Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

“You have already requested aid from the Colmarian Confederation. We have sent emergency communications but it will take some time to gather a response team,” the General said.

“Are we supposed to let them destroy our infrastructure until then?” Garm demanded.

“What can we do about it?” I asked her.

She seemed mad that I was “siding” with the General.

“What about the freighters, those are probably all filled with weapons of some sort,” Delovoa said.

“You avoided paying importation fees on them. They will be reclaimed,” the General declared.

“Just a minute,” Garm shouted, “you know as well as I do that those contents are worth billions of credits. It wasn’t our oversight they got here, it was yours. I think we should be reimbursed for their value.”

The General was incensed that the traitor, former Adjunct Overwatch, dared to address him directly.

“How about we work something out?” I suggested. “Like determine fair market value and we offer a…half-off discount?”

“Thirty percent,” Garm countered.

“Ninety,” the General said.

“We need to move everyone,” Delovoa said. “We don’t have the means of fighting Therezians and corporations. We have to get out of their way until the Navy gets here.”

The General and Garm were still haggling over rates.

I was getting hungry and tired listening to these people.

“Mrah mrah. I need to get some sleep. Can I get feeding tubes hooked up?”

Everyone looked at me, seeming to remember I was a great hero. Or at least here.

“We’ll come back later. And I’ll post guards outside,” Garm said. “You did good.”

“I know,” I said. “You still look terrible.”

“Not everyone heals as fast as you, fatty.”

She gave me a light slap on the cheek which I heard but didn’t feel. She also leaned over and kissed my broken nose, which I also didn’t feel.

But I smelled her.

I drifted to sleep with her fragrance of orchids and pain.

Aaooooggaaa!

I almost fell out of my bed. What a terrible alarm clock. As my mind chased away my slumber I realized:

“I know that sound.”

That was the city-wide catastrophic warning system.

Belvaille was a space station. Other than the surface of a star or a black hole there was no more inhospitable place to put a city than deep space. Every second of every day the environment was trying to kill us.

There were a dozen or more absolutely vital systems whose failure meant instant death for every occupant of the entire city.

So every five years, no matter what gang fights were going on, or what drama was cooking, we all took a temporary break and did a few days of emergency tests. And everyone, without exception, took part.

Space stations failed. They were not a perfect science. And while the number of people who died every year from common sickness in the Colmarian Confederation greatly dwarfed the death toll from space station disasters, that wasn’t reassuring if you lived on one.

Moreover, Belvaille was at the very edge of the Colmarian Confederation. Even with working Portals it took rescue ships weeks at the earliest to receive word and respond—when your lifespan was measured in seconds in case of an accident.

Aaooooggaaa!

They had not bothered to put me in hospital clothes so I carefully turned myself on the bed. I didn’t want to fall flat on the floor and not be able to get up. I put my legs over and pushed myself off, landing well enough that I could stand.

I hustled to the hospital exit and saw the city in a panic. This wasn’t a test.

There were 150 shelters across the city. Places you were supposed to take refuge in case of one of these events. They housed emergency supplies and power and air.

On the street I saw hundreds of citizens running in terror, screaming.

I knew the closest shelter was City Hall, but you had to navigate stairs to get to it and I was too slow on them. Also, everyone would try and go there and it might not hold them.

I decided to head slightly northwest.

Aaooooggaaa!

I ran down the street and people flew past me like I was standing still.

“Run, Hank!” Someone shouted.

“The latticework is shutting down!” Another yelled.

Huff huff huff.

“Run! Get to the shelter!” Another said.

The streets were thinning. Old people, women carrying their children, and me, were the last bit left.

“Hank, run!” Someone said, as they shot by.

“Shut up!” I replied, getting tired of people thinking I wasn’t actually running. Like I was too cool to panic or something.

Aaooooggaaa!

It was just me on the street now. I looked up and the lights were fading on the latticework.

With no one around, the only sounds were my feet tromping along in between sirens. I found it actually helped if I didn’t pump my arms. I couldn’t swing them fast enough or in rhythm to my feet and they just threw me off balance.

My lungs were burning and my legs were burning and my feet hurt. I still had quite a ways to go. Why hadn’t I gone to City Hall? I could have rolled down the stairs.

The lights were almost completely out now.

I took a step and flew like five feet in the air! I windmilled my arms and landed, thankfully, on my knees.

The artificial gravity was failing.

I got up and kept going.

Life can kind of suck sometimes. Especially when you’re getting older and your universe was changing and your place in it was getting less and less valuable and Therezians and soldiers had taken over your home.

But by damn, I wanted to live!

Aaooooahhhh.

The siren died with croak. Even it was failing.

I had just a few blocks to go.

I passed a cross street and spotted two Therezians standing practically back-to-back looking up at the latticework.

They noticed they were about to die. They didn’t seem to care.

I saw the shelter.

The door was still open. It was about ten feet wide to accommodate a doomed city. People were at the entrance calling to me and waving.

“Come on!”

“Hurry!”

I saw the door was sliding shut.

If that door closes, I’m dead. But if it closes and I get caught in it, everyone inside will die as well as me. There was no such thing as partial shelter on a space station.

It was going to be close. The people had moved away from the door and they were no longer urging me onward.

If I was selfless and the champion I wanted to be, I would stop now. I would trade my life for theirs.

But screw that noise.

The door was nearly shut and I did the most improbable, useless thing I could do.

I jumped towards it.

I don’t know if gravity cut out then or I suddenly learned how to jump, but I sailed through the air. My head passed the door and I realized, “I’m not going to make it.”

A pessimist to the end.

I slammed into four people who had been waiting on the other side and the door closed behind me. I had safely made it inside.

I heard them gurgle and groan underneath me.

“Get off!” They complained.

“I can’t,” I said, back in artificial gravity.

It took everyone in the shelter to pull me off the poor people I crushed. They were not happy, but their injuries weren’t life-threatening.

The lighting was dim in here. Designed to last weeks. You couldn’t even see the floor.

Everyone was silent. Not even crying. It was like we held our breaths, either waiting for what would happen next, or afraid to use our precious oxygen.

We took stock of our supplies. Everything seemed to be there.

I had guessed right in that this shelter was well under capacity. There were less than two hundred people here. But I ate a lot.