A joyous sound of glee woke up Harvey very early in the morning. The thickly German accented whoop broke the serene silence that had maintained dominion over the abode for the previous few hours.
What an asshole, he has no idea what the word respect even meant where Harvey’s first thoughts that day. Now he was up, and from the early morning sunlight drifting in through the thin curtains meant that he wasn’t going back to sleep. He walked down the stairs and into Herstaff’s room, still in his pyjamas.
“Prima! Ze Dragon Heart haz been sold!” Herstaff said, jumping out of the computer chair with joy. “Now I need to pack it, and put it in ze post-tube”.
The post in the universe was now run by the mega-giant corporation of Amrex co. like almost all amenities. The corporation’s capitalist ideals and ultimate control over ethnocentrically inclined economic systems was shady, and almost definitely on the darker side of the ethical spectrum, but it was useful. A tube in everyone's house was linked to straight to the post office to provide immediate postal deliveries.
“Dude, what’s all the commotion about? It's 5.30 in the morning!” Harvey said as he entered Herstaff’s room, rubbing his eyes. “Have you been sitting there watching that auction for this whole week? We thought you’d gone on holiday!”
“Ah, Harvey, one day you vill learn that eating and sleeping is for ze weak. But anyway, someone bought ze Dragon Heart! For twenty million space dimes! Now I can get ze Sex and the City box set on maroon-ray. “
“You do know that the recession only makes those space-dimes worth about 50 normal pounds? It’s still enough for the box set though, I don't think they've sold a single copy.”
“Definitely worth it, that series is ze best thing since sliced bread.” Herstaff started to get high pitched, “I can’t wait to follow their adventures! Oh, my, god, it’s going to be so good, I can make Appletini’s and everything!”
“Um... are you sure you’re not gay? It’s perfectly acceptable if you are.”
“Me? Gay? Uh, I have never been so offended! I can’t believe you’d lump me in with zat type of person!” Herstaff began pouting.
“I’m sorry that I asked, I see now there is no way you could possibly be gay.” Harvey spoke under his breath, “just offensively homophobic for someone so camp.”
Herstaff began wrapping the Gemstone in bubble wrap, preparing it to go into the box he’d chosen to send it in.
“Hey, do you mind if I look to see where it’s going to? It’s usually quite interesting to see the houses of the people who buy these things.”
“Sure thing, just don’t mess around vit ze settings, or mess up meine facebook.”
“I won’t” Harvey said while hiding his crossed fingers. He brought up the winner’s profile.
[email protected] is an awful name he thought to himself. After finding the delivery address he did a quick search and brought up a map of the area.
The map showed a small highland planet in the Vorgon 5 system. This orbital planet only had one address on it so Harvey zoomed in. This zoomed map showed a large plateau with a sharp cliff forming a straight line divide across one side of the map. A mountain range arched from the north end of the cliff, and joined back up on the south side of the cliff. These features made a natural raised basin about 50 kilometers wide, filled with several lakes. In the exact middle point of the cliff, overlooking the basin, was a massively square black portion of the map.
Herstaff walked past the computer on his way to put the box in the post tube. He opened the door and put the box inside the machine that looked like a microwave with a tube that extended from the top and out onto the wall. He punched in the address into the console on the front of the machine, a timer lit up on the console and started counting down. He walked back over to Harvey and stood behind him.
Harvey zoomed in even more to the street level, where he virtually looked up at the fortress-castle he’d seen on the map earlier.
Suddenly a cold chill filled the room. A lightning flash filled lighted up the sky outside the window and the sound of thunder shook the foundations of the house.
The image on the screen was of the largest, blackest castle in the galaxy. It was covered in hundreds of black spires towering up into the sky. The air above the castle was thick with thunder and flame. Surrounding the castle was a moat of pure lava filled with giant robot sharks. The driveway up to the castle gates was a thin ridge over the moat. The gate was a massive guillotine, ridged with fire. Perched on the top of the tower was the biggest, blackest dragon either of them had ever seen.
“Oh, that must be the owner of the castle” Harvey said pointing to the screen. Sure enough, where he was pointing there was the shape of a massive man, wearing head to toe black armour. His helmet and shoulders made the appearance of knives pointing up into the sky. The eye sockets were just void-like pits. In both hands were two massive, shiny black bags he was dropping just outside the gate.
“Lookz like he iz putting ze rubbish out. Vell, he must be a caring man, I'm glad ze heart iz going to him.” Herstaff said rather uncertainly. At that moment Indiana walked in the room.
“Did anyone else hear that thunder?” he noticed the loaded post-tube, “oh, looks like you sold the heart, who bought it in the end?”
“Ah, zis fellow” Space-Hitler said pointing to the screen.
“My god, not him! He's supposed to be dead! This is awful, it hasn't gone yet has it? You can't sell it to him!”
“Vhy not? You can’t tell me vot to do!”
“Do you not know who that is? That's Lord Volkang! A man so evil he refuses to die. He was the cause of the last interstellar war, the men and elves had to join forces to defeat him, and they barely did that! When he was caught, a thousand years ago, his body was destroyed and spread far into the universe. His evil must've manifested back into a solid form! With the Dragon Heart… he would have enough power to take control of the whole universe!”
“Oh, vell, zat is a good enough reason I guess. I vill find a reason to fob him off and refund him”
Herstaff went over to switch off the post tube, when he was nearly there the post-tube beeped and the parcel went flying up and out of the house with a heavy 'fwoom' sound. Indy stood still, racked with shock. An awkward silence hung in the air.
“He might not be zat bad...?” Space-Hitler said a bit sheepishly.
“No” Harvey interjected “Look here, in the dictionary, under Lord Volkang it says: Pure evil, do not allow this man any magical artifacts, especially not the heart of a Dragon King.” he pointed to a page in the large book he had opened.
“Oh shit” Indy said coming back to reality “We need to stop that parcel!”
He went over to the armoury lockers and pulled out three laser blasters, threw one to Herstaff and Harvey, then told them to don their jet-packs.
“Why do we need all these weapons?” Harvey asked.
“Have you ever been to a post office?” Indy asked abruptly, he wasn’t in the mood for this.
“Um, no, I haven’t.”
“Well, we don't have two days free to stand around filling in forms do we? The fate of the universe is in our hands, we have to do this the hard way”.
They made their way up the stairs to the rooftop terrace of the apartment, and launched off against the backdrop of the comet’s dual sunrise.