Chapter 1
The room was too quiet for a decision that would change the fate of humanity.
Flax Venture stood at the far end of the Oval Office, hands clasped behind his back, eyes fixed not on the President, but on the faint reflection of Earth in the glass of a display screen. Blue. Whole. Alive barely.
President Jasper didn’t bother with small talk.
“We don’t have time for ceremony,” he said. “You’ve read the reports.”
Flax nodded once. He had. Every classified line. Every redacted horror. The alien artificer Apollonian hadn’t just threatened Earth. It had tested it. Measured humanity like a variable in an equation.
“And your conclusion?” Jasper asked.
Flax finally turned. “It wasn’t an attack.”
The President’s brow tightened.
“It was contact,” Flax continued. “Or a warning. Possibly both.”
A long silence followed. The kind that meant the next words would carry weight.
“We’re sending you to Proximal Centaur,” Jasper said.
No hesitation. No buildup.
Flax felt it not shock, not fear but a deep, sinking recognition. This had always been where things were heading.
“You’ll command the Emissary,” the President added. “First interstellar diplomatic mission in human history.”
Flax exhaled slowly. “And if it’s not diplomacy waiting for us?”
“Then you’ll make it so.”
That was the burden of Pan Nationals. They didn’t wait for solutions. They became them.
“You’ll assemble your own crew,” Jasper said. “All Pan National. No divided loyalties. No political interference.”
Flax almost smiled. “You’re asking for a miracle.”
“I’m asking for trust,” Jasper replied. “Because if we send anyone else… we might as well send soldiers.”
Flax stepped closer to the desk.
“There’s one more thing,” the President said, softer now. “This mission… it’s decades. You know that.”
Flax did know.
But knowing something and feeling it were different things entirely.
His wife’s face flickered in his mind. The way she had smiled that morning. The way her hand had rested—lightly, protectively—over the future he might never meet.
“I’ll do it,” Flax said.
And just like that, Earth lost him.
