and Janet away from the colonists. They didn't even try to be gentle and their guns were drawn. The crowd beyond the complex must have the guards spooked. They weren't taking any chances on letting someone on board who could blow everyone up. Shawn and Janet were roughly thrust back towards our little group.

  They'd failed. We'd all failed, in a way, because, though I wasn't going, they were my cousins and I'd been involved in the planning, along with a couple dozen other relatives. But it had all been for nothing.

  Soon the colonists would be herded through doors to waiting elevators, and then whooshed up to the space station. The families and friends they'd left behind would go home and watch the launch of the Destiny on TV and think about the future their relatives would have. Envy them, perhaps.

  The thing was, those colonists who were going so bravely into space wouldn't make it to the new world the astronomers were sure would support life. Some time in the future, when earth received messages from the Destiny that they were dying and nothing could be done to save them, we cousins could tell each other that it wasn't our fault, that we'd tried … and we'd be right. We'd done our best. We had the degrees, the knowledge and the experience going back thousands of years that could keep the colonists alive in deep space.

  Yes, we could say that we'd tried and failed and it was true that nothing we tried had worked. We'd applied to be part of the crew and been rejected. We'd signed up as colonists and been rejected for that, too. Not the right genetic makeup, we'd been told. There was something slightly odd about our genes and they could only allow healthy people onto a multi-generational ship with a good but small medical facility. So the very thing that made us essential also made us rejects.

  My cousins refused to give up. When the rest of the family said there was nothing more to be done Todd and Betts and Shawn and Janet said they could do it. They could slip among the colonists and stow away. They were dressed right, they looked like colonists. They were perfect in every respect. They should have succeeded. But they didn't.

  The agony of such a profoundly awful failure was reflected in our eyes as we stared at each other in the middle of that crowd. We couldn't hide our thoughts from each other and soon all five of us were searching for somewhere private in which to melt down. Some place away from the doomed people on the other side of the barricade

  "Miss." I turned at the tap on my shoulder. An elderly guard stood a discreet couple of feet away. He pointed across the room to the colonists and crew of the Destiny. The group my cousins had failed to join. "It's getting late, Miss." The guard put a friendly hand on my shoulder and turned me towards the colonists. Then he gave me a slight shove, trying to hurry me along without being obviously pushy. "It's time to leave. You'd best finish saying goodbye to your friends and return to your family."

  It took a moment for the five of us to figure out what he was talking about. Then we saw the family he was pointing towards and we took a collective breath and held it. Because among the doomed colonists was a family with the same red hair I'd been plagued with since birth. Two red-headed parents and four girls slightly younger than me but all with the same long, insanely curly carrot red hair and freckles that I'd been teased about ever since I could remember. We could easily be sisters. The guard thought we were sisters.

  Miracle of miracles, when we'd dressed that morning, both that family and I, we'd all chosen tan shorts and purple tee shirts. The guard, with his black hair, couldn't know that red-heads sometimes wear purple just to shout to the world that, contrary to popular belief, red-heads can wear anything they wish. Because of my clothes and coloring, he thought I was a member of that family. He thought I was a colonist. He was shooing me towards the very group of people my cousins had failed to infiltrate.

  I looked away from the red-headed family and towards my cousins as it hit us all at the same moment. Failure could be turned into success. All that was necessary was for me to take their places on the Destiny. To stow away in their stead. To carry out their mission. To become a felon. We shared the same upbringing, the same background, the same genes, and I certainly had the formal education to validate my inborn knowledge. A brand new doctorate and several lesser degrees. I was a young but knowledgeable botanist. I could do it. I could save ten thousand lives.

  My cousins' lightning-fast looks hit me with the force of bricks, the kind that usually fly through windows with messages wrapped around them. Their looks were that hard and said, 'We failed, Elle, but you can succeed.' 'We weren't able to stow away on the Destiny, and here you are being escorted on board.' 'You must do this, Elle.' 'It's your destiny.'

  So I hugged each of them as they whispered advice and sobbed because they knew I'd missed the intensive sessions on how to stow away successfully. I'd have to wing it once I was on board.

  As the guard pulled at my shoulder, Betts hugged me one more time and shoved something into my pocket. Then I followed that guard across the empty space that now separated the colonists from everyone else and through the small opening left where the divider hadn't yet been erected. As I passed, someone closed it behind me. I was the last colonist.

  I walked straight and as tall as my five foot two allowed, pretending I belonged and ignoring the curious looks aimed at me, the last person to be shooed towards a future on another planet. I didn't turn as I reached the elevators that the first few colonists were entering. Didn't look around for fear of being recognized for what I was. A stowaway.

  As I passed through the door, though, I couldn't help it. I did turn just enough to wave to my cousins because I'd never see them again and I was terrified. They all gave me the thumbs-up signal. Then I stepped into the elevator and watched the doors close behind me.

  I stood in that crowded elevator and waited to be caught. Held my breath because I couldn't believe I was there. But no hand grabbed me by the scruff of the neck. No irate guard seized my arm and ordered the elevator to return to the ground floor. Nothing happened other than that we continued upwards in the slow, measured ascent that brings people and supplies to the space station.

  I'd been there once on a school outing. I remembered seeing shuttles hanging from every available hook. Every now and then one would break off and seemingly drift to one of the space ships that rested in space far enough out to be safe from earth's gravity.

  Now, as I waited to be caught, I looked around, prepared to disappear if a guard came too close. I was so tense that I jumped when a male voice spoke from just behind me. "Are you okay?"

  I turned and almost rammed a man in uniform with enough stripes on his sleeve to make a flag. Whoever he was, he was important and he was looking at me oddly. I folded, knowing I was caught, hugging my stomach as the futility of my efforts washed over me and made knots of my middle. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." I wondered what jail was like and how long I'd be incarcerated.

  "Space sickness." He looked me up and down and grabbed the sleeve of a passing stewardess. "Do you have something for space sickness? She's got it bad."

  The stewardess handed me a package with two capsules along with a bottle of water. "Take these, they'll fix it." She looked around and frowned. "It'll take a few minutes for them to take effect. You might want to find someplace to sit until they kick in but it seems t
hat all the seats are taken. So good luck." She then continued on her sure footed way along the swaying elevator.

  The security guard watched me swallow the pills and some water, calling after the stewardess, "Will she be all right?"

  The stewardess didn't even glance back as she answered. "In a little while." She must have given a thousand people the same pills she'd given me. She left me with the security guard, who now scowled as if wondering why he'd bothered with me to begin with. Because now he was stuck with me.

  I struggled against that iron look. "I'll be fine. I just need to sit a while." I looked around. The elevator was jammed with people standing, sitting and leaning into the viewing portals for one last glimpse of Earth. There was hardly room to stand, let alone sit. "Don't worry about me. I'll find a corner."

  The scowl grew. He'd made me his business and now he was stuck with me until I got better. I wanted him to go away and he wanted to go away but his conscience wouldn't let that happen. He put one large, competent hand in the small of my back and shoved me through the crowd towards a wall. Then he cleared a space along that wall by waving one arm. That was all it took. People looked at his expression and the stripes on his sleeve and just melted away. Then he slid down the wall and pulled me after him. "This'll have to do."

  My problem wasn't space sickness, it was terror but the pills did seem to help. The guard remained beside me with arms folded and a determined expression on his face. He stared into space so angrily that I finally said, "I think I'm okay now."

  "Good." But he didn't leave. Instead he turned enough to assess my health, eyes going up and down my body, head to toe and back again, in an impersonal manner. My face and my shaking hands. Then my hair. They stayed on my hair. Everyone notices carrot red hair. "You won't have to worry about sunburn on the Destiny." A feeble attempt at humor.

  "That's good." An equally feeble answer. He definitely wasn't the conversational type and I didn't want to talk to anyone in a uniform who could throw me into jail. But he was stubborn. He'd do his job and right then, I was it. He opened his mouth a few times, as if to talk, and then shut it because he didn't know what to say and didn't want to talk and would leave as soon as he knew I wouldn't puke all over him. Until then, he'd stick to me like a burr.