The New Hope stopped the faster-than-light engines and started scanning their surroundings. After a minute or two, Captain Geh!aoa asked, "Is this the right system, Nik!eh?"

He'd seen so many star systems at this point, Nick was nervous. "Let me see the planets, please."

Massik forwarded images to his station. Petra, put these in increasing order of distance from the star, he told his interface. The pictures rearranged themselves. Holding his breath, he looked them over...and recognized them. He saw Saturn first, and then Jupiter, and the little red one had to be Mars, and...He felt tears in his eyes and blinked them back. That beautiful blue marble...and the Moon...

"Yes," he rasped. "The third planet out...is Earth."

It was hard to believe. He'd finally made it home. A nervous knot slowly unclenched, but only partway.

Almost there. Now all I have to do is keep my fellow humans from shooting at us or kidnapping us.

"Hold position until the Guranaki Melor arrives," the Captain ordered.

It was a couple of hours before the freighter dropped out of FTL, and another hour before the two ships picked each other up on scanners. The Guranaki Melor was always a little bit slower than the New Hope, so this was a typical delay. They signaled the other ship to rendezvous near Earth.

"Take us in, Yulliksu," the Captain ordered. "FTL at your discretion, then normal speed. Standard orbit around the third planet."

"Aye, Captain."

A short burst from the faster-than-light engines got them inside the orbit of Mars. "Four hours, Captain."

"Very well." Captain Geh!aoa turned to look at Nick. "Do you want to send your message now?"

"Yes, please." The Captain nodded. Petra, learn the format for transmissions from Earth, and prepare to transmit.

< Yes, Nick. > Nick settled back to wait.

Eventually, Petra reported, < Format learned. What frequency do you wish to use? >

Nick thought about it. < Use the frequency for video communications to and from the ISS...the orbiting space station with people on it. >

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< Understood. Ready to transmit. >

Nick cleared his throat and spoke aloud for the sake of the other people. "Petra, send the message labeled Hello, World."

"Sending message."

He'd gone over it a bunch of times, but watched the final version go out live. It was a view of Nick sitting in his cabin facing the camera.

"Hello, World!

"This is Nick Tomsun of Planet Earth, on board the Ooafan starship New Hope. If you're receiving this message, I'm almost home. Pretty soon, you'll probably pick this ship up, and one other, on radar. The ships are friendly. I repeat, the ships are friendly. This one is my ride home, they're dropping me off." He grinned hugely. "The other one...is a rental...I hired...for Earth." Even after several takes, Nick couldn't help the smug delivery. It was just too awesome not to gloat.

"So, yeah, I have lots of good news. I'm bringing a lot of math, science, blueprints, a ton of stuff, and I'm going to start sharing it out pretty soon. So, everybody calm down. This is a visit, not an invasion. Don't freak out, and don't shoot at the rental. I'll be there to answer questions soon. I'll send more messages once we're close enough to get on the Internet and talk live and everything. Catch you later." Nick waved at the camera, and the message ended.

Nick scratched his head a moment. "I guess I could have worded that better, but honestly, I think it did the job."

"I will be happy to meet your people, Nik!eh," the Captain said. "What do you want to do first?"

"I want a hamburger. Earth food, in general. God, I've missed that."

"I mean, when we first reach orbit," Geh!aoa prodded with a smile.

"Well, I have to take it slow to keep my people from doing anything stupid. Staying in orbit should be good while I send a bunch of messages."

I'll see if maybe I can make a new email account and contact everyone from there. Oh, I should make up some word or phrase I can put in the subject line so it doesn't go to a spam folder.

Nick had already written a lot of the emails during the long trip. He checked them over, and started catching up on the news that was broadcast into space. Wild. President Milton stepped down, huh? Before his term was even over. And Smith won the election. The Dodgers won the World Series...the Eagles won the Superbowl...

There was a lot to catch up on. After a while, messages started coming in on the same frequency, pointed at the ship to judge by the signal strength. He was getting invited to land in Red Square, Tiananmen Square...lots of Squares. The US wanted him at Vandenberg SFB for some reason. It took him a minute to remember that the US had a Space Force now. That reminds me...

"Hey, Massik? Can I ask you a question?"

Massik looked at the Captain, who nodded. "What is it, Nick?"

"You can scan all of Earth's technology, right? I mean, if my people put a stealth...a hidden nuclear weapon in orbit, you could detect it, right?"

"Yes. Last time we were here, you had 48 nuclear missiles in orbit, and fired eight of them at us. They weren't a problem."

"And even if my people tried to be sneaky and put the nuke hidden without a missile, hoping to be in the right place, you could still detect it?" Nick didn't want to take the time to explain the word mine to Petra.

"Yes, Nick. I can also detect stone spears if you need," Mallik teased.

"Just checking. My people are good at being nasty. And if my people from hundreds of years ago fought my people today, some of them would probably manage to kill some of us."

"We will be very careful with the sneaky, sneaky humans," Mallik promised solemnly.

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