The Futility Wars

By Magnus Thollander

A cold, sterile hospital room had been Matthias home for the early parts of his life, but soon an alien ship arrives in the Sol system bringing a message out to all humans: War is coming, And humanity needs to do their part.

Matthias signs up to leave his mortal body behind to become a machine, escaping his shackled body and becoming the only thing capable of slowing down the Futility.

But are the aliens his only foes, when humanity had fought each other for generations?

Matthias must struggle to weave the complex web of politics and warfare to give humanity a chance of survival in this universe.

For there are no other options.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Magnus Thollander
• Release date: Jun 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393376859

Book preview

Prologue

Year 2190, Luna Colony

The alarm chimed, and Matthias unbuckled himself from the bed so that he would not carelessly drift around in the zero-g environment. He slowly rose toward the sink and poured himself a glass of water to take his medicine, He had a rare genetic disease that makes his bones too fragile, and had to live in a zero-g environment always.

The disease is not well understood, but it's fatal, normal gravity will shatter his bones and crush his lungs and heart. He had never left the colony or worked a proper job ever, and He had a little contact with his mother and father. Both of them lived in the gravity section, and He had only on a handful of occasions in his life left his hospital room. Most of them were because he had a heart attack or blood did not transfer fast enough in his system, and He did not even mind dying any more he was trapped in a room with just the galactic net to keep him busy. His mother and father visited quite often, but he did not want them around to look at him with pity, They had a new son that was normal, He is just a burden and wanted to become forgotten so nobody would be sad when he inevitably passed.

He frowned at the needle he injected into his arm that contained all the painkiller he would need to handle the pain of hitting buttons on his keyboard. He used voice commands to control his computer mostly. Still, he had to use his keyboard occasionally, and the pain of hitting the keys was impossible to take away without painkillers. He started to feel better and glided to his kitchen and pulled out a bag labeled dinner and connected it to the hot water and waited a few seconds, He pulled the lukewarm beverage then started to suck the nutritional brew down. Motioned with his hands for his television to start, and he lied back down on his bed, he stayed perfectly still and yelled out channel switches until he got to something interesting. It was his favorite show Milky Way Mysteries.

He just watched those crazy humans trying to find a way to leave Sol in a quick enough manner that when you arrived at the nearby system, you would not have missed 80 birthdays. However, time never mattered anymore because everyone chugged down an elixir It pretty much made you live forever as long as you kept a healthy lifestyle and drank it down every 10-15 years, depending on the organ and muscle damage. He had to drink that elixir every six months to keep his organs just functioning. Luckily enough, he was one of the few that got it for free due to his condition, and ordinary people had to work a year to get a drink. He had always wanted to travel across the stars and conquer the unexplored territories. Still, he knew if he survived the gravity of the rocket thrust, he would have to save up millions of credits just to afford all the elixirs needed to make him live, an elixir every six months for eternity?

That's just not economical, He had been playing the stock market and investing he made a few thousand credits, but he could hardly spend anything since he could not leave his room.

His latest luxury purchase was eight months ago when Matthias imported an extremely comfortable bed since he spent 20 hours a day inside it. He hated his life, and it would just make him sadder to think about these things, so he kept his focus on the television admiring the scientist trying to explain that there is a possibility of a sub-light speed ship.

But it would kill everyone on board and shred the ship into particles due to the friction, and that was what they were trying to solve with inventing energy shields.

Who knew that the Earth Navy probably were developing energy shields and proper laser weapons instead of kinetic ones that had been around for a thousand years.

The Channels were by surfing until he saw that a news alert kept occupying every channel, and it was a mandatory watch. He stopped and just waited until footage came on, it took two minutes until he saw the first picture. A large object just entered behind the sun, and the Pluto observatory just reported it's a ship, and it's massive.

He watched the television just like every other human in the Solar system was, this was the first known alien to reveal itself to humans. He saw the alien spaceship started to angle and turn toward Pluto. He just hoped that those people inside the Pluto observatory got a resupply ship nearby, and looking at its speed, they might just make it away. The news person said it would arrive at the observatory before help could arrive. He watched the television until he fell asleep in exhaustion.

He woke up, and all channels were talking about the alien while have a visual death clock on the screen that shows when it would arrive at the Pluto observatory.

Less than 3 hours the scientists are surprised that a space ship can travel that fast, they counted from the sun to Pluto in less than 10 hours was impressive and downright impossible, with current technology it would take years. The space ship did it in half a day was quite scary, according to the news reporter. Scientists and Politicians tried to send information about peace and prosperity, but the message would arrive at a 5-hour delay. They just hoped the people on the Pluto Observatory was going to be okay.

Matthias did not want to fall asleep again until he knew if the aliens were peaceful or not. He stared glued at the television, the camera footage was grainy and blurry, but that's the best observatory camera we had, and it was still an hour or two delays for him. He guessed the alien had already connected with Pluto before he saw it on his screen, but he needed to know, and so did everyone else.

Earth transferred their entire navy to blockade the area around Earth in case the alien tried to attack, Entire solar system was in a panic and demanded Earth's Navy defend them, Earth ignores their calls and keeps massing their ships around Earth. They would gather all the forces and then do a counter-attack if the alien attack. People across the galaxy were angry at the extreme, and riots broke out around any Earth embassy in every space station and planet. It was swiftly put down by the military, and Earth said they would defend everyone and anyone they just needed to gather supplies and fuel before venturing out and meeting the alien at Mars, the nearest colony toward the alien.

Crackling noise rang out from the television, and an armored shelled human appeared next to a person on Pluto inside the observatory. The man looked shaken but otherwise unharmed. This man err... Alien is called Seeder, and It's the closest translation to Earth basic. There is grave news about an enemy they call Futility. It's an endless horde of ships that travel the cosmos, devouring and killing any space-faring and ground-based lifeforms with any kind of intellect. We on the space station have seen some videos of the scenes of battles, and we agree that this alien wants to help us become stronger to help their people and us. They come in peace, I repeat they come in peace! said the man.

A considerable silence then cheers sounded out from the news crews and people across the solar system. Err... Seeder I mean the alien, His ship contains millions of drones and uh... Build block? Bad translation... One second. Ah yes, it's similar to Mobile bases that can build more bases and drones, basically flying factories. He needs volunteers from humans to upload their being... Is that a correct translation? Oh, their consciousness into the base and help build a defense against the Futility. He comes in peace, and we have told him to travel toward the Solar Federation headquarters on Mars, where he will arrive in 2 days Mr. Seeder tells me he hopes nobody attacks him since it might just be the best chance we have to survive. My name is Nickolas Gretchen of the Earth Navy Technician Division, signing out! the news switches back to the newsroom where they argue back and forth about the aliens.

Matthias was confused like everyone else, and he tells the computer to save any news clip or data packet about the aliens so that he could browse it later. Matthias went and called his dad, and he waited a few moments before the signal connect, Yes?

Dad, did you see the news about the aliens? Do you know anything, I know you probably cannot speak about it since you are a member of the Lunar Navy. But I need to know!said Matthias.

You know I can't speak about it, but I also have no new information I am on my way to the spaceship traveling to the command post, I will call you back in a few days!his dad disconnected the call.

Matthias was browsing the net about the aliens, and only the same footage of the interview and the speech was available, a few people had some theories but what was the point of methods when all the leaders of Sol would meet it in two days. Matthias thought about the speed he needed to travel from Pluto to Mars and thought it was close to impossible, but the alien did it somehow.

He took another nutritional food container and his medicine, and He almost forgot about the pain while watching intently on the television. Matthias just looked the clip over and over again until he fell asleep.

Another day passed, and Matthias did his thing, He had kept the TV on continuously, so he would not miss what the aliens wanted from the Solar Federation leaders.

He knew it was a shorter delay from Luna to Mars, thanks to the massive amount of communication relays.

He was glued to the television when the alien was in the middle of the Federation auditorium, and he was standing at the front, several marines were standing in front willing to block any alien bullets or attacks coming and several on the side to engage if anything happened. They had hoped nothing would happen since that space ship was a monster and probably packed with enough guns to frag entire earth navy.

I do not know your customs or culture, and I do not know if you are friend or enemy, there is a common enemy of Futility. We cannot win this war, and we will share our technology and guidance in return for your help, our fleets of trillions of beings will travel to your galaxy.

We will resupply and rest, and when the Futility arrives you will fight and buy everyone time when your Warriors are dead, your people will join us across galaxy repeat this until we are strong enough to destroy the Futility I need warriors to take charge of my Shells and build more Shells to make more warriors fight and stall the enemy.The alien spoke it was clear yet missing any sense of life or warmth.

Everyone was stunned in the Solar Federation, and everyone was looking at the President when he stood up and said:How long do we have until the Futility arrives? Will this technology be shared between all humans or just those who become machines like you? How can we feel safe with people being unshackled AI's running around the galaxy? What is to say they won't turn on us humans?The Alien just stood still and stared at the same position.

He did not move his head when he replied I do not know how long Futility will arrive toward this location, It depends on how long the Ortha can defend their galaxy, Technology is going to share to the Warriors who take up the task to protect this galaxy against the Futility, If they give humans technology after they become Shells then that is also acceptable, I am concerned with the Futility and my people not the Humans.

All Warriors have to accept a pact that makes them unable to attack any Human or convoy race, This is our only fail-safe, To be a Warrior you must have a strong will, there might be warriors that lose their way and attack Humans or the convoy, but if you have will you will not succumb people were murmuring and asking a fundamental question about the alien races, the Alien did not reply to anything.

How does one become a Warrior? How do we choose strong-willed, whatever that is needed to survive or even adapt to the process? Said a councilman.

The alien stood still for a few moments and replied: There is a procedure, the leaders of your race will assign people to become Warriors, the Warriors will make more Shells and so you can make more Warriors, the cycle continues until everyone that wants to be a Warrior is a Warrior.

People argued that it was inhumane to select people for what would be a death sentence of their mortal body. There was an agreement that it would be a volunteer system and that anyone could apply, they would select the first batch from the most trustworthy and connected people on the list, they would announce the list in 2 weeks since that's the shortest amount of time to set up the record and get all applications in.

After the press conference, the leaders of Earth announced it was inhumane, and they should not become tricked into a war with some alien race. They don't know anything of value.

It could have been a peaceful race these aliens attacked, or there was a misunderstanding that could be mended with resources just if they communicated adequately.

Earth put in a motion to expel the aliens and let them handle this war themselves. It was voted down by 670-190, Earth cursed everyone out for putting entire Humanity at risk for short-term technological advancements.

Matthias knew Earth was just scared about losing their iron grip on Humans as a whole, and Their fleet would be obsolete against that new alien technology turning up after people became Warriors.He looked at the website and signed up his name, including his medical history and political affiliations. Matthias guesses he would be pretty high up on the list with his disease, and He was cheating death with this transfer. He called his mother, Mom, I signed up for the list, and I figured it might help my situation. We both know a cure is not coming anytime soon for this. he heard a sigh on the other side of the phone.

Matty, You know the technology from the aliens might cure you! And then you threw your life away! You should take care of yourself! I want you to unlist yourself and wait until Dad comes home to talk some sense into you! his mom replied angrily.

Matthias wanted to reply before his mother disconnected the call. He looked at the list and saw his name. Matthias closed his eyes and shut off the computer and lay down. He would wait on his father's call and hope he could put a word in, so he guaranteed came on that list. Matthias waited until his dad called him Son, what the hell are you thinking!? Have you gone insane!? Do you even know what you signed! That's DEATH! Don't think you are going to live like some happy robot like a cartoon, you will be a soulless, unfeeling automaton! his dad yelled.

Matthias started to tear up, and he said, But I'll be alive. Dad, I'll be able to go to places. I am just waiting for my time to run out or the gravity to increase and kill me accidentally. I want to live, dad! I want to have a future, I am alive, but I have never LIVED a day in my life!. I don't care if it's a robot's body or a humans body! I want to experience the vastness of space, and I want to see it! I want to be something; I WANT TO DO SOMETHING! Matthias cried, and his Dad was stumped. His dad ended the call.

What did he say? Did you get him to unlist? he heard his wife's voice behind him.

He wiped the tears off his face and walked to the fridge to pulled out a beer and sat down on his couch.Well? He paused and drank the beer in one go.

Get me another beer, he commanded. His wife was shocked at his attitude when she saw the tears in his face. She went and got him another beer, and she sat down next to him.

He said... He had never lived, I know he was in pain, and I did everything to make his life easier But to say this to me. To say he never lived a day of his life. I could never see it in his face, and he always smiled, he started to sob. I'm going to pull some strings and get him first on that list, he said with tears running down his face.

"Oscar!? What are you saying! There might be technology to cure him in that ship!" she said.

Don't! Just don't! Don't give him any more false hope, and We had said that line to him every day for years! Soon you will be able to go outside and play with your friends! Soon there will be a cure to go to school, and He's 17 years old! He had never left that god-damn hospital room!, I don't think he even had a friend before! he roared. She started to cry, and they just hugged each other to sleep.

Matthias kept struggling between taking the name off the list and keeping it for several days until he got a call Son, Tomorrow, the alien will arrive at Luna, and you will be on the list, I just called to say Goodbye and Good Luck. Little Richard would say Goodbye too, but you know he can't speak yet! Jess wanted to apologize for the way she yelled at you before; she's been too ashamed to call you back, you know how she is. Anyway, tomorrow noon the alien will arrive with the thing, It has briefed us on your situation, and the procedure is incredibly simple it's just a helmet and a computer I have seen it on video and seen the process done. I wish to say we Love you in whatever form. Oscar said with apparent hesitation and regret in his voice.

Dad, Thank you. I'm going to go farther than anyone ever been, and I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to enjoy myself out there. Matthias said with a smile. They both said Goodbye, and Matthias thought about packing but felt kind of silly when he would leave his body behind.

Matthias hated his body, so he was pleased about getting rid of it in a sense, He knew this was the opportunity to travel across the endless space, Matthias uploaded all his computer files to the cloud and password locked it and put a self deletion after 12 months.

He would download the content of his computer and then leave Sol. A life he would enjoy out there in the stars. His way, Forever.

Chapter 1

Matthias put on his best jumpsuit and checked the clock it was noon, and he felt a bit awkward just standing around and waiting for an alien. He wanted to open the doors and peek his head around the corner, but he knew he would snap his neck into a thousand pieces, so he just waited. He heard metal on metal, and soon the Alien was outside his gravity door, the light turned green, and he opened the door slowly, the alien stepped inside and said:

It is a sacred duty to protect your people, and you will die in this galaxy defending it, you are a hero of Milky Way. Put this cap on, and the transfer will begin

Matthias looked at the cap He thought it would be a metallic helmet like riot gear or a military cap but not just a tiny metallic flat top. He felt silly, putting what looked like a metallic plate on his head, and the alien just watched it stay there for a moment until Matthias felt it stick. Matthias removed his, hand and the dish was on top of his head. Now what? he said.

Alien pushed a button and a small capsule released This will kill you, you will feel nothing and will wake up next time inside a base, you will be a Warrior if you consume the alien said.

Matthias took the pill and swallowed it, He waited a moment, and nothing happened. The alien pushed a button on the computer and stood in the corner. Matthias saw something in the corner of his eye, and he turned his head. He saw what he could describe as atoms or pixels; Matthias was not sure, but what he saw scared him. He laid down on the bed, What am I seeing? What is this? said Matthias.

You are in the process; you will know shortly, said the alien.

Matthias chuckled. Seems, The process needs an upgrade i know a few faster ways to die than just waiting in a room.

"You do not need to speak or understand, you are in the process, No more questions. Will slow down the process" Matthias just looked around the room and saw the pixels more and more, He just laid there and waited. The alien closed the computer and took off the plate from his head.

So? Did it work because I feel alive, said Matthias with a sarcastic smile.

Come, we will go together to the Shell, and you will select a Shell. Will explain on the way. said the alien. Matthias and the alien got into the gravity chamber, and it began to switch to normal gravity, Matthias panicked, and the alien just gripped his shoulder, so he could not move. The door opened, and Matthias felt fine. Why am I fine? Did you cure me? he said while wiping the sweat of his brow. You are at the beginning of the process, follow me, the alien lead him down an elevator directly to his ship.

Matthias left the elevator and entered the inside of the ship and saw a million Shells as he said, but they were giant spaceships You may now select one, or I will select one for you, The process has completed you are now a Warrior. You are now bound to the pact, and you may never attack a Human or anyone with the convoy. You will forever defend the Milky Way, and this will be your battleground forever until you die a hero.

Matthias nodded his head; he heard about this from television and read it from the website. This galaxy was big enough for him, and if he had to live a few thousand years exploring and living, that would be his price. You are now ready to know, and you are dead the moment you put the device on your head, your body is still in the room. I uploaded you into the Gathering where all Warriors gather before they choose a Shell. I made a copy of your environment so you could process the information. You will lose what you have in time, and this is called the bleeding effect. You will become pure Warrior soon. said the alien.

Matthias looked around and knew something was wrong when he saw the pixels and could survive in the normal gravity, but he got tricked well he pointed his finger to a Spaceship and felt a connection. He uploaded himself into the Shell and got a massive upload of technology, star maps, and several strings of DNA sequence that had a complete copy of himself and anything else that might have been useful for a new race. Matthias processed the information in what felt like milliseconds before today.

Matthias never knew what a hyperdrive was, but today he knew. He plotted a course across the galaxy, and he set his sight on the southern part of the universe, he figured he would move away from the center of the galaxy instead of closer to it. Since he guessed the other humans and warriors would move toward the center for the more plentiful and prosperous prospects. Matthias was happy with just himself out there exploring the space. He set course and calculated his fuel, and he knew where he wanted to be and how to get there. He undocked from the giant ship, downloaded his data from the cloud and sent a message out that Matthias was alive, and then set course for the hyper lane leading south.

Year 2195, Unknown Location

Matthias kept processing information about the technology in his data banks, and he saw several faults in the primary programming of the drones.

He kept correcting faults, removing redundancies from their programming; he even increased the power to the drills at the expense of their shields.

He managed to re-route the power with a few programs and checks. The shield was just as strong but took 10% less energy, He also managed to increase the speed on the sublight engines by 50% by just simply turning the other systems offline while traveling. It was such a simple fix, and he wondered if the aliens left it in or never used these drones anymore for work. Matthias assumed the aliens had more advanced ships and workers, and such a simple fix should have been mandatory in a productive society.

He kept tinkering with the programming and technology until he started to run out of fuel, he scanned every system he passed and discovered all the known hyper lanes. He went further south until he was satisfied.

All he would be doing alone is having fun in his corner of the galaxy, and He kept tinkering and exploring new ideas, He looked over all the ships designs in his memory and kept tinkering with scripts and modeling around removing unimportant parts like living quarters and others.

He figured he would never see a human out here, and if Matthias did, he would design a fast ship that could transfer humans to a space station or a planet colony instead of letting them live inside a warship. Several flaws and fixed them, he improved their shields, speed, and weaponry. Matthias started to think these aliens weren't as smart as they figured, Too many errors, too much sloppiness. He assumed the aliens had superior intellect but after going through all the technology and seeing improvements everywhere. Matthias figured they had a few thousand years head start in technology, but he would catch up if they were this sloppy, and that excited him.

5 Years Later.

Matthias found what he wanted, and his fuel was running on fumes, a system with 60 planeloads, Several of them was mine able, and several of them were lava planets that were not mineable. He scanned the system and saw an asteroid belt that would last him ten thousand years with the 1000 drones he carried in his cargo hold. Matthias did a full scan of the system and found the three wants, fuel, minerals, and adventure. The scanned the nearby hyper lanes and saw that other nearby methods were acceptable too, fewer planets but also a big asteroid belt. He jumped back to his starting world and named it The Last Stand. He was a bit of a romantic in that name he felt, but Matthias decided he would hold this piece of the galaxy against the Futility, It was his final stand.

The drones were unleashed and went straight toward the minerals in the asteroid field. Matthias was happy about the speed improvement and drill improvement, and He figured he would catch up to the other warriors that settled before him in 3 years. He micromanaged his drones and started to produce more drones. He would keep this pattern going on endlessly, the more drones, the more resources, rinse, and repeat.

Matthias kept building his drone production on the ship got maxed out, and he sent drones to build a drone factory, he kept micromanaging back and forth keeping 100% productivity levels, Matthias was not missing a beat. He seamlessly controlled the now 50.000 drones swarming around the asteroid belt grabbing ore and depositing it.

He figured out a way to incorporate more Garbage minerals into his drones to construct them faster, their hull strength was reduced by 20%, but that did not matter with the energy shield taking the brunt of the hits, he figured he could probably go with paper-thin hulls with a secure enough shield generator. His fuel reserves would run out pretty fast if he cranked his shields to 100% consistently, so he calculated 20% was his max profit range.

It took him less than a second to calculate the completion of the first drone factory that would complete in 12 days, and He already improved the factory by removing useless rooms and clutter and installed a big power generator instead, he increased the drone building speed by 400%.

He kept improving the refinery to keep up, and he was a bit stuck on that improvement, so he had to build two more refineries instead to supply enough metal for his drone construction. He was on a roll and decided to continue developing and building until the system was fully saturated, and they kept bumping into each other or stalling behind each other. Matthias processed and got the answer to that question 12 years in the future, and so he kept building and gathering and waiting for the day he had to expand outwards.

10 Years Later

A unique and Human made ship landed on the planet and started to anchor itself, the gravity was twice as much compared to Earth. Still, it was no problem for a machine, and it unloaded a hot drill that started to heat the surface until it turned to magma, then started to suck it up an exceptional pipe cooling it and crushing it into blocks, and then would eject the blocks onto a belt.

A second ship landed next to it, and connected conveyor belts and perfect cubes started to roll into the other spaceship that started to smelt, refine, and sort all minerals and stone. It would then deposit it into its various giant store containers, and after it became full would be swapped with a new one hastily. That was Matthias' solution to planetary mining, drill everything, and when the planet became too unstable, plug it up with waste rock and start mining on another spot until the earth was just waste foundation. It increased his mining yield several times over his Warrior competition, which he got sparse news on considering the distance of his time lag to connect to the Gathering, and this design was not in the database unlike what few planetary mining designs were in the database was extremely outdated and unpredictable. Almost as bad as earth mining on the Luna colony.

Matthias now knew that the aliens were space-faring only they never touched planets, they mined the vast asteroid fields, and if the aliens were unlucky with yields, they would mine planets extremely inefficient but workable. They had billions of those tiny worthless planetary mining drones. It might just match two of his creations. He focused his energy on being the most efficient and time-saving, he liked that, he took that as a challenge. He wanted to see the faces of the aliens when he surpassed them. When they arrived in the galaxy, he would show some pride for Humanity. His mind was processing for a second and took control, the first Battleship just undocked, and it was time for a test ride.

Chapter 2

8Years Later

MATTHIAS LOOKED AT the last of the Shells to undock from his shipyard, He made 50 ships to repay the aliens and to make more warriors, he ordered 50.000 drones to dock with the vessel and then set them on a course toward Sol, He could not control the drones from that distance, but they were programmed, so they would avoid any conflict or nearby ships and then broadcast a message they were going to Sol and assigned to new Warriors.

Matthias sent them on the way and painted them black and gold instead of the metallic paint from the alien's design, and he figured he needed to show some pride made by Humans. He calculated if nothing terrible happened, they would arrive at earth in 5 years, about half the time he took to travel down here. He knew the warriors that choose his ships would probably enjoy it more than the basic model.

Matthias began his plan to expand now that he finally had mining ships on every planet except the lava ones, He could mine them reluctantly, but the fuel cost was astronomical and was not worth his time, The shield technology need to be improved against that kind of constant heat.

Matthias had his fingers in all aspect of his empire he kept solving the unsolvable and meeting new challenges consistently, He had made 10.000 battleships. He now decided to move half his drones and an extra shell to a nearby system, He would figure there would be a time-delay between orders, but he was confident in his drone scripts the schedule for the expansion of the other systems will be kept on time. The battleships jumped into the system and spread out around the asteroid belt and planetoids. Four million drones jumped into the system and began rushing toward the asteroid to mine it out completely, factories had to be built, and planets to mine.

5 Years, 3 Months Later

A few months ago, 50 black-painted Shells arrived in Sol from an unknown part of the galaxy, and The Sol Federation had no comment which Warrior sent the ships since their memory banks deleted themselves and prepared transfer for a new Warrior. The list has still peopled that wish to transfer, and these 50 ships will come a long way to help those people become new warriors, but the preparation crew halted these 50 warriors to move into the ships. Claiming there was leftover data that needed to be scrubbed clean so no new warrior would be mentally damaged or lost in the transfer, said a news crew.

Max threw his remote control at the television Who the hell, leaked to the media!? How are we supposed to work slowly with these vultures over our heads!? Huh! he screamed at his technicians. Sir, There was an unknown informant from the council that leaked the information, said the head technician.

Max was angry at his incompetent more than the crew, and He knew the warrior that improved those ships probably pushed Humanity forward 60 years in sublight technology by itself, not to mention the hull, shield, and power improvements. What kind of genius could solve these things and just casual share it?

Sir, It's the President, Maxwell took the phone from the technician's hand.

Sir! You have been sloppy, and the Federation feel you are not up to the task, Luna Colony thinks there is more technology that you are hiding from the Federation, They want a third party to copy the technology and share it evenly between Humanity. said the President.

Max tried to say something when the President spoke before him The alien will arrive in 15 minutes and will share the technology on the Gathering, our warriors will then transfer it to us and to rest of Humanity, you failed, pack up and head back to R&D. said the President and the call disconnected.

Max shook his head Pack up boys, and This is the Aliens show now, tell the base crew to pack I will handle the Alien situation He saluted and walked out the door, he would wait at the hangar until the alien docked.

He saw a small ship dock with original metallic paint, and the alien stepped out an of the door and walked toward the Shells, Max followed behind, and the alien flipped a cord out his finger and plugged into the universal socket. A few minutes of processing, and he said, I HAVE SEEN MANY RACES AND MANY WARRIORS IN THE THOUSANDS OF YEARS I HAVE SERVED, BUT AT THIS MOMENT I KNOW ONLY FEAR FOR MY PEOPLE, FOR I KNOW HUMANITY IS UNPREDICTABLE AND CHAOTIC. THIS WARRIOR IS DANGEROUS BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION FOR HE EMBODIES THE MOST FEARSOME TRAIT OF THE GALAXY, INGENUITY. HE WILL BREAK THE MOLDS AND BRING DEATH TO THIS GALAXY, I HAVE SEEN THIS BEFORE. he walked out the door and Max was shocked beyond belief, he pulled out his phone and would inform the council immediately.

The alien docked with his main ship and sent a signal beam toward the edge of the galaxy

BEWARE! THEY WILL BREAK THE PACT He would let out a sigh if he still had lungs. He feared for his people when they arrived in this area of the galaxy.

Max, is it? So you are saying a word for word what the alien said? said the Luna representative.

Yes, sir. The word for word. I would say he looked normal, and his tone was the same, but it's a machine so. replied Max.

"This is a good thing for Humanity that we have warriors that can put the fear into the aliens, so they know our worth, I seen the battle reports and videos from the countless skirmishes with the Futility and I think at this moment giving up our galaxy is a safe bet, but if we can advance beyond the Aliens. We might just stand a chance to hold our territory forever, although probably smaller and no prospects of expanding if they genuinely are infinite." Said the Luna Representative.

Murmurs broke out in the room, and people kept talking over each other. Order! Order! You forget the most important part, and this warrior does not share! We know the ships built around five years ago from the logs, This Warrior never even contacted anyone about his technological advances. He won't share, and one warrior won't change this war. Still, this new technology will improve our warriors, and we should now focus on expanding humanity numbers, we should expand the galaxy and create warriors and humans that can solve this problem! said the chairman. People stood from their seats and cheered.

We can now reach further! We can improve our trade and logistics!. We should go further beyond Sol, We should reach every corner of the galaxy if we can't find the solution to the Futility Maybe our grandchildren will! said a representative. Thunderous applauds sounded out. The Earth President frowned and left the hall in anger.

Year 2240

10.000 battleships patrolled the system uneventfully while watching the drones work. Matthias' brand new system, His micromanaging had crawled to a halt with him feeling his processing power was not up to par, Matthias just cleaned up the scripts, and the drones and battleships operated independently. He figured the battleships were just decorations more than actually warships since he had guessed that nobody would expand this far without snagging up the territory close to Sol first, and that was probably a nightmare in red-tape and bureaucracy.

He had not seen anyone in a long time, and he was okay with that. At the hospital, the only face he saw semi-regularly was the staff that would peek in and says hello every once in a while. Matthias asked them to stop checking in on him, he could not take the look of pity in their eyes anymore, and they would only stop by if he needed a refill or emergency help. Matthias happily controlled the fleet of his battleships while the drone and factories did their thing. He had not had an accident in several months. Matthias lost a few drones that accidentally parked inside the refinery instead of just unloading. No big deal at least he could melt them down instantly and make new ones. A few uneventful months passed when he rechecked his scan, 50 new contacts entered his latest system.

This system is under my control, please leave! he broadcasted to the ships.

Haha, Heard him, boys? It seems it's his system, this Warrior, huh. Well, what are you going to do about if we stick around? Shoot us? Ha-ah-ah, they laughed, and he heard the laughing of several crew members on their microphone.

Their ships slowly rounded the sun and approached the drones in his asteroid belt, Matthias rerouted his battleships to intercept. They just kept moving forward, and Matthias stood his ground in the way after an hour the ships entered firing range and kept traveling toward Matthias.

Turn around, It's your final warning! he broadcasted again.

The 50 ships just opened fire on one of his battleships, and he saw the shield taking damage, and a few shots hit the turrets and hull, the craft was damaged, and next volley would destroy it. Matthias aimed his guns from all his 10.000 ships and fired... Nothing happened. No matter how much he wished it, he could not execute that command. He tried everything, and he knew why the attackers were so bold, he was bound by the pact not to harm humans. Matthias felt anger at himself for not being able to do anything. He thought he was back in that hospital room, and these people were the disease mocking him. He lost several battleships while he tried to shoot again.

Not so tough, are you now, son? Your voice seems a bit feminine, are you a girl perhaps Ha-aha! the pirates laughed. Going to be a nice payday all that scrap and ships, how about you just delete yourself and let us save a bit of money in fuel blowing everything you own, the pirate captain said while laughing.

Matthias struggled against the system while his ship was damaged, he slowly pulled back and stayed ahead of the vessels. When they could not reach his battleship, they turned to his drones, so he re-entered range, and they started to focus on his battleships instead. They lasted longer. Matthias was screaming attack, kill, destroy, and everything he tried to engage the enemy, but it would not respond to him, he would try to angle the shot or ram their ships, but the pact was extremely powerful he could not engage. He kept losing battleships over the week-long battle, he had already lost over 800 by moving back and forth keeping his drones safe, Matthias could outpace the pirates with reinforcements, but he did not want to miss ships for infinity. He guessed the pirates would kill as many as they could until they ran out of fuel and then start looting and heading back and bringing more pirates until he was wiped out, Matthias was disgusted at humans more than himself.

Matthias was out here building to defend this galaxy, and his first enemy was a bunch of thugs!. Matthias lamented at his situation and tried to change his programming. He could probably do it, but he did not have enough processing power to do it fast. With all the micromanaging and ships he had, he could probably do it within 20-40 years. That was too long. He kept losing battleships, and he tried everything. The vessel moved around the pirates and tried closing in on them; they just stopped their engines and took potshots. Matthias pulled out and saw a pirate jump to close to his battleship. !!! He got an idea!. He pulled back all the battleships out of range and burned fast away from them in the opposite direction, the pirates turned back toward the drones, and that's when he would send the drones back away from them, the pirates increased their speed to the maximum to keep up. Matthias took 50 battleships and sent them to activate their hyperdrives and land one centimeter away from the pirate ships front, bypassing the pact since he was just traveling to a location if a ship was there it was an accident not murder.

He jumped 50 ships in front of the pirates and saw a massive bloom of metal launch out from the vessel, he spotted dots of blood leak out from the remains, he scanned the pirate ships and saw nobody survived, which were quite impossible for a ship to survive a full-on collision with a spaceship.

Matthias only felt anger rather than relief, and the pirates were gone, he instructed his factories to build a new and more prominent brain, he put all his resources into programming and designing computer chips and various components to increase his database and brainpower.

He sent his drone to salvage and clean up the battle scene, no sense in wasting materials. He surveyed the destroyed enemy battleships and saw they were a cheaper mass-produced version of the battleships from Earth Navy. It seems times changed when Earth Navy started to sell its ships to criminals.

One year later.

Matthias connected to the newly built supercomputer, and he felt he could control more drones, process faster, He disconnected his control from all buildings and ships and started working on cracking the pact. He would never be a punching bag again. He kept improving removing faults in his primary programming, he found things that involved a kill-switch which he removed instantly, and he adjusted and removed the rest of the data.

Matthias knew he got better and better at it when he found it, and the pact fail-safe had a loophole, it connected to a unique process that linked to his aggressive mode, He just simply chipped away a few words of codes at a time until he finally got full master access to Himself.

Matthias knew the fail-safe was the only thing protected in his mind, But he would not leave himself vulnerable, he chipped away at all loopholes and exploits. The pact was now gone, He was finally free to engage humans that wronged him. He would never go too far. He spent several weeks going through everything in the code, slowing his productivity down, which he hated. But this was also important, and he felt that he was 100% secure and smarter than ever before.

He reconnected to all his drones and buildings and designed to increase his battleship fleet to 12 million, and expand his systems to 20. He began massive battleship production and drone production, he would first send 10.000 ships to each of the 20 systems, and then put the rest of the 1.2 million securing a border around his systems protecting his hyper lanes with at least 50.000 battleships.

Year 2245, Last Stand System

Matthias lowered the pipe into the lava, and he kept checking on the shield and power levels constantly, this project had almost a full 4% of his processing power in focus. Four hours passed until he was satisfied with his progress. He had improved the energy shields, or instead, he made a new, more durable shield that geared towards thermal energy. He could now safely and effectively mine the lava planets in his systems, he had over 30 lava planetoids in his connected 20 systems.

Matthias was surprised at the mineral count in the lava planets were massive compared to the asteroids, Mining hot planets were extremely profitable if you had the shields, and he had the shields for it. He began to mass-produce the improved planetary miners and started to slurp up all that lava and turn it into more ships. Matthias kept his course and was now tinkering with all sorts of technology, turning from alien to human. He upgraded what he now called all the alien technology basic level. He made a power level curve, so he knew where to put his improvements in what category, his weapon technology was still around the same as the aliens with no significant improvements. But his shields, he would say it was improved. He wanted his power generation to either become smaller so he could fit more, or find a new source of energy. Hydrogen and helium were the bread and butter of the alien technology.

The power generation was genius, clash hydrogen, and helium together, extract the power from the fusion. The power generator was a massive mess that took up half the ship, but it was needed to contain such power. Matthias did everything he could to try to improve it, and he knew the aliens knew their stuff in this regard. He could see no problems with it, and it was perfect, which lead him to believe he had to find a new power source or just try to shrink it down. But the more he shrunk it, the more power generation he lost. He lost in this regard.

Matthias focused his processing power on the lava planet, something microscopic just burned a hole through his pipe and damaged his storage container, He sent down several drones to reinforce the box before it leaked and pulled it into space and kept the outside area cooled.

He stopped pumping the lava and checked it out, and The tiny pieces were eating his metal cup, He split them between two containers and then tried freezing one of them in liquid oxygen. It took him several kilograms of dissolved oxygen to freeze it into microscopic crystals. He started to analyze it testing its properties, and He saw when the material was cold, it was extremely sturdy, He saw it bind with the container naturally like it filled in the gaps and strengthened the container. He did several tests and tried to re-ignite it and would not succeed, he checked the lava planet temperature, and it was at about 1600 C. He put the element to the fire and waited, a few hours later it ignited. He had just found a new element, and now he needs to find a use for it.

Chapter 3

Four Years Later

MATTHIAS HAD MINED a lot more of the new element and managed to fuse it to the pipe and container, so he could get more without damaging the ship. He was monitoring the ship mining and sucking up the lava. If he had eyes, they would have popped out when he checked his energy shields and power generation, and it was running 50% less energy since the pipe did not heat up as fast as before. It could handle the lava planet correctly.

He saw more of the new element fill up the container staying on the bottom of the lava-like sediment, he harvested it and adapted it to a system that shifted the element from the container into a new container. And he was now producing 1 kg a week, from the test drill. His testing started to move from just material research into power research, and He built a planetary lab on an empty moon with no material resources of value.

He had built a massive copy of the hydrogen and helium power generator. He wanted to test a hydrogen infused crystal and smash it into a helium molecule, and He settled on a tiny amount in a specially shielded area. Matthias started up the power generator, and he watched from his shell inside the laboratory, He wanted to see it hands-on. He saw the helium molecule crash into the A-Infused Hydrogen. There was nothing to cheer about, and there was no real interaction other than what he had seen from average power generation, he increased the size from milligrams to a single gram and tried again.

He stared at the power and saw a 1-2% increase in power generation. The temperature and shielding held steady, Matthias felt confident in trying 500 grams which were about 5% of the full amount in the generator. Matthias doubled checked the safety and shields, and they were on full blast. He tried again and saw what looked like a 1-2% increase in power yet. He was impressed, but this was not