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

  “Welcome to the party, pal!” he said without broadcasting, instead just watching as the warship came into the Temple and disconnected several smaller ships from its hull. They weren’t drones, but rather hitchhikers to allow all to travel in the same Essence bubble and save time, otherwise they’d have had to go through the portal individually, for they wouldn’t take closely grouped fleets. Only single craft…or craft physically bound to one another.

  Steve stopped flying, canceling his mission and waiting for data to determine what his next move should be. If he was right…

  Yes. The smaller ships were Essence tankers, and another warship was coming through the portal behind them as well. However they’d done it, Star Force had managed to get reinforcements to come in, probably from another Temple, unless they’d learned some code to get through into this one from the outside without control room permission.

  That was a mystery he could figure out later. The Avengers were already moving from their current positions and racing to get to the tankers, as was the rest of the fleet, before the Caretakers could. Give those three ships enough Essence and Alpha Temple was going to be theirs for the keeping, and not even those massive Yeg’gor-adorned carrier ships were going to stop them.

  Steve took off again on his speeder, heading for the hidden dropship some 1600 miles away that he and several other infiltrators were operating out of. He sent a recall signal to them, intending to return to the nearest Paladin base and get linked up with the fleet, then the portal shut down after a few hundred ships came through and he worried that something had gone wrong. At least until he got a priority update through the battlemap explaining what was going on.

  Alpha would get some relief, and as much Essence as they needed…which was the key thing they were lacking…but right now this Temple wasn’t a threat to the rest of Star Force. The other ones were the current launching pads for the planet-killing raids going out into the galaxy, so the Star Force fleet was going after them first and would circle back here in years to come if Alpha couldn’t get the job done on their own.

  “Go get ‘em,” Steve said wholeheartedly. Three Avengers with unlimited Essence was enough for Alpha to get the job done. The Paladin would provide everything else they needed over the course of time. And better yet, Star Force now knew how to use the portals, with the catch of Keyholders that had to be developed via travel, but that was a minor issue now. As long as Beta’s shield didn’t go up and block their entry point, they now had a way to access all the Vargemma Temples.

  And it was time for them to finally pay the piper.

  Paul came through the portal 35th in line, with his ship immediately dispersing its overload of drones. The normally smooth hull looked like it had been cached in mud, but once the metallic bee hive flew off its clean persona was revealed and moved into formation with the others waiting to guard the single portal they were all coming through.

  Fortunately they weren’t getting scattered like in Alpha Temple, but then again they didn’t have more ships coming through than a single portal could handle either. Paul waited until he had some 200 ships, including one Avenger, already inside Gamma Temple before he transmitted his ultimatum to the Vargemma from every ship in the growing fleet to disguise which one he was actually on.

  “Attention douchebags. I am Archon Paul-024, and I am here to stop your attacks on my empire. You can do so voluntarily, or I can destroy all your ships. Either way this Temple is no longer going to be killing my people. How you wish to proceed is up to you. We can fight this to the death, we can fight using stun weapons, or you can surrender. In none of these three situations do you retain possession of the Temple, though there are far too many of you to remove,” he said, referencing the 178 trillion Vargemma listed as living here by the Caretaker accounting programs, but even then the Temple wasn’t even a quarter full of people.

  “As we have done with other enemies, we do not seek your deaths. You will be incorporated into our empire in some fashion. How is to be determined. But your actions…or those of your kin…have ended any sovereignty you now claim. You either participated in the murder of my people, or you allowed it to occur. And all for what? Because we have the courage to face the Hadarak when you do not? We have the ability to fight and defeat them. Are you truly aiding them now, despite the instructions within the Temple to help you do just the opposite? If any of you wish to talk and explain your actions, now is the time. I have a great many ships coming, and we’ll just be sitting here for a while before we attack. If any of you want to negotiate before we start blowing up your stuff, please step forward…”

  8

  March 31, 128551

  Stricorva Nebula (Unexplored Frontier)

  Gamma Temple

  Milan Tupudi was the lead pilot on the Protovic drone carrier ship Anshelot, which was little more than a very thin and long vessel onto which the triangular wedges were packed. It was currently just narrower than the Temple Portal and stretching some 834 miles long, with it just now popping back into normal space as it entered Gamma Temple for the first time.

  Milan immediately got a battlemap update with thousands of warnings, no-go zones, target selections, and other general information being pumped out by the mastermind behind it all…that being one of the trailblazers, Paul-024, who was somewhere in the fleet as it was spread across half the Temple interior fighting the Vargemma.

  Or rather what was left of their ragtag fleets.

  There was still combat all over the place, but there were far more Vargemma ships now listed as Star Force property and floating in various ‘pens’ with protective warships around them than there were active threats. The ‘safe’ ones had been disabled and boarded rather than destroyed, and as soon as Milan’s carrier ship snapped into existence inside the Temple the drones on it began to peel off in waves without his or anyone else’s input onboard the ship. Nearby warships, or perhaps even Paul himself, were ordering them off and incorporating them into the existing fleet groups.

  It didn’t matter if those ships were Protovic or not. Star Force drones were built to answer anyone’s call, and the shape didn’t matter. Each faction had its own, or used mainline’s rectangular block default, and if needed they could even be stacked together, though you had to have a high degree of Tetris skills to pack them in properly. Typically after battle you had far more carriers than you had drones, so it was virtually never an issue, and this insane battlefield was no exception.

  There were carcasses of dead drones everywhere despite Star Force having issued a ‘no lethal ordinance’ decree on the battlefield. Apparently the Vargemma weren’t obliging, and Milan didn’t know why. Then again, he didn’t need to. He got his navigational coordinates and began moving the Anshelot off and away from the portal as the next ship came in. He’d never been this close to ground before, being only a handful of miles above it at the rear, but due to the size of the vessel, the front portion was already stretching up into space.

  His ship was huge when loaded up like this, but it was merely a spec to what he was seeing around him. His jaw dropped when he saw the distance readings from one side of the sphere to another. He’d been told what a Temple was, but it wasn’t until just now that the sheer magnitude of it truly sunk in.

  “Are you seeing this?” he whispered to the bridge crew seated in stations beside him.

  “We’re actually flying inside this thing,” another Protovic answered in awe. “This is crazy.”

  “What’s crazy is these bastards thinking they have a chance against us,” the Captain said, his face a glowing mix of blue and yellow colors that caste odd shadows against the normal lighting. “Looks like we’re bringing in the cleanup crew.”

  “Cap, there are a lot of lethal target batteries out there,” Milan noted, tearing his eyes away from the current fleet fighting and seeing the icons on the Temple’s surface.

  “I know, I just caught that. They’re labeled inactive so long as non-lethal protocols remain. I don’t think the Varg
emma can use them against us.”

  “You want me to fly higher?”

  “No, we’re new here. They know better than us right now. Stick with the exact route. I’ll keep an eye on those turrets.”

  “As ordered,” Milan said in mild protest as his ship got lighter and lighter as the cylindrical tube of drones continued to peel off in layer after layer and turn into bee hives heading this way and that. The route given to him had them moving off to a safer zone far from the combat where several other carrier ships were parked, all empty. Without the ability to go back through the portal it looked like they were stuck here, but that was ok. They’d brought the reinforcements needed and Star Force had a handle on the fighting by now. As long as the Temple itself didn’t revolt against them they’d be ok, but he hated the idea of being in the gunsights of something that could kill you in a single strike, and these Essence weapons were all pretty much like that. He’d just never heard of them being used as ground defend turrets before.

  “Be proud you are witnessing history,” the Captain continued. “These Vargemma may not be as strong as the V’kit’no’sat, but Star Force has never fought a battle on this scope before. And this Temple has the land space of thousands of star systems. It’s a far greater prize than we’ve ever conquered.”

  “And far more people,” another crewer noted.

  “Yes, we have a great task before us. But you and I have a very easy job to do. The hard work is being done by others. With a trailblazer on site, the Vargemma aren’t going to stand a chance.”

  “A stun war on the ground?” Milan asked.

  “Unless they surrender, that is probably so. But that is a lot of people to take care of. I don’t envy the trailblazers this one. I wouldn’t know where to start, but it looks like they’re way ahead of us,” the Captain said as he threw up a hologram for the bridge to see.

  It was the other carrier ships waiting at their rendezvous, and docked to them like tiny mites too small to see without enhancement, were dozens of Vargemma ships with more enroute that were flagged as friendlies.

  “I don’t see any orders yet, but I think we’re taking possession of the Vargemma’s ships after they’re emptied of crew.”

  “Please let them be empty,” someone else said, and the Captain nodded his agreement.

  “I hope so. If not we won’t have to deal with them. They’ll assign other units to handle that. We’re just going to be the mobile warehouses, unless they can find some way to get us outside the Temple and back into normal space.”

  “Where are they taking the crews?”

  “The surface,” Milan said, having already spied it on the crowded battlemap. “They’re giving them back to the Vargemma.”

  “Where?”

  The pilot highlighted one of the spots on the battlemap so the Captain could see.

  “Outside defense range of their nearest cities, but close enough to get picked up,” he said with a satisfied nod. “And if they have to walk, then that’s punishment for attacking our ships.”

  “78 miles is a long walk. What if the Vargemma just leave them there?”

  “Give them a backpack of food and cut them loose,” the Captain said curtly. “I hear the Caretakers provide you food too, if you can find them to ask. Remember that if we get shot down.”

  “Peachy,” Milan said, knowing that if they got shot ‘down’ there probably wouldn’t be anything left intact to actually hit the surface. Not with the Vargemma’s disintegration weapons. He’d seen far too many of them used on Star Force ships, stations, and even some cities over the past years to count.

  Speaking of which…

  He switched the battlemap over to hunt for the portals…and a great relief to his eyes was the Star Force fleets guarding each and every one of them across the entire Temple. No ships were coming in from them, but that’s not why they were there. They were guarding to make sure no Vargemma ships could get out. And if they couldn’t get out, they couldn’t attack any Star Force worlds. Not from this base of operations, anyway.

  That meant some planets that were going to get hit were now safe. And that was huge. For years they’d been getting ambushed with no way to stop it, and the few takedowns of Vargemma Essence ships they’d managed hadn’t convinced the enemy to back off. But now, from the inside, they were blocked from making any attacks. As for the Essence ships themselves…

  Milan frowned. They were still here, not moving, not tagged as captured. Just sitting all across the Temple interior. There were no-go zones set up around them, and they were still tagged as hostiles, but with a ‘no shoot’ rating on them.

  That didn’t make any sense. Those were the most powerful Vargemma ships they had. They were the ones doing all the damage to Star Force worlds. Why were they not destroyed already? And why were the Vargemma not using them to defend against Star Force’s attack? Had they been disabled somehow?

  He searched the battlemap for answers as he flew the ship, which was really just point and click and look for problems that might pop up, and eventually he found his answer. The ‘Olopar’ were unable to be used within the Temple, except by the Caretakers. So if people started dying the Olopar would actually be remoted controlled by the other machines here and used to kill Star Force. Odd as that was, the no-go zones now made sense. As did the fact that they had not been taken out the moment the first sections of the fleet had arrived.

  “So, am I reading this right, Cap? If we start killing the Vargemma, or even start shooting the machines, the entire Temple comes alive and smokes us?”

  “It seems so, though you forgot the word ‘try’ in there. None of our warships have been destroyed, only drones, so the Vargemma seem to understand the rules as well.”

  “This place is bat shit crazy.”

  “I won’t argue with that, but it’s ours now. Get comfortable with those visuals. We’re not going to be seeing stars for quite some time.”

  “Feels weird,” Milan agreed. “And this lack of gravity is problematic. I can barely get a crawl out of her.”

  “All we need to do is crawl. Leave the fast stuff for the surface fighting.”

  “Happy to,” Milan said as he continued to soak in everything going on, with far too much for him to get caught up with in the hours to follow. How someone could direct this war was beyond him. There was simply too many ships and too many fights going on to keep up with…

  Paul punched the sparring drone twice in the chest, then dodged an uppercut coming back his way. Had the machine not been sufficiently armored his hand would have put dents in it, even without wearing a glove, but the Balboa-class sparring partner was designed to take hits from Saiyans, though Paul wasn’t using that much energy right now.

  He had a headset on, which looked like a golden crown that had his sweaty blue hair draping over the front of it slightly. He’d spent days in and out of his astromech, physically and mentally linked into the thing to up his brain capacity to the level that he could lead the entire fleet in combat across the entirety of the Temple. Even then he’d had to rely on others to manage individual weapon shots and maneuvers, but most of the organization fell to him as the task force commanders and even ship captains deferred to his orders whenever they had the luxury of doing so. And in this ongoing battle that had been often.

  But Paul could only take so much time melded with an astromech. The level of fighting remaining was far below what it had initially been, so Paul had been getting some rest and a lot of training in while simultaneously multitasking and leading the continued combat, as he was now, while punching the smooth white drone over and over again.

  His brainpower was so large he could do both at the same time easily, and in truth he was triple-tasking, for he was monitoring Vargemma reactions away from the fighting and eavesdropping on what conversations were being intercepted. And so far they were still just bitching about the situation and whose fault it was. None were ready to accept surrender yet.

  Paul right punched three times in a row then
kicked up into the side of the drone with his left leg, bouncing it half a meter before the anti-grav pulled it back into position. He couldn’t get it too far off, no matter how hard he hit, but he was always trying to anyway.

  The ship he was in was also involved the fighting, but from afar, launching bloons every now and then filled with disruptive energy rather than destructive. Star Force hadn’t lost a man yet, nor had the Vargemma, just a lot of equipment on both sides, though the Vargemma’s wasn’t truly destroyed, just roughed up, because they weren’t using any pure drones that could be killed with conventional weapons. All of them had to be captured, and thankfully the crews were not using their Essence skills to try and kill the boarding parties…except when those boarding parties were mini-drones themselves.

  “Alright, what are you thinking about?” Paul asked the Knight of Quenar standing behind him and just off the sparring ring inside the Archon Sanctum inside the warship.

  “Did I let my defenses down?” No’vosha asked, referencing his own telepathic barriers that were not passive like Star Force’s Ikrid blocks.

  “Your lack of conversation betrays your thoughts,” Paul said as he Archon punched with his elbow into the center of the drone a little too slow and got smacked in the side of the head and turned away because of it. A flash of annoyance crossed Paul’s face, then he sped up and beat the drone back two meters before hopping away and resetting as the drone came back at him again, floating without legs but possessing two very quick and hard hitting arms.

  “I am still amazed by your ability to do this.”

  “What’s ‘this’ mean?”

  “Your orders to the fleet while training. It appears reckless in the extreme, yet you manage it flawlessly. Does your psionic tissue gift you that much mental power, or is this an Essence technique that we are not aware of?”