I didn’t want to give the elf time to plan and lick his wounds. But those silvermane night haunts had changed the game a bit. I couldn’t risk stumbling in blindly when there was a magic caster, and possibly something even worse than the silvermanes.
Two more days of prep had cut it close, but with our noses to the grindstone, we prioritized rounding out our earliest iteration of the jets, and I prepared to mount up along with Chuck and handful of his best wranglers in the heavy hobgoblin fighters, and Eileen with a half-dozen of her best air delivery pilots in the lighter goblin interceptors. Both had a small gaggle lined up behind them, ready to serve as flight crews/stowaways.
Over the last two days, we’d pumped every choom of icky-slicky oil out of Huntsville that we could and moved it over to Bluff Apollo. Now, it was going into a dozen stunted, fat-bodied jets that were every bit as uniform in build and design as our fleet of choppers had been. IE: Not even a little bit. Some of the jets had back-swept wings, others forward-swept wings. One had canards. Some had one vertical stabilizer, some had two (parallel and V-tail were both represented).
But they all flew. Except the one that exploded on takeoff. But you can’t expect goblin tech to work every time when even Earth experimental aircraft were unpredictable. We were entering the realm of high science and advanced aeronautics. On Earth, this was technology that had been developed side-by-side with the early rockets that had put the first satellites into orbit.
“Alright,” I said, marching back and forth in front of my flight crews. They weren’t exactly standing at attention. Some of them were slouching, others sitting, two were scuffling amongst themselves, and one had a finger up his nose. “I don’t have to tell you what’s at stake, here.”
Behind me, the crews finished fueling the jets and pulled the bladder buggies back to what they hoped was a safe distance.
“The night haunts have been a menace since the tribe was double-digits. But now, with an elf at the sticks, they’re a real threat. And we’re going to deal with them now. Chuck?”
“Yeah boss?”
“I want your fighters taking on any silvermanes that come out.”
“What about us, boss?” asked Eileen, eliciting chirps and squawks from her crews.
“Our job is to protect: The Package.”
The assembled pilots oohed and ah’d appropriately.
“Alright,” I said. “To your aircraft!”
The wrangler and air-delivery pilots scrambled, pushing each other out of the way in a mad dash to mount up—luckily most of them heading for the correct aircraft (even if it was probably luck). I did see one hobgoblin struggling to squeeze into an interceptor, and one air delivery goblin jumping to try and reach the ladder on a heavy fighter.
I moved to my own interceptor, feeling oddly naked without Armstrong’s shadow. But he’d picked 2 of his lightest-weight and mostly reliable forest goblins to serve as flight crew. I climbed aboard and was unsurprised to see the sparker flight engineer already fiddling with the radio, but was quite surprised to see a boglin squeezed into the back of the cabin with the banded markings of Tribe Apollo on his arms.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
The boglin shrugged.
“Must have rode in on the fuel trucks,” I guessed. “Wouldn’t you rather be back in the swamp?”
The boglin shook his head and made little flapping motions with his hands as he mimicked the sound of a jet engine. I opened my menu and looked at his stats.
“Well, you’re good enough at mechanics to be a flight technician, I suppose. Welcome aboard.”
Goblins only being about 3 feet tall, the jets had enough room to crawl around in, despite being half the size of an Earth fighter. I’d never been aboard a WWII bomber, but I’d seen plenty of movies, and the interior of the plane reminded me more of that than the cramped double-seater fighter jets of something like Top Gun. We needed the space inside because the plane was basically built around the engine so that the engine could be worked on in-flight. It was a delicate act, according to Chuck, to keep the propulsion system from exploding pretty much all the time, even with an ifrit inside.
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The rest of my crew scrambled aboard. The two secretive service goblins headed below the cockpit to the nose gun, while the other wriggled back and introduced himself to his new goblin partner. While they got situated, I strapped into the pilot chair and eyed the control console.
“Taquoho?”
“Greetings, King Apollo. My kin are eager to experience this new vessel.”
“How many of you are in here?”
“There are currently 2 unions aboard, and each other of your craft has at least 1. I should say, the debate over which of us would fly and who must stay behind on the bluff grew quite contentious.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Several unions split and reformed over the decisions.”
“Yikes,” I said. I flipped the toggle for the battery and the auxiliary power unit. The sparker went rigid behind me as his console sparked. “Glad to have you with us,” I said.
“There is nowhere this union would rather be.”
“Just remember, if we go down, take your radio parachute back to the bluff. I don’t want any ifrit getting stranded.”
There was a bright flash and a shwoosh noise outside the cockpit. I looked over the edge to see a rocket climbing skyward on a pillar of smoke that clearly originated in the cockpit of one of the interceptors.
“It appears your ‘wingman’ has located his ejection seat controls,” commented Taquoho.
“No kidding,” I said, reexamining the levers and toggles before switching any more of them.
“I have already disabled ours,”
“Good plan. Go ahead and cycle up the primer.”
I reached overhead and tugged the canopy closed and latched it. Behind me, the electric motor began pre-spinning the turbine. I could hear a whine mount as the electric fans started to draw air through the compressor. I reached up and pulled down the lever for the fuel pumps and set the throttle to start. The fuel pumps began drawing kerosene from the bladders, and one of the lines immediately sprang a leak. The boglin crawled up with his tool bag and applied an adhesive goo.
Deep in the belly of the aircraft, a rumble began to mount as the air-fuel mix compressed enough to ignite, and I watched the RPMs grow on the primitive tachometer gauge. I played the throttle up, bringing the turbine to life until it started producing enough power to self-sustain.
“Alright, Taquoho, we are hot. Generators on, main power on, auxilary power off.”
Switches on my console started to flick themselves to the proper position. The engine RPMs dipped a moment as the generator started drawing power for the jet’s electrical systems. A shower of sparks erupted out of the sparker’s console like the Enterprise had taken a Klingon torpedo, but the eclectic variant simply waved them out of his face and started tuning. A small fire broke out at the back of the engine, but my second technician started slapping it with a canvas cloth to smother the blaze. The cabin took on the distinct smell of hot metal and burning oil.
“Maduri-Massa-Morez would like you to know the engine is functioning within established parameters,” said Taquoho. “Flight control surfaces all function with at least 80% intended range of motion.”
I sighed, shaking my head. This aircraft would give an Earth pilot heart palpitations. “Alright. Everything looks good, I suppose.” Good enough for Goblin work, anyway. I tugged on my radio headset. “Bandit one to air delivery, taking the runway for departure to the northwest.”
The sparker opened his mouth and radio-garbled squawks came out. I assumed they were giving the go-ahead. And if they weren’t? I was the king, so too bad. I waved to the goblin ground crew, who pulled the chocks from in front of my wheels. I released the brakes, and got us rolling from the ramp to the runway. A semaphore goblin ran alongside, waving his flag to give us instructions. The runway itself wasn’t perfect—not just because we hadn’t invented asphalt or concrete yet. It had a visible curve off to the left, since goblins don’t really get the whole straight line idea. And it was basically dirt and grass that had been hacked at with hoes and stamped smoothish. A canvas windsock flapped at the top of a wooden pole, uncertain where the wind was coming from or where it was going.
That was fine. These aircraft had a little help for taking off. Once we got lined up, I pushed the throttle to max, and then reached up and pulled a lever overhead. I was immediately pushed back into my chair as the rocket booster under the aircraft ignited, shooting us forward across the runway so quickly I worried the landing gear would snap off. But System’s little flight status window popped up, and I watched the speed meter steadily climb until we got light on the ground. I pulled back on the stick and the ground vibrations vanished. Below me, I could see the ground rushing by through the open landing gear well.
“Gear up!” I yelled.
My techs scrambled to each be the one to start cranking the manual controls to lift the gear, with the forest goblin eventually winning out while the boglin sulked and nursed the engine. The gear wells closed, and I pushed the takeoff assist lever back flush, dropping the expended rocket booster back to the ground to be picked up later.
We climbed up, drawing level with the bluff. I opened up the throttle, squeezing more power out of the turbine. We kept climbing at a steep ascent rate. Turbine jets, compared to the performance of our powered gliders, were like the difference between a Ferarri and an Amish horse buggy. This was amazing. And it hadn’t even exploded on takeoff. Great for goblin work.
I pulled us into the pattern of traffic seemingly constantly surrounding the suspended bluff platforms and eased off the throttle. I could already see The Package pushing off from the dock. All that was left was for the escort to finish getting off the ground, and then we were taking the fight to the elf.
The little bastard wasn’t going to know what hit him.