<Your tribe has increased to 3312 members>

Some days later saw the tribe in a frenzy of activity. No attacks meant we could focus on development, and our renewed friendship with the Ifrit meant we had access to the Brass City's artificers along with the gratitude of the 1,000 name king. We put those artificers to good use, having the Ifrit craft components more precise and exacting than could ever come out of a goblin forge. Transistors, solenoids, crystals for radio tuning and control—they didn't need to know how radio waves or electricity worked in order to build devices that would use them. And we'd put those instruments into two small test rockets to get metrics, pointed them at the sky, and turned them on. Now it was time for the real thing. Our first flight to deliver a useful payload into orbit waited on the pad.

"Boss! Here's them figures from the priestesses you wanted!" said Eileen.

I put down the schematics I was reviewing and accepted the sheet of paper from my chief pilot. "Thanks," I said. The Midnighter priestesses were proving deft number crunchers—not unlike the human calculators that had been critical in the early space program on Earth. The Midnighters already had a version of algebra and geometry, and it wasn't a huge leap to get at least the priestess caste up to speed on trigonometry and some calculus which they did in the dark hollow of the pyramid interior. They also had accurate figures for the size of both Rava and Raphina, as well as the distance between them. We needed tests to know the exact details of orbit around Rava and a trans-lunar injection to get to Raphina.

Raphina was much closer to Rava than Luna was to Earth—and much larger than our own moon, too. In theory, it shouldn't take nearly as much fuel to escape Rava's gravity and travel the 170,000 kilochooms (roughly 97,000 kilometers, at my best conversion guess) to Raphina. But with a two-body mass, we needed a handle on the orbital dynamics. And that's what today was all about.

Eileen ignored me and pressed her face up against the glass, staring down at the probe currently being fueled. I clipped the burn and rotation figures to the control console and joined her at the window. From the top of the observatory where we'd put mission control you could see the entirety of Bluff Canaveral, but most importantly you could see the rocket pads we'd dug out. Fuelers on gantries were dumping the volatile mix of kerosene and bomb-fruit juice into the probe's first-stage tank while other goblins shoveled fortified scat into the boosters. Dangerous job, and one stray flame could send the entire thing up in smoke—which was a real threat, since welders still climbed on the second stage vehicle patching seams in the plating, despite my best efforts to secure them.

"Those lunatics," I muttered. I turned around to look at the various stations around the room. Each of the twenty stations was crewed with a taskmaster, making it the highest concentration of leadership in the whole tribe. Each taskmaster had a radio connection to their own team, as well as a simple console with a radio repeater to instrumentation aboard the probe. "Get those igni off the rocket!"

Many of those consoles burned with subtle fire from the Ifrits. My own station glowed as well, with the newly reunited Taquoho after Tabun and Horal had returned to the bluff via radio. "It seems ill-advised to fuel presently," they said, flickering in alarm.

"No kidding," I said. A couple scrappers down below were already shouting and waving at the igni. What did they even still have to weld? I'd been over every square meter of that rocket myself, most of which was scrawled with comics and canon iconography.

"Boss, are we really gonna ride one of those?" asked Eileen. "I can't believe something that big is gonna fly!"

In actuality the probe was small, by Earth rocket standards. It wasn't going to Raphina, just to orbit for metrics and communications. The tiny payload at the top would separate once we hit 250 kilochooms of altitude, which I estimated would be around the lowest stable orbit. Thanks to having jets with both instruments and the System's flight data screen, it was easy to verify that we had accurate instrumentation before loading it onto the rocket.

"Sure will," I said. "The ones we're going to ride will have to be much bigger. More fuel to lift personnel and equipment, and more fuel to lift the fuel to lift personnel, and so on. But we'll get there."

The fuelers finished loading the boosters down below and pulled the trucks away from the rocket. I turned back to the room. "Alright, go-time, people! We're wings up in 15 minutes. I want preflight checks!" I pointed at each station in turn.

"Weather!"

"Winds are good, boss!"

"Radio control!"

"Gettin control surface feedback, boss!"

"Telemetry!"

"Instruments are readin', boss!"

"Air traffic!"

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Path's clear, boss!"

"Person—"

<Your tribe has decreased to 3,250 members>

I turned around as the floor began to rumble. Massive gouts of flame and smoke had erupted from the blast pit and the trench that held the rocket. The window in the control center rattled in its fitting. I looked over my shoulder. "… Booster ignition?"

My ignition system taskmaster pulled at his fur. "Argh! You said go-time, boss! I didn't know you were gonna say 'in 15 minutes' next! When you say go, I go!"

I almost pulled out a few of my own tufts. We had two rogue solid rocket boosters going off down below, and over 100 vaporized goblins to show for it. I pointed to my damage control task master. "Evacuate the rest of the landing area, now!"

"Do we abort?" asked Taquoho.

"No," I said, scrabbling over the first row of consoles to the pilot station. "The longer those solid boosters are burning, the hotter that blast pit is going to get. We have to get those boosters off the ground before the first stage tank explodes!"

I pulled up to the flight control console. "Give me primary ignition!" I called.

The primary ignition taskmaster tilted his head and pressed a finger to the side of his nose, winking. "In 15 minutes, right boss?"

"No, now!"

He squawked and began flipping toggles. The rumbling in the floor got stronger, and the telemetry dials started to shift. "Primary ignition, boss!"

"Eileen, take the flight surface controls," I said. My chief pilot ran up next to me and seized the stick for the rocket's yaw controls. I pointed at the gyroscope repeater. "Keep that nose true," I said. I had my own hands on the stick for the pitch and roll thrusters. The horizon on the gyroscope started to shift, and I hauled back on the stick, forcing the nose level again.

Outside, I could see the nose of the rocket lifting—including a half-dozen goblins who hadn't cleared the welding area before my trigger-happy booster taskmaster. Nothing for it now, they were about to test the extent of the goblin fall damage immunity. The bottom half of the rocket was glowing red from the flame backwash of the boosters. I flicked my eyes back and forth from the telemetry to the rocket itself as it rose up from the Canaveral launch pit with a roar so loud I couldn't even hear myself think.

The rest of the taskmasters were going wild, cheering and jumping and climbing on the consoles. but we weren't out of it yet.

"Lift-off!" I said. "Start the chronometer. We can still salvage this. Maybe."

The Ifrit had given us something that we'd been sorely missing—an accurate spring-powered clock. I watched the numbers flip, counting up the seconds. At this point, I just wanted to get the rocket as clear of the bluff as I could in case it decided to explode—a very likely event, given the damage it had already sustained.

I pushed the stick forward as the wind caught the rocket, and Eileen did the same on my other side. I continued to make small adjustments, putting my weight into the stick and checking it against telemetry. We were flying completely by radio control and instrumentation.

"5 degrees pitch down," I called.

"Onnit," said Eileen.

"Two minutes, boss."

"10 degrees," I said.

I pulled back on the stick a little more as we passed 15 kilochooms of altitude. Eileen did the same beside me, bringing the nose to a 10 degree pitch down as our altitude continued to climb and our airspeed increased.

"Three minutes, boss! Boosters are empty."

"Disengage boosters," I said.

<Component Technology Unlocked: Scrap'em boosties>

"Good break, boss!"

Overhead, the two side boosters would be separating from the primary rocket as we continued to burn through the first-stage tank. The altitude and airspeed continued to climb.

I don't suppose you could give me the flight data for the rocket?"

<The goblins aboard are viewing it.>

Christ, they still hadn't let go? We were already passing the 30 kilochoom mark, and the rocket was likely over the ocean.

<Those goblins are currently falling. I referred to those stowing away in the payload compartment.>

"King Apollo, given the rate of climb and the chronometer output, will you have enough fuel to reach orbit?" asked Taquoho.

I glanced at the first-stage fuel tank quickly draining. "No idea."

Eileen grunted beside me. "65 kilochooms. What altitude did the plan have us staging?"

"110," I answered. The tank on the first stage ran dry a few seconds later, about 30 kilochooms lower than I'd hoped. "Separate first stage."

One of my taskmasters (hopefully more competent than the one at NuEarth) slammed his toggle. "First stage separated, boss!"

I looked over my shoulder. "Second stage ignition in 5 seconds."

"Onnit, boss. Here we go!"

I held my breath. If the rocket was going to explode, the heat stress from the pit would probably cause it to do so here. But I watched the altitude continue to tick up, and up, and then climb even more rapidly.

"100 kilochooms, boss. We gotta pitch her down," said Eileen.

"Keep climbing, we need to make up for 30 seconds of wasted burn on the ground."

Eileen shook her head. "We need airspeed! I looked at those bug squiggles, boss. I don't know what they told you, they ain't even got pictures. But I'm tellin' you we need to pitch."

I grit my teeth and considered. I had the math and experience, but Eileen had a natural intuition for pilotage that few humans I've met could claim. "Alright," I said, relinquishing the thruster controls. "Pitch her down. Easy."

"Pitchin to halfsies," said Eileen. She barely put any force on her stick as she slowly brought the nose of the rocket down to 45 degrees, introducing more forward airspeed we continued to climb.

"You have passed 140 kilochooms, King Apollo,"

"Thanks Taquoho," I said. I glanced at the dial for our radio reception. It had already begun to flutter. With Tribe Apollo being the only source of broadcasts in the entire world, there was no interference. But even with the C2 jet airborne as a relay, we were pushing the limits of our range with this launch—and who knew what kind of stellar interference we'd get in the upper reaches of the atmosphere.

"Ok," said Eileen. "We got this boss. I can feel it. Pitch to 75."

"Pitch to 75 degrees," I said, watching as the console pitch angle started to tip down. The seconds ticked by and altitude continued to climb. "Ok, level it out."

I felt my shoulders relax. The dial for our radio reception was near zero. I reached up and set the timer for the engine shut-off and the payload release before we lost connection entirely.

"Payload release is set, boss!" said one of my taskmasters. "Releasing in 30 seconds."

The dial for our radio connection dropped to zero. Did the remaining fuel in the rocket and its current momentum have enough energy to make it to orbit? All that was left to do was wait.

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