Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

Hopefully there would be no customers, no security, no nothing.

We were all currently in a vacant building just by the train line in the northwest going over last minute planning.

I felt like a real gang boss. And I wasn’t very comfortable with that. I had been a sergeant many times. The leader of an operation. The head goon.

But I was paying everyone here and it showed. They held the door for me. They pulled out chairs. They stood a respectable five feet away even if they had to rudely push the guy behind them to make space.

“Listen up, everyone, Hank’s about to talk,” Balday-yow yelled to the assembled troops.

All you could hear was the creaking of equipment.

I stood over a little table with a map on it. My men crowded around it listening. I had picked what I felt were solid guys, so no one was daydreaming or drinking or otherwise goofing off.

There was a real tension in the air. They knew they were getting a lot of money for a very short period of time, so this potentially could be dangerous. It was fifty guys who knew that when they stepped out the door they may have twenty minutes to live.

“First off, if you got something to say, tell your captain and he tells me. We can’t have fifty guys yelling. Cad is going to set up a perimeter with his men outside and keep us posted if anything comes. If they bring in reinforcements, you got to hold them off until we can get outside and back you up.”

“Right,” Cad said. He had Sassy with him as I wanted his ears and nose.

“The rest of us are going in. It will be dark, with just the emergency lights. Fan out immediately across the floor. Stay behind cover and stay low. Anyone there who isn’t part of our team…”

And I looked around at the men.

“Dies.”

They all exchanged looks. There was a lot of deep breaths and widening of eyes.

I felt that order had to be given. If they left a skeleton crew of security we had to take them out fast before they called in their thirty friends and it became a real bloodbath.

“Once the club is secure, I’ll set the charges and everyone gets out. When everyone is out and away from the building, the job is officially over. Then you go home.”

“Hank, can we ask who this is for?” a young guy piped. He had been a referral.

Some of the older, more experienced thugs, tsked, and elbowed him, and gave him hard looks. I ignored him.

“That’s it. You know your groups. Everyone to the train.”

The captains started screaming at their respective men, whipping them forward.

I took a gamble putting us all on the same train. Yeah. Fifty guys in body armor carrying all the assorted shotguns, pistols, rifles, and submachine guns that Delovoa could scrounge on short notice. No, nothing’s going on, why do you ask?

I could have asked the corporation to borrow an APC but I didn’t know anyone who could drive them and I didn’t want to use corporation resources. This was an old school gang affair as far as I was concerned.

The train was powered all the way to three blocks from the club and then we had to get out—the power outage affected it as well. We moved double-time down the street, hugging the sidewalk. I wanted to get into the shadows of the brown-out as soon as possible.

When we got there, it was dead silent. All the businesses were shuttered and empty.

It wasn’t a very busy street to begin with and four hours of darkness meant there was no reason to be here at all.

Unless you wanted to firebomb a building.

Cad’s men took up their defensive positions.

Two of my guys began cracking the locks while the rest of us waited impatiently.

It took longer than I wished, but they got the doors open.

I went in first. If anyone was meant to draw fire it was me.

It was nearly impossible to see inside. I waited for guys to filter in behind me and disperse themselves, and then I turned on my flashlight.

Well, it was a club. Lots of tables. Chairs. Bars. Dance platforms.

Some of the other men turned on their flashlights too. Keeping cover behind furniture and whatever else they could find, we slowly moved forward.

We were all maybe fifteen feet inside when the shooting started.

Dozens of automatic weapons appeared all across the club in every corner, behind every object, some just a few feet from where my guys were advancing.

Everyone on my side began unloading as well. It was a full-on firefight.

The light from the muzzle flashes was more disorienting than a strobe light. I think because the shots were so irregularly spaced that your pupils had just enough time to widen to the dark before they were shrunk tiny by another barrage.

I couldn’t get a bead on where everyone was. I couldn’t even tell who was on whose side. I’m not sure anyone knew.

It was just they were vaguely over there and we were vaguely over here.

I saw guys going down. Heard moans in between the incredibly loud firing.

We were outgunned, that much was obvious. I hadn’t equipped the guys with assault rifles because not everyone was good with them and I didn’t think we would be fighting a war inside a club. My men with pistols and shotguns and long rifles had no chance trading fire in the dark with enemies who seemed largely to have automatic weapons.

One of my team, who had been apparently hiding behind me, fell to the ground gripping his leg. I felt I had to try and turn this around or we were going to lose.

“Eat suck, suckface!” I warned.

The shooting slowed substantially. Both sides had people who knew me. Or knew of me. And they knew what it meant when I said that. A lot of guys were taking the opportunity to get into cover or flee upstairs.

I pulled my autocannon in place. Thought about it for a moment and loaded a canister shell. I had no idea what it would do inside a building.

I leaned into the gun like Delovoa said and fired.

Kachooom!

There was that five-foot fireball. The speed of light was a lot faster than the recoil of the gun and I briefly saw and comprehended: destruction.

Then I was promptly hurled backwards however many feet and landed like a turtle upside down.

I was dazed from the blast and blinded by its light. But I rolled to my side and managed to get to my feet.

I reloaded another canister round and blinked my eyes to try and get my sight back.

My ears were ringing and I enjoyed the pleasant novelty of not being shot at.

I saw a flashlight near my feet and picked it up.

The club looked like someone had taken every piece of furniture and put it into a giant blender and then poured out that massive pile of debris against the far wall.

There were men down everywhere. Mine. Theirs.

“Hank,” I heard Cad yell on my open tele. “Some corporation is here. They got vehicles, and guys, and they’re shooting up everyone!”

I took in as much air as I could and yelled to the club.

“Hold your fire! Everyone! It is over. If you exit the building now, we will not fire on you! You have my word on that. If you are in this club in three minutes, you will be burned alive! Those are your two options. Help the wounded out. But get out now!”

I set up some of the flashlights on the ground to see what I was doing.

People stumbled past. I couldn’t see what they were wearing or who they worked for. I really didn’t care.

I took from my backpack the charges that Delovoa had given me and placed them around the club. He told me they leaked a dense, highly flammable gas that was slightly lighter than air, so it would permeate the club. He assured me that when all five went off, the building would contain nothing but ash.

“Hank,” someone said. I looked by the door and it was a guy in armor, holding his bleeding side. He was not one of my men.