"Dammit, this is the fourth one this month" Alyra sighs as she puts out the fire beneath the cauldron of boiling water. What a good soup that could have become, had she not been interrupted.

She leaves her comfortable wooden home and calmly walks over to the metal hatch that serves as entry to humanity's last great mark on Terra. With the help of the elevator, she descends to the comm room where her assistant connects to the vessel that is currently orbiting her planet. With the translation software running smoothly, she is ready to get this over with.

Clearing her voice, she speaks "Good day to you. You are being contacted by Alyra Gordon, overseer of planet Terra. I have opened communications with you in order to clarify the status of the planet you have approached.

After a short silence, the foreign ship responds. "What the... We have scanned this planet and it only revealed primitive life forms, I didn't expect we would be contacted like this. I am Admiral Gallahan, and my migrant fleet has been looking for a planet to rest and gather supplies from. Would you mind explaining the situation?" the voice was strange and high-pitched.

"Certainly. Although it might be hard to tell, this planet is the property of The United Coalition of Humanity. Only one human resides on it and hardly any remnants of our civilization remain on its surface, however, it is the site of one of our oldest projects. This is why I must ask you to continue your search for a suitable planet elsewhere." she said, leaning back in her chair and waiting for their response.

"Ridiculous. Humanity claims to own an entire garden world that is clearly still wild, with only one of its members on it? It is ripe for exploitation, yet you would deny those in need of its resources?" interestingly the pitch of the voice lowered, perhaps expressing anger.

"It is clearly stated in the rules imposed by the galactic council that at least one member of a species must be present on a planet for it to retain its status as that species' property. Had it not been that way, my presence would not be required. If it is the legality of it all that you are concerned with, I have already transmitted all of the documents proving ownership to you."

"And I have received them. However, I cannot abide by this. Humanity's civilization is settled a dozen solar systems away, prospering and needing for nothing, and yet for some reason, they claim a random planet orbiting an unremarkable star as their own, choosing to do nothing with it. Denying others who need it more than they do. I'm sorry miss Alyra, perhaps you are not solely responsible for your species' choice in this matter, but we are a proud people and will not stand by this injustice. Eliminating humanity's only representative should solve our problems" the admiral concludes, as the woman sighs.

In a bored tone, as though she already knows her actions are futile but is still required to follow protocol, she speaks "I must advise against such an attack. Humanity is willing and able to pro-" her words were cut short by the beeping of the map next to her, showing that the planetary magnetic missile shield had just intercepted a direct strike from a quantum laser cannon. Giving up on her earlier warning, she proceeds with an announcement.

"Having recorded that the first strike has been dealt by one of your ships, I am now permitted to open fire"

Targeting the exact ship that first fired, she uses the defense system of her bunker to swiftly take it out. She also takes this time to analyze the foreign ships. As she had been informed, they were a migrant fleet, and some of their ships were certainly housing unarmed civilians. What a risky move this is on their part, it would be nice to settle this without that many casualties, she thought.

The gigantic hunk of metal was blasted away in seconds, hardly leaving any wreckage behind as it disintegrated. "Be warned that if you fire again, all of your ships are liable to get caught in the crossfire," she said.

"You would go that far to defend this empty planet? You would kill millions of my people ...for this?"

"I'm sorry Admiral, but you see, humans are melancholic creatures. One after another, we had several scientific breakthroughs that brought us to prosperity we never would have thought possible, immortality, travel at the speed of light, and true artificial intelligence, in only a few of our years, we had it all. Just as we were getting ready to leave for greener horizons, we couldn't help but spare a guilty glance back at our home. Dirty, polluted, dying, old Earth, the pale blue dot that was bathed in the blood of our wars, that had seen all of our accomplishments, that was sickened by our exploitation. We reached a consensus at some point, that we wouldn't leave our planet in that sorry state. As a parting gift, we cleaned it up. The others took the monuments of our past with them to their new home and left Terra as clean as they could manage, in the hopes of preserving whatever was left of the fauna and flora that evolved alongside our species. I've been stationed here ever since, monitoring and protecting this planet from outside intervention. Does the full story suffice? Is this enough to convince you that we won't give up on this planet so easily?"

"I... understand now. We can hardly remember how long ago we lost our home planet, we would never take it away from another species. If you would allow us to leave, we would be willing to do so."

"You are permitted to depart, I wish you luck in your search." she says.

After confirming that all of the vessels have left earth orbit, she gets up from her chair and leaves the cold metal construction, heading instead to her cabin. She notices that, on the table, where she had left a few chopped-up tomatoes, there was now an uncomfortable amount of flies. Defeated, she takes the tomatoes and tosses them out on the ground, for nature and the bugs to reclaim.

"Annoying, but perhaps there is something beautiful in the mechanisms of nature"

Leaning on the creaky wooden structure that she had built for herself, she gazes at the distant forest. A forest that, only a thousand years ago, had been destroyed by the greed of her people. Now, the trees rose so high up in the sky that she was having trouble seeing the sunset behind them.

"It is good to be home" she chuckles to herself

The end

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Man, I really shouldn't have stayed up so late to write this, I'm sure the quality is pretty bad, especially the second half, I didn't even finish the ending. I might adjust it tomorrow...

Anyway, constructive feedback is always welcome. I'm new at this so feel free to tell me why you think it sucked so I can improve.

Edit: I did adjust it! Hopefully the ending is ok

Also, I really didn't expect to wake up today to so many upvotes and positive comments, thank you all!