Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

The only thing Colmarians found more frightening than effective government was Ontakians: the race that had designed my very special plasma pistol.

An almost mythical species at this point, Ontakians had only occupied a single planet. Long story short, we came to them and said, “Hi, welcome to the Colmarian Confederation.” They said, “No, thanks.” We said, “No, seriously,” and invaded them. Our 50,000 species versus their one. And they beat us like a drum. We finally amassed our navy around their planet and bombarded it until it broke apart.

We never could figure out their weaponry. Any time we tried to replicate it, it blew up or just didn’t work. This pistol was supposedly my great-grandfather’s. It’s beyond illegal and I got offered 300,000 credits for it once.

I’ve never actually fired it and I’d have to be completely crazy to try. But nothing brought a potential fight to a screeching halt like flashing a scary alien artifact. If I had thought they were really going to fight, I would have reached for my shotgun instead.

There was a lull as their brains clicked over how they should proceed.

Then, as my attention was directed towards the armed men in front, a multi-ton crate was dropped on me from above.

I hit the floor face down and found my legs up to about my waist were under a cargo container. I managed to hold onto my pistol despite the force, which hadn’t hurt incredibly much but was certainly surprising. Now I was annoyed. Not because they had tried to smush me, but because I looked like a doofus pinned to the ground after I had just given my badass talk.

The sailors were still in awe. If they hadn’t been impressed by my Ontakian pistol, they were by the fact my head hadn’t popped off and my guts squirted out when this crate landed on me.

“Guys, give me a hand,” I said, realizing there was no way I was going to get myself out alone.

Zadeck’s men came over cautiously and began pulling. I held my pistol as they tugged on my arms and pried at the container.

After an inordinate amount of time they finally freed me, and I stood up with as much dignity as I could muster. This was difficult considering I no longer had pants on, which had been mostly scraped off during my extraction. I was left in my underwear and ragged strips of my pants that hung from my belt and pooled sadly around my ankles.

I looked at the crane arm that had dropped the load. Followed the line. Over to the control booth. A sailor sat at the controls. He was a youngish man, maybe early fifties, and he wore the expression of someone who realized he’d just made a terrible, life-ending mistake.

“Hey, come here,” I said to him.

He didn’t come. I suppose a lot of people lie about having mutations in Colmarian space. It’s a way to avoid getting thumped if you convince people you can exhale supercooled nitrogen or whatever. Of course, that’s usually a lot of crap, so these guys probably figured I was lying too.

Well, I wasn’t lying.

Despite this setback, I tried to clear my head and get back to business.

“Look,” I said. “I know Zadeck. I can’t imagine he’s trying to cut you out. Have you guys delivered to him before?”

It took everyone a moment to come back to reality.

“Yeah, third time. But he’s always paid at shipment,” the Captain said, seemingly more ready to negotiate now that he understood I was for real.

“See? This is probably a misunderstanding. Where are you guys staying on station and for how long?”

“We’re at the Chelsea Halfway House,” the Captain answered.

“That place sucks. Go to the Marine Marina and tell the front desk you’re a guest of Hank. But don’t bust up any of the rooms.”

“Just ‘Hank’?” he asked.

“Everyone knows him,” Rooltrego volunteered. I could tell both sides were feeling a little more comfortable.

“I’m going to go over and talk to Zadeck. There’s nothing you can do here. You made your shipment. I promise I’ll get you your money.”

“I have your word on that?” I could see he was uneasy, but it was a better option than being shot with an Ontakian weapon by a pant-less mutant.

“Yup.” I went over and shook his hand. I liked shaking hands. My mitts felt like rocks and it was an extra means of intimidating people.

“Okay, guys. Move this stuff,” I indicated to Zadeck’s men. Some restlessness remained, as the crew still had their weapons. I tried to defuse it further by approaching one of the guys holding a gun.

“That’s a Dooli?” I asked him. “How’s it shoot?”

“What? Oh, yeah it is. It’s fine, doesn’t kick that much but it doesn’t sit right in the hand. Pretty narrow.” Crooks loved to talk weapons. It was how they bonded.

“Is that really an Ontakian pistol?” he asked quietly.

“Yup.”

“Can I see it?”

“Nope.”

When the sailors finally departed for their hotel and the many sins Belvaille had to offer, I returned to my apartment to get some new clothes.

Had I just washed them too much? My pants, that is. Was that why they had holes and came apart when I got pulled from under the crate? I tried to remember when I bought them, but drew a blank. The days and decades tended to blur on Belvaille.

The streets were quiet, with very few people about. It was still considered morning by Belvaille standards and the city tended to wake up late. This was fortunate for me since I was still relatively unclothed.

The whole space station was an exact square, fifteen miles by fifteen miles, with trains bisecting it regularly. Some extremely wealthy gang bosses owned cars, but there wasn’t much use for them except as status symbols.

The buildings varied from one to ten stories tall, the shortest being things like warehouses and maintenance facilities, the tallest being residential complexes. All of them were dull silver unless painted and boringly square in design to maximize real estate.

The city itself was open air. Or open space. There was a latticework of supports high above the city that controlled lighting and air and whatever else goes on up there. The whole station was of course protected by a shield, to keep those pesky meteors away and our atmosphere in place.

I stumbled into my apartment and looked for something to drink. I just wanted juice, something cold.

My place wasn’t fancy and was on the ground floor to save me walking. There were five rooms and a bathroom. My only decorations were scraps of junk and weapons and laundry. The furniture had been replaced as fights necessitated, and what remained was scorched and torn. I had taken up a cornucopia of hobbies and inevitably given them up after a few months. There were rusty instruments, barely begun paintings, puzzles, blocks of somewhat chiseled metal, and many other things scattered around my rooms.

The doorbell rang and I thought about whether or not to answer. After a moment I threw open the door and outside was a petite woman with vibrant blue skin, a tiny nose, and incredibly long, floppy ears that hung halfway down her ample chest. She was dressed in what I assumed to be a fashionable outfit because it looked weird. It was plastic weave and cords, but spun and twisted as if it were based on a design that had once been cloth in some ancestral past. It accentuated her attractive figure while not showing much skin. She wore white gloves and had tall boots that disappeared under her dress. In fact all of her body was covered except her neck and face. Her age was hard to tell, but she looked extremely young, maybe barely in her twenties.

“Er, hello,” I said.

“Are you the one they call ‘Hank’?” she asked in a lilting accent.

“Yeah, that’s me. What can I do for you?”