Chapter 3

Chapter

Three

P ip wound her way through the underground hangar until she found the corner that seemed to be the mechanics' headquarters. A male troll with broad shoulders, white hair, and grease-smeared coveralls was fussing over a partially disassembled engine on a stand, his back to her.

Beyond him, six elves—two females and four males—cleaned tools, talking in elvish among themselves. They must be the mechanics who had come with the elven half of the squadron.

Pip adjusted the straps of her bag where they were digging into her shoulders. Perhaps she should have settled into her quarters first before finding the head mechanic. But most of the weight in her bag was her tools, and she'd rather unload those first before climbing back down the steps to find her room. "Excuse me. Are you the head mechanic for the aerodrome?"

The troll turned around, then his face split in a wide grin. "Pippak! You've arrived! It's great to see you again."

Pip blinked at the troll before her, craning her neck to look up into his face as he strode toward her. "Baragh! I haven't seen you since we graduated. How have you been?"

Baragh had been in her magical engineering class at Hanford University, and they'd graduated together. He'd been a friend, though they hadn't kept in touch after they went their separate ways.

"Good. Got a job here at Dar Goranth right after university, and I've been here ever since." Baragh gestured at the expansive hangar. "I'm the chief mechanic for all airships and aeroplanes that stop here at Dar Goranth."

Making him her boss. That was convenient. She'd been worried she'd get stuck with some gruff and grumpy troll.

"That's great." Pip grinned. She was always happy when she heard about someone she knew from university succeeding.

"What about you?" Baragh grabbed a nearby metal cart and pushed it toward her.

Pip took her bag off her shoulder, opened it, and dug out the tools she'd brought from home. "I returned home to the western rail terminal and went back to wrenching on trains. Until I joined the Mechanics Auxiliary a few months ago."

"Huh. I was sure you'd get a job at the Alliance Magical Power Company." Baragh shrugged, his gaze narrowing as he studied her. "You had the mind and magic for it."

Pip stilled at the mention of the AMPC, the company in Escarland run by the famous inventor Lance Marion, Merrik's dacha Iyrinder Loiatir, and Fieran's dacha, the famous Prince Farrendel Laesornysh. Internal hero worship squeal . Her face grew hot as she tried to breathe normally.

When she finally swallowed and spoke, she struggled to sound casual rather than squealy. "I thought about it, but I missed home too much to move away."

At least back then. It had taken a few decades, but she'd gotten restless again. Restless enough to join the army mechanics.

"Well, we're glad to have you here at Dar Goranth." Baragh glanced up as footsteps came in their direction.

The other four mechanics from Fort Linder wove their way between the aeroplanes before halting a few feet away from Pip.

Baragh grabbed a slightly grimy clipboard. "I'm Baragh Garr, head mechanic for all airborne vessels here at Dar Goranth. Since you already have a good working relationship with the pilots you trained with, I'm assigning you to Flight B."

Pip breathed a slight sigh of relief. Not that she wasn't used to working with elves. Her home was in Tarenhiel, after all, and she'd worked with elves all her life.

But she much preferred to stick with Fieran and her flyboys. She didn't trust anyone else to keep her boys safe.

"Pippak Detmuk-Inawenys, you'll be the head mechanic for Flight B."

Pip stiffened, nearly dropping her favorite wrench on her foot. "Pardon?"

The other four male human mechanics who had been at Fort Linder with her shifted, glancing between each other. While she had gained their respect enough that they didn't hassle her, she had mostly kept to herself during training, hanging out with the flyboys more than her fellow mechanics when off duty.

"You're by far the most qualified with the most years of experience." Baragh glared past her at the other mechanics. "Any of you have a problem with that?"

One man opened his mouth, like he was going to say something, before he snapped his mouth shut and shook his head .

"I didn't think so." Baragh faced her again. "Get your men settled, then organize what you'll need for arming the aeroplanes. We have two older-model flyers there in the back that you can use for testing various designs."

Pip nodded, her words stuck in her throat. She'd never been in charge before. At the western rail terminal, her mother and brother bossed the other workers around. Pip could just go and do her own thing.

She glanced over her shoulder at the four mechanics put under her charge. Two of them were in their thirties or forties, physically older than her, even if she had more years of experience by virtue of being a slow-aging half-elf, half-dwarf.

The four men stared back at her with looks varying from dubious to resentful.

What had Baragh been thinking, putting her in charge?

After organizing her personal tools, inventorying the provided tools, seeing to it that her men had their own carts and tools, and inspecting the two aeroplanes, Pip was more than ready to retreat to her room.

With her pack considerably lighter now that she'd unloaded her tools, Pip made her way down the flight of stairs to Level 24. At the landing, arrows and labels pointed into the labyrinth of tunnels, showing where Sections A-E could be found on this level of the mountain.

Pip followed the arrows, the tension in her shoulders easing at being surrounded by so much stone. While she'd grown up in the light, airy, and very wooden buildings of the western rail terminal, there was something about the dark and deep places of the earth that called to her. Her muka would love it here.

As she reached Section E, she found a small corridor with only ten doors, five to each side. The hall ended in a door to the outside, which led onto a tiny balcony. Four of the female elf pilots were already crammed onto that balcony with a fifth hovering in the doorway.

A few of the doors stood open, lilting elvish floating out.

Pip froze at the entrance of the corridor for a moment. How many female pilots had there been? There had been two female mechanics, and she had seen quite a few females among the pilots. Were there enough rooms here for everyone? Was she going to have to share?

Forcing herself to move, Pip checked the first doors on either side. The door on the left led to the lavatory while the door on the right was to the showers, some of which were already claimed with their curtains drawn closed and water running.

Pip let that door fall closed, then gathered herself to knock on the next door in the row.

A door three down to the left opened, and a female elf with long brown hair and brown eyes stuck her head out. She glanced around, then gestured to Pip as a smile lit her face. "Pippak, right? You are in here with me."

A roommate. Not the worst thing ever, as long as she wasn't the snooty sort.

Pip made her way down the corridor, then stepped into the room. It was sparse with two stone-posted beds—little better than cots, really—with ropes strung between the stone frame to hold up the thin mattress. A narrow wooden cupboard was set against the wall at the foot of each bed.

The brown-haired elf plopped onto the bed on the left. "I am Aylia Daemaer." Instead of a more traditional elven greeting involving fingertips touched to forehead and lips, the elf stuck out her hand for an Escarlish handshake.

Pip shook her hand. "Pippak Detmuk-Inawenys. But you can call me Pip." If they were going to be roommates for as long as they were both stationed at Dar Goranth, the nickname was probably the easiest, even if she didn't know Aylia well yet.

"Ooh, a nickname!" Aylia's grin widened further. "I find the human concept of nicknames so fascinating. Do dwarves usually have nicknames too?"

"It isn't as common as among humans, but not unheard of either." Pip set her pack on the bed, then opened the cupboard.

There were a few hooks for her things, then some shelves at both the top and the bottom. She wouldn't be able to reach the top shelves, unless she stood on the bottom shelves or reached from the bed, so she wouldn't put much there if she could help it.

She hung up her spare set of coveralls, then glanced over her shoulder at Aylia. The elf seemed fairly straightforward, so Pip was just going to ask rather than beat around the bush in a more elven manner. "You don't mind sharing a room with a half-dwarf?"

Aylia's grin didn't falter. "Not at all. I volunteered to share with you. I figured you would be more fun than sharing with some of the others." She glanced at the closed door, leaned forward, and lowered her voice. "A few of the others come from noble families. The ones in room eight are especially snooty. I would avoid them if I were you."

"Thanks for the warning." Pip stashed the rest of her clothes onto the bottom shelves.

It wasn't too surprising that a few of the elven pilots had the typical snooty elf attitude, especially when it came to elven nobility. There was a small but vocal minority who was still pushing King Weylind to ensure that his children married pure elves, given that all of King Weylind's siblings had not married elves.

Not that such a prejudicial attitude was confined to the elves. There was an element among the trolls who wanted Prince Rhohen to marry a pure troll to strengthen his bloodline after it had been "tainted" by Queen Melantha's elven blood.

The humans of Escarland were less concerned about that and more worried about what would happen to their monarchy if the heir to the throne married a longer-lived race and suddenly a monarch would live unexpectedly longer than was the norm for a human. They were already dealing with the ramifications of King Averett's extra-long reign due to him being an elf friend.

But while the other races certainly held discriminatory attitudes, the elven nobility—with their need to be superior in everything—had seemingly gone out of their way to perfect their prejudices to the point it wasn't just an attitude but a foundational character trait.

"No problem." Aylia waved airily.

Pip climbed onto the bottom shelf, stretched as high as she could reach, and delicately placed the carved wooden train her brother Mak had made for her on the top shelf where she would see it every time she opened the locker. The little train had, thankfully, survived the attack on Fort Linder unscathed.

She added her bag and closed the locker, her throat unexpectedly tight. She never thought she'd miss Chelsea and the other flirtatious nurses, secretaries, and telephone operators at Fort Linder. But they had shown unexpected depths during the attack, rushing to their stations and doing their jobs with just as much bravery as anyone else on base.

Here, she had a corridor filled with prissy elves for companions. Command over Flight B's mechanics. Not even any aeroplanes for her to maintain just yet.

This stint at Dar Goranth would be more of a challenge than she'd expected.