CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
On the morning of our launch day, Kesn arrives at the ship with a landcraft-load of documents and personal items. She also brings her sister, Bmundn Gloomfire, so they can have a big family goodbye. I call Zaxn and get Gimmir to send us some extra assistance to move Kesn’s things to a guest quarters. Even with the help, it takes us a couple hours to get everything out of the landcraft and up to the 6th level. I thought about comparing it to Tanna’s overnight bags as a joke, but then I saw the important difference. Tanna’s packing is always just for overnight. Kesn’s packing is much more long-term.
When we’re done moving things, I dismiss Gimmir’s folk and wait while the three goblins say their goodbyes. After a couple minutes, Mrs. Gloomfire waves me over. I notice none of the three look sad, which is good. I’ve had all the sadness I can take recently!
They all look at me, but no one speaks. After a few seconds, Mrs. Gloomfire smacks Zaxn in the back of the head. “We’re not going to stand here all day, son. Say what you need to say.”
For a second, Zaxn Gloomfire, nerdy science goblin, returns in full force. His shoulders slump, he looks at the ground, and the tips of his ears curl over. But, as quickly as it happened, it disappears. He straightens and looks me in the eye. Zaxn Gloomfire, badass fire adept, smiles at his mother before turning to me.
“Commander. I’ve decided to resign from the UCST after we return to Terra. I’m going to be coming back home to take care of my mother and pick up where my father left off in his research into Stenchstone’s mana reserves.”
I’m stunned for a minute. I look between the three goblins and shake my head, smiling. “That figures. Right as I was thinking that this new version of Lieutenant Zaxn Gloomfire was going to actually be able to move up to LC and take control of his department, you take away all my hopes and dreams.”
He lays a hand on my shoulder. “Sorry, Rylae. I know I was difficult for you, and I appreciate all the help you gave me. But I recognize now that I was never really the right goblin for that job. Now that I’ve been back, and with the mission…” He smiles. “You gave me the opportunity to avenge my father, and I also want to be able to finish the work he started. If Stenchstone is going to be part of the interstellar community, we need more local adepts. I can do that. I need to do that.”
Nodding, I touch his hand on my shoulder. “I understand. I’ll need you to submit a resignation to me once we’re off-world, and I’ll make sure it goes through the proper channels. I’ll also make a recommendation to Admiral Shockpaw to bring you back with his diplomatic envoy, which I don’t expect will take very long to put together.”
He takes a step back and smiles at his mother. She reaches up to pat his head. “Good job, son. Now, go find me something to drink, won’t you?” With a nod, he darts off. When he’s out of the staging area, she sighs. “Thank you, Commander. With my sister leaving, I was worried I’d be alone for a long time, but knowing Zaxn is coming back home… that makes things better for me. I can wait for that. I’m sorry to take him from you.”
I shake my head and smile again. “Nonsense, ma’am. I’ll miss the nerdy science kid I’ve known for the last few years, but this new Zaxn is a much stronger goblin than the one I had on my team when we arrived. I’d rather have him somewhere that he can be his best, even if that’s not working for me.”
She smiles and turns to Kesn. I take a few steps back to give them some space and wait. Zaxn rushes back in after a minute, carrying a drink for his mother, and joins the two women. Eventually, the sisters hug, and Kesn walks toward me while Zaxn escorts his mother off the ship. I can see the tear trails on her face, so I don’t say anything as I walk with her to her guest quarters.
She steps inside and turns to me. “Thanks, Rylae. How long will we have before we arrive at Terra?”
I smile. “Lots of time. It’s about ten days of travel time, plus whatever we need for docking. Don’t spend too much time unpacking, though. I’ll make time to work with you after we dock to set up a quarters for you on Terra, where you can stay while you’re working with the Admiralty. So we’ll just have to move everything again when we get there.”
She chuckles, so I continue. “Try to make yourself comfortable for today. The mess hall’s at the other end of this level if you want something to eat. After we launch and I finish my verifications, I’ll come back and find you. I want to get you into the Ambassador office as soon as possible. We haven’t changed anything in there, and none of us know Calgonnel’s filing system, so there’s lots of unlabelled scrolls you can read through for the next ten days.”
She smiles and reaches for my hand. “Thanks, Rylae.”
I glance at her hand and cock my head questioningly, then snap to attention and salute. “Welcome to the United Corps of Starfield Travelers, Ambassador Dreadthief.”
She stands stunned for a second, then stands up straight and lays the side of her hand against her forehead. “Thank you, Commander.”
I drop the salute and laugh. “I’m just messing with you, Kesn. You don’t have to worry about saluting for some months yet. And you’ll get better at it, I promise! I’ll come find you in a few hours.”
She laughs, and I give her a hug before leaving. Walking away, I map in my head the best way through the ship to stop in each area and get them started on a tech inventory. I stop in the Mess Hall first and get the Lieutenant there started.
Heading down to level 5, I stop in Science. Zaxn isn’t here, but Lieutenant Vanwen Neltasyr is reading at her terminal. I decide not to say anything about Zaxn leaving until I receive his official resignation, and instead just ask the Lieutenant to work with her team on the tech inventory. She agrees and goes back to reading. As I walk away, I consider that response. Technically, Vanwen’s next in line behind Zaxn, but I wonder if it’s truly to my benefit to replace a nerdy science goblin with a standoffish science elf. I’ll have to think hard on that one.
Level 4 takes me to the hospital ward, and Lieutenant Bellas comes over to me when I walk in. I give him the details about the tech inventory we need to complete, and he takes the information to his boss. Sen still isn’t speaking to me, and that’s something I’ve let go on for more than long enough. I make a mental note to sort things out after launch. Halder’s seamstress room is on this level as well, so I stop in to have him start an inventory.
On the next level down, I find Simon and Gimmir in the battalion office and give them the news about the tech inventory. They agree to not only complete the inventory on the armory and training area, but also the storage bay since it’s currently half-full of spellshooters. Gimmir says he’ll pass the word to Lada when she’s done reorganizing security around the Admiral again, so I leave that to him.
When I finally get to level 2, I head into Engineering, which is my final stop. It’s my turn to monitor it during launch while Cap takes Tactical. Walking in, I see Tanna at her desk in the back, so I navigate my way through the workstations and folk to get back there myself. Dropping into a chair, I watch her scan through monitoring reports.
After a few minutes, she notices me and points out a spike in the graph she’s looking at. “This is where we are after only three full days of using Zaxn’s theories to pump Stenchstone mana into our battery. We had enough to get us back to Terra without it, but in three days we’ve almost added enough to cover the entire trip! They should manufacture batteries here. They’d likely make a fortune.”
Interesting. I wonder if Zaxn knew that already, or if that’s part of the research his father was working on. Shrugging, I reply, “That might be something they can work on when the Admiral comes back. You should put together a report for him.”
She makes herself a note in her terminal and turns back. “We have less than an hour until launch. Did Kesn make it on?”
I nod. “She did. We’re ready to go on schedule. Everything ready here?”
I get a s
hrug in response, which isn’t all that encouraging even if she is smiling while she does it. “Um… excuse me, Engineering? That wasn’t really the response I was hoping for.”
She chuckles as she shrugs again. “Technically, I don’t know if everything is ready. LC Pikeforge is managing this launch. I’m just verifying numbers.” She gestures at a female dwarf standing by the large holoreport graph, pointing at things and sending other engineers scurrying around.
“In that case, you obviously can’t help me, so I’ll go ask the LC how things are going. I also need to figure out how to word my suggestion to have my Chief Engineer moved off-ship to a teaching position…” I duck as a parchment ball flies at my head. “Also need to add insubordination to that request…” Another ball misses my head by a meter and hits the wall instead.
Looking over, I see Tanna preparing another one. “One of these days, girl, I’m going to figure out why I continue to work for you instead of some hot male Commander who knows how to treat his Engineering assets.”
I cock my head. “Are you sure you mean ‘assets’ and not ‘chest sets’?”
She smiles and adjusts her breasts in her uniform. “Whatever works!” She laughs, which is all the time I need to snatch a parchment ball from the floor and hit her in the face with it.
A cleared throat sound draws my attention to LC Pikeforge a few steps away. “Ma’am. If you’re done assaulting my boss with parchment, I can give you an update on launch readiness.”
Smiling, I stand. “Thank you, LC. Tell me, do you think Commander Aldamiel would be better teaching a second year Engineering class, or a first year class?”
The LC shrugs. “Second year, ma’am. She’d never graduate anyone out of first year after they all quit or change specialties. At least by second year they’re committed and won’t easily leave to avoid her.”
I nod and tap my chin. “Excellent point. I’ll add that to my recommendation. Thanks LC.” That earns me a parchment ball to the back of my head, but I ignore it and follow the dwarf woman to her readiness station.
She takes me through the details, and I sit with her as she finishes her preparations. Time moves quickly as I watch the department work, and we reach imminent launch. I focus in on the conversation with Tactical and verify the work being done.
“Tactical copies. Preparations complete. Launch procedure ready for activation.”
“Engineering copies. Mana flow to Flight is stable. System is holding, waiting for Propulsion activation. Tactical, you may activate when you are ready.”
“Tactical copies. Activation in ten. Five. Two, one. Launch activation”
The department goes nuts as they start shouting details back and forth to each other. The LC stares at the holoreport in front of her with a confused look. I step closer to her. “Problem, LC?”
She points at the chart. “I’ve never seen an anomaly like this before. I need to grab the Commander.”
She runs off to Tanna’s desk while I look at the chart. I still don’t know exactly what I’m looking at, but I notice patterns easily. That spike looks decidedly familiar.
Tanna jogs up when the communicator goes off again. “Engineering, please confirm stability of Flight and accuracy of Propulsion.”
Tanna scans the report and replies swiftly. “Tactical, we have an anomaly. Full stop while we investigate.”
A second passes. “Full stop successful. Ground Control, please verify.”
“Full stop verified.”
“Thank you. Engineering, please confirm anomaly.”
During that exchange, Tanna and the LC went back and forth and agreed on a course of action. The LC runs off again while Tanna turns to me and points to the spike I already noticed. “Do you see that, too?”
I nod. “It looks exactly like the spike you showed me earlier. What happened?”
She rotates the graph. “We had a mana overflow into the Propulsion spell. It spiked at 116%, exactly the same spike as the amount of mana we added to the battery. Short version, we were going faster than expected, and the LC’s going to see if we can contain it.”
Tapping the communicator charm, she speaks to Tactical. “Tactical, we have a mana overflow at 116%. Please factor this into your directions up to the point of full stop. We’re working to contain the overflow now. Propulsion verification report shows 94.2% accuracy at coordinates 115, 98, 94.”
“Tactical confirms five-point-eight percent at 115, 98, 94. Adjustments in progress for accuracy and overflow. Awaiting result of maintenance. Please advise when ready.”
Five minutes pass before the LC Pikeforge returns. “Ma’am. Commander. My results are strange.” We both turn to her as she continues, “We tapped the mana flow to create a steady drain. That drain was still at 116% into a simple light spell. We attempted to siphon off the extra 16% into a different spell… and ended up with two streams at 116%. I didn’t think that was possible.”
I grab my communicator. “Zaxn Gloomfire.”