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
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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 casually 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.