My Big Goblin Space Program chpt 139-141

Here's the next advance chapters for My Big Goblin Space Program! I hope you all had a good week.

If you're not also following the Royal Road updates, I had a few announcements that I made over there this weekend. Book 1 of My Big Goblin Space Program is right now scheduled to launch in or around January of 2026 through Podium Entertainment. If audiobooks are your jam, that'll be a great opportunity to enjoy a narrated version of Apollo's antics. I'm rounding out the end of the current arc right now, and if there are no hiccups or major outline changes, the series should end at about chapter 190-200. I will need to take another month-long break or so somewhere in there to write War Horses book 7. I've learned that I'm not great at writing multiple projects at once. Going back and forth in the span of days feels a bit like switching gears without a clutch.

I really do appreciate the support for the story that Patreon subscribers continue to provide. And I hope you'll continue to read my work once I begin my next web serial project, which I'm currently brainstorming and outlining.

Anyway, enjoy the chapters!

Chapter 139 - Habberport

I adjusted the nose for a fly-by and led my wing mates in. As we grew closer to the sea, so too did the city grow from a simple scar on the horizon to a sprawling metropolis of black stone. When Rufus described Habberport, I had imagined a rugged frontier dock down, low and small. This looked like a city out of a book of fairy tales, full of towers and pointed spires that threatened to pierce the sky. It stretched for miles, and by the time we passed over the tree-line and into the clear-cut fields outside the city, I had given up trying to count the individual spires.

Layered walls wrapped the city, stepped up and with platforms for archers and artillery like onagers and ballistae. Wooden spikes were driven in along the base of the walls to deter the Lanclovan beasties from making a climb of it. I kept us clear of the firing arcs, and we roared through the city proper.

Rooftops sped by underneath, and I banked to fly between two independent towers of black stone while Eileen split to the left and my other companion to the right. A city this size had to have humans in the tens of thousands, maybe more. Not all of the spires reaching up were stone, either. Dozens of tall-masted ships floated in a harbor that stretched along the coast. I could see people on the streets pointing up at us, though I couldn’t make out individual features.

“I don’t like this place, boss. Too rigid.”

It certainly had more right angles than a goblin was used to.

“It has grown much since an Ifrit last came,” said Tamaho. “It now rivals the size of the City of Brass. The King must be told of this.”

That’s humans for you. They might not have had the spontaneous reproduction of a goblin, but they had a way of latching on and digging in. If they were anything like the humans on Earth, then they were the sort to go anywhere, claim everything, and be too stubborn about a planted flag and who planted it to ever be dislodged.

We flew above the harbor and out over the ocean. In the deeper waters, several heavier mast-less boats were making their way to the port city through some other means of propulsion. I spotted a pink glow near the back where water churned and frothed. Their wide, ark-like hulls didn’t scream warship, but the number of shining figures milling about on the deck could only be soldiers with spears and armor. Troop transports, I realized. More soldiers from the mainland. With beasts, too. I saw a reptilian creature sunning itself on one of the decks, and it unfurled large, green-scaled wings to stretch as twisted its serpentine neck to track us. Were those dragons? I hoped not, because that creature had a saddle on its back.

I pulled back on the stick to build a little altitude, then hooked us around for a second flyover, where we saw lines of sailors unloading massive black blocks from barges in the harbor. They loaded them onto wagons and hauled them past a massive palace complex ringed with its own walls. We flew overhead, only a few-dozen meters above the pennants and banners blowing in the wind atop the walls. Men on duty pointed up at us as we passed, and more still scrambled to get to their battle stations.

“Looks like they’re shoring up,” said Eileen. She was right. Those stone blocks matched the material of the innermost wall, where work parties stacked bricks and planted spikes. “I hope that’s not for us.”

“Can’t say,” I said. “But eyes up ahead, I think that is definitely for us,”

In the heart of the city, one tower rose high above the competition, dark and looming, with strange light glowing at its windows. I’ve seen enough movies to know a wizard’s tower when I see one. Stormclouds began to gather around its black, crenelated peak, and lightning flashed from within.

“Time we made scarce, my friends,” I said. I pushed the throttle all the way forward and kicked on the after-burn’ems. Lightning forked across the sky from the clouds cresting at the top of the tower, through the air I’d just occupied. The bolt had struck close enough that I felt my fur stand on end from the charged air, and both my techs hammered on the engine to goad every bit of power they could from the strained device. We passed the tower, then passed beyond the layers of walls as lightning flashed around us—but none close enough to strike our vehicles.

Habberport looked to be on a war footing, which was bad news for us. It felt like just as we’d finished dealing with the elves, an even greater threat loomed on the horizon. So far, Lanclova had repelled all human attempts to settle it and penetrate the interior, and I hoped the land itself would continue to be our shield as we worked toward our goal of leaving it. One thing was clear: Habberport was not building up their walls and importing dragon riders to negotiate.

I glanced over my shoulder, angling my jet just enough to see the city shrinking as we raced away. Even from here I could see both the palace and the wizard’s towers. I didn’t want to fight humans, and I certainly didn’t want to kill a bunch of them. But if they attacked, I didn’t see that I would have much choice. The prince of that massive sprawl had been an indirect cause of many of my problems since coming to Rava. He didn’t seem inclined to stop being a thorn, either.

Well, if he thought he was going to roll through the jungle and sweep us aside, I had definitely just given him reason to pause. The goblin king that had swept down from his homeland’s mountains at the head of a horde of hungry mouths had likely not done so propelled through the air by turbine engines. Any delay would benefit us. This technological speed run meant every extra day to grow the tribe was further and further we would pull ahead of what looked to be a late medieval or early renaissance culture—albeit one with the benefit of magic, might, and powerful creatures at its beck and call.

We passed once more over the lake and retraced our route through the mountains. Eileen had spent a good deal of her short life navigating the hills and bluffs north of Tribe Apollo, so I let her take lead of the formation and guide us back over the jungle until the floating rings of the bluff came into view—as well as Gemini-II, moored but still smoking from where the fight had crippled her. It had been a long flight to the coast and back. We were practically running on fumes by the time we lined up with the runway and the goblins worked the cranks to lower the landing gear. I guided us down to the uneven surface and managed to touch down without destroying the interceptor.

Buggies were already lined up and waiting, but I held off until Eileen dismounted as well, pulling off her goggles with a grin.

“That’s the furthest I’ve ever been, boss!”

“Jet aircraft have a way of making the world a smaller place,” I said. “But it’s not the furthest we’ll go, not by a long shot.”

I turned my attention south. I hadn’t built these jets to fight night haunts. I’d built them to appease an orc’s desire to be the greatest hunter on Rava. And somewhere beyond the badlands, deep in the dunes, a devil awaited.

We piled into the buggies and headed back to the base of the bluff. As we bumped down the uneven road, I looked out to the north, where other bluffs penetrated the canopy all the way up to the mountains we’d just flown through. Flying over Habberport wasn’t just about taking a peep at the humans. It was also sending a message—that message being we can reach you before you reach us.

10 days round trip across land for a badger was now a few hours by air. Humans hadn’t managed to penetrate the Lanclova interior, but the interior could come meet them at the coast. I huffed a laugh at that thought. I was already beginning to think of myself as a Lanclovan native.

I looked down at the brass jar where the Ifrit rested after the adventures in the jet. “Tamaho. Do you consider goblins to be newcomers?”

The flame stirred. “We do not remember a time when goblins did not roam the jungles of Lanclova. But we do remember what they were like before the Great Spirit began to gift them levels and skills. Wild and feral creatures led by cruel and brutal kings.”

I glanced at the goblins hanging off the sides of the buggy for the sheer joy of it. “Yeah, night and day difference with these goblins.”

I sometimes forgot that the System itself wasn’t a permanent fixture in the history of Rava. How had it come to be? Was it simply a Sysadmin who got a little too bored just watching a simulation and decided to stick his finger in the pot and stir? Was it an omniscient deity? Or was it something else entirely? Some other entity with its own unknowable goals, and what we thought of as the System was simply its means of achieving them?

Even having access to my thoughts, System stayed silent on the matter, as it often did when I mused about its nature. Maybe it was also bound by rules of its own—hard-coded with certain limitations to what it could or couldn’t say. But its secrets weren’t safe. Like any scientist, I would poke and prod until I found the limits.

Chapter 140 - Sights on a Devil

<Your tribe has increased to 1790 members>

I was working in the hangar with Promo when a sparker found me, running up with mouth agape with a portable transmitter in his hands. I recognized John’s voice already speaking through the sparker’s antennae whiskers.

“King Apollo, Rufus has returned from the deep desert. He caught a buggy from the badlands to Canaveral.”

I took the transmitter and switched it on. “Received. I’ll take a chopper and meet him there.”

I handed the radio back.

Promo lifted his mask to scratch his chin. “Didn’t we unlock the two-way broadcast’ems?”

“Yeah,” I said, “but the Sparkers like speaking in other goblins’ voices.” I watched the sparker dash off to return the transmitter. “Who am I to get in the way of their fun? Be like if I told you that you had to use the auto-hammer for everything.”

Promo hefted his trusty steel hammer, the first the tribe had ever produced, though he’d had to replace the head once and the handle twice. “Point taken, boss. I’ll finish up here.”

“Thanks Promo.”

I took Armstrong with me and we caught a lift up to the helipads on the second floating ring above Bluff Apollo. The air crew always kept a chopper fueled and waiting for me so that I could move between bluffs, as well as two decoys that would fly along with us—just like Marine-1, 2, and 3 did with the president back on Earth. Only, as far as I know, the president didn’t usually fly his own helicopter.

Canaveral was a short flight over, and I got my first look at the start of the observatory tower the Midnighter priestess was building. I circled low for a closer view. The stepped structure on the north end of the bluff stretched up into the sky at a steep angle, and I could make out narrow staircases cut into the side like a Mayan pyramid. The Midnighters had already installed some measurement equipment at the apex, some mundane and some apparently arcane in nature. They’d been busy in the week since our big air battle and put the goblin builders and material I’d loaned them to good use. But I had ulterior motives—which I saw as only fair. If the Midnighters were allowed plans within plans, then so was I. That observatory/temple was going to be my mission control center.

I landed at the helipad atop the bluff and handed off the controls to my co-pilot to park. We barely beat Rufus, who rode the freight elevator up with the buggy on the east side of the bluff. I met him at the top, and he was quick to greet me.

“King Apollo! These are interesting times indeed. I bring news that servants of the Midnight Queen have been seen in several…”

He finally noticed the two elite Midnighters standing guard. Rufus offered them wary looks and a wide berth. Once past, he immediately keyed in on the newest structure, despite it being on the other side of the bluff. His eyes scanned up and down the pyramid and the priestess’ palanquin atop it.

“King Apollo, I must ask…” he said, then shook his head. “Nay, at this point your collection of company and menagerie of allies is the least of your surprises. I’m now told that you light up the night sky, ride on pillars of fire, and summon lightning to carry your voice over great distances.”

“Not lightning, per se,” I said. The rest was… close enough. “How was the Ifrit city?”

I took Rufus back towards Canaveral’s common area while we spoke, so that I could treat him to a lizard sandwich (the orcs continued making flatbread, though I haven’t the foggiest idea where they got the flour).

“It’s as I feared. They permitted entry into the city only briefly, but neither were they outright hostile. The political situation is in a minor upheaval with the accusations I levied against the leader of the delegation, and the ceramic trinkets that I brought before the king. But they will not send another Ifrit to verify my claims for fear they, too, will be lost. Nothing but the complete return of all Ifrit will assuage doubts. You must understand, their unions being taken is among their worst fears and as far as they are aware, it has happened.”

I pursed my lips and sniffed. “Pretty much what I expected. Haughty-von-haughty really did us dirty. I don’t think I could get all the Ifrit exiles to leave, even if I wanted to. But I may have a solution to that now if I can get a radio and a generator to the City of Brass.”

The bulky equipment needed to run the radio and keep it powered, with a transmitter and receiver with enough gain to communicate with Bluff Apollo was a tall order. But if I could get one installed, it would open up free travel for the Ifrit between any bluff in my kingdom and the deep desert where the City of Brass waited and worried after their missing kin. The Ifrit would be able to travel to the city and present their side of the story and then travel back and continue running engines and flying via their helicopter vessels.

But a radio antenna like that meant an airborne station in order to maintain line of sight. I didn’t want to send any Ifrit over an unstable broadcast. And an airborne antenna in the desert would almost certainly be attacked by the null devil. We were getting close to having heavy jet fighters reliable enough for Lura’s hunters to fly. In fact, even as we watched, one screamed overhead, as dozens of goblins at the bluff cheered and chased it to the edge (and in a few cases, over it).

Rufus followed the aircraft with his fingers pressed in his ears. “Stars above! The noise of the thing!”

“Yeah,” I said. I tried to imagine what a difference those aircraft would have made against the dartwing. If we’d had them then, we’d have taken that beast down in time and never gotten ourselves beholden to Lura. But we also wouldn’t have fought the whistler and gotten our hands on such high-quality magnets and its aluminum-like hide—hide which was currently being shaped into jet fighters and reuse-able rocket boosters.

Every challenge, every setback we’d faced had led to progress in some significant way. Necessity was the mother of invention, after all. And I not only had necessity in spades, but an entire extended family tree of inventions rattling around in my human memory.

“How fast does such a terror go?” asked Rufus, uncorking a bottle of some dark amber liquor that somehow survived in his bulging backpack.

I itched at the fur on my chin. “Well, we went from here to Habberport and back in about three hours,” I said.

The badger-marked scholar nearly spit out his pull. “Three hours!” he said, and then paused, eyes growing even wider. “You went to Habberport?”

I couldn’t help grinning. “A brief flyover. Had to see what they were working with and what they were up to. It’s a much bigger city than I expected.”

Rufus pressed a meaty palm to his forehead. “10 day’s round trip that is, for me,” he said.

“Ah, well, we can’t have the tribe’s official Minister of Trade taking 10 days to get anywhere. How would you like a personal cargo helicopter?” I asked. “It won’t get you to the coast in a couple hours, but it will take you anywhere you want and haul a lot more than what will fit in your pack.”

Rufus shuddered. “O’ King, if it’s anything like that winged deathtrap you imposed upon me in our second meeting, I shall have to abstain.”

“Oh, good, you’re in luck!” I said, pushing to my feet.

“I am?” asked Rufus, relief evident on his face.

“Yep. Helicopters don’t have wings at all.”

Chapter 141 - Advanced Rocket-Tree

I didn’t want to come to Canaveral without checking in on a few other projects. The first was one of a series of test rockets I had planned. Testing and iterating smaller rockets were necessary intermediary steps towards fielding our first manned (goblinned) space mission. There’s a lot more that goes into achieving stable orbit than just pointing the rocket at the sky and turning it on.

The US competed with Russia for years to prove that our stolen German scientists were better than their stolen German scientists. It’s NASA’s worst-kept-secret that many of our early advances in rocketry stemmed directly from the innovations of the rocket programs which had been used in World War II to launch bombs across the English channel. But that’s enough for the history lesson.

I looked at our first test rocket being finished up, which, you know what? Yeah, we were going to point at the sky and turn it on. But it was for data. Specifically, I wanted some metrics to see how much goblin scat we were going to need in order to reach free-fall in Rava’s lower-than-Earth gravity. We also needed more detailed metrics on rate of burn, acceleration, and how Raphina’s mass would affect orbital dynamics.

The rocket we were piecing together was smaller than the one that carried Sputnik into space. Counter-weighted cranes moved sections into place, while noblin igni carefully welded metal seams with torches and spark-welders. Unlocking prerequisite technology like air compressors and electricity had shot our construction and manufacturing capabilities into the 19th century. The tribe was beginning to unlock so many interconnecting component technologies now that I’d had System suppress all but the most important Goblin Tech Tree notifications.

System, how much fuel have we reserved for the first launch?

<43% of your predicted capacity is stowed at Canaveral Bluff.>

A deafening roar and a blinding flare erupted from the west end of the bluff.

<41%>

I sighed. “I need to do something about these unauthorized rocket motor “tests” the local engineers keep running,” I said, idly.

Armstrong tapped his fingers together, trying and failing to suppress a grin. “You mean, say, letting me ride on one?”

“Slow down, space goblin. We’ll make an astronaut of you yet,” I answered. “But it doesn’t involve blowing yourself to smithereens on a test pad.”

I whistled for John, and a minute later, he showed up caked in soot and smelling like the back end of a cow. He saluted.

“Test went well?”

“Aye, boss.”

“And the one before that?”

“Aye, boss.”

I narrowed my eyes. “So then let’s not light anymore off until we iterate on the design.”

John’s ears drooped down. “Aye, boss…”

Yeah, yeah. Rocket party pooper. I looked to the pyramid on the north side of the bluff. “You’ve been here a week with the Midnighters. What’s your read on them?”

John thought to himself for a moment. “They’re cold,” he said.

I tilted my head. “I guess bugs aren’t the friendliest sort.”

“No, no, they’re cold,” said John, wrapping his arms around himself and pretending to shiver.

I rolled my eyes. Of course the goblins had tried to make a cuddle puddle with the Midnighters. They’d done it with paladins, orcs, and if Ifrit had bodies that weren’t metal and springs, they wouldn’t be safe, either. Heck, that was probably why Rufus was always so eager to be away from the bluff before nightfall.

John snapped his claws. “They’re real smart, like. Surprised ‘em that we knew ‘bout stuff like gyro-scope’ems and gimbals and spy’em scopes. Asked to see the glass furnace. They ask the canoneers about loads o’ stuff and the moon, too. Real keen on the moon.”

“Well, they did at least partly come to study it…” I said, looking at the pyramid. The eclipse was coming soon, and I could already see the elite queen’s guard staging the priestess’ palanquin. “Or so they said, anyway. No one seems to trust them. I think it’s time for a closer look at this new observatory. And maybe a few answers.” I looked at Rufus. “Would you mind accompanying me? I might need your lie-detecting skill.”

Rufus hemmed and hawed for a moment, looking at the steep steps. “Well, that is to say, King Apollo, it might be best if…”

“The pyramid is on the opposite side of the bluff from the helicopter landing pads,” I said.

“I would be happy to lend my services.”

The Midnighters watched as we approached, the lower-level serfs making no effort to stop our progress as they halted work and bowed. If you’ve never seen a humanoid bug bow, which, why on Earth would you have? It’s a very segmented, disjointed gesture. Carapace doesn’t make for easy folding. I looked around at the construction. There were certainly a lot more of the Midnighters. They must have been consolidating from their other parties that had been seen throughout Lanclova. There were almost as many Midnighters at Canaveral as there were orcs at Apollo City.

As soon as we passed, the serfs returned to work. 2 Soldier-caste bugs with levels in the mid teens stood guard on the lower terrace. They must have been given instructions to watch for my crown and steel spring legs because they moved aside, snapped to attention, and ground the butts of their spears into the dust. They had four slender, carapace arms, and curiously used two to hold their weapons.

“Hail, Apollo-King,” they said. Well, I couldn’t fault the Midnighters their propriety. If the Javeline had come out the gate with manners like this, they might not have ended up as bacon. But flattery is often a sharp dagger meant to get past defenses. I couldn’t let it go to my head.

A little. Maybe I could let it go to my head just a little. I straightened my back, planted my fists against my hips, and rose to my impressive meter or so full height. “I’m here to speak to the priestess.”

“You are expected,” said one in their buzzy insect voice.

“Such was it cast,” said the other. They both made an identical gesture with the two hands on their left side, making the shape of an eye, as I’d seen the others do. Totally not creepy at all. What really surprised me was when one of them switched from the eye gesture to forming a circle over their head.

“Ad Luna.”

Armstrong echoed the gesture behind me.

I pushed past the two guards and started to scramble up the steep steps of the pyramid.

“Hey boss, what’s got you all weird?”

I glanced back at my scrapper chief.

“Eh, weird-er?”

We ascended the pyramid, moving toward the telescope that had been erected in a traversable gimble. By the time we reached its zenith, the eclipse was coming overhead, and I was once again treated to the uncanny spectacle of watching Cla’thn unfold herself from her much-too-small palanquin and stand up to her full height. She was at least three times as large as me, so at least half-again as tall as a human. Yet she was built like gossamer, and I worried  the breeze on the top of the pyramid might blow her away.

The Palanquin had been staged next to a slowly spinning piece of clockwork that I realized must be a stellar model. I approached it, looking at the tiny brass orbs rotating around a central sphere that must be this system’s star. Between the books Rufus had brought me, none had discussed celestial bodies beyond Raphina. With the sheer size of the moon, its reflected light washed out a good deal of the night sky on this side of the planet. With how many poets and authors on Earth were inspired by Luna, I had to imagine the effect was magnified on Rava. Why even care about other floating rocks when you can see forests and seas and mountains hanging in the heavens?

Raphina and Rava weren’t hard to find on the model. I found the little two-planet system dancing around each other. Rava was the system’s fourth planet of seven. And if the planets were to scale, Raphina was probably about the size of Mercury while Rava I was coming to believe was closer in diameter to Mars.

The rest of the planets spun around the brass star, each with their own constellations of moons or rings on tiny brass rods.

“Do you like it?” asked Cla’thn, rubbing the fine hairs on her forearms together to produce her voice. Her attendants carefully held back the sheer fabric so that it didn’t interfere with her speech.

“It looks like Ifrit work,” I said.

“Well spotted, King Apollo. It was made as a gift for our last queen, nearly 300 years ago.”

I pointed to the innermost planet. “What’s this one called?”

“Tsoval. The first among worlds, named for the first queen, may her light ever shine.”

I pointed to the ringed planet in the fifth spot

“Zzrannica. Our lady of halos.”

I scratched at my chin and studied the model. Something was bothering me about it. Armstrong reached out to poke at the furthest planet, but I slapped his hand away.

“I wasn’t gonna break it, boss!” he said, but his eyes shifted back and forth. He’d been keen on some mischief.

“The model has a problem,” I said. “Raphina isn’t orbiting Rava once per day. It’s not tidally locked.”

“As I said, this artifice is quite old.”

“But it was clearly designed this way,” I insisted. “Otherwise Rava wouldn’t be able to articulate at all, like this moon here,” I said, pointing to a moon of the sixth planet that connected via a simple peg, rather than a track. “Moons don’t just suddenly switch to a geostationary orbit.”

Priestess Cla’thn tilted her head. “Do they not?”

“I…” I stopped. Did they? This world, this universe, was very different from the one I’d come from. 300 years ago. According to Rufus and Taquoho, that would have been before people started to hear…

System, did you break the moon?

No answer. I turned back to the priestess. “What about the rest of the stars? Do they move as well? The orcs and my other friends say that you can read the future in their movements.”

The Midnighter attendants chittered, and it took me a moment to realize they were laughing. The priestess waved a hand at them in admonishment and made one of her four-handed gestures (the significance of which was completely lost on me) before answering. “It is not the stars that move, but ourselves. We see mere reflections, o’ king. Ripples of our actions that precede us into the future.”

“Except here,” I said.

“Except here.”

I put my hands on my hips. “Well, I think it’s time you told me why you really came here.”