by Adam Clark
Indy and the crew were floating steadily towards the main planet of the Vorgon 5 system. They'd all been stuck the cramped space ship van for 3 days and all felt decidedly groggy, spending that much time playing intergalactic risk had taken its toll. They were all dying to get out of the cramped living space and stretch their legs. Also, for three guys who don't really like each other anyway, the three days had been quite tense. This tension Culminated in a bid for freedom by Herstaff in the only ejector pod about two hours ago, luckily they managed to tranquillise him before he made an escape.
Herstaff was now waking quietly as they were coming into view of Vorgonia, the main planet of the system. As the planet filled up the windscreen of ship, Herstaff pointed out of the side window at a large white sphere suspended in orbit around the planet and exclaimed.
“Zat is no moon!” The others in the cabin looked at him, unsure whether he was being serious. “No, wait, it is a moon, my bad. I can’t believe you guys tranquilised me, I vought this was Star Wars!”
“A very cheap version if it is. At least if this was Star wars we could’ve had more food than just pot noodles” Harvey complained. “And maybe the ride would be smoother, less noisy, more comfortable…”
“Shut up. The Century Hawk is the finest vessel in the entire universe and you’ll respect that.” The hyper drive engine sputtered, and dark smoke briefly spewed from the engine. “Ignore that, it’s supposed to happen. Anyway, we're entering the planet’s atmosphere. What's this planet like? Haven't you already been here before Harvey?” Indy said.
“Yeah, my parents dragged me here yearly for our holidays, um... it's very green, and I think it’s supposed to be a holiday and retirement planet so basically what you'd expect. There are lots of scenic lakes to walk boringly round, quaint little villages to ‘explore’ and all that. On the upside though, it has immense playgrounds.”
“Why would a dark overlord live there?” Indy asked
“Vell, no-vone is going to be looking for him there. I presume, it also sounds like a Harvey and Herstaff stopped talking as Indy piloted the craft into the atmosphere. They were soon enveloped by thick, white clouds, but eventually these thinned until the landscape below became apparent, and it wasn't what they expected.
They were looking down on a barren valley, a great black castle could be seen at the far end of valley on the cliff edge. Below them the blackened land gave few clues to what had been there before. The faint scars of roads criss-crossed the blackened floor, and large areas of flaming rubble were all that remained of the quaint villages that Harvey had described.
A large portion of the valley was flooded, and large black smoke spewing volcanoes had risen up like islands in the old lake. The entire valley was dead.
“Ah, this might be a problem.” Indy had a knack of telling people things that they already knew. “Let’s land and find out what the hell is going on” Indy grimaced as he piloted the ship down towards the castle. He flew low, levelled the vehicle out, and dropped down onto the ground on all four wheels.
They bounced along for a short distance before Indy managed to get the vehicle under control and began to control it in ‘driving’ mode. They carried on driving for a few minutes and pulled up just outside the gates of the gothic, black stone castle.
“So Indy, vat iz ze plan?” Herstaff called over as he jumped out of the passenger side door.
“Well, we knock first and ask what's going on and if we can have the heart back, that's just politeness”
“Iz zat not like ze dumbest idea? Even I could tell you zat iz not going to work. He iz supposed to be evil Indy” Herstaff claimed impetuously.
“You got a better plan?”
“Go home and pretend zere iz nothing wrong? All zis will blow over in no time at all!”
“That's a rubbish plan, besides it's my way or the high-way! Now let’s find out what's going on.” With that awful one-liner, Indy walked up to the massive gate and knocked the flaming skull knocker. It's banging resonated ominously throughout the valley, dislodging a gaggle of black ravens that were nesting in the charred corpse of a nearby tree.
Very slowly the massive door at the other end of bridge over the lava filled moat opened slightly, a small man sidestepped out of the gap and slowly walked across the massive bridge. As he got closer they make out his features. He was under average in height, very smartly dressed in coat and tails and had a very English look about him. After a few minutes he reached the gate and stopped on the other side of it.
“Can I help you?” he asked in a very well-spoken manner.
“Um, yeah, is the dark lord around at all?” Indy said
“Unfortunately the sire is out at the moment, what was your business with him regarding?”
“We may have accidentally sold him something off Ebay, it wasn't actually for sale. Is there any way we could get it back?”
“This must be the Dragon Heart? I am sorry to tell you that sire has already incorporated it. You will not be getting that back”
“What do you mean 'incorporated' it?!”
“I'm sure you know that he was destroyed in the last Great War. He's been reclaiming body parts ever since, now he almost has everything, the shoulders of a rugby player, the legs of a strongman, the wrists and right arm of a virgin World of Warcraft player, the eyes of a hawk and Einstein's brain. With the Dragon Heart, all he needs now are the rest of the pieces of awesome to become the universe’s greatest warrior again.”
“Oh boy” said Harvey, secretly surprised that finding out the Dark Lord’s evil plan was so easy. “So, what happened here?”
“With his new power, sire decided to improve the place, I think it looks rather neat myself. It would do you good to begin to enjoy this scenery as well, when the sire becomes full-strength again, he plans to make the whole universe like this. It will be just like that TV show, the sixty minute makeover, but with more flames and death.” The butler looked at them expectantly, but they were all too shocked to say anything, let alone close their mouths. “Well, I need to go dust some antique teapots, if you have no more questions I will be off, good day sirs.” He turned around and headed back across the bridge and into the castle.
As the door closed a loud roar filled the air, looking up they saw Grigor's giant wooden ship floating down through the dark clouds.
“Look, it’s that guy who cut us up in the space port. Do you reckon he's come to apologise?” Harvey said.
“Ah, I may know the owner of zat ship, zis will be awkward” Herstaff said nervously.
The massive pirate ship lowered itself slowly down from above them, the massive anchor slamming into the hard ground and tugging the pirate ship to the surface of the planet. Before it had even stopped sway and come to a complete stop, Grigor front flipped from the deck to the ground 50 feet below.
“You!” He shouted, pointing at Herstaff while unstrapping and taking his battleaxe off his back with the other hand. Marching over to him he grabbed him by the throat. “Give me one reason why I shouldn't kill you right now.”
“Gigor, I am zorry for stealing ze Dragon Heart we have bigger issues on our plates now.” Herstaff pleaded, fear in his eyes.
“That's not a good enough reason.” Grigor swung his flaming axe over his head with his spare hand. He then let go of Herstaff and brought the axe straight it down in one clean sweep. He cut him completely in twain. The two halves of Herstaff fell in opposite directions and began to spark violently, the protruding wires and mechanics already flaming.
“And who are you two?” he swung his axe to point at them both.
“I'm Indy, and this is Harvey. We weren't really friends with that guy, or whatever he was.” Indy and Harvey were both holding their arms up in the air submissively.
“Do you know where the Dragon Heart is?”
“Ah, well, turns out the Dark Lord Volkang got hold of it.”
“Not Volkang? Shit.” Grigor spat these words, this was bad news.
&n
bsp; “Yes, Volkang, he's already incorporated it, whatever that means. Now he's after the spirit of the Barbarian King”
“Well, that would be king Argennon. He's incredibly strong, and the Barbarian home world is well defended. But Volkang is strong, and who knows how powerful he is now he's got the Dragon Heart. Thanks for the heads-up,” Grigor turned around and shouted up to the ship that had just landed “Hoist the main sails and swab the decks! We need to leave again.”
As he turned and started to walk back towards the pirate ship, Indy interjected.
“Hey! What about us? What do we do? You just killed our house mate and you're just going to leave?”
“Yes I am.” Grigor said, grabbing the rope holding the anchor and rose with it back into the ship, ignoring their complaints. Within minutes the pirate ship was rising and turning away into the sky. Indy and Harvey shielded their eyes from the dust kicked up by the ship's engines.
“Aw, shit. What the hell do we do now?” Indy wondered aloud, “and what the hell was up with Herstaff? Was he really a robot?” He looked at the inside of Herstaff, still sparking away on the ground. “That is gross, and weird.”
“Well we've only got one option, we need to go help” Harvey replied bravely. “I know it wasn’t our fault, but I feel sort of responsible.”
“Do you really think we can do anything?” Indy replied with an air of cynicism, turning to face Harvey. “We don't have any super-powers, we're all squishy and die easily. We've been lucky this far, I don’t know how long it’ll hold out.” Harvey considered his point, and then rebutted.
“Good point, but, a) we haven’t blown anything up yet, and b) we need to find someone to take Herstaff’s place. Otherwise we’ll have to pay his rent as well.” Indy contemplated this duo of counter-arguments to his original proposition, and decided to agree/
“Actually, I didn’t think about it that way. We'll brush Herstaff up into a tidy pile first. I mean, he wasn’t human so he doesn’t need any kind of extensive burial.” Indy here displayed his lack of philosophical depth regarding sentience and empathy of considered intelligence.
“Awesome, I really can’t be bothered to hang out on this planet anymore, it smells of sulphur.” Indy agreed enthusiastically.
“Let's blow some stuff up and get into the main crux point of this extended multi part story, after leaving behind a lengthy and plot setting introduction!”
“Yay,” Harvey agreed, running and jumping back into the Century Hawk. Indy also jumped in to the driver’s seat, belted himself in and leaned out of the window.
“To the barbarian home world!” He shouted pointing up into space as he started the space-van and began to rise in the direction of his pointing.
bro-adimir lenin