Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (11 page)

There was a sickening crunch and I saw
blackness. I was on the ground and truly broken. My forehead rested against the
road and I think I was on my stomach. I could feel my teeth were shattered but
I couldn’t even purse my lips to spit out the debris.

There was blood everywhere. I could only keep
one eye open and that one only barely. I could not tell you how many broken
bones I had because I was unaware of how many existed in my body, but it was
pretty close to a 1:1 correlation.

I could not take in more than the shallowest of
breaths without acute pain, mildly coughing as blood gushed out of my mouth and
nose.

Is there really such a thing as a good way to
be murdered? I hadn’t thought about it before. But my one thought was that this
wasn’t it.

Over what seemed like the unbelievably loud
noise of me dying, I could remotely hear Wallow yelling about something.
Probably how I had stained his knuckle with my viscera. This had not been, in
retrospect, a good idea.

With every ounce of effort I had left, I turned
my head to the side, mostly because I was tired of my broken nose mashing into
the street.

In the distance. What seemed like a million
miles away. I saw it. It was the Dredel Led. I think it had paused in its
movement. Probably because it just spotted a pissed-off Therezian.

I would have given the last unbroken bone in my
foot to know what that robot was thinking. I mean it was probably some
gobbledygook
that
didn’t make any sense, but I could just see it going, “Wasn’t I just fighting
someone a lot smaller?” Who would have thought the most useless space station
at the edge of the most useless empire’s territory could put up such
opposition?

Then I saw Wallow running towards the Dredel
Led. I had never seen him run before. No wonder he got around so fast. Three
steps and he had crossed the length of the block.

I wanted to move, to get the crap out of there.
The battlefield of the gods was no place for a jaywalker. But I couldn’t. I was
done. A little child could come by and poke me in the eye until I died and I
wouldn’t be able to do a damn thing.

Worst of all, my body tormented me with
consciousness. This time, I was absolutely happy to go to sleep. Even go to
sleep and not wake up. But no. My body was like, “You didn’t listen to me
before, so now you get to experience the joy of being a sack of wrecked meat.”

I couldn’t even close my eye, because then it
just made me more aware of the pain. So I lay there like a bloody barnacle only
semi-conscious of the battle in the distance.

I kind of hoped Wallow won.

But not entirely.

I woke up at the hospital at one point and
tasted wires. There were at least a dozen small ones in my mouth. So many I
could barely move my tongue. There were several up my nose. I think there was
one in my ear. I was literally plugged in.

The room had three technicians in it buzzing
around. I turned my eyes and saw the medical machines were literally suspended
from each other in mid-air. Interconnected cords ran through boxes of blinking
lights and dials and buttons which were slanted and stacked in defiance of
gravity. A tech was cursing at one when he saw my eyes open.

“Hank. Oh, we had to trick the instruments into
thinking you were alive. This one—”

Good, I’m dead. Won’t have to put up with any
more crap. I closed my eyes again and let the bastards have my carcass. Fat lot
of use they’ll get out of it.

Much later I saw a light. It grew brighter and
brighter.

Then it turned blue. I awoke and saw Jyen
smiling at me in a chair beside my bed.

“Told you he was coming around,” a male voice
said from somewhere. But I was still staring at Jyen, who I now noticed was
holding my hand.

“What are you doing here?” I croaked past the
tubes in my mouth.

“She said she was with you. Or worked with you.
Or something,” an obviously annoyed Garm interjected from the other side of the
bed.

But that’s not what I meant.

“No, what are you doing here? Why haven’t you
left?”

Jyen’s beatific smile slightly faded and she
looked at Garm.

“We can talk about that later, Hank. You need
to rest.”

All I could think was, if she hasn’t left, then
her brother hasn’t. That means there could be ten more Dredel Led on the way.

I started to move, but then thought better of
it. There must have been a hundred cables attached to me. Pretty sure they were
in my nether regions as well. That’s not going to be pretty.

“How long,” I began, then fumbled on the wires
in my mouth.

“You’ve been here for almost a month,” Garm
said. “A lot has happened.”

I reached up gingerly to feel for my beard, but
none was there. Someone had been shaving me. Which was kind of creepy.

“Everyone knows what you did, Hank. You’re our
protector,” Jyen bubbled.

“She’s not lying. I suppose there were some
people who kind of doubted Rendrae’s original story in
The News
and the
first Dredel Led. But there were like a thousand eyewitnesses to you punching
it out with this last one in the middle of the street. Probably the bravest,
dumbest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Garm said with mixed emotions.

I could think of one thing dumber.

“Why…did you shoot me with that damn…artillery
piece?”

“Because you waved for me to!”

“Why…would I do that?”

“I don’t know. That’s what I couldn’t figure
out. But we aimed behind you.”

I couldn’t even respond. I was already tired.

“Did they cut me open?” I asked uneasily.

“How they going to do that? With this junk?”
she asked, indicating the dubious medical equipment. “They’ve been pumping you
with nutrients and letting your body heal. Oh, and they rebuilt your teeth, but
they said even those are slowly regrowing.”

It was true, I could feel a mouthful of new
choppers. I wonder if they fixed my overbite.

“I wanted to personally come to thank you,
Hank,” Jyen said, cupping my hand to her face.

She could have thanked me by leaving Belvaille.

“I need you back on your feet as soon as
possible,” Garm cut in. “I need your moral authority to get some stuff done.”
There was an urgent undercurrent in her voice.

“We need to talk as well,” Jyen said.

“I just killed every single alien invader on
Belvaille. I think I deserve some time off,” I answered stubbornly.

“And you went three rounds with Wallow,” Garm
said, impressed. “Wish I could have seen that fight.”

I had almost forgotten. If you call me getting
momentarily stuck between his fingers a “fight,” then it was epic.

I stayed in the hospital for three more days.
This was by far my slowest recovery. Of course it was also by far my worst set
of injuries.

The de-wiring finally came and they were
pulling things out of places better left unspoken. Or I wish they were
unspoken. They explained it and I pretended to listen, but really I was just
trying to disregard some guy pulling a fifteen-foot wire out of my rectum.

They had my clothes here. All these visitors
and I was still left with my crappy clothes? The clothes I had when I got here.
They’d washed them, but they were still ripped and stained and really tattered.

Someone had recovered both my guns. I tried to
power on my pistol, but nothing happened. Finding that it worked would have
really cheered me up. My shotgun looked fine, just some scratches.

I ambulated slowly down the hallway. I passed
some patients and a few technicians along the way, and they all stared at me.
They seemed amazed I was alive. Me too.

Got outside the hospital and realized I had
three blocks to the train. Then there was more walking after that. I did not
believe I could walk all the way to the train in one go, and I didn’t relish
resting along the way.

I could call Garm and get her to drive me, but
I knew she would bug me about work. Both my legs could be blown off and she
would still blab about how I could help her by crawling after some jerk who
owed her money.

That was Garm. But I didn’t feel like it right
now.

Guy named Heningly I knew drove a cab. Not many
in the city, but sometimes you needed stuff moved and had to rent out a car.

He seemed almost frightened I was calling him,
but I explained I just wanted a ride from the hospital.

I sat down on the steps to wait, as I was
already exhausted. Yeah, no way I could have made it to the train.

Finally, Heningly pulled up out front and I
dragged myself down. I got in back as he held the door for me like I was a
crippled granny. He didn’t look me in the face.

The backseat was spacious and had obviously
been cleaned all of a few minutes ago, as it smelled strongly of solvent and
was still wet at the sides.

Heningly ran around the front and got in. He
did not turn around, but looked in the mirror at me.

“My apartment is located—,” I began.

“Oh, I know where you live, sir. I’ll take you
right away.”

We came to my place and I flipped out my tele
to pay.

“How much do I owe you?” I asked, after we
arrived at my home.

Heningly looked scared, his eyes wide and his
hands held up as if I were pointing a gun at him.

“Oh, no. Free! Let me get your door.” And he
bolted out of the car and around to my side, where he helped me out.

“Thanks for the ride. Would have been a tough
walk,” I said with a little laugh, feeling happy now that I was in front of my
place.

“You could have made it, Hank. No problem. I’m
sure you could have.”

I looked at him after this strange remark and
he panicked again, as if he had said too much. Like discussing my walking
habits was a state secret.

“Good-bye, call any time,” he practically
yelled, as he ran to the safety of his car.

Inside, my place was still messy. I don’t know,
somehow I was expecting shining surfaces and plush furniture. In my memories I
was such a better decorator.

After a nap I flipped to
The News
. The
headline was “Conspiracy #3 Details.” I couldn’t make sense of the story, so I
opened the first issue since I’d been out. It had videos of me fighting the
Dredel Led. Man that looked bad. The funny thing was, the story talked about
the robot fleeing me as I tried to engage it. While in gross directional terms
that was true, realistically it wasn’t close.

At the end of the paper was a bit that troubled
me:

Hank has once again become the
salvation of Belvaille by vanquishing this metallic villain. But one is
inclined to ask the question, why has our nondescript community received such
scrutiny? It seems beyond the realm of mere coincidence that a race as advanced
as the Dredel Led would chance upon us on a whim. It’s time we come to grips
with the dark nature of this space station. More to come, readers.

The next issue went into speculation. Of
course, Rendrae didn’t know the real reason why the robots came, but he did his
best to fill in the blanks. And those blanks were that Belvaille was in
actuality a secret Colmarian military outpost and they were using the bad
reputation of the city as a cover.

It went on to suggest there was likely a hidden
Portal, or series, that led directly to Dredel Led space. Or that their empire
was vaster than previously known and actually abutted Belvaille—which would
have required a truly vigorous editing of celestial cartography.

The next issue essentially went after Garm.
Rendrae had obviously been saving every drop of mud he had ever gotten on her,
because he splashed them across the pages in all their inglorious detail.

Except that at every turn instead of seeing
simple graft, he attributed her actions to some nefarious plot or other.

In the issue after that he attacked various
parties on Belvaille and their potential involvement in the grand schemes. It
was true fear-mongering, yet his facts were straight and all of this seemed theoretically
possible, albeit unlikely, when read at the same time.

I mostly escaped his bile, at least in terms of
being a conspirator:

I’ve known Hank for many years and
he’s one of the elder residents of Belvaille. I label him a trustworthy person
worthy of respect. It’s his own lack of acumen, and childish simplicity, which
prevents him from seeing himself as a pawn in the Confederation’s game,
however.

When our Adjunct Overwatch gave
the order to bombard the delicate street fight that was ensuing, it was clear
she was not only trying to eradicate the Dredel Led, but Hank as well. For she
doubtlessly now considers his presence a liability. Who knows her past misdeeds
more than Hank, who has so unknowingly helped advance the Colmarian
Confederation’s stratagems?

I practically felt bad for myself for being
such a dupe. Not to mention those good-hearted Belvaillian citizens who were
being subjected to the unrelenting evil of our government.

Of course, all of this was preposterous.

I teled Rendrae so we could talk. After
congratulating me on my recovery, we set a time and date to meet. I wanted to
set him straight.

First, I had to see Jyen. I wanted to know why
she was putting this station in mortal danger by remaining here with her
brother.

I hung around my place for another day or so,
not quite voluntarily. I’d just lie down for a moment to rest and realize three
hours had flown by.

I walked across the street to Jyen’s, rode the
elevator up, and buzzed their door. Jyen opened it and the view of their apartment
left me horrified.

It was completely furnished, with junk
everywhere. When I came in I had wanted to see suitcases, not a living space
that looked like its occupants never planned on leaving.

There were chairs, couches, rugs, tables, and a
lifetime of knickknacks covering it all. It appeared they had spent every
second shopping since I last visited.

“Why are you still here?”

“The port is closed. Besides, we didn’t know
where to go, or how.”

“The port is still closed?” I asked. That
seemed odd.

“Yeah. Not one ship has left or entered in more
than a month. We’re stranded. Don’t you think Jyonal has done a great job on
our apartment?”

“You realize more Dredel Led could be on their
way, right? How pretty your furniture is hardly seems important.”

At this point a man walked into the room from
the back. He was dressed well with a manicured black beard and large
sunglasses.

“Hello, Hank,” he said casually.

It took me a moment to realize this person was
the creature that had once been Jyonal.

“Is that you?”

Jyen walked over and proudly stood by her
brother.

“He’s recovered a lot. I told you what they
were doing to him while we were incarcerated,” Jyen said.

Absently, Jyonal injected a drug into his neck.
So he hadn’t changed that much.

His eyes glowed even behind the obscuring
glasses as he looked at the floor. I got the idea he was using his mutation,
which was absolutely not what I wanted to experience first thing out of the
hospital.

On the ground in front of me appeared a solid
cube maybe six inches on all sides. It had swirls of colors all over it, mostly
of dark, metallic shades.