Emet pulled a minicom from his pocket. He hit a button, and a hologram emerged and floated before him, ten feet tall. It displayed a starmap.
"Here is hope!" Emet said. "Here is a gift from the Aelonians. We lost the Battle of Terminus. But the Heirs of Earth showed great courage and sacrifice. Leona led the Corvette Company, breaking a way through the enemy lines. Every human warrior showed the courage of ten Aelonians. We proved to the aliens that humans are no pests, but that we are brave, we are strong, we are a blessing to the galaxy! In gratitude, Admiral Melitar of the Aelonians gave us this map."
The people gathered closer, peering at the hologram of a million stars.
"What does it show?" asked a man.
"This," Emet said, "is a map to Earth."
The people gasped. Voices cried out in the crowd.
"But Earth is lost!" shouted a woman.
"Nobody's known Earth's location for years!"
"Earth is just a myth!"
Emet raised his hands, hushing them. "Maybe you're right! Maybe Earth is a myth. Maybe this map is false hope, leading to nothing but a barren world, not our homeworld. But I believe! I have hope. For the first time in centuries, we have a sign of Earth. We have coordinates. We know where to go."
He hit a button on his minicom. The hologram changed, the image zooming in on one constellation. Then on one star. Then zooming in still, finally focusing on one planet. A blue world. A pale marble, orbiting in the darkness.
Earth.
"Earth!" the people cried. "It's Earth! Our home!"
Tears flowed. They prayed. They sang old songs. A few refugees scoffed, insisted this was forgery, but soon their voices fell silent, and perhaps they too believed.
"Earth still lies very far away," Emet finally said. "It lies on the other side of the Concord, past much danger and hardship. A cruel alien empire, one that rose after our banishment, now rules this sector. They are a warlike race, strong and eager to fight. They swear only loose fealty to the Concord, and have spoken of joining the Hierarchy. We will have to fight for Earth. The battle will be long and hard. But we will fight! We will go home!"
As the crowd cheered, one Inheritor stepped forward.
Rowan.
Her fists were clenched, and she glared up at Emet.
"How can we abandon our people!" she said. "Millions of humans might still be alive in Hierarchy space. Millions might still be scattered across Concord worlds. They need us! How can we fly across the galaxy when our people cry out to us? How can we abandon our oaths?"
Voices muttered agreements.
"We will not abandon our oaths!" said Emet, raising his voice. "Every Inheritor makes a sacred vow. Wherever a human is in danger, we will be there. We face two wars! One war to reach Earth, to reclaim our home, even if we must win Earth with blood. A second war to stop the Hierarchy, to save all humans in exile from the scorpion claws. We will fight both wars! We will split our forces. One team of brave explorers will travel to Earth, though the journey will take many months, maybe even a year. They will fight to establish a colony on our sacred ancestral ground. The rest of our fleet will remain in exile, fighting the Hierarchy, saving every human we can. It will take blood and sacrifice. It will take years. Maybe decades. Maybe even generations. But I vow this: We will bring every human home to Earth!"
"To Earth!" they cried. "To Earth!"
Emet looked at Rowan. She looked away.
Yes, it will be a while before you forgive me, Rowan, he thought. Before you understand.
One of the warriors stepped closer. A young woman with long platinum hair, dark skin, and white tattoos. A weaver—a priestess of the mystical light of the cosmos.
Her name is Coral, Emet remembered.
"But sir," Coral said, "do we have enough starships? Enough warriors? Can we truly split up? We lost so many . . ." The weaver hung her head low. "So many gone."
Mumbles passed through the crowd.
The weaver was speaking sense, Emet knew. The Heirs of Earth had suffered heavy losses. They had not been this small in years. They had only a handful of starships, a handful of warriors left. Yet what choice did Emet have?
"You fight with the army you have," Emet said. "And we will fight on. We—"
Engines.
Engines rumbled outside.
People cried out in fear.
"The scorpions!"
"The enemy is here!"
"They found us!"
Emet frowned. Had the scorpions already made it so far into Concord space?
He stepped out of the cave, rifle in his hands. Rowan and Leona followed, pistols drawn. They stared into the snowy sky. Several shuttles were descending through the flurries. Unable to land on the mountainside, they touched down in the valley.
Emet furrowed his brow. He looked at the others.
Those weren't scorpion ships.
The Inheritors began racing down the mountainside.
In the valley, they saw the shuttles humming on the ground, melting the snow. Several more shuttles were already descending. Emet could not determine their origin. They were clearly alien shuttles, but heavily modified, cobbled together from various components.
A hatch opened on one shuttle, and a man emerged.
A human.
He had a shaggy brown beard, wore an overcoat that was even shaggier, and an alien-looking rifle hung across his back. A woman and children peered from the shuttle behind him. The man trudged through the snow and flurries, finally coming to stand before Emet.
"Emet Ben-Ari?" the man said, having to shout over the wind. A toothy grin split his face. "Lovely planet you chose! Can't wait to see the beaches." He reached out his hand to shake. "Name's Jon. Jon Harris. I lead a small community of two hundred humans. We heard about your exploits on the border. Impressive! You got balls, Emet Ben-Ari. We've got some muscle ourselves, some good warriors, some bullets, even a clunky old mothership in orbit with some half-decent cannons on her. We've come to help! If you'll have us, that is."
Emet looked at the other shuttles. More people were emerging. Children. Elders. But also young men and women of fighting age. With weapons. With determination in their eyes.
Humans.
Children of Earth.
Emet had to tighten his lips, worried that after all this bloodshed, this agony, this fear, he would finally break down in tears.
He clasped Jon's outreached hand in both his own, then said to hell with it—and embraced the man.
"You are most welcome here, Jon Harris."
A day later, another human community arrived. There were a hundred of them, exiles who had been hiding on a distant moon. They too had a starship, an alien vessel outfitted with shields and weapons. They too vowed to fight.
On the third day, no fewer than four starships arrived, each from a different human community. Some had been hiding on an asteroid, working in deep mines. Others had survived beneath an alien city, living in the sewers. A handful of humans, like Rowan, had spent their exile surviving in space stations like mice. One starship even carried survivors from Hierarchy territory; the Rawdiggers had smuggled them out in exchange for diamonds.
They all brought the same message.
"We heard of Leona Ben-Ari, the descendant of Einav, freeing the survivors of the gulock. We heard of the Corvette Company leading the charge against the strikers. We heard of the Old Lion ejecting the Blue Witch from his airlock. We heard of the Heirs of Earth and their courage. We will join you. We will fight. We will see Earth again."
For days, they kept arriving from across the galaxy. Starship after starship. More survivors from across space. More humans. For the first time in thousands of years, these dispersed, exiled people, hunted like vermin and living in shadows, joined together.
Within weeks, the Heirs of Earth swelled to their largest size ever. Forty-two warships flew for Earth, ranging from massive freighters to humble corvettes. Cargo ships, shuttles, and starfighters completed their fleet. Three thousand humans gathered here at this snowy world so far from home. Warriors. Survivors. All were the Heirs of Earth.