Dukerino Wrote:Grant stretches the cramps from his legs and holds his hand out to their rescuer. “Really excellently done, Boro.”
The thickset pilot bows before he accepts the shake. “Thank you, Majesty.”
Grant scans the crowd for Wenzai or his wife. A polite cough steers his attention back to Boro. “Uh—Majesty.”
“Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say, uh.” Boro clears his throat. “I wanted to say that you are, uh, to me, and to the men of the Empire, many of them, that you are very, uh—that we had never imagined being ruled by a man. And that you are very inspiring, Majesty.”
Grant grins. “I’m just some guy, Boro.”
“So am I, Majesty,” Boro says. That’s why you are inspiring.”
Wenzai has seen him first and is jumping up and down in the crowd, waving her arms. The motion it inspires on her chest nearly makes one of her rescue workers collide with a support strut. “Majesty! Hey!”
Grant gives Boro a quick parting nod and steps his way through the underfoot crowd to the Countess. “Hey, Wen. What’s going on? Do we have any answers?”
“Your Chief Engineer is here.” Wenzai gestures to a walkway off the landing platform, along which a group of Korak workers are guiding one of the crumpled pillars of machinery. “I don’t know if it’ll be easy as well there’s your problem. But we’re hoping.”
“Yeah, now, see. There’s your problem.” Waian stands from the windwhipped and weatherbeaten condenser stack, laid on its side in the hangar like a beached leviathan’s carcass. Her tail threads through her belt loop and tugs her riding-up coveralls back down. “These attachment clips for the exo ring’s undercarriage here and here. See? They’re mismarked.”
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https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/120617...ur-problem