Steven Campbell - Hard Luck Hank - Screw the Galaxy

“Your luggage,” it said with an accent, though how it managed to have an accent talking with hand boxes was beyond me.

“Luggage?” I asked.

It left without responding, and in its place, dozens of Po quickly deposited the contents of my ship. The delfiblinium.

It was still enclosed in its containers and looked untampered with. I was all alone in some inner room of the world-ship with countless tons of the ore. I needed to think.

And do other things.

Using the bathroom on the world-ship reinforced just how ill-conceived our original plan was. It’s true I didn’t know the capabilities of delfiblinium, but was it possible it could do any damage to this installation? I had been acutely afraid of the bathroom toilet mashing me into a singularity by its sheer awesomeness.

I hoped that was the toilet, anyway.

I was really on a planet. And not a planet made from water or gas or loose soil, but one composed alternately of solid crystal and metals.

My great fear was that exploding the metal would merely destroy a few dozen rooms and maybe collapse a hallway, necessitating a little remodeling, but nothing else.

I came to the conclusion that my original mission was void. I needed to stop this vessel some other way. I wasn’t going to blow it up, that much was certain.

I hadn’t realized how tired I had been until the purple Po woke me up to tell me there was a meeting and I was invited as emissary of the Colmarian Confederation.

I tried to make myself look important in my monogrammed, yet sissy-colored, bathrobe.

The conclave was held in a large room—well, large by normal room standards, but normal by world-ship standards. There was a circular table around which sat the aliens I had seen earlier. In most cases there were several representatives for each race sitting close to one another.

In the center of the table was a hole that was occupied by the purple Po, as if he were directing traffic from the various species.

The whole thing was very similar to a gang meeting.

Sitting closest to me were Rettosians. They were one of the furthest species from Belvaille—but so were the Dredel Led, and that hadn’t stopped them from hanging around. The Rettosians were an ancient species. Colmarians thought of them as decadent, preferring only the finest of finer things, but who knows if that stereotype was true.

Physically, they looked like melting Colmarians. Or oozing. Their bodies secreted…something that was reabsorbed and then secreted again. Each individual varied in color, but they were vibrant blues and reds and greens and yellows. Their wardrobes highlighted their condition by having little spouts and producing tiny waterfalls and fountains. While it sounds kind of gross, it actually was a rather attractive effect, though I couldn’t imagine touching one.

The purple Po called the meeting to order.

“We need to address the last concern of the Qwintine representative regarding the division of trade in the ZT38-P4 system.”

The Qwintine were here as well. Physically, they were a thin species. They were twitchy and insect-like. And they hadn’t advanced as much as the other great empires because they had a low life-expectancy. I think they lived only fifty or so years, which really didn’t lend itself to galactic exploration.

There were five jittering around at the other side of the table. The one seated front-and-center had a dull complexion and didn’t move nearly as much as the ones behind it, who were colored more brightly. I wondered if they shipped over dozens of diplomats and let them die off. What a weird species.

“Excuse me,” I said, raising my hand.

The purple Po turned to me. Or at least more of its appendages did.

“I’m kind of new here, but I’d like to get this ship stopped. How do I go about doing that? It’s going into our territory.”

There was a slight cacophony of sounds at the table that was most disturbing. It took me a moment to realize the various races were laughing.

On my other side was a cloud of red gas “seated” at the table. It swirled with varying shades of red, and little ripples of electricity pulsed through it. It was a Keilvin Kamigan, the only gaseous race in the galaxy. It had the enviable position of being able to occupy the planets that were uninhabitable by anyone else. Though as I recall, you only need a little kid with a rock to kill one, as that’s all it took to rupture their membrane.

The Keilvin Kamigan used its own chemistry to activate a voice box on the table in front of it.

“We have already settled that years ago, Colmarian. This ship’s course is set.”

“Yeah, but I wasn’t here then,” I explained.

There was some grumbling from the group and then a truly monstrous sound dragged out.

“No old business.”

It was a solitary Gandrine seated directly across from me, but so loud it was as if he were yelling in my ear. Their species was nearly all hard mineral. He was probably heavier than I was. Like the Qwintine who they bordered, they did not expand much. But they were polar opposites of that race in that they were long-lived and slow in all regards.

The purple Po spoke.

“The Gandrine ambassador is correct. You may have no old business without a formal petition first, which must be voted upon.”

“But how do I—”

“Hank the Boss must be warned not to interrupt,” the purple Po cautioned.

The Dredel Led refrigerator, whose face had been repaired, made some buzzing noises that sounded suspiciously like snickering.

The meeting continued and I literally had no idea what anyone was saying. They could have been discussing chopping me up into little pieces and cooking me in a stew and I wouldn’t have known. It was Colmarian language, but very stilted and bureaucratic. I sat there picking at my fingernails.

We took a break after some hours and I tried to mingle with the diplomats as best I could.

Much to my joy I saw a trio of what looked like Colmarians standing by themselves. They wore long brown trenchcoats with cowls covering their faces. They carried staves with odd lanterns on top, though the lanterns did not glow.

“Hey,” I approached them excitedly, “are you guys Colmarians too?”

As the trio looked at me their bored expressions changed to ones that I could only translate as hostile.

“Colmarians?” one asked incredulously.

“We seek to destroy Colmarians,” another finished.

They tapped their rods on the ground and the lanterns burst forth an eye-searing blue light. A sound echoed off the vast chamber walls that vibrated my chest, my gut, my bones, my very brain, until I was at the brink of senselessness.

They tapped off their staves and I could finally see straight again.

“Well, good luck with that,” I said hurriedly, and departed.

While fleeing I nearly bumped into a rather strange creature. It had bright white skin and basically no facial features at all. It was tall but thin and its long arms were spindly things that seemed to serve no purpose. Except for its “face,” every single square inch of the creature was covered with some kind of rare metal or jewel or relic or trinket. Its pathetic arms were positively anchored by rings and bracelets. I knew it immediately from stories and from its mode of dress.

The creature was an Ank, one of the bankers of the galaxy.

They only existed on five planets, a pitiful domain for even the humblest of species. But their influence was vast. For ease of access, all the major empires in the galaxy had some bit of territory that abutted the Ank.

It’s said every scheme started there. “All roads lead from Ank,” as the saying went. Considering they funded just about everything—including roads.