Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

I took a deep breath and gazed at myself.

I had three scars on my face. A small horizontal one above my right eyebrow, a longish one that went from the left side of my nose down to the corner of my mouth, and a sort of thick one that cut across my left cheek and joined the one at my nose. All three scars had a very light green tinge to them.

I’d never had scars before. My body just healed them away on the rare times I was injured. I actually thought I looked pretty cool.

“We believe there is some contaminant in the skin that is preventing its healing, though we couldn’t detect anything,” a technician stated. “We aren’t sure if they’re dangerous.”

“The scars?” I asked.

One of the technicians turned off the lights and in the mirror I could see the faintest emerald glow from the wounds on my face. Whoah. There were also a few nicks on my hand—presumably all this was from when my poor plasma pistol exploded.

“Do you know if we took out the robot?” I asked.

“I’m not aware of what is happening on the space station, sir, I’m sorry.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Twenty-three days,” he said gravely.

“That’s it?” I said, impressed yet again at Navy skill.

I assumed the Boranjame ship hadn’t arrived yet because the technicians had spoken to me instead of running around the room screaming like little girls.

I had to get back to Belvaille to find out what was going on.

In the hallway, I noticed my gimpy knee immediately. It didn’t hurt—in fact I didn’t feel it at all—but it had a different swing. I almost walked into the wall after a few dozen steps.

It would just take some getting used to. Though in the grand scheme, going from sort of very slow to very slow wasn’t much concern to me. Especially if I was dead from the Boranjame.

I had to get a shuttle to the space station, which was, as I found, exceedingly easy as an Oberhoffman. I even got them to give me a couple extra sets of uniforms, because I needed clothes and theirs looked way better than anything I owned.

I threw up in the shuttle even before we were undocked. There were no soldiers to clean it up so I did my best, but the pilot raised a glass barrier between my compartment and his.

The medical sloop was even further away than the dreadnought, so it took quite a while to get to Belvaille. I made calls on the way.

Jyen was fine, which was a relief. She had used her own bioelectricity to fuel her lightning. She’d basically exhausted herself trying to save me from ZR3, which was why I saw her passed out during the fight.

She was tickled I was alive and well and didn’t seem to notice my greenish scars. Or at least was too polite to mention them. But she also didn’t know squat about what was happening in the city, so I said I’d be in contact later and hung up.

“Did we kill it?” I asked Delovoa.

“Didn’t even scratch it,” he said without much alarm.

“What? I blew up my gun for nothing? Is it still running around?”

“Your friend… I don’t know how he did it, but he molded the city street and formed a metal bubble around the both of you. We weren’t sure what to do then, but he slowly opened it and we pulled you out. The robot was inactive and we sealed it back up. I have a theory it shuts down in darkness or when covered.”

“So all we had to do was throw a blanket over it?”

“Maybe.”

“If you say a damn word to that thing, I’ll kill you,” I warned.

“It’s soundproof,” Delovoa said, unconcerned. “Its container is like twenty feet thick.”

“Did you ever figure out what it was? A Dredel Led or not.”

“It’s a big roadblock right now on 32 ndand F.”

“So no sign of the Boranjame?”

“We’re talking to each other, aren’t we?” came his reply. When did he get so snarky?

“How are the gangs? They all cooperating?”

“No, they’re fighting again.”

“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears. How desperate did things have to become for those idiots to drop their petty problems?

“Did you really think they were going to turn into model citizens just because our entire state is about to be destroyed? With you incapacitated and Garm demoted there was no one to keep them in line.”

I hung up and started calling bosses, trying to get to the bottom of things.

Turns out, it wasn’t as bad as Delovoa had hinted. They were all helping the Navy like I’d asked, but since they had been permitted to re-open their businesses and the soldiers were now allowed a little R&R to raise morale, they had gone back to squabbling over turf and prices and supplies and the hundred other things they fight about.

Two issues I managed to settle right on the tele. First, the price wars of two competing casinos. I just fixed the prices for them and they agreed. Second, some gangs causing damage to each other’s establishments, which is almost always a precursor to a real fight, so I put an end to that immediately.

When I hung up, I marveled at how easy it was. Then I realized I was an Oberhoffman in my own private Navy shuttle, with a backdrop of hundreds of warships.

Nice gig if you can get it.

There was a huge line of Navy vessels waiting to dock but our little shuttle snuck past the mega-craft and I got back to my beloved Belvaille.

For a whole thirty minutes, I felt like a real badass. I was literally in command of the entire city. All the true Navy hotshots had returned to space to prepare for the Boranjame. I had tens of thousands of troops at my disposal.

After my brief flush of excitement being a real boss, it got damn tired. I had Navy guys questioning me about things of which I had no clue and every crime boss or flunky was calling me for favors.

I ordered that Rendrae be brought to me, and he was, kicking and screaming. I told him to start up The News again as we needed it.

“You’re not cut out for a revolutionary, Rendrae. You’re a reporter,” I explained.

“Editor-in-chief and publisher,” he corrected.

“People need to know what’s going on and I can’t answer every tele from a quarter-million people on the station.”

“I’ll do it if you designate me the official information source of Belvaille.”

Considering he never had a competitor in all the years he published:

“Absolutely, I can’t think of a better authority,” I said.

Garm tracked me down somehow, as I was constantly moving to try and shake off all the responsibility. The guards around me didn’t like her. She was still “the traitor.”

She saw my scarred face.

“And I didn’t think you could get any uglier.”

“I like them, they add character.”

“Yeah, character was totally what you were missing before,” she sniffed.

“What happened to Wallow?” I asked, wondering if I had fared better than he.

“Few broken bones I think. The medical ships were much too small for him. He’s got his leg propped on a house in the south,” she explained. “Zadeck’s men are mostly looking after him and being reimbursed by the Navy.”

“Zadeck is still alive?” I’d just assumed he was dead when Wallow got co-opted by the Navy.

“He’s very much alive. No one knows all the details of how he lost Wallow. But he’s a completely new person. Playing nice with everyone.”

“I bet. Without his muscle, he’s not much.”

“He still has the richest block in the city. That’s a lot of influential friends,” she countered.

“I guess,” I said begrudgingly. “Wouldn’t it be kind of funny if the Boranjame didn’t show up? All this work for nothing. Not that I’d be complaining.”

“There’s a ton of chatter on the telescopes. More than we’ve ever seen. But enough small talk, you have a lot of decisions to make, Oberhoffman.” She hauled out a folder with what looked like hundreds of forms.