Still, it could be much worse. His people had left on his masterpiece, the Eureka. Jarden couldn’t imagine the hardship they’d been through. Had they even made it home or were they destroyed by the Watchers before they had a chance? Was Earth gone, a distant memory in a solar system now occupied by an aggressive alien race?
Jarden stayed put for another hour, until the heat and sunlight were too much for him to bear. He moved toward the living quarters and entered his and Leona’s room. It was compact, but at the end of the day, he was happy. He could reside in a closet if it meant he could live out the rest of his days with his wife by his side. After all, hadn’t that been what it was all for?
He must have drifted off, because it was dark when he came to. Leona was in the doorway shouting something he couldn’t understand with his sleep-addled brain.
“What is it?” he asked, finally awake.
“They’re here. Someone is here.” Leona ran from the room, followed by Jarden.
In the distance, something akin to fireworks went off, yellow energy blinking repeatedly from a few kilometers out in all directions. They’d done it. They were here.
It seemed as though every single colonist was outside in the night air. “Dad! You were right!” Nik shouted from the crowd. Jarden watched as his son pushed through the stacks of people toward his parents. Jarden put an arm over his son’s broad shoulders. A year working the land had done wonders for his kid. Nik was tall, muscular, and tanned. He couldn’t have been prouder of his boy.
“They did it,” Jarden whispered to himself. Unbidden tears streaked down his face. As much as he’d told everyone he was sure someone would return from the other side of the Rift, deep down, even he hadn’t believed himself. He’d seen the destruction the Watcher fleet had caused in the brief moments they’d been at the incursion. But against all odds, here was a Fleet ship coming to see them.
His stomach flopped as another thought entered his mind. What if this wasn’t Earth Fleet? What if it was the Watchers, coming to end the last outpost of humanity?
He considered telling the colonists around him to run, to hide from the attack, but he stood there like a statue, unable to speak. No. He couldn’t believe that. The yellow crackling energy bombs were too close to the Distractors that Captain Heather Barkley had used. It had to be their allies.
“It’s a lander,” someone shouted as a ship lowered just outside the gates. Soft orange lights emanated from the vessel, and Jarden worked his way toward the entrance to their colony, Leona and Nik right behind him.
The guards at the towers pointed rifles toward the ship, but no one inside the fortification could see through the thick wooden fence.
“Who is it?” Jarden heard Leona ask from beside him.
He heard a muffled voice calling from the other side, and one of the guards turned to another waiting by the gates. “Open it!” she shouted. The gates slid open as if in slow motion. Jarden’s heart beat so fast, he thought he might be having a heart attack. He clutched his chest as he held his breath, waiting to see who’d come all this way after thirty years on Earth’s side of the Rift.
Seven forms cast silhouettes against the lights of the recently landed vessel. It was a new design, larger than the ship Flint had crash-landed twenty kilometers away only a year ago.
“Where’s my dad?” a woman’s voice asked, stepping forward into the gate. The ship behind her powered down as the yellow energy Distractors stopped firing in the distance, and Jarden could make out their faces better now in the moonlight.
“Oliv?” he asked, unbelieving. It was her! “Oliv!” he shouted, pushing through the rows of people to get to her. He stumbled and nearly fell, but his son was there to keep him upright.
“Dad!” Oliv’s arms wrapped around him, her damp face burying into his neck.
He held her at arm’s length and took a look at the beautiful woman his little girl had become. She would be in her late forties, and she was healthy and rested. Leona arrived, and they embraced with tears while Jarden took in the others who’d come with Oliv.
“Councilman,” the man beside her said with a grin. He was tall and thin, a streak of gray through his short hair, and had a trimmed brown beard. There was something familiar about him, but if Jarden had known the man in a previous life, too much time had passed on the other’s end for him to put a finger on it.
“Hello. I…”
“Dad, it’s Ace.” Oliv’s voice was still light, reminding him of the little girl who used to ask him to play dollies with her.
He felt like he’d been slapped. That little street kid had stayed with his daughter. “Ace, thank you.”
“For what?” the man asked.
“For taking care of my little girl. For bringing her here,” Jarden said.
Ace laughed as he walked forward, the gate sliding shut behind them. “I’d say it was the other way around.” Jarden saw the way the man looked at his daughter, and could instantly see the situation for what it was.
“This is him?” a tiny voice asked.
Jarden watched as Ace turned around, making room for a boy who couldn’t have been older than ten. He stared at Jarden with wide eyes. Beside him was a girl a few years younger. She was clutching a stuffed rabbit – the very same one his daughter used to haul around everywhere she went. Hoppy.
“These are your Grandpa and Grandma,” Ace said. “He’s the man we named you after, Jarden.”
“Serina, come say hi to your grandparents,” Oliv said, ushering the small girl forward.
Jarden felt his throat close and watched the boy with interest before getting to a knee to shake his granddaughter’s tiny extended hand. “Why did you wait so long to have children?” he asked Oliv, knowing he was breaking some protocol with the question.
“We had other things on our minds, Dad,” she answered with a sideways grin.
Nik had arrived and was hugging his sister, the two of them talking to each other in low but excited tones.
“What news do you bring?” Karl asked, and the entire crowd of colonists began to murmur, some boldly shouting out other questions.
“Are the Watchers dead?”
“Does Earth still exist?”
“Is the Fleet still in command?”
Karl motioned for everyone to calm, and Jarden shouted over the questions. “Come, let’s find somewhere more private to talk.” He couldn’t believe his daughter was here, and with two children in tow. It was a lot to process, but like the colonists, he was concerned with what was happening back home.
Two robot guards were with Oliv’s envoy, and they took the lead, heading toward the town hall, where Jarden directed them.
“We’ll bring news in a few minutes,” Karl called to the following crowd, and he sealed them inside the open space of the town hall, Kat at his side.
“Hello, Jarden,” another voice said from the back of the envoy. It belonged to a woman, and she wore a white uniform, in stark contrast to the others’ dark clothing.
Jarden’s eyes widened as he recognized the face. “Heather Barkley.”
She leaned in and gave him a hug. He hadn’t seen her since the day he’d watched Wren administer the test virus to their captive Watcher aboard the Eureka. To him, it hadn’t been so long ago. To Heather, it was half a lifetime gone.
Heather seemed younger than he would expect. She looked to be in her early fifties, but he understood she was closer to sixty-five. Health care and life extenders were better than ever, it appeared. “We have a lot to discuss.”
Instantly, Jarden noticed the deference the others gave her. She stalked across the room, heading to the podium at the far end of the town hall. When no one followed, she waved them over. The congregation made their way to her, and Jarden trembled in anticipation of news.
“You all have a lot of questions, we know,” Heather started. “Earth still stands, though we lost most of the colonies. I won’t sugarcoat anything. Our population sits at a quarter of what it did pre-invasion. It’s b
een a long sixty years since they first made their push through the Rift.”
She went into a tale of Serina Trone standing strong against the Watchers: crazy tales of destruction, loss, and unimagined victories. Heather talked long into the night about her own time as captain of the Eureka as their team released a virus on what turned out to not be the Watchers’ home planet, but another world they’d invaded centuries ago and migrated some of their population onto.
They’d intended to do the same to Earth and the colonies, but had failed. Jarden felt his wife’s hand squeeze his thigh on multiple occasions as the harrowing stories of battle after battle were uttered by the captain he’d brought into his world only a few years prior in his own timeline.
Jarden finally found his voice. “You fought them off? You actually won?”
Ace was still grinning as he sipped a cup of coffee. Oliv’s daughter slept in her lap, and Jarden beamed in pride at the sight.
Heather Barkley nodded. “We won.”
“They didn’t come back when the Rift opened?” Jarden asked.
“They didn’t,” Ace said.
“And what of it? You came here, only to lose another thirty years at home?” Jarden asked. It was a dangerous gamble.
“We’ve found another way,” Ace said.
“Then why did you wait?” Jarden asked.
“We didn’t understand it quite yet, and we were all needed at home if the Watchers did return. As soon as we knew they weren’t, we came,” Heather said.
“Came for what?” Leona asked quietly.
Oliv answered her mom’s question. “To bring you home.”
Jarden considered this. He’d only been here a year, and while the colony was tough, he was enjoying the challenge. Still… He looked at Leona and saw she’d made up her mind. She wanted to go with them.
“We’ve found so much more out there, Jarden. More life and worlds than you can imagine,” Heather said, and he leaned forward, mesmerized by her words. He had so many questions, but before he could ask any, Kat cut in.
“What of Flint?” Kat, who’d sat quiet this whole time, stood up, posture rigid. “He’s all right?”
Heather gave her a smile and nodded. “He said to tell you he misses you.”
Karl set a hand on Kat’s shoulder as the tears flowed.
“This reunion is more than I could have expected,” Jarden said.
The room sat silent for a moment, and Jarden let out a deep breath. He was an old man, but was already finding life on a colony planet, where you couldn’t use something as simple as an electric razor, tiring.
He turned to Leona, who didn’t hesitate to give him a smile and an almost imperceptible nod of her head.
“When do we leave?” he asked, a rush of adrenaline coursing through him. It was time to go home.
The End
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