Salt Dragons

Painting by Rick Mobbs

Salt Dragons

Mother Ship hovered above her,
its massive struts and rivets resplendent
with the rising of the first sun, only
a few leagues from the Mobbsian Gate
on Nogullis III; the Dragon World.

They had come to this mountainous
treacherous terrain for the salt; the universe
had run dangerously short of it, and its
present value as commodity eclipsed
precious metals,
precious stones, and
precious lives--but salt had formidable
guardians, dragons from a thousand species,
from dog-sized to frightening monsters
the size of off-world freighters.
The biggest males had brought down
battle cruisers, and the feral fleet females
flew low over the settlements plucking
settlers off their land movers and screened verandas;
filling the skies with fire, scorching
and tearing the flesh off of every enterprise--
but that was yesterday’s headlines,
that was before they brought in her.

Naomi Prime was built with bellicose hands,
standing twenty feet tall from her polished
spear-toed chrome boots to her black crown,
jutting out from her head like a rhino tusk,
her towering legs spread wide
in the killing stance, with blinking circuits
and many-colored lights dancing
neon splashes from her ankle
to metal midriff, a pulsating red ruby
anchored in her stabilizer port--slightly indented
exactly where a navel should be;
designed to resemble an Earth female,
complete with kevlar bikini
and breast cannons.

Dragons always were attracted to women;
werewomen, near-women, robotic women--
it did not matter to them;
they could smell a female a mile away,
succulent, sweeter, more vulnerable--
but not this day, not this morning.

She was a prototype,
Dragonhunter One,
and in her steely grasp rested
Thor’s Teeth, a lethal lightning spear,
thirty feet of bombastic burn,
fully charged, at the ready.
Her blue cyber-irises flashed,
scanning the deep orange sky,
her metal gloved fists flexing
around the rod of redemption.

High above her the dragon nets
were primed and ready to drop
over the Golden Lords,
and the Rainbow Princes--
both highly prized by cosmic zoos.

Her auditory sensors hummed
as she heard them,
heard their huge wings flapping
just over the dark horizon--
a dragon flock, a hundred of them
flying straight toward her
out of the glare of the first sun.

She stood like a beauteous colossal bitch.
the wicked wind whipping her raven
metallic tresses, dancing fetchingly,
waving like banners of war, flapping
in synch with wings that powerfully propelled
the salt guardians toward her, those
great reptilian missiles bearing down
as she calmly checked the rod settings,
cataloging and anticipating which dragons
to stun and which to slay.

When the ferocious flock came into sight,
they seemed to fill the sky
with their terrible roaring
and the frantic beating, some puffing fire
as they flew, nostrils flaring until
the lead flyers detected their prey,
and the entire flock clicked into formation,
a fiery arrowhead hurling hotly.
directly at this lone female;
their ungodly shrieking shook
the morning air.

Naomi Prime stood ready, steadfast,
not programed for failure.

Glenn Buttkus

February 2011

Posted as #48 over on Magpie Tales 53

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