Sky Shield

Korhal IV's orbital defense platform—the Sky Shield—was undoubtedly another milestone in Terran technology and aerospace industry after humanity entered the imperial age. Hailed as the final barrier protecting the imperial capital, it was a colossal space structure forged entirely of steel, as magnificent as a city in the sky. Together with four other orbital platforms, it formed Korhal's formidable high-altitude orbital defense network.

Such an architectural miracle was nearly impossible to recreate on a planet's surface. To obtain the crystal minerals smelted into the Sky Shield, the Bennett Construction Group hollowed out every crystal mine vein in Korhal's Wolfrec Province. More than two thousand companies had supplied the steel and components needed during its construction.

If Augustgrad, standing amid Korhal's Radiated Wastes, was a cold and majestic imperial throne, then the Sky Shield was the largest and most dazzling jewel upon that throne.

The Sky Shield was another masterpiece of Terran Empire industry. To those sincerely proud of the Empire's achievements, it was nothing less than a glorious wonder.

Looking down from the sentry platforms surrounding the Sky Shield, its iron-gray metal shell stretched beneath the starlight like a plain. Enormous structural pillars and steel ceilings supported by long metal beams formed an unbroken, folded grand dome. Its three-dimensional framework made it resemble a steel giant with its mechanical innards exposed.

At the heart of the Sky Shield, enclosed skybridges, escalators, and ramps threaded between the sharply right-angled main structures along the edges. Pipes linking atmospheric stabilizers, EMP disruptors, fusion reactors, cooling towers, and reverse-turbine power stations wound across the orbital platform like coiling serpents.

Along the square edges at both ends of the Sky Shield, level spaceports extended from solid steel crane arms, housing large docks, transit stations, and blinking signal towers. Several spaceports were still under construction or