Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

“Alright,” I said reluctantly.

Four of my officers jockeyed with each other to take down Bronze’s information.

I saw Delovoa getting elbowed and pushed around in the mass of hairy arms.

“Ah, Colonel Delovoa!” I bellowed.

The tide parted and Delovoa was promptly dropped on the ground. He was helped to his feet just as quickly. His three eyes were spinning.

Some of my ad hoc officers saluted. Poorly.

“We need to talk about supplies and strategy and stuff,” I said as importantly as possible.

I moved to escort him out of the building.

“I just walked through all that,” Delovoa complained.

“I’ll be back tomorrow to continue recruiting,” I yelled to the crowd. “Tell your friends.”

On the train Delovoa and I talked.

“The corporation is offering you a lot of nice things, but none of them are crew-served weapons,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Weapons capable of taking out a lot of enemies at a time or taking out heavily armored vehicles. Things like recoilless rifles and mortars.”

“I don’t think those guys can use any of that stuff. I don’t think half of them have used a pistol.”

“They’ll have to learn if you want to fight a corporation in their own territory. Harsh language and body odor aren’t going to stop a reactive armor tank.”

“I blew up one tank already,” I bragged.

“You didn’t blow up a tank. That was an APC.”

“No, the second one. The one that put me in the hospital. It had a gun just like mine.”

“If it had an autocannon it wasn’t a tank. It was an armored fighting vehicle. Your gun wouldn’t do anything to a tank.”

“I thought you said it could shoot through the weak side of one.”

He shrugged.

“That was just basement talk,” he said, as if that explained everything.

“What?” I was annoyed. What if I had fought a true tank and found my gun did nothing? “Alright, this is real talk. I have to attack in three months. Do you think I can get them trained in time on those big weapons you were talking about?”

“Doesn’t matter if they aren’t offering you any. But no, I don’t think you can. You’ll have trouble getting them trained on the basics like how to move without killing each other.”

“Then what do you suggest we use to fight armored vehicles, Colonel?”

“Pyrotechnics. Everyone understands fire.”

“They left,” Cad teled me as I was walking.

“Who left?”

“The Gandrine.”

“Were they ever back at my apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you need to tell me that,” I said, annoyed.

“They were back. But they’re leaving now.”

“Follow them.”

He was drunk. But I didn’t suppose you needed to be very sober to follow Gandrine.

A luxury car drove up next to me and the window went down. Garm was in back.

“Get in,” she said.

“How is it that everyone knows where I’m at?” I threw my arms up in frustration.

“You live here, right?” she asked, not understanding.

“Yeah, but how did you know?”

She blinked a few times, stuck her head out the window, and pointed behind me.

I looked up the street a bit and there was a sign that designated this as Hank Block.

“Who put that there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t your people do all the signs?”

“Yeah, but it’s not as if I check on each one. There are a lot of signs in the city.”

“How did they know I moved?”

“Just get in.”

Garm’s car had a lot of room, though my autocannon still didn’t fit well. There was a partition between the driver and us. When we were moving she explained:

“I need you to help me with a strike.”

“I can’t, I’m already trying to organize one.”

“No, stupid, not that kind of strike. A labor one.”

“Oh. Well, I’m busy.”

“I know. And you didn’t tell me about it, you didn’t tell me Bronze was cheating on me, and you let him enlist in your suicide attack. So you’re going to do this before you die or before I kill you for doing all that other stuff.”

I pondered that.

“So what do you need?”

“The Electromagnet Workers Union is striking.”

“Against who?”

“Me, dummy.”

“Don’t they work for you?”

She sighed and put her chin on her chest for a moment.

“Yes. That’s why it’s a strike.”

“What do they want?”

“I don’t know. The usual junk. More money, less work.”

“How do you expect me to help? This isn’t really my thing.”

“Didn’t you used to negotiate between gangs for like…a thousand years or something? Did you forget how already?”

“Oh, I thought I had to know something about magnets.”

“It doesn’t matter what they do,” she said, frustrated.

“I’m sure it matters or you wouldn’t be talking to me.”

“Of course, but you don’t need to know the specifics. Without them, we would all die. There, simple.”

“Well that’s true for like half of the services under you, right?”

“Yes. But these are the first to demand more. If I give in, they’ll all do the same.”

“So you want me to kill them?”

“I think your brain is hardening like that technician said. Why would I want you to kill my highly-trained workers? This isn’t a gang fight, it’s a negotiation.”

“Then how much are you willing to give them?”

“Nothing.”

“This is going to be a really short or really long negotiation. Where are we driving?”

“To City Hall to talk to them. I have a meeting scheduled.”

“Isn’t this the kind of tactic you use on the corporations and gangs?” I asked her. “Refuse service if they don’t agree to pay.”

“Yes.”

Apparently she did not see the irony. Or didn’t care.

At City Hall I dragged out my autocannon and secured it on my back. I followed Garm to her private elevator and up to the eighth floor.

The halls were packed with pudgy, technical-looking guys who gave Garm dirty looks as she walked. There were a lot of them, that’s for sure.

In the conference room five of the pudgier technocrats sat sweating at a table. Their clothes were ill-fitting and fashionable maybe half a century ago on a planet with no fashion sense.

There were also a dozen bodyguards in the room looking mean. I could tell they weren’t Garm’s because she forced all her people to wear uniforms.

“I see you felt it necessary to try and intimidate us, Adjunct Overwatch,” one of the seated men said with a sneer.

“I haven’t held that title in some time as you know and Hank is here as a negotiator,” Garm said plainly. “He has a lot of experience in these matters.”

“Why is he armed?” another asked.

“The same reason you have all these thugs,” she said.

“First off, who here is coming with me to attack the corporation?” I said to the aforementioned thugs.

Two guys tentatively raised their hands.

“You either work for me or them. I’m not going to pay you to shoot me. If you work for me, get out of here,” I said.

They chewed that question for a bit and remained where they were. So I just lost two soldiers. But that also meant they were either getting paid more than 30,000 or they liked the odds here more than for my mission. Either way didn’t bode well for these talks.

The fat men grinned, their jowls making it look like forty smiles were mocking my failure.

“Sit down, Garm,” I said.

I wanted to put her on equal footing with the union. She pulled her chair far out and sat at an angle. Her knees bounced around as she sat, like a hyper child’s.