The story begins long ago [I said], back when I was a very young man. Almost as young as all of you. It was a bad time for the human race. Some of us had spread out among the stars, but most of us lived on Babylon, a planet many light-years from here. And no matter where we lived, none of those planets were home.
Put your hands down; I know you ask why we left Earth. And the answer should strike fear into all your hearts. It was because of the Leyens.
Many years ago, as many years before I was born as have passed since, the Leyens came to Earth and conquered our home. These pale, shriveled, large-eyed aliens came to each member of our race with a choice--either be driven into exile, or have our genes altered so we would become like them. The Leyens had no sense of morality, and no sense of individuality, and most of us rejected their misguided offer.
Some of us were weak, though, and I spit on their memory. Those who became assimilated started taking the Leyen point of view, wondering why we were so attached to this ball of dirt we called home. They were the ones, these Leyen-Human hybrids, who drove us into exile on the planet Babylon.
And so, from my grandfather's time until my own, we lived on a planet that we did not know, strangers on an unfamiliar world, where spring, summer, winter, and autumn did not mean what they had here on Earth. We scraped out a life for humanity, and wept for the world we had once known.
One day, we heard news that filled us with both fear and joy. The Leyens were not the only aliens out there. Far from here, closer to the center of the Milky Way, the Leyens were fighting with another race, one that they had tried to assimilate but that had not grown as weak and complacent as we had.
The war had come, and with it, our opportunity.
My father, Matthew, the Governor of our planet of exile, called me to his office one morning and said, "Judah, this is our chance."
"What is?" I asked him.
He looked around the room as if checking for electronic spying devices. "At the cost of many lives, we've managed to secure six Leyen ships capable of hyperspace. I've heard that the Leyens have pulled their forces away from Earth, and even the hybrids have left. This is our chance to take our planet back."
)
