Star Force: Temple Wars

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “Also know this. I am not at war with Star Force, and I come here with the understanding that my rule is not opposed by Star Force. I am allies and friends with their leader, Director Davis, and once I resume full possession of House Atriark, the war is immediately over. We have far bigger ones to fight in the future, and I will require your assistance to do so. You were promised a grand war against the Hadarak one day, and that war has already begun. Star Force is winning it, and many of your brethren are fighting with them, but a larger war is coming, and if we do not go to it, it will come here, inside the Temples, and fight you in your homes.”

  “You have been given a great gift by being placed inside this Temple, and those of you who came from the outside remember this. Those who were born here do not fully understand, but you were told you owed us your servitude. I am not commanding you to help me. I am asking you to choose to help me. I will provide the leadership you have been lacking, and should have had long ago. I admit the Neofan have not lived up to the promises made to you, but with my return that is changing, for I have been changed. I was betrayed by my own people and left to die alone on a Hadarak world. I survived and have seen the failings in my past, and within our race. I have also seen the future, and if the Neofan do not change our race will be destroyed and the Temples with us.”

  “Your fate and ours are now linked, and I ask for your loyalty. Not blind loyalty. Not loyalty coerced or leveraged. If you do not choose to follow me, continue making your daily Essence donations and nothing more will be required of you to continue living here. But for those of you who desire more, now is the time. I cannot secure this Temple without your help. There are too few Neofan, and too much work to be done. I do not know how many traitors there are within the Temple, but they must be found out and captured…not killed. Whether they be Neofan or Vargemma, do not kill them except in self-defense. We must preserve as much of our strength as possible, and the actions we take in the next few moments will be very costly if not taken wisely.”

  “So travel to the infrastructure, secure it, and report to the Gjardan fleet where you are and who you are loyal to. We will offer further direction from here until we can secure the Neofan cities.”

  “On a personal note, I want to offer my apologies for failing you in the past. You deserved better than you were treated, and you saw that under Star Force’s rule. Then you foolishly betrayed them at our order. That order should never have been given. A lot of things should never have happened. I cannot change the past, but I can change the future, and the mistakes of the past will not be repeated while I am Reignor. I swear this to you…”

  Truven had sent many Overseers to this Temple to ensure the loyalty of his military Commanders especially, but also other elements of the Neofan population that were moved here to rule this Temple. They heard Plausious’s plea to the Vargemma and were nauseated to discover he had captured all of the Gjardans. But what they discovered over the next few days was that his speech to the Vargemma was immensely successful. They began disobeying the Neofan through peaceful resistance, and many of them were killed for that absurdity, but there were not enough faithful Neofan left here to deal with their insurrection.

  And what was even worse was the capitulation of most of the Neofan population. Less than 10% remained loyal to Truven and the Diem, and they were being overwhelmed in battle by the others or surrendering without converting.

  Amongst the Temple leadership there was one individual placed here by Truven that held ultimate command…without the others knowing it. He was simply referred to as the Hand of the Reignor by those few who knew of his existence, and only the Overseers were aware of his presence.

  They were the first to be rounded up, aside from those who had fled and were in hiding…but the Vargemma were identifying their positions and reporting them to Plausious’s strike teams, with the number of free Truven loyalists being reduced to almost none.

  The Hand of the Reignor was one of those left, and along with a small team of others they quietly made their way through the Temple’s infrastructure network to the heart of the giant sphere where the artificial star was located. In truth it was an emitter where hydrogen was fused, being drawn from a gigantic reserve waiting in a storage tank hidden within the spherical emitter…but there were cracks between the emitters where access could be made, and through those breaks replacement hydrogen was delivered by the Caretakers, collected from outside the Temple.

  Also within that inner structure was the mechanism to trigger the cleansing of the Temple. The command pathways had already been blocked by the former Reignor Plausious, for he had the activation codes for it along with many other things the rest of the Neofan lacked, but so did the true Reignor, and he had given his Hand certain codes to use, along with orders on when to use them.

  This Temple was now lost, and those within it were now enemies of House Atriark, including the Vargemma that could not be quickly replaced. But allowing them to assist Plausious would be the greater travesty.

  The cleansing mechanism could not be activated remotely with Plausious’s block in place, but it could be activated manually if the comm link to the block was cut. That meant there would be no escape for the Hand and those with him, for there were no portals here, but at this point it didn’t matter. This insurrection had to be put down, and he had long ago resolved to die for the Reignor if necessary.

  Today was going to be that day, and now that they were entering the construct through the gap between the fiery emitters and sensing no one here, there was nothing that Plausious could do to stop them.

  Nothing at all.

  10

  The Temple had multiple ways to cleanse the unwanted population, first and foremost were the Caretakers that would isolate and destroy individual targets. Second were the regional emitters, which could, when given enough Essence, send waves of energy over the landscape delivering different types of attacks, the largest of which would disintegrate thousands of square miles of surface down to the bedrock.

  That last ditch attempt would be if a certain area was so infested with a problem…potentially Hadarak…that it needed to be wiped clean and rebuilt again. It wouldn’t penetrate the deeper rock layers, and definitely not the outer shell of the Temple itself, but everything on the surface would be gone, and the amount of Essence required for that was massive. Sending a Lian’no burst to stop the hearts of everyone in a certain area was far more economical, but the designers of the Temple wanted multiple methods of control established for both known threats and unforeseeable ones.

  The emitters for the destructive area of effect weapons had been removed by Star Force, then rebuilt by the Neofan after they took possession of Installation 0193. Those had been deactivated by Reignor Plausious when he arrived in the Temple and could not be reactivated except to go to the region itself and attempt a manual override with the same level of codes.

  But that would only affect one small area, after which Plausious would stop any further attempts in other regions, and the vast void of space inside the Temple would not be affected, for they were designed only for the surface and the thin shell of atmosphere and space above it.

  However, there was one other mechanism in the Temples that had never been used in any galaxy. It had been tested, twice, when the first Temples were being constructed to insure it worked, but it had never been put into practice. Launching a disintegration attack across the entire surface of the Temple would require more Essence than anyone could even dream of producing except if every land surface was full of denizens, and no Temple in the history of the entire network had even come close to filling half of one.

  But like with all Essence weapons, upgrading an existing physical or energy attack was much easier, and the artificial star in the center of the Temple offered one such possibility.

  Or rather, not the emitters themself, but the hydrogen stored there. Its gravitational force was minimal and nowhere near what an actual star would possess, but if that hydrogen could be forced to
fuse together…let alone in a 6 stage process…the amount of energy released would equal an extremely large surge of photonic energy that would then spread out greatly as it tried to reach the distant surface.

  Add Essence enhancement to that and, properly calibrated, you could incinerate the entire surface of the Temple down through the dirt into the upper layers of bedrock, destroying all people, trees, bodies of water, and even buildings if it was calibrated properly. Too much would destroy the Temple itself, and that was not permissible, which was why the Temples were only allowed to store a maximum amount of hydrogen inside so an enhanced explosion would not have enough power to crack the gigantic shell…but it would destroy all infrastructure within that was above the bedrock, including all the spacebound facilities hidden in cloaking fields, as well as the hydrogen storage facility and the stellar emitters.

  Everything would be gone, including whatever problem had risen to such a level that the Temple would be required to induce such a massive self-inflicted wound to remedy the situation.

  Plausious had also deactivated that mechanism, but once inside it the Hand of the Reignor, using Truven’s codes, was able to bring it back online and began siphoning Essence out of the many wells spread throughout the Temple, using the Vargemma’s own donations over their long history here to end them.

  There was no resistance. The Caretakers did not respond to Neofan as threats, nor were they barred from any area within the Temple. None of Plausious’s people were here, nor were any Vargemma, nor had they been. This was one of those places that nobody went unless something broke, and even if it did it would be the Caretakers that went in to fix it.

  Which meant there was no one to stop them, and even if someone saw the Essence transfer there was no way to get here in time to prevent it, for there were no portals inside the emitters. Truven’s faithful few had to get here physically from nearby stations, flown by Caretaker craft that brought in more hydrogen. And all of Plausious’s ships were too far away to get here even if they used the full power of their engines…assuming they had any Essence left after that insane battle.

  Hopefully the damage done would leave them vulnerable to the blast wave, but whether they survived or not, everyone else here would be lost to them and they would have nothing but an empty desolate shell remaining…which in the short term would be worthless…only to be restored to its current glory over the course of at least half a million years.

  It would cost the Hand his life and the life of those with him. He would not have brought them here if he had known it would be completely undefended. He had expected some safeguards put in place by Plausious when he deactivated it, and even now he offered the others a chance to try and flee during the buildup…but they all refused, knowing there was no way to get out of here in time without direct access to a portal. So rather than panicking, they simply remained with the Hand and stoically waited for the master stroke to land.

  It wasn’t a complicated process. The charging required the code, and when complete it required it again to detonate, which the Hand of the Reignor did without hesitation. This Temple was now compromised and had to be cleansed, and his life was worth the cost to keep Plausious from using it as a power base. Reports of what had happened here were already sent out to the other Temples, so Truven would know and prepare if Plausious survived. Now all that was left was to inflict the damage and take away all that he thought he had just stolen from the rightful Reignor.

  With the lengthy code keys input again, all that was required was the pressing and holding of a button on a pedestal with two hands, one on each side as if they were two buttons, but they both went to the same trigger, in just case one was accidentally hit as the computer system here made one last audible message informing the user of what they were about to do.

  The Hand already knew and was not deterred, pressing down both sides of the trigger, then hearing a mechanical whizzing before the floor underneath him exploded so fast and fierce he didn’t even see it happen as the extremely dense photonic wave disintegrated all molecules it came in contact with…and it wasn’t even Essence enhanced to do that.

  Plausious felt it before the ship’s sensors could detect it. The Essence part anyway, and dread filled him as his mind quickly contemplated what was happening, but not how. Only a Reignor could input the codes necessary, which meant someone here had to have them…or they’d rebuild the machinery to not require it.

  He knew there were only minutes before the shockwave reached the surface after the sensors detected it coming, and he was probably only a few minutes ahead of that happening.

  He had to act fast.

  The Reignor was in a command node, thankfully, overseeing action on the ground as the fighting continued in some areas, so he had access to the comm unit that he set to broadcast everywhere, knowing that the other half of the Temple would be hit before his words could get to them.

  “All Neofan, you are about to die,” he said quickly, speaking faster than normal. “Someone has triggered the purging protocol for the entire Temple. A stellar blast wave is coming that will destroy everything on the surface, including the buildings. Get down into the catacombs immediately, as deep as you can. Go now.”

  He didn’t waste any more words, for if people listened a few moments longer that could be too long for them, so he adjusted the comm to go to the warships and other Neofan ships only.

  “Raise all shields and turn them towards the Temple center. Use all Essence reserves. The detonation will be Essence enhanced into a Bru’qua effect. Calibrate for that, concussive, and photonic impact. Any ship without sufficient shields needs to hide in the shadow of another. Group together and cover up, but leave your shields facing the surface open and begin bring up as many people off the surface as you can. Locate those within range and deadlock the portals to come here. Also try for capture transmutation and have the crew set up beacons. Get everyone possible here as fast as you can. Do it immediately and do not ask questions. Everyone will be dead in moments.”

  The Ren’mak squawked, feeling Plausious’s rage and dread. Thankfully he had retrieved him off the surface a day ago, and if the shields held they should be safe here.

  “Ship status,” he demanded of the crew on station, for the Commander of this vessel had been on the other side and was now a captive as Plausious claimed it as his own flagship.

  “There are too many hull breaches to turn away from the Temple center,” one of the Neofan he had yet to learn the name of reported. “But shielding is up and charging. Depending on the level of the blast, we should be able to block it, but there will be damage on the underside if it reflects back from the surface.”

  “The blast will not be quick, it will be a torrent. We must survive the impact first. Stand by to use conventional shielding only on the underside if we can spare it, but do not divert any Essence there unless the pressure from the Temple center weakens first,” Plausious said as his Essence vision was already picking up little lights coming up from the surface into the ship from the city directly below them, as well as a few from neighboring ones.

  But while some of the other ships were doing the same, many were moving. He looked at them wondering if they were obeying orders or trying to flee, and some of the smaller vessels near a ship portal were trying to head out…which was wise…but the others, he realized, were either heavily damaged or too small to survive what was coming and they were running towards other ships, including his own.

  “Bring those four Gvan in underneath us and interlock shields with them. There’s no need to waste perimeter energy on the interior. One shield covering all, and use theirs to cover our underside while we divert full power topside…but do not let them raise Essence shielding that will interfere with surface pickups.”

  “So ordered.”

  Plausious thought fast for anything else he could do. The entire atmosphere in the Temple was going to be gone shortly, along with the vaporized surface blasting back towards them. He could get some more altitude,
but that would mean a few people on the periphery of range would be left behind.

  And already he could feel glowing points inside the ship where 4 crewmembers each would stand, three in a triangle, plus one above either flying or having negated the artificial gravity in that chamber so they could float there, outlining a clear zone between them with no bulkheads or other physical matter.

  And to their massively glowing positions Neofan on the surface were desperately throwing themselves through the Essence realm with no portals to use. They had to aim and hope, creating an Essence bubble themselves and being propelled by another pushing them or by finding a way to fling themselves up to the ships overhead following the little 4 person beacons they saw. If they got close those 4 people, if they had sufficient skill, could latch on and pull the bubble inside where it would be released or broken, landing the person in the ship and having them walk out as another was drawn to them, but traveling for hundreds, if not thousands of miles with no navigation was hazardous.

  But without any other hope, slim was better than none.

  When the ship’s sensors finally detected the incoming blast wave, the number of tiny lights coming up from the city below swelled greatly, and most were not targeted. Many missed, passing by the ship or even going through it. Some that did not hit a beacon quartet tried to revert inside anyway, with many rematerializing inside solid matter, dying instantly or becoming mangled with parts of their bodies intact and others fused into the technology.