Chapter 87 - The Hard Things

We drove slower back to the pond where Promo had set up the BHR. We took advantage of the stunned state of our newest livestock to feed iron pins through the septum of each animal and attach it to a line. Some of them surrendered to their fate as soon as they woke up, trotting alongside the convoy with heads lowered and tongues lolling. Other resisted, painfully, and the wranglers had to box a few snouts to bring them around. One of the motorcycles pulled up, and I looked over to see my wrangler boss handing off the controls before making the jump over to my buggy. The goblins on the bike squawked as their center of gravity shifted, falling back with a bad case of the wobbles.

“How’d we do, Chuck?”

“Way better’n on cliffords, boss. Seen these hoppers before, but never caught the jump on ‘em. 16 tied up. 10 of those can feed the hunt, and the rest we can send along tomorrow.”

I nodded along. “Imagine if we’d gotten more of the herd. Our food problems would be sorted. We were so close.”

“We’ll get ‘em, boss. We’ll fuel up and track ‘em again tomorrow.”

I patted the engine beneath the trike. “You did great today, too. Nice job on keeping this engine running smooth.”

“Thank you, King Ap. This union experienced much excitement and thrill.”

It took us about an hour to get back to the watering hole where we’d first spotted the herd. Promo had already unpacked the BHR, which was the next iteration of the portable goblin tower—on wheels, this time.

Since a forest canopy didn’t exist out on the badland plains, we had the equivalent of a dump truck’s rotating payload, only this one rotated a telescoping square tower onto the ground. Hollow inside except for a series of nets, it could sleep over a hundred goblins, with room for more at the top. Not as tall as the one we built in Huntsville, but hopefully just as secure. Especially with hobbies on choppers running night patrols. We detatched it from the rig and staked it down.

Promo had 2 other igni and about 20 non-variant goblins with him, just there to back him up when setting up the rig and with whatever else Promo needed around the camp. More than a few of our rides were dinged up needing maintenance. Luckily, he already had a forge fire and a cookfire going.

I pulled the trike up near the tower and hopped down, shaking the dust from my fur. The wind sweeping across the badlands carried a lot of dust and debris. Promo eyed the hopping creatures we’d brought back, barely managing to keep his drool from dripping. “I, uh, see it was a success,” he said.

“Not nearly successful enough,” I said. “We’ve already had one total loss, and we’ll need another vehicle tomorrow to take back whatever we don’t eat tonight.”

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“You planned for attrition,” said Promo. He rubbed his chin. “Want to start setting up here? Get a couple structures going, spare parts, some basic resources…”

I looked around. “It’s got mud, grass, and fresh-ish water.” I eyed the brackish, brown pond. “That’s bricks and something to drink, at least. Be good to have a solid base of operations, and it’s only a few hours southeast of Canaveral. Alright, let’s do it.”

Promo nodded and poked at his fire.

The goblins made quick work of the animals set aside for dinner. I didn’t know if I’d ever get used to them tearing through prey like a school of land piranhas, but they had 10 animals skinned and quartered as fast as you can blink, and the various bits spitted and turning over the cookfires while others went to work turning bones and gristle into tools. Soon the camp was settled into an evening of repairs and crackling fat starting to render. We kept the remaining hoppers in the lowest level of the BHR tower, which would hopefully keep them safe from predators. Or, failing that, alert the goblins sleeping above before the predators got to us.

Our first day on the plains had been fortunate in how few goblins we’d lost. I knew there were still a few stragglers out in the brush that might get picked off before finding their way to camp. But hopefully they’d find some way to survive the night on the ground.

Goblins weren’t designed to be on the open plain. Maybe there was another variant suited to it already out here, like King Ringo’s boglins. But without the trees and the bluffs, it seemed to me like isolated goblins were a snack waiting to happen. Still, in terms of our losses, we were doing well. Downed crewmembers were below my replacement reproduction projections for the sleeping arrangements in the tower, which were too large per-pile for optimal spawning efficiency, but made good use of the available space inside.

I worked on the vehicles with Promo until dinner was ready. Lord knows I’ve been elbow deep in an engine or two on Earth. Personally, I preferred rocket motors to Wankels, but I’d take what I could get on this new world. Finding problems with my designs wasn’t hard from this perspective. The badlands weren’t gentle on the primitive vehicles with their iron-banded wooden wheels. Replacement parts were the most jury-rigged contraptions this world had likely ever seen. By the time we were done with the repairs, I’d replaced the dust in my fur with grit and grime from the engines, and I smelled vaguely of the thicker lubricant oil from fish livers that we’d mixed in with the spring kerosene.

No one ever said this was going to be glamorous. But at least I was going to bed with a full belly for the first time in what felt like a week. And in the morning I’d see to it that tomorrow was an even more successful day for the desert warriors of Tribe Apollo. I looked up at the stars above while I ate, and at the big shadow that was Raphina’s closed eye marking a wide circle in the sky. It didn’t have rings or a bullseye, but it was a target none the less.

We’d come so far in such a short time, but there were still so many steps along the way. Every thought I had, every decision I made, every goal I set; it was all meant to take us closer to Raphina. But none of it would matter if the tribe starved. And I didn’t need to feed hundreds of goblins in order to reach the moon. I’d need to feed thousands, maybe tens of thousands of goblins by the time we were through. An entire nation working together toward a single goal of space exploration.

We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

I yawned, and the stars began to blur in my vision. I dropped the bones in my hand and stumbled my way over to the BHR tower, climbing past the livestock into one of the nets stretched across the interior where several other goblins already lay snoring. I tossed myself on top of the nice, warm pile. And before long, I was out.