Legacy by Scott McElhaney Page A

corrected him on this; I was many harvests younger, “Sorry, they go by either Earthlings, the USSC, or more recently, Footholds.”
     
    Our hall offered two stairwells branching off to my right and to my left. I peered down the dark stairwell to our right, wondering if this had been the one I had climbed to get to Braxton.
     
    “ Are we lost?” he asked.
     
    “ Many of the corridors are completely dark now. I’ve found my way up here by locating all the best lit passageways. I’m fairly certain this one leads to where we’re going,” I replied, leading the way down the stairs.
     
    “ And where are we going?” he asked.
     
    “ To the emergency escape pods,” I replied, “Luna has made several trips around Legacy since the last shuttle left this ship. Our only chance of survival is in the escape pods.”
     
    “ What the heck is going-“
     
    I turned quickly and pushed him against the wall, shoving the palm of my hand against his mouth. He grasped both my arms in his hands, but didn’t seem intent on fighting me.
     
    “ We have a very good chance of dying today and that chance increases if this ship doesn’t appear to be as abandoned as the Aussies think it is. I said for you to whisper and I mean it,” I whispered, “Do not raise your voice and do not make any unnecessary noise. You’ve heard the echoes yourself.”
     
    Those deep black eyes of his were locked on mine. I raised my eyebrows, looking for any confirmation that he understood. He gave a subtle nod despite my hand still covering his mouth.
     
    “ It all started during growing season, four harvests past. There was a skeleton crew on the Foothold at the time another unidentified ship arrived in orbit. More than half of Foothold had already established homes and new lives on Legacy with no intent on returning to Earth,” I said, lowering my hand from his mouth and taking a step back, “The rest of Foothold was still working for their leadership whom they called ‘the USSC.’ Those people spent their time either building a shuttle port on Green, training people in medical techniques, and as you had hoped, they were training people on their metallurgy,
     
    “ The unidentified ship refused to answer our hail. I say ‘our’ because I was a member of that skeleton crew on this ship. I’m sure it doesn’t come as a surprise that they were training me in their electronics and communications technology. I spent more time up here than on Legacy.”
     
    “ Was that ship from another planet besides Earth or Legacy?” he asked.
     
    “ No, the crew here recognized the model of that ship and besides, its shuttles were the exact same as the ones we had,” I said, nodding toward the semi-dark hall ahead of us, “It’s this way. Anyway, two shuttles descended from that ship onto the western portion of Blaze. We had called the Embassy in Blaze to warn them, but both of our surviving shuttles were away. One was scanning the New America continent for future mining while the other was up here on Foothold.”
     
    “ Western Blaze,” he repeated, “You mean the Goldwaters?”
     
    “ Yes, the unidentified ship was a ship of villains or ‘pirates’ as Captain Reiss called them. The shuttles raced through the Goldwater villages killing everyone in their path. They came out of the shuttles with cutters to slice away all the Goldwater’s plumbing and to cut all the spouting off their buildings. I don’t know if you traded much with them, but all they ever wanted in trade for their fruit was gold. I doubt they made anything from iron, tin, or copper.”
     
    “ Yeah, we’d fought them for a long time when they tried to take our land from us,” he said, “We lost three of our five gold mines to them before we halted their progress.”
     
    We continued onward down the passageway, then I led him down another flight of stairs.
     
    “ I think I remember hearing about that. Well anyway, those villains took care of almost all the Goldwater