CHAPTER NINETEEN
The rest of the meeting is a lot calmer as Calgonnel takes over again. We decide that the best thing to do next is visit the warehouse LC Darkmuck works at before it gets late, and that way we won’t keep the Overseer from his work or from his appointment at the Palace. I have an additional thought that we should maybe read through the records of the other Darkmucks, just to see if there’s some connection to our LC, and the Overseer agrees and promises to put Rosa on the search after escorting us back to the landcraft storage.
As we prepare to leave, Calgonnel picks up the scroll with the fake message on it, looks at it for a second, then puts it back down. “Your Honor, I think I’ll leave this true copy in your hands. If you get a chance to look at it later, maybe something small will jump out at you as another clue.”
The Overseer nods and reaches out to shake Calgonnel’s hand. “Excellent idea. It’s always good to look at something again with fresh eyes after a break. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
Dropping Calgonnel’s hand, he turns to me and takes mine. “Commander. I’m truly sorry for our misunderstanding earlier. I recognize you now as true family to His Excellency, and that you’re only looking out for him. I pray you find the answers to this puzzle and that nothing terrible happens to you in the search.”
He raises my hand to his lips briefly, then lays it gently on my breast before taking his fingers away with a light brush against my shoulder. My heart flutters a little. The Overseer may not exactly be my type of man, but I can’t deny the total sexiness of that gesture!
It takes me another second to find my voice again. “Your Honor. It’s been a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for your assistance and hospitality. I hope we have a chance to share another meal before we leave your world.”
He smiles at me, then looks past me. “Master Sergeant, I return your crew members to your care. Please be careful with them, especially in the industrial district. Quadrant 2 is a fairly safe area, but there are a lot of blind alleys in the district which some of our few criminal elements like to use.”
Simon nods. “Understood. Thank you for the advice, Your Honor.”
Rosa opens the office door and we follow her out of the building. Some goblins still slow to look as we pass, but we’re no longer as unique as we were before lunch. Reaching the front door, the guards again open both doors for us to pass through. We thank them and walk to the bottom of the steps.
Now that lunchtime has passed, the path is much less crowded than earlier. My mischievous streak kicks back in, and I have an idea. “Simon, we have less cover now. I’ll take the rear while you lead, as we practiced. Rosa can walk behind you and give you directions.”
Simon nods and steps in front of the girl. She looks at his back for a second, then looks down. She turns to me with wide eyes which turn into a huge grin as she gives me a thumbs-up gesture. I barely hold in the chuckle. Calgonnel turns to me and cocks an eyebrow. I put on my most innocent-looking face and shrug, blinking my eyes a lot. He just shakes his head.
We walk back quickly, as I scout behind and around us. Nothing jumps out at us, and the trip is uneventful. As we get to the landcraft area, Simon breaks off ahead to speak to an attendant and retrieve a vehicle. Rosa stares after him for a second, then turns to us. She shakes her head. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen elves. Maybe you can come back this way before you leave. Maybe… all three of you can.” The shy smile from earlier returns to her face.
I chuckle and place a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll see what we can do. I am Simon’s boss, after all. Maybe I can order him to take you to dinner or something.”
She winks at me as the corner of her mouth turns up to add a bit of evilness to the shy smile. “Or something.”
I laugh and lean in closer to her as I lower my voice. “I don’t think I can order him to do that. Some things have to be your responsibility!”
She laughs and we share a hug. “Thanks for the help, Commander.”
I smile as I take a step back. “Rylae. Glad to meet you, Rosa.”
“And I, you, Rylae!” She turns to Calgonnel. “Ambassador Telathyr. I’ll send you those records as soon as I can collect them. Probably tomorrow.”
He reaches out to shake her hand. “Thank you, Miss Rosa. If you come across anything that seems especially important, feel free to call me directly at any time. I’ll be sure to tell His Excellency how helpful you are.”
A light red blush colors her green cheeks. “Thank you, Ambassador. It’s a pleasure to work with you.”
At that point, a landcraft pulls up and the goblin attendant steps out of it. Simon looks it over and waves to us. The three of us walk over, and Rosa places a scrap of parchment in Simon’s hand. “If you don’t call me for dinner tonight, Simon, I’ll have Rylae order you to show up on my doorstep with flowers.” Her fingertips linger on his hand as she lets it drop, turns, and walks away without looking back.
I try to put my innocent face back on before he turns to me, but it doesn’t work when I’m also trying not to laugh out loud. He gives me a dirty look and gets in the landcraft. Calgonnel’s already inside, so I walk to the other side and get in. The craft takes off almost as soon as I close the door.
The ride to the warehouse district only takes about ten minutes on the mostly-empty roads. With Simon being sullen and uncommunicative, Calgonnel and I discuss the upcoming interview of LC Darkmuck. We agree that I should handle it from a command perspective, on the grounds that I “don’t start another interstellar incident”. I think he’s joking when he says that, but he sure looks serious. I fixed it, so it should be okay! …Right?
Yes, I get that I’m not the best diplomat. There’s reasons why I stay on the ship and don’t meet with Kings and Overseers regularly. I’ll work on it when I get my promotion. Until then, I have a lot of other skills that I can, and should, be using instead.
We arrive in the industrial district, and the landcraft begins driving between the large buildings. These reddish clay buildings are all wider across than the Overseer’s office, but are only one level with occasional second-level bits sticking out of the top at random spots like spikes – probably offices or storage areas. They have many doors where folk can enter and exit, and I’m sure many folk work inside each building.
At the corner of each building is a handful of smaller landcraft, and one or two large folk-mover landcraft. These corners contain their own landcraft beacons so vehicles can drive right up to the buildings. Most of the folk who work here will normally meet at a regular landcraft storage area, where these large folk-movers would collect many of them at once to bring them to the building. The smaller landcraft are likely owned by managers and owners of the warehouses, or other important folk.
Eventually, our landcraft rounds the corner of a building and pulls itself into a space next to other landcraft. Simon reaches over and taps a command into the terminal, which causes the vehicle to shut down and a small charm to pop out. Similar to the charms that work on the outside ship door, these charms allow the landcraft to work. The attendants take care of them most of the time, but in cases like this we have to keep the key charm ourselves.
Looking around, there aren’t any folk near us. Across the walkway at the opposite building, there’s a construction crew of six goblins sitting on scaffolding and pretending to work. Construction worker laziness must be a rule across all worlds. They don’t seem to notice us immediately, but one of them does finally realize that two of us are elves and gets the attention of the others so they can stare as a group.
Simon notices them and stands to face them while we round the corner of the building behind him. On this side is a door standing open, so we step inside. Simon follows us in and turns to survey the interior.
The building is a warehouse full of crates and boxes. A few folk are using float units to move the crates around, while other folk are making notations on par
chment. A notation-taking goblin nearby starts turning to us while speaking. “This is a UCST storage facility. It is off limits to… Son-of-a-dwarf-licker! You’re elves!” Once he’s fully facing us, the last part is accompanied by a dropped parchment board as his hands fly to his face.
I step forward and look at his insignia. “Indeed, Lieutenant, we are elves. I need to speak to your LC. Now, Lieutenant!”
The flustered goblin sees my insignia and salutes. “At once, Commander! So sorry, Commander!” He drops the salute and runs off.
As much as I want to chuckle at the Lieutenant’s antics, I’m fully in XO Westiel mode now. I bend down to pick up the dropped parchment board, straighten it, lay it on the nearest desk, and take up a stance which comes off as both bored and irritated at the same time – a ‘command stance’, if you will.
I’m glancing around the room when I notice another goblin in a jumpsuit uniform quickly walking towards us. He reaches us and salutes. “Commander, ma’am. I am Lieutenant Commander Darkmuck. I am currently in charge of this shift. How may I help you, ma’am?”
I return the salute. “LC Darkmuck. Excellent. You are exactly who we’re here to see. I am Commander Westiel, Executive Officer, UCST Corsari. With me are Ambassador Telathyr and Master Sergeant Darkrender, also from the Corsari. Do you have someplace private we can talk?”
He nods. “Of course. Our conference chamber is in this direction. Please follow me.”
We follow the LC through the maze of crates and boxes. He moves quickly, an obvious combination of knowing his way around and being completely terrified of his visitors. The other goblins in the warehouse eventually notice us and stop to stare as we pass – that is, until they see Simon and quickly return to their duties while pretending they didn’t see anything at all.
As we walk, I glance around at the crates and start to recognize markings from our own ship stores. Gimmir and Simon are usually in charge of the armory, so I don’t requisition most of these things myself, but I recognize some of the crates as holding different weapons, armor, and smithing tools.
We quickly come to a set of clay stairs which leads to a small room above us. The LC holds up a hand to stop us, then ascends to the room. We hear some indecipherable yelling, and a handful of goblins emerge from the room. As they grumble down the stairs, they notice us, snap a salute, then run away as fast as they can.
The LC returns at the top of the stairs. “Sorry about your wait, ma’am. If you would please join me?”
We climb the stairs to the room, a small space with a table and eight chairs. I take a chair at the end of the table farthest from the door, and Calgonnel sits next to me. I motion to a chair across from us, which the LC takes. Simon remains standing by the door.
I focus on the goblin. “LC Spazkin Darkmuck, correct?”
He nods. “Yes ma’am.”
“LC, I want to start off by saying a few things. First, you’re not in any kind of trouble. Your name is prominent in an investigation we’re undertaking, but you’re currently not in trouble. In fact, we just left the Overseer’s office, and he clarified that you’ve never been in trouble on-world, so we have no reason to think you’re personally involved in this.”
He nods, but is still obviously scared. This next part won’t help. “Second, the investigation we’re conducting is regarding falsified Overseer-type documents which were sent directly to the Admiralty. In those documents, you are directly named as guilty of crimes against the throne of King Damnation.”
He stops breathing as he looks at me, and I see his mouth start to quiver. Before he can say anything, I hold up a hand. “Calmly, LC. As I said, you’re not in trouble. We don’t believe you have anything to do with any crimes against the throne. But we do need to see if you know anything helpful that we can use to sort this out.”
The LC breathes again, reaching a shaky hand up to wipe sweat from his brow. “Yes, ma’am. I understand. Please excuse my reaction. This is quite unexpected.”
I nod. He seems like a nice kid. “I apologize. This mission is quite urgent, and we only arrived on-world yesterday. If I could have provided you with more notice, I would have.”
He smiles. “This is the Corps. Why start warning us now?” That old line makes me chuckle softly, which helps the LC ease a little more. “What can I help you with, ma’am?”
“I’ll get straight to the point, LC. Can you think of anyone who would use your name and claim you were an assassin?”
He jumps. “Assassin? I would never be an assassin! I don’t have any friends who would even do that as a joke! That’s really, really not funny!”
“LC. Please.”
That gets his attention back. “Sorry, Commander. I don’t associate with the remaining criminal elements on Stenchstone. Now that the world is at peace, I have a pretty nice job here at this warehouse – moving weapons crates around, keeping count of them, and trading old ones with new ones every few months when a trade ship lands. I don’t want to risk that. So I can’t imagine anyone I know who would tell the Admiralty that I’m an assassin!”
I nod and stand. Calgonnel and the LC stand with me. “Thank you, LC. I believe you didn’t have anything to do with this.” I see Calgonnel nod in agreement at the side of my vision. “However, your name was definitely on the forged document the Admiralty received. If you can think of anyone who might use your name for that, please contact me on the Corsari immediately. Until then, if you could show us out, I’d appreciate it.”
He nods and walks to the door. We follow him down the stairs and stand for a second while he looks around, obviously wondering if someone in his warehouse could be the one who used his name. While he’s collecting himself, I notice a stack of crates against a far wall that looks oddly familiar and begin walking to it.
Behind me, I hear Calgonnel’s questioning voice say my name. Without turning, I motion for them to follow.
When I reach the crate, it comes to me where I’ve seen these markings before. I turn to see the LC. “Have there been any thefts from this warehouse, or any missing items recently?”
He shakes his head. “No, ma’am. All of our inventories have been at 100% for the last four years. We’re very proud of that statistic!”
“Can you tell me what these particular crates contain and where they’re from?”
He nods as he steps forward and lifts a lid for me to see inside. “Of course, Commander. These are crates of spellshooters from the dwarven weaponsmiths on Hallowforge.”
That’s interesting. Why is my storage bay full of crates of spellshooters from Hallowforge?