NationStates Jolt Archive

((OOC: Basically an RP to get the goblins back into active work, I'd prefer if the system they end up in is uninhabited, but even if it is empty, any nations in the vicinity (and the goblins certainly have no idea where they've turned up) would likely be a little concerned about a full scale migration appearing in that system just down the hyperspatial street.

Quick note on ship quantities: there are a lot of ships in this fleet, most are civillian transports, and the rest are of standard goblin design (so slightly less likely to work than a stereo that's been hit with a sledgehammer, dropped down a well and then eaten by whatever horror-flick monster is down there)), but after all - "Quantity over quality!".

Anyway, on with the show:))


Humanity grows faster than it dies, in most cases a population increases faster than it declines, and eventually their habitat becomes overpopulated, overcrowded and a portion of this population is forced to seek a new habitat.

Now, consider this combined with the speed of Goblin reproduction.

The Goblin Nebula is vast, with inhabited worlds and moons uncounted (at least partly because goblins are not terribly good at counting), and beyond the relative safety of the Nebula itself are the Owta Wurlds.

Within the realms of the Goblin King no resource is left unused, every natural resource is extracted and utilised, every possible advantage that can be gleaned from a world is used, and such is the state of overpopulation that it is only through the goblins' certain knowledge that their resources are never-ending that they are, without Da Powa all resources within the Nebula would have been stripped bare decades, if not centuries, ago.

However, there is one resource that cannot simply be magicked into existence. Land. Eventually, every reasonably habitable area on every reasonably habitable world will be used, and that day fast approaches. Despite vast habitation projects, construction houses into the ground and up into the sky, despite the uncountable millions, perhaps billions, of goblins who form Da Navy and live aboard their ships, and despite the new ventures to the Owta Wurlds, the Combined Goblin Collective is fast running out of space.


Within the heart of the Nebula lies the Goblin City, and within the heart of the "Sitay" the Castle Beyond Goblin City looms above all but the Bladetower to the south. The Castle is massive beyond the dreams of many, stretching into the sky, rambling over kilometres of space and dwelling in the centre of a vast green space - a royal park no Goblin would ever consider building upon.

From within this building rules the Goblin King, Griptite. Named "Da Supa" by his subjects, he is unquestioned Lord of the Combined Goblin Collective, wielder of Da Powa and Tool of Fate. His subjects regard him as a God, and see him as their path to glory, and to their next meal.

He sits now upon a throne of gold, and before him stand four Bladegoblins, their armour emblazoned with a golden eye, and with them stands, slightly shorter, one of Griptite's many sons, also wearing the same symbol.

"Farseekerz, you are now called. You seek not jewels, not gold, nor any shiny thing but stars. Stars around which circle worlds for colonisation. We need more land, boys, and you’re going to get it for me."

The King's voice is deep, and very unlike that of normal goblins. His accent urbane, civilised, and lacking the barbarism common amongst greenskins.

He spoke for some time more, and eventually the others left him.


Shiny Lites, High Orbit, Anuvvawurld, Outa Wurldz

Prince Steeland Da Farseeker watched his fleet. The number of ships was vast, as with any Goblin venture, and ranged from his flagship – the Big Shyp Shiny Lites – to the small scrap like lil’Shyps of the lil’un goblins.

His golden eyes watched the final ships move into position, until finally his expedition was ready. Uncountable hundreds of ships, the vast majority very lightly armed (no goblin has ever produced a ship that is actually unarmed) civilian transports, containing tightly packed families of goblins, living in conditions even more cramped than their usual accommodation and all their meagre possessions clutched close to their bodies with beady eyes watching for potential thieves.

“Front-shypz reddy!”
“Back-shypz reddy!”
“Top an’ bottom shipz reddy!”

Shouts came from around the control room as the unwieldy fleet finally shifted itself into what passed for formation – Steeland looked proudly at what was truly exceptional organisation for his species, even if any vaguely experienced human general would burst into tears at the sight of his own troops moving in such a manner.

His second tugged at his sleeve.
“Bozz? We’ze reddy.”

The goblin Prince nodded, reached forward with one slender finger and pressed the Big Red Button.


Unknown system

The Goblin fleet dropped out of SupaSpeed, stopping themselves by the simple expedience of pulling out the plug from Da SupaSpeed Generiator. Lots of things that shouldn’t work, do, when goblins are involved.

“Well bozz….dere’z our new ‘ome.”

Human expansion is, as stated, vaguely similar. It has the additional variable, however, of the people involved. While the average goblin may not have too much problem being shoved into the armpits of his sixteen neighbors in Asimovian planetwide cities, humans have this silly concept of personal space that ranges from about ten centimeters to a hundred kilometers, depending where on the bell curve one stands and how many drugs have been pumped into one.

The Federated Segments, population eight and a half billion, technically have five colony worlds. Three--Bright Morning, Hillary, and Cinder--are shared with others because those crazy idealistic libertarian socialists love to share things. One of those shared ones is actually a gas giant, so there's plenty of room and flying cities and whatnot, but not exactly what anyone would call land area. Of the other two, Si'lat and Al'Faqih, Si'lat is a pleasant place if somewhat prone to generating new and exciting biological pathogens and Al'Faqih is a new challenge: rather than a more or less dead planet needing terraformation like all the others, it has its own quite alien and not necessarily hostile biosphere, making its colonization more a matter of several people independently squatting on it with much controversy rather than anything official yet.

In actuality, the Scolopendrans have colonized thousands of planets, with populations ranging from a few dozen to several million depending on exactly where in the ill-defined glob of space called the Periphery one decides to visit. They also range from more-or-less self-sufficient mining facilities and monasteries to full-on religious, political, or just similarly-inclined colonies. Protecting all these planets is something of a bother for the AeroSpace Directorate, which patrols constantly with its pool of cruisers and destroyers, with long-term overwatch usually done by an insystem Loki heavy DropShip deployed by the WarShips in questions. All in all, it's quite a mess.

And while the Periphery is not particularly close to the Goblin Nebula in purely three-dimensional spatial terms, everywhere is close to everywhere else if one is willing to integrate enough times to reach the right number of terms in their n-brane equation, which is why, probably, the SupaSpeed unplugging has deposited a rather largish conglomeration of baling-wire-and-chewing-gum 'starships' several dozen light years off of Al'Faqih.

Normally, this wouldn't bring up too much concern because the sort of sensor systems that both bend over relativity's rule of information being limited to the speed of light and have that sort of range usually only exist on WarShips or dedicated science platforms. However, Al'Faqih is still under investigation by the Science Section under the aegis of the Triumvirate of Yut's Galaxy Exploration Command as a potential 'official' (read: 'federally funded') colony site and therefore has a Beagle-class research cruiser in middle orbit around it.

A Beagle classifies as both a WarShip and a dedicated science platform.

* - * - *

"That's a rather... ah... large jump signature," Captain Salome Nnoromele of Research Cruiser Beagle mutters to herself, folding her arms as she shifts in her chair, identical to every other chair in the command room save for its placement. Her dark black face frowns, tied-back dreadlocks shifting back and forth slightly as she shakes her head.

"Concerned?" asks the ship's avatar, a somewhat cartoonish rendition of a beagle with a Great War-style leather aviator's helmet, goggles, and a silk flying scarf.

"A bit, yes, but after dealing with stars ripping themselves apart this isn't the worst thing I've ever seen. I think. What's the news look like?"

"Well, ma'am," the communications officer pipes up, "looks like our biology teams down on the surface are still clashing with the settlers below as they try to categorize life before it gets squished, burnt, or otherwise 'civilized.' Then there are the protestors that EnviroImpact imported from Saturnspace that are causing even more of a ruckus; at least two people are dead from poking things they shouldn't have, five more are missing, and it looks like we've got quite a media scandal brewing the instant YutLink gets here on the next Interstel courier."

"We have a platoon of Mobile Infantry on the planet trying to keep people polite," the weapons officer describes, "and so far, under their superior firepower, the only proven damages people have caused to each other consist of a few bruised faces and egos. The riotfoam's been brought out more than once, though."

Nnoromele sighs again. "Remember when this job used to be about science? Ah, well. FlightCom, dispatch two of our Lokis to keep some orbital scanning and laboratory space available for our biology department. Also let all the civvies know that if they want to jump ship to help with the xenobiology survey they'd best do it now. Comms, inform GEC that we're going to divert to investigate this jump signature."

"Are you certain that's absolutely wise, ma'am?" The beagle frowns, four-fingered white hand tapping the armrest of its chair. "Something that large looks like something the Ticks should get involved with. That is why, after all, our tax workreps go to maintaining their warfleets."

"Perhaps, but it's my guess warfleets don't pop up in the middle of inhabited space all blatantly obvious without some sort of strategic objective."

"Mars."

"Okay, point. We're diverting anyway, if nothing else but to do a long-range scan. If it turns out that we're looking at some sort of space invasion, I'm sure we can stay out of engagement range and you can go yapping to the big guns, Beagle."

"Fair enough, ma'am." The beagle shrugs in its oddly proportioned uniform and glances needlessly at its console. "Course plotted and set. Shall we jump, or would you like us to cruise?"

"Cruise, preferably. That will lower our signature and increase the amount of time we get to do our survey."

"All right. I'll just wait for the Lokis we're pickling to give us the all-clear, then?"

"That would be wonderful."

* - * - *

As said previously, dedicated science platform. More specifically, designed to catalog star systems from a moderately long ways away and do all sorts of nifty science by tying the various sensor packages to miniaturized tesseract packages a la the high-bandwidth high-observability ansible or something like that. More sufficiently, the Beagle's crack staff of scientists, mechanoid intelligences, and paranoiacs can figure out that the potential warfleet mostly consists of teeny things of relatively low energy density. Nothing specific, really, but energy and mass signatures do tend to put the lie to the original worst-case-scenario hypothesis.

So Beagle steps a bit closer, interstellar-ly speaking. There's a lot of contacts, but none that individually seem overly threatening. They're also not exactly, well, in formation. Or doing anything that looks particularly militaristic.

Therefore it gets into their face in interstellar terms, drops out of higher-order space, and gets into a comfortable interplanetary distance of about ten light-seconds out. Close enough that the telescopes can see that everything resembles tumble-down sheds with enough equipment bolted onto them to make them at least space-capable if not space-worthy, but far enough away that any weapons limited by the speed of light will give them plenty of time to step aside or deploy countermeasures.

Well, some assumptions are required, at least, and it wouldn't be the first time Beagle's been blindsided. "They look harmless enough," the starship's avatar concedes.

"Well, we may as well do our jobs then." Nnoromele smiles and nods to the communications officer. "Do your thing."

* - * - *

Unidentified vessels,

I am Captain Salome Nnoromele of the Triumvirate of Yut Research Cruiser Beagle. We were in the area, saw you drop in, and decided to investigate in a sense of friendly exploration. Please respond.

Captain Salome Nnoromele
Commanding Officer
TYRS-RCR Beagle

Shiny Lites, High Orbit, Furst Farseeker, Unknown system

Prince Steeland looked down at the planet. It was a good size, smaller than Goblin City, but only just, and its location was perfect for a climate somewhere between than of Hotwurld and Goblin City, and all goblins love heat.

Beneath the large window of the control room dozens of MakeItRite-Shyps were moving backward and forward across the newly named world Furst Farseeker, mapping the landmass and planning the locations of cities and factories.

While these ships performed their initial plans prior to actually starting to MakeItRite - the cheap goblin equivilent of terraforming - the rest of the fleet moved around with an impressive lack of order. The military ships maintained their watch, although it was less a watch and more an old broken sundial made of scrap metal, and the civillian ships moved amongst each other as goblin families visited one another, or squabbled over where they would build their new business.

One of the larger ships was already on the planet's surface, sucking up liquid from the seas, purifying it, and had smaller ships ferrying the water produced to the remainder of the fleet so the photosynthetic goblins could conserve shipboard supplies. Other ships upon the surface were scanning for metals, of both the "ooh look, shiny!" and useful varieties.


The Prince looked at one of the many screens on his command deck, occasionally ordering one of his subordinates to send mapping ships to certain planets or moons, but generally overseeing the whole operation while the Bladegoblins directed things from closer to the surface in their own shyps.

Steeland leaned back in his Big Captain Chair, taking a long drink from his Big Captain Mug. Just as he was getting comfortable watching his minions scurry there was a tug at his elbow.

"Bozz? We'zez gotz a communimacation fer yez."

"Put it on the screen, and refill this."

The GreatGoblin pushed his mug in the general direction of the goblin who had approached him and sat up, watching the big screen. Nothing happened.

"I said...on the screen."

The goblin pointed at a very small screen, in the far corner of the room. The Prince pointed at the very big, very blank, screen in the middle of the command deck, and glared at the small green creature, who ran to some controls with a squeak and started kicking them until the the message appeared on the big screen.

"Scanner boys..."

"Bozz?"

"Shouldn't we have seen this ship coming?"

"We did, but den Lamp went an' made a joke 'bout Dor'z mum...so den we was 'aving an a fite, and den we fugot all abowt it. Sorry Bozz."

Prince Steeland groaned quietly, then turned to the communications staff.

"Send this back...I'll write it...just send it."

The tall goblin knew perfectly well that most people did not respond well to goblin spelling - misunderstandings had caused ...problems... in the past.


Captain Salome Nnoromele of Beagle,

This is Prince Steeland Farseeker, son of King Griptite da Supa aboard the Big Shyp Shiny Lites, of the Farseeker Migration Fleet of the CGC. We've just arrived and are about ready to start fixing this world up.

Are you the new neighbours?

Prince Steeland Farseeker
Blood Royal, Admiral
CGC Shyp Shiny Lites

"So... ah... opinions, everyone? Ryom?"

Lieutenant Commander Ryom Ok-myung points out one of the secondary monitors from her seat; the one she indicates with her long piano-player's fingers shows a sensor schematic of Shiny Lites. "It's big, covered with guns, and probably more than a match for us in sheer power. The fact they're talking is probably a good thing, ma'am." She peers with undisguised desire at her console. "But what's more interesting are all the special purpose ships working."

Salome glances over to the weapons officer. "Milo?"

The man sitting at the gunnery station, Lieutenant Commander Milovan Djukanovic, shrugs. "Why a military assessment, ma'am? I think we could take it, but not an entire fleet. Looks friendly enough."

Lieutenant Keith Richter, communications officer, nods, tapping on his console to cycle through the channels piped into his earbead. "It's odd that it's a text message, ma'am, and it's in proper grammar. I'm picking up a lot of open, unscrambled communications--fleet chatter--and it's like... well, ma'am, it's like I've been dropped into a special ed class or something." He frowns. "No, too harsh. Remedial English. Very heavy dialect, sloppy grammar, sloppy pronunciation. Don't get me started on the accent."

Nnoromele shrugs. "Well, invite them to a bandwidth to do analog AV if they're willing. We may as well get a look at our new neighbors. While you're setting that up, Keith, can you give me control of your station's text sender so I can reply?"

"On it, ma'am."

* - * - *

I suppose we are, in a vaguely interstellar sense. We're maybe setting up a colony a few dozen lightyears off, so I suppose that puts you in the neighborhood and we may as well be neighborly. We see that you're already setting things up here and we were wondering if we could watch a bit while we talk. We're innately curious, you see, and as this is a first contact situation we've lots of questions and are quite willing to answer a few of your own, if you're willing.

My communications officer is patching to this signal an EM wavelength to use as a carrier signal for an analog audio-visual transmission. Encoding scheme should be patched to this signal as well. We look forward to seeing and hearing from you.

Captain Salome Nnoromele
Commanding Officer
TYRS-RCR Beagle

A sizeable portion of the Goblin Fleet, along with one of the four BigShyps slightly smaller than the Prince’s, was slowly moving away from the main force, heading toward one of the large planets slightly further out in the system, and another portion with another of the larger craft moved closer to the sun, doubtless seeking another planet.

The airwaves were full of chattering goblin voices, screeching at each other over who was claiming which bit of which world, which Bladegoblin was the best leader, and where the nearest Hopskotch Brewri Shyp was. Twice, smaller goblin shyps had opened fire on one of their neighbours, one succeeding in destroying the other, and the second blowing itself up from a faulty weapon. The BigShyps paid no attention to the commotion – their current concerns were higher than the deaths aboard two such small ships, and resolution was left to the military patrols.


Shiny Lites, High Orbit, Furst Farseeker

“Dey wanna speek ta us.”

“I know…I can read…look smart!”

The last was bellowed out at the goblin command crew, a motley collection of Cunnin’uns and GateGoblins, ranging in height from three feet to five, and in build from skeletal to beach ball, skin colour going from a pale green to a dark greenish-brown and hair dyed all the colours of the rainbow. Their uniforms were draped on various surfaces, often stained and torn, and their general discipline showed itself in the feet resting on consoles, and the bottles sitting on most available surfaces.

At their leader’s command, they leapt up from their slouches and grabbed their grubby uniforms, shrugging on long coats and spit polishing their epaulets until they gleamed. Naturally, no effort was made on making the rest of the uniform clean – only the shiny bits matter.

A few moments later, the control room was still dirty, the devices still resembled a traffic accident after graffiti artists have been let loose upon it, although everything shiny was gleaming. The crew were slouching less, their shirts were mostly lacking only one or two top buttons – and at least they were all wearing their shirts and coats, and none of them were drinking any more.

In contrast to the scrappy appearance of the control room and its crew, the Prince was immaculate, jointed armour shone with the gleam of careful maintenance rather than a love of shiny things, and the open robe over it was a beautiful work of slashed red, purple and gold (obviously imported). The Prince's pale green skin was smooth and unlined, remarkably different from the ugliness of the lesser species, his hair a bright red at the top, fading to purple at the sides. His Big Captain Chair was in the centre of a small circle of cleanliness on the deck, and his own control panel, while of goblin manufacture, at least looked as if it was properly maintained. Even the most intelligent of the lesser goblin breeds (anything but a Great- or BladeGoblin) are as street urchins to generals when compared to even the least of the GreatGoblins, and Griptite’s line are certainly not the “least” of anything. The comparison between the crew and their commander is immediately apparent, although his command are amongst the best of their kind – the Cunnin’un Goblins who are the most intelligent of the lesser species, and the GateGoblins, born and raised to fly from the small fortress world of GateStation.

“Communications. Connect us.”

One of the tall, slender goblins with a pair of goggles and a flight cap on his head waved a hand in something approximating a salute, twirled some dials, pressed some buttons and finally kicked his console. There was a brief whirr, and a connection was made.

--== ==--

"Greetings, I am Prince Steeland, of Griptite's line, and you are Captain Salome Nnoromele?

It is pleasant to meet someone willing to act neighbourly....many of our previous spacegoing efforts met with ...creatures... more willing to open fire instead of talk. Something to do with our appearance, I suspect."

The Prince's voice has a faint accent similar to those of the comms chatter already picked up by the Beagle, but insufficient to make his words come out with the coarse barbarism of the lower species.

One of the Goblins standing in the background looks up, speaking to Steeland.

"Bozz? Da MIR'z iz reddy."

The Prince glances back. "Tell them to start." Then looks back at the camera.

"You mentioned questions? We are not a secretive race, ask away. As to our own, what kind of creatures form your nations?"

Galaxy Exploration Command may not pride itself as much on military decorum and sharpness as, say, the Combined Services does, but the contrast between the scruffy Goblin crew and the neatly arrayed Triumvirate crew is, in a word, shocking. Beagle's command room is generally a parallelopiped shape, truncated at the verticies and edges, and overall a burnished steel color with a slightly blue tint to it. The floor is carpeted with what is essentially a textured blue rubber friction mat; blue plays in a lot in the upholstery of the utilitarian chairs and what not. Each of the nine officers, mostly human with the exception of the somewhat anthropomorphized beagle previously mentioned, sit more or less comfortably in their own chair with their own metal console swung out in front of them, all arranged in a circular arc shape centered around an object off-camera. Behind them are technicians in similar chairs manning stations along the perimeter of the room, and doing so in two levels thanks to a metal-grating gallery accessable by four gangways steep enough to essentially be ladders bolted to the structural members that hold up the gallery. The middle of the room is banded around by angular, arched structural ribbing; this is repeated in the aft wall of the room and probably in the fore as well, although that's also off camera.

"AV signal matched and processed, ma'am," reports a red-haired young officer on the far stage-left side of the officer's arch.

"Thank you, Keith," replies the darkest of the lot, female and sitting in the center of the arch. She swings her console out of the way and stands up, taking center stage. "Indeed, Your Highness, I am Salome Nonye Noromele." She has a small scar just below her lower lip and shoulder length black hair done in tight, nearly kinky but not quite, braids, and wears a captain's gold star on each side of her high collar. Her uniform is mostly black overall, with a green plastron, matching shoulderboards, and a wide blue fabric belt, capped by a more utilitarian belt made of steel segments with a triangular buckle. Trium insignia and name badge on the right breast, ribbon tree on the left. All of her crew are dressed similarly except for differences in rank and ribbons; the enlisted technicians in the back are dressed in green pixellated-pattern fatigues.

"We've had a few run-ins with those who like to shoot first and ask questions later, which hopefully explains our cautious approach. The Triumvirate tries its best to coexist peacefully with as many different peoples as it can, and so we welcome you to this region of space. We've seen things ranging from amorphous blobs to giant insects, so we're pretty open-minded when it comes to what our neighbors look like."

That tusked greenskins (wholly unrelated to goblins, mind) are now a fact of life in Karmabaijan, the Segments and, by extension, all the various arms of the Triumvirate is left unsaid. "We'd normally like to ask where you came from, but a lot of people like to consider their homeworld locations priviledged information just in case--it's quite understandable if you feel the same. Failing that, we'd like to know a little bit more about you, and are of course willing to answer in like kind if you're interested. Culture, history, that sort of thing.

"In a more immediate request, would you mind if we deployed probes to assist in our observations? Being a research vessel our primary mission is to look at things and we'd hate to miss an opportunity to see something like this."

GCG-MIR Post’ll Fix It, Planetary Surface, Furst Farseeker

Life had not developed upon this world, and now would never have a chance to. The MakeItRite Shyp blasted across the barren planetary surface, their mapping already complete. The oceans were already nearly enough like water for the Goblins, and would require only minor treatment to make it suitable. However, the land was sorely lacking the necessities of life – even for the relatively primitive Goblin culture.

“Bozz, da Prinz sayz we can go ahedd”

“Gotcha….Brikk, Cloff, yezz reddy?”

Captain Post Beech had his goggles on, his coat’s collar turned up, and his hands happily clutching his steering stick. He had been the first of his Skwad to be appointed a surname, and was proud not only of that, but his skill with his ship. Many MakeItRite captains were Cunnin’uns, smarter than Post, but without the inbred love of piloting and flying. He looked over at Brikk and Cloff, sitting at their panels.

“Weez reddy Bozz!”

“Ledd’er go!”

“Tree, too…wun….droppin’!”

The two Goblins pulled back on their Big Red Levers in unison – more by accident than anything – and the large doors at the bottom of the ship opened, dropping out the first of several bomb-like constructions to land on a large plateau, before the MIR Shyp moved on to drop the next in another appropriate spot.

Across the major continent, the same process was being performed by a dozen other MakeItRite Shyps.

Shiny Lites, High Orbit, Furst Farseeker

The Prince, who at six feet in height towers over his crewmen, smiles faintly and makes a casual ‘it is nothing’ gesture.

“We do not mind other knowing where we live. The Nebula is well protected enough that we do not fear invasion, although the Outa Wurlds are more vulnerable. However, our mapmakers do not appear to have any vague idea where the rest of the galaxy is in relation to the Nebula, making getting there difficult without a native guide, although I could easily point to the exact locations of the Nebula, or one of the other Migration Fleets, and any of our kind of sufficient Power could do the same.

“Anything of our history and culture you are more than welcome to ask of, although we have relatively little in the way of records before we became the CGC rather than mere disparate, squabbling worlds. The records of any of the original Dukedoms are naturally more intact than the anarchistic worlds that were without any governance.

“You are more than welcome to send probes to look at our Shyps or methods in more detail, although I doubt that most technologically minded nations have much to learn from us – I will freely admit that our craft are inferior in design and manufacture than most nations we have encountered. Fortunately, our numbers more than compensate. What we cannot do by elegance of design – and our builders have very little elegance in them, we do by mass production. If you desire, I am certain a reasonably talented engineer or captain could be found to describe their own opinions of their ships.

“As for yourselves, what kind of culture do you originate from? I am aware of certain worlds having a ‘popular opinion’ form of governance, although we have never found that to work except in the councils of the greater species, and even then things seem to work much more smoothly with a single ruler assisted by advisors. The idea of allowing the lesser species to have a voice in their own governance is…unthinkable. I suppose that other races perhaps have less self interest than our own, to make such a system function?”

After what seems a trifle too long the GreatGoblin Prince falls silent, but for a creature obviously far more intelligent than his contemporaries perhaps it is only to be expected. He remains seated, although this appears to be more so that he can continue to press the occasional button on his control console than out of any lack of manners – he is running a fleet, after all - despite the best efforts of his crew.

Noromele nods to one of the slighter-looking female officers on her staff, a button gets pressed, and a few hundred meters away a drone bay opens and bunches of little probes whizz out. Thanks to not wanting to look like they're pulling missile accelerations, they take a few minutes to place themselves more or less along the perimeter of the goblin formation around the planet, getting all sorts of camera angles and soaking in the data like sponges.

Turning back to the camera, she smiles with a shrug. "I and most of my crew come from one of those 'popular opinion' societies; it tends to help the cause of egalitarianism when most of the sentient species around are more or less equal when it comes to intelligence. The Triumvirate itself is also a democratic organization, but only on the council scale you mentioned, with each council member representing one of the member nations, which range from extremely democratic to highly authoritarian. We don't really pass judgment on anything like that and overall try to be open-minded. My particular culture, that of the Federated Segments of Scolopendra, are idealistically driven towards being open-minded to as much an extent as reasonably possible.

"To reciprocate as friends, we come more-or-less from a star called Sol several hundred light years spinward of here, although as you can guess we're pretty spread out along our own Periphery. It's a pretty popular place and it's not hard to find. Look for the one with ludicrously excessive amounts of EM radiation above background and that's it. So, concerning your history, how long have you had interstellar spaceflight?"

* - * - *

Several dozen leeches away, the ISS Sixteen Tons And Whaddya Get pops into the nadir jump point of Al'Faqih in an infinitesimal fraction of a blink of an eye. A few seconds later, once the not-at-all mechanoid-augmented crew gets their bearings, it starts at cruising acceleration towards Al'Faqih, estimated time of arrival three days. It's a perfectly average Starflight-class scout ship, vaguely Y-shaped and of the kind that Triumvirate Interstellar Trading (always called Interstel for short, although the occasional advert had tried to make use of the acronym TIT for comedic effect and the original venture-capital captains failed in their attempt to get Triumvirate Interstellar Trading Ship to be the acronym for their vessels rather than Interstel Superluminal Ship) mass produced for its self-funded attempt to explore and exploit the stars with all the leeway its highly capitalistic corporate charter would allow it. Sixteen Tons, like most of the Interstel fleet, is a franchise ship and therefore self-funded; like most franchise ships, it is in a moderate state of surface-deep disrepair and, like most franchise ships whose captains were more or less risk-averse, its cargo pods are optimized for passenger and courier space.

She's not a pretty ship; while sleeker than the highly utilitarian Beagle the goblins would probably feel more of a kinship with Sixteen Tons.

"So, why aren't we goin' any faster?" A well-known Karmabaijani reporter chomps on a nicstic as he leans over the captain's chair, looking out the front windows. "Rumor has it that there's fistfighting in what serves for a street down there and I need to get that story."

"And I need to stay on a budget," Master and Commander Brest "Gonzongas" Gonzales grumbles, looking hard at the Sailing Master sitting off his fore-starboard quarter. "Unlike the Ticks and the Geckos who get their power from boxes that make people go crazy, we actually have to burn fuel, and Shineyum burn rate is a function of acceleration that goes exponential after a relatively short linear region, given our engines. If you wanted a fast ride, should've gone with a ride like Trincomalee. She got big honkin' Class Fives after selling all her hydrazine planet specimens for some pretty polly."

"Believe it or not, TYL has a budget too." The reporter grimaces. "It's just that for once it kicked their star reporter in the teeth."

"Busy year, I guess," Brest pops off.

The reporter scoffs.

One of the first things the probes would notice about the fleet as a whole is the massive variation in quality not immediately apparent. From a distance, all Goblin ships look the same, something resembling a rubbish tip with engines and guns. With the added advantage of the drones a range becomes apparent – most of the ships are indeed pathetically constructed, but those with a more military bearing tend to be at least slightly better made. A small proportion seems to be well manufactured and almost the equal of human construction. As a general rule these are the ones marked with a GCG, and move around a great deal more than their contemporaries, apparently just for sheer joy of flying. From general fleet chatter such ships appear to be controlled by GateGoblins. In contrast, the worst produced ships seem to be controlled by Stannards. The vast majority of the military ships are captained by Cunnin’un Goblins, who boast loudly on the airwaves that they are smarter than any of their crew and cry out proudly of every trifling achievement they have ever made to other commanders.

Meanwhile, on the planet surface the MakeItRite Shyps continue to drop their payloads, leaving hundreds of bomblike objects scattered apparently at random across the continents. It is worth noting just how quickly the Goblins on-planet get their jobs done. The MIR Shyps themselves are perhaps (the CGC has never been accused of standardising their production lines) two hundreds metres long, the vast bulk of which is storage and fuel space – the storage area is quickly emptying, as the ships’ captains use their SupaSpeed drives at a very low setting to cover more ground between drops. The fuel goes down very slowly, with far more waiting to be used in the actual task of Makin’ It Rite that for flying the ships.

Efficiency is not something one would expect from Goblins, and from chatter it would appear that there are substantial rewards for the most successful MIR Shyps after they are finished – explaining the speed they work at.


Shiny Lites, High Orbit, Furst Farseeker

The Prince nods slightly at the mention of the human home world.

“We are aware of Sol; some of the humans who choose to live in the Nebula have spoken of it. One of our fleets managed to find it by accident, although I recall the admiral arrived at the same time as some alien invasion and turned around.

“We’ve had interstellar space flight since long before the establishment of the Combine, or at least we assume that we have – the CGC was formed by uniting the numerous Goblin worlds, and our race seems to have come from one of them. At least, it is highly unlikely that Goblins evolved simultaneously on worlds as varied as the City, Hotwurld and Bluwurld – with near identical species variations – and only within the Nebula. However, a fleetwide SupaSpeed is a relatively recent invention. Earlier, we would often lose large parts of a fleet from mistiming a Slowing, while we now have a more coordinated approach since Commodore-Admiral Clap started fiddling with our engines.”

At the mention of “Clap” a number of the goblins on the deck let out a spontaneous cheer – quickly silenced after a glare from Steeland.

“However, until recently there are has not been a great incentive to travel far beyond our own territory, we send out the odd fleet to see who else is out there but other than that we have not strayed too far from home. Now, we have more of a need to do so and so here we are.”

“And for yourselves, has interstellar flight been commonplace for some time? Also, what is the difference between your “Triumvirate” and “Federated Segments”? Context suggests the former is a governing body of some sort, such as the Council of Blades in our own society, but without the Crown above it, perhaps?”

"Commonplace enough, yes, that travel between colony systems is probably certain within the average individual's lifetime. Energy requirements still make it somewhat expensive for individuals to go out and randomly wander as they please, although Interstel--pardon--Triumvirate Interstellar Trading and other such concerns are making that easier too." She sounds slightly annoyed at the mention of Interstel, and the rest of her GEC crew look mildly nonplussed at the passing of a single breeze.

"As for the Triumvirate and the Segments... well, the Triumvirate of Yut is a multinational alliance that acts as a highly libertarian--hands-off--superfederal government. It's something of a loose confederacy that way. Scolopendra is one of the member nations of that alliance. Because the Triumvirate is a confederacy whose members are bound more by mutual interest, support, and friendship than imperial rule, there is no Crown, not like things like the Greater Prussian Empire have. We have three First-Among-Equals on the council, which act as the actual Triumvirate in the Triumvirate, but they certainly don't rule over the other members by diktat.

"Of course, that means it's both more and less stable than your average imperial system. It's more stable in that it's more flexible and can more easily adapt to changing circumstances, not really having an imperial heritage to fall into the habit of. It's less stable in that we tend to disagree politely amongst ourselves a lot more openly than a rigidly autocratic system would, but we like to think that just keeps us on our toes."

* - * - *

"Please don't tell me it costs you a bundle to at least place an ansible call in to the ground."

"The ansible's practically a miniature TJE, Thrust." Brest sighs and once again curses his parents that he was ever born. Normally he hates on them for giving him a name that goes with the 'Gonzales' to 'Gonzagas' parallel so naturally that it causes schoolyard trouble for him up to this day ("Brest? Oh, yeah. He's such a boob." "Hur hur hur."). Now he hates on him because this damned overbearing newspaperman--why do they still call them that? Print is dead!--wants to burn his precious Shineyum. "We're in the system. Won't lightspeed comms be good enough for you?"

"I love holding conversations with hour-long waiting times. That includes the amount of time it takes your pocket-calculator 'computer' to take into account blue-shifting due to our approach. How much did you skimp on this ride, Gonzales?"

"We can't all have the backing of major Karmabaijani megacorps, Mister Horsepower. I'll also have you know that the KarmaCorp TechSystems CalculateItBox 4000 is a piece of crap."

"Of course it is. That's why they have the 4000i firmware upgrade."

"Next time I'm buying from IngolfTech. I swear, they really are less evil than Zin Karma."

"What, and deal with the higher street prices for the same crap? Your problem is that you don't get the idea you have to spend money to make money. You get what you pay, or in this case, don't pay for."

"Do you know how expensive Shineyum is, man? Jeebus H Hyskos, it's the most valuable homogenous material in the Triumvirate. Why? Because it's artificial and its production is essentially throttled by you gangsters."

"'You gangsters,' you mean. Think it's any surprise that Interstel ships only burn Interstel-brand fuel unless you're willing to after-market mod?"

"Look. Either you're going to deal with lightspeed on my dime or else pay for the Shineyum costs of firing up the ansible, plus fifty percent profit. That's going to come out to something like twenty Karmas a minute."

"Highway robbery. Still, put it on my tab. Spend money to make money."

Brest sighs and nods to the Signals Master. "Spin up the ansible."

Shiny Lites, High Orbit, Furst Farseeker

“I see. You have the technology and are perfecting it, and you have energy sources, but they are expensive.”

Her brief look of annoyance was not missed by the Goblin Prince, but was not remarked upon. He nods a few times as the Triumvirate Captain speaks.

“But surely, such an atmosphere of discussion slows down any actual decision making? If a council within an alliance must discuss and decide anything, any major decisions upon, let us say the event of an invasion, may take so long as to launch an allied defence fleet after this invasion has already conquered? If your experience has been contrary to this, please correct me – I am greatly interested in what you have found to work.

“If you do not mind, would you tell me more of your Segments? I assume from your speech that they are democratic, similar to the Triumvirate, but are you predominantly, even entirely human, or is your crew an aberration? With the exception of your canine …crewman.”


GCG-MIR Post’ll Fix It, Planetary Surface, Furst Farseeker

“Reddy?”

“Reddy!”

“Go!”

The last of the bomblike constructions tumbled out of the Post’ll Fix It to land on the hard ground near a river. The planet’s ecosystem was interesting, teeming with oceanic life, and a landmass complete with mountains, valleys and rivers. But no life on the surface and the only fertile ground near the seas, where the corpses of the small shrimplike creatures that appear in abundance wash up and decay.

The ship sent up a signal to the Shiny Lites, and received a message congratulating them, and informing the GateGoblin Captain and his crew that they were currently leading in the prize-winning.

“Righto…light ‘em up.”

More levers were pulled, dials twirled and buttons pushed, pulling up a record of each dropped object and its location. The Shyp fed streams of very basic data into the objects, preparing them for the process of Makin’ It Rite.

“We’z reddy bozz, just waitin’ fer da others an’ da Prinz to give da wurd.”

"That's what the combined commands are for. All of the various Triumvirate-level branches--the Diplomatic Corps, the Combined Services, the Special Services, and the Galaxy Exploration Command--have their own nominal missions that they perform without orders from the council. My ship and her crew are members of Galaxy Exporation Command; we explore. The Combined Services, which is our alliance-level military, patrols and responds instantly to defend members from attack. Offensive operations, on the other hand, do require Council approval. The Special Services collect and collate intelligence both on their own and from member state intelligence services, and the Diplomatic Corps generally represent the Triumvirate in as positive a light as they can.

"So, yes, in some ways our reaction time is somewhat reduced. That is why the services are granted the freedom to perform their missions as needed and as won't dictate overall policy."

Nnoromele smiles at the change in subject. "The Segments are predominantly human, moving into the posthuman range with elective post-pubescence cybernetic modifications as time progresses. We're about ten percent non-human, which ranges through various humanoid and other species. My 'canine' officer here is actually the physical avatar of the ship, Research Cruiser Beagle."

"Hello," Beagle says on cue with a little wave. "I'm here to improve upon my crew's quick but saline-limited reaction times. And look for things that make us go."

The captain stifles a sigh. "Don't mind Beagle; she's really much brighter than she lets on." The avatar shrugs slightly, and Salome continues. "The Triumvirate is also a predominantly human organization, although we've several nations that are practically completely non-human. As said previously, we try to keep an open mind."

* - * - *

"Mister Horsepower, can I please entreat you to get off my bridge?" Gonzales is trying very, very hard to keep himself level, to the point that he's become overly polite. He knows it, and hates how obvious it is, because it only seems to drive that damned reporter with the abusively manly name to new heights of arrogance. And to think that bastard was born with the name Thrust Horsepower. Good God.

"Not while TYL is paying the lion's share of this trip, no." Thrust, leaning back in the chair he'd commandeered on the bridge, takes his depleted nicstic and snaps it half in his fingers before tossing it into the bin behind him. "I'm also expecting an incoming call, you know that."

* - * - *

The boots on the ground on Al'Faqih have one very important over Sixteen Tons. They're military grade, and have military grade systems. The research outpost that the xenobiology department of Beagle's science staff set up took Thrust Horsepower's call; they then pondered spinning up their own ansible to put in a long-distance call to Beagle before the lieutenant in command of the platoon set down for site security stopped them. His suit has a quantum entanglement rig that's hooked up to the M.I. command structure aboard Beagle; he can relay the call through that to the research cruiser, get a sitrep, and get Mister Thrustpower the answer to his pointed question.

Information travels at the speed of light, the researchers remind him, and the high-bandwidth voice function of his suit has that limitation on it.

Indeed, he counters, but the 'boxshaker' function--where no real 'information' is transferred, only 'noise,' albeit noise in morse code--isn't limited that way. Sure, it's limited to only sending to the set entangled with his, but that's how all QE systems are. He sends a text-only message; his boss back on Beagle will read it, text-only reply; everyone goes home happy and the heat death of the universe is pushed back an infinitesimal fraction.

<BEGIN>

TYL REPORTER EN ROUTE TO AL FAQIH <STOP> ASKS ABOUT DISPOSITION OF BEAGLE <STOP> WHATS GOING DOWN ON YOUR END SIR <FULL STOP>

RESPECTFULLY <FULL STOP>

LT SANDERS <END>

* - * - *

Somewhere aft of Nnoromele and friends, Captain Paulos shrugs, looks at the nearest copy of the strategic indicator board, and types up a reply. Beagle helpfully assists with a transcript of the communications.

<BEGIN>

TALKING TO SOME COLONIZATION FLEET <STOP> BUNCH OF GOBLINS OR SOMETHING <STOP> SEEM NICE ENOUGH <FULL STOP>

DONT QUOTE ME ON ANY OF THIS LIEUTENANT <FULL STOP>

CAPT PAULOS<END>

The Prince grins, flashing sharply pointed and perfectly white teeth, making a small wave back to the Beagle’s avatar – just about the only evidence thus far of a sense of humour from this particular Goblin.

“I can sympathise. My crew’s reaction times are only truly impressive on payday, when stealing something shiny, or when Last Orders is called. Otherwise they’re impressively lazy.”

One of the Goblins looks up and opens his mouth as if about to contradict the GreatGoblin, then shrugs, muttering audibly: “Yeah, about rite. Forgets goin’ for a scrap!” to general chuckling amongst the other command staff.

“Thank you, ‘Andel. That’s enough.”

He coughs gently, returning to his more formal posture as he looks back at Captain Nnoromele.

“Our own population approximates ninety-eight percent Goblin, and the remaining two percent consist predominantly of the various Troll species, which hold positions within the Collective, and humans – mostly vagabonds and outcasts. However, many individuals from many other races choose to make their homes with us, mostly outcasts and exiles.

“The populations of some worlds are, of course, vastly different. There are none but Goblins upon GateStation and EntryGate, and the population of Hotwurld is fully thirty percent Troll.

“As for your various organisations, we have an intelligence service and – as is apparent – a military. We do lack a dedicated diplomatic corps, as we simply send a BladeGoblin to a function if we deem it appropriate, in rare occasions a GreatGoblin such as myself. Exploration is a similarly haphazard business – we send out ships and fleets as we feel we need to. Obviously, these differ from alliance-wide organisations, however much it might seem at times that we are not a single unified nation.”

The Goblin who can now safely be assumed to be the MakeItRite co-ordinator (judging from previous interruptions) tugs at the Prince’s sleeve, and they hold a quick, whispered conversation before the armoured Goblin rises to his feet.

“Captain Nnoromele, if you are interested in our methods of making a world habitable, you may want to watch this…or if you just like light displays.

Tell the MIRs they may begin.”


The MakeItRite Shyps rose quickly to the upper atmosphere and began sending energy pulses (the pulses are, naturally, green) down into the metal items they had dropped a little while ago. More and more energy was streamed down until they detonated, each with an explosion that would do a nuclear device proud, leaving behind vast craters.

The explosions themselves – strangely pretty as a thousand explosions going off simultaneously is – are incidental, and of far more significance is the black powdery substance thrown up from within the containers.

Above the MakeItRite Shyps are many smaller craft, apparently designed to fit into this design as they feed green energy from a host of craft, obviously devoted solely to energy production, this task down into the MIRs, and from there into various pre-planned places on the world itself. The effect is impressive – thousands of coruscating arcs of green fire, plunging down through (relatively) tiny metal ships and then into the immense black clouds spreading across the main continent.

Scanners would show immense volcanic activity across this particular continent, as magma flows across parts of the land only to be sealed by energy blasts from above. More and more bolts come down, mixing together magma, earth and the strange substance hurled from the dropped pods.

It is worth noting that during this period most of the goblins on the deck are watching the display on their screens, murmuring things about shinyness, rather than actually doing their job.

After a while, the energy changes from bolts into a complicated network of strands not unlike a net, and descends through the powder, binding it to millions of strands connected by Goblin ships, the remnants of the pods, and the bolts already sent down. When it finally lands, the energy dissipates into the ground, mixing powder and soil.

The entire process, from explosions to the final mix, takes perhaps fifteen minutes – if at an enormous cost of energy, and using a vast quantity of natural power. The result is effectively fertile volcanic soil across the entire continent, although the landscape now resembles a moon rather than a planet, and is certainly not going to be well known for its beautiful scenery for some time to come.

“And that is how we do it. Most of it will be built upon – first farming ground, predominantly for fungi, and atop the growing structures houses will be built. Parkland has already been chosen for those who do not like our cities, and the rivers and lakes will be cleaned by the MakeItRite Shyps on their next several shifts.

“Unfortunately, we only have resources to complete this one continent at present. The PowaShyps will regenerate for starting the other worlds we will claim in this system, and the remainder of each world will be done in a more leisurely fashion, with more care over the land itself – at present we require some immediate settlement and food production to begin. The water purification ships have already begun to alter the oceanic environment to suit.”

He turns to Communications (or: Speakin’ Staff).

“Tell the MIRs that I intend to double their bonuses. Very fast work. I require their reports for the winner’s prize.”

He seats himself again, smiling faintly and apparently seeing nothing wrong with effectively destroying and remaking an entire continent to suit himself and his fleet.

"Wow." The captain can't help but suppress a blink at the awesomely destructive lightshow. "Well, that is rather... uh... unsubtle. Ok,"--said 'okk,' single syllable--"you're getting this? Right?"

"There's no way I wouldn't be, ma'am," the slight Asian at the console marked SEN replies. "I've got techs collating as fast as they can, with Beagle's help."

"And I'm piping it over towards HQ and our field base on Al'Faqih," the ginger-haired Lieutenant Richter at the COM station adds. "I figure GEC and our biologists would all love a live feed."

"Assuredly. It is... time efficient, to say the least," Nnoromele manages to say with a straight face, although there's still a slight sign of shock there. Having somewhat warm and fluffy environmentalist leanings she gets the feeling she should be offended, but since the rock didn't have a biosphere to begin with... probably... and she is a scientist... kind of... there's really nothing going on but what TerraEngineers would take ages and cooperation with the planet to do.

It also seems vaguely like the first stage of whatever it is Research Cruiser Clark Terrell is working with the Queendom of Zero-One on over in the ass end of the galaxy, as far out the plane of the disc as they could get. There's only been rumors, but public information on Clark Terrell has her carrying a lot of high-clearance smart guys and a lot of both Military Intelligence orangebelts and Special Services spooks. Even a HELLSING detachment, or at least room for one. Real Camp-R stuff.

"Thank you for the show, Your Highness." Nonye smirks, but does so good-naturedly. "I think we have plenty of data to do a lot of science on. I could see something like this catching on in the right places..."

Being essentially a slightly less militarized than average WarShip, Beagle has no restrictions on keeping its ansible linked to the GEC sci-net (the Command's attempt to make a stratnet without the emphasis on violence and getting ready to hurt people and break things).

* - * - *

<BEGIN>

LIEUTENANT NEW DEVELOPMENT <STOP> GOBLIN TERRAFORMATION PROCESS <STOP> IN SHORT BIG BADABOOM <FULL STOP>

NO THREAT BUT KEEP THE HIPPIES FROM FINDING OUT <FULL STOP>

CAPT PAULOS<END>

Second Lieutenant Nenadi "Colonel" Sanders bites her lip and wonders how exactly the hell she's going to relate what her suit's helmet-mounted display is telling her to Doctor Big Fancy Diploma, who is currently red-faced and shouting at... well, if she wanted to be polite she'd call him a 'colonist,' but really he's just the leader of a gang of squatters who are trying to jump a claim that's still technically Triumvirate Reserve territory earmarked for Segments Federal Reserve, at least until the Segments make a call one way or the other on whether they want to deal with it or not. At last report from home the decision would be 'yes' but as always TerraEngineers would go first to try and find out how colonization should coexist with the environment rather than slash-and-burn it aside.

Right now the discussion is something about "greenskins" and "orks" and "the goddamned Ardans are back" and "we need protection"--usually accompanied with a lot of pointing at her--which is countered by Doctor Degree with "no, goblins, stupid" and "there's no sign that they're a threat, right, Lieutenant?"

Everyone's looking at her. Fresh out of OCS, she snaps at attention. "No threat, sir. Confirmed from my commanding officer on Beagle, sir." I sure hope EnviroImpact doesn't hear about it, though...

* - * - *

It doesn't, at least not from Al'Faqih. Galaxy Exploration Command works hand-in-hand with major universities throughout the Triumvirate through its sci-net, allowing for new discoveries to be processed quickly. There's often a rabid scrambling over data for papers and whatnot because of it, but at least on the net itself it can make the snap judgments necessary to decide whether it needs to pull rank and divert research assets in quickly-occuring events. It's not like all the data Beagle is collecting is being sent over the sci-net; it's just an abstract but that still allows scientists back at home to beat their spaceborne competitors to press, even if within the community such action is seen as somewhat petty and golf claps ensue until the real scientific papers come out.

These researchers are at universities, some with highly regarded liberal arts departments and sometimes highly radical leanings. Stories of a big badaboom terraformation spread pretty quickly through such places, and the Ivory Towerists of the environmentalist movement place calls to their more... ah... active members via payphone or a colleague's phone just in case someone is watching. One of the ongoing problems in the Triumvirate is that one nation's 'action committee' is another nation's 'terrorist cell,' after all... oh, where was this happening again? Hum. Well, it can't be too far from Al'Faqih. Use the records and make an educated guess.

And the downside to an open society begins to boil up to the surface...

As one might imagine, the various 'environmentalists' in some Triumvirate universities are not the only ones who take notice of the data coming from Beagle. It catches the eyes of a few Science starships who often take side trips that put their impressive sensors units to slightly more invasive purposes. They in turn talk with various other persons and entities within the Triumvirate intelligence community. A consensus forms that the events occurring near Al'Faqih could be put to good use to distract certain elements from other projects. If all the Ivory Tower environmentalists are kicking up a storm there, then neither they nor the regular guy on the street will pay any attention to the occasional rumor of not dissimilar things going on beyond the Periphery where Clark Terrell is currently - well, what it's currently doing is none of your concern, citizen.

In any case, it's clear that the Ivory Tower and their, ahem, associates are already up to something - they're not all as sneaky as they like to think they are, the better ones are still little match for a number of intelligence services (which, luckily for them, usually have better things to do with their time, agents, and classified and/or quasi-legal information-gathering systems than expose said systems doing minor police work) and besides, their psychological profiles are well understood by those whose job it is to understand such things. They'll start some kind of protest or more expressive action, and it would be simple make things even more dramatic and distracting.

Calls are placed and messages sent out - an ex-marine here, a vacationing agent there. No need for too many to know that this is being encouraged from on high - there's plenty of people with grudges out there, be they academic, personal, or professional. No, they just need enough information to get them to the right place at around the right time.

The Prince slumps back in his chair, shadows having appeared under his eyes and looking as if he has not slept for several days as the aftershock hits him, just moments after he was smiling. One of the smaller Goblins wordlessly hands him a goblet of something steaming, which the taller greenskin drains and hands back, then get given another. As he sips this second drink, marks of exhaustion start to disappear.

“My apologies. Orchestrating that much coordination amongst my subordinates is tiring, and even the Blood Royal can only wield so much before we tire.”

In truth, the amount of Da Powa floating around is far greater than before – being powered by belief there is no way it could not, not after the number of Goblins who watched the Makin’ It Rite. However, that does not alter the fact that one being, even one of the GreatGoblins, can only channel so much.

“We like things that are time efficient…many of the lesser Goblin species lack much in the way of patience, or lifespan for that matter. Besides, knowing some of our engineers – the longer something takes the more chance for something to go wrong.

“I’m glad you liked the lights, Captain, and I wish your science-types luck with your data.”

Far below Steeland’s ship Goblin craft were already laying out the basic plans for the first city. Girders were fired into the ground to form foundations and a rough grid forms above them by ground crew, with pipes hanging down from them to carry water when they were finally collected to a source. The space between the ground and the grid is, at present, roughly five feet. Apparently the Goblins have every intention of using every possible bit of ground for growing, even when the remainder of the continent is not undergoing development. Despite the normally haphazard nature of Goblin construction, the foundations appear to be intelligently constructed – the Collective might be composed mostly of squabbling idiots who can spend days watching a shiny wind-chime, but at least there are some intelligent creatures at the top.


That information was travelling from the Beagle has, of course, been noted by the Goblin fleet. What that information actually is, is probably not recorded or greatly cared about in favour of playing with shiny metal disks or bickering. Even if the Morse Code was picked up, Goblins don’t know the code and wouldn’t be able to make head or tail of the sequence of noise bursts. The Goblins certainly do not know about the environmental activists back in the Segments, and remain blissfully unaware of their existence.


The fleet was similarly unaware of the actions taken in the nation of Cetaganda to distract the environmentalists and general populace from the actions of the Clark Terrell, which the Collective had neither heard of, beyond the Periphery, which most of the Goblins of the Collective couldn't locate. Even if they had known, little would come of it.


Generally, the Goblins of the fleet were happy. The first continent of their new world was Made Rite, the base of the first city was being built and, most important, they would soon be able to explore a whole world for new shiny things.

"Thank you, Your Highness." The captain sits down herself to glance at her station. "This is what we're here for, after all. Just as a friendly heads-up it seems like your, ah, terraforming efforts have caused a slight disturbance in the convective flows of the mantle. It could lead to some geologic instability down the road, but then again, seeing your methods, maybe that was intentional. Definitely sped up the tectonic clock, though."

The speed at which the goblins work is probably the thing that impresses Beagle's science staff the most. It's not particularly pretty, but it does seem rather effective and more than one scientist mutters something about how population densities and resource rarities have been a conflict multiplier known for millenia by now. Still, friends are as friends do and sitting around watching the show is friendly enough, given that no one is refusing them the view.

There is science to be done, and it gives the xenosociologists on the staff something to do. Communications are catalogued mostly for their scientific value (impolite, perhaps, but if there's no encryption, it's meant to be heard, right?), sensor recordings put onto holographic media for future analysis, and generally a lot of polite, quiet watching.

* - * - *

Green Millenium is an old ship. Battered, worn, obviously ex-Kaeneian military auxilliary by her build, but solid enough, she floats along where the local density of space won't do much to dissipate her momentum for the next few time periods of her name. A hundred and fifty meters long, she's relatively small and mostly cargo space; the space equivalent of an oiler when fleets needed them for fueling. Given her armor, probably a forward squadron oiler. She'd jump in with a few sisters, a fleet would tank up in field coaling operations, and then she'd jump back to wherever she filled her own tanks. Then the pattern of logistics changed somewhat with antientropic energy sysems and she got mothballed. Somewhere along the line she was sold, sold again, and was now the proud flagship of EnviroImpact.

Still, she's slow, and ecological rape seems to go staggeringly fast nowadays. Her crew of one hundred volunteer 'ecosmonauts' (pronounced "eco-smoh-nauts"), of which perhaps twenty are actually rated to operate a vessel of her complexity, would apply the riding crop to flank speed only to discover that the asteroid had already been vaporized, the ice ring collected, the great planes all torn up by orbital stripmining. Then they'd make a few angry remarks and gestures, the crews of the (usually) Zeppelin Manufacturing Industries hoover-ships would blow them off, and they'd wander off to do good somewhere else.

The tip came in from Stonozka University. Given previous GEC Endeavour-class scout logs, combined with observatory exploration and everything else in the database, this system, GEC-C291, had to be the one Beagle was in. It would be the only one with the matching ephemerides and that trojan pair of moons around the planet just there. Trojan pairs of moons around rocky planets aren't exactly common, now are they? And the terraforming of a pristine environment that may not quite be dead is already in progress, with explosions and volcanoes? The ecology of that world, assuming any existed, could already be in mortal peril. What about the environmental virginity of the rest of the system?

Normally, the jumpdrives on Kaeneian vessels make a vwoosh-fwimp noise. No, that noise doesn't propagate in space but it does have a presence in atmospheres and aboard ship. Green Millenium hauls herself into higher-dimensional space with a low constipated groan as she disappears in a zip of light.

* - * - *

"Ma'am, new contact, bearing two-forty dec sixty-five distance one-point-three billion kilometers. Jump-in signature," Ok says, finally pausing to take a breath, "looks... Kaeneian."

"Kaeneian?" Nonye frowns. "What would they be doing all the way out there, here, when they could just be... well... here? Looks like a navigator who doesn't trust reading the charts."

"Getting a transponder, ma'am," the lieutenant commander continues her report, then frowns. "Ugh."

"Out with it, Ok."

"It's Civilian Vessel Green Millenium, ma'am."

Noromele bows her head and pinches the bridge of her nose. "Oh dear lord."

* - * - *

Cretins and violators of the Universal Gaia! This is the EnviroImpact ship Green Millenium demanding you stop this barbaric pillaging of this ecologically pure system at once! We cannot keep harming Nature, taking and taking more until there is no more left!

Captain Amphore Greenleaf
CV Green Millenium

* - * - *

<BEGIN>

LIEUTENANT YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS <STOP> ITS GREEN MILLENIUM <STOP> I TOLD YOU NOT TO SAY ANYTHING <FULL STOP>

CAPT PAULOS<END>
Sanders sighs and idly judo-throws a squatter trying to plant a fist in the face of a cheering, jeering, sneering EnviroImpact treehugger (literally); doing this in a non-lethal manner whilst in a powersuit is a non-trivial matter. "Okay, everyone, they all step back or they get the riotfoam again." She waves the cone nozzle of the crowd-control device in a convincing manner. "Yes, yes, we all know Green Millenium is a few dozen light years away. Get over it and keep playing nice."

Thank goodness for implants. She can 'type' up a response quickly.
<BEGIN>
SIR I DIDNT TELL ANYONE <FULL STOP>

2LT SANDERS<END>

* - * - *

In Nuha, in Titan Scolopendra, a minor policymaker for the Environmental Education Front mirrors Captain Nnoromele's posture, tone, and words perfectly as he looks out the window at the cheering erupting from the EnviroImpact offices across the street. "Oh dear lord."

"Don't tell me those obnoxious bastards are doing something stupid again."

"Check the YutLink. They've just put out a memo and it's hitting the boards."

"One moment, checking... 'Green Millenium to stop eco-rape in GEC-C291?'" The other scoffs. "The boards? Is that what they're calling the fan nowadays?"

"You know this is just going to end up making the movement look stupid, you know. People don't care about pristine environments unless there's biota already on 'em. Look at Al'Faqih. The Fedrats are gonna just sweep that into a colony world right from under our noses while the masses are all pointing and laughing at those EI cunts."

A frown. "You know I don't like that word."

"Yeah, I know. Doesn't keep it from being accurate."

"Well, that would suggest them being the passive force in all this, the yin as it were. EI prides itself in being a bunch of pricks."

"Point. Ambulatory anthropomorphic penises, the lot o' them."

* - * - *

"Damnit!" Horsepower brings his fist down on a console with a mighty thump. "That's news, more than yet another silly little protest moshpit. Commander Gonzales..."

"NoIamnotgoingtojumpthererightnowIhaveabottomlinetothinkof." It's muttered while Brest concentrates intently on a screen pouring meaningless data down its screen and fights off the urge to fantasize beating Thrust's head in with an armrest ripped from a chair.

"Look. You're worried about expending the Shineyum not because you don't have enough but because of how much it costs. You're cautious, and Interstel's using that to keep you on a short leash. Be an errand boy. That's why you named your ship after a song about how the worker gets hosed." Horsepower speaks quickly, but enunciates carefully and sounds vaguely sympathetic. "I represent a network that reaches out to hundreds of billions, overall, once all the Menelmacari and all the other feeds are in. YutLink could deal in middling-sized nations if it wanted to. You jump to that system, get me into a good position to see the action, and get me ansible time to send the report back to the Link and I will make sure YutLink reimburses you your costs in Shineyum, double, plus the cost of all the other passenger's fares so you can refund them for the diversion and not be out a single thin dime. That should get you more than enough to get a real stardrive that won't be tied to Interstel's monopoly."

Not a moment's hesitation. "I want that offer in writing."

"You fire up the ansible and connect to the GEC's sci-net so you can plot a course--or have that science officer of yours to do it for you--and I'll start writing it right now. Word for word what I just said."

Brest looks at Horsepower. Thrust looks at Gonzales. The Sailing Master looks over at the science officer, Mark, who shrugs; he was only expecting half-pay on this jaunt anyway and it's a decent vacation from teaching at the university. Brest still looks at Horsepower. Thrust matches his gaze. The Sailing Master checks his watch.

Brest nods. "You heard him, Mark. Do it."

The Goblin MakeItRite crews would doubtless be very pleased indeed to hear that non-Goblins were impressed with their work – specialist crews, even amongst the bickering greenskins, always seem to take inordinate pride in what they do. Goblin manufacture might not be good, normally opting for (only)just about acceptable, but the speed at which a Goblin world can produce things – even whole fleets – is staggering.

Steeland was about to comment on tectonic instability – something the Goblins actually counted on, thanks to heavy use of crude geothermic power – when the Green Millennium’s message flashes on screen.

The message is met with a lot of snickering from the Goblin crew, and even some outright laughter. Some of them start up a crude beat.

“Bozz…can we? Can we pleeeeeze?”

“Captain, it might amuse you to know that “Green Millennium” is one our, ah, patriotic songs. You know the type – fairly standard “we’re great, never going to be beaten” types.”

He pauses and turns to the Goblin who had started nagging, and who was now on his knees, clasped hands lifted pleadingly.

“You may.”

The Goblins switch on ship-wide comms and the rest of them start the beat, which is soon echoed throughout the entire ship. Most Goblins cannot read more than basic instructions, and literature is rare…as with many predominantly oral cultures the diminutive green creatures know a great many songs…and this one is very popular amongst the lesser species, and particularly within the armed forces.

”Green iz strong,
Green iz tuff,
Green iz shiny,
Betta dan da rest,
Pink or brown or blue,
Grey or white or black,
Make it a green millenerum!

Weez ‘appy ta live,
Widout a grate big fite,
Az long az dey no…
Green is best!
We’ez dun it berfor,
We’ll do it agin
Anudder green millenerum!”

The Prince gestures for quiet, and the Goblins turn off the link for ship to command deck – although the ship still rings with the sounds of the third verse and onwards. To matters matters (probably) worse, on the fourth verse most of the rest of the fleet chimes in and by the fifth they’re all doing it, filling the airwaves with just how great Green can be. Perhaps most amusing for those who are less keen on EnviroImpact is the sixth verse, which details how;

Dat muvver nature,
Weez greener dan ‘er!
Goblin wurldz iz comin’
We’ll knock it all down,
We’z gunna make it rite,
Wuddeva’s dere befor,
Fer da green millenerum!.


Steeland’s expression is one of mild amusement mixed with irritation.

“I assume that this Captain Amphore … Greenleaf … is actually being serious?”

He does not wait for a reply, instead demanding his officers have a look at the ship and, more importantly, its armaments.

“Speakin’ Boys, send this on open frequency – assuming you can find the right button this time.

Captain Greenleaf, of the Green Millennium,

This is Prince Steeland Farseeker, of Griptite’s Line and the Combined Goblin Collective.

We are not pillaging – indeed we have given a mostly dead world the opportunity to flourish and have its resources, generously granted by the Power Beyond All, used to the benefit of all Goblinkind, and our friends and allies through trade. This planet, which would otherwise be ignored and disregarded, will instead become a beacon of Goblin life to come as the First Farseeker World, an inspiration to the young to go out and fulfil their dream, an opportunity to leave cramped worlds and ships and grow in an interesting environment.

In addition, within Collective space – which this now is – insulting a Prince of the Blood Royal, which you have just done, is punished severely. We are willing to forgive you this incident in the interests of amicable relations with the Triumvirate who, from their representatives seen thus far, are friendly and interesting individuals. You, however, are not welcome if you continue to behave in a manner more becoming a Goblin child yet to be taught the most basic manners.

Play nice and you may stay. If you are so keen to scream of how we should not expand onto new worlds, I invite you to live for a few days in one of our colony ships, where perhaps you will appreciate our desire to land and find some legroom.

Prince Steeland Farseeker,
Blood Royal of the line of Griptite,
Farseeker Fleet.”

The GreatGoblin sighs faintly – environmentalists are not exactly a common Goblin problem. He spoke over the secure connection again.

“Captain Nnoromele, my apologies for even indirectly threatening some of your citizens. If they should act particularly foolishly, then my apologies in advance. While I, naturally, hope fervently that nothing of the sort occurs I have a very large number of Goblin families to concern myself with, and will not risk danger to them over this Captain Greenleaf and company.

What kind of action may I expect from these people?”

Meanwhile, the fleet was happily “singing” its way through the rest of Green Millenerum – as the song comprises of about thirty verses, this takes some time and, knowing Goblins, they’ll probably just start all over again until a dispute over one of the verses results in fights breaking out.

Captain Nnoromele sighs heavily and suddenly looks very, very tired in an almost harried-motherly way. It's a good rhetorical trick for a woman in her early middle age to have. "Yes, Your Highness, I'm afraid they're quite serious. Rediculous, but serious. It's not like they'll do anything except protest noisily; they don't even have point-defense on that rig, being pacifists."

"If I may, ma'am?" Lieutenant Commander Ryom asks quietly from her station.

"Go ahead, Ok."

"Well, Your Highness," the Asian woman begins to address the camera, "if they go by their usual modus operandi they'll probably orbit spouting environmentalist slogans and perhaps deploy boats to the surface to squat on the continents you haven't terraformed yet. Depending on just how close you let them get before firing warning shots across their bow they may harass your shipping by being a one-ship unarmed hazard to port traffic. Green Millenium is an old ship, though, and her acceleration is poor and her top speed limited by her bow shock so it'll take her about three days to get here. We can probably expect a lot of vitriolic comm chatter for those three days but it'll give time for a response, most certainly."

* - * - *

The prince's words make her statuesque lips frown deeply with jaw set. The goblin anthem makes her eyes set angrily. By the sixth verse, her ears, very long and very pointy, are turnip red.

She was not born 'Amphore Greenleaf.' She was born in a little farming town as 'Gay Quatkenmeyer.' It was a horrible name and she was always such a gawky girl that she found herself increasingly attracted by the ethereal beauty of both the occasional Noldorin tourist or expatriate--one of which she had as a teacher in high school--and the elf-type metahumans that eventually filtered over from Karmabaijan. She started dressing like them, talking like them, generally trying to be one of them.

She is what could probably most politely be called, at best, a poseur.

She may have been gawky, but she was that most rare of Scolopendran maidens, the kind born into family money. So when she got her graduation stipend for 'living clean' according to her family's particular values, she immediately went over to the Karmabaijani for some extensive genetic and cosmetic alteration. She legally changed her name to Amphore Greenleaf because she liked the sound of it (of course, many of her elven boyfriends joked quietly about the real meaning of 'amphore' behind her back--to say she was well known to the community of the sexually desperate would be an understatement), fell in love with the elf-heavy environmentalist movement in college, dropped out to join a knight-errant group, got kicked out of that for being too zealous, and then joined EnviroImpact. Being pretty, well-spoken, and financially backed by obnoxiously rich and perhaps too doting parents, EnviroImpact had found its Jane Fonda, or at the very least its Patty Hearst, and put her in the captain's chair of CV Green Millenium.

She also has absolutely no idea how to run a ship or its crew, but that's not exactly her job. "Artificial borders of manufactured lords have no meaning in the natural way of things," she growls into the microphone of her ship's comm system in response to Steeland's message, "and we'll see to it that you do not live up to your name and steal any more land, Prince, without giving the natural order its due. All societies that have ignored their environment utterly have perished or grown to have no meaning, mere viruses to their native ecologies that either spread or kill their host. We--"

Something on the bridge beeps loudly, and the blond human-come-elf bites her lower lip in aggrivation. Her canines may be just one millimeter too long; the geneticists said something about side effects but it wasn't vampiric or really noticible anyway, except whenever she bit her lower lip in anger. "Incoming call, cap'n," reports the greasy-haired technician next to the console doing the beeping.

"Those Galaxy Exploitation Command surveyors?" She says with a pause.

"Actually, no..."

* - * - *

"Another new sensor contact, bearing off of Green Millenium three degrees inc seven, range point seven five kilometers," Ok reports over the still-open communications channel.

"God in heaven, what now?" Nonye is getting more and more nonplussed as time goes on. This is not a good first-contact situation.

"Transponder code coming in. Interstel Superluminal Ship Sixteen Tons and Whaddya Get, Master and Commander Brest Gonzales in command. Current mission, ah, ferrying passengers to Al'Faqih according to the Interstel open manifest."

The rugged-looking curly-haired man at the station marked WEAP smirks. "Tell 'em they missed, Ok."

"Oh." Ryom pauses momentarily, then rubs her temples. "That would explain it."

"What?" Nnoromele stands by to frown even deeper.

"Passenger manifest, Thrust Horsepower." The science officer certainly isn't talking about aircraft propulsion characteristics by the tone of her voice. "Titan YutLink. It's the goddamned press." She then looks up at the screen, eyes going wide enough to hide the fact she has epicanthic folds. "OhdeargodI'msorryYourHighness."

"I think he understands the sentiment, Commander," Nnoromele says with a sigh, then glances over at the camera again, "and if you don't, Your Highness, I'm afraid you're going to. I'm very sorry and will see what I can do to clear things up, but I think you can be expecting a call asking for a statement very shortly. Do you have any sort of, ah, corporate news media in your culture?"

* - * - *

"A statement?" Greenleaf holds her hand over the microphone transmitting (still openly albeit silently, rather rudely all things considered) over the frequency to the goblins as she speaks to the technician. "Certainly, I'll give Mister Horsepower a statement. Patch me through to him, or whatever it is it's called when you make me talk to him."

"On it, cap'n." Beat. "Do you want to stop talking to the goblins?"

"The greenskins can go leap. This is a chance to get our message out to the masses!"

* - * - *

"Titan YutLink is advertising that they've got a ship on the scene at GEC-Cwhateverthehellitis and Thrust Horsepower will be reporting live within the day."

The first one to speak in the previous EEF vignette breaks his pencil in fury and chucks both halves out the window. "Oh, fuck me. That means that bitch Greenleaf is going to start spouting fucking hippie nonsense. Fuck." His fist hits the desk. "FUCK. When was our press conference scheduled for?"

"Err... tomorrow."

"Can we push it over? I mean forward?"

"Not really. All our experts are out of town."

"Teleconference? Telepresence, telesomething? Anything?"

"I'll contact them and see what we can come up with."

"Nek ni fuck me me jode." Hair starts getting pulled. "We can't lose Al'Faqih. This isn't just some barren-as-a-prostitute's-cooch rock up the asshole of the universe, this is a biosphere. A real goddamned ecosystem. This is important."

"Easy man, easy. Don't flip out... just sit down, and breathe." A look of concern. "Can I get you a glass of water? Maybe a blue or two?"

"GAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH."

"Or primal scream therapy, let it out, just don't go crazy on me man."

* - * - *

Your Highness. Thrust Horsepower, Titan YutLink. I'm with the press and was wondering if you had a statement for the public record concerning this whole deal with the EnviroImpact folks and whatnot. I've already contacted them and gotten their statement... and boy, is it a doozy, out of politeness I won't go into it much. I'd like to hear your side of the story, though, get a different angle of the picture, so I can write a fair and balanced report of it all. I'll get the GEC's side of the story after that and then maybe we'll see where it can go from there?

With the greatest respect, sir,

Thrust Horsepower
Field Reporter, Titan YutLink
via
ISS Sixteen Tons and Whaddya Get

The Prince nodded slowly.

“So, they appear in an old warship…insult a member of the Blood Royal while aboard a heavy warship, in the company of two more such ships and an entire warfleet…then accuse us of a number of unsavoury acts and act in a generally aggressive manner?”

One of the Cunnin’uns behind Steeland coughs politely, and interjects:

“Huw can dey nub be dedded yet?”

Before the GreatGoblin nods to the Asian women.

“Thank you, Ok. Although if they get in our way…suffice to say that many of our ships have poor brakes, and travel faster than they should. One moment, please.”

He hesitates a moment, before turning back to Nnoromele.

“Incidentally, my name comes from Steel-Hand, rather than Steal-Land. I thought the name sequencing through families may of interest to your cultural analysis types. My father being Griptite, I am Steel-Hand, and my brothers are similarly named – IrnGryp, for example.”

He nods to the “Speakin’ Boyz” and speaks in response to Greenleaf’s broken-off comment.

“We do not care about your point of view. Your persistence in insulting us without being willing to at least entertain polite speech tells us far more than your so-called “cause”. If you really want to continue to act like an ill-mannered Goblin child we will not stop you, but interfere with our settlement and you shall be swept aside.”

The Prince chuckles when he hears the outburst from Beagle’s science officer.

“I do quite understand. And yes, Captain, we do have a corporate press. I doubt that they are anything like yours though…most of ours were bought up by Hopskotch Breweries years ago and we, the royal family that is, own 70% of Hopskotch – Boss Hopskotch owning the rest.

“Not to mention that our media are only permitted to criticise the aristocracy to a certain degree…not that our populace would rebel based upon media, but the added unrest would unpleasant.”

He smiles faintly as he reads the message from “Thrust Horsepower”. Now there a name worthy of a Goblin.

“Speakin’ Boyz, let’s send something back to this Field Reporter.”

Field Reporter Thrust Horsepower of Titan YutLink,

As you have no doubt already discovered, this is Prince Steeland Farseeker on of King Griptite da Supa aboard the Big Shyp Shiny Lites, of the Farseeker Migration Fleet of the CGC.

I cannot really comment upon the EnviroImpact crew, save that they appear more than willing to hurl petty insults like a small child and that they demonstrate an incredible desire to avoid civilised conversation and argument, preferring instead to scream pre-prepared slogans and cry ‘rape’ without having been to planet’s surface, without having considered what this world was like before we arrived, or having spoken to us about our aims.

As for ourselves, overpopulation forces us to leave our own traditional territories and find new areas to settle. You are welcome to visit one of our colony ships to see why we are eager to settle as soon as possible. I believe that the Beagle has footage of the Makin’ It Rite process if you desire that, and we have more than enough information on the world’s formerly dead environment.

Captain Greenleaf is screaming green murder over wiping clean dead rock to allow a vibrant society to expand, would she prefer that no race ever expand to stars? That no creature should ever step outside his front door for fear of treading upon a plant or insect?

Reporter Horsepower, the Collective has claimed this territory as our own, and we are here to stay. You are welcome to come aboard our ships and learn more of our aims, or to visit the world beneath us to see our colonisation firsthand.

While I look forward to amicable relations with your society, which could only benefit us both, I am not willing to risk the future of hundreds and thousands of my race to satisfy someone calling themselves Amphore Greenleaf, nor to bow down before the opinions of others, although advice freely given by such as Captain Nnoromele is gratefully received.

In closing, while Captain Greenleaf may accuse us of ecorape, I would remind her that her flesh is pink. Ours is green. Our skin contains what you name chlorophyll and absorbs sunlight as most plants thus far discovered. We have far more in common with Nature than she could ever imagine, and it is not her place to criticise our actions.

Prince Steeland Farseeker
Blood Royal, Admiral
CGC Shyp Shiny Lites

The Prince relaxed, with several of his crewmen looking slightly baffled, having got lost early into the second paragraph.

“Captain, a good response, or poor? You know your press better than I.”

Not long after the Interstel ship arrives, yet another ship pops into existence and begins making a beeline towards the planet. This one is another former military ship, a merchant marine escort/transport so old that it actually has a spin section that had found its way into civilian hands rather than been sold off to the Territory like most Cetagandan military ships from that period. It even has an array of point-defense lasers and pair menacing-looking heavy coilgun batteries, not that there's more than a few rounds for each or that anyone aboard's quite sure that they wouldn't blow up if fired.

{General Broadcast}
x CMM-00529 Wild Hunt
o Everyone

Greetings, friends! I wish the newcomers a warm welcome on behalf of the common citizens of the Triumvirate, although of course I am sure that the crew of the Beagle have already demonstrated our hospitality and goodwill. It is a shame that your first contact with the people of Sol should include the dredges of our society in the form of the self-righteous individuals of EnviroImpact.

No doubt they've already started spewing their normal filth decrying the destruction of 'nature.' Nature, my friends, has very little to do with them, because they are a prime example of hypocrites. Look at them. They fly about in a spacecraft, possibly the least natural thing in existence. They live on a terraformed moon or on a gigantic Ring habitat. They claim to represent nature, but never bother to consult those who are part of it. Tell me, Captain 'Greenleaf,' what have you actually done to benefit nature? Nothing at all. You cry about the disassembly of dead rocks and yet do not hesitate to enjoy the benefits reaped from that disassembly. And how much does your starship cost to maintain and operate? How many Um Lizaan orphans could you feed if you put that money to good use?

I for one have never seen a good thing come of EnviroImpact and its merry band of criminals. If anything, the environment has been harmed by their over-zealous actions as they drive true friends of nature away and leave it open to those who would truly destroy it. This current situation is a prime example – they attack those who create life where there was none before. They do their best to obstruct the creation, no doubt resting assured that they are so important that Beagle will protect them from harm. The crew of Green Millienium is, after all, a crew of cowards hiding behind a shield of pacifism, for one never sees them protesting the disasters in Iraqstan or venturing into the dark to confront a Queendom colonization effort.

But enough about them. I look forward to learning more of our new neighbors. I'm sure we have much that we could teach one another regarding terraforming, and many goods that could be traded between us.

Captain Heinreich von Untervald
representing P.E.T.A.* and the Ecological Awareness Council
*(People for Eating Tasty Animals)

{Message Ends}

"Yet another sensor contact, ma'am."

"I can see it on the board, Ok. Who is it this time?"

"Cetagandan Merchant Marine Wild Hunt," the science officer reports. "At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if the MIDF showed up."

"Unlikely, given that no one called well in advance," the weapons officer mutters again.

"Anyway," Nonye says, turning back to the camera and thus Steeland, "I think that was a very good statement. As you can see EnviroImpact is something of a fringe movement, although they do have their own very small group of loud supporters, and--"

"We get signal," Richter, the communications officer, interrupts. The rest of the crew simply looks at him oddly for a moment. "Well, um, two actually. One from Wild Hunt and a request for private tightbeam from Sixteen Tons."

"Sixteen Tons is the one with the reporter, no? Tune him in to the bridge microphones. Meanwhile, Lieutenant, I trust you can give Wild Hunt a proper response. Please excuse me, Your Highness; I bet I'm going to have to say something."

* - * - *

"They've received our request and've granted it," the Signals Master aboard Sixteen Tons says. "Mister Horsepower, you're on."

Thrust Horsepower grins winningly and clears his throat. "Captain... Nnoromele, is it, of Galactic Exploration Command's Research Cruiser Beagle? Thrust Horsepower, Titan YutLink. I've just gotten statements from both Captain Greenleaf and Prince Steeland considering this incident and was wondering if you'd like to put anything on the record on behalf of yourself, your crew, and the GEC."

* - * - *

"Ah, yes." Nnoromele doesn't look particularly happy at the words 'on the record on the behalf of...' as this means it's an 'official statement.' She's authorized, of course, but she'd much rather the spin department of Public Relations back on Bright Morning take care of this. "Well, I ordered Beagle to divert from its exobiological survey of Al'Faqih because we detected a large jump signature--the CGC fleet you've just contacted, under the command of Prince Steeland, apparently--and made first contact. So far, things have been decidedly friendly, admittedly surprisingly so given our experience with broadly externally similar cultures in the past."

That this is a very sideways mention of the old Ardan threat long since past is understood and left unsaid.

"Even despite the perhaps well-meaning intervention of some very vocal civilians, our contact remains cordial and polite, a testament to Prince Steeland's patience if nothing else. We will do everything we reasonably can to engender good relations between the Triumvirate and this new contact, and hope that all involved realize that this is not the proper public forum for discussing, ah, controversial matters."

* - * - *

By this time Amphore is hopping mad, nearly in tears and beating her alabaster fists on the console in front of her, which is rather unfair. The console never did anything to her. "Why won't anybody ever listen? Of course we can't fix what's already been broken, we've got to prevent it from spreading! Whether it was dead or not doesn't matter, it's pristine! Untouched! That has to mean something!"

There are murmurs of assent across the bridge of Green Millenium, but also by this time the comm technician has, of his own initiative, closed all communications channels. The cap'n got her say to the press; talking to the 'green' polluters and the corporatofacist puppets isn't going to get anyone anywhere. "So, cap'n, what do we do?"

Greenleaf frowns and thinks, hands still beating absent-mindedly and thus gently on the console. This calms her down a bit, being in command. In charge. "What we always do. The press is here, so we have to take a stand. Someone get me a map of the planet; we'll set down on the next reasonable terraformation location and set up a live feed of our own." She sneers. "If the Command doesn't do anything to protect its citizens, and the goblins are really so willing to shed blood, then we'll certainly win in the court of public opinion."

At the cost of their lives? Well, zeal does that. Definitely a bit more Hearst than Fonda, but no one on the bridge is about to disagree, either out of a misplaced Abeliene Paradox or out of true faith in her words. There is something of a yellow press back home; the death of countrymen can always be made into a fighting cause--it's been done before and it'll probably be done again. If nothing else such recklessness would bring the knights-errant into things, and at the very least it would give that bitch Captain Nnoromele a bigger headache. "The instant you have a course, take it. Best possible speed to that planet."

* - * - *

"Ma'am, Green Millenium has just made a course adjustment." Ok sighs. She's not supposed to talk when the captain's on the horn with the outside world, but these things are somewhat important. "Looks like she's taking a planetary landing course; injection into a probable deorbit maneuver in sixty hours or so."

Nonye raises an eyebrow. "Why 'probable,' Okk?"

"Well, if she doesn't deorbit, she'll hit atmo and then go scudding into the ground at an angle of about twenty degrees from the horizontal. While I wouldn't put an RKV attempt against EnviroImpact, it looks like it'd hit virgin ground at this rate, which definitely isn't their style."

"Richter, hail Green Millenium and tell them in no uncertain terms to divert. Make it as boilerplate and 'or else' as you like."

"I'll opt for 'or else we take no responsibility for the consequences of your actions,' ma'am, as it looks like His Highness"--polite nod to the camera--"has the 'or else' covered quite well."

"At your discretion, Lieutenant."

* - * - *

"Beagle is signalling for us to change course, cap'n." The tech sounds... quietly uneasy.

"Ignore them, do not acknowledge, and stay the course," Greenleaf says firmly.

"Well... she is a WarShip, cap'n. There's all sorts of dirty tricks she could pull without harming us and thus without incurring public wrath. Hell... we could be setting this up so the Exploitation Command would end up looking the hero." He may be a true believer, but he's not exactly stupid. "If you don't mind my saying so."

"Noted and disregarded." Amphore smirks. "She wouldn't dare do something so transparent, not when the name of her precious Command is on the line."

* - * - *

"So, Mister Horsepower," Brest says with a sigh, "you've got your statements. Are you going to make your report so we can go now?"

"Hell no," the reporter says without hesitation, "this here is breaking news that'll continue to break until Green Millenium does, one way or the other. Besides, I've still got"--he looks at his watch--"about sixteen hours before I've got to report in, and His Highness up there was kind enough to invite me over to have a look around. Sounds like a population-pressure story, and if they're as packed in as I imagine, we'll really pull the heartstrings."

"I thought you were going to write a fair-and-balanced report," Gonzales counters half-heartedly with absolutely no indication that he believed that would ever be the case.

"Well, how better to do that than to get as many angles as possible? 'Sides, if nothing else, it'll sell. Aliens and drama and all that. Now give me that microphone."

Brest looks at Thrust dryly.

"Please?"

"Good." The master and commander hands over the microphone. "At least your mother taught you some manners."

* - * - *

Your Highness,

Thrust Horsepower here again. I would like to take you up on your offer to see the conditions inside one of your colony ships, so with your permission I'll direct the crew of Sixteen Tons [quiet grumbling noise in the background] to move to rendezvous with whatever ship you point out, sir. Thank you for your statement earlier; it's shed a lot of light on the situation.

Thrust Horsepower
Field Reporter, TYL
via
ISS Sixteen Tons and Whaddya Get

He nods slightly.

“They do sound like a …loud… group. Good luck with your statement, Captain.”


Steeland read through the message sent from the newcomer craft, a moment later a response was prepared. As with the others so far, it began in the tradition form of the Goblin aristocracy – introductions were very important, especially in a culture as violent, unpredictable and, amongst the mob, paranoid as that of the Collective.

Captain Heinrich von Untervald of the Wild Hunt,

This is Prince Steeland Farseeker, son of King Griptite da Supa aboard the Big Shyp Shiny Lites, of the Farseeker Migration Fleet of the CGC.

Thank you for the welcome – it is pleasant to see some civilians of your Triumvirate are not rabidly keen on interfering with our settlement. As you have quite correctly guessed, the “EnviroImpact” group have already started their unpleasant little chants, although I was amused to discover that they unintentionally named their ship after one of our favourite songs.

They will not interfere with our Makin’ It Rite. They could land in the middle of the next area to be Made Rite and we’ll just move on to the next bit…the benefits of a design as unsubtle as ours is that we require very little in the way of natural formation to build our cities, and our current overpopulation has led to some interesting construction methods – we could build over their ship, and the Goblins living above them would probably forget that the Green Millennium even existed.

As I have said to Captain Nnoromele, I greatly look forward to learning more of your culture and society, and whatever else proves to be agreeable.

Prince Steeland Farseeker,
Blood Royal, Admiral
CGC Shyp Shiny Lites


The Prince nods slightly as the suggestion that he has an “or else” prepared. Goblins love gambling and betting, and gambling there is nothing better than a “sure thing”. Thus, the typical greenskin approach to such things is to sabotage the other parties in any way, shape, or form possible…Goblins are very good at cheating, and all sorts of interesting skills have developed from this.

“Bozz, dayz eddin’ tad Furst Farseeka. Prolly gunna hit da Secund Continerant-ting in tree Sitay-dayz, ur too Hutwurld-dayz. Day ent doin’ a Fastrun do, so weez nub hav ta wurri abut a big kaboom.”

The GreatGoblin nods slightly.

“Thank you. Instruct Bouncin’ Bubbla’z Blokk and the Sossannamash to “welcome” Green Millennium when its on the planet, assuming it lands.

“Cubbard, tell the Soor Liyke A Flyin Ting to expect our reporter friend – they’re a City ship, should be able to find someone with an understandable accent.”

The first Goblin nods and starts yelling into his microphone, the small Goblin now identified as “Cubbard” nods.

“Tell da SLAFT ta expectiarorate da speeky-boy frum da aleeyun noos ting. Gotcha”

“Thank you. Speakin’ Boyz? To the Sixteen Tons….

Reporter Thrust Horsepower,

You are welcome for the statement; I look forward to seeing your report.

The Colony ship selected is the Soor Lyke A Flyin Ting, it is neither the best nor the worst in the fleet, but being from the City itself the SLAFT should have a broad range of species on board, possibly a human or two although I would doubt it.

Most City Goblins have an accent that you should be able to understand, rather than the speech of Goblins from places such as Bluwurld.

The Captain’s name is Bigspayz. I doubt he will want to speak to you – as a GateGoblin it is unlikely he will care about much beyond flying his ship. Also aboard is Sunny D, look for the walking wall. Inform him that I’ve sent you and he will make sure no-one tries to steal everything you own, and no-one feeds you something poisonous.

Prince Steeland Farseeker,
Blood Royal, Admiral
CGC Shyp Shiny Lites


“Captain Nnoromele…you seemed rather concerned about your press earlier. May I ask what they normally get up to?”

The Prince thinks about his own nation’s press – well known throughout the Goblin Lands as being vicious little bastards who would make their own grandmother the object of nationwide disgust and hatred if they thought it would earn them a bit of something shiny – not that most Goblin news systems have that much reach, but the principle is the same. Fortunately for the aristocrats’ reputation, the only thing of greater concern to most Goblin newspeople than the next shiny bit of metal money is getting squished by an angry noble.

"Ah, the press." Captain Nnoromele feels comfortable enough talking with the surprisingly erudite goblin prince to shrug. "Our press are motivated by three things, which occasionally conflict. The first is to provide a fair description, not assessment, of what's going on. This drives them to collect as much information as they can, and is essentially the ideal of their profession. The second is to serve the causes of truth, justice, and whatever way they support and adds an inevitable bias to their reporting, although the best ones do their damndest to report and not shape--it depends on the ego of the individual in question, really. The third is to tell a really ripping yarn because such things sell and with selling comes success.

"From what I've heard of Mister Horsepower," she says with a quiet smirk, "all three are in buckets. Ideals, ego, and a flair for showmanship... the latter comes I think from being born to the name. Wholly unlikely, one would of thought, but apparently there's a whole clan of Horsepowers wandering around Karmabaijan. Anyway. They're mostly harmless, but to us quite annoying. I can say that publically as it's common knowledge. I suppose it's a necessary evil for our culture, but..." She shrugs again. "I don't think he's going to try for a hatchet job or seek out all your military secrets, Your Highness, just be a little, ah, underfoot while he gets his story."

* - * - *

"So?"

The greasy technician looks up at the elfin talking head. Not just elven; no, she had to make sure she was absolutely ethereally wispy to boot. "So what, cap'n?"

"So, what are they doing?"

The tech looks at his scope and shrugs. "Right now, I'd say a whole lot of nothing. We still got a few days to the planet, cap'n, and Beagle could intercept us faster than I could reach down to scratch my ass if she had a ken to."

Amphore grits her teeth with such vigor that the grinding makes a suitable harmonic accompaniment to the thrum of Green Millenium's power cores and engines. "Couldn't we, oh, I don't know, jump closer to the planet now that we don't have to be oh so careful about 'navigation hazards?'"

"With all due respect, cap'n, that's a job for a fully-handed ship and we're in all actuality a skeleton crew with a bunch of passengers. Normally I'd trust the automation but, hey, Gem's an old boat and I looked down in the computronium room one day. The thing's more jury-rigged than a ******'s 'peers' in Alabama."

The complete and total oddity of an ancient phrase both centuries and light years away from anything remotely resembling Alabama brings Greenleaf up short. The racial slur, on the other hand, is par for the course in 'Pendran casual conversation. "More jury-rigged than what? What's Alabama and what's it got to do with black people?"

The tech shrugs. "Family saying. I don't quite get it myself. Anyway, my professional opinion says insystem jumping is a bad idea right about now."

"Damn."

* - * - *

Thrust smiles. "Send a thanks to old Princey there and make to dock with Soor Liyke A Flyin Ting." He says it phonetically.

"This is my ship, damn it all," Gonzales mutters, "so I'll not have the passengers ordering my crew about."

"But it was what you were goin' to say, wasn't it?" Horsepower grins winningly at Brest, who seems completely unaltered in his opinion or mood by the display of teeth.

"I don't know. I could still turn this boat around right now, do my run, and get you off my ship."

"Yes, but then you'd be out all that shineyum," Horsepower says with a not unmenacing smile. "All that shineyum and certainly not enough green to cover the expense, given our contract and all. Means that if you hit a bad spot of economic trouble, you won't be able to keep the ship, at least, not in the way you like keeping her. May get stuck on some salaried common colony run, at which point you're just paying your way off so you can be replaced with a bot brain..."

"All right, damn your eyes." Brest growls. "Sailing Master, Signals Master, do it. I suppose, Mister Horsepower, you'd like to call ahead? It would only be polite, as much as that seems to you."

* - * - *

To the ship Soor Liyke A Flyin Ting,

I'm Thrust Horsepower and I'm looking forward to meeting you all. I won't be bringing on much, just my own person, really, so if eighty kilos is a bit much for your mass balance I'll just have to call the whole thing off. I'm supposed to meet one Sunny D and a walking wall, any idea where I can see 'em?

Thrust Horsepower
Field Reporter, TYL
via
ISS Sixteen Tons and Whaddya Get

Steeland nodded as he digested this latest information on the Triumvirate’s news service.

“Well, hopefully none of my father’s subjects, my subordinates, will disgrace themselves too badly. As long as he manages to avoid some of the more interesting spices he should be alright with Sunny watching him.”

The Prince’s smile becomes something more a smirk at memories of most people’s reactions on seeing Sunlight-Dappled-Upon-Golden-Rock, generally abbreviated to “Sunny D”, for the first time.

“I can imagine that having reporters buzzing around could prove an annoyance, although I am glad that you believe this particular individual is unlikely to be slating us – although I doubt he would be able to find out any of our “secrets” from visiting the SLAFT. As a species we tend to lack secrets – our population are notoriously bad at keeping them, so we’ve pretty much given up trying save for the odd project hidden away in some no-hope corner of the Nebula or Owta Wurlds.”



Meanwhile, the command deck of the Soor Lyke A Flyin Ting is in a pretty standard state for GateGoblins…bottles and other random pieces of rubbish lying around with no vague sense of order, most surfaces either dirty or sticky, but all things that actually have anything to do with flying lovingly polished and cared for.

Well, some of the things that have stuff to do with flying are lovingly polished and cared for.

Well, some of the things that have stuff to do with flying are given the odd lick of polish and rubbed with a not-too-dirty rag.

Anyway, the command deck is the usual scene of business aboard GateGoblin Shyps – the odd fight breaking out, bets over which emergency light is going to go off next, and in the centre of it all a captain who almost cares more for flying his ship than eating.

“Bozz? We’ez gotted a messiage!”

Captain Bigspayz Barrylroll nodded to the message, thought for a moment, then sent back a reply.

Thrust Horspowa onna Sixteen Tuns an’ Whaddya Get,

Roighto, da Boss sent da wurd ahed. We’ez gunna move out towards yez az you’z comin’ in, roight? Make it all nice an’ eezy fer yez away frum all deez uvver shyps.

Weez a larj ship, yoozez wate won’ be corzin’ ani trubblez – jus’ don’ be stirrin’ up da passingerz too muchly, last fing oi want iz mor fites ova spayz, roighte?

Sunny D yoo’z gunna find eezy. Yooz da frontest big entry door-ting, bringz ya strate inta da big transport tingy, y’know, passenger-cargo playz.

Captain Bigspayz Barrylroll
Collynee Shyp Soor Lyke A Flyin’ Ting

With a shriek of joy and warning to all aboard the (roughly) eight-hundred metre long colony ship (why build small when you can build big and cram more greenskins in?) as it banked sharply, firetrail shooting out its engines in a rather impressive display of overdone drama and began to move toward the Sixteen Tons. Surprisingly for a large ship it moves with reasonable agility – it looks like a whale, being over half its length in width and height – but manages to avoid the hundreds of ships between it at the military ships at the edge of the fleet with a relative ease. Testimony either to the captain’s piloting skills or sheer dumb luck.



Meanwhile, upon the planet’s surface the new city is already taking shape. Perhaps twenty square kilometres had not only had the basic foundation completed – girders were now supporting a number of pipes underneath where the city would be, with sufficient space beneath them to grow the fungi used in so many goblin foodstuffs. Hundreds of narrow shafts had been sunk into the earth into a central cavern where magma was already being pumped to supply heating and cooking resources for the city and metal sheets studded with holes for walls to be bolted to were being laid across the entirety.

To one side of the city’s foundations a large shaft was being sunk into the magma and a massive, if primitive, geothermal power plant was being constructed around it with thousands of cables connecting to those beneath the plating.

For dozens of kilometres around the base foundations were being laid – gaps of perhaps three hundred metres between each city-area to form distinctive separate areas.

The first few settler-ships were already beginning their descent toward the planet, ready to begin building their new homes atop the new version of city foundations, designed after learning of the mistakes when building some of the Owta Wurld cities.

Goblins build fast, and it is only a matter of time before the cities spread across the entire continent.

"Well, then, I'm glad that minor... ah... complication probably won't cause any problems." Of course, this is on an open channel, and so essentially Nnoromele has gone on record calling Thrust Horsepower, face of Titan YutLink, a 'minor complication.' It looks like the idea occurs to her, but doesn't cause her any real concern. "Now there's the issue of EnviroImpact, who at the very best (for us) will be here in a bit under three days. I'm sure you understand, Your Highness, that it would look pretty bad for us if an 'or else' were to happen to them while we're in the area to protect them like we're supposed to. Unfortunately, some of the more active but harmless things Beagle could do to physically stop them will also inevitably play poorly in the land of public opinion."

Someone has to be monitoring this; she doesn't much care. "In the end, we have time and I severely doubt that we'll have to play rough anyway if we do it right. Perhaps we can arrange some face-time between you and Miss Greenleaf so we can discuss this more rationally. I'd be more than willing to offer Beagle as a sort of neutral ground for that sort of thing..." She smirks. "Or am I being too idealistic and hopeful again about the usefulness of talk? I'll make sure she understands that emotional vitriol has no place aboard a ship of the Galactic Exploration Command."

* - * - *

"Oh god oh god we are going to die," Sailing Master 'Mean Old Betty' LeSalle says with no outward show of emotion at all, hands still firm on Sixteen Tons' controls. "Mark, please tell me that thing isn't doing what my screen is showing it to be doing."

Mark shrugs. Okay, so he's aboard a ship made entirely of lowest-bidder parts watching an even more poorly constructed leviathan of a starship roar in with unconfined drive flames and a commanding officer which apparently can't grasp the finer points of enunciation, but it still beat having to deal with the asshole-driven politics back at the university. "Yes, Betty, it's doing exactly what it looks like."

"So this is a problem?" Horsepower quirks an eyebrow and tries looking through the forward windows. Given that at this range the goblin fleet are really no more than dim reflective points of light, with at least one really bright spot of unshielded engine burn glow, this effort is completely in vain.

"No, not really, Mister Horsepower," Brest says with a smirk at the reporter's unease--however marginal it may be--"That's just what the Sailing Master does. She's an ex-Loki pilot and always complains about how unmaneuverable the Starflight-class is."

"It only follows, Mac," she says; given how long and unweildy the full title 'Master and Commander' is, that it would be shortened is a matter of course. That it would be shortened into what used to be a highly informal and indeed slightly rude form of address is coincidental. "This crate's more than half the size of a Loki and--"

"And yes, we know, the step down from milspec to what we civilians get is always a challenge, Miss LaSalle." Gonzales smirks. "Just follow our directions."

"What, 'the frontest big-door entry thing?'" Betty sighs. "Slowing for rendezvous, sir."

Despite slowing down, Soor comes up desperately fast from just being a dull star at a vanishing point. Glancing up through the forward windows as Thrust winces unintentenionally, she smirks. Vaguely cylindrical, with a large and unsafe looking door in front. "Never mind, Mac. Following directions."

The fourty-meter vaguely Y-shaped ship (http://server106.totalchoicehosting.com/~tpjzdd/gallery/Starships/starflight_escape?full=1) is easily dwarfed by Soor Lyke A Flyin’ Ting, and LaSalle is extremely careful to follow orders to the phoneme. At least the universal docking collar makes life a relatively simple affair should boarding tubes be required. What with all the poking, prodding, sharp, and generally dangerous things the Interstel crew finds themselves surrounded by in a flight deck of all places--most dangerous part of any ship--they are all very ginger about everything they do, even if Betty is currently the only one with real responsibility.

"So, does anyone want to come aboard with me?" Thrust grins winningly once the last docking maneuver--accompanied by a heart-palpitating nails-on-chalkboard screech--ends with a satisfying thump.

"No thank you, Mister Horsepower," Gonzales says with far more composure than he feels and far less than he shows, "I think this is your adventure. We'll keep the engines warm for you."

"Hmph." Horsepower shrugs. "Alright then."

* - * - *

Green Millenium's telescopes of course deal with lightspeed lag, something on the order of an hour at the moment. Even with this, the rate of goblin expansion over the pristine what-used-to-be-wasteland of a planet whose only name is an unofficial indicator given by the Endeavour-class GEC scoutship crew that flew through ("BGR 389," the crew's own code for exactly which barren godforsaken rock they'd passed on this tour) is obvious. And stunning.

And, given the tendencies of EnviroImpact members, blood-boiling. "At this rate, they'll have turned the entire planet to a slaghive in a month!"

"Look at those methods. There's no indication of the previous landmass at all, really!"

"Think of what happens when they get to the rest of the system? What will they do next, disassemble planets for resources?"

"What about when this sort of expansion reaches our own shores?" This is perhaps the most cogent argument of them all, even if it is the modern version of the Yellow Horde argument.

Greenleaf simply folds her hands and glares, then looks at her watch. By shiptime, it's late for her shift, but she certainly can't sleep with her stomach twisted in knots, her back aching, and face flushed with emotion. At this rate, there's literally nothing she'll be able to do.

* - * - *

Thrust steps onto the deck of an alien ship alert and ready for everything, with a sense of bold curiosity for the adventure ahead. Yes, it sounds propagandistic but in this case, it's true. He's a Horsepower; pioneering and discovering the truth is in his blood, more or less. Other Horsepowers were scientists and explorers, he's a reporter. Cybernetic eyes and ears record his sensorium to headware memory; he'll jack into his deck back on Sixteen Tons later to do the editing and whatnot (it'd be faster that way, and diving into his own headware tends to make him sit around like a drooling idiot, and his ego is too healthy to allow that), but for now... let him see, and let him hear with his broad smirk, rugged build, and conquer-the-world mentality.

The Prince smiles faintly and nods very slightly.

“The “or-else” I have in mind is rather less violent than I might like – destroying vessels always appears to cause trouble. Admittedly a number of captains have already volunteered to tear their “Green Millennium” apart, but I felt that it might not be the best of ideas, even if it would be funny.

“If this…woman…is willing to talk, I am certainly agreeable…just keep her out of arms’ reach as I have no desire to be hit by someone calling herself Amphore Greenleaf, nor any desire to spray blood across your ship – a response to any assault would be required.”



Thrust is greeted by a pair of bored looking Goblins playing cards. They glance up and nod at a very large door in the wall. The ceilings here, despite Steeland’s comments about being cramped, are about thirteen feet high.

The interior of the ship holds close resemblance to a corrugated iron shed, only slightly sturdier. Bits and pieces of rusted metal are hammered together with reckless abandon into that looks just about solid, although with disturbing rust patches…well, not so much rest patches as rust with clean spots. The lights built into the walls seem to be an interesting mix between fluorescent bulbs, metal filament and, here and there, simple flaming torches.

Upon passing through the door Thrust would see the reason for the unusual height of the room as he is greeted by a face the size of a desk. It has a disturbingly manic grin on stony features, flashing teeth the colour of pale marble.

Sunset-Dappled-Upon-Golden-Rock straightens to its full height of twelve feet, and nearly that broad across the shoulders. Most of this is solid rockmuscle, making a grinding noise with every movement. The Collective’s Fist-And-Crown within a circle is painted in a disturbing shade of green across its chest and its voice sounds like a landslide.

“You Thrust? I Sunset-Dappled-Upon-Golden-Rock, called Sunny D. Trollguard. Da rulez iz simple. Don’ start fitez or nick stuff, an’ don’ insult da Royals, rite? Das abou’ it.”

With a bit more space between the troll and the human, Thrust would be able to see nearly a dozen other trolls sitting or standing in the room, some engaged in simple-looking board and card games (the cards being tombstone-sized slabs of rocks with symbols carved into them), or a game that appears to involve punching one another for no apparent reason, or practising shooting with guns as long as a tall human, firing into a bulkhead that appears designed for just such a purpose and actually looks stronger than the ship’s hull.

The towering figure moves slowly to something that would look like a telephone, if a telephone was three feet long, and bellows into it without waiting for a response from the human.

“Roite. Derz dis ‘uman inna shyp, ‘e lookz smartish so yez can tell ‘im. Don’ give ‘im anyting wid da funkey flavas – yooz no wat oi means – an’ stick wid givin’ ‘im da lite stuff. Da Prinz sayz ‘ez okey-hey, an’ yez no wat dat meenz.”

It slams the phone down and shoves open a more normal sized door, far too small for the troll, one massive hand pushes the reporter through it with surprising gentleness, then closes the door behind him. The last thing Thrust would hear were the words:

“Yez needz anyfink, just ask fer Sunny D.”



The next room is a sharp contrast to the relatively spacious Trollguard quarters – the ceiling is at seven feet with six-tiered bunks lining the walls and forming walls of their own in lines down the room, which is perhaps fifty square feet. In some places primitive floors have been built about three-and-a-half feet above the ground and small Goblin children lurk beneath or above them, playing childish games, gossiping, or fighting. Suspended from the ceiling are plant pots filled with various flora in such density as to almost form a lower ceiling at five feet, some simple mushrooms and others strange-looking tentacled plants apparently trying to spread across the ceiling, in addition to dozens of other varieties. Every now and then a Goblin will reach up and pluck a mushroom or fruit from a pot and munch on it, or grill it on one of several braziers scattered throughout the room – the idea of fire safety has not really caught on here.

Goblins are everywhere, jostling one-another as they move through the streets created by crates, boxes and beds. Some appear to be hawking foodstuffs grown in their plant pots, or trying to flog rat-onna-stick – which has a perhaps unsurprising popularity seeing as his clientele are Goblins.

There is no escape from the noise of maybe threescore adult Goblins, and at least that many again in younglings, in many cases the adults are sleeping several to a bed, and the same with the children – although many of these appear to be sleeping in groups of three or four similarly aged younglings, huddled together much in the manner of young mammals with others of the same litter. There are calls of anger and the sound of bickering, the cries of Goblin children and the sounds of start-up vendors selling their wares.

The smell is similarly all-pervasive, the stink of unwashed Goblins is unpleasant enough in the open air, and while the numerous plants help they are certainly insufficient in such a cramped environment.

Everywhere are Goblins, and there are doors in two of the other walls (the other two being back into the Trollguard quarters and the other the hull of the ship), one apparently leading to a room containing soldiers of some kind passing out rations of water and the other into another identical accommodation hall.

Mounted upon one wall is a large screen, upon which the Makin’ It Rite progress is currently being shown upon the fleet’s own news network – few Goblin news broadcasters can claim any large influence, but there are hundreds if not thousands of such groups, and one appears to have moved itself into the fleet in favour of whatever world they originally called home. The newsreader goes on to speak disparagingly of Captain Greenleaf, and mentions briefly Thrust’s arrival aboard the ship (apparently the broadcast is only actually reaching this one craft) before going on to talk about the reduced water rations.

In one or two areas of the room small fights have broken out, quickly surrounded by Goblins betting on a victor and eventually ending in a surprisingly cheerful way with little animosity between the combatants – scrapping has long been a large part of Goblin culture and is so common is not really seen as offensive as long as certain forms are observed (like yelling “Gotcha” when you jump at someone, or telling someone before you begin).

When the size of this room is considered alongside the size of the ship, and then taken in perspective with the size of the fleet the number of Goblins currently in transportation would fit into perspective – less than half a square foot of space per Goblin, with the vast majority lying/sitting/fighting in their bunks rather than taking up more of the already crowded floor-space.

Despite the small amount of space per Goblin they seem to be in remarkably high spirits, with snatches of song breaking out here and there, games being played and circles of gossiping she-Goblins easily visible.

"It'll take a while to get everything set up, I think, and perhaps even more time to convince the 'captain' that it's in her best interest to speak peaceably like a citizen of the Triumvirate and Segments should." Nnoromele smiles with a slight undercurrent of mischief. "I'll dispatch one of my Loki DropShips to rendezvous with Green Millenium and provide... well... presence. Hopefully we'll be able to convince Greenleaf to board the Loki and return here so I don't have to move Beagle's science package around. This is a nice spot to watch everything unfold..."

She brings one hand to her chin, murmuring for a few moments in thought. "Well, that's the plan at least, Your Highness. If it meets your approval..." She presses one of the buttons on her console and addresses the tinny voice that comes out of it. "FlightCon, Nnoromele. Please prep one of our science Lokis for launch and brief the crew for a rendezvous-and-escort of Green Millenium. Out."

* - * - *

Thrust Horsepower, being a reporter to new worlds and civilizations, isn't easily shocked. Still, the ordered disorder of meeting a rather wall-like troll, being briefed in such short order, and gently pushed into a happily bubbling fray that rankles the 'civilized' concepts of sanitation (or at least hygiene) does put him at something of a disadvantage as his mind struggles to get over culture clash. His arrival's been announced and is apparently local news, but no one seems to be taking any note of him. Actually, that's good. The last thing a real reporter wants is people recognizing him to be a star reporter and suddenly trying to give their version of the story to him.

He'd seen fights break out over things like that in other places.

And, as far as he can tell, no one here needs any assistance in finding excuses to start fights.

So, like all good men of action and adventure--like a Horsepower--he bluffs. Whenever you're somewhere you don't feel like you belong, at least act with all your skill like you belong there and you'll blend in just fine. Well, he'll blend in just as well as a six-foot-two black-haired endomorphic Caucasian would in a hold crammed to the scuppers with greenskins. No, not scuppers. What're'ey called... uhm... gunwales? Yeah, that's the ticket. Gunwales.

Knowledge of nautical terminology, or the lack thereof, notwithstanding, Thrust bites back the instinct of his eyes to tear up from the acrid odor--I
ll get used to it soon enough--and find someone who doesn't seem to be doing too much and wouldn't mind being distracted. He approaches and addresses casually. "Hey, friend, what's the news?"

Prince Steeland nods slightly with another faint smile.

“That sounds most satisfactory, Captain Nnoromele, thank you.

“So, what do you think of our settling thus far?”

Goblins are curious creatures by nature, and the Prince was no exception – eager to learn not only of how other races and nations view his own, but also about their own methods and procedures.



Within the accommodation room of the Soor Lyke A Flyin’ Ting it is understandable that any human, even one as well-travelled as Thrust, would be more than a little bewildered by the sudden transition into the vaguely organised chaos that is Goblin society.

The Goblin selected by the reporter is a fairly average three and a half feet tall, with the stereotypical long and pointed nose (stereotypes exist for a reason!) current held just above the glowing coals of a brazier upon which various bits of fruit, fungi and some strange white meat are slowly cooking. The smell rising up is surprisingly pleasant, making an interesting contrast with the stench of unwashed Goblin flesh.

His clothing seems to consist of a great-coat with carefully polished insignia upon the shoulders and the remnants of an old military uniform beneath – impressively dirty, and a safe assumption that this individual is a retired member of some branch of the military or another – greying hair unsuccessfully dyed a bright orange being one large clue, alongside a heavily lined face when added to the old military clothing and tattered markings.

The elderly Goblin looks up at the human through glasses that make his beady eyes seem thrice their actual size and blinks.

“Da Nooz? Das eezi, da Nooz iz dis show watt tellzez yooz watt stuff’z happened, roite? ‘s onna screen dere.”

The old Goblin in his tattered military uniform points in the vague direction of the screen with the scabbarded sword he seems to use as a walking stick.

He grins, showing a mouth half-filled with holes, the remaining fangs are disturbingly pointed – in any human a person would think he filed and sharpened his teeth – as he finally works out what Thrust actually meant.

“Oooh, yooz meen wat stuff ‘az bin happenin’? Why din’ ya say so? Derez deez peepolz wot iz tryin’ ta stop da moigrayshun, derez udderz hoo seemz good, an den derez sum uvva chaps wantin’ ta talk abowt it.

“Den derez less water fer ussez cuz uv sum axident inna pur-if-err-ting onna soorfass, an’ moor gitz frum da next-door ruum.”

He grins that slightly disturbing grin again and flips over some of the things on his brazier.

Beagle's captain stifles a nervous chuckle at the question, folding her legs and scratching the back of her neck. "Well, now, Your Highness, I'm supposed to keep a scientific disinterest concerning whatever I happen to be observing, but, ah, it's been quite... interesting." She shrugs. "Certainly a high-energy, quick-and--er--dirty way of doing things. Not exactly how we'd do it, but unlike EnviroImpact it's not our--the Command's--place to complain.

"As for the actual settling..." She shrugs again. "I've got no vested interest in it, and it will be good to have friendly neighbors for a change."

* - * - *

"Man, why do we have to be the ones who have to get within spitting distance of the ecofreaks?" Ensign Carson sighs as he stretches up in the copilot's seat, flipping the maneuvering subgravs to ready power using the switches conveniently located on the overhead panel. "Subgravs to ready, check."

Lieutenant Commander Desai shrugs, folding her arms and relaxing back in the pilot's seat. "Someone has to. Confirm all decks green for action."

In the flight engineer's seat abaft of Carson, Ensign Myun nods as she checks off the green indicators for each deck's ready status. "All decks confirmed green for action, check. It couldn't hurt to have a little bit of muscle breathing down their backs."

"Disengage docking clamps," Desai says, working out her muscles with a twitch before taking HOTAS controls in hand.

"Muscle? This is a research Loki flying ten thousand tons of science labs." Carson flips three switches, and checks the indicators as they go from red to green to dark. "Clamps disengaged, check."

"Yes," Desai replies as she guides the gull-winged craft with its bulbous cargo pod away from Beagle's ventral side, quickly angling it into the pipeline and thrusting away on reactionless drive, "but it's still a Loki. Heavy lineguns, erasers, more missiles than a porcupine has spines... I think the message will get across."

A few seconds later, it's a hundred kilometers away from Beagle and still accelerating exponentially when it disappears from sight. Sensors nearing Planck time refresh rates would be able to watch it collapse into an infinitesimal point--which, having no volume, reflects nor emits no radiation and is thus invisible.

* - * - *

"Yeah, I happen to be the other chap wanting to talk about it." Thrust shrugs, and grins broadly. "My name's Thrust Horsepower, and I work for Titan YutLink. Mind if I ask you a few questions, get your angle on this scene?"