Human Souls

“Wake up, Max! We gotta go now. The last ship leaves in 30 minutes!”

I immediately awoke when I heard a loud shout from Peter, a friend in the military. We just returned to Earth to secure the last bit of Ultraprazivela, an ingredient found deep beneath the ten-kilometer mark of the ocean. This ingredient is one of the most critical chemicals that could save a billion people on Mars. Its size may be only ten centimeters, but when combined with Vextravinut, another Martian ingredient, it can produce one million units of energy. This energy, in turn, can be used to create 1,000 billion units of Oxy, allowing one billion people to breathe normally on Mars within the next ten years.

It's 3030. Earth is no longer habitable. Devastated, the temperature remains a constant 200 degrees Celsius. Ninety percent of the landmass lies submerged beneath the sea. Humans can no longer breathe Earth's atmosphere. As a result of colonizing multiple planets, humanity now occupies over twenty planets across the universe. Mars houses the largest population, with seventy percent, or about fifteen billion people. The remaining thirty percent, approximately seven billion, are spread across the nineteen other planets. Earth now serves as a mining site, where humans return to retrieve the vital Ultraprazivela.

Our six-person team flies in the fastest spaceship humanity has produced. It takes only two hours to travel from Mars to Earth.

For the past hundred years, humankind has been locked in a desperate struggle with numerous species across the galaxy. A thousand years ago, we never imagined encountering other intelligent life beyond Earth. These alien species, some from other galaxies, some within our own, covet the human soul. According to them, it is the most powerful weapon in the entire galaxy, and they possess the knowledge to utilize it - a knowledge that remains a profound mystery to us.

Millions of lives have been lost in this conflict. However, we've learned to fight and protect ourselves from these races. Shockingly, after a hundred years of war, we've discovered that the key to defeating the galaxy's most powerful species lies back on Earth. This is the reason for our return - to access the Earth's core, where our greatest, untapped strength resides.