When she was last a little girl she grew up with them telling stories of the visitors. Stories of when myth became reality. How the first ships passed through the sky between sun and land. It had been before this birth when the contact started.

But she was born and raised in the midst of the flurry of the forming of the great colonization fund and the first constructions on the port. She remembered vaguely as an infant the great unification of Terra. Tribes and nations rallying and pooling their resources to make the great rivers of rail lines up the indomitable cliffs of the Edge Port.

She was a young woman when the colonist cadres began forming up, dreamers, the wander lusting and simply those wanting better lives beyond their situation at home finally free to so choose.

The first colony site had been negotiated and planned out. The selected block of real estate would be over a dozen years distant by light so said those first visitors. The traders. Every tribe and country on terra was given an allotment in the great colony effort. And among the largest and most prosperous the plans churned forward, the preparations were made and the colonists departed.

She grew up learning how the nations saw the solution to all their ecological and economic woes. How with the effortless space travel of the visitors and the endless opportunities of the universe beyond their people could restore and regain peace on terra.

All the old strifes and new could be resolved. The ancient soul feuds settled and true lasting peace for the good of terra herself and them all could be realized. However as she matured and then traveled from home to the great university where the masters of every skill and trade were pooled to try and find the best for the colony. She grew suspicious.

Maybe there was a canniness to her, perhaps one she had shown before, or perhaps a gift of her parents this time around. Over the aether net she connected to old friends and new and they discussed the colonization effort. In study halls and with peers from across the bowl of terra there was a growing realization about the nature of the colony effort.

It was not strictly speaking all roses and mana from terra like her childhood education had promised. Every nation had an ‘allotment’ of cargo on a visitor ship reserved to be bought with the pooled resources of terra. The going rate for such transport broadcasted and carried by word of ship out beyond Terra to the vessels they had learned filled the space between stars (and beyond the stars).

But of course those that had committed the most to the fund got first pick on the ships. That was only fair the lectures and the teachers and children rhymes on the aether said. They would be the true frontier explorers and city builders. The rest of them would arrive after to whatever works they wrought.

And so it went. Every year another ship departed with holds full of colonists from Terra’s nations. After the richest came the most populace (only fair). And down from there came the most potent allies of those that had already sent their share of the colony. Eventually it came down to the valley tribes of Aoria where she was born and now where she had returned after her time in the great university. Considering the missive she heard on the aether it was rather funny.

Her parents had named her Last and 24th of her line as was the tradition, the symbol for last of the old numera. It was fitting that she would be in the final batch of colonists departing Terra. In older memories she felt the way that her name’s word once meant infinity, the unbounded.

But as she grew and learned and became a master of her craft in Adulthood the word took on a more modern meaning for her, Last of a kind. There were after all many families who swore off having daughters and especially sons after the visitors came. They saw a world changed and a exodus of the souls to the new pastures of the wide universe.

A place of horror and adventure and challenge, Though one hopefully less crowded. It would be generations before most families felt it safe to call up souls of new children beyond the bare minimum. To avoid possibly stealing an ancient hero that the colonies desperately needed.

She honestly found the whole premise of it superstitious. She knew for a fact it did not work like that. But people held to such faiths especially in Aoria. So there were many daughters named Last in the years of and surrounding her birth.

Many daughters named Omega.

She returned home after awakening her talent. Settled in as a general wisewoman and problem solver to pass the time. Knowing she was one of the very few candidates Aoria could choose to send that would meet the specifications. Quite the contrast to her friend here.

“Wait... Really?! You got us both in the colonist detachment! We’re going to SPACE?!”

They were sitting in a meadow, looking out over the valley, the hint of the stars behind the sun here more visible than the midlands. The sheer cliffs of the mountains which gave Aoria its name. Mere foothills compared to the great shield walls of the rim.

Omega found it especially hilarious that her friend was named First, the single the breaker of new ways. Fresh and unburdened by old history. A name given in the years after Omega’s own birth showing hope and optimism for the future. Bringing fresh new spirit into the world.

Aleph.

“You bet! We are literally in two of the last three spots! Well the last three that are going up live and awake! I think maybe there might be more shipping off in storage.”

Omega could forgive the politics and corruption and fraction lines in the so called Terran Alliance for this. If the world had actually been properly functioning and smooth Aoria might not have literally been the very last nation (if you could call a literal dozen hamlets living up in a canyon on the Edge of Nowhere a nation). If the timing and the outreach of the Alliance of Terra had not been precisely right Omega and Aleph might have not been in just the right position to be candidates.

Aleph was only just barely old enough to qualify for it now. Otherwise even all of Omega’s recommendation would have fallen on deaf ears. Omega had only just graduated from the academies herself to qualify for candidacy in Aoria. To be deemed worthy and capable enough to head the expedition for her homeland and its neighboring affiliated countryside.

They and a literal scion prophet of one of the monasteries were the only ones that would be awake for the journey in their berth!

The three of them would be going. Barring accident or death they were the selectees. It had been decided. But Aleph was not going to get to loaf just because the expedition lead vouched for her. Omega had been trained, but for aleph now the real work began.

“Of course you know what that means right?”

“That I’m gonna get dance requests from every single person in the city? That we get to see stars never even glimpsed before by terran eyes?! That we are going to be the seed of a new way of life! Free of the shackles and oppression of old?!”

Omega laughed and booped her friend and rising prodigy on the nose.

“No ya doofus it means we only have three years to get you in shape to travel on a star ship!”

“What?! Really! Come on it can’t be that hard!”

“Do you even know how to run a hydroponics rig?”

“Uh.”

“Or repair an air scrubber?”

“Well I’m sure I can figure it out, it’s not like anything else has been that hard”

“Well maybe you will have a chance to prove yourself early and then we can live the good life for the rest of the time”

“Oh yeah Bring it on! I can’t wait!”

“Well lucky you! We get to start out here on terra after first rest!”

“FIRST REST?!”

“Well yah I figured you wanted to go out and celebrate before you disappear into a black hole of training and work right up until we leave”

“We have years though! Can’t it wait?!”

“Space does not care if you want forty winks.”

“Fine... You know best.”

“That’s literally my job. Trained and certified for it and everything!”