1 The wormhole

it was the 13th of July 2828 in the human galactic calendar

Humanity was facing one of the biggest hardships that it had ever encountered. Intergalactic battles were normal, the once tranquil space laid full of chaos and misery.

After a fast proliferation of humankind on the galaxy in the centennial era, humans were very prosperous with plenty of resources and stability, working was no longer a necessity but a hobby one could live in luxury in the artificial planets all of this accommodated by automatons controlled by huge AI's in charge of serving humans, it was all great maybe too great we never thought that our lives would change until we cared so little about the risks of the galaxy and we met them.

They were a species of reptiles that had grown on the outer edges of human reach within their development humans did not know of this intelligent species but these creatures had full knowledge of us, our trash would land there from time to time leading to quick technological development and with their innate ability of fast reproduction their numbers saw no end. quickly expanding to other planets conquering star systems all being intentionally stealthy to not be noticed by us, since their beginning they had known that if they came in contact with us too early it would cause their demise, developing to a ginormous size even by humankind standards so they declared war on us, although their technology could not compare to our technology they had a total numerical advantage.

The representative leaders had no idea what to do they had never encountered something like this in their lifetime nor had they been trained to deal with the situation after all their life was nothing more than being celebrities that other galactic citizens would watch to entertain themselves but had no idea of leadership so they went to their AIs to ask for an answer as usual and after a day of calculating and comparing the very old data of wars and conflict they concluded: "humanity has lost its ambition for too long".

After those words, all of human society was turned upside down mandatory military training became a thing again, unemployment wasn't accepted anymore, weapon research became a major interest, as well as raising the future leaders of the army the luxurious living humans were not on the standards of great generals that could lead all of humankind to victory.

--------On the center of one of the warzones.--------

"Warning, space-time fluctuations deactivating cryostasis chambers. all personnel to combat positions" said Sara the AI of the Jeruzald galactic class battleship.

Astraeus with his eyes still fuzzy climbed out of the cryo chamber and headed to the command room of the spaceship he was a steamed general of the army with numerous merits to his name, even though he was barely out of puberty, he was raised since he was born to be a high ranked official for the army with enhanced genes and his brain being fused with AI he had all the humanities best traits as well as technologies best traits.

As he hastily walked to the command room the spaceship felt very empty as most systems didn't need human control. It was weird for a fleet to exceed 5 people.

He arrived at the command room other crew members arrived with him, their cryo pods were close to each other, "commander there seems to be a space-time phenomenon concentrating near our fleet and we can't avoid, it what action should we take?" said Maximillian, he was scared to the core same as the other members in the room that heard the news as they knew that this types of time-space phenomena would lead to wormholes and that would be a very difficult situation, this kind of phenomenon wasn't that uncommon in these battlefields as the energy fluctuations made the space-time unstable but it would be weird for a fleet to even get close to one, they were shrouded in a big hole of uncertainty they could end in their home planet, the heart of the enemy or even worse in an unexplored part of the galaxy this was all that was know even with a great deal of research done to make these into tactical weapons although that failed.

"Quickly send a message to the higher-ups to inform our situation, we may not get out of this one but at least they will know what happened to us and start the search operation", Astraeus said while also commanding Sara to make all the ships in the fleet relay the orders and go into full defense mode

Everyone quickly strapped on to their seats as extra seat belts came out to ensure extra protection and the ship's walls were quickly morphing to close windows and retracting all the weapons on the surface

Suddenly an uncanny silence erupted leaving everyone to tightly hold on to their straps, lights turned off, the command room became pitch dark. One would think they were in the middle of nothingness if they didn't still feel the straps.

Suddenly the whole ship shook, the lights turned back on, they had safely exited the wormhole

"Status report."Astraeus asked Sara

"Fleet condition: intact, location: unknown failed to connect to positional satellites running starmap matching scan... approximate distance to friendly territory 100,000 light-years away, detecting unknown radiation be warned" Sara reported everyone in the room had very concerned faces as such distance was quite difficult to achieve in their current situation.

But it wasn't all bad. Some immediately checked the map of the star they were now close to and noticed something interesting: it was a perfectly habitable planet and seemed to have although it looked like a backward civilization.

As Astraeus saw this he immediately commanded to scan the planet, after the garbon coalition appeared in their galaxy humankind had a very strict mandate on what would happen if another intelligent species was discovered.

"Scan completed", Sara said as the results appeared in front of everyone but what they saw left them quite shocked

"Humans" Maximillian said with shock in his eyes he didn't know what to think. They were 100,000 light-years away from any human civilization what were people of his kind doing here.

As Astraeus saw that he quickly said "scan for how they could have gotten here" suddenly countless drones broke through the atmosphere and became invisible to the naked eye.

"Scan in progress... weak spaceship signature found, searching through the database for model... model found civilian class transport spaceship built in 2598 by the third factory of the black reach planet on the golden arches star system", this confirmed that it had something to do with their civilization, they probably suffered the same fate as them.

"Hack its database" for Sara to hack an old civilian spaceship was as easy as opening a door after all she was military technology that was able to simulate and execute space battles.

"Hacking... this spaceship seems to have been used by a group of humans that were traveling to a party while they got sucked into a wormhole and crash-landed here, they tried building a civilization with the hope of one day getting back to their home although they didn't make it, they also talk about some sort of energy that recedes in this galaxy although the logs seem to have corrupted over time it does align with the radiation our sensors have been sensing since we got here" this was not on the huge database of the ship even though it's database had even a huge part of confidential files as well as all the knowledge, history and records of their civilization on it.

"Start researching this energy and assemble a recon team to survey the planet, I will lead it," Astraeus said he was very curious about the human civilization on this planet as he was born in war and only was instructed in how to perform in war but he had always been fascinated by the peace and the history of the ancient era in which the civilization hadn't expanded over a part of the milky way and just stayed in their mother planet, as a single individual could change the entire populace, he dreamed to have been born in this era.

"But commander it's risky to go down there, what if they are total maniacs", Maximillian said with a worried expression after all he cared a lot for Astraeus they had been together since children it could almost be said that they were brothers, he understood why he wanted to explore it as he was aware of his passion for the ancient era but he didn't think that he would go so far after all he was a highly esteemed general of the army.

"You don't have to worry about it even if the people there are maniacs his mechanical would make quick work of the primitive people" he wasn't concerned at all about what he would face down there after all his genes were greatly enhanced to the point even if he was thrown out to the vacuum of space he would be able to last 10 minutes without a spacesuit or run at high speed without needing to rest for a day and that is without accounting for his mental skills, he was the top of the top he could kill almost every top of the food chain animal in the entire galaxy with just his fists or play 100 chess matches simultaneously.

"Ok but then I need to go down with you" he didn't want to show it, but he was also a little bit curious about this civilization.

"Wait a second do all of you want to go down to an unknown planet without a plan do you think this is a holiday we need to make plans, after all, we need to find a way to get back to our home" said Amanda she was a specialist in strategy

"What do you propose building a stargate, you must be bonkers! stargate technology hasn't even been fully developed in our technologically advanced galaxy. How will we be able to do it on this primitive planet," said Maximillian, stargate technology was being developed for this exact purpose, to jump across galaxies but development was stopped due to having enough problems to deal with in their galaxy.

"That's true but we can't give up after all we would be letting our brothers and sisters down not to mention we have plenty of long life spans to complete it," Amanda said she was very loyal to the army as she wasn't born in a test tube, like the rest of them but was orphan from one of the ravaged, planets after she excelled in training she was assigned special training.

"There might be a way we could try taking control of this planet and building a giant AI core to solve the unfinished work although it is easier said than done," said Astraeus in a calm tone

"We could easily take it by force but we aren't evil such as the garbon coalition, I propose we take control of the planet by using our technology and political tactics to make a new major political party" even though Amanda was sometimes quite difficult to deal with she was indeed a humanitarian oriented tactician.

"I see no problem with your idea, I also don't want to take the planet by force, it wouldn't sit right with me, but we certainly need to scout and gain knowledge of how this planet operates, if it's already ruled by one consolidated political party it will make our job quite a bit more difficult" Astraeus was indeed also a kind person he didn't go just for speed and efficiency, not to mention if he was going to make war in the planet it would defeat the purpose of visiting this planet to get to know life without war.

"Then we agree on this plan, we should send mechanical soldiers first to gather information such as the governmental system language other cultural facts we need to go well prepared if we want to take over a planet," Maximillian said with a serious face, although language and culture shouldn't be too different from their own it was better being cautious than rushing things and wasting opportunities.

Three calendar days passed

"Our mechanical spies have sent some information back seems like it has various countries but the most common is reminiscent of a monarchy, I also commanded these spies to find some information about this radiation that we have been getting and it seems it does have some effect on non-intelligent animals but it's not clear" Maximillian reported to the others with this news they decided to disguise themselves as high ranking nobleman of an unknown country this would make it easier for them to come in contact with this planets political atmosphere.

"Amanda, do you want to join us in our mission," Maximillian asked to not let her in the ship alone. Curtis doesn't count as a person that one can communicate with; he has too big of an obsession with machines.

Although Amanda did want to check out the place she preferred to be on the spaceship "thanks, but I prefer having a working toilet not to mention that I'm not a superhuman freak like all of you so I would only drag you down"

They went to the shuttle bay there Curtis was waiting for them "yo, I already prepared the equipment you guys will be using, make sure to take good care of it" he prepared 6 advanced mechanical soldiers and a hovercraft all of these could shapeshift so they wouldn't stick out so much, the hovercraft carried a lot of equipment that would make their journey a lot easier such as an atom printer that could practically make anything as long as it had the data they also packed plenty of printing material for the printer it was not limited to inorganic matter so it also could make meals but they would probably not use it for that after all tasting native fauna would be an interesting experience they would also be bringing their battle suits as they did most of the time these could also morph into whatever type of clothing you would want but most of the time it was just in the shape of the official uniform, this battle suits were top-spec they enhanced every single part of the human body be it in muscle power to poison digestion it also had universal scanner that could supply the data for the printer although a good amount of it's features were meant to be used in space but it was very versatile.

"So everything should be ready for our mission let's depart," Astraeus said confident in completing their mission.

Soon an egg-shaped drop pod popped out the belly of the ship heading straight for the biggest continent on the planet this continent was called Owreach

The drop pod swiftly descended into the ground with its retrograde thrusters

"Sigh, it has been a long time since the last time I used a drop pod" Maximillian said while climbing out of the drop pod the hovercraft and advanced soldiers followed soon after, and the drop pod camouflaged within the forest.

Both of them climbed out in the hovercraft which morphed into a luxurious carriage being pulled by some weird local creatures that looked like a cross between a horse and an elephant, although it was using the wheels at any point it could start hovering. The advanced mechanical guards also morphed into full clad guards with exquisite armors engraved with complex designs, Maximillian and Astraeus mechanical suits also shifted a bit from their official uniforms into a slightly different version that looked even more luxurious.

If someone said that they were the heirs to the throne of a hidden kingdom no one could refute that statement not only by their luxurious attire but their looks weren't half bad either as the scientist that developed the gene-edited babies thought that if they are going to make powerhouses might as well also make them good looking, Maximillian with his golden hair and kind smile and Astraeus with his pitch-black hair and calm expression if their military career failed they wouldn't have any problem becoming idols.