Star Force: Keyholders (Star Force Universe Book 61) Read online

  So for now, and hopefully well into the future, Beta Temple would only be minimally operational and the Essence barrier would not be activated. If it was, he was told, then they wouldn’t be able to get it back down again because they didn’t have the skills and knowledge required to gain control over it and most of the rest of the systems. It might take 1000 years of learning and Essence training before they did, so the spacial tap was their workaround to the problem of getting ships inside, and it all depended on that damn Essence barrier staying down.

  Scar’vi was outside the Temple right now, floating around in a construction pod keeping a close watch on the progress. His people were overseeing the infantile Paladin as they deconstructed a section of it, which was not easy. The material wasn’t Yeg’gor armor, but it was damn tough to cut and he didn’t like the sloppiness of explosives. Furthermore, if they went too deep they’d get into the magma layer and it would start spewing out into space like a volcano, and that was one mess he was not going to accidentally run into.

  A pilot conduit from the surface had already been cut, but it was only 8 meters wide. The aperture he’d been instructed to create here was 128 miles wide. It was meant to be a shave larger than the interior portals, for through them the fleet would be traveling to the other Temples, hopefully, and word had reached him that they had finally found a way to make that happen…meaning they were waiting on him and his crew to carve the channel inside, though that wasn’t the larger holdup.

  Right now they had an aperture roughly 52 miles wide and 128 tall on the exterior, with the magma layer capped right now by a weaker barrier. He was going to get the exterior finished first, and a permanent defense force guarding it against Caretaker ‘fixing’ that would actually reseal it again over time. Once that was set up he’d work on expanding the width of the conduit up to the surface, and the rock cutting there would be easy compared to the exterior armor.

  No, the biggest problem was gravity. The Temple was located in the doldrums of space far away from any star system. It had also been designed without a central mass, so its gravity silhouette was spread out and unjumpable save for the slowed possible travel. The only ships to get here were 3 MCVs that had been refitted with three times the number of engines they normally possessed, and they’d had to travel so low it had taken them 7 months from the nearest star.

  Had they normal gravity to work with, it would have taken 3 days. And while he couldn’t give the sphere normal gravity, he could give it a little bit more in a small spot via artificial gravity generators. The catch was, their field disappeared within a certain range. An unlimited field would take so much power it would be impossible, so like inside a ship, there was a shield-edged zone where the AG was reflected back on itself and contained. But a ship slowing down required a great deal of distance. You couldn’t stop on a dime unless you had black hole level gravity, and even then you’d need at least a few kilometers to stop even the slowest standard jump.

  To quote an old theatrical lesson from his early training as an engineer, We can’t stop. We have to slow down first, and that slowing down required distance. In order to get AG out that far, he was having to do something engineers hated to do…spam inferior equipment.

  Artificial gravity generators had been around since the beginning of Star Force, more or less, and there were very efficient models now that could produce a lot more with less power, but he didn’t have time to build them. He was having to create a lot of weaker ones and string them out along 6 pylons sticking off the surface of the sphere. Those pylons were just rigid structure attached to the armored hull, and if the Essence barrier went up he wasn’t sure how it would affect it. He’d put the power source beyond so that wouldn’t be in jeopardy, as well as the command and control lines, but he assumed the telemetry line would be interfered with at the minimum.

  If the field did come back up this spacial tap would be useless for the regular ships, but he wanted it here anyway so he installed maneuvering engines on the 6 pylons so they could maintain their exact orientation even if their stems were cut from the Temple...or if they needed to relocate it to another spot on the exterior.

  The orientation was critical, for the target zone for approaching ships was only 634 miles wide. He couldn’t get it any wider without double the equipment costs, at the minimum, for each pylon had to link to the others to create one massive shield around the area, inside of which the numerous gravity generators would fill with the emissions that the incoming ships’ engines needed to push against to slow down.

  Fortunately, since gravity was an emission, there was no physical link to the pylons, meaning no equal and opposite force to contend with…other than ships in front of them. To accommodate them Scar’vi had to establish a parking area underneath, so the pylons created more than just the gravity gauntlet to slow the incoming ships. It also had a zone where a few could park or be moved outside along the surface of the Temple via mooring beams…and he did know from the Paladin that the mooring beams would be interfered with by the Essence barrier. They’d though to test that much.

  The reason he had to move ships to the side was in case the channel to the interior surface was blocked. Incoming ships couldn’t slow down except in this very small 1385 mile long channel, and when he had ships incoming that would be almost that long, they couldn’t be allowed to stack up. If there was a delay, and one was sitting in the channel when another ship in a convoy arrived, usually only minutes behind, then they could collide and be destroyed…and probably shove the debris right into the channel, blocking it for weeks.

  He had wanted to offset the channel from the pylons, but that would make cause ships getting into it to be delayed. If this worked as intended, the incoming convoys would be spaced with as little gap between them as possible, so they needed to directly enter the channel and get to the inner surface without having to fully stop…and that meant having them lined up.

  When he’d been told how many ships he needed to accommodate he’d been shocked when the Count told him ‘all of them.’ When he’d asked what that actually meant, the Count had said every ship in the Star Force navy across the galaxy.

  That was when he truly understood the importance of this spacial tap. If he could get it working, and the trailblazers could find a way to use the portals, they were going to war against all the Vargemma Temples, not just Alpha. And they had to in order to stop the attacks on Star Force territory. Every month that passed saw more, so billions of people’s lives literally rested in Scar’vi’s skills, and those of the rest of his staff and even the Paladin. They had to get this to work, and to do it as quickly as possible. That’s why he couldn’t take the time to build the more efficient technology. He had to spam the older designs using resources acquired from within the Temple, and for that, at least, the Paladin were more voracious miners than even the Kiritak and the Bsidd…at least in startup operations like this.

  The reactors to power this contraption couldn’t be built on site, for they had to be efficient. The Tia’mat-class reactors were essentially batteries using the most condensed fuel Star Force could make, and all had arrived filled to the brim. They had already arrived the slow way on the MCVs and were currently attached to the 6 pylon framework. He had full power, with replacement fuel easy to bring in over the Bridge due to its compact size, if not its weight. One cubic centimeter of it massed more than a dropship, and once inside the reactor it would be ‘unpacked’ and expand greatly in size before it was actually deconstructed during the reaction process when exposed to none other than basic water.

  And the giant ice cube of a Temple had plenty of water available.

  What Scar’vi did not have was enough gravity generators. About a third were already built and installed, with the Paladin still building more factories inside to increase their production rate. Scar’vi didn’t know which would happen first, getting the gauntlet up to necessary power to stop the massive transport ships that would be arriving, or getting the channel dug out and lined suffic
iently to keep the Caretakers from poking holes in it. If he’d done his planning correctly, both should be completed at approximately the same time.

  Then they’d make a test jump away from the Temple first, arrive in the neighboring star system, then jump back…and hope they didn’t mess up on the math. After a few successes he’d report to the Count that the spacial tap was operational…assuming everything did go as planned, and it didn’t always happen that way.

  The major wild card here was keeping the Essence barrier down. If it went up, then all they’d be getting through the tap would be non-living cargo. And a fleet was nothing without the pilots who flew it.

  The gravity field generators were reliable technology. He wasn’t worried about them. And the navigational technology, coupled with the beacons they were building on the tips to help ships in the star system detect the exact location were not too worrisome. He trusted the fleet to know whether or not they could hit such a small target before they tried to, and if he had more time he would have built some extra gravity fields further out to act as a last second steering mechanism.

  He was still going to, after the tap became operational, as well as a lot of other housekeeping things to make it better, but those had to wait until the fleet started to pour through. Until that happened, only the bare bones were being built, for even a small delay would mean another Star Force world would burn under a Vargemma Essence attack.

  Four more months, he estimated. Assuming no Caretaker issues arose. He wasn’t in charge of the defensive efforts. Others were seeing to that so he could focus entirely on the construction. He was worried about when he opened up the channel to the interior, for there was no way to hide that from the Caretakers except with a cloaking or null field…and they’d know something was there one way or another. If they brought out their huge corkscrew ships and landed one on top of it, the Caretakers could plug the hole.

  He couldn’t control that, but it still worried him. Star Force needed this badly, or needed someone who could actually control the Temples. And it didn’t seem like there were any Founders around to do it, nor any Vargemma willing to switch sides, though he’d been told that even they did not fully control the Temples.

  And if they couldn’t, it wasn’t likely that the trailblazers would learn how in time. They had to cheat the system with the tap and get the fleet inside. Once they did that, he’d been assured, things would escalate quickly. But if he didn’t succeed, they’d have to wait until the Paladin built enough new ships here to form a sizeable fleet, and that would take decades, let alone centuries, to get to the number that would match even the tiniest portion of the galactic Star Force fleet.

  No, Scar’vi had to open the door. If and when he did, and the fleet was summoned en mass, the Vargemma were going to see a sight few in the galaxy ever had.

  And they were not going to like it one bit.

  6

  February 23, 128551

  Unexplored Frontier

  Beta Temple

  Jorwan was plying a Responder with questions regarding the Mui technique, one of many on the path upwards on the Temple’s prerequisite list to get to portal operation, when he received a signal on one of the Knights of Quenar broadcast frequencies. Most communications within Beta Temple were through Star Force’s growing comm grid, but when the KoQ wanted something in private they used their own, meaning a ship or other form of transponder had to be close by.

  Jorwan’s comm equipment he wore embedded within his robes, as were the rest of his technological devices, in order to give people observing him a false sense of safety. Unlike Star Force, which wore their armor fully deployed far more often than needed, the Knights of Quenar wished to be as low key as possible until the moment to strike arose in whatever mission they were on, and even though Star Force was not a target here, they did not alter protocol.

  A mental link to his garments and subcutaneous devices allowed Jorwan to control them while leaving his hands free, but he held the line until he walked away from the Responder and went outdoors to stand underneath a nearby tropical tree that had recently grown slightly taller than his head, but did little to shade him from the now intense sunlight.

  “I am here.”

  “It is about to happen, and there will be no delay. If we wish to go first, then we must go now.”

  “Have they breached the interior yet?”

  “It will be momentarily. I am told the ships are already inside the conduit.”

  Jorwan leapt into a run to get to higher ground. There was a small ridge to the south, which he climbed quickly before scaling one of the small trees in a single jump and clinging to the thin upper trunk with his four legs as he got his head height as elevated as possible. He looked to the southwest where he knew what Star Force referred to as the ‘spacial tap’ was supposed to enter into the Temple. All the ships here were Star Force, built on site, so the KoQ had none present, unlike in Alpha Temple. That said, they had been invited to come along when the fleet finally arrived, and apparently today was that day.

  “How close are they? I see nothing.”

  “You see something. When it activates you will see nothing.”

  “Meaning a shield?”

  “They have to prevent the Caretakers from intervening, and the only way to destroy them and not trigger the same response as was done in Alpha is to destroy them without being seen.”

  The words were barely out of his fellow KoQ’s mouth when a half sphere of darkness appeared in the distance. Not much was visible from Jorwan’s position, but he could make it out equivalent to a sunrise, except this curve was deep black and absorbing all signals that went into it. A few moments later he felt the tree beneath him shake from a series of tremors that he knew to be the upheaval of the rock beneath the concealment canopy washing all this distance to his location. They were of no threat, but the continuous rumble testified to what was not visible.

  “Do you wish to be picked up?”

  “No, I will remain here. My duty is in unlocking the mysteries of the Founders. Yours is with the Vargemma, though I wish I could see their reaction. I still cannot believe they had the gall to declare us primitives. Such arrogance and deceit.”

  “We will record and make it available to you later. Have you made any progress?”

  “Minimal. I am having difficulty getting information. Say’ma was correct, the Responders are programmed to only feed us small amounts to encourage repeated practice. It is slowing matters down considerably.”

  “I do not envy you the patience required. We are an Order of action.”

  “We do what is necessary, and our advancement will spring forward by leaps and bounds because of the knowledge stored here. It is not a matter of patience, but a great honor laced with frustration.”

  “Have the Star Forcers been of help?”

  “In their own way, but we are nearly equal now from the Responders’ point of view. This ladder we will have to climb one rung at a time, and they have more pressing concerns, as do you.”

  “The chaos of the Vargemma must be ended, and their treason addressed. After all these years I am surprised to say I trust Star Force to do what needs to be done.”

  “They have a hidden steel we did not originally see,” Jorwan admitted. “Their methods may spare lives, but in a way that still fully neutralizes threats.”

  “Do you think they will turn them into an advantage?”

  “They will not execute them, and they will not let them stagnate. They will force assimilation or solitude. It is more than the Vargemma deserve, but if something can be gained from them I will allow Star Force to claim it. We cannot distract ourselves with such efforts.”

  “We are fortunate they can. The Uriti have proven to be far more valuable than even the Chixzon knew.”

  “Our gravest error was plotting to kill them once Star Force took control. Before then we are not at fault, for the threat had to be neutralized. Their method, which we did not possess, has been proven to be the super
ior method.”

  “I agree. But at times it concerns me how trusting we are of them.”

  “We trust their nature, not their allegiance.”

  “Is that not the same thing?” the KoQ on the other end of the line said as the dark sphere altered, and out of it came the familiar shape of a Star Force Warship-class jumpship pointing straight up as it broke the smooth curve on the darkness but did not alter the concealment zone at all on passing.

  “And so it begins,” Jorwan said gravely. “We stand at the moment of inevitability and are witness to a power shift within the galaxy. We have chosen our allies well, have we not?”

  “If they stay true to course, yes. I do not like being the inferior with regards to the mission outcome.”

  “So long as it is accomplished we will play whatever role is required.”

  “It is still unnerving.”

  “I became acquainted with that sensation when they took control of the first Uriti. Now it is a dull comfort. They have the power to stand against the Hadarak purge, we can only slow it down. Our Order will be for naught if the galaxy is destroyed.”

  “Our mandate doesn’t cover the Hadarak?”

  “How can it?”

  “Are they not living? Do they not have potential masters in the Deep Core? Perhaps countless races of them? The galaxy will not be dead, merely replaced. Is it our mandate to choose or let events play out?”

  “If the apocalypse monsters come, all is lost. The Hadarak will have to withdraw from the Rim after they conquer it or risk luring them here. The planets they colonize will be evacuated, or more likely sterilized. There will be nothing but vast tracks of death waiting for life to restart. Our mandate is to protect what is already here and allow it to continue to advance. A reset means we have fully failed.”