Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

“Holy crap, how heavy is this thing?”

“About 300 pounds. Without ammo.”

“What?” I took out my shotgun. “This weighs about seven pounds. With ammo!”

“The shotgun era is over. Unless you’re going to shoot random citizens, that gun is no good. The autocannon is perfect for you. It’s just like your old plasma pistol.”

“My plasma pistol was even lighter than my shotgun,” I disagreed.

“But you scared people with it. You didn’t even have to shoot it. That,” he said, pointing to the autocannon, “will scare people.”

“Yeah, it scares me too. I can’t carry that around, I’ll break my arms.”

“Hank, I made this for you. You’re the only person on the station who could use it.” Delovoa’s eyes were wide and he was enthusiastic. “You control it with your weight, not your strength. It’s mounted on vehicles not because of their engines, but because they’re heavy and can handle the recoil. You could too. Straps attach to a metal-and-synth vest and the crossbar goes against your hip, so the weight is distributed across your body. You’d be an organic tank!”

“So what does it do?” I asked, slightly succumbing to his zeal.

“It shoots these,” he said, and reached into a metal box behind him and pulled out a one foot shell.

“You’re kidding. I’m not looking to invade a planet,” I said.

“This is an armor piercing round. Remember those Dredel Led you fought—by hand? You fire this: boom. End of fight.”

I took hold of the shell. It alone weighed nearly as much as my shotgun. I had once gotten in a battle with some angry robots from another empire. I had no effective means of fighting them other than my plasma pistol, which was now destroyed. I took quite a beating from them.

“It can punch a hole through the weak side of a tank and has an effective range of four miles,” Delovoa continued.

“Four miles? I can’t even see four miles. What’s the point of that?”

“I didn’t say you could see four miles. I’m saying that if it’s pitch black and you can’t see your hand in front of your face this thing will shoot four miles. So know what’s in front of you. Actually, that’s just its effective range. It would probably go twice that distance.”

“So if I’m standing at City Hall I can shoot someone loading at the port?” This gun was losing more of its appeal.

“It also shoots these,” Delovoa said quickly, and pulled out another shell about the same size, but had a different tip and was painted red. “That’s a high-explosive round. Actually, you probably shouldn’t use those. But it shoots these too.”

He quickly handed me another shell that looked like a gigantic shotgun shell because it had a flat end.

“That’s a canister round. It works similar to your shotgun in concept.”

“Really?” That interested me. I really liked my shotgun because I wasn’t very fast and couldn’t aim that well. It let me shoot in the general direction of someone and still hit.

“Yeah. Your shotgun shoots two ounces of steel pellets at about 1500 feet per second. The canister rounds shoot about two pounds of tungsten ball bearings at around 2800 feet per second.”

“What does all that mean? Like if I shot someone wearing body armor, what would happen?”

“Let’s put it this way. If you stood in the middle of the street and fired, everything in front of you within maybe two blocks would die.”

I shook my head vigorously as I tried to comprehend that.

“When am I ever going to want to do that, Delovoa?”

“You don’t have to,” Delovoa implored. He really wanted me to like his gun. “People will see that weapon and run. And you can use any of the other shell types. Though you probably shouldn’t use the high-explosive. I have the magazine set so you can manually switch between shell types. It holds two of each.”

“So what’s the high-explosive do?”

“It shoots like the armor piercing, except when it hits something it explodes.”

“So like a grenade launcher?”

“Well, like three or four grenade launchers.”

I shook my head again.

“You know we live in a city, right? On a space station.”

“Hank, none of these rounds, not even the armor piercing, will penetrate walls. So the fact it can shoot four miles—or eight miles—doesn’t matter much because you’ll hit a building before then.”

I was still really skeptical. Most importantly because I wasn’t sure if I could lug this thing around. I didn’t think it would be very intimidating if I was dragging it.

“Delovoa, I just don’t want to be one of those guys who carry some stupid big gun because he’s insecure. I just want a more powerful version of what I have.”

“Well I want to be princess of Eultar’ra 7,” he answered.

“Huh?”

“Hank, I’m basically giving you your plasma pistol back. Look at that. There is no one who won’t be afraid of that gun. I doubt you’d ever have to shoot it.”

“What would it do to Wallow?” I asked.

“Wallow?” Delovoa seemed to think about this for a bit. “I guess he’d notice being shot. But I doubt it would bother him.”

He saw my disappointed reaction.

“Hank, Wallow is basically you only five times bigger, twenty times stronger, and twenty times harder to hurt. Therezians can actually survive being in space—for a little while.”

“So how much does this mess cost? I just lost my job.”

Delovoa looked a bit embarrassed.

“Well, I mean, it’s free. I figure I owe you, for, you know.”

I could do free, unwieldy or not.

“Thanks. I appreciate that. I’m not promising I’ll use it. But I’ll give it a try.”

“Don’t thank me too much. I’m charging for the ammunition. Which costs a fortune.”

“Wish me luck, Toby,” I said.

I was concerned about carrying my new autocannon in public for the first time. It was not exactly inconspicuous.

The gun was too long to sling straight up and down on my back; I had to carry it at an angle so it didn’t scrape along the ground. I also had to lean over a bit to counter the weight, but I found if I walked with my arms folded in front of me—which probably looked really stupid—it helped offset.

Now that I had some cash in my pocket from the pale sisters, I was going to splurge on a restaurant that had actual fresh food.

Upscale eatery Chand actually imported live animals in containers and didn’t kill them until preparation. It was so much tastier than the months-old freeze-dry stuff that nearly every other restaurant carried.

Once I got there, I tried to step inside the restaurant and the autocannon broke the glass on the door. I then turned reflexively and knocked part of the metal frame out.

I feared that I would get stuck in the doorway and look like a total moron, so I quickly bent over and forced my way in, practically ripping the door off its hinges.

With my head down I rushed to my usual table at the side of the restaurant. But on getting there I realized if I tried to sit, my autocannon would touch the floor before my butt touched the seat. And because of the straps connected to me I would be suspended in the air by my gun.

So I disconnected all the buckles and swung the heavy weapon onto the ground beside the table, where it landed with a loud bang . I took my seat and picked up my menu and began reading it carefully. After a few moments I looked over to see if the restaurant had taken notice of me.

Every single set of eyes was staring. People had frozen with their cups poised at their lips and forks full of food. I saw the waiters grouped at a distance seemingly arguing about who was going to have to approach me and take my order.