Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Basketful of Crap

This was exactly what I was hoping wouldn’t happen.

As I thought it couldn’t get any worse, Rendrae sat at my table in the seat across from me.

Rendrae operated the sole news source on Belvaille: the tele-distributed newspaper The News . Before the corporations came, it was a hard-hitting journalistic rag that knew everything about everyone and didn’t mind telling. But now it was just a corporate mouthpiece and other than Rendrae’s weekly op-ed, wasn’t really worth reading.

Rendrae was an overweight man with a greenish complexion that made him look sick. He wore business clothes that looked like an amalgamation of all the different corporation colors and logos.

“Hank,” he greeted me, smiling.

“Rendrae.”

“That’s a nice…” he began, looking down at my gun and waiting for me to finish.

“Autocannon.”

“Autocannon!” He agreed. “I was going to get one myself.”

I looked over to the waiters and now they were shoving one another, but none was any closer to offering me food.

“So,” he continued “have you come to kill everyone?”

“Hoping to order some food, eventually.”

“Yeah. I usually bring a Navy cruiser when I go out to eat, but to each his own.”

“Shouldn’t you be not reporting on stuff?” I fired. “Or placing more advertisements for the corporations?”

“The corporations are top stories, Hank. You don’t have to like it,” Rendrae said defensively.

“I remember when The News used to be just that. People read it every day.”

Rendrae looked weary and stood.

“I guess you know everything, Hank. I’ll leave you to…” he motioned to the table, my autocannon, me, “whatever this is.” And he walked away.

I ate a good while and let my food settle. I was kind of hoping to wait long enough so that I could use the bathroom at the restaurant, so I wouldn’t have to deal with my broken toilet at home. But I didn’t have to go.

I paid for my food, paid for the door, and strapped my gun back on and left.

At home, I hadn’t even started to take my autocannon off when I saw three uniformed Navy soldiers in my living room.

I had been in the Navy for maybe a month with the rank of Oberhoffman—though they technically never paid me. I wasn’t even sure if I was still in the Navy come to think of it.

But one of the soldier’s uniforms I recognized as being a low-ranking officer. The other two, who were armed with light machine guns, were enlisted men.

“Are you Hank?” the officer asked.

Last time I had acknowledged that to some intruders in my living room, I got a knife up the butt.

“No,” I lied. And this worried me.

Because I realized that somehow, over the course of my life, I had become a very bad liar. I remember when lying was second nature. I would go someplace and on the way I would think up excuses for why I was early and think up excuses for why I was late. I’m not sure how, but I lost that ability completely.

The soldiers exchanged glances and the officer checked his tele.

“You’re not Hank? What is your name?”

I stood there in a panic. My name? I’m taking too long. People usually know their names right quick. I was drawing a blank. I kept thinking “Hank,” but that’s not what I wanted to say.

“Frank!” I finally blurted.

I saw the officer’s face twist, as if he was trying to figure out if I was insulting him.

“Frankerson,” I added quickly. Then I put my hand slowly to my head and rubbed my sinuses. Really, where did it go? I couldn’t even lie to the Navy.

“Your name is Frank Frankerson?” the officer asked in a leaden voice.

“I’m Hank. What do you want?”

“You will need to come with us,” he said.

I had an autocannon on my back. And while I had no idea what it would do to three unarmored Colmarian Navy soldiers standing ten feet away from me, I had to imagine it wouldn’t be pretty. But the Navy had tens of thousands of troops floating nearby in warships. And what they could do to me was ultimately not prettier.

I didn’t feel like toting my autocannon around any longer, my lower back was getting sore. So I took the time to take it off and we left my apartment.

The soldiers completely ignored Toby on my stairs.

From my brief time in the Navy I found soldiers don’t even perceive things not in their direct orders. If a bunch of alien invaders went marching down the street right now these men probably wouldn’t even blink. It’s not because they were lazy, it’s just that if they acknowledge something illegal, they had to do something about it. I guess it was because they were lazy.

We walked to the train and headed east.

As we were sitting there, all the passengers studiously avoiding us, I decided to try and make conversation.

“You know I was an Oberhoffman in the Navy,” I said helpfully.

The officer gave me a dull expression.

“Higher rank than you,” I muttered.

We took a transfer and finally exited the train near the port and walked the rest of the way.

“We’re going to the port?” I asked. But no one answered me.

Fine, I wasn’t going to tell them about my special relationship with zero gravity. Or that I just ate a really big meal of recently-alive food.

We crammed into a shuttle and I whistled happily, knowing what was about to happen. As soon as we exited the dock and weightlessness took hold, I threw up all over the shuttle.

The formerly-silent soldiers all began cursing and scrambling to try and contain the spill and get out of its way.

At first only a bit came out. Then I sat up and looked at what had just exited my mouth and was now floating languidly in front of me. That got the rest out. Live food looks unbelievably disgusting half-digested.

Sitting there with my stomach empty, I now felt pretty bad, because that was a really expensive meal.

I had totally wrecked this shuttle. I couldn’t even see where we were going through the front screen because there were all these multi-colored globules of my sick twirling around.

After some moments of this, a soldier also threw up. If I had anything left, I would have certainly lost it, but I was bone dry. They had little bags to try and collect it, but it was just everywhere.

Seeing it spin actually made me think the animal I had just eaten had gotten a second lease on life. It was now roaming the seas of space freer than it had ever been.

When we docked with whatever ship we had travelled to, it was back to artificial gravity. Splat . We were all covered.

We exited the shuttle looking like we were famous musicians who had just come from a month of pure debauchery on some alcohol-brewing planet.

The deck officer that met us momentarily had his mouth open in surprise, but he quickly straightened out.

Without a word we marched through the ship. I wasn’t especially familiar with Navy vessels. I had only ever been on a few: a dreadnought, which was about the size of Belvaille, and a medical sloop. Navy ships were the antithesis of the Colmarian Confederation in that they were orderly and efficient.

After a while the soldiers deposited me in front of a door and left.

I was actually alone in a hallway in front of the closed door. What if I just walked away? I didn’t know how to fly a ship and if I got in one I’d probably just get sick again.

As I was pondering this, the door suddenly opened.

“General,” I said, surprised.

General Mush’tathina and I had met before, when the Navy had declared martial law. He was one of the guys I had negotiated Belvaille’s independence with.

I did not like him.

He was a grim man, stocky and grizzled. He had a bunch of medals on his chest and his face had numerous medical implants protruding which made him look meaner than he really was—and he was plenty mean. He wore a pistol on his belt and he didn’t look like he would be uncomfortable using it.