Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

They all thanked me.

After I returned my receipts to their protective folder, I finished my drink and headed for the train. At first I thought I had spent more time inside than I’d realized. I looked up and the latticework lights were definitely dimming, signaling it was Belvaille’s version of nighttime.

Around me, people were all looking up as well. Was it a power problem? We’ve had issues with the lights in the past. We’ve had whole sections go out completely but never the entire latticework.

People were exiting the casino and buildings all up the block, staring at the roof of our city. The lights were gradually getting darker and darker and darker.

Then they were gone. They never turned off the lights completely. Ever.

With the constant light of Belvaille, we couldn’t see stars. Couldn’t see past our own little environment. But with the latticework off, everything was clear.

But instead of a galaxy of stars, what we saw was far more startling.

There were countless bright lights. Reds, yellows, greens, blues that glowed crisp and unwavering in our view. They belonged to hundreds of ships that were now floating around Belvaille.

The Navy, it seemed, had arrived.

I got back to my place as quickly as possible.

“Wake up!” I yelled to Delovoa, who was asleep on my floor, a huge white metal robot standing over him.

Delovoa grumbled and murmured but didn’t stir.

I pulled the scientist to his feet, risking getting mashed by ZR3.

“You’re leaving. Now.”

“What?” he stammered.

I dragged him through the house and outside. When we exited, Delovoa looked up to the sky.

“So it’s real,” he said vaguely.

It was dark outside. Very dark. This was the best and only chance I was going to have of moving these two. A moment later, ZR3 pounded out after us. I think it took the front door with it.

We only saw a few people on the way, but visibility was so low I couldn’t make out who it was. And while I could only indistinctly see them, the gleaming white tower of ZR3 was likely more visible. Still, I couldn’t worry about that now.

It took us more than an hour to reach the secret apartment—one of the units not shown on the most recent map. It was just three large rooms. It had once been an electrical substation, though all those components were long gone and now it was merely vacant.

The door didn’t even have any locks or codes on it.

“Stay here and don’t move,” I said once we were inside.

This building was perfect for them. ZR3 could easily fit now that all the generators had been removed, and no one would think of checking this structure as it was labeled with all kinds of hazardous warnings. I had already stocked it with supplies and sundries for Delovoa to occupy himself with. That was before he had pirated my own apartment.

“Hank,” Delovoa began feebly, “what’s going to happen to me?”

Standing there in the makeshift residence, a tremendously illegal alien in tow, an armada surrounding us, no way to escape, it was a valid question.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me , Delovoa,” I answered honestly. “I’ll do my best.”

When I got back home I was on needles waiting for the Navy to come in any moment. I had both guns in my hands. After about six hours, I felt I was being a little self-important. Presumably the Navy would land first. Maybe do some setting up. With a flotilla that size, it could be a while.

I looked outside. The lights were still off on the space station. They wanted to make sure that everyone saw what was out there, regardless of when they woke up.

It was difficult to tell where one ship ended and another began. I wondered which were the dreadnoughts. You couldn’t really get a sense of scale from here. Because they were in space, at X, Y, and Z axes, the lights would often overlap or seem irregular. But from the ground, now and then at the right angle, a row or two would appear in perfect symmetry, so you knew the ships were all aligned in some proper military fashion. They had to be, there were simply too many to be floating around haphazardly.

Because of the darkness, I didn’t see Jyen and Jyonal until they were right in my face, standing in my apartment.

“Hank, what’s going on?” Jyen asked, grabbing hold of me.

“The Navy. You need to get back to your apartment. Don’t come out. Have your papers ready if anyone calls on you. Study your documents and be ready to answer any questions,” I said severely.

“Can we still go to clubs?” Jyen asked.

I think she would have electrocuted me if she could have seen the expression on my face.

“No.”

I was on edge, having barely slept a wink. I finally decided I needed some food and needed to see what was going on.

The lights were now on. Looking up it was almost possible to pretend the Navy hadn’t come. All those ships had been just a dream.

Except for the soldiers.

At each corner stood a half-dozen armed soldiers who scrutinized me with extreme intensity as I passed.

They wore charcoal-colored body armor and carried either wicked, long rifles or fat, snub ones. I didn’t immediately recognize the guns, as Belvaille didn’t specialize in military designs. But the shorter one was obviously a multi-barreled submachine gun designed to throw as much metal downrange in as short a time as possible. The rifle was some kind of high-caliber precision shot. There were far more men with the automatic weapons.

They also carried sidearms which I couldn’t see. They had on helmets with their visors down. Since there was no glare to worry about, I took this to mean they were getting visual instructions via their helmets or perhaps some scanning-type information. Or they were all ugly.

As I moved closer to the port, ostensibly looking for a restaurant, the soldier density rose exponentially. Just ten blocks out there were what looked like thousands of them.

I was shooed away as the mass of troops moved in synchronization transporting gear with all manner of heavy lifters. It seemed the first order was to unload everything from the ships. How they were going to move all those crates across the city was anyone’s guess but they were already stacked taller than some of the warehouses.

“I said get going,” a soldier barked. And a dozen men with nothing better to do pointed their guns at me.

It was then I also noticed the emplaced heavy machine guns and rocket launchers.

I actually felt somewhat relieved seeing all this. If they were spending this much effort moving in, they at least weren’t going to blow us up from space.

Belvaille’s preparations seemed comical. We were going to trick an entire occupying army? Pretend we were a quaint tourist attraction off the beaten path?

And my, how power had changed. What was a boss now? What possible influence could he have? Belvaille was now a military base that happened to have some civilians on it.

A diner some ways from the port was packed. It was perhaps half soldiers and half regulars. The only people talking were the soldiers.

The people of Belvaille all had their heads down as they dutifully ate their meals. I walked in and people I knew gave me half-inch nods.

“Can I help you, sir?” the cook, who had known me for decades, asked with a leaden voice. I ordered and took a seat.

After about ten minutes a squad of troops came in. A slight buzzing or whistling emanated from them—I think it was their intra-unit communication systems.

“Groll-uot-a, stand,” one of them said to a person eating, who was trying to hide in his food. I vaguely knew him as a man named “Gouel.” He did something in smuggling.

“Stand!” the guard yelled again and hit Gouel on the head with his gun. The squad dragged him to his feet and out of the diner.