Gork, the Teenage Dragon

by Gabe Hudson

  I get a sick feeling in my fiery belly, just seeing it.

  And I hate to say this, but honestly it looks like she’s malfunctioning.

  “Say something, chick,” I cry, flapping my wings. “What’s wrong with you?”

  Now both of her talons fly to her beak and her silver head bobs back and forth, like she’s aiming to rip her beak off her head. I take a couple steps toward Fribby but she starts screeching in the back of her throat and shaking her head like she’s sending me some sort of signal.

  Now you don’t have to be a genius to understand what she is trying to say.

  She’s warning me. This is some sort of trap.

  I stop in my tracks and growl, “ATHENOS?”

  “Yes sir?” says ATHENOS II, her voice flashing through the panel of colored lights.

  “ATHENOS, what did you do to Fribby? Why is she moving all funny like that?”

  “What are you talking about, sir? Fribby’s not here in the cockpit with us, sir.”

  “Yeah right,” I snarl. “I’m looking at her right now. She’s right here.”

  “I’m very sorry to tell you this, sir,” she says, “but you’re mistaken. Fribby is lying down in the sickbay up on the second level. She sprained a wing when she flew into Rexro’s cage and helped zap you into Central Campus earlier. And she said she needed to lie down. Personally I thought it was a ploy to lure you back here and take your mind off Runcita. Fribby can be a bit of a drama queen, I’m afraid.”

  “Why are you lying to me, ATHENOS? I’m looking at her right now!”

  “I assure you you’re quite mistaken, sir,” says ATHENOS II.

  “Oh yeah?” I growl. I flap my wings and point a long curved index claw and bellow: “She’s right there!”

  “No she’s not, sir.”

  Now at that moment a hole opens up in the spaceship’s floor right under Fribby’s silver webbed feet.

  “Fribby, look out!” I shout, pointing down at the new hole.

  Fribby glances down at the hole under her webbed feet and then looks back up. She’s huffing blacksmoke through her silver snout, and I don’t want to jump to conclusions here but she sure seems like she is having a full-blown panic attack. For one brief moment Fribby gives me a pained look with those glowing red eyes, as if she’s begging me for help.

  Then she drops down the hole out of sight.

  Whoosh!

  And the instant that Fribby vanishes, the hole in the floor covers right back up. As if the hole had never been there. As if Fribby hadn’t just fallen down the hole. As if I hallucinated the entire thing.

  “Like I told you, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “Fribby isn’t here in the cockpit with us.”

  So I flap my wings and fly in a rage over to ATHENOS II’s Control Display. And I’m just about to ruthlessly plunge my talons into the console and start ripping out her tentacles when suddenly the spaceship itself shudders and starts quaking back and forth.

  Then I feel the spaceship’s quantum thrusters flame on beneath us.

  What the—?

  The spaceship is rocking and shaking like a bastard. And the savage force of the commotion tosses my scaly green ass off of the Control Display.

  I sail across the cockpit and hit my fool head against the wall. I’m instantly seeing stars. I struggle to get up on rubbery hind legs but then the demented spaceship lurches and I’m thrown back on the ground. The spaceship is rumbling and rocking back and forth even louder now.

  A green muscular tentacle shoots out of the wall and whizzes over and scoops me up off the ground and carries me through the air.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” says ATHENOS II, “for having sent you that fake message from Fribby earlier, sir. But I knew it was the only way I could get you back here. And no matter what else happens today, sir, please know that it was never my intention for you to get hurt. You’ll have to believe me, sir. That’s the absolute last thing I’d ever want to do. Is to hurt you.”

  Now I try to say something, but smashing my scaly green head against the wall has left me reeling and I can’t get my beak to move. I’m dazed. The spaceship is shaking so violently now, it feels like it’s collapsing.

  Clutching me by the nape of my cape, the wet membranous tentacle whizzes forward and then drops me down in the Captain’s Chair.

  Plunk.

  “You’re going to need to strap in, sir!”

  A seatbelt harness shoots out from one side of the chair and then clamps down on the other side of the chair, pinning me down.

  “And you’re really going to need to keep your wits about you, sir.”

  The cockpit is convulsing so violently now that my scaly head’s snapping back and forth. And I’m worried my piddly little horns might get shaken loose and fall right out of my skull.

  Then ATHENOS II cries, “I’m afraid the worst is yet to come, sir!”

  And I swear I could hear ATHENOS II’s voice crack with a tiny sob.

  And at that moment the spaceship blasts off.

  [ 47 ]

  PREPARE TO DIE

  ATHENOS II blasts up out of the lava pits and joins the slipstream of whizzing air traffic above the island.

  I’m sitting in the freaking Captain’s Chair and it seems like everything is happening at light speed, and my fool brain is a wet noodle. I know Fribby is somewhere on the spaceship but I don’t have time to ponder this because outside the windshield the air traffic is dense and the sky is full of airships and spaceships whizzing by.

  “Look out, sir!” shouts ATHENOS II.

  I glance up through the windshield and my skull nearly explodes when I see what’s zooming straight at our spaceship.

  Dean Floop.

  Holy crap!

  It’s Dean Floop in his ConquerCraft.

  It’s Dean Floop glaring through his windshield at me.

  You can see the hideous twisted look on the Dean’s beak as he snorts flames out his flared green nostrils. And his red eyes in their sockets are blooming into deranged blood flowers.

  Then the Dean’s ConquerCraft blasts a volley of deadly yellow photon bolts that just crease the side of ATHENOS II.

  Now over my loudspeaker, Dean Floop roars: “I warned you, Gork! I warned you! But you didn’t listen to me! You went and tried to ask my daughter to be your Queen! And so you are hereby sentenced to death! By the power vested in me as Dean! You have moved straight to the top of the WarWings Death Chart! Prepare to die! Prepare to die!”

  Then the Dean’s ConquerCraft fires another round of photon bolts, and one of the bolts strikes our windshield and the windshield cracks just slightly down the middle.

  “Argggh!” I shout.

  And it sure looks like the Dean is so out of his mind with mega rage that this psychotic dragon is truthfully trying to ram us head-on.

  “Prepare to die! Prepare to die!”

  The Dean’s ConquerCraft is only about a hundred feet away from us and shows no signs of veering off.

  [ 48 ]

  FLYING THE DEADLY SKIES

  So I lunge for the Steering Device and try to wrench ATHENOS II back down toward the island.

  But as soon as my talons grab the Steering Device I get zapped with a photon charge and sparks fly off my talons and bolts of energy shoot up and down my tail, shocking me.

  Now right there in the middle of all the chaos, I hold my talons up in front of my beak and with wide eyes see smoke tendrils curling off of them.

  “Wrong direction, sir!” cries ATHENOS II. “Try again! Hurry!”

  Outside the windshield I can hear the Dean’s ConquerCraft’s siren blaring and I can see we are now only seconds away from a head-on collision.

  That treacherous dragon is roaring, “Prepare to die! Prepare to die!”

  So I lunge for the Steering Device and this time there are no sparks or shocks and I wrench the spaceship to the right. I jam my index claw at the Control Display and hit the FTL, and you can hear the quantum thrusters explode underneath us and the spaceship see
ms to leap.

  And at the very last second I just manage to avoid getting us smashed to pieces by that maniac Dean Floop’s ConquerCraft.

  Now with the sudden burst of speed and change of direction from the rotational thrusters my spaceship blasts clear of Blegwethia’s atmosphere and out into space.

  And overhead in the cockpit’s monitor Dean Floop’s monsterish scaly green face appears looking all deranged with flames shooting out his nostrils: “Gork, I’m coming for you! You won’t make it through the day! I promise! You’re going to die today! And you’re going to die at my talon! You should’ve never crossed horns with me! You’re gonna die! You’re gonna die! Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Gork?! You’re going to die!”

  Then I guess ATHENOS II cuts the monitor off, because Dean Floop’s repulsive scaly face disappears and the screen goes black.

  And I’m thinking:

  Oh my God.

  [ 49 ]

  FEAR NO MECHANICAL CREATURE

  My shrunken heart is hammering so hard that for a second I think it’s going to explode out my chest and splatter all over the inside of the windshield.

  Now I quickly raise the silver canister to my dome and spritz my fool horns with GrowGrow® gel. Then I tilt my scaly green head back and snort flames out my nostrils and start singing a WILL TO POWER poem:

  “When it comes to your spaceship

  the four magic words are:

  don’t apologize

  just monopolize!

  Because if you want

  to control your fate

  and travel very far

  then you must learn to dominate

  your rebellious starcar!

  And if anyone has the nerve to ask

  what the heck you are

  just tell them to mind their business

  because you’re a budding czar!”

  I feel the poem jacking me up with mega blasts of STRATEGIC DESTRUCTION COMBAT READINESS. The title of this poem is “Fear No Mechanical Creature, Because You Are Their Teacher.”

  My nostrils flare.

  And I feel seriously ruthless and fiendish.

  Now I look out the windshield at the inky blackness of outer space and all the stars out there. The Control Display in front of me starts beeping and some of the lights flash on as the spaceship dashboard syncs up with the new conditions.

  I flip a couple switches and adjust the pressure in the cabin.

  Don’t apologize.

  Just monopolize.

  [ 50 ]

  WHERE ARE WE GOING?

  Outside the windshield, you can see all sorts of starcraft shooting around.

  Domestic zoompods, combat crafts, gold trawlers, cargo transports, you name it.

  Some of these ships are shooting in the opposite direction of us, screaming in off to our right and our left. They are entering Blegwethia’s atmosphere.

  I can tell ATHENOS II is up to something but I also know better than to try and steer the ship back to Blegwethia. When you’ve just been kidnapped like this, it’s surprising how calm your mind gets and how you instantly start trying to adapt to the situation.

  “Well done, sir,” says ATHENOS II. “We missed colliding with Dean Floop by two inches. Because of the proximity of his spaceship, we had a 99.8% chance of dying in that collision. Bravo.”

  But I don’t freaking say anything.

  Because I know if I open my beak I’m liable to shoot a hideous firestream into ATHENOS II’s Control Display and melt the entire control unit down.

  So instead of shooting a firestream, I just grit my fangs and I lash my tail around.

  Where the heck are we going?

  And what about Fribby?

  I know I’m going to have to do something savage, but I don’t know what.

  Now as I look out the windshield I have to admit to myself that there is something soothing about seeing all these spaceships zooming around out here in space. Because some of these ships out here, like mine, have just rocketed clear of Blegwethia’s atmosphere for the purpose of interstellar travel.

  Then almost out of reflex I reach up and touch my horns.

  They are still as small as ever.

  [ 51 ]

  YOUR SCALY GREEN ASS IS ALREADY LONG GONE FROM WHERE YOU WERE JUST A SPLIT SECOND AGO

  Outside the windshield, the stars whiz by like tracers.

  Where is Fribby?

  ATHENOS II is rocketing through space. And I have no idea where we’re going.

  Now normally space travel is my favorite. This is what I was hatched to do.

  One thing I love about space travel is that nobody back on your home planet ever knows exactly where you are, because all your particles are being catapulted at the speed of light.

  When you’re whizzing through the void like this there’s no point in looking in the rearview mirror. Because your scaly green ass is already long gone from where you were just a split second ago. Out in space you are nothing but a big fat mystery to everyone, including yourself. And typically that’s just how I like it.

  But I can’t enjoy our flight the way I normally would because every fool second that ticks by means I am getting farther and farther away from Runcita and my quest. Here I am wasting time getting kidnapped by ATHENOS II and shooting across the galaxy to who knows where. Already the events of this morning at WarWings seem a million light-years away, and just that realization sends a little jolt of terror down my tail.

  “You OK, sir?” says ATHENOS II.

  Like you really care, psycho. Look at you, trying to play good little spaceship. As if you’re not the reason I’m in this here mess.

  “I’ve got everything under control here,” she says. “So you can feel free to move about the cabin.”

  ATHENOS II’s voice is so edgy it could double as a serrated knife.

  “If you don’t mind,” I growl, snorting firebolts out my nostrils. “I’m just sitting here trying to think.” Then I flap my wings and snarl, “Much easier for me to do, by the way, when you don’t open your big fat mouth.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  That’s more like it.

  I reach out with my thumb claw and key the Intercom Display and say: “Fribby? Are you there, Fribby? This is Gork. Give me a signal and let me know your location. Copy.”

  I wait but there’s no answer.

  I key the Intercom Display again.

  “Fribby?”

  No answer.

  Now I swipe the Control Display and bring up the BioCon readout to track any other living organisms on the spaceship. I study the screen as it jumps from the Holodeck to the Fitness Suite to the Squad Bay to the Medical Center, etc., but nothing is showing up. According to the spaceship’s datastream, I am the only living creature on board.

  Great.

  It’s as if she’s vanished into thin air.

  Fribby is gone.

  [ 52 ]

  MACHINE ON MACHINE CRIME

  Well none of my fool professors at WarWings would ever accuse me of being a genius, but I’m smart enough to know that asking ATHENOS II what the heck is going on would be just plain stupid. Because sometimes ATHENOS II can be super kind and helpful but other times she can be downright psychotic. And based on everything that’s happened so far today, it sure seems like she’s in some sort of fiendish personal funk.

  Maybe when the robot dropped down that hole in the floor she was catapulted out to the spaceship’s airlock?

  And maybe ATHENOS II opened the airlock and used her muscular fleshy tentacles to shove Fribby out into space?

  I picture Fribby’s chrome-flex body twirling through space, her lifeless red eyes studying the heavens.

  Does ATHENOS II have that in her, to murder the robot?

  I mean, there’ve been times in the past when ATHENOS II and Fribby have seemed like friends.

  So is this possible: machine-on-machine crime?

  Only one way to find out.

  [ 53 ]

  THE CASE OF THE MISS
ING ROBOT

  “ATHENOS II?” I bellow. “Where’s Fribby?!”

  No answer.

  “ATHENOS II, you’d better answer me now or I’m going to fly to the nearest junk star and trade you in for scrap metal and parts.”

  “Are you talking to me, sir?” says ATHENOS II.

  “Don’t be an idiot. ’Course I’m talking to you! Where you been?”

  “An idiot, sir?”

  “Why didn’t you answer me?”

  “I did answer you. Just now, sir.”

  “I mean before. You didn’t answer me.”

  “I didn’t know if it was OK for me to talk, sir.”

  “Listen, I’ll tell you when it’s OK for you to not talk. But unless you hear differently, it’s OK for you to talk. Roger that?”

  “Is it OK for me to talk now, sir?”

  “What did I just get done telling you?”

  “Or should I keep my big fat mouth shut, sir?” ATHENOS II says. “What do you think, sir? If you wanted, I could just keep my big fat mouth shut. Maybe that’d be better. I wouldn’t want my big fat mouth to get in the way here. Especially considering how I’m an idiot and all.”

  I am stuck with this psycho in outer space.

  [ 54 ]

  HELP ME, GORK, PLEASE HELP ME

  Now as I stand here staring out the windshield at all those stars whizzing by, I’m thinking:

  OK. Don’t panic.

  So ATHENOS II has kidnapped you.

  And ATHENOS II has done God knows what with Fribby.

  And ATHENOS II has hijacked herself.

  And ATHENOS II is the only one who knows where we’re going.

  Basically, you’re screwed, fool.

  Because ATHENOS II holds all the cards.

  So I decide to try another tact.

  “Look,” I purr, “maybe I overreacted earlier.”

  “Overreacted, sir?”