Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

“Why did you tell them I destroyed the robots?” I asked, annoyed.

“I didn’t. Your friend Rendrae printed it for the whole galaxy to read. Blame him.” Seeing my expression she continued, “Yes, some issues of The News make it off Belvaille. Did you think Dredel Led would be just a local concern? They’re talking about this across the whole Confederation.”

“Are you really a former intelligence agent?” I asked, thinking of Rendrae’s conspiracy theories.

Garm pursed her lips.

“I don’t know if ‘former’ is the right word,” she said.

“What?” I was shocked.

“It’s not exactly secret. I mean, what did you think all those giant radio telescopes are used for?”

I was beginning to question everything I knew about Belvaille.

“So there is hidden military stuff that goes on here?” I asked.

“Nah. But they figured they got this space station, might as well use it. And it is at the edge of our empire.”

“But there’s nothing out there,” I countered. Rendrae’s paranoia was all coming true.

“Who said there’s nothing out there? There’s plenty. The Boranjame crisscross at leisure. There’s been Dredel Led talk for ages. Rettosians. Qwintine. Keilvin Kamigans. There’s a whole galaxy besides Belvaille, you know?”

I sat looking at my knees for a moment.

“Are you trying to assassinate Rendrae?”

“No,” Garm began firmly, and I felt myself relax. “But I am trying to arrest him. If he doesn’t stop he’s going to make it a hundred times harder when those soldiers get here. They’ll just flip through issues of The News arresting people. He’s detailing every crime we’re committing, and quite a few we’re not.”

“Wow” was all I could say. After a moment, I asked, “You know anything about delfiblinium?”

Garm’s brow furrowed at the unusual question.

“Why?”

“I’m just curious,” I said innocently.

“Well, it’s incredibly rare.”

I was about to ask her “how rare?” when she continued.

“Because it’s super unstable and explosive.”

“Oh.”

“Please don’t tell me you know of some delfiblinium on Belvaille. That’s all I need is for the Navy to find some of that here.”

“No, I was just… thinking,” I said. I could see Garm was a pile of jagged nerves, so I’d hold off on telling her unless there were no other options.

I had just started feeling good about being healthy again. Now there was an army coming that specifically wanted to see me, they had the authority to kill probably half the population on the station, and there was no way to leave.

“I felt better when the Dredel Led were still here,” I said morosely.

The next day I had lunch with an old friend, Bon-Peeb. I’d worked with him on more jobs than I can remember. He was definitely an old-timer and I kind of felt like talking about the past, as the present and future were becoming oppressive.

“Hank. Hank,” he called across the restaurant, standing to get my attention.

Bon looked…well, old. He had a big white beard and big belly. I suppose he had always been older, but I forgot by how much. He was a large Colmarian, standing almost a half-foot taller than me. He never had trouble finding work on Belvaille as a tough of some kind.

I shook his hand and took a seat, wanting to get out of view of the nosy patrons around me.

“Great seeing you, Bon,” I said.

“Uh, the name is Been-e now, what with the military coming. I still have some outstanding warrants.”

“How does everyone know about this stuff?” I asked, amazed.

Bon/Been-e twisted his face to express the ease of information.

“It’s just around,” he said. “Hey Hank, so how long we known each other you think?”

I honestly had no clue. We were never great friends or anything. We had probably worked with each other and not known it, too.

“What was the first job you remember with me?” I asked. “I seem to recall it was breaking into that guy’s apartment,” and I struggled to push away the dust in my memory, “but it was like the wrong guy’s apartment, so we broke into someone else’s and that one was wrong too.”

“I don’t think that was me,” Been-e said. “I think it was the Girl Strike. Like ninety years ago or abouts.”

I shook my head, indicating it didn’t ring a bell.

“Remember, like all the girls went on strike. The guys too. Anyone who was one of those type of jobs, you know?”

“This was probably before my time,” I said.

“No. You’ve been here longer than me. Come on. You weren’t such a big deal then, I remember. But people knew you and everyone was like, ‘ask Hank, ask Hank,’ and I was like, ‘Hank, who?’”

“So what happened?” I asked, perversely interested in more tall tales about myself.

“We didn’t know what to do. They wanted a ton more pay and there was no way it was going to happen. And all the bars practically shut down, because as much as people want to drink—”

“They want to drink with someone pretty,” I finished.

“Yeah. But anyway, there were some fellows who had the idea to rough up the girls to get them to agree and you were like, ‘If we beat them up, we’ll never get a date again.’ It was a real touchy situation. So you suggested the bosses like sweet-talk the girls. Send them candy and flowers and gifts and stuff and talk about how they miss them.”

“This kind of sounds familiar,” I agreed, a smile on my face.

“Right, so all these big bosses are reciting poetry and playing music and making complete asses of themselves. Some of the bosses didn’t do it. You know because of their egos. And they stayed closed. But the ones who did it, they eventually got their people back. They spent money to do it, but it was more the whole appreciation thing.”

“Hmm,” I said, my arms behind my head. It was almost like I had just finished this job and was relishing in my own success.

“That’s when people were really like, ‘not only can this guy crack heads, but he’s smart,’” Been-e added.

“Well, I don’t know about that. It’s all relative. And relative to Belvaille, you know?”

“Yeah, true that. But, I figure we’ve known each other about ninety years. I’ve been shot maybe ten times working with you and I have no idea how many times you been shot. A million, maybe?” Been-e laughed.

“I never shot you, did I?” I asked.

“Once. But that’s okay. It was just how things went. And unlike a lot of guys, I know you weren’t trying to cut me down or nothing,” he said nonchalantly.

“Oh. Well. Sorry and all.”

He waved it off.

“Not sure if you know, seeing as how you been involved in that real big stuff,” he started.

“Hey, I hope you don’t believe all that crap in The News ,” I interjected.

“Eh,” he began, and I could see he did. “Not really. I know how it is.”

“Good,” I said, at least happy he’d lied.

I find my whole pattern of speech and mannerisms morph when I’m around working folks. I think everyone does that to an extent, but I was about ready to pound some booze and throw the bottles against the wall. Been-e was so salty.

“Anyway, it’s been rough on us while the Portal is down. Almost no jobs going on and the military coming. It’s tough finding work,” Been-e stated.

And it was only going to get harder, I figured. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask me for help. I might be able to scrounge something, but I always disliked being put in that position.

“Hey, have you seen my daughters?” he asked urgently. He took out his tele to show me a group picture of three women of varying ages. “I finally got them all in one place to send me a vid.”