Princeton stopped at a heavy, scarred cargo door marked with faded stencils of drones and warning runes. “Okay, this is as far as I go. In there is your department head. He’ll take over from here. Good luck.”

  “Is that you, princess?” a rough, gravelly voice hollered from inside the door. Princeton’s composure cracked. She flinched, turned on her heel, and hurried away without another word, her boots clicking a rapid retreat on the deck plates.

  I took a steadying breath and stuck my head inside. I’d found it: the drone control bays. I’d been right about them being mounted in external blisters. It was a ring of space, maybe ten feet wide, that likely circled the entire ship. The outer bulkhead was a curved arc of reinforced transparisteel, currently showing the dull gray of the docking bay outside. Pressure doors, most of them closed, dotted the inner bulkhead, leading to what I assumed were drop bays. The air smelled of sweat, stale coolant, and the weirdly sweet scent of ozone that always clung to active magitech.

  “Ey, what the hell are you?” the voice demanded. I looked down. Way down.

  He was a goblin, older than any I’d trained with, his green skin leathery and etched with fine lines around his eyes and mouth. A full remote programming rig was strapped to his hip, a VR headset was pushed up on his forehead, and he wore a set of high-tactile gloves—the preferred kit for a deep-diver drone pilot. It was all tech, no magic. My teammate Kaxis had used a similar setup. He couldn’t rebuild a drone on the fly like I could, but his control was an extension of his own nervous system, a beautiful, lethal dance I could only admire from a distance.

  “I am Petty Officer Reynard,” I responded. His rig lacked any rank insignia. “Are you the flight controller, sir?”

  He shook his head, a sharp, jerky motion. “Naww. We don’t have no flight controller on board. I’m Chief Braxis. We’re supposed to get some kinda senior enlisted to handle that job in about a week, but on this ship, we ain’t got no fighters. Just drone pilots and assault shuttle jockeys. So, whoever is in charge of the assault force plays flight officer. Otherwise, the first lieutenant handles our commissioned officer woes.” He jabbed a gloved finger at me. “So again, what the hell are you? An elf-goblin hybrid? It’s a good mix for magitech drones, but I never heard of a Charlotte letting her legs get pried apart by a goblin.”

  Ah. Right to the point. “Ah,” I coughed, thrown off by his bluntness. “No. I’m a gremlin. Well, for right now.”

  “Ain’t never heard of no gremlin breeds, ‘cept, you know, the stories people tell when their scrot starts to break. Wuzzat?”

  I scratched my head, falling into the familiar rhythm of the lie. “Rare breed. Heavyworlder. Short. I grow up to look like a short, green, human woman with big ears.”

  He grinned, a startling flash of white in his green face, displaying the formidable choppers that took up a good third of it. “Sounds gorgeous, but that means you ain’t growed up yet? Damn. Well, stick my scrotter in a blender and call me a dredle if you ain’t gonna be a pretty one when you get older. So…” He leaned to the side, peering past me into the corridor. “Did I hear Princess out here?”

  I nodded. “If by Princess, you mean Midshipman Princeton, yes. She said I’d meet my commanding officer here and took off.”

  He chuckled, a sound like rocks grinding together. “Little miss stick-up-her-ass is scared of me. Yeah, right now, I am the next in yer chain of command, but us drone guys are weird. Next past me is either whoever has the troops or straight to the first lieutenant, unless she’s busy, and then it’s the XO. Me, I don’t give a scrot if you go over my head, but she does. You already get yer berthing assignment? Girl’s side?”

  I nodded again.

  “Damn, I was gonna put yer berthing right next ta mine.” I didn’t need to be an empath to feel the act. The whole daft, lecherous old goblin routine was a performance, a tool to keep newcomers off-balance.

  He was old enough to be my grandfather, but his aura hummed with the steady power of at least an Orichalcum-level cultivator. He was in phenomenal shape. I had no doubt that if someone ever foolishly took his banter seriously, he’d be more than capable, but his words were meant to intimidate, not to solicit.

  “You said your name was Braxis, Chief?” I asked, seizing on the one solid piece of information.

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  He nodded. “Yes. Off patriarch of the Axis clan. ‘Off’ meaning ‘off somewhere too busy doing things that matter to waste my time trying to run a family.’ You know?”

  A genuine smile touched my lips. “I had a friend. A droner like you. All twitchy reflexes. Named Kaxis.”

  His grin widened. “He’s one of my nephews. Too young for a family, alas… at least, I think he’s one of my nephews. Short? Green? Big ears? Sharp teeth?” He pulled his lips back to emphasize the impressive dental work.

  “Yep,” I said. “You look just like him. He’s going to be a hard act to follow, though. He thought I was a boy at the time.” I sighed with theatrical melancholy. “My nose will never be the same…”

  He guffawed, a loud, barking laugh that echoed in the blister, and then slapped his coverall-clad belly to stop himself. “Oh yeah, miss, yer going to get along here just fine. We got six other drone controllers; you make eight. We got two golemancers and five techs, including me. We play Iron-Man drone controller, though… so get used to excitement.”

  “Iron man? I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the term.” The phrase conjured images of ancient Earth knights, which seemed unlikely.

  He grinned. “We do both rift clears and void fights, girl. That includes the droners, not just the troopers. That’s why we got the fleet all beat hollow. Any one of our droners could probably take out a dreadnought because we play all sides of the fence! Are you ready to play hardball and get your hands dirty?”

  My mind raced. They did both? It was insanely dangerous for a tech to go dirtside into a rift—the survivors gained immense essence and power, but the mortality rate was brutal. But hitting a rift with trained troopers at your back was a thousand times safer than a hellworld invasion. The potential for advancement was staggering.

  “So we play troop tech at the same time?” I asked, needing confirmation.

  He nodded. “Well, that depends on what you drive. We can hit anything up to tech or magic eight since they counterbalance. If you run golems, you go in with the sword-swingers and play healer. If yer pure tech, you play drone driver and armor support at the same time. So which are you, oh non-half-goblin girl?”

  I shrugged, playing it coy. “Sort of a hybrid. I can go either tech seven or magic six right now, but that’s because the fleet doesn’t do heavy magic training. If I can get some advancement, I can probably even them up at eight. I just don’t have the training foundation yet.”

  He looked at me, the joking demeanor fading into genuine speculation. “That’s… different. A hybrid? How’s that work? Do you run drones or golems? What do we assign you to? I don’t have access to the command board, so the first I heard of ya was this morning, that they were bringing me a fill-in.”

  “I can run both, but I prefer drones. I have a… crossover gift. If I’m using tech-seven drones and the rift is tech-three, as long as it’s magic-seven, they’ll still work. My preference is mostly habit. I can run golems just fine, but finding a core is a lot harder than just finding a pile of scrap if I need to rebuild.”

  “Enhanced reflexes?” he asked, hitting on the key weakness of a tech pilot.

  I sighed heavily, the sound utterly genuine this time. “Not yet. I am still tin. I want to get it, but I… I thought I was going to be a fleet pilot. Limited advancement opportunities. Mostly hellworld invasions from orbit.”

  He wiped his brow in an exaggerated gesture of relief. “Whew. I was worried for a second there that you were going to replace all of us.”

  “Is everything tech seven?”

  “Naww. Most of it’s tech six. We still gotta rely on fleet for incidentals, so most of the heavy armor is tech six. The troopers have a magic-five fire mage, but she’s still copper… she can’t play when we hit seven and eight rifts yet.”

  He peered at me. “Do you have the Aid trait?”

  I shook my head. “True Heal. Remote. I’m not up to full regeneration yet, but between that and a good medical drone skill set, the only way a small troop will die is if they get their head cut off. And I’m a hybrid, so I can make it work even in tech-heavy rifts.”

  He stared at me, his jaw slightly slack. “What the scrot kind of monster are you?” he asked, and this time there was no mockery, only a thread of genuine awe.

  I shook my head, suddenly feeling exposed. “No monster. I am a one-trick pony. Admittedly, it’s a fairly decent trick, but I am still working on putting on both pant legs at the same time. Maybe when I hit gold.”

  “So does that mean an old goblin like me has a shot?” he asked, the lecherous act snapping back into place with practiced ease. “I’ll wait if you got some growin’ to do.”

  I shook my head, chuckling. He had a fine aura, decent and reasonably powerful for a non-mage, far beyond the average goblin. But it was just… power. It had almost no… texture to it. Not like his aura. Not like wrapping myself in a warm blanket that smelled like springtime, a father’s love, and warm muffins all at the same time…

  Scrot!

  Was I bonded already? To him? To Wasserman?

  No. Impossible. I was too young. I’d barely met him, never even touched him. If we’d bonded, I’d already be utterly, painfully loyal. Two weeks apart would feel like an agony of absence. I’d just… remembered how wonderful his aura felt. Therefore, no bond. It was just a memory. Whew.

  I focused back on Braxis, a new, more confident smirk on my face. “Sorry, Chief. My heart belongs to another Axon. He carries it around in his boot, so every step he takes reminds him of me… squish, squish, squish, between his toes, and all the weird rotting meat smells he needs to remember our wonderful times together.”

  The chief’s eyes widened, and then he roared with laughter. “Damn, girl, are you sure you aren’t half goblin?”

  I was suddenly desperately hoping that Kaxis wasn’t actually related to this particular goblin. There were a lot of them, after all. Because if he ever got wind of this joke, He’d never let me live it down.