MBGSP Chpt 75 - 79

Here's the second half of this week's updates, goblin fans! The Patreon is now, officially, rocking 12 advance chapters for My Big Goblin Space Program. With a three-week break from updates coming up at the end of the first book being posted to Royal Road, it just makes sense to have the Patreon three weeks worth of updates ahead. I hope ya'll are enjoying the change of pace and renewed focus on technology for a little bit in the absence of a piggy threat. It's not without its own challenges, though, as you'll see in this update.

I hope ya'll enjoy!

-Scott

Chapter 75 - Spun Up

“Sally! Sally!” I yelled. The chief engineer had left the boys to their toys and gone back to work on her own projects about the time Armstrong and Promo decided to put their heads together with an eccentric shaft between them. She looked up from her workstation and shuffled the mix of bark scratching and paper, not-so-conspicuously shifting a cartoon-covered page to the bottom. At least she had the decency to look guilty.

I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that one about.

Reluctantly, she pulled it out and handed it over, looking down and away as she did.

I took the canoneer comic and turned it right-way up, perusing the panels.

“This is about me and Chuck,” I said.

Sally nodded.

“Scouting the bog.”

She nodded again.

“We’re sitting awful close together on this clifford.”

Nod.

I handed the page back. “There sure are a lot of these featuring me and Chuck.”

Emphatic nod.

If I was still able, I’m sure my face would be turning red. The canoneers were just the worst. I cleared my throat. “I need some of those spare rockettes that came out too wonky to fit in the guns.”

Sally went to her stores and fished around until she pulled out a small case containing mis-matched rockette shells that had been deemed worthless for ammunition. They were just hollow shells, so I had to fill and pack them myself. While I did that, I explained to Sally what I needed, and she got to work with a brass fixture the Ifrit had brought with them and a couple of our ceramic bearings.

When Sally was done, we had a free-spinning arm with two handles on the back. We had to carry it between us back over to the test area. Promo had gone back to baste some javeline chops with bomb fruit juice, so I sent Armstrong to bring him back.

The potbellied noblin lumbered up with his mask raised and saw what we were holding. He waddled over to take it from us, lifting easily what had taken both Sally and I to carry. I envied the noblin for being able to level, a fact which the System handily reminded my with the 5 superimposed above his head.

“What’s this gubbin do?” he asked, tilting it this way and that, and giving the spinning arm a smack. “Making more of those spinners for the hot-heads?”

“Nope, it’s a rocket-powered engine starter,” I said. I pulled a pair of the rockettes from my pouch and stuffed one of them into the sleeve on the spinning arm. “That socket on the face should marry up to engine shaft and the rockettes should give us a few seconds of high speed rotation, if you can hold on.”

Prometheus grinned. “Oh, I’ll hold on, hoss. What’s to stop the engine from turning me once it comes alive?”

“It’s a free-spinning flywheel,” I said, giving the arm a tap. “The grips are just so you can push it against the engine. When it comes on, make sure you pull back and get clear.”

Prometheus nodded, hefting the starter and fitting it to the shaft on the engine. “Ready,”

Armstrong scratched his chin. “How are you going to start the rockette?”

“I…” I stopped. “Good question.”

“Gotcha covered, boss,” said Promo. He whistled another goblin over. “Go get the unfinished blast’em on my workbench. Go on!” he gave the goblin a little backside boost with the top of his foot. The goblin ran off, rubbing its backside, and returned with what looked like a mostly disassembled rifle receiver without a breech, barrel, or stock. Just the grip, trigger, and striker.

Armstrong took it and held it up. “No stock? No lever?”

“Ah, was working on a smaller one, what for close-in fighting,” said Promo. “Some of the lads complained about the long guns being unwieldy when the porkbellies got within arm’s reach. But bring it over, yeah?”

Lord help, Promo had already figured out pistols. Armstrong brought it over, manually pulling back the tab on the striker to cock it, then lined up the striker with the rockette in the starter.

“Perfect!” said Promo.

<Imagine that.>

Shaddup! If you’re not going to unlock the engine ‘til it starts, you don’t get to claim you’re helping.

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Starter Pistol>

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Spinny-sparky start’ems>

Dammit, System!

Armstrong pulled the trigger and a shower of sparks and smoke exploded, followed by the freewheeling arm taking off like, well, like a rocket. I opened the throttle and turned off the choke as the rotor spun, rockette tracing a circle of flame in the air.

Pop  pop pop POP POP POP pop pop POP POP pop pop pop.

The flame on the rockette flared out.

Promo spat on the ground. “Not enough fuel?”

I hemmed and hawed for a moment, and ran my finger on the inside of the exhaust. It came away black and wet.

“Too much fuel,” I said. “Not enough air.”

Drawn air through the intake manifold wasn’t going to be enough, and the fuel was too thick. I needed to aerosolize it, and to do that I needed a carburetor.

                          *

I won’t bore you with the details of how we rigged up the main shaft to power an impeller which would draw fuel and air into the engine intake. It involved a few gears, bearings, a chain we’d taken from the javeline, and a lot of swearing on my part. I’d even rigged up a clever little release valve so the intake system wouldn’t over-pressurize.

When it was done, it looked even more impressive, with the impeller strapped to the case and tubing made of cured gut feeding air and fuel in. But dammit, I’d built an engine, and I was going to run it. Well, technically Sally and Promo had done most of the building. All of it, really. But I told them what to build!

A shadow passed overhead and I looked up at Taquoho, hovering nearby. “Another attempt, King Apollo?”

“Hopefully not,” I said.

I fed another rocket into the sleeve and took my place by the throttle, turning the choke on and having Armstrong spin the rotor until the remaining fuel inside burned off. Then I opened up the choke and the throttle, and gave the signal.

Sally had the starter pistol now, and she angled it up in order to reach the rockette in the starter and pulled the trigger. The miniature rocket flared to life and the freewheel started cranking the engine.

Pop pop pop pop pop

I opened up the throttle a little more, letting more fuel into the mix.

Pop pop POP POP POP

I hauled back on the lever. Over the sputtering engine I could hear the impeller whistling as it worked overtime drawing fresh air into the narrow intake throat. Blue smoke began to billow out of the exhaust. I eased up just a little. The starter kept spinning, but I knew the rocket would fizzle in seconds.

POP POP POP BRRT BRRRT BRRRRRRR

“It’s working!” said Taquoho, excitement creeping into his voice.

“Now, Promo!” I shouted. I cranked the throttle all the way open as the noblin yanked away the starter and dove for cover. The engine rattled and vibrated, and at least one of the brass mounting bolts popped out, sheared from the vibration.

I eased down on the throttle, and the noise subsided to a dull rumble. The thing bucked underneath me like a mechanical bull, but I held on and kept adjusting, trying not to lose it. It was going to destroy itself at this rate.

Taquoho’s vessel landed so hard it nearly bent one of the brass struts it used as landing gear. The Ifrit streamed out of the brass bottle and into my engine, and I felt the throttle move under my hand.

“Hey!” I said, but ceded control to the Ifrit. If anyone on the bluff knew fire…

The throttle adjusted itself under the touch of the Ifrit  until the elemental being found the idle, and then the engine started to purr. Taquoho fled the engine for his bottle, but didn’t immediately spin up and take flight. “That,” he said, “was a very dizzying experience.”

“You did it!” I said, laughing. “It’s working!”

In the grand scheme of things, this thing wouldn’t be winning any F-1 races. It was putting out a couple horsepower at max and was probably just one loose counterweight shy of flying apart and flinging the rotor into the stratosphere. But it was running. An internal combustion engine was running, on Rava, in my village!

I started to think something was wrong as a whine began to mount, until I realized that it was the collective cheer of almost 200 goblins.

But there was one voice conspicuously absent from the celebration.

System?

<Awaiting query.>

Chapter 76 - Backfire

I shut the throttle. The rotary engine died, and I looked between Sally, Armstrong, and Promo, confused. “Do any of you know how to build or operate one of these yet?”

Promo cocked his head at me. “Reckon I could maybe run it but ye lost me in the build.”

“Boss, I don’t even know what it’s supposed to be,” admitted Armstrong. “I just know it’s loud and it spins.”

Sally shrugged and pointed to the build guide she’d followed. I ran both hands through my fur. Somehow, the technology hadn’t unlocked yet.

System!

<Awaiting query>

What gives? It ran! It’s a working engine. Where’s the unlock?”

<Device parameters do not meet requirements of any locked technology in the Goblin Tech Tree.>

Why?!

<Information on locked technologies in the Goblin Tech Tree is not available.>

I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t understand it. The engine worked. And not just goblin worked. This thing was running on pure physics—would run on Earth, for maybe five minutes before seizing up. It should have been enough to unlock the node in the Goblin Tech Tree.

Was it because Taquoho jumped into it?

<Ifrit do not interfere with technology unlocks in the Goblin Tech tree, save for technologies involving the Ifrit themselves.>

Then why didn’t internal combustion unlock?

<Information on locked technologies in the Goblin Tech Tree is not available.>

I pulled the lever off the throttle control and hucked it, screaming out my anger. All the goblins immediately screamed and made throwing motions, many of them throwing whatever was close to hand—including mud, bones, a few rocks, and at least one tesla bomb with a half-dozen angry wasps inside. That did a fine job dispersing the crowd as everyone ran to get away from the shocking, hissing wasps.

I sat down and thumped the back of my head against the stump.

“Boss?” asked Armstrong.

“Just go,” I said. I waved a hand. “All of you!”

“Even us?” said a voice to the side. I looked over at a noblin canoneer hunched over a piece of paper on the ground.

“Especially you!”

The portly, oversized goblin scurried off, papers wrapped up in his arms. I groaned. Luther’s canoneers were chronicling everything I did, at all times. I didn’t need comics made of my failures.

I just didn’t understand it. Based on everything I’d experienced so far, it should have worked. The engine had working fuel intake, a properly counter-balanced rotor, a heat sink, throttle controls, good seals, and the wasps were alive and popping if the sounds from the spark-plug jars were any indication. Our fuel was clean-burning, had more than enough power, and smooth flow.

We’d had combustion. It had been internal. As far as I was concerned, we had internal combustion. How was this even an issue?

The System wasn’t volunteering anything, either. It was being its usual recalcitrant self, probably sitting back and laughing at me. I was just glad Tribe Apollo didn’t have a pool, because whoever was on the other side of those admin privileges seemed the sort to delete the ladder while I was swimming.

The sun dropped low, and Chuck brought by a bark tray full of kilned pork. Apparently wallowing made me ravenous, because I tucked in and didn’t realize I’d finished until I was licking the grease off the bark. I handed the tray back to Chuck.

“Take it you heard?”

“Problems you can’t punch or ride. Not my forte, boss,” he replied, taking the bark and spinning it off into the night. “But you’ll figure it out. You always figure somethin’ out.”

I sighed. “I just don’t get it. If engines aren’t a part of the Goblin Tech Tree… well, we’re dead in the water. Does the tree end at the preindustrial age? Was this whole moon thing a pipe dream?”

Chuck lifted his hand and put in front of Raphina. “She’s so close I feel like we could get her with a good thermal, boss.”

“Orbital dynamics are a bit more complicated than that,” I said.

“Do they gotta be?” he asked, climbing to his feet and shrugging.

I laughed, drawing my legs up so I could rest my chin on them. “Would make my job easier if they weren’t.”

“Maybe you just think too much,” he countered. Chuck loped off into the night.

Nothing seemed to deter Chuck, or the rest of the goblins for that matter. I was their king, and I would get them to the moon. They had absolute confidence in me—albeit, as long as I stood behind them. But if I couldn’t even get internal combustion engines off the ground, how would I ever reach Raphina?

System, why do goblins follow kings?

<Refer to the Goblin King class menu, in particular the Undying Loyalty skill. Would you like me to give you the skill’s description?>

No, why do goblins show undying loyalty in the first place?

There was a pause.

System?

<Goblins follow goblin kings because they believe goblin kings will lead the tribe to greatness.>

And what happens if I don’t? What happens if I never reach the moon?

A longer pause.

<There exists more than one type of greatness, Apollo.>

Is this a simulation?

No answer.

Does anything I do here matter?

Nothing.

                          *

<Your tribe has decreased to 255 members.>

<Your tribe has increased to 285 members.>

<Your tribe is producing less food than it consumes by a deficit of 11.5 chooms per day.>

I had fallen asleep at the stump and woke up at the very bottom of a sleeping mound with goblins pressing in on all sides. I pulled myself out and showered off at one of the casks. In the distance I could hear the crack crack of rifle fire already, and the deeper whump of a bomb-fruit going off. Some of Neil’s hunters must have been getting some target practice in before going out in search of game.

It was surprisingly easy to tune out the explosions, crashes, shouting, and general mayhem of the bluff village sometimes. Amazing how fast you get used to the strangest of circumstances. Even working for a rocket company, I’d never expected explosions to be a daily part of my life. Of course, the first one I’d encountered had been the rocket with me riding it.

I took a look at my engine, still silent from the night before, and sighed. Maybe I hadn’t refined the fuel enough. I could run it through another filter to maybe increase the purity. Maybe I needed another wasp in the spark chamber. Maybe the throat of the carburetor was lowering the temperature too much. And maybe goblins were just meant to ride cliffords forever. There was no way to know.

Armstrong was still sleeping at the top of the pile, so I took two of my other bodyguards and went looking for Taquoho. The Ifrit had come to begin integrating ceramics into their workflow, and I wanted to see how he was doing. It wasn’t hard to spot the Ifrit, since he was hovering—or rather, wobbling—in the unstable air above the kilns. I worried the paper on his rotors would catch fire with the smoke and cinders starting to rise from the massive ovens.

I waved him down, and he descended. Surprisingly, he’d already modified the design with articulated legs from his old vessel and hinges along the blades that allowed them to fold up to save room. The Ifrit dropped onto the ground and scuttled over.

“Ah, King Apollo! I noticed that the sheets you chose to paper my airfoils with has small sequential renderings of your tribal history. I wanted to ask about them.”

I put a palm to my face. “The comics. I’m sorry, Taquoho. It’s what I had handy while I was working. I’m sure you find it crude and reductive.”

Taquoho raised a placating leg. “On the contrary, o’ king! The Ifrit are formless fire and do not practice representational art, and the format is so intuitive to follow. Truly, I am grateful for these drawings, and some of my kin have taken notice of more art circulating in the village. I wondered if we could perhaps see more of it.”

“You want more comics?” I asked, incredulous. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ll talk to the canoneers.

Taquoho bowed low. “Thank you, Apollo.”

I stepped around him to a tray of fired parts from the night before. I didn’t recognize some of them, which I assumed meant they belonged to the Ifrit. “The first orders are going well?”

“Indeed!” said the flame spirit. “The material has all the properties that our friend Rufus promised, and then some. While we cannot manipulate it as easily brass, it is proving to be a most robust material, well suited for complex gearing and artifice. The only problem is, well…”

I got the impression of his gaze shifting and followed that impression over to the row of kilns. “Huh,” I said, counting. “I thought we had at least one more,”

“You did. Until last night.”

“Ah,” I said. And laughed. “You get used to it. Ifrit tech doesn’t blow up in your faces sometimes?”

“We do not have faces in which to blow up. But I believe I understand the crude and reductive metaphor you are using to convey the normalcy of the situation you describe. In fact, Ifrit artifice is known for its meticulous attention to detail and precision. You would be reasoned and wise to say that it is the defining characteristic of what makes a piece of artifice Ifrit, as compared to say…”

“Goblin artifice,” I said. “Which is the opposite. Ramshackle, loose, and…”

I looked at the remains of the kiln, and the ceramic parts that had been imbedded halfway into the neighboring kiln.

“One bad kick shy of exploding.”

“I daresay, yes,” said Taquoho. “A philosopher might describe it thus: if it is not about to explode, is it truly goblin artifice?”

I looked at the Ifrit. I looked at the kiln. I looked at the Ifrit.

“Taquoho,” I said, backing away and looking around for my taskmasters, “I’m going to get you all the comics you can read, you absolute genius!”

I grabbed the nearest engineer and told him to find Sally and Promo and have them meet me at the stump.

Chapter 77 - Safety Not Guaranteed

“Give me that prybar,” I said.

Prometheus handed me his new favorite tool—a metal pry-bar that he’d fashioned out of a ruined section of rifle barre.

“Thanks.”

I smashed the clay jar of Tesla wasps off the connector, ducking as the ornery insects flew out, so disoriented and eager for freedom that they didn’t even bother to sting anyone on their way out.

Promo laughed. “Giving up on your combust’em project already, Boss?”

“The opposite,” I grunted. I dug the pry-bar into the mount for the counterweight and managed to work the small plate off the back of the engine.

Sally watched in horror as I smashed the relief valve. There would be no relief.

“I don’t get it,” said Promo, scratching his head. “You said we needed the wasps. And the relief valve. And that doo-dad in the back.”

“I did say that,” I said. “They were very practical and very foolish.”

The noblin chief cocked his head at me.

“Too practical. I built a working engine. A fully-functional prototype engine. Something like I might have built back on Earth if given a few weeks and access to a forge. Just to prove I could, if for no other reason.

“And it would’a worked?”

“Yup,” I said. I disconnected the fuel bladder and opened the throat, pulling a popper from my pouch, along with a small ceramic auger. I drilled two small holes through the outer layer and then tipped the small globe so that the bomb fruit juice mixed in could drain out. through the hole. It didn’t take long as the the dribble of red juice began to empty into the fuel bladder.

“Is that what I think it is?” asked Prometheus. “You sure you don’t want me to do that?”

“Does your fire-crafting skill extend to contact explosives?” I asked. Then, “Forget it, don’t answer that. If this blows up in my face, that’s a random goblin dead. If it blows up in your face, that’s my ignis chief gone. I’m not risking that.”

Promo dropped his ceramic mask in place. Whether it was to keep me from seeing his expression or because he thought the concoction might explode inside the bladder?  Makes no difference, really. Not in the end. In fact, if even the goblins were worried, then I was on the right track. The dribble petered off, and I tossed the damaged popper over my shoulder where a bunch of squawks alerted me that it probably wasn’t the best place to have done that. A small pop and a few angry chitters later, the System didn’t alert me to any lost goblins, so we were still in good shape. I began to cackle.

“What’s got into him?” asked Armstrong, backing up a bit.

“This whole time, I was trying to design the wrongtype of engine,” I said. I banged on the case to loosen the seals a bit. “Armstrong, get the starter.”

The scrapper looked to Promo, who shrugged.

Eager for a chance to make scarce, Armstrong retreated to a safe distance in order to retrieve the rockette-powered starter. I fished out a round for it and passed it over, then busied myself with hooking up the fuel bladder.

“Sally, how’s it look?”

She made the goblin gesture for explodey.

“Perfect. Armstrong, you’re up!”

Armstrong reluctantly approached with the starter, and Promo pulled out the starter pistol beside him. I climbed atop the engine and squeezed the choke shut.

“Promo, give it a few spins,” I said.

The noblin twisted the shaft a few times, until with a BANG, it nearly jerked out of his hands. He backed off to a safe distance. Or, at least, what he probably thought was a safe distance.

I opened the choke and moved the throttle to the half-way mark, then motioned Armstrong forward. “Let ‘er rip, my friends.”

Armstrong fitted the starter to the shaft and had Promo hit the rockette with the pistol. The tiny rocket booster ignited and started to swing the ensemble around. The Engine rattled and shook underneath me, popping and hissing. Great gouts of angry, black smoke puffed out of the exhaust and a few weak spots in the seals.

Pop pop pop clank pop clang pop pop.

I yanked the throttle all the way open.

The engine barked and bucked so hard underneath me I worried that it had already come apart. Metal shrieked and protested, and a small plume of smoke pushed its way out of what was once our relief valve. “Sally, plug that!” I shouted. My chief engineer ran up with a hammer and pounded the opening flatter until the leakage dropped to a small puff.

The starter began to fizzle out and Armstrong pulled it away.

Underneath me, the engine bucked, growing hotter and harder to hold onto, struggling to stay clamped around the throttle. One of the mounting bolts snapped, and the thing began twisting on the stump. It was like trying to ride a full-size mechanical bull as a toddler, but I held onto the throttle lever for dear life. The shaft was a blur. My ass was numb from the vibration.

POP POP BRRRRT POP BRRRRRR….

“Come on, baby!” I shouted over the racket.

A huge gout of black smoke and orange flame erupted out of the exhaust, thumping in time to the shaking of the motor

BRUM BRUM BRUMMMM…

“Come on!”

POP POP BRRRRUUUUMMMM…

<Goblin Technology Unlocked: Infernal combust’em engines>

“YES!”

<Goblin Component Technology unlocked: Icky-slicky vapor>

<Goblin Component Technology unlocked: Forced torque power>

<Goblin Component Technology unlocked: Icky-slicky additives>

<Goblin Component Technology unlocked: Internal press’em buster>

<Goblin Component Technology unlocked…>

I cleared away the notifications to focus on what I was doing. The heatsink on the very, very goblin engine was glowing red hot and a heat haze had started to shimmer on the metal. I tried to push the throttle closed, but the abused lever snapped off in my hand.

“Uh oh!” I yelled.

<Congratulations.>

“Oh no!”

“Apollo, get out of there!” shouted Promo.

Sally just screamed and dove for the deck, wrapping her hands over her head. Now that she understood the motor, she definitely understood that it was about to blow sky-high. And I was sitting on top of the damn thing! Worse, I couldn’t bring myself to let go!

“Help!” I yelled.

I felt a big, furry body tackle me off the top of the top of the engine, and we tumbled across the dirt. I ended up face-down and tried to raise my head, but Armstrong shoved my face back into the dirt. “Get down, your highness!” he yelled over the screaming, whine of the engine.

The whole ensemble finally gave out with an earth-shaking clap of thunder that left my ears ringing and caused at least one building in the village to collapse. Armstrong finally moved, and I pulled myself out from under him, looking around. Every goblin in the square was on the floor, ducked and covering, and most were stacked behind hard cover where it existed.

On the stump was a warped piece of glowing metal with a gaping wound where the internals tore their way out of the housing.

“Where’d the rotor go?” I asked, looking at the sizzling hole.

A heavy object crashed through the roof of the air traffic control tower a hundred or more meters away, scattering goblins from the rise. The entire thing collapsed inward in a plume of adobe brick dust and wood splinters.

“Found it,” said Promo.

“Boss! Booooossss!”

“Hey boss!”

I looked over. Eileen and Neil were practically coming to blows over who would be the one to reach me first. They tripped each other up and started rolling in a tangle of blue limbs and plausibly deniable sucker punches. When they finally stopped and untangled themselves, both of them jumped to their feet.

“HeybossIhadacrazyideawhatifweputthatonnagliiiiider?!”

Neil just spread his hands apart. “Motorboats.”

I looked up at Promo and grinned. “Ready to build the next one?”

Promo made the moon-sign of the Church of the Right Angle over his chest and grinned back. “Let’s fire up the forges, boss!”

Chapter 78 - Independent Suspension of Disbelief

<Your tribe has increased to 344 members>

<Food requirements continue to exceed supply by a deficit of 19.2 chooms per day. A spawning penalty has been applied.>

The week or so following the reinvention of the internal combustion engine followed in a frenzy of activity that saw renewed vigor in the bog iron collection. The first powered vehicle had come in the form of boats to scout and collect more ore and fuel. Wheeled vehicles weren’t far behind, and powered flight was still the second priority behind food security.

But it’s tough to worry when you’re got an engine to redline. Village Apollo starting to sound more like a rat-rod car show than a medieval village. Internal combustion had been leveraged to power not just our first generation of gas-powered vehicles, but various tools and processes as well. Lathes were turning to mill out rounded parts, a motor-driven blower with brass piping had taken over for the crank teams on every forced-air kiln, and the friggen canoneers were busy enforcing quality standards under threat of branding deviants as heretics.

But a food shortage meant we couldn’t afford to rest on our laurels. And while the first generation of gas vehicles had been nautical, the second generation was meant to broaden our range and let us navigate the savannah to the south.

I watched Sally and her team assemble the frame for a five-goblin buggy. Other frames lined the yard, swarmed by goblins with hammers, wrenches, knives, and saws. We were making everything from 2 wheeled motorcycles for a pair of partners, to big 6 and 8-wheeled monsters that carried 10 or more goblins. I wished we had some rubber for tire-making, but you can’t have everything.

After struggling with the rotary engine, the rest just kind of fell into place. Basic automobiles weren’t exactly complex machines, when you think about it. Rotational energy goes back to the gearbox, which sends power through the drive shaft, and a simple rack and pinion gear set allows for stearing. These vehicles didn’t even have batteries, airbags, or windscreens. They were the kind of bare bones rigs you’d see in a post-apocalyptic flick, complete with hooligans hanging off at odd angles. Every type of resource we had was being utilized, from the metal frames and wheel banding to wood paneling and rims, to bone armor and suspension, to ceramic gearing.

The scent of fumes and the rumble of fresh engines reverberated through the ground. My hunters and wranglers, especially, had been suffering the wait for our first push out from the bluff on wheels ever since we stuck a prototype engine into something with four wheels. Can’t say I blamed them. I had my eye on one of the trikes, myself. Admittedly, after the accident I somewhat lost my taste for riding motorcycles. Plus these rough riders had little in the way of creature comforts, and sitting on the motorcycles felt a little  bit too much like sitting on top of the kiln, for my tastes.

The resident Ifrit showed great interest in our work—if not for attempts to reproduce gas engines. They flitted around, many having convinced my igni to make them versions of Taquoho’s coaxial vessel. Some of them remained distant and aloof, but a majority had come around to Taquoho’s way of thinking and began ingratiating themselves into the tribe. Besides, they got better ceramic parts from goblins who liked them than from goblins who were indifferent. They continued to possess and try out every new piece of tech we developed.

 “King Apollo,” said a voice behind me. I turned to see one an ignis, somewhat smaller and wider than Promo—though, a few of the igni were looking a bit slimmer with the food shortage.

“We have a buggy ready for a test drive. Would your majesty care to do the honors?”

“Of course,” I said. “In fact, I insist on it.”

I followed the igni over to the forge yard, where a group of noblins and their non-variant assistants were securing the last bolts on a 3-wheeled buggy. Secure is a bit of a strong term, since the vibrations on goblin engines were so bad that almost all bolts eventually either sheared or worked themselves loose. Luckily, loose bolts didn’t seem to adversely affect the vehicles much. The Goblin Tech Tree was built on loose tolerances.

As with the rest of our technology, as soon as the tribe unlocked it, every goblin in it gained an innate understanding of how to use it. But building them was still too much for the average goblin to wrap their soft heads around, so the Igni led the charge on that front. They were hammering out variations on engines from steel and ceramic in different shapes and sizes to fit the vehicles. But they were all variations on the Wankel engine we’d started with.

I climbed up in the saddle of the trike buggy, which had been designed for a wrangler, so it was a bit big. Three other goblins climbed aboard, including Armstrong manning the rear rifle position. A double-barreled lever gun had already been mounted to a pintle, and Armstrong swung it around, sighting down the bore. I reached into the ammo hopper behind the seat and pulled out one of the rockettes.

The igni had made a modification to the starter that was rather genius, in that they’d affixed a permanent flywheel. Simply dropping a rockette into a slot on the engine and stabbing down with a tamping rod would start the engine up. I stuffed the rockette down the hole and one of the other goblins was ready with the tamping rod. I manipulated the throttle pedal as it went down, giving it enough gas to get the ignition going. The trike rumbled to life underneath me, and I revved the engine to get it warmed up.

Promo leaned in. “You got enough fuel for a couple laps. Break ‘er in good, boss.”

I gave him a quick salute and threw the trike into gear. The buggy lurched forward, nearly tossing two of the goblins off as torque hit the wheels. The whole thing tilted back as it shot forward, and I worried it would immediately tip over backwards. But the front wheel crashed down and we were off, churning dust and adobe gravel under the wheels.

I peeled out of the forge area and navigated my way through the narrow lanes toward the edge of the bluff. Goblins dodged out of our way squawking as we roared past, and then chased and cheered. They loved the engines and had all taken to making Vroom vroom noises as they stomped invisible gas pedals. The bikes and trikes were almost as popular as the good ol’ classic of throwing themselves off the edge of the bluff.

Speaking of the edge, it started coming up fast, so I cranked hard on the handlebars and brought us around to skirt the perimeter instead of careening off the side—which had happened more than once.

The trikes didn’t have brakes. Oh, I’d invented them, and the System acknowledged that they had entered the Goblin Tech Tree. But every goblin in the tribe had staunchly refused to admit they understood the concept. So either there was a dedicated brake-tech variant of goblin that I’d yet to unlock, or we had the tribe’s first conspiracy—which was much more plausible now knowing that the goblins followed my orders voluntarily out of a sense of collective ambition, rather than as a biological imperative.

I swore I’d give them a reason to follow me. Well this trike was about 4 horsepower worth of reasons. Not much by Earth power standards, I know. But on Rava, it was bleeding edge stuff. And goblins didn’t weigh much.

Riding north until we hit the perimeter wall, I glanced over at the newest extension on the northwest corner of the bluff. Javier’s tailors were hard at work stitching canvas sheets together to prepare for the launch of our first powered aircraft. I swung us around, riding in the shadow of the wall as the sentries atop it hooted and hollered down. A bit further down, one of them kicked over a pole fixed to the top of the wall, on which a wooden target dangled.

“Armstrong!” I called out.

I heard the scrapper load the gun and close the action. The barrel’s thundered, and two rockettes zipped out on thin trails, punching two new holes in the target. My side goblins angled spears down toward a pair of low targets and one cheered as the tip smacked into the target. The other’s pole dipped too low, hitting the ground instead, and then launching the goblin out of his seat with an EEEeeeeee when the side of the trike turned the spear into a flex-a-pult.

I had to turn the trike so hard to avoid squashing my spearman that it rode up on two wheels and the other toppled out of the side saddle. Armstrong roared with laughter, barely able to hold on himself.  We passed the pond and the kilns and turned south toward the airstrip. The goblins had gotten one of the launch ramps turned around, because of course they had. I got us lined up and jammed the throttle as high as my little prosthetics could push it. We hit the ramp at probably 40kph if I had to take a guess. Faster than a clifford could run, but not as fast as some of the revved up bikes could go.

I let up on the gas to shift the trike’s weight forward just as we hit the ramp, then stomped down hard. The wheels shrieked for a moment on the wooden ramp, and we hit air, suspended for just a moment at the apex of our parabolic trajectory. Then we crashed back down and fishtailed. It was all I could do to hold on, let alone steer us.

“Boss!” shouted Armstrong.

“I see it!” I said, as we drifted perilously close to the edge of the cliff. I hauled right on the bars and applied more throttle to get some positive steering. The back of the trike swung out over the edge of the bluff, but momentum carried it round and the wheels bit into dirt and gravel again.

Armstrong whooped and pumped his fist in the air as I angled us back through the engineer workshop and toward the motorpool. God, I loved that we had a motorpool! Even if it only had a half-dozen wheeled vehicles in it so far, and they were so basic and bare boned as to barely qualify as such.

I pulled the trike into a cleared spot and cranked it back to neutral, then choked the motor. I had to work some feeling back into my hands and my butt from the vibration. Goblin transportation did not make for a smooth ride.

Promo came up and gave me a hand down. “How’s she handle?” he asked.

I grinned. “Like a feral hog in heat.”

Promo laughed, and then hem-hawed.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Speaking of hogs,” he said. “We’re running real low on meat. Can’t run on pulp-slurp forever, boss.”

“You’re right,” I said, looking at the assortment of vehicles. “Once Big’un is up and running, we’ll make a run at the savannah. How soon?”

“Tomorrow, earliest,” the ignis said. “Day beyond more like.”

“Guess we’ll be cinching up belts another two days, then,” I said.