Check out the Kizuna Histories for free on Royal Road.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/61923/kizuna-histories-of-a-universe-that-hasnt-happened

These are the Kizuna Histories, a generation-spanning roadmap transporting us to the point when Enoch, a 28th-century space waste transport engineer, gets caught up in a whole whirly-gig of aliens, pirates, evil empires, and snarky AIs in Kizuna: Or How to Lose a Spaceship and Still Go Places.

The Kizuna Histories touch upon how our world might change over the centuries if we knew that aliens existed but were ghosted after the first message was received.

These tales of tragedy and triumph, humour and heroism, explore one of the many paths humanity may take as it forges a path into the future.

Kizuna Histories is updated one to three times a week.