The Queen of the Elves, Queen Merula Zenith, is currently drinking tea at the garden of the Royal palace. She is accompanied by her aide as well as bodyguard, Aila Arcturus.

The atmosphere at the garden is pleasant. Classical music resonates through the air and the delicious snacks provided by the royal chefs contributed to the Queen’s calm mood. She sips her tea and flips a page of a book she’s reading. It is a romance novel about a High Elf and a Dark Elf who tries to keep their relationship a secret due to the historical relations between the High Elves and the Dark Elves. It has been her favorite novel to read for over two centuries.

Her interest in the novel gradually died down. However, the recent contact with Human void dwellers reignited her interest in the book. Because, there is one scene that she loves the most, it is about the couple's secret date at the Human world of Anoria. The dark elf has an interest in history, they visited many famous sites and he began to tell his girlfriend all about them.

This sparked an interest in Queen Merula, she decided to research Human history in order to learn more about Humans and to spend her time until the void dwellers arrive. There is the occasional administrative work that she has to do as Queen, but so far, it hasn't deterred her from researching Humans and their history.

Her tutor told her when she was a child that Humans are a very dangerous race with a rich history. If you ignore their policies on other races, then you'd get a very culturally diverse, unique, and a progressive race. The Humans were the first to champion commoner representation in government, although with severe limitations. And of course, Humans only.

Merula notices that her cup is empty when she tries to sip. Aila notices this, and pours hot tea into her cup.

Merula finishes reading her book and sighs, she puts the book down. "If only Human written literature weren't burned down."

"You seem troubled, my Queen." Aila said with a concerned look on her face. She walked to the Queen and stood beside her.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, reality hit me as I realized how important books are." She lamented the loss of written knowledge.

"...What makes you so intrigued about these Humans, my Queen?" Aila said, "as far as I could tell, they're just normal, fragile Humans. Only difference is, they come from the void."

"Exactly. That's why I find them very interesting." The Queen retorted, "we all know that survival outside the Holy realm is impossible. Then how come these Humans survive out there? Without the blessing of the gods no less." She finishes.

".. And the only way to receive these unknown Humans is to invite them to the palace and give them an entire world?" Aila argued with her. Normally, when someone, regardless of their rank, disobeys or questions the Queen, they will get executed for treason. However, due to their relationship, and the fact that they're both childhood friends, she can get away with it.

"We-" Merula tried to argue back before someone interrupted her. A maid pushing a cart filled with delicious foodstuffs enters the garden.

"Excuse me your majesty, I hope I didn't interrupt something" The maid said as she knelt down.

"..No, not at all" Merula responds.

The maid then begins to replace the old snacks with new ones. While she did this, the Queen eyes her, watching her every move. The maid begins to feel nervous as she does her duty, uncomfortable with the way the Queen sees her.

"Excuse me, your majesty." The maid said after she is done with serving her the food. The Queen watches her leave the garden.

She then looks to Aila, who has been standing beside her, and asks, "since when did we have Human maids?".

"Since your majesty abolished slavery without success. You then decided to use Humans as maids in the palace to help desegregation, with mediocre success" She replied.

"I did that?" The Queen looks at Aila with a puzzled face. "I guess all this work made me forget about it" She sighs, slumping on the table. “I’ll see if i can get a deal or something from the void Humans..”

“Yuhuuu~ whatcha doing here?” Ira said strolling into the garden, she is wearing her casual clothes.

“You seem lively, miss Ira.” Merula said, looking up and seeing her sitting in the chair in front of her. She then took a tea cup and poured hot tea from the teapot. After that, she began eating all of the snacks available on the table.

“What's with you? You seem to have never eaten in life!” Merula said as she watched the Apostle devour the variety of food on the table. “No don't eat that!” Merula snatched her favorite pastry from Ira’s hands.

“I can’t help myself! The food that the Church serves are all so bland! I’m tired of it!.” she pouted, “You are an Apostle, have restraint” Merula said to the pouting Apostle.

“Can’t you get more food? You’re the Queen here after all.” Ira Said as she crossed her arms. “..Very well, but restrain yourself and eat properly like a civilized woman.” I signaled Aila to order more food from the kitchen, which she complied and went to the kitchen.

“I must say your majesty, I am impressed by your royal garden. I took the liberty of touring the premises and I find that your outdoors is really an eye freshener.” said Ira as she ate a cake slice.

“Miss Ira, you shouldn’t talk while eating, it is not elegant for a lady to do that.” I said, “But thank you for your compliment about the garden. We elves like to mix nature into our buildings as decorations or to honor the nature goddess.”

“Interesting, before coming here, I thought that elves live in trees and take baths from open rivers. And I thought that you people still use a tribal system like the beastmen.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Contrary to popular belief, we certainly build buildings, infrastructure and such. We also cut down trees despite our nature-loving culture,”I explained.

The second I said that, Aila suddenly appeared behind me and said, “Your majesty,” while bowing.

I jumped, “Aila! You surprised me!”

“Apologies, your Majesty. But I have worrying news.” She Apologized

“Worrying news? What is it?” I asked her about the news.

“It’s about the void Humans envoy, they were attacked by pirates”

**

“Captain, we have several unknown vessels heading directly to us”

An officer told me while I was at the canteen, taking a break.

“Shouldn’t you be reporting this to Lt. Max when I'm taking a break?”

“The Lieutenant told me to get you to the bridge, this is urgent, Captain”

“Fine. Madelyn, keep my food safe ok?”

“Sure thing Captain”

I then followed the officer back to the bridge. After I entered the bridge though, I noticed that the Ambassador from Terra, George Hawkes, and Major Lieutenant Philip Yang Ritz, The man in charge of the marines here. It seems like they’re discussing something, Max is also there with them. I headed towards them.

“Ah, Captain. You’ve arrived!” George said, “There has been contact with a native of this galaxy while you were away.”

“Contact?” I confusedly asked, “were they our escort the president has told us about?”

“Oh no no no no,” George laughed it off, “They’re pirates”

“Pirates?!” I raised my voice quite a bit, back home, pirates were a problem, correction, Was a problem. Pre-war Terra had piracy problems, internal trade was disrupted and pirate raids on poor worlds sparked an immigration crisis. That was before the war, the 7 millenium long war. At the start of the war piracy increased by 200%, but as the war progressed, the military finally took action and conducted an all-out massacre of pirate strongholds and eradicated most of them. “You said pirates.. What happened then? Is this ship equipped to deal with a pirate fleet?”

“There are no problems,” The Major replied, “in fact, this ship is apparently more than enough to deal with that pirate fleet.”

“Really? How?”

“After we recognized them as pirates, we decimated them of course.” he said, “Easily, at that”

“That easy? How many ships did the fleet have?” I asked.

“About…. Thirty? I think? I’m not that observant” Philip scratched his head. George cut in and said, “how the hell did you become a Major Lieutenant then?” he said to the Major who just laughed it off, “anyways, Captain” turning back to me he said, “The pirates are a bit… off? You could say.”

“How so?”

“Look at this recording of the ‘battle’,” he played a recording on a large screen that is placed on the front of the bridge, so that everyone could see it.

It displayed a one-sided slaughter between the TSS Explorer and the pirate fleet. With this ship erasing the fleet from existence within 5 minutes. But what I noticed while I was watching the footage, was that the pirate ships are.. A bit…Odd?

They look like those ancient ships waaaaay before Humanity became an intergalactic civilization. If I ever learned anything from highschool, these designs are at a time where Humans hadn’t even discovered a whole ass continent yet.

The only difference that I could spot on the ships are the wings at both sides of the hull, the absence of sails, and a giant battery that shoots….something. How does that work anyway? The hull is entirely wooded, and the deck is literally unprotected against the void of space, how the heck can they breathe!?

“As you’ve probably noticed, Captain. The ships have a striking resemblance to ancient naval fleets of ancient Terra,” George told me, “let me explain you history-”

“No thanks, Ambassador. I’ve gone through the education system too.” i cut him off, “the real question that i have is How the hell can they breath on the deck of that thing.”

“Maybe there’s an invisible force field on top of the deck providing oxygen? It’s my wild guess though.” Max said.

“That sounds science-fictional.” Philip interjected.

“Who knows?” Max said as he closed the recording, “300 years ago people thought that launching the stars as a projectile was impossible.”

“Well-” before Philip could say anything, he was cut off by George.

“We’ll need to inform Terra about this.” George announced. And everyone agreed.

It wasn’t until sometime that our escort arrived. The ships looked almost the same as the pirates, we told them that we were attacked by pirates and they apologized for not coming earlier.

I was returning to the cafeteria. While I was walking there,I took out my phone and I saw a notification. It was from madelyn, it read;

“I returned to your room”

“Don’t worry I brought your food”

“Hurry up k?”

“By the way, I used your card”

*

Thousands of light years away from Terra

In an extravagant room, filled with ornaments and priceless historical artifacts that are mostly millions, if not billions of years old, stood a tree. A tree without leaves and no roots connecting to the earth. Yet this is not a normal tree, the tree is an ancient intelligent sentient species. Although their population is only about 250 thousand, they all live for more than ten million years. And this particular tree is 8 million year old.

They are the Hutian. The only space faring civilization that have evolved from plant life.

Another Hutian came up to it. “Chancellor” it bowed.

“Responses?”

“All four powers have agreed to reinstate the Galactic Union. In a few Hut Months, they will be signing a peace treaty and resume trade.”

“Finally, everything is looking up, atleast.” the Chancellor said. For the duration of the war, which is largely named, the War on Heaven, or the War For Heaven, the galactic economy became Kaput after just a century of fighting. The Galactic Union dissolved afterwards. It is a dark age for the civilized galaxy. It’s a free for all, a Human politician once quoted during a session in congress.

For seven millennia the chancellor has been trying to keep the damage done by the war to a minimum. For seven millenia the chancellor has to witness countless species get exterminated for suspicion in helping the other side. While the single star system the Hut has are treated as a special neutral space. Becoming a safe haven for species who had either been driven out of their homeworlds or their no longer existing homeworld.

“Chancellor, I have news from the Humans”

“What is it?”

“They developed an intergalactic drive. And they are currently making contact in neighboring galaxies”

“This is the first time I have heard about it.”

“The news was only released by the Terran government at 6am Earth time.”

“I don’t care what the Terrans do in another galaxy. Clearly they’ve been developing that drive for the war effort. I’m grateful that it was relocated to the civilian sector.”

“Yes chancellor. I will excuse myself now.”

The Hut left the room, leaving the Chancellor alone

“Now, let’s see how these warmongering empires transition into peaceful times.”. The chancellor sighed.