Prologue: The Order Of Arrival
The first ship left Earth quietly.
There were ceremonies, of course. Words spoken into microphones. Flags stitched into sleeves. Smiling faces that did not quite hold. Humanity had always been good at dressing grief in celebration.
But when the engines finally lit and the vessel pulled away from the cradle of Earth, the moment itself was almost simple.
A light departing into dark.
A single, fragile line drawn outward from everything that had ever been home.
The mission was not measured in kilometers. It was measured in centuries.
Five hundred years.