There was dust on the desk.
Not the floating kind you see in air-filtered stations, but the heavy, clinging kind that suggested no one had touched this office in years.
Maybe decades.
I stared at the chair across from me. It was torn, one armrest broken, the other still stained with something dark.
Coffee, maybe. Blood, maybe. Knowing this company? Both.
The drone in front of me buzzed again. Its voice was cheerful in the way only machines designed for bureaucracy can be.
"Congratulations, Kael Drayven. As per Interstellar Inheritance Code 718B, subsection 12, you are now the sole legal owner of Drayven Freight Interstellar, its ships, holdings, debts, and associated liabilities."
I blinked. "That's a long way of saying I inherited a dumpster fire."
The drone zipped off before I could throw something at it. I leaned back in the old chair, which groaned like it wanted to die too, and stared out the window.
'How much had humanity changed over the years? It was 2067 now—16 years since Earth first discovered alien life. I remember being five when the news broke.'
Back then, the whole world lost its mind.
One moment, scientists were sending signals out into the void like hopeful kids shouting into a canyon.
The next, boom — an answer came back.
Real, unmistakable, alien.
You'd think people would be thrilled. We finally weren't alone. The universe suddenly felt bigger, more mysterious, full of possibilities.
But no.
Instead, it was chaos.
Countries panicked. Major powers rushed to their nuclear arsenals like paranoid toddlers hoarding candy. The streets flooded with protests and doomsday cults preaching the apocalypse was here.
Governments scrambled to prepare for "First Contact," which mostly meant planning who to bomb first.
I was five and already knew grown-ups were terrible at keeping calm.
The media played nonstop footage of politicians sweating over buttons that could destroy cities, while everyone else hoarded canned food and toilet paper like the world was ending tomorrow.
Which, honestly, wasn't far off in their minds.
But the aliens didn't drop bombs.
They were way too advanced for that. So advanced, in fact, they cracked our language faster than anyone expected.
Within days, they knew everything about us—our history, our wars, our weird internet memes nobody else found funny.
They even knew the embarrassing parts, like that one time the world's biggest leader tripped on live TV.
When the whole planet was holding its breath, expecting invasion or at least some kind of galactic ultimatum, the aliens made first contact.
And it wasn't like, "You're slaves now, surrender your resources."
No, no, nothing that dramatic.
It was more like a sales pitch.
Imagine a slick intergalactic used-car salesman, but instead of cars, he's selling the idea of friendship… or trade agreements… or whatever fancy word they use for "let's make some credits."
And what caught their eye?
You'd think they'd want gold, diamonds, rare metals—something flashy, right?
Nope.
They wanted ...trees.
Yes, trees.
Apparently, trees are exclusive to Earth. Not just any trees—the kind that suck carbon out of the air, provide oxygen, and look pretty while doing it.
Who knew?
So while we were busy freaking out over nuclear codes and alien threats, the galaxy's richest traders were lining up to buy our forests.
Ironic, isn't it? The thing that could save us wasn't some exotic mineral or advanced tech, but something we've been ignoring since the industrial revolution.
From there, Earth changed completely within ten years. So much, in fact, that our next-door neighbor might not even be born on Earth anymore.
The planet I grew up on—the one with smog-choked skies and dying forests—transformed into something almost unrecognizable.
Cities turned greener, air cleaner. Trees weren't just plants anymore; they were a commodity, a symbol, a lifeline.
As humans interacted more with aliens, our understanding of space and diplomacy grew, too.
We discovered there wasn't just one alien species—there were many, a whole cosmic melting pot.
And five of them were powerful enough to keep the peace in the universe. They formed an alliance—called the Galactic Concordium—a sort of interstellar United Nations, but with more teeth.
According to their rules, if a planet is valuable to the universe, no species—even the strongest—could just destroy it on a whim. That meant Earth wasn't just a backwater rock anymore; it was protected.
But that protection came with strings.
If Earthlings messed up—like, say, wiped out every single tree—they wouldn't just lose their planet. The Galactic Concordium would step in, and the consequences... well, let's just say Earth wouldn't survive the punishment.
So producing and supplying trees to the galaxy turned into our new claim to fame.
Earthlings, once the reckless destroyers of green, became the galaxy's primary gardeners and forest merchants.
Naturally, a million trading companies popped up overnight. Everyone wanted a slice of the tree-pie—bio-sap extractors, root-seed haulers, even luxury bonsai smugglers.
My dad? He saw it coming early.
He founded Drayven Freight Interstellar just as the boom started. At first, it was small. One ship. One route. One grumpy mechanic who only worked for coffee. But within five years, Dad was running ten freighters across three systems, and Mom was managing more contracts than Earth's actual environmental ministry.
Business was that good.
It got so good, in fact, that my dad could afford to send me to Aurellion Prime University of Advanced Sciences—the best college in the known universe.
The kind with libraries the size of starcruisers, tuition fees that could bankrupt a planet, and a campus AI that judged you if you wore mismatched socks.
I went. Of course I did.
Mom and Dad stayed behind on Earth, running the business while I focused on my studies.
Everything was fine—video calls, voice messages, the occasional care package full of Earth snacks and passive-aggressive reminders to wear universe-screen cream.
I majored in AI Engineering, with a focus on multi-sentient cognition.
Fancy words for "I build weird stuff with feelings."
And... I did build something. A secret project. An AI of my own—quiet, intuitive, learning in ways that made even my professors raise eyebrows.
I didn't tell anyone about it. Not really. It wasn't ready. Or maybe I wasn't.
But then, about six months ago... silence.
No calls. No messages. Not even a delayed ping from their old station.
At first, I told myself it was a network issue. Or some government nonsense. But weeks turned into months, and my messages kept going unanswered.
I tried to stay focused. Tried to keep studying. But the anxiety chewed holes in my thoughts like cosmic termites.
And one day—I just left.
Dropped everything, packed my AI, and boarded the next cargo vessel heading home.
Something was wrong.
When I got back, my parents were gone.
No note. No farewell message. No tragic accident to blame it on.
Just... gone. Their house was sealed. Their names flagged as "Inactive" in the planetary registry.
No explanation. No investigation. Just a polite, government-issued "We're looking into it" that sounded suspiciously like "Please stop asking."
And as their legitimate heir—lucky me—I got everything.
Well... not everything.
What I inherited wasn't the peak empire I remembered from childhood holo-calls.
Turns out, Drayven Freight Interstellar had been quietly collapsing while I was off solving ethical alignment problems in AI theory and trying to pass mandatory galactic philosophy.
The cargo bays were mostly empty. Contracts had dried up. Clients gone. Ships grounded. The company's once-proud logo—an elegant green tree with stars for roots—was now half-faded on a rusting hangar wall.
Apparently, my parents hadn't told me any of this.
Probably didn't want to distract me from my studies.
And now I was left with a business on life support, missing parents, a city that barely remembered me.
"Haa," I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. Then, with a sigh, I double-tapped the side of my head—right above the temple.
A faint click.
The neural port engaged with a quiet hum. And then—
[Ding]
[Hello, Master. What's the order today?]
I smiled, just a little.
That voice belonged to Iris, the AI I'd built from scratch in the dark corners of Aurellion Prime University's engineering wing.
She wasn't just code. She wasn't just smart. She can felt. Reacted. Dreamed.
Iris wasn't public. Not officially. According to the university and half the galaxy, AI couldn't do what she did.
But she did.
In fact, if I had published even half of what she was capable of, I'd already have a Nobel Cluster Prize, a seat on the Galactic Ethics Board, and a very real risk of waking up one morning with my brain in a jar somewhere in a sterile lab labeled "Property of the Sovereign Research Collective."
So... yeah. I kept her secret.
[You're quiet], she said gently.
[Want to talk about it or should I continue pretending I'm not monitoring your cortisol levels?]
I exhaled. "Connect with company AI. Full sync."
[Oof. Diving straight into the trauma, I see. Connecting now... please hold your existential dread.]
***