The Exiled Earthborn (2 page)

She’d been observing them for months behind inches-thick indestructible glass, but she finally commanded her worried security team to let her see the travelers. Without restraints. Without guards. It was an insane idea to everyone but her, but Talis explained it was the only true test that would ease everyone’s fears once and for all.

Lucas, Asha, and Alpha finally left their underground bunker and were taken to the palace itself in floating vehicles with completely blacked-out windows, though once inside they were made to wear blinding goggles anyway.

The light finally found them again in an exceptionally ornate room full of odd-looking furniture and walls adorned with paintings depicting epic battle scenes. Most looked ancient, with the Soran warriors clutching swords and spears. Eventually the artwork evolved into more modern warfare. The centerpiece of the room was a massive three-dimensional hologram with a label that read “The Battle of Gorgath.” In it, Xalans and Sorans battled to the death by the thousand. Lucas couldn’t comprehend how much time had gone into making something with such detail. Peering closer, he could see individual expressions of rage and horror on the Soran faces.

Talis Vale entered the room silently, and when they realized she’d arrived the three of them jerked their attention from the paintings toward her. The High Chancellor wore a simple blue dress, her silver hair done up into a pair of vertically aligned buns on the top of her head. She was clearly older than in the images they’d seen of her, but her skin was smooth and only a few creases lined her face. The room was free of guards of any sort, and they walked around completely unbound. This was the test. If they truly were assassins, this was their chance to kill the most powerful person on the planet with ease. It showed Talis had faith in them and in their story.

Obviously, there was no bloodshed as the group had no such murderous intentions toward a woman they’d traveled halfway across the galaxy to find. They chatted about Earth before the war, raising Noah on a spaceship, and other pleasant things. After a while, when Talis was satisfied she wasn’t going to be killed by the outworlders who sat in front of her, she shared her true purpose with them.

“Your story is incredible, and the proof to support it is overwhelming. Your actions today have shown you are no threat to me or my people. I ask you, will you become our allies in this fight against Xala?”

Lucas leaned forward on the plush couch where he sat.

“Of course. But our people are gone. There’s only us left.”

Talis smiled.

“Yes, but you survived. I’ve fought with my advisors for many weeks about this, but I want you revealed to the world. I want billions to know that Sorans, humans are spread across the galaxy and have suffered at the hands of the Xalans as much as we have.”

“More so,” Asha said curtly. Talis continued.

“You are quite simply the greatest discovery in our world’s history. We’ve been looking for life in the galaxy for countless generations, but finally, you came to us. And you
are
us. It’s incredible, don’t you agree?”

“I remember when my people first learned the truth of the web of Soran worlds,” Alpha said, his collar communicator projecting his metallic voice. “It was impossible, extraordinary.”

“I’ll leave it to the scientists to fully understand how this came to be. But in the meantime, we have a more pressing problem. Despite what this room may suggest, we do not relish war, and we have been fighting the Xalans for too long in this struggle that seems as if it will never end. Between the inspiration you will give our entire planet and the scientific knowledge we can gain from you, Alpha, this conflict may at last find a conclusion.”

“But in what fashion?” Alpha asked. “You cannot reach the colony planets for years. Even if you could, you would find yourselves outmatched.”

Talis shook her head.

“No, force alone has not worked for thousands of years, and it is not the ultimate answer we seek. The most important piece of information you’ve provided us with is that the Xalans have no knowledge of their true origins, and the people have forgotten we are their creators.”

“We have not forgotten. We have been lied to,” Alpha said. Talis nodded in assent.

“A monstrous lie to be sure. If what you say is true about instability in the planetary colonies, we can expose the truth your father discovered and your people will be free to overthrow their savage leadership. I imagine such a revelation would lead to this course of action, would it not?”

“It is possible,” Alpha said. “But the Council has kept the secret for an eternity and silenced all those who would share it. What hope do we have of achieving a different result?”

Talis leaned over the table in front of them and popped a round blue piece of fruit into her mouth.

“That is a conversation for another day. But for now, I need to know you are with me. Are you ready to tell a hundred billion Sorans your story?”

Lucas snapped back into focus on the stage. Talis had been extolling their bravery and valor for a few minutes now, and the crowd was still silent after the thunderous news that aliens not only existed but looked exactly like them. Behind them, a giant bowl sat embedded in the ground, and out of it sprang two enormous holographic portraits of Lucas and Asha, floating for all the world to see.

Talis was wrapping up now. The main focus was always supposed to be on them, and Lucas jumped when he heard his name and saw her sweep her arm toward him and Asha, welcoming them to come forward.

“I give you the Earthborn, Lucas and Asha!”

He rose from his chair, as did Asha. She grasped his hand tightly and he could feel it was as clammy as his own. It appeared the dauntless warrior did fear some things after all.

This was as good a reception as they could have possibly received; Alpha had been right on all counts when it came to gauging the Sorans’ reaction to their arrival. With the initial distrust and suspicion past, they were being welcomed as heroes. Practically gods.

Lucas’s legs stopped quivering long enough for him to make it to the podium hand in hand with Asha. There was nothing resembling a microphone, but camera-bots swirled around, sending out every possible angle of the pair of them to all corners of the world. Behind them, the giant hologram had shifted to a mammoth globe of a blue-and-green Earth that rose fifty feet high in the air.

Lucas cleared his throat.

“Hello,” he said to the masses, then froze as he realized he’d said the word in English. After all his lessons onboard the Ark and further training by Soran language instructors for this day, he stumbled out of the gate. Asha stepped in and saved him.

“Greetings,” she said in perfect Soran, then turned back to Lucas with a sly smile.

“I am Lucas, and this is Asha,” he said in the proper tongue. “And we come from a planet called Earth.”

He could see the eyes of those in the front rows, wide with amazement. A few had even fallen to their knees—whether in reverence or terror, he couldn’t be sure.

“Like you, we were stunned to learn that we had brothers and sisters across the stars. It is unfortunate our two civilizations could not have met during a time of peace, but because of the Xalans, our planet is now mere memory. All that’s left are records and stories, which you will be hearing for days, months, and years to come.”

All the information compiled on Earth from both their own testimony and Alpha’s records was to be released on what the Sorans simply called the “Stream.” It was a constant feed of information, communication, and entertainment that seemed like all Earth’s media sources rolled into one. After the speech, the archive would go live and every Soran would be able to learn everything there was to tell about the lost planet of Earth.

“We learned we were one of many worlds full of humans”—
Oops—
“Sorans,” he corrected, “that have been sacrificed to the Xalan war machine. These other planets were ravaged as Earth was, but we were the only world who could fight back.”

The hologram behind them now displayed the various battle scenes of raids on foreign Soran worlds that Alpha had shown them aboard the Ark. The civilizations ranged in age from mere cavemen to the sorts of Industrial Revolution–era cities that once populated Earth. But none of them had the capacity to fend off the invaders the way Earth did. Its technology had been just advanced enough to ensure the mutual destruction of both itself and its attempted conquerors. There were gasps from the crowd as they watched the devastation unfold, and a few people actually screamed. The scene switched to a battle on Earth where a Xalan mothership was torn apart by a nuke dropped directly on top of it.

“We fought them off, but our planet was poisoned, dying. We soon learned of the far-off world known as ‘Sora,’ full of beings like us, and knew it was our only salvation.”

Lucas turned to Asha, her hair blowing faintly in the warm breeze. She nodded and took over the speech as they’d agreed earlier.

“We escaped our planet on the last working spacecraft with the aid of a friend—an exiled Xalan named Alpha,” she said.

The holograph changed to a view of Alpha sitting behind them, a stoic expression on his face. Countless pairs of eyes widened in front of them.

“We learned that not all Xalans are bloodthirsty; there are many who want peace. Because of his refusal to carry out the savage commands of his superiors, Alpha was branded a traitor and personally hunted by High Commander Kurotos across the galaxy.”

Kurotos was the name Sorans had for Omicron, and he was a formidable figure in their history, infamous for his brutality across centuries of galactic combat.

“The Shadow killed his family on Xala for treason, a clan of scientists, and wanted to reclaim his considerable mind for the war effort. Alpha refused, and we aided him. After pursuing us all the way from Earth, Commander Kurotos boarded our ship as we reached Soran space. It was the last mistake he ever made.”

The holograph showed autopsy footage of the blue-eyed, black skinned Xalan lying dead in a Soran holding area. The crowd was too stunned by everything being said to even cheer. The silence of a million people in front of them was unsettling.

“We were welcomed warmly by your leaders, and a decision was made to tell the public our story. We want you to know that you are not alone in this fight. This war is about more than just the fate of your world, as the Xalans put every system, and every populated planet, known and unknown, at risk.”

There was much they weren’t allowed to say in the speech. They couldn’t mention they captured Omicron’s ship, which was now buried a few miles underground in a covert laboratory. They were advised to not mention the government’s initial skepticism of their claims, or the fact that the Xalans were fighting a war based on false pretenses that had been uncovered by Alpha’s father. Specific details of the final years of Earth were deemed too gruesome to share, and they were not to mention the eleven other humans Alpha had collected before meeting them that remained in brain-dead stasis after being extracted from the Ark. Such things were not “need to know” for the public, and revealing as much as they had already would be enough for the world to process. Lucas couldn’t imagine if two Sorans had shown up on Earth and delivered a similar message on the steps of the White House.

“We have arrived safely now, but we did not come alone. We brought with us the last son of Earth, Noah …”

The hologram showed a beaming Noah playing with his beloved holoball. He tottered around the room onscreen ungracefully. His blond locks had grown longer and wavy.

“… and soon, we will welcome our first son of Sora.”

The image changed to the tank where the now six-month-old child grew. Lucas saw more than a few smiles on the faces closest to him. He began to speak again in place of Asha.

“We thank you for welcoming us into your world. As safe as we are here, and as hard as our journey has been, we will not be content to rest while the Xalan menace remains. As such, Asha and I will be enlisting in the Soran Defense Initiative, where we hope to contribute to the final resolution of this war. With one of the top Xalan minds now on our side, and your unwavering support, we will end this conflict forever. Thank you for accepting us into your home.”

There was silence as Lucas and Asha stood uncomfortably at the podium. In front of them, humming generators provided nearly invisible forcefields that would screen them from the mob should things turn ugly. Lucas scanned the faces in front of them, searching for an answer as to what was about to happen.

Someone yelled. Then another, and another. Like a wave, people began to raise their right fists into the air, cheering as they did so. It was a sign of respect in Soran culture, and soon there were more than a million arms raised in front of them as the roar of the crowd became deafening. Lucas beamed as Asha bit her lip and gave a reluctant but dazzling smile.

Had they found a new home? In that moment, it certainly felt like it.

2

The speech earned Lucas many warm smiles and congratulations from the sorts of nobles and officers who had been peering at him from behind mirrored glass for the past six months. The Stream showed scenes of jubilation in many of the major cities across the planet, though there were already a few claiming the entire event was pure wartime propaganda. A political group called the Fourth Order said the newcomers were not from any such foreign planet but were just genetically altered Soran constructs meant to drum up support for the war. Further still, there were those who deemed the revelation a Xalan conspiracy led by the double agent Alpha, with genetic abominations Lucas and Asha set to usher in the end of Sora as they brought the government down from the inside. The team escorting Lucas tried to usher him away from the screens when such accusations cropped up.

But Lucas was still riding high on the thunderous cheers of millions of Sorans and nothing would derail his mood. He and Asha were separated and taken to yet another series of groomers who would prepare them for their next big event: the Earth Gala.