“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 seems 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