My Big Goblin Space Program

Chapter 63 - Marching Orders

While my taskmasters had their instructions to iterate on the designs for the rest of the day, I made progress turning copper wire, a spare metal shaft, and some permanent magnets into our first electric motor prototype. It wouldn’t spin until I also rigged up our first battery, but it felt good to have something to do with my hands. Around lunchtime, a shadow started to loom over me, too large to be even a hobby.

“Alright boss, ‘ere ye go!”

Promo handed down the first complete rifle with a barrel attached. I took it, and nearly fell over forwards with the weight of the thing.

“Oof!” I huffed.

“Need a hand, boss?” asked Armstrong.

I struggled to raise the gun level. “Just gotta get used to the weight. Going to be a two-goblin team, I think. Like the heavy slingers,” I said. “Let’s get this test fired.”

My guard captain touched his fingertips together. “Maybe you ain’t should be the one what does the testing? What if it blows up?”

“If it’s lethal, it’ll transfer to another member of the tribe anyway. But I’m not going to be anywhere near this thing for the test shots. We’ve got a setup with cord and I—” I looked up at the scrapper taskmaster. “You just want to be the first one to shoot it! You scoundrel.”

Armstrong at least had the decency to look guilty. “Chuck’s lads got the cliffies and Eileen’s crew got the gliders and she’s not even a hobbie! Even Neil’s boys got their poppers. What do the scrappers got?” he opened his hands, empty palms up. “We dress up like bushes an’ call out croc-knocker movements. I know it’s importy, but I was just finking maybe my lads could get the first o’ the boom-tubes.”

I looked down at the heavy rifle of ceramic and steel in my hands. “Boom-tubes, eh?” I looked at him. “Well, these certainly suit your sneak attack bonuses.”

“Whatcha say, boss?” asked Armstrong.

“I’m actually trying to hand it to you right now, but it’s too heavy,” I admitted.

Armstrong grinned, reached down, and plucked the rifle out of my hands.

“We’ll make ‘em lighter,” said Promo. “Once we get ‘em figured out.”

While it wasn’t exactly a feather for the scrapper, hobgoblins had substantially more mass, and Armstrong could swing the rifle and keep it somewhat level without help. He started aiming down the length of the barrel at a night haunt carcass the wranglers had managed to bring down in the night while the rest of us slept, making small explosion noises each time he worked the action. The gun wasn’t loaded yet, but the action still gave a meaty chunk with each crank of the lever underneath, and a thunk with the pull of every trigger dropping the heavy hammer. I wanted the parts to be as robust as possible so that they’d function even if the goblins decided to use them as clubs, instead.

“Ammo,” I called. Neil brought over a basket of bullets, and I took a handful of the fired shells that looked close in size to the rifle. I didn’t know if there were actual bullets made out of ceramic on Earth or if they would even work, but we didn’t have lead yet. Heck, I didn’t even know if these would penetrate the leather and rusty iron armor that the javeline maulers wore, so I’d set up an impromptu firing range with bits of salvaged porkbelly armor scraps and even a couple of roof tiles fired to ceramic plates.

Armstrong pulled the action on the rifle back, and I loaded a handful of bullets into the internal magazine. Armstrong closed the action and I retreated to a safe distance as he peered through the sight.

“Like this, boss?” he asked, swinging the muzzle around.

“Don’t point that at us!” I shouted. He snapped the business end back down range and sank into his shoulders in shame.

“Just take it slow. Breath in, out, aim, and shoot,” I said, trying to remember any advice I’d seen on cop shows over the years. “Squeeze, don’t pull, keep both eyes open, lead your target, relax, but hold tight, square your feet, an—”

Neil nudged me.

“Right. Just pull the trigger.”

I hadn’t expected it to work on the first try. And in fact, the boom was so loud and the gout of fire and smoke so great, I thought the rifle had exploded in my sapper’s hands. But about a meter to the left of the piggy armor I’d strung up, a water cask at the other end of a spiraling smoke trail blew a leak and started pouring out its contents.

Every goblin in the village dropped what they were doing. At least, the ones who had bothered still pretending to work. The first thing I heard when the ringing of my ears cleared was the roar of the horde flooding to the firing range faster than the penetrated water cask was flooding the end of the lane. Armstrong had to hold the rifle above his head, and even then goblins tried to climb up him or gnaw at his legs to bring the burly hobgoblin down.

“Back! Back!” I shouted over the noise. Amazingly, they listened. But they were all making kr-pow! noises and miming firing rifles of their own.

“No shortage o’ willing hands, hoss,” said Promo. He lifted his ceramic mask and rubbed the fur on his chin. “Got a few ideas what to make them manageable for the shorties.”

For my part, I just wondered why I’d been so afraid of this. Guns were loud, fast, and explodey. Everything an astronaut/engineer needs in life. “Armstrong!” I shouted over the din.

The hobgoblin looked down at me.

“Shoot it again!”

Boom!

This time the round hit one of the piggy stand-ins. A smoking hole appeared in the leather jerkin.

“Again!”

Boom!

A support beam snapped above the ceramic tile, causing a bridge between two structures to sag and then splinter.

“Again!”

Click.

A dud. Armstrong cycled the action, ejecting the unspent round and cycling a new one.

Boom!

The thin ceramic tile cracked, and fragments of the bullet ricocheted off. Not a penetration, but it had certainly destroyed the integrity.

I nodded to myself.

System, how many of these can we make with current material stores?

You currently have enough clay, dung, sulfur, and charcoal to make 2142 rockettes, but metal may be substituted for ceramic for an additional 422.>

We couldn’t dip so much into the clay that we wouldn’t have enough for ceramic parts when the Ifrit arrived. But fifty rifles would arm a full quarter of the tribe. Combined with slingers, poppers, and cliffords, that might just be enough to push the piggies out of Canaveral, and maybe even out of our neck of the jungle for good.

Or until Habberport sent forces even more dangerous. The jungle forest was on our side, with thick growth being restrictive to traverse as anything larger than a dwarf. I imagined humans would have a tough time getting through the underbrush. But if anyone on this world was versed in human ingenuity, it was me. I didn’t doubt they’d come eventually.

I waved down

“Get the prototypes to the hunters so they can keep the tribe fed. I want us cranking these out as soon as we’ve got material for them.

“When will we take back Canaveral?” asked Armstrong.

I looked at Promo. “How many of these can we make in a day?” I asked.

He did some counting on his fingers. “With the igni working on barrels and receivers exclusively? 12, thereabouts,” he said. “More with more help.”

I opened up the system window and transferred additional goblins under his team from Buzz and Sally. “You have it,” I said. looked back up at the scrapper. “Four days.”