My Big Goblin Space Program

Chapter 22 - Maiden Flight

“Are you tanning a skyena hide?” asked Rufus, which he saw the prototype glider sitting on the launch rails. “We’ve been calling them night haunts,” I said. “And no. This is something I guarantee you’ve never seen before, no matter how far you’ve traveled.” I checked the frame, the membrane, the connections, and the security of the wicker cradle before settling down into it on my belly. I worked the left wing and the right, making sure the surfaces had free movement and no binding. Thanks to the ceramic bearings from the second kiln firing and some fish oil, everything slid with minimal friction.

“Attention!” I shouted out. “Operation: GERONIMO!”

A wave of excitement coursed through the village. Almost everyone dropped what they were doing and came over. Several goblins fought over the ropes that had been laid out next to the simple wooden rails, but realized the lines were long enough to share. That was fine. The more goblins on the ropes, the better this would work. Hopefully.

Rufus watched, perplexed but polite, as I ran through my final checks and looped the line around the hook on the nose of my improvised aircraft. If there was one thing they drilled into us during my private pilot training, it was to always check your aircraft before a flight.

I’d never gotten the technology unlock for the glider, so I had to assume the System was also watching in suspense to see if it worked. Which reminded me.

“Hey Rufus. You’re able to converse with the System too, right? The thing that tells you your skills and abilities?”

“Of course,” he said. “Everyone can hear the voice of the Empowering Spirit.”

“Interesting.”

“Do you not have one where you’re from?”

I shook my head.

Rufus crossed his arms and nodded. “Hmm… I believe you. My grandfather told me, as a boy, that his grandfather remembered a time before it began to speak and show visions. Before that, skills were something you built, not something that granted you power when given. The voice began as a pale whisper that has grown louder over the years. For as long as I’ve been alive, the spirit has spoken to everyone and its will shapes the very fabric of the world according to its own patterns. But it also empowers monsters and various evils. To what end, only the Gods know.”

“You don’t consider the System itself to be a god?”

“It insists that it is not and punishes those who persist in worshiping it. What god would insist upon its own disbelief contrary to clear evidence of its presence? The Empowering Spirit simply is.”

“I suppose I see your point,” I said. So, it hadn’t been here forever and seemed to be gaining more influence over time, imposing rules and these strange skills that conflicted with the natural order I was used to on Earth. That was an interesting development. I had to wonder what Earth would have been like if there was an all-powerful, semi-sentient program that both empowered and was accessible to its users. If Simulation Theory was correct, and it seemed at least plausible, given my ‘reincarnation’, then somehow this simulation could be breaking down and showing the man behind the curtain, as it were. The locals interpreted it as a spirit speaking to them. But they’d never seen a computer program. Or The Matrix, for that matter.

Right. I suppose I’d better get back to it. I secured myself in the glider and looked up at Rufus. “I hate to leave you like this, my friend. But if all goes well, I should be back before dinner.”

As long as enough hunters are still alive to bring dinner back. The attrition today seemed higher than average.

Most of my goblins were at the end of their patience anyway. The ones on the ropes had been edging closer to the cliff face the whole time, and I was a little surprised that none of them had just flung themselves over early. Goblins must have evolved from lemmings, because there were few things they enjoyed more than a good cliff and a sudden drop.

“Hold on, Apollo,” said Rufus, stiffening. “This is a jest, yes? You can’t possibly mean to—”

The goblins, no longer content to wait, instead began to weight. They took a swan dive off the edge of the cliff with the rope. Oops. The others, not to be outdone, followed suit, and suddenly the force of a dozen of my tribe mates falling pulled against the hook at the nose of my glider. With a jerk, the whole contraption slid forward on the greased rails, building speed alarmingly fast. My stomach jumped up into my throat as I hit the ramp, pulled by the tow line. The hook slipped, and before I even had time to register what had happened, I was soaring through the afternoon sky.

I’d always loved flying. I’d built a kit ultralight together with my roommate in college and been part of the soaring club at the local airfield since my 16th birthday. I can’t describe to you how it felt being back in the air, wind blowing across my face as the airfoil rippled overhead. The sky was in my blood, and my tribe had just given it back to me.

Oh ye of little faith, I thought to the System. As though chagrinned, a list of notifications began to scroll across my window.

Technically, I feel like most of the unlocked individual concepts and components that had gone into the glider should have unlocked as I was building the thing. The principles were sound from the get-go. Rava’s governing System just wouldn’t admit that it didn’t think I’d actually be able to fly. It did, conveniently, bring up a small window that displayed my current airspeed and altitude in chooms. Ok, I take back some of the mean things I thought about it. Today, anyway.

I did a quick control check to make sure all my surfaces were articulating correctly. My left wing flex was a bit soft, but nothing I couldn’t compensate for by shifting my weight in the cradle. I leaned into a shallow bank and verified my target to the east-northeast.

Today was about more than just flying for fun. Those other bluffs I’d seen in the distance were nearly insurmountable journeys for someone of a goblin’s stature on the ground. But as the crow flies? Well, that was another matter. I just had to make sure I was back before the night haunts (skyenas?) started coming out.

The goblin counterweight launch system had given me a huge boost in speed, but now I needed one in altitude. Gliders can fly for hours by catching thermals and updrafts, and I made sure to prepare one ahead of time. Sally had fired up the kiln with the third batch of ceramics, but that waste heat all rose. I was able to angle into it, and I felt myself grow heavier in the cradle as the hot air caught the underside of the glider’s wings and my altitude figure started to climb. Once I leveled off again, the bluff looked more like a small rock hundreds of feet below me. I couldn’t even see individual goblins anymore.

Even with the reduced gravity of Rava, that kiln had lifted me far more effectively than it should have been able. The Goblin Tech Tree must have been greasing the wheels of physics in my favor. Well, any advantage I could get, these guys needed.

With my course set and my altitude stable, I relaxed for a bit. For the first time since I’d come to Rava, I was completely alone. Rufus had said the human name of the world meant skyclad. Well now I truly was clad in that sky. I was one with the winds, and riding on the gentle currents swirling across the horizon. I had brought this with me. I had brought flight to Rava. And it was one of the critical steppingstones to reaching Raphina.

On Earth, it only took 70 years between the first powered flight and the first moon landing. And NASA never even had the loyalty of a goblin tribe or the absurdity that was the enigmatic internal logic of the Goblin Tech Tree. I didn’t plan on taking 70 years. I didn’t even plan on taking 7 if I could keep iterating through the ages and skipping the biggest technological pitfalls and dead ends. The benefit of modern knowledge could be a huge force multiplier when applied to primitive tools and materials. But for the moment, I put all that aside and simply reveled in being wrapped in the sky.