Arborvoid

Part One: The Whispers of Scarcity

The twin suns of Zogar hung in the sky like two unyielding overseers, bleaching the ochre plains beneath them. The wind carried secrets—old, half-forgotten tales of lush forests that once thrived here when life wasn't a daily battle for every scrap of wood. On Zogar, wood wasn't just a material; it was a relic of hope, a keepsake of lush dreams now as distant as a childhood memory.

Inside the council chamber, the air tasted of metal and dust, as if the very walls exhaled the sorrow of a dying world. Emperor Zar stood before his gathered Elders, his face hard and carved by the endless grit of Zogar's barren lands. His voice, rough and deliberate, broke the heavy silence.

"For generations, we've bled this barren rock dry for sustenance. Our vessels—once the very breath of our civilization—are choking. And now, the whispers of a world abundant in what we sorely lack have grown into a roar," he intoned. There was a fierce determination in his tone, as if every word was a promise to his starving people.

A hologram flickered into life beside him—a spectral map of skeletal starships, relics whose wooden cores long ago turned to fossilized memory. The sight struck a chord of both wonder and despair. It reminded everyone not only of their past brilliance but also of how far they had fallen.

Elder Vorak, every line on his weathered face a testament to personal loss—loss of kin, lost time, lost hope—leaned forward. "But, Great Zar, the void is vast and treacherous. The journey to Earth is filled with unknown dangers. How can we risk all for another world?" His voice, hoarse and edged with pain, carried the weight of years of suffering.

Zar's eyes, dark and unwavering, flashed with a resolve that bordered on fanaticism. "Desperation overrides fear, Vorak. Our scientists have confirmed it: Earth exists—a planet overflowing with wood. It's not simply a chance; it's our destiny to claim it."

Then there was Elder Lyra, soft in her demeanor, as if carrying the wisdom of lost legends in every quiet breath. She tilted her head as if searching for something deeper in Zar's words. "And what of the Earth's inhabitants, Great Zar? Are they warriors? Or might they prove to be a threat?" Her tone was gentle but laced with caution—a reminder that even as hope stirred, there remained a risk of the unknown.

A thin smile played at Zar's lips, one that briefly softened his steely gaze with a glimmer of inner fire—a rare glimpse of humanity in a face honed by cruelty. "They are primitive," he replied coolly. "Their grasp of the cosmos is child's play; their overabundance will be their undoing."

But as his words echoed around the chamber, a murmur of unease rippled among the Elders. Vorak's eyes darkened with memories too raw to hide, and Lyra's gentle face betrayed a flicker of worry despite her calm. In that heavy silence, the chamber itself seemed to warn of secrets yet to be unraveled—of a future more treacherous than Zar dared to imagine.

For a long moment, no one spoke. The council chamber, with its cold, metallic air and fading holograms, stood as a testament to a civilization on the brink—bound by desperation and guided by dreams of a lost, abundant past. Zar's voice had been unyielding, promising a future where their hunger would be sated on a world they barely believed existed, yet within the hearts of the Elders, a single, quiet question hung: What price would they pay when Earth proved not the paradise they expected, but a realm of unforeseen challenges?

That question—a simmering doubt mingled with hope—would come to haunt them in the days to follow. Even now, as they prepared for a fate written in the whispers of scarcity, the seeds of apprehension were being sown. For ambition without caution often leads to ruin.