Lumas

The future was full of potential. Technology of the future took us to the stars and gave us hope of what we could become. The future lied to us all.

The sanctity of life has been long lost and all that matters is survival. Survival at any costs. The Lumas have pushed humanity back to the outer edges of our solar system, unable to penetrate the outer defences of Pluto. Hope has spread across the system, hope that we have finally been able to stop the never-ending expansion of the Lumas. Humanity have finally been able to hold them back long enough for the fires of previously destroyed planets to die out. For the first time since the war began, no human planets are on fire. Finally, the ravaging of our colonies is at an end and we can turn the tide in this war…

How?

We know nothing of how they live, how they eat. We know nothing of their culture, their home. We know nothing of their motives. We know not how they look. They have never chosen to communicate with us, and not one battle has yet been won. Not one corpse from their disintegrated warships has been recovered. The Lumas ships, long and thin bluish black bodies with a spine in the middle moving from their own metallic vertebrae blot out the sky when they arrive. Their victim worlds left in complete darkness, encircled entirely in an enclosed sphere. Airspace so tightly constricted not even a shuttle could find a hole big enough to escape through. The individual ships blend together to create a planet sized metallic coat. They approach the lush green and blue worlds colonised by humans in the age of exploration. They Entrap, Harvest, Consume and Destroy. It is impossible to know truly what they do. The knowledge of how they set these worlds ablaze is kept amongst the ghosts of the worlds slaughtered. Humanity have learnt one thing since the Lumas poured out of the gateway likes ants from a nest. They want humanity gone. The successful blocking of the advance of these creatures at Pluto was possible not through technological superiority. It exists despite the Lumas being far more advanced than us. It exists on the backs of labour. Physical labour. Human labour.

The sprawling industrial continents of Eurasia and Africa poison the sky. Built after the unification of Earth as an intergalactic factory, it has been expanded to replace all cultural sites previously protected and now works in overdrive with one mission. One goal. Create faster than the Lumas can destroy. The extremely outdated, hastily put together brick and mortar walls continue for thousands of miles in all directions. Inside, the workers rage on. Many collapsing at their stations, forced up to their feet under threat of death. Standing over the workers on metal balconies are the only people in sight with masks on, prepped and ready to kill at the slightest sign of laziness. Death through service is expected. If you can stand at the end of your 20-hour shift, you have not earnt your one daily meal of stale bread and soup. Rewards are not provided to those who aid in guiding humanity to certain extinction. Signs plastered across every wall for every mile read:

“Die defending your home. Die protecting your race, or die in disgrace”

Beside these country sized buildings with collapses the size of cities, the metallic spires launch themselves beyond each soot and charcoal spitting chimney and off towards the stratosphere. The towers above; all pure metal reaching as high as the eyes can see. In a long distant past, optimistic travellers in humanities golden age would look up, marvelling at these wonders uplifting humanity to the stars in beautiful fashion for those lucky enough to live there. Nowadays, those who have the free time to look up see a black coated tower, reaching up roughly 300 yards until it disappears into the smoke from the factories which has blotted out the sun from the day the war started over 15 years ago.

15 years.

15 years of politics in a war-torn galaxy. In 15 years, these politicians, diplomats, scientists and officers transmit their orders to the workers below. Their quotas must be filled and grown every year. Never to look in the eyes of those their orders reach, never to touch the soil billions of boots achingly drag across. Not one of the residents in the great spires could tell you the colour of the bricks used to build the factories that imprison souls in a life of servitude to the survival of the human race. Inside these spires, while the majority of this human race which so desperately sacrifice themselves to stay alive, the upper class have long since acknowledged and accepted the impending doom and spend their days looking busy, pushing paperwork and partying like, or because, it’s the end of the world. Their entire existence a hypocrisy. Their ability to flourish the way they do in times like these, a sign that perhaps the Lumas have good reasons for their actions.

The scientist sects, located in the base of the towers below the great smoke cloud are the only group within the spires who work as hard as those below. Scientists are the only ones who have the ability to turn this war around, although it takes a brave soul to outwardly admit that the lives of billions below are only there to delay the inevitable. Below, they create top of the line human weapons that struggle to break through the Lumas armour and great, sprawling ships the size of ancient wonders that will immediately be destroyed with crews in the thousands. Only fast scientific progress can change the inevitable. The grey, windowless metal of the tower existed to increase morale, to block the scientists from seeing the workers on their level wilt and die on a daily basis. Some higher up believe this to be a mistake, that the death of factory workers proves motivating, which led to the construction of a single observation window constructed three floors above surface level, the only square of the tower kept clean.

Grand scientist Corbus pushes through the bustling crowds. Around his neck, encased in thick black metal is a small, heart shaped locket. It ticks away, very slowly and very quietly. Corbus’ face, a pale, drained complexion. Hair white through stress like every other human who lives below the smoke line. He clutches the locket to his chest, completely lost in his surroundings for a few moments. He snaps back into the long corridor with scientists hurrying around him. As he walks through the crowd, he is surprised to notice that not one person acknowledges his presence. Corbus does not enjoy those that suck up to him, but it is still strange that for once, no one really cares that he is in the room. He walks directly into the elevator at the end of the hall and waits patiently. As the lift bolts upwards, the floor numbers start to fly past on the screen above the doors. A brief pause at floor 200 as the walls retract, revealing the crystal-clear windows. Corbus looks out in wonder, seeing the beauty of the skies. Towards the horizon and beyond, uncountable towers identical to this one extend towards the stars above. Looking upwards, the beauty and clarity of space fills Corbus with a fearful tranquillity. How can something so beautiful contain such destruction? The horizontal connection points every 100 floors create a clunk on the exterior of the lift, causing just a brief moment of worry that no amount of assurance can rid. Looking down, the thick smoke that chokes 99% of humanity cannot be penetrated by any eyes.

'Do we deserve this?' Corbus ponders, as he soaks in the stark difference between natural beauty and human pollution in the same eyeline. He looks back down to the locket around his chest and again, clutches it closely to his own heart, bravely holding back his own tears.

The stars that have fixated Corbus for his journey all disappear in a flash as the elevator continues to hurtle upwards into the stratosphere, into much denser metal expected to be seen on a starship. As the elevator lurches to a stop, the doors slide open and a tall, ominous figure stands in front of the doors.

'Master, it is an honour.' Corbus kneels.

Corbus stands up. He follows his master into the large circular chamber with nothing other than a terminal in the middle of the room.

'Pluto has gone dark.' The Master exclaims in his deep, gritty voice, completely devoid of emotion.

'That means…' Corbus sputters

'It means, you may have saved humanity with this.' He points at the locket around Corbus’ chest.

'Not in the way I had hoped…' Corbus replies, dejectedly. Issuing a simple response from his master.

'This is war. We make do with what we have.'

'Yes Master.' Corbus responds, with renewed confidence.

'This way then.' The Master takes Corbus to a small slot in the side of the room. Hesitantly, Corbus takes the locket off of his neck and very carefully places it into the slot. He closes the hatch.

'This room is isolated, but there’s no time to evacuate…'

'I know master… I know.' Corbus walks over to the control panel. Two simple buttons. They look at each other and without hesitation, they both press their respective buttons.

At the base of the tower, choking upon the smoke of the continental factory, two workers receiving a routine whipping for having fallen asleep at their stations are suddenly engulfed in a wild, yellow lightning coming from below the ground. It burns the both of them to a crisp in an instant as the lightning wraps its way around the tower. Muffled screams can be heard from within the thick metal walls. The lightning continues to rise, warping around the tower towards the top. Through the glass above the smoke line, charred bodies and ashes stand in place as they are fried from the unshackled power source. The electricity reaches the top, encircling a massive cannon atop the tower. Like tentacles, the electricity run up and over the sides of the tower before plummeting back down into the cannon. The Master and Corbus embrace inside as the cannon fires.

There is no explosion, no standard firing mechanism. A huge pulse blasts from the cannon for miles in all directions, a wave of pure force to throw a small payload through space. Corbus’ locket. It tears away from the Earth at remarkable speed and towards the human starships. Each one, standard issue size measuring 0.5 miles long and 0.25 miles high, with weapons surrounding the interior and the hull all firing at the enemy. These titans all being cut in half by the thick red beams coming from the tip of the bizarrely slender ships of the Lumas which outmatched the human ships a hundred to one. The Locket flies through the scene, travelling far too fast to be anything more than a blur in a sea of machinegun fire and rocket barrages.

The locket hurtles through the war blazing on the fringes of the cold, blue gaze of Neptune. Within half a second, it has passed the human ranks of cracked ships and floating corpses, into the heart of the Lumas armada. Thirteen seconds later, the locket comes out at the other end of the sprawling mass and continues far beyond its home into the dark distance of space.

The stars in the distance blurring to a watercolour on a black canvas to the isolated locket, flying through space away from its creators, never slowing, never stopping. Occasionally speaking to itself across its journey between unknown intervals of time.

'Darkness… no change.'

'Darkness… no change.'

'Darkness… no change.'

'Impact…'

'Dim…'

'Dim… no change'

'Non-Lumas biological contact… Opening inner chamber!'