by Adam Clark
gin and juice
Harvey was asleep, oblivious of the rough jostling, in the saddle of his dragon. They had been travelling for 4 days now, and this was only the second time he’d had any respite in the form of sleep.
Magnus eyed Harvey suspiciously from his position at the back of the group. He slapped the huge black and crimson dragon on the shoulder blade twice, at this the dragon sped up until he was alongside Indy and his steed. Magnus leaned as far over as he dared towards Indy.
“What is Harvey doing? It looks weird, like a trance.” The barbarians never slept, so he did not really understand what was happening.
“What’s happening is that he’s going into a voluntary, temporary coma where he will hallucinate vividly for 7 to 9 hours while his life processes slowly shut themselves down. Then he’ll go through a phase of sudden amnesia when he recovers from this mini coma or death like state.”
“That sounds ridiculous!” Magnus said with disbelief, “does this happen a lot, or is he a one off?”
“Nope, all of us humans do it, practically every day. We see it as being perfectly normal.”
“You humans are weird and odd” Magnus said, lighting up a cigarette and contemplating the cultural shock he was currently going through. They all floated through space quietly contemplating, the only sound was the occasional flap of dragon wings.
“I also heard that past-people used to think there was no sound in space!” Ginge said, breaking the silence, “which is just stupid, because I wouldn’t be able to talk to you guys now if that was true.” The rest of the gang nodded to her, not really sure what to say to this.
After an hour of quiet and occasional pleasantries the planet they were after came into view. It started off as small, off white dot far away, as they got closer, the planet became larger and greener. In fact, it was soon big enough that they could see that the whole planet was green.
“There it is sir! Lazarus b10!” Leo shouted across to Magnus.
“Thanks Leo, but I was very much aware of the planet, it’s quite hard to miss.” Tempers were fraying slightly after the three day long ordeal.
“This is a forest planet right? That’s why it’s so green.“ Alex announced to the group smugly. Magnus glared at him but held his tongue. “What’s the plan anyway? How are we supposed to get this flaming motorbike?” He looked over at Magnus expectantly.
“Well, we’re either going to buy it, steal it, trade for it or borrow it. I’m hoping that if we explain the situation, he’ll just give it to us. But the owner of the bike at the moment is the Bear leader of the Lazarus Hell’s Angels gang. I have a feeling he won’t just be inclined to give it to us, and taking it isn’t going to be easy.”
“So we’ll play it by ear?” Ginge said, bringing her dragon up and in line with the others.
“Affirmative,” he looked back at Indy trying to gently wake up Harvey “I’ll need you to look out after those two, I’m sure Indy can handle himself, but I have doubts about Harvey.”
“Are you sure sir? I could be of so much more use.” Ginge’s red hair flicked lazily behind her in the space wind, she knew that Magnus would never change his mind once he’d decided on something.
“No, you’re the only one who knows him.” She could hear the strength in his voice and decided to not push any further. For the next hour they floated along in silence, with Magnus’ great black and red dragon leading the way, a crimson trail following out from behind. Looking down on him in space he appeared to be flying on nothing, and from underneath the dragon’s crimson read belly stood out stark against the backdrop of the stars.
Leo and Alex flanked Magnus, while Ginge flew directly behind them, creating a multi-coloured diamond pattern. Indy and Harvey’s smaller dragons struggled along behind them side by side. By now the dragon’s where getting very agitated, they kept shuffling their saddles about as they flew and let out the occasional growls into space.
After a while Harvey fully woke up, although it didn’t make much difference. Space is so dark that the only real difference between asleep and awake for the past 3 days had been the dragons and the stars. At least it gave Harvey an opportunity to do something no astronomer had ever done before, count all the stars. There were 457 stars in the universe, Harvey knew that other people suggested that there were a whole lot more than that, but he’d seen all of them with his own eyes, and he trusted them better.
Now a lot the view of the stars were obscured by this great big green planet looming in front of them. Fluid white cloud structures swirled around over the surface, making a marked difference between the deep green that covered the entire globe. Ginge slowed her dragon and dropped in line with Harvey and Indy. She called out to the both of them.
“Guys, we’re about to do a re-entry, we’re going to be going fast, and it’s going to get hot. You have to keep your head down to stay streamlined, this will decrease friction and stop you burning up.” She laid her chin on the back of the Dragon’s neck to show how streamlined they should be. Up ahead Magnus, Alex and Leo all spurred their dragons on to a full speed assault on the atmosphere of this, now very close, forest planet. “Alright, let’s go! Follow me lead” She hollered while speeding off.
Indy and Harvey shrugged at each other, put their heads down and dug their heels into their respective dragon’s flanks. The dragons both shot off like rainbow bullets, adding their coloured trails to the trails of the other dragons.
Harvey had his chin tucked tightly against the dragon’s neck, his back already aching from the awkward angle. While they were flying through space there was no sound, and only an occasional lick of space wind. Now they began to feel a real wind again as they entered the planet’s atmosphere.
It began as a slight breeze on the face and a faint whisper, but soon it grew and grew until it became a vicious howl. Harvey soon found he couldn’t see, although it didn’t matter because his world had become a blur of green. He also now couldn’t hear, and as such he just tucked himself, blind to the world, against the rough neck of the dragon. He knew that he was still travelling towards the planet at a very fast speed due to the pull of G forces on his stomach.
After several minutes the feeling came back to his stomach and the howling dropped away from his ears. He opened his eyes to see a fresh sight. They were flying a few hundred meters about an endless green forest that rolled over valleys and hills. He sat back upright as the dragon glade along, and looked back at the rainbow trail that curved upwards and out into space. Looking ahead the team were all flying, much more energetically than the lazy coasting they’d been doing before. The dragon’s seemed much happier to be on a real planet again, playfully throwing fire at each other, Leo was nearly barbecued in a such a tussle.
They flew for a while over the land while looking for somewhere open to land, eventually Magnus pointed down at a hilly outcrop stuck up and out of the tree line. He spiralled round and round, descending towards the outcrop with the others following. His huge dragon landed heavily on the large flat expanse that made up the hill. The other 4 dragons came to land in around him.
Each member of the group tied their own dragon to one of the thick trees that were sparsely dotted about the outcrop. Once they were secured and settled Magnus set about organising the group, Leo was ordered to set up camp, while Alex and Ginge went out to secure the perimeter.
After a few hours, everything was set and Ginge was cooking over a small fire they had started. The bright sun was starting to go down in the cloudless sky, and the air was nice and cool. Magnus came to sit down with the others who were lounging around in front of the tents.
“Get some good sleep tonight lads, tomorrow we’re heading out into that forest.” Magnus pointed out at the view from the outcrop. “Somewhere out there is the fourth piece of awesome, and we’re going to find it.”