Star Force: Temple Wars by Aer-ki Jyr (fox in socks read aloud .txt) 📗

Yet while Truven’s people were sending the warships to fight, Plausious had been communicating with other Neofan in the cities and outposts across the Temple…and not using transmissions visible to all. Even now people who had been informed of his intentions by the released prisoners, and then those who had seen him and the Ren’mak fight and win the attempted execution as it was stupidly played for all to watch as an example before Yuer even had a chance to release it, were choosing sides with many random fights sparking without the Reignor even ordering it.

He was monitoring those while making contact and directing some of them…so this civil war wasn’t just happening in the Gjardans, but also in the cities across the Temple and the rest of the infrastructure. Pretty much wherever the Neofan were, and Plausious was getting his people to claim strategic areas before Truven’s forces even knew they were under attack.

But the Gjardans were the key, and whoever possessed them could bombard the surface to their hearts’ content, for the Caretakers would not intervene from damage caused by Neofan ships…nor would it matter if they did, for the Gjardans were far more powerful than any technology donated to the construction of the Temples.

That was why, when most of the 13 Truven warships were damaged enough for the holes in their outer shells to be easily visible from the ground, Plausious readied those converts that had submitted to him at the platform and received his graft at the backup portal position, with them all standing next to the wall as he mentally altered the targeting protocols.

“My friend, you are exhausted,” he told the Ren’mak. “You have to stay here. You fought well, but you can barely fly now. I won’t be long. I promise.”

“How long?” it asked.

“Long enough to capture those,” he said, pointing to the cluster of white balls high in the sky. “Stay here and rest. I will need you later.”

“I will stay,” it said, flying up and landing on the top of the wall where it perched and rested its fatigued wings. “Destroy them all.”

“Hopefully I won’t have to,” he said, telepathically gesturing to the others. “When we get onboard, it is the ship we want, not the crew. Disable them and move on quickly. We must be in and out before they know we are there.”

“Do we kill them?” of the professional brawlers asked.

“Disable them, and only kill if absolutely necessary. If we cannot take those ships, they can and will use them to destroy us. We must take control of them, and if they put up enough resistance to delay us, then we do what we must. Our objective is to save our race, and I want no unnecessary deaths. Understand?”

“We do, and we obey.”

“We move with speed or we fail,” Plausious said, getting the portal to lock on to all 219 of them. “Charge weapons.”

The group did so in unison, with a wide variety of rifles, gauntlets, staffs, and a few exotic weapons, but no Berserker suits. When they came across those, they’d have to work quickly to subdue them, and Plausious knew better than most how to do it.”

“For the future,” he said, triggering the portal with all of them blinking out of view in a cascade of air pops that made the Ren’mak jump from its perch in reflex…

9

The portal system was more than just the connection between two points, though it was rarely used any other way. One of those ways was to ‘transmute,’ which involved having one fixed point and one calculated one. The portal ‘arch’ that was the machinery that made it work was also fitted with sensors that could cover a significant distance over the surrounding area. If an ‘empty’ region was identified, the portal could yank you into the Essence realm and throw you towards that point at a specific speed, then cause your trip to be terminated at that spot.

It didn’t work as well in reverse, for the reversion was not controlled as much as it was timed, so what happened on the far end was not something the distant portal could reliably affect. In this way the Gjardans could board one another without an airlock connection or landing craft or free space transfer, but only if the shields that prevented such things were not active.

Those shields created a ripple in the Essence realm that would bounce a bubble off it and not allow it to pass…in which case you would revert at the edge of the shield or somewhere else, which often would be lethal, and in the case of a transfer in space, if you didn’t have vacuum-protective armor, you’d die instantly outside the ship.

But with the damage done to the ships, the portal on the surface could do the same thing at the cost of a significant amount of Essence…which is why such travel was not regularly done. The Gjardans had portals of their own that could be used, but those would either be locked down or guarded, and were the point of transit for the boarding parties to go from one vessel to another.

Plausious knew better than to try and use them, even though they were currently unlocked for the most part. Two ships did have them locked down, and he chose one of those to board first, expecting the heaviest resistance there…or the least if they sent most of their crew to fight Plausious’s ships’ crews.

The transit between surface and ship took a matter of seconds, then he was popping into a cargo area that was empty along with his troops…then they got moving through empty corridors heading towards the nearest Essence signatures and several key points in the large ships where they could disable their combat ability entirely.

Plausious’s team disabled two Berserkers that were still onboard ship with some