Legacy by Scott McElhaney Page B

population and left no gold whatsoever in their land. By the time we got a crew together up here to go after them, they were already ascending,” I said, “We could have fought them on the ground, but these ships aren’t really equipped for battle. We have four plasma cannons on the outside of the shuttles, but those can’t do any real damage to another ship or shuttle.”
     
    “ So then what happened?”
     
    “ They got what they came for and they left. Not a single word was spoken from the pirates,” I said.
     
    “ I’ll bet that hurt relations between Earth and Legacy,” he said, shaking his head.
     
    “ That wasn’t the only other ship that visited. We had another guest visit our planet the following planting season,” I said.
     
    “ Please tell me they weren’t going to start attacking our world all the time,” Braxton said, “If so, I think I’d rather you have never brought me back to life.”
     
    She stopped next to a door and turned to me as she pushed a blue square next to it. The door slid slowly open.
     
    “ That’s definitely not the Braxton that I knew. The Braxton I knew would want to seek revenge,” I said, stepping aside so he could enter the room ahead of me.
     
    “ Revenge? I’m not all that upset about the Goldwaters. I know it sounds cruel, but my people never really-”
     
    His eyes finally took in the planet beyond the domed windows of the starboard observatory. It wasn’t hard to see that the planet in the windows was nothing of the planet we first looked upon over thirty harvests ago.
     
    “ We’re not at Legacy anymore?” he muttered.
     
    “ This ship hasn’t gone anywhere since you were last standing here in the observatory. That’s Legacy,” I said, making a point to tap my finger on the glass near the northern portion of Green, “That gray cloud was a ball of fire the last time Green passed us by. And look at this.”
     
    I’m sure I didn’t need to point out these brown or blackened areas, but I needed him to feel what I felt. I needed him to be as disgusted as I was. By the sound of his breathing, I was quite sure he was feeling my pain. I reached into my pocket and drew out the thing I’d been holding onto for many harvests. I touched the small pieces of metal imbedded into the soft, black leather. Then I held it out in front of his view.
     
    He looked at it, then looked over at me. It was times like this that I wished I was still my younger self. The innocence in those deep black eyes made me want to kiss him like I had so many times in my life. Two heartbeats passed and in that time, I was almost sure he was going to lean in and kiss me, but it didn’t happen. He reached out, placed his hand on both the glove and my hand, then took the glove.
     

 
     
    16 th Luna – Resting Season – 991
     
     
     
    Although I have no reason to truly suspect anything malicious coming from the USSC, the fact that all Tachyon Communications have halted really causes me worry. I’ve wracked my mind with excuses such as power outages or even overall Relay failure, but none of these explain years of no contact. The USSC could rebuild a Tachyon Relay in a matter of a few weeks if the something major had somehow shut it down. This is not to mention the relay on the Titan Base or on at least two other USSC cruisers that I personally know of.
     
    The fact is, there’s absolutely nothing I can think of to warrant a complete “radio silence.” I’ve taken measures to make sure our own relay is fully operational, and it is. Given all these circumstances, I, Captain Chris Reiss, as acting leader of the USSC on Legacy, have authorized the defensive training of any Legacy personnel who are willing to participate. I know it was agreed that this log would be anonymous, but I had to identify myself and my reasons for authorizing something typically unorthodox and outside of USSC regulations.
     
    I’ve authorized not only training on our plasma rifles and ion