It probably helped enormously that he considered me just another goblin. Goblins were not objects of interest or respect; we were often considered barely better than vermin, useful but ultimately disposable. That total lack of consideration would be a shield, a layer of insulation against the allure of his power. He wouldn’t be trying to Bond me; he’d just be trying to break my concentration. That, I could handle.

  Looking at him, really looking with my senses extended just a fraction, was physically painful. His ‘upgrades’ were a mess. They were functional, but just barely. A juttering, sparking silver neural implant here, a misfiring cybernetic tendon there. His aura was strong, but it was fighting a constant, grinding war against his own body’s poor maintenance. My mother, a healer of no small skill herself, would have been appalled. She would have demanded I help restore him to the Paladin he was meant to be, instead of letting him languish in a broken body filled with third-rate replacements.

  Yes, my primary control was only Tech Six, but there was a world of difference between the clunky, pain-inducing hardware he had and a smoothly functioning magitech update. I knew that as my own control improved, so would my repair capabilities. Right now, I’d have trouble with anything copper-ranked or above, but the way his inserts were misfiring, he’d be better off with wood-tiered prosthetics. The constant, low-level pain and system friction had to be excruciating. A testament to his willpower that he could function at all.

  I hated to do it. Drawing attention was the last thing I wanted. But… I couldn’t stand it. A deep-seated, almost compulsive part of me, the part that was programmed to fix and to serve, rebelled at the sight of such shoddy workmanship causing such obvious, constant distress. No, I wouldn’t Bond to this guy. But I couldn’t just sit there and watch someone suffer needlessly. It was against my nature, my real nature, not the goblin facade.

  Hesitantly, I raised my hand.

  He peered at me, his gaze sharp and assessing. “You have a question, Spaceman… ahh… Reynard?”

  I nodded, my mouth suddenly dry. “Yes, Warrant Wasserman. As I am sure several others have noticed,” I said, nodding towards one of the other goblins, a face-scarred fellow named Taxon who gave a slow, acknowledging nod back, “You have a cross-wired Macguffin in your secondary neural net that is ahh… sending occasional surges to your motor cortex.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Macguffin? Is that the technical term?”

  I shook my head, feeling a flush of embarrassment. “I don’t know the technical name. It’s a tri-catalyst reductive capacitor, magitech. Most of that won’t ever appear in a tech manual with a label. I assume that it’s a rift reward, but it’s completely wrecked… and you have it balancing essence loads it has no business even touching.”

  “Did anyone else notice it?” he asked the room.

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  Two other hands raised. Both goblins.

  “Yes,” Wasserman said, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “It’s magitech. As you have probably noticed, a lot of my meat is metal. That’s because I have three burnt meridians. The Macguffin, as you so eloquently put it, allows me to control a force blade—pure magitech—even with both of my hand meridians wrecked. It cannot be replaced, since all magitech, as you know, is either a legacy of the Technomancers or a rift reward. It stings occasionally, but it’s both the price I pay for still being able to take on a chaos beast of my rank, and a useful test to see how many of you can actually spot magitech fluctuations.”

  “So you don’t want it repaired?” I asked, genuinely curious.

  He laughed, a short, sharp bark. “More like can’t. There’s supposedly ways to restore meridians if… You know… your family happens to own a planet. And magitech cannot be repaired by traditional means. If I let a medic dig around in my neurology to try and fish it out, not only am I likely to be permanently paralyzed unless I can find a similar reward, but the medic would have to have a set of gifts that would make every minute of their time cost more than I bring home in a year.”

  I glanced at the other goblin, Taxon, who shook his head slightly, a look of professional skepticism on his scarred face. I turned back to Wasserman. “I am sorry, Chief Warrant, but I have to disagree. With respect, sir. All it would take would be someone trained in decent ranks of magitech repair, or a cross-discipline trait like Sorcerous Tech, who also knew micro-active repairs. Reward magitech is MADE to be easily fixed or reverse-engineered. It’s not even got any obfuscated subroutines, since rewards are intended to help boost tech levels and encourage chain innovation. The hardware is designed for field maintenance.”

  “The software?” Wasserman challenged, though he looked more interested than dismissive now.

  I shook my head again. “No, sir. Any halfway competent software tech with a remote programmer could update the driver to fix the power differential in about ten seconds… I mean, after the physical connection was re-seated. You’d need a mindhealer on standby to keep you from going into shock from neural deprivation during the reboot, but even the lowest-ranked shaman or empath could do that easily. Half the people in this room could probably manage the software patch. And Spaceman Apprentice…” I squinted at the elf’s nametag, “…Learine, here, probably can set up at least a minor empathy refractor to keep you safe from lethal shock while the software reloaded.”

  Wasserman looked at me closely, his expression unreadable. “And I should let GOBLINS fix something that some of the best techno-surgeons in the fleet warned me would probably turn off my lights for good?”

  Taxon, the scarred goblin, grinned broadly, showing off an impressive array of sharp, filed teeth. “Warrant Officer Wasserman, what’s the rule for a ship with goblin techs?”

  He chuckled, and this time it sounded genuine. “It might not come home in one piece, but it will come home.” He nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on me. “You’re a nerd, Reynard. Looking for nerd things to fix. I like that. Tell you what. You prove to me over the next few weeks that you have the skills you’re implying, and I will let you, Taxon, and Learine give it a shot. Since I will be done after this training gig anyway. The heavens reward those who take risks to improve themselves, right? I’d rather go out jumbled than spend the rest of my life in a float-chair, banging on a holobox for being too quiet.”

  “Me, sir?” I gulped, my bravado evaporating. “I was just pointing out that merged disciplines…”

  He grinned, a flash of white in his scarred face. “You. You spotted the problem, came up with a solution, and figured out how to implement it. That’s the kind of thinking I need from my drone jockeys. Which brings me to another point.”