Star Force: Clash of the Demigods (Star Force Universe Book 60)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  The first of those drone chains, some 596 units long, poked into the blackness and began to feed itself through into the unknown. As each drone passed the field its computer systems were blanked, making it ballistic, but a crude receiver got a specialized signal as soon as it was on the other side, triggering a reboot and rewrite of all operational systems from crystal backups. That wasn’t quick, but these drones had been configured to make it fast, and over the following minutes the drones began to return to functionality as the entire chain was pulled up a pre-made conduit shaft via mooring beams as it headed for the surface.

  Before it got there another explosion occurred, opening the top of the shaft to the surface. Caretaker units would be dispatched to repair the damage to the exterior hull immediately, which the Paladin would fight to keep the entryway clear…along with 27 other channels that were also exploding and opening up for more chains to pass through. Thrawn couldn’t get a living crew through, but they could send a lot of drones to assist in the battle…though at the cost of revealing the painstakingly built tunnels that were each more than a mile wide and constructed without either the Vargemma or the Caretakers knowing about it. Only the endpoints couldn’t be finished without giving it away, though the necessary explosives had been put in place to quickly open them when needed, and Samsiv had decided that day was today.

  By the time the first of the drone chains rose up into the atmosphere inside the Temple, the leading drones were now fully functional and ordered to disconnect from the chain and head up to the fight where Paladin remote pilots would add them to the existing fleets, regardless of what type of drone they were. Some were Paladin, other Human, Bsidd, Calavari, etc. There was a collection of many from different factions, and though they were shaped differently in some cases, all were capable of being flown and fought with any Star Force control ships or ground control apparatus…the latter of which was the case for the most part in this growing fight, though a few more drone-laden warships were coming through the portals along with a scattering of other craft.

  Some of those other craft were Canderous warships, which were the size of control ships but totally drone operated. There were no Seda coming through the portals, which were large enough to accommodate the smaller ones, but that didn’t mean their oddly large ships wouldn’t be of use. Also there were remote weapon platforms, missile ships, shield ships, and a large variety of useful tools Thrawn had assembled into the most beneficial order he could concoct, not knowing how long the door to the Temple would remain open.

  All those ships were scattered at different entry points, but all were rolled into the battlemap once they entered and acted as additional relays to get the control signals spread to areas where the Vargemma had previously taken down the transmitters. What looked like a chaotic and dangerous entry was actually a well-choreographed impromptu rally call, with the lethally armed ships making quick work of any isolated Vargemma units that unwisely chose to engage them.

  It didn’t take long for the Caretakers to intervene, for while they had initially waited to use the Olopar only against the Avengers, of which the third finally came through along with a couple of small attached ships, they were now tagging the entire Star Force fleet as an individual enemy and activating all Olopar to engage them. The Vargemma hadn’t yet earned this, for most of the ships they were destroying were drones with no crews onboard, but if they didn’t run away from the fights then they were getting caught up in the Essence attacks as the Olopar went after the Star Force drone swarms and deleted hundreds of them in a matter of seconds.

  No new mountain turrets rose up, except where the Avengers went. A third popped up and took an extremely long range shot at the Cap, indicating that it had as good of range as the Tar’vem’jic, if not more, though the accuracy was a little off. The shot only grazed the ship, but the beam intensity was still strong on impact.

  Fortunately the ship had already jettisoned its two attached vessels, which were traveling away from it and across to the surface at soon as the Cap rose up through the portal. They did not get targeted, as the Avenger was the primary foe for the Caretakers, but onboard one of those two ships was a very important passenger that wanted to go as unnoticed as possible. One of the ships was a decoy that could split off to draw attention away if necessary, while the other traveled with it in a straight shot to the nearest hidden Paladin tunnel entrance in the Sphere, setting down nearby and away from any ships, troops, or cities.

  Out of that ship came Thrawn with his personal guard, and into the ground they went, disappearing from view as the battles continued to rage elsewhere and more ships continued to enter through the portals, for the Clint was doing a good job of keeping the Olopar away from the tower as the other Knights of Quenar ships that had taken the slower and safer route were now arriving and decimating the Vargemma on the ground and sending down more and more troops to defend the tower against elite units using Den’gar to get inside and try to shut down the control room.

  They were coming from everywhere, with numerous small ships running in to drop them off as close as they could get, then the troops were blinking from one place to another as the Paladin shot many on approach, but enough were still getting through to give the weaker KoQ a hard fight of it. Cora continued playing the last line of defense as Steve kept letting more ships in, though they were soon to switch places, or switch out with a Knight, because Steve’s Essence reserves were nearly depleted and he’d soon kill himself if he didn’t stop expending them to press the damn entry button for each ship appearing on the barrier shield.

  As the battles continued, a few troop ships began to come through. They didn’t contain Paladin, but something much bigger. Oso’lon, Era’tran, and Brat’mar Knight races from Star Force were being sent in and down to the ground to fight both the Vargemma and the swarms of smaller Caretaker units that were now actively engaged against the Paladin due to the fact that they had dared kill Vargemma, and the much more serious crime of destroying Caretaker units.

  When those Knight races got to ground it wasn’t even a fight. Their larger size, greater armor, and psionics literally had the Oso’lon telekinetically picking up the Human-sized Caretaker drones and squashing them in their Lachka grip. Others were pulverized in single shots from the larger weaponry they carried, including the Brat’mar’s Saroto’kanse’vam, with their facial horn weaponry tearing larger units apart with single hits.

  Of the three of the them the Era’tran were the fastest over ground, rushing the fixed emplacements that began popping up around key installations and other random points and physically battering them into rubble with their heads, tails, or cutting them apart with the death saber technology built into various points in their armor.

  After them came other Knight races, including flyers and even some aquatics, for there were underwater Caretaker facilities that the Paladin had also captured, but were ill suited to defend given their small size. Once a few Star Force J’gar got into the water that changed, with the aquatic Caretaker units being no match for the masters of the oceans.

  Knight races also dropped down around the control tower, reinforcing…and in truth relieving…the Paladin as they established a much larger and better defensive perimeter against all kinds of crawling Caretakers emerging from the ground and moving to engage them. Some were as large or larger than the Knight races, which the Paladin had been fighting with mechs and continued to do so, but mechs didn’t have the agility or skill of the larger races…though they did often have more firepower to make up for the lack of biomass inside.

  Troop ships full of mechs also arrived, some from Knight races, but many more from Axius sporting the tiniest of races that conversely had the most dangerous mechs due to their smaller cockpit size, but as more ground troops came in the situation in space got worse, for many of the hidden stations throughout the vast interior ‘void’ began to appear, spewing out large warships with even greater conventional weapons than had been seen previously.

  With ea
ch escalation by Star Force, the Caretakers responded in kind and revealed more and more weaponry the Temple had created to defend itself. Star Force couldn’t back down now, for there was no negotiating with the machines. They were going to kill all who broke the rules, so the only way Star Force could survive was to run or win, and the Vargemma were quickly finding themselves in a hopeless situation and unsure of who to fight, for as more and more deaths occurred the Vargemma were drawing the attention of some of the Olopar as well…and they had nothing to defend themselves with.

  Those Olopar were not targeting cities, thankfully, for the combat wasn’t occurring in them. But if all the Vargemma got tagged like Star Force had, then the entire population of the Temple would be destroyed. They’d never seen, nor heard of the Caretakers going that far before. Not here and not in any of the other Temples, but they had now against Star Force. It was made clear in the barrier cities where there were notices posted as to who the violators were and what their punishment would be…and it was stating that all of Star Force had been declared a threat to the Temple and had to be destroyed.

  But they hadn’t rescinded the no-kill policy for the Vargemma, so they couldn’t aid the Caretakers in this. They either had to let Star Force retain control of the tower and see more and more ships coming in to bolster their forces, or they engaged along with the Caretakers to try and retake the control room…and in doing so got attacked for helping in the purge of the Temple violators.

  And why was that happening? All due to a little programming glitch. So long as Star Force had access to any of the major Caretaker facilities and was operating them, such as the barrier shield control room, they were still listed as denizens. And denizens could not be killed by other denizens, so the Caretaker programming was conflicted. It had labeled them a threat that had to be totally purged from the Temple as far as the Caretakers were concerned, but without de-listing them as denizens the Vargemma could not assist without punishment.

  That conflict of programming wouldn’t be discovered until sometime later, though it was irrelevant. Other than removing Star Force from the major facilities, the programming couldn’t be overridden or altered by the Vargemma. Only a Founder could do that, and there were none here, so the Vargemma had a choice to make.

  And the choice they made was vengeance.

  They would fight Star Force and kill as many as possible to aid the Caretakers and suffer the losses when the Caretakers killed them in response. Even if everyone in the Temple was killed, the other Vargemma across the galaxy could return here later and reclaim it…but only if Star Force was totally wiped out first.

  Survival was no longer their objective. The purging of the invaders came first. No matter how much the cost would be in blood. The Vargemma would not share the power of the Temples with anyone. Star Force had to be removed or billions of years of advancement would be lost. And without the Vargemma, the Founders would never return to fight the Hadarak in this galaxy. They and only they could bring them back, and if they had to sacrifice everyone in this Temple to protect their destiny, then that was not too great a cost. For if they failed here and now, Star Force would destroy them all over the course of time.

  The Temples must be held at all cost.

  8

  Kievan-189989 was standing by inside the warship Avogadi Imperia in the newly installed ‘jump bubbles’ that all the ships going into the Temple had to have. He was the only person onboard who could use Essence, and his skills weren’t nearly as high as the other Archon Neos, but he’d trained for this one task for months after being recalled in haste from a defensive assignment along the Hula Hoop. The warship was Bsidd, with him being the only Human onboard, and it was toting more drones than it typically carried, with the extras being stuck on the exterior hull as wide as could be reasonably managed given the width of the Temple portals.

  That change had only reached them minutes ago, but as luck had it the amount of drones they’d packed on anyway were not too wide, so they hadn’t had to change anything. Some of the other ships had, for when they tried to enter they went nowhere. At first they didn’t know why, but eventually a message was transmitted the long way out to the fleet that was blind to everything happening inside. As soon as the width measurements were changed the ships began getting through, though the two Borg vessels waiting here were now stranded on the outside.

  They’d been hoping to jump through the barrier using the Stargate Effect the same as the others, but now it seemed that’s not how the shield was opening. They were being drawn into the interior portals, and at 327 miles wide, the Borg cubes were not even close to fitting through the 127 mile wide rings.

  But their loss to the fight was not stopping the assembled fleet. Ships from all over the empire had been coming to the nearby system and refitted with what the Knights of Quenar called Den’gar jump bubbles. It was the same technique the Vargemma used to move through space undetected then pop up in the middle of nowhere or right where they wanted to be. It required a pusher, and just outside the massive sphere was a specially designed Star Force ship for just that purpose.

  It was an MCV heavily modified with KoQ hybrid technology that they’d been sharing with Star Force in exchange for simultaneous access to the Temple. There were 8 different stations that could push a target ship through the sphere’s Essence barrier, though that’s not what had actually been happening. They’d been sticking there like before rather than being allowed through, though they were now, one by one, being sucked in when the Temple wanted and emerging through one of the scattered portals around the interior of the sphere.

  As bad as that was, in was in, and once they got ships inside the fight would begin in earnest no matter how tough a war it would be. Kievan’s job here was simple. Use his Essence skills to activate the Den’gar bubble around the ship, thanks to the recent upgrade, and keep it active until they got inside. Apparently the portals were peeling it off once you got through, so all he had to do was basically push and hold an Essence button…something that the Bsidd crew could not do.

  Once that happened he’d go to the bridge and assume command if needed, but right now he and the other Essence wielders were the only keys to get them through the barrier now that they knew they couldn’t just lower the whole damn thing. At least not in time. There was supposed to be a way, but not one available to newbs like them. Letting ships through this way was easier, and though it limited the size and speed of entry, it was still a way in.

  When Kievan got the signal he trigged the device and held a small Essence current into it from his own body. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, and he could maintain it for hours if need be, but it was what the device needed to function and it made the entire warship blink out of existence from the fleet’s point of view. Only those with Essence vision and the equipment on the MCV could see it, then one of those pods grabbed hold of Kievan’s Essence bubble and pushed it into the sphere.

  The travel took a couple of seconds, for the push wasn’t very fast, but it stuck as soon as it hit…then it was waiting time. Eventually, and seemingly randomly, the ship got pulled through and he could finally see inside with his Essence-enhanced eyes. Giant flower pedals and a cascade of other glowing things were visible in the blackness, and one of those flowers caught his bubble and moved the ship along it towards the center…

  Then suddenly they were back into reality, with the front half of the ship sticking out of an interior portal and the Essence bubble Kievan had been controlling destroyed. He could have tried to reactivate it, but there was no point…unless the ship was about to die and he needed to avoid a lethal hit. For that reason he stayed put and monitored the action outside as the Bsidd captain immediately moved the ship out of the portal and accelerated along the inner curve of the sphere to the rally point where the war commanders were instructing them to come to.

  Kievan’s jaw dropped as he got the battlemap updates. Everything had gone to hell, and not only were they fighting the Vargemma with lethal weapons, they we
re also more heavily engaged against the Caretakers who now had a death sentence issues for all Star Force units inside the Temple.

  “Glad we got to join the party,” he said, soaking up what was happening before trying to get involved and alter the captain’s orders. The Bsidd knew their job well, so he wouldn’t have to do much, and if one of those big guns or Olopar hit them, he might need to dodge it with the jump pod…especially since a group of Olopar over top a particular section of the sphere was exactly where they were heading.

  Another mountain turret opened up when the Banner got within range. An Olopar had gone down to attack several Paladin bases, wiping out two of them instantly with undefendable attacks before the Avenger got there and skewered the ship with a single shot from extreme range. But it seemed the attack had been a ploy to get the most dangerous Star Force ships in range of another of the mega turrets.

  The shot that came couldn’t be dodged, but before it hit the Avenger winked out of existence, transitioning back into the Essence realm to avoid the impact as it turned away from the Olopar to line up with the newly risen mountain. Levi saw the weapon wash over his ship from within the Essence realm, passing it by but roughing up the jump bubble considerably. It popped when the beam abated, returning them to view without Levi intending to do so.