Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

Kachooom!

I was slammed to the ground on my back. The wind knocked out of me. And now I felt like I had dislocated my other arm.

I had never had the wind knocked out of me before. I knew that’s what it was, but part of my brain wondered if I had collapsed lungs or something even more serious. What seemed like five seconds later, I heard a loud banging behind me. It took me a minute to figure it was my autocannon returning from its skyward arc.

Using the heels of my feet, I tried to turn myself around so I could see what happened.

The two Gandrine stood there, but the one on the right had clearly been hit. I could see a large depression on its chest. Like…someone had shot an armor piercing autocannon round into rock.

The shale Gandrine began to chip. And then its whole left side collapsed onto the street. It still stood there, but nearly half of it was removed.

The other Gandrine took a step towards me. Then another. Then another. Then another. It didn’t take me long to notice it was moving at non-Gandrine speeds and was accelerating.

I was still winded and prone on my back, with two bum arms and two bum feet.

I tried to scootch away.

The Gandrine was stomping faster and faster. It wasn’t exactly running, because at no point were both of its legs in the air, but it was power walking straight at me.

I covered my face and covered my privates.

I felt the Gandrine step on me, worsening my winded condition and cracking more than one rib. As it ran over, it flipped me up and onto my stomach, breaking my nose. That was one heavy slab of rock!

I was extremely tired. I wanted to sleep. No, that was me passing out. If I did that, I was going to end up crushed against the walls like the soldiers.

The Gandrine was slowly turning around after overshooting my prone form by forty feet. It took him that long to slow down.

“I have time,” I thought.

But time for what? I couldn’t even stand up when I wasn’t crippled.

The Gandrine came charging at me again. I covered my head with my left arm just as he stepped on my neck. If I hadn’t protected myself I felt he would have broken my skull. My arm felt even worse.

Force equals mass times acceleration.

This guy was way more massive than I was and moving fairly quickly. So that’s how Gandrine fight. They run into things and those things die.

The Gandrine was turning around again.

Despite the pain, I rose to my arms and drew up my legs. I forcibly bent my knees even though it felt like I was tearing my skin. As the Gandrine was about to lay into me I curled up into a tight fetal position on the ground.

It kicked me like a ball and I rolled a good twenty feet. But I forced it to stumble. Force equals mass times acceleration also applied to it hitting the ground face first.

I felt the road quiver as it slid through the tacky surface like water.

I had to hope it got to its feet at least as slowly as I did.

My arm really hurt. My whole body did. But I reached for the General’s Ontakian plasma pistol.

I powered on the weapon and the red glow burst from the crystal and the deep rumble made my body ache even more.

I fired.

A red laser-like beam touched the Gandrine and faded. No effect.

The Gandrine was beginning to stand.

Was the plasma pistol fake? Had the General given it to me knowing it did nothing? I pressed the trigger again and noticed it stayed on longer because I had held the trigger longer. My old Ontakian pistol had merely fired a blob of energy that shot through buildings.

The Gandrine had lifted its lower body.

I fired again, this time not releasing the trigger.

The red beam kept a spot on the Gandrine that jiggled around as my hand moved, and as I labored to breathe. But still there was no effect.

As I held the trigger, the beam grew brighter. The rumbling from the crystal grew louder.

The Gandrine was standing now and all I was doing was shining a little light on it.

I kept holding the trigger because I had nothing more I could do. The light was getting intense. I had to squint. I could feel heat on my face from the beam. My hand hurt from the vibration.

The Gandrine charged me again.

The noise of the Ontakian pistol became unbearable and the light was so bright I had to shut my eyes and turn away.

I was waiting to get stepped on, but nothing happened.

Suddenly, the vibration, the light, the heat, all cut out.

Well that was a stupid way for me to die.

I wasn’t dead, because I sneezed. My arm hair had been roasted-off.

It took a long time for my vision to clear. I had a purple splotch seared into my retinas. I hoped it wasn’t permanent. I blinked it away and saw the Gandrine was about ten feet from me.

Half of it was, anyway. Its upper half had been vaporized.

Okay. Now I can pass out.

I was awoken by my stomach. Old reliable.

Surveying the damage, my body had managed to snap itself back into place at least partially, and I had avoided getting stuck between the toes of any Therezians.

All in all, things looked up.

But looking up, I saw lots of Therezians grazing around.

Getting our platoon of soldiers past them had been a major issue, which was why we had taken the latticework, but now I just had to sneak by alone.

I crawled over to the half-corpse of the Gandrine and used its rocky body to pull myself up.

My arms were sore, but a lot better. I walked on the sides of my feet because that hurt less. My ribs were clearly broken and my breathing anguished.

I walked over to one of the spent parachutes in the middle of the road. Turning the fabric inside-out, I felt it was a pretty close match to the universal gray-silver color of Belvaille’s buildings and sidewalks.

I tore the parachute with my hands. It was sturdy stuff, I had to rip it with my teeth to get it going.

I put the shroud over me and stood next to buildings as I inched along the sidewalks. Most of the Therezians seemed to be about fifty feet tall and almost never looked down. From that height, I hoped I would be camouflaged. But knowing my luck they all had telescopic vision and could smell broken bones.

When a Therezian got too close I stopped moving.

I was almost stepped on several times but I think that was due to them not looking, or caring, where they walked. I may have stopped a galactic civil war, but sooner rather than later, this whole city was going to get trampled. As strong as Belvaille’s buildings were, maybe a quarter of them in this area were twisted scraps of metal due to some Therezian brushing past.

It was with great relief when I finally reached a train station the Therezians hadn’t inadvertently destroyed and I could get the hell out of there by means other than tiptoeing.

I checked myself directly into the hospital.

They told me Garm had left earlier that day. Which sucked, I was hoping for a bunkmate for once.

“You have a sunburn,” Garm said.

Delovoa, Garm, and the General were all visiting me as I recovered.

“I do? Oh, probably from the plasma pistol.”

“The Portal is neutralized?” the General asked.

“And the Gandrine,” I confirmed.

“Still have the clones,” Delovoa reminded. “They’re back to shooting each other and blowing up bars.”

“Did you get the device?” I asked the General.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he sneered.

I wasn’t sure if he was trying to get out of paying me or didn’t want to talk about it in front of Delovoa and Garm—even though they both knew all about it. I didn’t care, frankly.

“So how do we get rid of the soldiers and Therezians?” I asked.