Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

“What can I do for you, Hank?” he asked jovially.

He was a man of middle height, slight build, was always dirty, and had three irregularly spaced eyes on his face that blinked independently. His lab was so full of chemical smells it was impossible to tell whether he had any body odor. But he was a mellow guy in personality and didn’t seem to have any crazy motives other than making crazy money and building crazy stuff.

As I stared at the rows and rows of weapons I had to wonder:

“What are you going to do with all this when the military gets here?”

“Technically, I’m a certified Colmarian Armorer because I supply the police here with weapons and gear. A lot cheaper than shipping it in.”

I picked up an odd-looking gun.

“Yeah, but this stuff can’t all be legal.”

Delovoa laughed.

“Nothing is legal. In all the empire. I was wondering the same thing you were, so I tried to get a list of what was banned and there was something like a half-million different sets of regulations. If they want to arrest me, I’m sure they can.”

“Laws. Now that will be an unusual concept to deal with,” I said.

“Yeah. Did you really kill Ddewn?”

“I guess,” I said, still looking over his merchandise.

“Well, I suppose he had it coming,” Delovoa said indifferently. “Hey, you thinking about selling your pistol?”

“It’s busted.” Delovoa seemed more upset than I was. All three of his eyes drooping.

“No. How?”

“Dredel Led.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll still buy it. Same price. It’s no good broken, right?”

“What are you going to do with it? It doesn’t even turn on anymore.”

“I’ll take it apart. Try and learn from it.”

“It’ll blow up!” I shouted, putting down a small machine gun.

“That’s an old wives’ tale. Things don’t just blow up.”

On top of all our problems, I didn’t need him tinkering with alien guns.

“No thanks,” I answered.

“Hey, come take a look at this,” he said, smiling. He led me to a long, broad table with a sheet on it. He waited for me to get close by and, still wearing that goofy grin, he whipped the sheet off.

“Ah.” I jumped back as fast as I could.

“Haha. You’re the fourth person that’s done that,” he said, truly enjoying himself.

It was the Dredel Led. What was left of it. Delovoa had put all the pieces back in the rough approximation of where they were originally, before Wallow had dismantled it. It was just so much loose scrap.

“Take a look at this,” he said, getting a tool in place above the heap of junk.

“I’m not getting anywhere near that,” I protested. “I didn’t know they kept it.”

“Of course. Garm had me collect it all. You think they were going to throw it in the trash? The Navy is coming to examine it. Just come here and look. It can’t hurt you.”

I warily eased my way around the table and looked. I peered through a magnification lens at a piece of the robot.

“This is ten times magnification. This is thirty. This is 200. This is 550. Sorry, some dust from the sheet.”

Each click it seemed like we were looking at a little city. And you’d think that was as small as it could get and then it just kept getting smaller. Little cities inside cities.

“What is that?” I asked, amazed.

“I have some theories,” he said vaguely.

“Do you know how this thing works?”

“Some. I mean, I know what metal this is. It’s really strong and there are no imperfections at all, but as for what’s inside it, I doubt any Colmarian could tell you.”

Even though it was in pieces, I couldn’t suppress a chill seeing it. As if one of those arm fragments was going to reach out and grab me.

Delovoa was a real brain. No one else would have nerve enough to pick up all that debris, let alone store the damn thing in their house.

“Hey,” I said, remembering one of the reasons why I was here. “Could you get rid of some delfiblinium?”

He gently replaced the sheet and gave me an odd look, his several brows furrowing.

“You have some?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, other than blowing it up, you might try storing it. I’m building these shielded cabinets for Garm to hide stuff in. Should block most scanners, though no one can really scan for delfiblinium. What, did someone give you a few micrograms?”

“Something like that. You know how explosive it is by any chance?”

“That stuff is celestial. I think the government uses it to nudge comets around on their orbits, you know, to clear Portals. No person could really do anything with it. You probably don’t have delfiblinium. People say all kinds of things. I could take a look at it for you.”

“That’s okay,” I said, trying not to sweat. “I think it’s nothing.”

“So you need anything else? I’m kind of having a fire sale.”

“That’s what I wanted to hear. I want two guns. Hidden in my boots. Just one shot is fine.”

“The shotgun I made you is pretty compact,” he said.

I took it out in demonstration.

“This is snub, but it’s huge. You can’t even carry it in a pistol holster let alone in a boot. I just need something for close range. A few feet.”

The near-fight with Ddewn had got me thinking. I’d never carried knives or anything before. I’m too slow to use them properly. But if I start grappling with multiple people and I lose my shotgun, I want a way to buy some more time. And everyone knows I’ve got that shotgun. If I get some pistols, that’ll be my secret until I need them.

“Anything hidden won’t stand up to a scanner,” he said.

“I know. I don’t plan on going through any.”

“Oh,” Delovoa said, brightening. “I have the perfect thing.”

He ran off into the depths of his lab. I checked out the different guns arrayed nearby. It was good to keep abreast of all this stuff, as it started in labs like this and ended up in fights soon enough, though I wasn’t sure how that would work with the military coming. Did they really expect us to be unarmed?

“Do you know what the policy is for weapons in real Colmarian cities?” I yelled to Delovoa.

“I think each one is different,” he yelled back.

Figures.

He returned with a long, rust-colored tube with some valves on one end.

“Try this. Point it that way, hold your arm out, and press this.” He handed it to me and got well away.

It felt big, far too big for my boots unless I made some very adventurous fashion changes to them.

I tried to press how he indicated and nothing happened.

“Like this?” I asked, turning slightly toward Delovoa to demonstrate. He practically dove into the next room.

“Watch where you’re pointing that,” he snapped. “You got to push the two together.”

I tried, nothing happened.

“Is it broken?”

“No. Or I can’t remember, maybe you have to push one then the other,” he said, from a safe distance.

“Well there’s three,” I began. Then whoosh . A four-foot ribbon of orange flame shot out of the end of the tube.

I had not been expecting that and my vision was momentarily spotted. When I blinked my eyes clear, I noticed the cuff on my jacket was melted.

“Hey,” I said.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Delovoa answered proudly. “I’ll sell it to you for a grand. And I’ll fill the first ten uses for free.”

“This stupid thing melted my jacket,” I said, showing him the proof.

“It’s hardly singed. But yeah, I couldn’t stop it from venting some gas out the rear.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have burnt my hand off.” I checked and my right hand did indeed have some chemical residue on it.

“Nah. I mean it would hurt my hand, but you fought a Dredel Led.”