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CHAPTER TWO

  For all the amazing and magical things about traveling the starfield, there’s one thing that is both absolutely magical and absolutely not amazing, and that’s an actual starship. Sure, on the inside, a ship can be quite homey and comfortable. On the outside… well… it looks a lot like an ugly dirt box, but with less character. I’ve seen prettier buildings on goblin worlds. I guess the best word for it is ‘utilitarian’. It doesn’t have a need for fancy angles, so they didn’t create any fancy angles for it.

  When a ship is docked on-world, it just looks a lot like someone built a fifth-century dwarven feasting hall in the middle of a bunch of modern government buildings and warehouses. The UCST dock yard is a fantastic place full of fancy technology, with folk and supplies being shuttled to and from an ugly dirt box… the irony of it all is rather great. I can almost imagine how that conversation at the Admiralty must have gone one day:

  “Admirals, the current question before the council is in regards the design of starships. The question is a request for the creation of an ‘office of shipbuilding’ to design and create more aesthetically pleasing starships.

  “All admirals for the motion, please shine your crystals. Yes, yes, thank you. All elven admirals unanimously vote for the office. All dwarven and goblin admirals vote against. The motion fails to pass. Ugly dirt box starships win again.” Okay, so it probably didn’t go exactly that way, but I like to think it did.

  At least they were nice enough to paint the starship name in nice large letters on each side so you can know which ugly dirt box is yours. I’m sure that only came to pass because there was once a large gathering of docked starships where no one could figure out where they parked. No one in the UCST Admiralty is known for solving problems before they happen, which has somehow managed to turn into a positive in regards to ‘efficiency’. They surely don’t waste time on things that haven’t presented an actual problem yet, so they are surely efficient. The Admiralty employs excellent propaganda masters.

  My landcraft comes to a stop in the storage area nearest the UCST Corsari. As I climb out of the landcraft, I spot Lada walking towards the ship, a spellshooter on her hip and a two-handed longsword against her uniformed shoulder. Lieutenant Commander Lada Axesmith is Security Chief on the Corsari, and is one dwarf lady you absolutely don’t want to cross. She may only be around 120 centimeters tall, but that tiny frame packs a lot of power. The senior officers really hate the weekly beating they take in their scheduled training sessions with her. I sometimes enjoy it, but I’m a bit strange and have ‘reasons’.

  I smile and wave. “Hey, Lada!”

  Lada half-salutes by raising the sword above her blonde head, then replacing it on her shoulder. “Hey, Ma’am. Coming from the practice battlefield now. Gimmir and Simon should be not far behind. They were running some training skirmishes when you called and had some things to clean up before they get back to the ship.”

  Gimmir Giantbasher is my Battalion Major, directly in charge of the fighting land battalion. He’s a dwarf, a bit younger than Lada, but almost as dangerous. Smonz Darkrender is the goblin lucky enough to be Master Sergeant. Simon’s in charge of all the non-commissioned troops on-ship, and most of those are in Gimmir’s battalion. They work together pretty well, but their arguments usually require a lot of ale and a visit to the hospital ward before they’re resolved.

  Lada grins behind her close-cropped beard, and an evil light hits her eyes. “Remind me later to put some of the Elite through the senior officer trainings. They really need to toughen that crew up.” We share a laugh. The Giantbasher Elite aren’t a crew to take lightly, but compared to Lada everyone needs to toughen up.

  I smack her on the shoulder and match her strides to the ship. “I’ll be sure to send that recommendation to Gimmir, and I’ll also be sure to put your name on it.” Lada’s grin grows just a bit at that comment. Gimmir will absolutely disagree that his Elite needed any special training. He’ll disagree loudly, and he’ll disagree with physical force. Lada’s probably directly hoping for that, and I know better than to ask questions. They’re both senior officers. Regulations allow it, so I don’t care whose quarters they wake up in… or destroy the night before.

  As we near the ship, a young goblin cadet runs over and pushes a staircase up to the side of the ship. For another reason no one can entirely figure out, the standard folk-size doors on a starship are always on the second level, never the ground level. One nice thing about it is the ‘safety feature’ of a door which won’t open without a staircase present. A spelled charm is on the ship directly under the door, and another is on the staircase at the top. When they touch, the doorway becomes transparent, allowing someone to walk through. Opening it without the staircase requires a senior officer override command. As with all the other solutions around here, there were probably a dozen or more folk that fell out of starships before the Admiralty approved that solution. ‘Efficiency’.

  Once the staircase is connected, the goblin cadet salutes us, raising a gnarled green hand to the brim of his white cap which leaves his long pointy green ears uncovered, and we salute back. Goblin cadets are probably the nicest of all the cadets, but that’s likely because they’re going to be regular difficult goblins once they get older. Goblins aren’t exactly ‘evil’, but I don’t think anyone would ever say they were exactly ‘nice’, either. They’re just goblins, and “goblins will be goblins”, as the saying goes.

  Lada takes the lead up the staircase. As security chief, she’s always making sure she’s between the senior officers and anything that might be trouble. That includes the ship, if she hasn’t been on it yet today. She walks into the ship, checks the main corridors, then waves me in. We make a few turns, go upstairs to the fifth level, then head toward the Operational Discussion Chamber.

  As we arrive, Lada speaks the senior officer passphrase that causes the door to fade out. She walks inside, glances around, then motions to me and walks toward her chair. I walk into the room to see two of my senior officers are already here, but I was expecting that. Both of them are wearing the standard white-blue-and-grey jumpsuit-style ship uniform like Lada and myself. They salute without standing when they see it’s me. I return the salute and sit down. I give them a quick hand gesture to wave them back to their discussion, and they continue talking to each other from wherever they were before Lada and I walked in.

  Lieutenant Commander Sen Foulmuck, Chief Caregiver, and Lieutenant Zaxn Gloomfire, Chief Science Officer, don’t really have much to do off-ship, and work together a lot while we’re docked to go over new hospital research. Being the only other goblin senior officers, besides Simon, they often ‘work together’. Again, regulations, and again I don’t care and don’t ask.

  But if Sen’s bedside manner off-shift is anything like her bedside manner in the hospital ward, then maybe I feel bad for Zaxn. He’s about as nerdy as a goblin can get, but he’s damn smart. One of the best goblin theorists I’ve ever met. Maybe even a little less evil than most of the other goblins, but that might just be my opinion. I’m sure the quite-a-bit-older caregiver is doing her best to help corrupt the much younger goblin nerd boy.

  I log into my terminal and start filtering through messages again. There’s a new one from the storage bay chief complaining about taking on too many supplies and needing additional cubic meters of space freed up. That dwarf never seems to have enough available space down there. I think some days he’s just picking an arbitrary number as a ‘requirement’ so he can complain about it again. It’s a storage bay. What good is it if we don’t store stuff in it?

  Technically he falls under Zaxn’s department, since a lot of spell ritual equipment for his department is stored down there, but Zaxn’s a little light on leadership qualities so I help him out with some things. We may be the same age, but Zaxn definitely seems about 25 years younger sometimes. I guess that’s just the nerdy science goblin boy way. I know some elves like
that as well.

  The door fades and my Chief Ambassador, Commander Calgonnel Telathyr, walks in wearing brown slacks and a checkered button-up shirt. Calgonnel (never ‘Cal’, unless you want to be a footstool for a visiting dignitary during meetings) is one of the officers with an on-world quarters, where I know he meets with other ambassadors, local politicians, and other folk he knows. Being a starship ambassador, he has a number of folk on every world that he has to keep in regular contact with, learning what’s changed since he’s been off-world. He dresses to fit the occasion, so I’m not surprised to see him in more business-style clothing instead of a uniform.

  He sees me, half salutes, then walks to his chair. I don’t run a very formal environment when the Captain isn’t around. I just don’t see any need for it. The Captain always gets the formal salutes, and the junior officers need to learn the discipline, but when it’s just senior officers amongst ourselves, throw your hand towards your head and continue on, or stay in your chair. We have things to do that are more important than formalities. I understand the respect shown through the discipline, but I also know my staff respects me without the need to formally salute.

  I look to Calgonnel and make a few head gestures that don’t really mean anything, but he seems to catch my meaning and nods. Calgonnel’s an older elf, a few years past retirement age, but one of the best diplomats in the business. When we’re on a non-Terra homeworld at a conference or a summit, he outranks me on-world, and I outrank him on-ship. It’s an odd relationship, but I think we handle it well – not that we’ve had much reason to have problems yet. The Level 0 we got today may be the first time we actually put it to good use. Based on his reaction to my meaningless gestures, I know he has all the information I have, so it’s just the rest of the staff that needs to be brought up to speed on the details.

  Just then a new pair walk in – Gimmir and Simon. I highly doubt another pair of individuals anywhere could be more battle-hardened, and I’d put either one of them up against a goblin hit squad or dwarven raiding party any day of the week. Together, they’re possibly unstoppable. They’re both in full skirmish armor, mostly leathers with padding on the knees and elbows, having just come from the battlefield as Lada mentioned earlier. They raise weapons in salute – a double-bladed battle axe for Gimmir, and a short sword for Simon – and I salute back. They get to their chairs as the last pair of missing officers enters the room, having had to come farthest since they were already at the bar waiting for me when I had to call them back.

  Tanna walks in, the voluptuous elven beauty that she is, with Aelon following behind, equally majestic in his handsomeness. Some days, I’m totally jealous and envious of Tanna’s beauty. Other days, I just want to kill her for it. She looks like an elven goddess, with long brown hair resting on her sexy bronze shoulders, amazing large breasts and perfectly curved waist shown off in a dark pink corset top, and long lithe legs flowing out of a short pink skirt. If she wasn’t my best friend, I’d absolutely hate her. Dragons be damned, some days I hate her anyway. My skinny elf ass doesn’t look anything like that. Sure, okay, I guess I’m pretty, but I’m not that kind of pretty.

  Having the gorgeous hunk of man-meat that is Lieutenant Commander Aelon Onoviel follow her in doesn’t do much for my jealousy either. His thick shoulders and muscular chest are easily visible under a tight grey UCST t-shirt, with his strong legs and firm ass in a pair of very form-fitting jeans. Yes, since he’s my Chief Tactical Officer, I can’t officially get into a relationship with him. I know that. But the regulations can’t stop Tanna. Regulations be damned. It’s also a fairly weird situation, since Tanna’s my best friend. We share stories about everything, including their love life. So I know exactly how tactical Aelon can be when he’s trying to maneuver into Tanna’s pants. It sometimes makes for an odd working relationship, but I can usually succeed in not thinking about him naked. Usually.

  They half-salute and take their seats. Tanna turns to me. “We’re all here, boss. Sorry Aelon and I were late. We had a lunch meeting that was unceremoniously cancelled.”

  I nod. Tanna and I are friends, but we know when to keep it to business. I might actually get on her case about that comment later, as it was slightly unprofessional. For now, I’m just going to leave it where it is. “No problem, Engineering,” I say, and the use of her department title seems to snap her back into the professional officer I need her to be. “I understood that the meeting was going to mess up plans when I called it, but it had to be done. In fact, a lot more of our plans are likely to need reworking after this meeting. Everyone needs to be thinking about what you absolutely need to be able to leave Terra as soon as possible. We’ll have to get some urgent orders through.”

  At my comment that we need to leave as soon as possible, everyone’s eyes open wider – with the exception of Calgonnel’s, affirming my previous assurance that he already knows what’s happening. Gimmir clears his throat. “But Ma’am, we’ve only just begun the battalion skirmishes. This could cause some serious problems if we need them while we’re out.” Simon nods his agreement, and I raise a hand to stop them.

  “Your point is noted, Major. I can’t be certain, but I’m expecting that we’re going to get the rest of our dock time back when we return, and I’m going to lobby the Admiralty for it. So we may just have to put those skirmishes on hold until after the mission when we can hopefully run them in full. In the meantime, the battalion should continue their individual and squad training.”

  Gimmir and Simon look at each other, then back to me and nod their acceptance. I nod back at them and turn my attention to Tanna. “Engineering, what are your requirements for getting us off-world as soon as possible?”

  Tanna turns on her terminal and brings up some reports, scanning over them quickly. “Without the time to run full recharge maintenance on the main mana battery core, we can safely run the ship for three months or so of full flight and life support, but we’ll start showing spell wear after that. We can ramp up our regular ship maintenance to try to extend that while we’re on mission, but I can’t guarantee much more. If we’re going to dock on a high-mana-bleed homeworld, that span will lessen considerably. If we could requisition a brand new fully charged secondary battery, we could move some secondary spells to that to save main battery power…”

  Tanna drifts off as a whistling sound fills the room. I stop taking notes immediately and all officers at the table stand, turn to the doorway, and salute. The Captain has a unique passphrase for doors which causes the whistle to sound, announcing his presence. After a second, the door fades out and Captain Elthen Gravelhand, Commanding Officer, UCST Corsari, enters the room. He’s wearing his full dwarven battle armor, minus the helmet, and carries a pole-axe that’s longer than I am tall, obviously coming straight here from the High Admiral Council where he learned of our mission.

  Captain Gravelhand walks to the head of the table and waits for the door to fade back in. He nods at us. “Sit. We’ve got a lot to do, and this horse ain’t gonna take itself to market, so we better get started.”