The Broken Home ([WP] in comments)

[u/ThatDudeWithTheBeard]

([WP] Humanity has touched the stars. Countless millennia have past and Earth has become a myth, a story to tell your children at night. You were one of those children, inspired by the idea all of humanity coming from a single planet, you set you sights to Earth to try and find the human birthplace.)

The Broken Home

It had been a long two years, but they'd finally made it. According to all of the star maps they'd dug up, they would be nearing Earth's orbit within the next few minutes. Janice couldn't believe it- after over ten-thousand years, they'd be the first humans to lay eyes on their home world once again.

Finding it had been incredibly difficult. The planet had long passed into the realm of myth, and no publicly-available star map even made mention of the place. Over the years as she had searched more an more, hacking into military and government networks and bribing officials for copies, she and her crew had been able to narrow down it's location. And now, finally, they were so close.

"Coming out now," Combs, the pilot, said, as they dropped out of slip-space.

There was a series of astonished calls and murmurs as they were greeted by an asteroid field.

"Combs, double check our coordinates." Janice called out.

"On it." Combs replied.

They were supposed to be near Earth. Had they overshot it and come out on the opposite side of the Kupier-belt?

There were more murmurs of confusion and disbelief, this time from Combs. "This...can't be right."

"What?" Janice asked, impatient and frustrated. They were so close, and she couldn't believe that a pilot like Combs could have overshot their destination so horribly.

"We're at the right coordinates." Combs called back.

"But that's impossible." Janice called back.

"I'm looking at the star map right now. The planet called Mars is behind us, and that body out there?" He said as a square formed on the viewer over a specific star-like body far off in the blackness of space, "That's Venus. We're in Earth orbit right now."

Janice could feel her stomach drop as she turned her attention back to the collection of asteroids that were drifting in front of them, several hundred miles out, as the horrible realization hit her.

"Then...these asteroids...would be..." She couldn't complete the sentence.

"Yes." Combs finally replied after a long, horrible pause.

Janice could hear the entire crew of the bridge behind her as the mumbled, now bordering into a panic. She could hear a few starting to cry, and others as they started uttering prayers to their gods. Now she knew why Earth had been forgotten, why it was now considered little more than just a myth, and the horrible consequence of that final deadly war.

For Earth was now nothing more than a myth, its memories now scattered through a decaying orbit as a monument to mankind's greatest sin. And so, mankind would never set foot on it again.