Star Force: Keyholders (Star Force Universe Book 61)

by Aer-ki Jyr

  “On the contrary. It is their mandate that binds them together, and even it has been barely sufficient over their history. The Caretakers are the only reason why these varied races ever were able to coexist. They are not your equal in such matters.”

  “That’s the understatement of the epoch,” Paul said, crossing him arms over his chest as he and the Knight of Quenar continued to study a myriad of data sources he’d given the guest access to a few days ago. Prior to that he’d been observing without in-depth Star Force intelligence of the Temple. “Whoever these Founders are, they either expected this or greatly miscalculated.”

  “How can one predict events millions of years into the future?”

  “No, let’s just face facts. The Founder training programs suck.”

  “I have found them useful.”

  “When they contain data you don’t have, they seem magical and very useful. But that’s all they are. Data depositories. They are not true training. They’re practice terminals that do not require personal growth or the development of bonds. All they are pushed towards is being larger Essence generators.”

  “Then perhaps the Founders succeeded in their goals. Perhaps they are merely cattle used to power the Temples until their designer’s return. Then they can groom them as they like. Until then, they simply need to survive, grow in Essence capability, and reproduce to greater numbers.”

  “If that’s all that’s going on here I will be severely disappointed. Do you see any of the Vargemma that are capable of rational thought?”

  “Their madness appears to be pandemic. I am ashamed my Order ever gave them our respect. They deserve none,” he said as the battlemap data changed, with various naval assets that had been silent now moving towards key battles on the surface. “It appears the Caretakers have been pushed to their limits. The Olopar are moving to eliminate the largest areas of disobedience.”

  “I was hoping they’d deescalate before it got to that,” Paul said, cringing. He didn’t have time to think this over, more than a few seconds anyway. Those Olopar were going to fire on the surface and kill anyone within range of the conflicts in an attempt to weed out the most disruptive elements while preserving the mass of them. With the way they were not responding to the Olopar, nor seeming to care about the lesser Caretaker reactions at all, he doubted if they would stop now. It was possible they’d keep fighting until the Caretakers were forced to kill them all.

  But even if they got wise and backed off now, billions of people at the minimum were about to die, and not all those were the ones engaged in the fighting. He had no way to know how many people down there had some common sense and were just not in a position to act on it. Their leaders could even be of a completely different mindset than the lower ranked Vargemma and forcing them into fights that not all of them wanted. Others could just be defending their own race against attack. And the Caretakers were now at the point where they didn’t care. Their programming demanded a limited scope purge to stop the losses from escalating further.

  In truth the Vargemma, and now the Caretakers, were making his job easier. The less Vargemma there were in the Temple the quicker he’d be able to annex it into Star Force. Babysitting unwilling populations was always a chore and a distraction, and having even 10% less would be a major help given the 178 trillion of them here.

  He knew what No’vosha would do. Just sit back and let them kill each other, wiping out the major resistance here and bringing total pacification of the Temple to fruition that much sooner. The instability of the enemy would be in Star Force’s favor and do their work for them, but Paul hadn’t come here to kill them. And even if the Caretakers weren’t here to prevent deaths, he would only have killed those during combat that were necessary. He hadn’t lied about the objective not being their death. He was here to end the threat, and that was a significant difference that the Knights of Quenar wouldn’t care to differentiate between.

  Paul sighed, then mentally issued the kill order for the Olopar, the immediate warning of the Vargemma onboard those ships to get as far away from them as they could, and the bombardment of all the subsurface mega turrets that had previously been located and bracketed by ships waiting for such an order.

  After attacking the Caretakers in this fashion, there would be no going back. They would most likely be tagged for total eradication from this Temple just like they had been in Alpha, and for what? To save some Vargemma from their own stupidity? This would mean perpetual war here too, wasting resources indefinitely unless they chose to abandon the Temple, which was not going to happen. The easy course here would be to just sit back and let this play out, and that’s exactly what No’vosha and the Knights of Quenar would do.

  As would the V’kit’no’sat. The Zak’de’ron. The Truno’shar. The Hexphi. It’s obviously what the Founders would do, for they’d programmed the Caretakers in this manner. Who in the galaxy would pick a fight of this scale without needing to?

  Someone who wasn’t just trying to survive. Someone who sought out wrongs to right them. Someone who took on the people of the galaxy as their wards, whether they were friendly or not. Someone who was truly dominant and made everything that happened everywhere their personal business.

  If you were going to truly claim to be a guardian of the galaxy, then you couldn’t always take the most expedient path.

  “No’vosha, if you wish to leave I will arrange transport back to Beta Temple.”

  “Why would I want to…” he said, then dropped quiet as the studied the battlemap. When he finally saw the key pieces moving his jaw dropped in utter disbelief. “You are going to provoke the wrath of the Caretakers to try and save them! Have you gone mad as well?”

  “No, No’vosha. This is not madness. This is the responsibility of a higher level of superiority. If you wish to stay around and take notes you’re welcome to. If not, you need to get clear now…”

  10

  Yioli knew these were the end of days, and still he couldn’t believe it was actually happening. The Hampenst had always assumed that if a Temple would fall it would be to the Hadarak, though no one really thought that would happen. They trusted in the wisdom of the Founders, and they had wisely placed the Temples where the Hadarak would not go unless drawn here. When Star Force had begun attacking them it had made sense to stop the lure to the Rim, but the Vargemma had badly miscalculated and now the Temple was falling into the hands of an empire who would not have even known of their existence if not for the assaults launched on them.

  Yioli cradled his large head in his ape-like hands. His city was not yet involved in the fighting, but those near it were. They shared borders, for one city had grown out to touch the others and form a massive mega-city that stretched thousands of miles along the center of one of the lesser developed Regions within the Temple. Still, even his small city contained 18 million Hampenst, and there was no way to protect them against the invading Jestiv…or were the Jestiv counter-attacking against a Hampenst attack on them? So much was going on it was impossible to keep track of. All he knew was everyone was fighting everyone else, and soon it would reach the edge of his city.

  He didn’t have the troops to defend it. 42% of them had already been dispatched to help their neighbors, but even if he had all of them here in defensive position there was too much city to defend and too little to defend it with. The overlapping defensive structure of the Hampenst had been compromised when several rival cities had actually sided with other races and begun attacking their own…or they were declaring independence, defending themselves, or the myriad of other excuses out there floating around. The end result was the same. The Hampenst defensive lines in this Region were compromised and they could not reinforce each other sufficiently…and the Jestiv were taking advantage of it.

  Already the Caretakers were here and intervening, but that was not stopping the fighting. Star Force hadn’t invaded a single city yet, and the Vargemma were tearing themselves apart and opening the door for an easy surface invasion. Yioli wante
d nothing to do with it, but this war was coming his way whether he liked it or not.

  He’d been reviewing his combat options when he got the chilling alert that the Olopar had begun to move of their own accord. The crews onboard them had lost control and were merely passengers as the Founders’ primary weapons against the Hadarak began to move towards the surface…including over the Region where his city was located.

  He knew what had happened in Temple 1921. How they had fired on the Vargemma to stop the fighting, sacrificing some to keep the majority of them intact, but he couldn’t believe it was about to happen here. The Vargemma knew better, yet they were inviting this purge as if they didn’t care to live under Star Force occupation. And therein Yioli feared was the truth. They had decided to go to their deaths, either against the Caretakers or their fellow Vargemma, rather than admit they had chosen wrong when they decided to attack Star Force.

  The Hampenst watched as the Olopar nearest them moved closer and closer. It was heading towards the largest area of fighting, but if it launched a widespread Sha’mesh the outer edges would hit his city. And if it was an expanding hit, then he and every one of the people that were his responsibility were going to die…and they hadn’t fired a shot yet within his city boundaries.

  There was nothing he could do. The end was here, either in the next few minutes or in the carnage following. The Caretakers were going to put an end to the Vargemma’s belligerence in order to save the Temple…and it wasn’t fair. He hadn’t done anything, yet at least some within his city were about to die. Perhaps even him. He didn’t know how many this Olopar would target and kill, but he was too close to the fighting to be safe. He wanted to think he’d survive, but his fear said otherwise. And what made it worse was there was nowhere to run to, not that he would. He was the leader of this city, and he wouldn’t add shame to this debacle by leaving others to die while he fled to the wilds…not that there was time to do that anyway.

  So he sat, head in hands, and waited for the end to come, cursing his brethren and the other Vargemma for doing this to him…then as he stared at the floor a small, song-like ping indicated that a warning status had lifted. Yioli looked up and saw that the Olopar was no longer heading for their Region…because it had just been intercepted and destroyed by a fleet of Star Force warships.

  More than half of them had gone down with it, but the Olopar was completely destroyed. He had heard of a few being taken down in the fighting beyond the Temples, but that was mere rumor. No official report indicated that, but several had not returned from the field as the others had, and speculation had said that they might have been lost and the leadership was refusing to tell the people about it.

  But it had just happened here. Star Force had actually engaged and destroyed an Olopar…and not just one. As he looked at sensor reports from across the Temple, the enemy fleet was moving in to fight all the Olopar, and they were killing them with remarkable efficiency.

  When they did so the Caretaker warships that were sitting by and watching the Vargemma kill themselves, as no Vargemma naval assets remained in space to deal with, began to immediately accelerate towards the Star Force warships, tagging them all for destruction. Yioli had never imagined what would happen if someone actually tried to destroy an Olopar here, where the Founders had decreed the weapons could not be used, but apparently the sentence was immediate death…and not just for the ships involved. The Temple had just updated Star Force as a threat that had to be entirely purged. Not just culled like the Vargemma were experiencing. The Temple wanted every single Star Force unit destroyed without exception.

  Yioli couldn’t believe what was happening. The Olopar were coming to kill the Vargemma, to kill the warring factions just next door to his city, and Star Force moved to stop them? But why? Why would they do that? Why would they incite full scale war against the Caretakers?

  The Hampenst did not sit idle. He found his comm officer and had them figure out how to contact the Star Force ships. It took some time, but eventually he got a direct line to one of their commanders and asked the question directly.

  “We will not sit by and watch as you are murdered by machines,” the Calavari answered. “Nor will we bow to the will of the machines or their absent creators. We are claiming this Temple for our own and it will answer to us. One way or another, it will not be used for darkside purposes. Even if we have to destroy every single Caretaker inside to stop them from doing so.”

  “I cannot speak for all Hampenst, but I am the leader of the city of Lpol’ni’wea. I hereby officially surrender to Star Force and ask that what few troops I have be incorporated into your command structure immediately so that we may help you fight the Caretakers and protect my city.”

  “Your surrender is accepted.”

  “What are your orders?”

  “Pull all troops back to within your city and defend it there. Do not venture beyond it. We will keep the skies clear. You must deal with the smaller ground units they will send. We will not be able to land troops to assist in the near future. We have larger Caretaker threats enroute to deal with.”

  “Thank you, we will pull back and hold here as long as possible,” he said, confused as to what the ‘larger’ threats were…then he saw the Star Force attacks mounting on the surface across the sphere as hidden Founder structures tried to rise up from below. They were mountain sized and taking immediate fire from fleets already positioned nearby them…but above and beyond that there were new Caretaker signals popping up from the empty space inside the gigantic sphere. They were escalating in number beyond anything Yioli had seen before, and among them were some very larger ships appearing. Some massively large ships.

  “We will handle the major threats,” the Calavari promised. “This is not the first Temple where we have fought the Caretakers.”

  That admission floored Yioli. He knew there was fighting beyond this Temple, and he had assumed if Star Force had figured out how to use the portals they could go everywhere and invade others simultaneously, but he had never imagined them picking a deliberate fight with the Caretakers.

  “Did you win?” he asked meekly.

  “The battles are ongoing, for the Caretakers can build more ships indefinitely, but we have the advantage. We will protect you from the Olopar here, but there are so many Vargemma we cannot be everyone at once. You will have to handle the local threats on your own. Do you understand that?”

  “We will do all that we can, but the Caretakers’ smaller units are a significant threat.”

  “Then I wish you luck. We will assist with the small ones when we’re able. Right now your future lies with how well you can handle them. Do not waste time fighting the other Vargemma. If we have additional orders for you, we will respond on this comm channel. Monitor it constantly.”

  “As ordered,” Yioli said as the Calavari signed off, and true to his word, the orbital ‘skies’ were being cleared of warships far faster than before over his region as Star Force ships were altering their movements to concentrate their defensive efforts over his city while the Caretaker warships and aerial units had begun conventional bombing of the highest intensity Vargemma fighting now that the Olopars were quickly being taken out of the equation…though most Vargemma warships were heading directly for the Star Force warships and even drawing some of the ground assets their way to the invasive colonies the Paladin had begun to set up.

  That was lightening the attacks on the Vargemma slightly, and rather than respond to the Caretaker threat, his brethren stupidly continued to focus on each other trying to settle old scores.

  Yioli would not let his city die to that stupidity, and immediately recalled his troops from the fighting, ordering them to return and take up defensive positions within the city limits and shoot any Caretaker war assets on site. It was an order that no Vargemma had ever thought about giving, for it had been ingrained in them from birth that the Caretakers were never to be touched, under pain of death.

  For better or worse his city’s futur
e was now linked to Star Force and their war against the Caretakers, and for the sake of his people he mentally made the transition right then and there, forsaking any allegiance to the Vargemma, but being wise enough not to announce that fact and make Lpol’ni’wea a target to the other Hampenst, let alone the other races. They could kill themselves for all he cared. Right now the only thing that mattered to him was the preservation of his city and the 18 million people within it, and the only path forward was in allegiance with the invading fleet. So that’s the gamble he made, for it was the only one available to him.

  As for Star Force, they had just stopped an Olopar from bombarding his Region with Sha’mesh, and if they could do that then there would be nothing stopping them from killing his city with their own weapons. The Vargemma were no longer a power to be feared, and were in the process of self-destructing. How his people would exist within the Star Force empire he did not know, but at least they would live…assuming they could survive the small Caretaker units that were already backtracking with his troops that he’d recalled.

  They hadn’t hesitated to answer the recall order, but the Caretakers were not letting them all go. And for the first time in his life, his people were going to stand up to them. He had to clarify the order for his city defenses, confirming that they were to shoot the Caretakers on sight. It was so treasonous that he had to explain it multiple times, but when his troops were being killed as they retreated his perimeter batteries did follow his order and provide covering fire, downing the floating Caretaker patrol units quickly with linked firepower.

  And when that happened more immediately started heading their way from the surrounding area, though the subsurface bunkers they were coming out of were not within the cityscape. They were out in the wilds, and it would take them a lot of time to get here, having to overfly the other cities, but there was no mistaking their course corrections now. Some of them that had been heading other directions were now headed here.