The Midnighter elite took me back to the deck of the ship, where I could see the fleet turning around to take it out of artillery range. Habberport still launched long-range magic after it, but not at nearly the voracity it had before.

"I know not what you said to her, Apollo. But you've certainly got sway with the Midnight Queen to turn an attack such as this aside."

I worked my neck to get the tension that had been mounting to relax. "At the end of the day, the Queen wants the same thing I do. I just had to convince her that Habberport wasn't the biggest obstacle to it—her own actions were. I can't blame her; I might have done the same thing in her position. But she's basically on board. Now I just have to wrangle the Prince."

I looked up at the dragon. "Think he'll come out to talk, now?" I asked.

The dragon knight huffed a puff of smoke through her nostrils. "Who can say? I've often heard that the prince makes inscrutable decisions, ascribes to a logic only he can fathom. But there are few on Rava who can turn the Queen's course once she's tacked it. He'll want to know how, and why. Come, let us be away from here."

"Gladly," I said, climbing aboard with the other goblins. Once Dame Redfang launched herself from the deck, I pulled out the handset and switched the radio back on.

"Eileen, you can stand down. We're off the ship."

"Uh, yeah, boss. The thing is… the zap'em cables for the big gun caught fire after that first shot. We gotta set down and fix things before we can fire again."

"Ah," I said, feeling a cold sweat dampen my fur. All my threats had just been empty bravado. If Raphina hadn't blinded the Midnighters so badly, and if they weren't so reliant on their star-reading, they might have seen right through what had turned out to be a bluff. Maybe the jets could have mounted an attack run that would see the insectoid flagship scuttled, but the armor panels made it look like a pretty tough vessel on its own without the sorceress or even the Midnight Queen herself shielding it from attacks. We needed more rail guns on more platforms if we were going to get any reliability out of them.

Rather than flying directly back to Gemini-II, I had Redfang take us to the beaches where my goblins stood in uneasy lines, apart from the Habbe soldiers that had mustered too late to repel the Midnighter landing craft.

We landed between two of the groups, and I jumped off.

"Good job, everyone!" I shouted. "The city is safe!"

The crowd of my beach defenders went wild. Don't get me wrong, Goblins had no stake in the safety of Habberport or humans. But they did have a stake in their king's approval. My goals were canon to them, scribbled and codified by portly noblins—of which I spotted two at the head of a crowd of zealots who shouted even more maniacally than the rest. This power I had, the authority and respect demanded by the job title System had given me had created a force that I'd completely molded to align with my own ideals. And the humans could see them now, plain as day, cheering for a city that wasn't their own.

Dame Redfang walked across the sand to speak with the Habbe captain in charge of their defenses while the surviving choppers returned to pick up the goblins and take them back to the bivouac in the clearing outside the city. One by one, the choppers came, loaded up, and then lifted off again in a cloud of sand and soot while the humans watched. To them, we were now the force that had repelled the Midnight Queen's fleet using mysterious new artifice that could challenge even dragons. On the beaches they'd seen the guns, the armor, the flamethrowers, and the explosives. I doubted any of them would be keen to face us in the field, regardless of our comparative statures. Bushwhacking through the jungle where goblins could be hidden behind every tree and shrub with an RPP or a flame spewer? Forget about it.

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I mounted up with the last helicopter. Redfang launched herself into the air to keep pace as we flew directly over the city as though we owned the place. The skies above stayed clear—no darkening cumulonimbus clouds, no lightning trying to strike us from the sky, and no errant artillery from the defensive emplacements.

"Boss, look!" said Armstrong, pointing down at the city.

Two massive cylinders were spread across six wagons which in turn were being pulled by a team of at least twenty oxen. Our boosters were packaged up and headed for the front gate.

"Looks like they're finally ready to come to the table," I said.

System, how many goblins died protecting a city that wants to exterminate us?

<182 goblins died in the defense of Habberport. You currently have 4562 members in your tribe.>

182 goblins on the beaches and in the air. We'd turned back one of the major military powers on Lanclova, and we'd done it without even dropping below daily replacement numbers.

The chopper landed at the bivouac, which had gained timber walls and a squat tower in my absence. Buzz' builders were busy hammering away, and a chopper was being used as a crane to fit heavy wooden fixtures to serve as crenelations. Nevermind that the wall was only at about chin-height for a human, I didn't think any of them would be attacking us until at least morning. All of their forces had been redeployed to protect the sea-side of the city, after all.

Most of my goblins were already getting cookfires stoked under the watchful eyes of noblin igni. A pair of jets circled overhead, and to the south, a bright flare ignited in the growing twilight. The goblins all dropped what they were doing and dashed to the southern wall, climbing over each other to get the best view as the small starburst climbed up toward the stars. Just because we were negotiating and fighting and dying by the hundreds didn't mean progress could stop.

I pulled the radio and tuned it to the mission control frequency, listening to the panicked squawks of the goblins in the command module of the rocket lifting off from Canaveral. This one carried more food, more parts, more modules for the growing station, and most importantly, more goblins. As long as this rocket didn't explode, we'd have almost 30 blue, furry astronauts in orbit laying the groundwork (space work?) for that to become hundreds.

The rocket's path curved, carrying it northwest, over us, and then passed. Soon I'd be on one of those rockets. It wouldn't be my first time in space, but at least it couldn't go worse than the last one.

"Another new star to join your constellation?" asked Dame Redfang, watching the silent starburst flicker. The flames gutted out momentarily as the first stage separated. The second stage kicked on, and my intrepid explorers continued their rapid ascent.

"I won't hold you here," I said. "Seems pointless, at this stage. You can return to Habberport."

"I may meet with the knights," said Redfang. "They need orders, after all. But chivalry demands I remain in your care until my debts are paid." she hesitated for a moment. "As does my curiosity. The world is changing indeed, when goblins fly higher than dragons."

"Ah," I said. "Wait, what do you mean they need orders? Can't your boss do it? Sir Gyrfax, right?"

Redfang puffed smoke from her nostrils. "You seem mistaken, King Apollo. I am not Sir Gyrfax's lieutenant. He is mine. I command the landed dragons."

"I… you do?" I asked.

"Beginning to wish you'd asked more than a pair of metal pipes in ransom, o king?"

I looked up at the dragon knight, at the proud, fierce creature who had literally roasted me alive as soon as she'd laid eyes on me. But I'd won her over. The rest of the dragons would follow her. The prince and the Midnighter queen, as well. And then, once I was sure Tribe Apollo's place had been secured on Rava, I would lead them to the moon. I'd been planning, I'd been prepping, and I'd been building.

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