Chapter 108 - Building Up

“We have some larger scale structures that we built for the Ifrit paladins. Your people should be comfortable there,” I told Sourtooth, pointing out the area. The old orc looked around the base of the bluff at the tangle of squat, misshapen buildings lining the southeast corner of the bluff. Large anchors tethered the floating platforms above, which themselves were suspended by balloons crafted from canvas—which meant that Rufus had returned in the interim. I wanted to find him. “Make yourselves at home,” I said.

“Hope the smell of the humans has joined them on their southward trek,” he said. He shouldered his gear. “Come on, lads. Working doors we’ll need, lest any of you should want to wake at the bottom of a goblin breeding mound.” he shuddered. Hmph. At least the paladins had let goblins snuggle them.

The orcs hurried after him, and I headed to the central square. It was hard to believe how much and how quickly the bluff had changed. Village Apollo was turning into a proper town. And my goblins were everywhere. They worked at hammering together wooden structures, linking up gear assemblages to wind power, working gas-powered lathes to turn raw materials into usable parts, and assembled buggies, bikes, choppers, and gliders in the motorpool powered by gas engines. So much smoke rose from the foundries and furnaces on the north end of the bluff that I thought something must be burning. But the blaze was in the hearts of all the goblins working to make Tribe Apollo great.

Buzz greeted me with a wave, pulling up in a small flat-bed buggy with a plethora of loose construction equipment in the back that threatened to become a projectile hazard as he screeched to a stop.

“Welcome back, boss!” he shouted over the roar of the engine. He slapped the side of the vehicle. “Hop in!”

“Good to see you, Buzz!” I said. I waved to Armstrong and Chuck. Armstrong jumped into the back, threatening to crush the primitive suspension, but Chuck waved me off.

“Gonna check on the animals,” he said. “See how the paddocks are shaped up.”

“Suit yourself,” I said. I slapped him on the shoulder and watched him jog off to the west end of the bluff before I slid into the buggy beside Buzz.

“You’ve been busy,” I said.

“Been crowded. Only way to go is up, innit? Wotcha think?”

I looked overhead at the concentric ringed platforms staged haphazardly on canvas balloons. Such a feat of engineering would have given architects ulcers and physicists strokes. But it looked perfectly goblin-sane, and the blue furry side of me wanted nothing more than to climb up it.

Buzz shifted into gear and we sped off.

“Is Eileen back yet?” I asked.

“Still up north,” said Buzz. He had to shout because his foot seemed weighted down with lead on the throttle pedal. “We had some converts come in. Once they’re in the tribe they make gliders and some head ‘ere. Most stay put, start buildin’ up their own bluffs with the new tech they learn. I send builders out to help. It don’t take long to get ‘em flyin’ but most of ‘em don’t have a source of metal to make engines. We got more sulfur, rubber, clay, whatever anyone needs. Takes time to send word back and forth of who needs what where, though.”

“So I’ve seen,” I said. I’d been using the System menus to keep track of resources in and out, monitoring trends and shortfalls. Being able to draw resources to central hubs like the bluffs from multiple areas meant a smoother curve of extraction from the forests. One of Eileen’s bluffs near the mountains had even come with a source of copper, which was as least as valuable as a new variant.

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“Radios are on my to-do list,” I said. “Now we’ve got strong magnets and copper wire, generators will be straight-forward. From there we’ll build extra equipment to send and receive signals.”

“If you say so,” said Buzz. More content to wait until I got the tech unlocked than try to work through it in his head, my lead builder put his focus into navigating the bluff at a breakneck pace. He stopped short near one of the lines leading up to the next platform, swerving into a halt that threatened to tip us straight over.

“I sent along the second airship with rotors and other hard-to-make parts, help some of the new lads find their feet and get engines going. Got one of the noblins onboard to spread the canon. Should be back in a day.”

“Good thinking.”

Buzz hopped down and went over to what looked like a knotted rope loop strung between a small windmill on the second platform and a bearing on the ground. At the top, I could see several aircraft staged and ready to launch. Buzz grabbed the rope and let it pull him up. I jumped on behind him, with Armstrong and a few other bodyguards close in tow.

At the top, I spotted a goblin that was slightly bigger than the others—a taskmaster I didn’t recognize, in charge of the air hangars. His jaw dropped when he saw me, and he dashed over.

“Sir, sir! It’s an honor!” he squeaked.

I grinned and looked at the air fleet, which had a mix of powered and unpowered gliders staged in lopsided rows. “You in charge with Eileen gone?”

“Yessir!”

“Suppose you’ll need a name,” I said, racking my brain for an astronaut or pilot name.”

“They call me Footsmash, my king!”

Or… he could be called Footsmash. I looked down at one of his feet, which looked to have been mangled at some point in the three weeks or so since he’d been born. “Footsmash it is,” I said. I suppose now Taskmasters were going to be popping up all around as the tribe grew, and I wasn’t going to be there to name every single one of them. Tribe Apollo was becoming bigger than Apollo. Which it needed to do if this logistics engine was going to grow big enough to support the thousands of goblins I’d need to start processing, refining, and manufacturing complex aerospace components.

“Got a bi-glider ready?” asked Buzz.

Footsmash led us to one of the larger models with a big, cast-iron engine block. I rubbed my hands together. While helicopters might be cool (they’re not), airplanes were my jam. And I’d wanted to get my hands on the sticks ever since Eileen flew the first one over the Stampede camp. I climbed up into the cockpit and familiarized myself with the controls—which had been upgraded from the days of the first heavy gliders having individual goblins work control surfaces. These ones used push-pull rods to manipulate actual three-axis controls built into the wings and the tail so that one pilot could steer.

“Strap in, boss!” said Buzz, indicating a harness. I pulled the straps tight and cinched them down, marveling at the fact goblins had actually integrated a safety feature into a vehicle. Armstrong stuck a rockette into the starter, and the engine rumbled to life. We started to roll, even at idle power, and I realized the aircraft wasn’t secured or chocked in any way.

“Where’s the runway?” I asked, looking around for a place to turn.

“More like a drop-way,” said Buzz, tugging his own belt tight.

My stomach sank. Oh. That was the reason they’d installed the belts. I swallowed, looked at the quickly-approaching edge of the platform, and jammed the throttle wide open. The noise mounted behind me, and I pulled on the pair of ear-cups in the cockpit. Black smoke belched out the back of the bi-plane, and we built up what speed we could before we shot straight off the edge of the platform.

I grit my teeth and shoved the stick forward, angling the nose down toward the ground. We weren’t going fast enough for takeoff, so trying to stay level would just stall us out. We needed airspeed, and this was the only way to get it. We fell past the edge of the platform, then quickly passed the top of the bluff. The cliff face blurred past us, and the ground rushed up. System’s little altitude and airspeed window popped up, one climbing while the other rapidly depleted.

“Uh… boss!?” shouted Armstrong.

The wings started to shake, and I hauled back on the controls, pulling us out of the dive as the engine screamed. I thought the plane might come apart from the sheer forces, and then I thought it might come apart from smashing into the tops of the trees south of the bluff. But it managed to claw back into a climb, and we cleared the tallest branches by a few meters.

I felt Armstrong relax behind me, and I eased my white-knuckle grip on the controls and banked us to the left.

“That’s a proper takeoff, boss!” said Buzz. “Welcome home.”