My Big Goblin Space Program [Isekai, Faction-building, Reincarnation, Goblins]
Chapter 163 - Landed Dragons
<Head of the Snake skill has activated>
I stopped tumbling, but continued sizzling. All the fur on my front half had blackened and patches had fallen away to reveal the dark brown skin underneath. I coughed soot and smoke and leaned back against the tree that had stopped my momentum.
My assailant was brought back under control only with great difficulty by Armstrong and a member of the Flock pouncing directly on its snout and clutching its mouth closed, though smoke continued to roil out of its nostrils.
I groaned and climbed to my feet. "Ugh. That hurt like hell."
My skin was still tender on the furless patches, but they were already beginning to fill back in despite being bathed in literal dragonfire. The pain had been sudden, intense, and blessedly brief. Compared to the agony of being dragged across the ground on the tip of a spear, being roasted by a flame hot enough to blast an aircraft apart was, believe it or not, a vast improvement.
The dragon still had enough play in its muzzle to speak. "Hmph, so it's true, then. There is a goblin king. Very well, I wish to speak to your lord!"
"My lord?" I asked.
"Yes. I saw the Midnight Queen's servants. The orcs, as well, and these demons of strange vessels. I know not which pulls your strings. But as Dame Redfang, Landed Dragon of Parr Hill, I am entitled to ransom."
"You're the knight?" I asked, pinching the bridge of my nose. "I heard dragon knights, I thought that meant knights riding dragons."
"Ridiculous!" sneered the dragon. "To think this simpleton to be my equal. All mages care for are their strange geometries. He doesn't even have wings, how would he safeguard a fief? Now, I demand to speak to your leader at once."
The mage tied to the tree mumbled a complaint, clearly not content at being labeled a simpleton. But he didn't offer any more than that and his attention drifted to a passing insect. Not really doing himself any favors.
I had some opinions of my own on that front. Clearly, Redfang and I had some differences in what qualifiers were necessary for knighthood. Then again, my only references were old medieval movies, so what did I know? "I have no leader. I am King Apollo, of Tribe Apollo. The Flock, the Ifrit, and the Midnighters are here at my invitation. I beat back the Javeline, I beat back the druids that followed them, and I'll send you dragon knights packing again if I have to. But I don't want it to come to that."
Redfang considered this, her eyes narrowing to slits. "Then what is it you do want, little goblin king?"
"Peace," I said. "To be left alone to continue working on scientific progress."
Redfang blew a gout of smoke from her nostrils. "After dropping steel pillars from the sky?"
I felt my cheeks burn. "That was an accident," I said.
"Absurd! Midnighter mischief and their stolen magics, by fang and claw. Only ever do goblins seek to destroy and devour."
I groaned. "You may not believe it, but I don't wish harm on Habberport. I'm not on the warpath. I want peace. Our goals are achieving space flight so that I can reach the moon. You've seen our flying machines. The boosters that fell on your city were part of an even larger flying machine that we launched a few days ago. They were supposed to fall in the ocean, but we had an accident and they released prematurely.
Redfang tilted her head. "The star 3 days thence which rose instead of falling, that now swims such a rapid pace in the evening sea? That was a machine?"
"Yes," I said. "And we have others. I can show you."
"Trickery!" she hissed. "Blue-fur tricks."
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
"Transparency," I insisted. "Everyone insists goblins are mindless killing machines, yet I seem to be the only one at least trying to be reasonable. I judged you for being a dragon, mistook you for a monster, and for that I'm sorry. But I can learn the truth, and I can live in a world with dragons who are also knights. Can you live with the truth of goblins who make flying machines?"
Dame Redfang was silent for a time, working my words over in her mind. "You don't speak as one might expect," she conceded. "Certainly not as one who would seek war. If there is any in this land who could understand others mistaking them for monstrous, it is I. You would show me this rising-star artifice as proof of your words?"
"If you'll give me your word as a knight that you won't use it as an opportunity to attack or escape, I'll give you my word as king that you'll be returned in the morning, unharmed."
"My word and my honor are bonds stronger than those that now hold me, little king," Dame Redfang said proudly. "I shall accept your offer."
I looked at the goblins holding her down. "Let her up," I said.
"You sure?" said Chuck. "Maybe we ought get Rufus to tell us if she's lyin'."
If she took it as an opportunity to run, we lost nothing. The dragon knight wasn't useful to me as a hostage. I needed her to send a message, but I needed her to carry it willingly. If she was a knight and practiced some form of Ravan chivalry, then she should keep to her word. "Do it."
Reluctantly, the goblins and orcs pulled away the net that kept the landed dragon bound. She stood, stretching to her full height to work out the kinks in her limbs. Her main body was about the size of a large SUV, with paws the size of dinner plates and a sinuous, flexible neck. She stretched her wings out, and I could see where one was wounded from the dogfight.
"Can you fly?" I asked.
"Slowly," she admitted. "Not with a rider. And not for any great distance."
"Canaveral isn't far," I said. "We'll take the mage with us on the chopper. Just follow behind."
Armstrong untied the mage and we headed back toward the chopper so that we could lead the fire-breathing dragon to the bluff with our largest concentration of goblin scat and bomb-fruit juice. What could go wrong?
My taskmasters had some concerns as well, which they voiced once out of ear shot.
"You're bein' awful trustin', boss. Maybe we ought get Rufus here to suss if she's lying," said Chuck.
"Peace has to start with trust," I countered. "Someone's got to extend the olive branch first."
"Dunno wot olives are or what they got to do with things," said Armstrong. "But as yer secretive service, I don't like it."
I looked up at the scrapper. "If there's even a chance at being left in peace to finish the mission, we have to work toward it. Are we trying to save a world just to let it tear itself apart? No one said it would be easy. But the Midnighter big-wig says we're running out of time." I looked up at the moon. Was there just a little bit more brackish brown on that pink forest? Were the canyons getting slightly deeper as the creature growing within pushed against Raphina's crust?
We boarded the chopper without further dissent, and I was pleased to see Dame Redfang take to the air behind us, albeit heavily favoring one wing. I got on the radio to pass the message that she was not to be harmed and we made it to Canaveral without any of the air patrollers getting too jittery. I'm sure Redfang was noting our defenses and the aircraft circling in the skies. I would be. She was surely smart enough to realize that any attempt to escape would result in her almost immediate recapture. We flew over the Midnighter encampment, looking much sparser than usual with the bulk of their elite cavalry and magic users chasing the dragon knight scouts back across the mountains.
We circled the bluff once, making a wide arc around the two completed rockets and another still being welded together. Redfang flew lower, examining the boosters that were already attached to our next scheduled launch—probably comparing them to the ones that had fallen on Habberport. On the southwest end of the bluff, John was conducting a rocket motor test, and the roaring flame burned even hotter and brighter than a dragon's as the motor shook against its mountings.
I had the pilot bring us down to the VTOL pad, where we landed next to a cargo airship unloading traded goods from our deals with the City of Brass—canvas, zinc, copper, and other materials in exchange for our ceramics and coaxial flying vessels. Another was unloading bales of dry scat and sheet metal turned out from Huntsville. With Ringo in the fold, we now had the entirety of the swamp to harvest—plus the whistler skin and an alloy we were getting by melting down the ore in the pink badlands gravel and casting it with zinc. It was the closest thing I'd seen so far to aerospace grade aluminum.
Redfang's eyes took in everything, measuring. She'd only seen Red Rock before, which wasn't built up like Canaveral.
"This is the seat of your power?" she asked.
"Nah," I said. "This is our third largest settlement. Our capital is at least three times bigger than this. I'd be happy to show it to you, if we can work out a peace with Habberport."
Dame Redfang sniffed. "The orcs and Ifrit were not wrong, little king. Mankind will not negotiate with you. Humans can be… persistent in their beliefs, and the prince himself is especially inscrutable. Some years back, he suffered a malady of the mind that robbed him of his memory, though few are willing to speak of it. But perhaps it took away his old hatreds, as well. I can speak to the other knights. Perhaps together we can bend the Prince's ear to consider that monsters once are not always monsters. But I cannot promise that our words will reach him. Habbe has been bitten by goblin kings before."
If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.