Eileen guided the command craft up and away from Bluff Apollo, angling south toward the badlands and eventually the desert.
Forest goblin, hobgoblin, noblin, and the odd boglin all worked around the gun deck, even if what they worked at was trying to stay busy in front of the goblin emperor.
But me? I simply leaned out the hatch and watched as the terrain passed below. The broad wings trailed clouds of greasy, oily exhaust behind them and the fighters to either side made similar trails. We cut lines across the sky and I marveled. Tribe Apollo had more jet fighters than many actual Earth countries. On top of that, since several of these aircraft were meant for Lura, that meant we were now an aerospace military hardware export nation, which was a very exclusive club back home.
Our progress had no natural mirror on Earth. A jungle tribe had briefly forayed in animal-drawn carts and carriages before transitioning to dirt bikes and engine-driven cars. We’d flown helicopters before inventing tanks, and invented jets before trains or large ships. It made sense for a land-locked heavily forested region to take to the sky. But most cultures on Earth don’t start from scratch with innate knowledge from higher education.
We flew over herds of animals on the badlands being hunted by formations of goblin vehicles and some orcs on their oryx. The hunting rights we’d won were keeping the tribe well-fed. Further south, the badlands flattened even further, until it transitioned into a shimmering salt-flat. The mirage made it look as though we passed over a great lake, but below us a large collection of tents and temporary structures stuck up from the otherwise perfectly flat terrain.
Eileen put us into a bank and the sound of the turbines relaxed. Our altitude slowly ticked down on the status window as we turned, and the goblins behind me started to get very excited at the prospect of invading the orc side of the camp below. Probably to look for any food that had been dropped as the orcs were undeniably fantastic cooks.
We touched down on the flats. Once we came to a stop, I jumped down from the command craft with Armstrong. A line of orcs wearing the blue and yellow of the Dawn’s Light waited and watched, along with as many goblins—sent in advance to help prepare the airfield to receive and service a dozen aircraft. The air on the flats was dry and sweltering. Dust blew in on the breeze and heat radiated up from the sun-baked terrain. I had to shield my eyes against the oppressive glare of the sun off the salt and quartz.
A familiar orc detached from the waiting pack and strode over. Lura Sunskin looked every bit the champion, dressed in fine leathers and a skirt of blue patterned fabric that I doubted very much the orcs had woven themselves. Weapons hung at her belt with hafts and handles polished and free of rust or tarnish.
“Welcome, little brother king,” she said. She glanced above my head for a moment. “Little brother emperor, I ought say. Of knees bent and heads bowed, you come. Well you’ve fared, since last we met.”
“We’ve had our share of trouble along the way,” I said. “Had to deal with an elf infestation, Midnighters showed up at my door, and we recruited most of the other goblin tribes in the jungle.”
Lura offered just the barest hint of surprise at the mention of the Midnight Queen before mastering her expression. “Hence why sluggish you’ve been, meeting promised deeds.”
Huh. I’d like to see her pull an advanced turbine aircraft fleet out of that skirt. But, liking my head where it was, I kept that thought to myself. Her camp stretched out behind her, as did a veritable army of very capable hunters who were all here to take on the biggest, baddest creature on the continent for nothing other than the sheer sport of it. It would not do well to get on their bad side. And in any case, I liked Lura. Competitive drive was something I understood all too well. Despite her slate-grey skin and tusks, Lura would have fit right in on my college rowing team.
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I looked around at the other aircraft beginning to land on the flats. “This is a good area you’ve chosen, Lura. Perfect terrain for runway.” In the distance to the south, I could just see the variance of the desert dunes breaking up the uniform horizon. The edge of the desert was maybe twenty kilometers away. I didn’t know how large the null devil’s territory ranged, but this would be within striking distance of it. “What do you call this place?”
“No name has this stretch of salt, forsaken by beast and bully alike. Tis a place of no value, unless to bake ‘neath the sun is your heart’s deepest wish.”
“Well we can’t very well call it Forsaken by Beast and Bully,” I said.I thought for a moment. “China Lake,” I finally settle on. “This is now China Lake.”
Armstrong nudged me. “Umm, boss? Did we miss the lake part?”
I didn’t feel like explaining the aviation history behind China Lake to someone who had never even seen California, so I ignored the question. If I understood the orc appreciation for ironic humor, I imagined Lura would approve of the name—and in fact, she nodded her appreciation of it.
“What mean you, that we’ve missed the lake?” she said. She stomped on the hard salt. “Tis right here. We are simply absent water for two day’s ride in any direction.”
Lura’s hunters laughed, and because they laughed, the goblins among them also began to laugh. Armstrong and the other secretive service members, not wanting to be left out, joined in as well.
Lura’s grin softened. “Now, little brother, I am no stranger to the riding of a winged beast of tooth and claw. But such creatures have not the fleetness of the sky devil, and flag before reaching its heights. Tell me of these iron birds you’ve wrought to bear us higher and faster into the sky.”
“I thought you’d never ask,” I said, rubbing my hands together.
As the rest of the aircraft made approaches and landed, I wove Lura in between different models. “These two are goblin interceptors. They won’t do much to your sky devil, but they’re great at running interference. Most of ours are back in the jungle. Those slightly bigger ones are our air-superiority fighters. Wrangler-driven with guns fore and aft.”
We got to the orc fighters. Like the rest of our fleet, these delta-wing aircraft had fat central bodies, but instead of one central turbine like a Sabre, these had one on each wing, and a pair of large guns protruded from the underbody.
“This is what you’re really here for,” I said. “These are what your Dawn’s Light pilots will be taking up.”
“Interesting,” said Lura. She ran a hand over one of the muzzles that sat at chest level. “When the dartwing you chased, a similar artifice you employed ‘gainst its flight, yes?”
I nodded. “Similar. It functions practically the same, and you’ll have goblins loading it. But your orcs have much better luck hitting your targets, I’m betting.”
Lura leaned up and peered into the (thankfully) now-still fan duct of one of the turbine engines on the side of the fuselage. “These are how it propels itself across the sky?”
“Yep. You won’t understand them through the auxiliary skill transfer—they’re too deep in the Goblin Tech Tree. All your aircraft will have technicians aboard. But the basic flight controls, aerodynamics, push-to-talk radios, and weapons? No problem. All that’s left is…” I waved my hand, “…to do that thing Sourtooth did in order to partner up.”
Lura raised her gaze to the sky. “Grandfather?”
The eyes of the orcs in the Dawn’s Light faction glazed over as a mild tech trance passed over them. Once it passed, they begin to crowd forward and examine the aircraft with a new level of interest and understanding.
Lura’s own eyes cleared and began to flick back and forth as she no doubt began to examine menus I couldn’t see.
“Oh little brother, mine,” she said with a grin and a sing-song voice. “You have been holding out on me.”
“See anything else you like?” I asked.
In response, she turned around.
“Fire up the forges, lads!”