MBGSP Chpt 174 thru 176

Hey everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the Department of Otherworld Rescue preview from earlier this week. I'll have another 3 chapters up in a few days, but we've also got goblins going to space!

Here are the next three advance chapters of MBGSP for you to enjoy.

Chapter 174 - Synchronicity Stunt

My taskmasters sprinted down the gantry and practically hurled me into the command module before diving in after me and fighting amongst each other for seats. Competent managers and trusted companions, they were, at their core, still goblins.

I untangled myself and climbed up to the mission commander’s station, leaving Eileen to seize the pilot’s station. She’d have fought me for it anyway. I switched the radios to the proper frequencies and listened to the mission control pre-check litany. I’d trained them to operate without me. The mission control team now had over a dozen successful (and 2 explosively unsuccessful) orbital launches under their narrow, leather belts. I just had to hope that this would be one of the former and not one of the latter. Chuck took the secondary controls, and Armstrong strapped in behind me.

I reached down to my hip, where a small brass vessel was connected with an orc iron carabiner. I unscrewed the top, and pale blue flame streamed out and into the console.

“Ready to fly, buddy?” I asked.

“We are with you, King Apollo,” said Taquoho. Several dials and switches on the inside of the command module changed position as the Ifrit got situated.

“Just remember, we’ve got the radio lifeline if things get explodey,” I said. “Your folks can bail at any time.”

a tongue of blue flame whipped in a dismissive gesture. “If what the Queen said about Raphina’s surface was true, my kin are not keen to let myriad devils go unchallenged. You have given us the tools to defend against them, and we will not smolder idly.

Taquoho’s flame wasn’t the only one inside the rocket. A rainbow of subtle fire shimmered from the not-exiles. Now, with the 1,000 Name King’s blessing, they were joining us in the stars and skies of Raphina. Our tribe’s first true allies turned out to be pretty ride-or-die.

At the door to the command module, a score or more goblins tumbled through, falling past the command stations. Scrappers, sparkers, igni, wranglers, and a canoneer with a handful of zealots. They wriggled through the module, looking for seats and strapping themselves in. Some just stood or laid down at the back of the module squawking and brawling, despite the lack of space.

“Settle down back there!” I called. “I’ll turn this rocket right around!”

Eileen grinned over. “Let ‘em have their fun, boss.”

On the radio, the count-down reached 2 minutes. A pair of igni hauled the hatch closed and locked it.

“Helmets on!” I called. Throughout the cabin, goblins began twisting on the helmets—where those that hadn’t lost them on their way up, anyway. “Chuck, how do we look?”

“Controls clear and ain’t none of the warnings up, boss,” said Chuck. His voice was tinny through the ship’s intercom. I pulled on my own helmet, wriggling my head until my floppy ears sat correctly in the protrusions, then twisted the locking ring and clamped it tight. I tapped the radio transmitter.

“Mission control, this is Myriad 14. We’re green across the board and ready for primary ignition on your mark.”

“Got it, boss! We’re onnit, trust. 1 minute.”

Out the front window, I could see the pink and blue orb of Raphina overhead, with brown decay creeping in at the edges. System waited there, asleep and under the surface. As if to remind me of its presence, the small flight data window popped up in the corner of my vision. I could feel its awareness pressed around me, like a second space suit. Its attention was fixed on the launch.

“10 seconds, boss!”

“Here we go,” I said. I looked over at my team of taskmasters—each of them named for a brilliant astronaut or pilot. Today they would earn their namesakes. Chuck and Eileen wrapped their hands around the controls, eyes glued to their instrumentation. Armstrong held his hands over his head like it was a roller coaster. Buzz and Sally held hands, teeth grit and eyes squeezed shut. Neil just looked as crazy as ever—probably half-hoping the rocket would explode under him just to not waste his front-row seat to watch the blast.

“Primary ignition, boss!” shouted Eileen.

I reached out to my console and flipped the switch for the stage 1 engine. The rocket rumbled to life and everything began to shake.

“Booster ignition!”

“Taquoho,” I called.

Taquoho’s blue flame shot across the console to the switch for the detachable boosters ignition system, and the shaking intensified. All the goblins behind me were screaming in panic, especially the ones for whom their weren’t any seats.

“Liftoff, Myriad! Mission clock started,” called mission control.

A weight began to press against my chest. The number for our altitude ticked up in both my flight data screen and the analogue instrumentation on my console. I grabbed my restraints and sucked in a breath against the mounting pressure of our acceleration. “Chuck, Eileen, it’s your bird,” I ground out. “Take us up!”

“Pitch down,” called Eileen. She and Chuck eased the sticks forward.

The horizon out of the side window took an angle, and I could just see Bluff Apollo and its floating rings in the corner. We kept climbing, and the forest dropped away. Mountains became hills, and Habberport came into view on the northwest

The fuel gauge for the boosters dropped to zero, and I hit the switch to detach them. An alarming shudder and creak ran through the hull. From the corner of my eye, I could see my flight team working in tandem, making micro adjustments to keep us on track. Our pitch continued to trend toward level. Behind us, one of the chairs came loose and crashed to the back of the module, squashing at least a couple goblins.

“Control surfaces are dead,” said Chuck.

“Too much airflow working against the servos,” I said. “Eileen, it’s all you, now.”

My chief pilot was silent as she concentrated, lolling tongue leaving a smear on the inside of her helmet as she concentrated. Both her hands clamped in a death grip around the sticks.

“King Apollo, the primary tank is nearly empty,” said Taquoho.

I glanced up at the needle for the first-stage tank, and then down to our altitude. We were a little heavy, needed just a bit more burn. “First stage separation in 10 second,” I said.

I reached up and gripped the toggle for the engine cutoff, but a surge of sparks burst out of my console and a horrific shudder reverberated through the cabin.

“Not again!” I moaned.

The shriek of shearing metal translated through the rocket, and something flashed by the command module window, and the pressure crushing me against my chair vanished.

“What was that?!” asked Armstrong.

My eyes went wide. “I think it was most of the first stage engine” I said. I reached up and yanked on the toggle for first stage separation. Another shower of sparks from my console blasted me in the face.

“Damn goblin tech junk!” I shouted.

<Still made it further than NuEarth.>

And whose fault was that?!

I floated against my restraints. Glancing back, the cabin was filled with loose goblins beginning to float through the air. Our altitude was still climbing from sheer inertia, but that wouldn’t last.

“King Apollo, shall I engage the second stage motor?”

“Negative,” I said, tearing at the buckles holding me to my chair. “We’re off-axis and spinning. The second stage motor—if it still works—will tear us apart. Eileen, get this thing straightened out.”

“Onnit, boss. Trust.”

I managed to get my buckle undone and floated free of the chair. “Armstrong, Neil, with me.”

My two taskmasters undid their own restraints and followed me to the aft end of the module. We pried open the hatch and moved to the next compartment back, scuttling between tanks of pressurized air and methane and bundles of equipment. The compartment behind that had something I hadn’t intended to use until after we’d made it to orbit: an airlock.

“Suit air on,” I said. “We’re going out there.”

“Uh, boss? Ain’t it like, space, out there?” asked Armstrong.

“It’s a good thing we’re wearing space suits then,” I said. “Untested, unproven space suits made by an eccentric goblin from alien monster hide and dragon scales.”

“Well, when you put it that way,” said Armstrong.

I pressed my helmet to the window, watching as Eileen wrangled the rocket and neutralized our tumble with the thrusters.

“Alright,” I said, grabbing tools from a locker and stuffing them into a leather bag, “Into the airlock.”

Chapter 175 - Extravehicular Activities

I got our tethers connected as the airlock depressurized, half expecting my suit to swell and burst. Sound took on the muted, muffled quality of vacuum, and my own breathing and the hiss of my suit’s internal air supply became overly loud in my ears. I twisted the lock on the outer door and pushed open the hatch.

A space walk was something I had never done as a human. I’d gone into orbit once in a technician role with NuEarth but had used robotic arms to perform repairs on a satellite. As much as I’d wanted to do an EVA, or space walk, as most people call them, it just wasn’t necessary. Now it was the opposite. This EVA was 100% necessary, and I really didn’t want to go out there. But I had no choice.

We were high enough in Rava’s atmosphere that I didn’t have to worry about getting sucked out in a low-pressure slipstream. I still had the flight data display window, and it still showed an ascent, but the speed was starting to trend downward as the mission clock now worked against us. There was only supposed to be a few seconds between the first-stage tank running dry and the ignition of the second stage motor.

Outside the airlock, the blue curve of the horizon split the pure black of space from the surface of the planet now many miles below us. I could see the entire continent of Rava spread out below us, as well as other landmasses across a vast sea. A greasy black trail from where our first stage had separated spiraled back down to a distant thread on the surface, and from this altitude I couldn’t make out the individual bluffs of our little empire, or the cities of the humans and the Ifrit.

I pulled myself around the hatch and started to scramble down the length of the I could see warped and sheared metal at the aft end, and I drifted toward it.

“Looks like the ring failed to separate,” I called. “Don’t try to fire up the second stage, I’m going to inspect the damage.”

“Aye boss,” called Eileen.

The exterior of the rocket’s surface was far from smooth and offered handholds and protruding bits to pull myself along towards the damaged area. Once I got closer, it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened. The transition ring linking the first and second stage had failed. It had only partially blown and put the first stage motor on an off-axis thrust vector that sheared the whole thing off below the ring. The incredible thrust from the motor had broken the back 2/3rds of the rocket away several chooms below the transition ring.

“Come on,” I said to Armstrong and Neil.

“Boss, what happens if we can’t fix it?” asked Armstrong. I glanced over at the hobgoblin in his larger suit, nose pressed to the glass of his helmet.

“Then the Ifrit bail and we test the extent of our fall damage immunity, I suppose,” I said. “But that’s not going to happen. Let’s go.”

I reached the damaged area and pulled myself around to the interior of the assembly. The nozzle for the second stage motor yawned overhead, ready to ignite. But twisted metal from the dirty stage separation blocked the output. If we burned it now, the exhaust would reflect back up and melt the aft-end of the rocket in seconds. I brought the tool bag around and pulled out a prybar, handing it over to Armstrong. “See if you can pry those panels up,” I said, pointing to the whistler hide sheets blocking the output. But it was only a stopgap.

I pulled myself up to the inside of the ring which was supposed to cleanly separate the first and second stages through a set of small explosive charges. But when the first stage cutoff had shorted and failed, the torque had warped the ring and blown half the charges, while mangling the detonators on the other half. I reached into my bag and pulled out a pair of wrenches, handing on to Neil.

“Start here, work your way around. Get these bolts out,” I said. “I’ll take the other side.”

Neil and I started wrenching away, prying out bolts from the damaged ring. But it was a slow process. Some of the bolts were stripped or damaged

“Boss,” came Chuck’s voice, “Bugs crunched the numbers. We need to start the next burn soon or we’ll miss our window. Station’s already in sight.”

I pulled myself up to the gap in the ring and peered through at the eastern horizon. Sure enough, I could see the glow of the Ifrit sun crystals that we were using to power the station.

“Working on it,” I said. But it was slow. Too slow. Neil had managed to pry up 6 or 7 bolts, and I’d done 5 myself. But there were at least 16 more in the damaged section. What’s more, Armstrong was struggling to shift the debris in the way of the nozzle.

“Boss, it ain’t giving up,” he said, panting over the radio as he put his strength to work against the twisted metal. We had to get that ring separated. I pulled myself to the next part of the damaged ring.

“Boss, I can’t reach anymore bolts,” said Neil.

“What?” I asked, looking over. Sure enough, his tether was taut, and he struggled to get his wrench close enough to get a grip on the head of the locking bolt. I pushed off the ring and floated over, only to reach the end of my own rope and barely managed to catch the side of the ring to keep myself from rebounding. I stretched my arm out, trying to reach the damaged area and grunting with effort.

“It’s no good,” I said. “Let’s go back, we’ll rig our tethers together to get the length we need.”

“No time for that, boss,” said Neil. He reached down and unclipped his tether.

“Neil, no!” he said.

“You heard Chuck. Gotta get this motor burning. Gimme the wrench.”

I handed over the wrench as the now-untethered Neil went to work on the bolts.

“Armstrong,” I said. “You’re not shifting that debris. Go back to the airlock and use your own tether to extend mind.”

“Onnit,” he said, scrambling out and over the edge of the transition ring.

“Neil, how’s it coming?”

Neil was jerking his wrench against one of the bolts. “It’s no good, boss. It’s jammed up good. The bolt got warped on this side. We’d need more force than this wrench can…”

“What kind of force?” I asked, apprehension growing. Neil turned to me, mouth spreading in a manic grin as his eyes began to glaze over. There were only a few things in life that made Neil smile. “What kind of force, Neil?”

Neil reached into his own pouch and pulled out a pair of small, round objects. Poppers. He’d smuggled explosives onto the rocket.

“Armstrong,” said Neil, “Pull him out of there,”

“No!” I shouted “Armstrong, don’t!”

I felt a jerk at my back as the chief of my secretive service yanked on the tether. I hit the inside of the transition ring and then bounced off, out into space, where my arc carried me out away from the rocket. Armstrong stood braced in the doorway, pulling my tether in hand over hand.

“Neil!”

“Don’t worry, boss. It was built to ‘splode. I’m just fixin’ it up.”

Chapter 176 - Burn Baby Burn

At the end of my tether, I saw a bright flash, and then a half-circle of smaller explosions as the charged set into the transition ring blew in a cascade of compressed scat and bomb-fruit juice. The rest of the ring and the mangled debris from the first stage tumbled away. One small goblin space suit, knocked clear of the rocket by the blast, tumbled untethered through the sky.

“Nozzle’s clear from here, boss-man,” called Neil. “I know the way home. Let ‘em know I’m taking the scenic route.”

Armstrong continued to pull me in. As soon as I was close enough, he snatched me into the airlock and hauled the hatch closed. The compartment began to repressurize, and sound returned to the world.

“Chuck, I got ‘im onboard,” called Armstrong. “Do it now!”

I struggled, but Armstrong was far stronger than an ordinary forest goblin—let alone a legless goblin king. He subdued me easily, overriding my protests with his secretive service skills, until the second stage motor kicked on and flattened us both against the bulkhead of the airlock.

Neil had gotten the job done. He’d given up his ticket to the moon in order to make sure the rest of us got there. I gasped for air against the bulkhead, tangled up with Armstrong as our rocket carried us further away from Neil.

We had to burn hotter and faster to make up for the time we spent ballistic. The rest of the launch I spent in a state of near blackout, blood and fire pounding in my ears as I struggled to stay conscious. But finally, the second stage motor cut off and I drifted free of the bulkhead, back into the weightless feeling of free fall.

“There she is boss.” said Armstrong.

I pushed my helmet against the glass, looking at the hodgepodge space station we’d cobbled together from the series of rocket launches. Myriad Station. It looked more like a debris field of space junk loosely connected by tethers and docking bridges. A dozen distinct craft had been used in its creation, adding their compartments and contraptions even as they contributed air and fuel. All the equipment we would need on Raphina, and the goblins to make the impossible happen. Though, we’d already made the impossible happen as far as I was concerned. We were in space.

I laughed, cackling in my helmet, even as I tugged at the buckles securing it. I twisted and pulled the helmet off, releasing it to watch it float in the air of the compartment. Armstrong pulled his own off.

System.

<Awaiting query>

Show me my hunter hierarchy

A window popped up with the list of my hunters. Neil still populated the top slot, which meant he was still alive—though he had a long way to fall, his suit had held for the high-altitude drop and his fall damage immunity should protect him from a hard landing. And we had people in the majority of the island subcontinent that was Lanclova. Whether he fell to the forests, the mountains, the swamp, or the desert, we could get him back. Even if he landed in Habberport itself, he would be able to make his way back to Tribe Apollo.

The hatch at the front of the compartment opened, and Eileen drifted back through the with Buzz and a handful of other goblins.

“Nice job, boss,” said Sally. She drifted over to the docking thruster controls by the airlock window and took position. Buzz offered a salute and went to check to make sure none of his materials had come unstowed in the tumble. I pushed off a bulkhead and floated over to Sally.

Through the window, the distance between our ship and the station continued to decrease. I let sally have the pitch and yaw controls while I took the roll and lateral controls. From this position, the controls moved the rocket very differently. Being that we were now at a 90 degree angle from the cockpit of the control module, it was now like driving a schoolbus side-on with micro-thrust movements.

“Easy,” I said, feathering the thruster control to slow our approach. I kept an eye on the etched reticle in the window that married up to the target plate on the airlock of the station. “Eileen, give me 6 degrees pitch down.”

My chief pilot twisted her stick and our view of the station rotated, then twisted the opposite direction to cancel it out. I moved my own roll controls to get us lined up better, and continued to feather the lateral thrusters. We continued making smaller adjustments as we approached. I tried to ignore the windows on the station module, which were becoming clogged with blue, furry faces as they pressed their noses against the glass. The target plate began to fill the outer ring of the reticle.

“10 chooms,” I said, adjusting our bank slightly. “Armstrong, get ready,” I said.

A quick touch of Eileen’s yaw controls got us perfectly positioned, and I slowed our approach to a crawl. My scrapper chief floated over and took hold of the mechanical actuator. The target plate completely filled the outer ring of my reticle, and I pulled back on the lateral thrusters as our two airlocks made contact. I bumped my face against the glass as my body wanted to keep moving. At a hand signal, Armstrong threw the lever, engaging our locks and joining the two spacecraft together.

The goblins in the compartment began to cheer—both the ones who had come from the command module and the stowaways that began to pull themselves out of cargo containers and storage lockers, out from behind equipment panels, and one that wriggled out from behind the air piping.

“Welcome to Myriad,” I said. It took a minute for the vacuum between the two airlock doors to pressurize. But once it did, I opened up the hatches. On the other side, the goblins already spaceborn hauled open their own airlock doors, and a tide of floating, fuzzy hellions floated over, grinning and squawking and patting us (and each other) on the back for a job well done. I made my way against the flow, pulling myself into the next module.

The station interior was packed with goblins of all variants. Hundreds of the ultra light-weight creatures had ridden the rockets up, and the sleeping mounds on the station had continued to produce new goblins, as well. A rainbow sheen of soft fire clung to many surfaces as well, and some smaller legged Ifrit vessels crawled along the bulkheads. I pulled myself through the mob, over to one of the windows in the module and pressed my face to it.

Myriad traversed the Ravan sky in a low orbit, carrying us all the way around the planet roughly every hour and a half. Already, the continent of Lanclova was drifting towards the horizon while we passed over lands that were unfamiliar to me beyond the vague shapes of the continents the Midnighters had showed me. And for the first time, Raphina hung not directly overhead, but appearing to draw closer and closer to the Rava as we continued our journey around it. I watched in silence despite the frenzy of activity on the station until the moon dipped all the way below the horizon. The empty sky above Rava looked wrong without that pink and blue orb. The empty, black abyss of space surrounded both the planet and Myriad, and all I could hope for was that it didn’t end up swallowing us all.