Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

I nearly swallowed my own tongue.

“I’m not Wallow,” I said.

“You’ve beaten him before,” Rendrae said dismissively, as if I was merely being humble.

Having a reputation can really be annoying sometimes.

“Have you ever seen Wallow? Because if you did, there’s no way you could possibly think I ever beat him at anything.”

“Hank,” Garm interrupted, “do you want to be briefed on what we’re doing? Then you can tell us more about this robot.”

Everyone answered for me. Of course I did. Sure. I’m one of them. I rolled my eyes.

“First, we’re trying to restore tele communication, but it’s the dreadnought that’s jamming us, unfortunately. The only things of value on this station, as far as I can figure, are those telescopic arrays. If we take out some of those, we might force them to negotiate with us.”

All these eager, crooked faces were staring at me. As if I was somehow their salvation. Like I could take my sawed-off shotgun, put on a spacesuit, hop out an airlock, and shoo away a bunch of battlecruisers.

I just didn’t see it. A year ago I could scarcely imagine the power of all the combined forces of Belvaille’s underworld, which were now assembled in front of me. But compared to the Navy?

“Yeah,” I began uneasily.

Someone handed me a rifle that had obviously been taken from the military.

“What’s this?” I asked in horror.

“You’ll need that to shoot through their body armor,” a guard said.

I held it awkwardly.

“I’m not a scientist. This thing has too many buttons,” I complained.

“It has four,” Garm stated flatly.

A thug came by and began trying to force my clumsy fingers into the proper places.

Garm looked at me hard.

“I want Hank to be our liaison with the military. To negotiate.”

There was outrage at this suggestion.

“We need Hank fighting,” someone said.

“Yeah, those carbines won’t do anything to him,” someone else volunteered for my skin.

“It’s a morale boost for the men having Hank on the front lines,” Big Moff said without a hint of sarcasm.

Even I had to disagree with Garm.

“I don’t think the Wardian particularly likes me. Besides, you’re Adjunct Overwatch. If anyone should deal with them it’s you.”

“No, I used to be Adjunct. Now I’m simply a traitor. I know it’s a little hard to understand, but from a policy standpoint, I’m the last person on this station they would deal with.”

“No, it makes Colmarian sense,” I agreed.

“More to the point though, this is what you’ve been doing your whole life.”

“How do you figure?” I asked, amused. “I bust heads for a living.”

“No, you bust heads when you have to. If half the stuff in The News is true—”

“Of course it’s true,” Rendrae said, offended.

“You’ve been making compromises with parties that despise one another for a century. That’s all we want: a fair deal.”

At that, the room grew reflective, myself included.

“Can I get back to you guys tomorrow?” I said. “I don’t even know where to begin on this.”

“We’re running out of time,” Rendrae warned.

“Sure, Hank,” Garm said.

No one patted my back or shook my hand as I left. I didn’t want to let them down, but the mythology of Hank wasn’t the same thing as the real me. Was I just going to barge into the Wardian’s office and start making terms?

And “office.” That’s how provincial I was. I could only think in Belvaille nomenclature. Like his hundreds of thousands of troops were just an oversized gang.

I realized it had been a bad idea to sleep in my apartment when I woke up to a soldier hitting me on the skull with a truncheon and my arms and legs were cuffed.

“Hey!” I shouted.

“Hold him down!”

“Get his legs.”

“He’s moving.”

“Hit him again!”

They kept bouncing the club off my head, which wasn’t as comfortable as it sounds.

More than a half-dozen soldiers then lifted me up, wobbling precariously, and carried me through my apartment as I attempted to twist out of their grip. Outside was what looked like a hundred soldiers or more.

No one was coming to rescue me. Not against this militia.

I was thrown in the back of a vehicle and we took off. One soldier sitting next to me doggedly continued to hit me on the head, as if it was a personal affront that I wasn’t unconscious.

“What are you trying to do,” I said to him, annoyed, “because it’s not working.”

Bonk. Bonk. Bonk.

There were some squeaks passed between their helmets and finally the abusive soldier sheathed his truncheon and gave my brain a rest. To my small satisfaction, I saw the soldier’s arm was sore as he massaged it.

I figured the whole Dredel Led thing had blown up. I wasn’t going to be able to use the “I can’t tell you” line on the Navy. They’d answer that by seeing how many grenades I could swallow.

I guess I could tell them the truth. They likely already knew it was Delovoa anyway—assuming he wasn’t dead.

To my surprise, I was transferred from the vehicle to the port.

I was put onto a tiny shuttle and secured with about thirty straps and harnesses. It would probably take an hour just to untie me, assuming they ever did.

The shuttle disembarked and I had an immediate panic attack. I actually hadn’t stepped foot off Belvaille in over a hundred years.

I threw up.

One of the soldiers cursed and reached for a tool on the side of the hull and vacuumed up my sick that floated around the cabin. Apparently this was common enough they had a handy device for it.

I felt terrible, with lines of saliva spinning from my mouth. Through the windows, I could see space, and I could see the unbelievably vast array of ships around Belvaille anchored in total precision with one another.

As we turned, the g-force slowly lolling my head, we angled on what could only be a dreadnought.

My mouth was now truly open. What everyone said had been a pathetic under-exaggeration. While its sense of scale was hard to tell, it looked to be as large as the very city we had just disembarked from.

I could feel us accelerating towards it, but it didn’t grow any larger. What I’d thought were windows or lights I realized were smaller ships flying around the dreadnought. Like flies pestering some enormous land animal.

It took hours to actually get close enough to dock. I was hungry and tired by the time we disembarked.

I was on a Colmarian Navy dreadnought, but they still didn’t untie me. I was surrounded by what must have been tens of thousands of soldiers, and they were pushing me along in a cart like I was a dangerous substance—or maybe sewage waste.

I was so in awe of the ship I hardly noticed.

We passed countless people on the way, all with varied uniforms. Here I was, being tugged along in a wagon with squeaky wheels, and they went about their business unconcerned. These were not your ordinary Colmarians. They were far too competent.

It took another hour of walking and elevators and motion floors to reach the Wardian.

The General and Wardian were in a private room. It was enormous—as big as a city block on Belvaille. The walls were too far away to see what was on them.

The guards finally released my shackles, all of them coming off with a click simultaneously.

The soldiers left, taking the wagon and chains with them.

“Hi,” I said good-naturedly.

The General wore his usual scowl, the Wardian had a beatific grin.

“Thank you for coming,” he said, as if I had pondered my many choices.

“Sure,” I answered.