“I’m going in low, sir. So you can get a closer look,” says ATHENOS II. “My data suggests that there’s an 84% chance of Runcita being down there right now. And Sentiment Analysis yields 51% neutral, 2.7% positive and the rest unknown toward a Gork + Runcita match, sir.”
Meanwhile here in the cockpit, Fribby the robot is perched on an anti-grav yoga mat which is floating in midair and she’s striking a yoga pose. She’s crouched on her shiny chrome-flex haunches and she’s got her wings spread out wide and her spiked tail is arched high in a Threat Display. She’s baring her fangs and her silver beak is all twisted up with this terrifying expression on it, and the name of this yoga pose is You Can Run, Fool, But You Can’t Hide. Because dragons find the act of terrifying folks relaxing. And when some creature is scared out of their mind and running from them, that’s when a dragon is truly Zen.
Fribby’s also wearing her gold tunic, which is the standard uniform for female cadets. She’s stressed out because the EggHarvest deadline is today, and she still doesn’t have a robot fella for a mating partner yet.
“I don’t see any sign of Runcita,” growls Fribby from up there on the floating yoga mat. “Maybe Runcita heard you were going to offer her your crown. Maybe she’s pretending to be sick this morning. Maybe she’s still back in her lair, hiding from you!”
From where I’m hanging upside down, I turn and hiss at Fribby and spray hideous sparks out my beak.
Now Fribby is technically an organic robot, or cybernetic dragon. But because she’s silver she looks like your typical Dragobot. Meaning that if you saw her flying through the sky you’d reckon she was just a regular metal robot dragon.
But Fribby truthfully isn’t from the Servant Class. She’s programmed to be a Ruler. Because she’s got real dragon DNA. And she was hatched out of an artificial egg. And eventually she will die. Fribby is the first generation of a new dragon species produced by the Creative Evolution Lab. She’s what they call a MortalMachine.
“Don’t you worry, chick. Runcita’ll be here,” I growl, flapping my wings. “Just keep an eye out. You heard what ATHENOS II said. She’s probably down there already!”
We peer down at the mobs of cadets kicking it with their different societies. There must be thousands of dragons swarming down there, lounging around next to their airships.
“Sir, we are now about to pass over the area of highest probability for a sighting,” says ATHENOS II. “My Image Modeling Analysis suggests a 96% visual confirmation on our target. Please pay close attention, sir.”
We coast overhead, keeping our reptilian eyes peeled. And now you can look down at the parking lot and see the Nerd dragons crowded together. They’re all huddled around floating illuminated screens, their scaly green skulls awash in data. They’ve got these nifty-looking glowing nanoprocessors grafted into their wings.
After spending all their time in the virtual world, these digidorks’ bodies look so weak you’ve got to wonder if they can even shoot a firestream out their beak. As skinny as they are, you figure if one of them accidentally belches he’ll go flying backward.
“Well, Runcita definitely isn’t hanging with that crew,” snorts the robot, pointing down at the Nerds. “Like I said, she’s probably back in her lair, hiding. That chick isn’t going to want nothing to do with your crown, Weak Sauce!”
Weak Sauce is my nickname. Not very fiendish, I know. But when your horns are the size of a couple of baby carrots and your WILL TO POWER rank is Snacklicious, well a nickname like Weak Sauce just comes with the territory.
Now they say that WarWings is the most prestigious and selective military academy in our solar system. And when I say “they,” I mean all the snooty old fire-breathers who come back to campus each year for Alumni Weekend.
The WarWings campus is located on Scale Island, which is surrounded by water for as far as the eye can see. Nobody knows exactly how big Scale Island is, in part because the island has time tendrils that extend into different dimensions. According to my grandpa Dr. Terrible, the island also has a bunch of wormholes floating all over it. But my scaly green ass has yet to cross paths with one. Anyway, from what we cadets can tell, the island is at least four hundred square miles of tropical jungle with a ridge of active volcanoes and a bunch of lava rock beaches scattered around the edges.
Now there’s not a dragon in our solar system who hasn’t at least heard of WarWings.
You can’t fly a spaceship over the mainland of Blegwethia without seeing one of their holographic banners floating in the sky.
The WarWings’ banner always shows a muscle-bound cadet fella with two giant black horns sticking out of his scaly green head. And this dragon fiend has his gold powerstaff raised high, and before him kneel thousands of newly conquered alien slaves. And above the dragon there’s a thought bubble and you can see he is thinking: One day I will write an epic poem about this!
Then, underneath that dragon hoisting his powerstaff, it says in big gold letters:
WarWings graduates continue to conquer
the universe one planet at a time.
We are the proud preservers
of the EggHarvest tradition.
Victory will always be ours!
We soar forward, scoping the crowds milling around below. There’s nothing but parked spaceships and green heads and spiked tails for as far as the eye can see.
Where is my Queen?
Now as we whiz by I see the Jocks. A bunch of these psychos are huddled over some freshly killed dragon, which they’re feeding off of. Probably some transfer cadet whose first day at WarWings ended prematurely. The long green necks lunge up and down in a frenzy as they tear off beakfuls of flesh from the dead dragon’s belly.
Meanwhile some of those nasty Jocks are lying on top of their tricked-out spaceships and shooting lethal firestreams at nothing in particular. Others swagger around giving each other talon bumps. I recognize a bunch of those dumb-asses on account of they’re star players on the WarWings varsity Slave-Catching team. Very big deal.
As we pass by overhead suddenly one of them looks straight at our ship and rears back on his powerful haunches and tries to knock us out of the sky with a mighty roar. You can see fresh blood dripping from his gaping black beak. Who knows what poor soul that blood belongs to.
Out there in the parking lot, it’s always a good idea to steer clear of the Jocks until they’ve had their first feeding of the day. Lest you accidentally wind up becoming breakfast. Usually it’s some poor new dragon bastard who’s just transferred to WarWings that will stupidly wander too close.
“Hi fellas,” the new transfer cadet will say, “this is my first day and I was wondering—” And then Chomp! Slurp! Next thing you know you find yourself stumbling over a little pile of hollow dragon bones in the parking lot. That’s how fast it can happen.
Hanging upside down with my wings folded here in my flying spaceship, I continue to clock the scene down below.