The Futility Wars

by Magnus Thollander

  "Redmond, this is Ricardo get some rest for a hour then return to the field, we need to join up with the warriors when the futility arrives, data suggest firing range within 2. So rest up." he said. Redmond shook his head and walked out of the simulation cabin he lied down on the bed next to it since he had it moved to his room, so he could be combat ready within seconds of an alarm, he set the alarm for an hour and drank down two bags of elixir juice to repair any damage from the lack of sleep and mental activity he was going to experience this year.

  Qasqaer had looked at the engaging humans, and he was disgusted at the tactical cowardice they employed of retreating when the enemy truly started to engage, he saw several of the humans' warrior disengage and warp back to the first planet and their defensive structures taking over the distant battle, He was not impressed with the humans weaponry and saw that it was no threat to any proper shield using empire which seemed to be the norm, the futility did not use shield generators they had a thick armored shell around them that were resistant to heat and friction, if you shot them with a kinetic weapon on the ground it would just slide off their defensive carapace. He was happy that the humans used plasma and lasers that easily penetrated their hulls and brought many kills, they were doing pretty good with such an inferior fleet, and he had learned several things that he could apply to his empire at a whole, the fighters tactics was especially useful instead of going face to face they would simply dive up and down while firing shots, to preserve their lives while still fighting the enemy face to face he transferred footage to his small ship fighters about this new tactic and would see it implemented after a round of training. Overall he was conflicted at the humans overall they seemed valiant in some respect and cowardly in other, he could not classify them correctly and that scared him.

  Two hours later.

  Redmond was already in the midst of battle taking potshots on the massive enemy fleets, if he fired a missile randomly at this point he would strike a target which he already did he just blindly fired it every third second and ordered all the troops to do that as well, there were no big ships that the fighters were designed to tackle and there were only plenty of smaller and weaker ships. But it would have been a waste to lose the ship and still have missiles left in the ammunition bay that now housed twelve missiles instead of the old model that housed four, they had shrunk in time but still dealt the massive damage to titans which they were designed for." They are on our tail and they are catching up! #!#&!" a soldier radioed while many dots started to disappear from his scanner, he saw that the enemy was becoming more reckless in order to stop his fighters by starting to warp randomly toward them, either they would hit the fighters or a friendly but considering their massive ship advantage it would have been worth it for them to do a 1:1 trade.

  Redmond would not allow that to happen, and he told the fleet to disengage and regroup at the planet that was now housing every warrior in the system engaging the ships by the billions and losing, Redmond was shocked at the perseverance of the alien force that did not care how many people they lost to simply get a kill on a battleship, he saw a at least a 1000:1 for each ship but that number was shrinking with every gun being silent, the fortresses around the first planet was completely inactive and the futility had already swooped past to engage the other planets since they all could not get into combat range with the warriors, he wondered how their ground forces would hold up. Would the futility crack the planet or would make landfall like they seemed to always do? He knew the people on the planet were already dead in everyone eyes when they lost the last fortification above the planet and it would fall soon looking at the massive chunks of metal slowly parting away from the station while the guns fired wildly into the enemy.

  Oleg sat on a couch with Zhang, Christine,Victor and Thomas waiting for their timely death they each had one of the five keys connected to the massive bomb that were on the other side of the wall in a extremely fortified. "Well, we better selected the two people that are going to cycle the bomb for the first few days before the enemy makes' landfall, their troop transports have started to slowly enter the system and our warriors are soon to be dead or retreating since they have lost all defensive structures on the planet, we are officially all alone now." Oleg said with a smile.

  Christine felt sick to her stomach watching the countless ships swarming above their head getting pounded by the planetary guns while the enemy started to crash ships into the shield generator in order to kill the return fire, She felt this was a bad dream at such a reckless and stupid enemy. They had enough ships to surround the planet and starve them out, there were no farms on the planet. No extra food was coming in and the billion people here had enough supply to last them two years at most, two years was a short amount of time for an intergalactic empire of their size. They would probably re-build their ships lost in the battle in a week or two. "I volunteer for the first shift" said Thomas.

  Christine and the rest turned their eyes on him and nodded, Victor raised his arm as well and it was accepted. They would stay behind for the first week resetting the bomb while they were out there dying which she thought was acceptable at this point, she had a clone body waiting in the milky way, she was not happy at being reborn and then redeployed but that was the plan, another system several jumps away were being rebuilt and re-armed. Most of the people on this planet did not have chance of being reborn and rejoining the fight, there were no second chances for those scum that did not have the procedure done before, and she was extremely content with that. The building shook when the shield generator went offline and a massive cloud of fire erupted from the firing batteries that now was silent, they felt several more shocks strike the cannons and the futility finally stopped when the last anti-ship weaponry was silent, everyone was in combat armor and waiting in their well protected bunkers for the first of the enemy to land which would be within a day. She looked at the security cameras, and she double-checked the casualty report nobody had died and everyone had stayed in their shelter not moving about before the enemy landed, the guns were silent and after a few minutes of suicide attacks the enemy stopped slamming themselves into the surface of the planet.

  After a hour of lull the alarms blared troop transports were going to make landfall on the central continent within thirty minutes, she ran down to the armory passing by several soldiers reporting to their defensive positions, and she grabbed a generic armor and weaponry pack, she doubled up on power cells while the armory was still well stocked for the first concentration.

  The first ships had just made landfall and that's when Ricardo activated the first and only plan, countless missile defenses opened up and a massive barrage of missiles shredded the troop transports by the thousands before the futility acted and started to crash into the smoking openings that launched the deadly barrage, they were killing hundreds of thousands of troop transports in orbit and on approach and the massive ships barreled down onto the alien landing area and started to frag the first of the transports, this was a huge success in ambushing the enemy and their kill count officially eclipsed the humans on the planet. Christine was happy that there would be some support that she did not even know about, and she heard the alarm blared, and she saw a massive beam of energy strike the troop transports from the safety of the edge of the system, seems a massive army of titans had arrived to snipe the troop transports and buy them the maximum amount of time needed, The enemy seemed to be unsure what to do and the troop transports changed their vectors to hide behind the massive futility fleet, and they started to barrel toward the titans while they took free shots on the transports, the enemy was reeling, it seemed and Christine got her orders immediately, kill the survivors and secure the enemy data banks if there were any.

  She rushed down to the lift and took it down to the massive tunnels built across the planet filled with transports to take her to the closest entrance to the battlefield and getting these aliens of her planet, she rushed into the nearest transport and after 30 seconds it was filled up, the tr
ansport started to slowly slide across the tube, and they got an 45-second timer popping up in the window, she double-checked her weaponry and checked her armor integrity, and she advice everyone else to do it, She looked at the armored men across the transport, and they all seemed to be extremely new to fighting with one man having a shaking hand. She focused on herself she did not want to die a gruesome death to the invaders, she had seen the footage of watching the aliens chew on the corpses while they were alive or simply start tearing them up constantly in some gruesome display that gives you nightmares. She rushed out of the door when it opened and then got off the pad and ran toward the door which was now open, she leaned up against the door and saw the ping on her map. She grabbed the rifle and jumped out the door and started to dash toward the target area leaving behind her squad, which was still slowly shuffling out, She saw plenty of upturned dirt and then saw the smoke and the burning alien ships, she threw out a scanner that picked up any heartbets, and she got no replies from the outside of the troop transport, she waited for reinforcements before rushing inside that massive troop transport.

  She had to wait two minutes before the first stragglers caught up, and she told them what to do, and they agreed, She put an explosive device on what she have known was a opening, the alien ship was basically one solid piece but when it landed the carapace cracked and the soldiers simply pushed away the broken fragments and got out, she had no idea how it worked, but she had seen it work. BOOM! She pushed her plasma rifle inside and fired blindly, she knew it was littered with soldiers in there and going inside was a death sentence. The other soldiers joined in and after a minute of shooting they threw in four grenades, After the explosion the slowly shuffled inside looking at the green plasma and yellow pus covering the walls. The enemy seemed to be dead, but she threw a scanner down just in case, she waited for a ping and got a reply no survivors.

  "I need someone to access the data banks, It's going to be a cut and carry since it's biological, good news is the person that does it can return to the base immediately after. So who?" An older man stepped up and started to cut into the mucus looking command console, she was lucky he was wearing the armor the acid stench would have put him in a coma for being that close, She and rest of the squad guarded the area until he was done.

  Oleg took what looked like a egg to his face and it exploded in a burst of acid that started to emit smoke around his personal shield he fired back and the six legged freak of nature fell down dead to the floor, His squad mates kept firing on the flanking aliens while he reset his shield so the acid dropped off to the ground instead of being a constant drain, He re-activated his shields and got to killing most of the troop transports which were dead but some of them were completely intact, and they had been waiting in ambush the moment they went for an explosive entry, three more ships opened up at the sametime, and they had to retreat back to the nearest cover. He had not lost any people, but he did not care, he just wanted to survive long enough to see the aliens squirm in fear.

  "Oleg, they are trying to flank us and our reinforcements just got ambushed as well, It's like they saw us coming a mile away!" Jimmy yelled, Oleg did not even bother replying and kept shooting the aliens, They kept popping like balloons when their armors broke, and he felt disgusted at having the same stuff shot at him, Nobody really knew what the futility was but their carapace was the only thing keeping them alive it seemed, the moment a breach happens they die instantly or live on as bacteria or clumps of acid he did not know. Not his field of science, his was in pirating which was now a very useful skill to have when fighting enemies on a planet a galaxy away.

  "ARGH!" Oleg turned around and saw Jimmy get tackled by a six legged freak, and he fired a shell straight into the alien, the alien carapace started to leak and Jimmy rolled away as far as he could when the hole suddenly widened and the alien froze before tipping over spilling acid that were now burning the ground and half of Jimmy s side, he saw his personal shield was down, so he pulled out his special spray and sprayed Jimmy. "Get your ass back to the bunker and get a fresh armor, You are no good with a broken shield generator, Seems when you rolled the acid rained down on your exposed back. Go!" Oleg yelled. Jimmy looked around and started to dart back toward the bunker.

  "You know he's not coming back" said a soldier while giving supporting fire, so he could run, "Yeah' he's not coming back, but all of us have the warrior implant. He doesn't." Oleg said. He started to chuck all but one grenade from his belt around the area to give him room to stand up, the egg shaped acid bolts were flying as soon as they stopped shooting, the enemy had the high ground in the thick alien brush, the grenades stalled the enemy for a moment before new aliens took their place, they were outnumbered and by how many he did not know. He just new he had to keep killing while he could, so he could be pardoned faster, 25 years of losing was something nobody could take. He looked over and saw one of his guys get hit by several bolts and were screaming out. Oleg wanted to help, but he was out of spray and his teammates were all too far away, he took a grenade and set in on a 5-minute timer and then rolled it into the friendly position, the soldiers eyed the grenades and then checked their belts, they took out their grenades and set it to a 4-minute timer and rolled it around in the cover, Oleg started a countdown on his hand and after he closed his fist everyone ran out the cover toward the bunker for safety, Oleg was hit at least fourteen times and the adrenaline pushed him forward while he heard the sizzling on his back the shield generator holed, and he was in the rear taking most of the shots in his upgraded armor, It could withstand a lot more punishment than the ordinary armor and his shield generator was complete covered in enforced casing unlike the ordinary ones.

  The soldiers ran into the bunker, and he closed the door and activated the outer defenses, the soldiers pulled out there can and sprayed him down and Oleg walked down to the transport while the rest followed, he pulled a slot on his arm and pushed a button."ORDER LAST CALL RECIEVED, BUNKER 19032 COMPROMISED, FIRING IN 60 SECONDS."

  The soldiers were shocked and Oleg went into the transport and the other soldiers shuffled inside and the car started to move, he pulled down the video screen and set it to channel 100. He waited. A tiny square jumped into the system and then quickly above the planet it fired a rail gun shell the size of a airplane and it struck the bunker within a second of arriving in the system, the ship was swarmed and killed before it had time to leave but it had completed its programming, the alien army was being killed by the tens of thousands and probably a million were leaking acid and would die eventually from the shock wave, their carapace could not withstand a shock wave of that magnitude, Several of the alien troop transports started to crack and turn brittle and the people on the planet cheered at any backup they could get.

  Oleg looked at Jimmy who was still in his old armor and shaking while not even taking off his helmet, he chuckled at him. Guess the old man was right, but he at least saved one life from a pointless battle, Oleg knew the big picture this was just the early stages of grabbing tech, his mission failed in bringing back a "computer" but someone must had succeeded. He had wanted to swoop and bring back a live futility soldier but it seemed their acid made them unable to be captured and stunning them seemed close to an impossibility.

  Christine pulled the box with the mucus computer inside and deposited it in a special lab, "Good, seems you soldier finally got it, was starting to lose hope." said a man in a lab coat.

  Christine rolled her eyes "You are trapped here same as me and you sit here sipping coffee while looking at videos, people are dying out there!" she said back with anger in her voice.

  The scientist kept his focus on the box and put it inside a scanner and shooed her away with his hands, she just stood there and watched and the scientist just shrugged while sitting down at his desk pressing a few buttons, Several beams of various size and colors scanned the mucus, Christine was staring intently at the beams and after a few minutes there was a ping and the scientist looked over the data "Destroyed compl
etely, you guys cut it wrong. You need to make sure the veins on the side are not damaged when you take it out, it lost its heartbeat it's scrap now." he said with a sigh.

  Christine shook her head and then smiled "Guess you are gonna be here for a long time then, just like the rest of us."

  The scientist just looked at her "You think I'm gonna die on this rock like you? I already have a extraction prepared for me. You think someone of my stature would lower myself to sacrifice myself for this hellhole? Get real lady, Get me some alien tech so you dont waste my time." he said while sipping his coffee.

  She looked at him like he was a madman and shook her head, only way someone was gonna get off this rock was with a bullet to head or a forced transfer before their time was up.The scientist com rang, and then he pushed a few buttons, and he walked up to the wall and pulled out another alien computer, and he put it to the scanner, Christine just left after that point, Whatever she did today do not matter, but she was one of the lucky ones that survive or did not engage the enemy in proper numbers, she heard that several groups were wiped out and the planet was being bombarded from above to buy the scientist time to scan the content, she did not know why the "boss" himself was here to take over and send human scientist instead, but she did not know if this was a sanction operation from the other warrior factions or just him playing his game moving the human chess pieces around. She walked down the hall and was going to cycle armors when she suddenly got another mission summon, go back to the surface and push back the enemy from the north sector seems they were losing.

  Zhang was holding the line the best as he could while the enemy pushed forward with no regard for their safety, He had kills in the hundreds, and he was being supplied constantly with ammo but the enemy would not budge they would use the bodies of their comrades as shields while still advancing, they fired several high-powered laser beams to penetrate the enemy lines and all the got in return were a enemy kamikaze attack from space, if they used anything big enough to get the attention from the space fleet they were gonna take it out, they had to settle for close combat like they had planned from the start. The enemy would not allow them to dominate the battleground no matter how much they tried, he had lost a million good men holding the nearby area and the enemy had lost at least hundred times that amount, every shot was a kill, and he had run out of energy cells after the first few minutes of the engagement, they had the swarm tactics down to a science and it was about to break this position.Zhang pushed a button on his wrist, and he set the bombardment coordinates for the fifth time this battle, they could not last a hour without proper artillery strike their massive numbers and the ping got out, fire mission in 10 seconds, and he saw the metal barrier rise above encasing the positions, a few unlucky humans would have been outside, but they were dead anyway.