Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (14 page)

I walked up to the table and others slowly came
closer as well.

“Good, let’s start,” Garm began. “We…what’s
that on your head?” she said to me, surprised enough to interrupt her speech.

“A bullet,” I replied coolly. I had not removed
it since yesterday. I was just going to wait until the skin popped it out. It
was a good conversation starter if nothing else.

Everyone at the table was staring at me. I kept
nonchalant. Besides, any facial movements threatened to squeeze out the bullet
like an overripe pimple. Yup, I kill alien robots and get shot in the face. Big
deal.

But then I looked over and saw Zadeck. He was
trying to use the other bosses as camouflage.

“What the null is he doing here?” I yelled. The
balls on that guy.

Garm looked around. She was obviously clueless
as to the situation.

I reached into my jacket and pulled out my
shotgun. The fifty bosses that had been at the table soon became five, the rest
taking cover in a decidedly un-boss fashion.

At this, about a dozen soldiers who had been
positioned in inconspicuous areas rushed forward with their rifles out.

“Put it down!” one of them screamed.

“Hold it. Hold it,” another said.

“I got a shot,” said one with a young voice who
obviously didn’t know me.

“Hank, come on,” said a reluctant guard, who
obviously did know me, “you’re making this difficult.”

“What are you doing?” Garm shouted. She got in
front of me and forced my shotgun to the side. Now the last bosses at the table
finally moved as my barrels swung across their positions. I wasn’t able to aim
with Garm twisting my arm around, and she’d apparently had some real combat
training because she did it with relative ease, despite me being vastly
stronger than her. She just redirected my exertions.

“Zadeck put a hit on me. That’s how I got this
souvenir,” I said, pointing towards my forehead.

Garm seemed surprised at this news, glancing
over her shoulder briefly.

“Everyone here has grievances with each other,
Hank. You know that. We all have to put them away for the time being for the
greater good.”

“I’m not a boss. I’m me. And when someone
shoots me, I shoot them back. And we see which of us dies first.”

“Technically, it wasn’t a-an assassination,”
Zadeck said from what sounded like a billion miles away. “I knew Hank would
survive quite easily.”

I was feeling foolish with Garm twisting my gun
around and around and me getting nowhere closer to aiming. I let my hand go
limp and she took my shotgun from me. Which I felt was a bit unnecessary.

“Zadeck!” Garm barked. “You need to apologize
to Hank so we can get on with this.”

Garm didn’t know what she was asking. Standing
in front of every rival he’s ever had or ever will, it probably would have been
easier to let me have one free shot.

He stepped forward gingerly, looking at the
other bosses. You could see him thinking.

“I don’t see—,” he started.

“You either apologize or you leave and be the
only person not here. And trust me, you want to be here,” Garm said,
determined.

“Just do it,” one boss piped. “We’re wasting
time.”

Zadeck cleared his throat. He blanked his face.
Gave a little bow.

“You have my deepest apologies, sir.” It almost
bordered on parody, but it was not so obviously sarcastic that it was invalid.
Having to apologize twice would have killed him.

“No problem,” I mumbled, and I snapped the
bullet from my forehead. It came out with hardly any pressure at all.

“Fine. Good. Okay—,” Garm started.

“I got a grievance too,” a small-timer said.

“Shut up.” Garm lost it. She pointed at
everyone in the room. “All of you, every single one, are going to be dead in a
month if you don’t listen.”

That was one way to get attention. Garm should
have been a public speaker. She thrust my shotgun at me, which I collected and
returned to its holster. She then straightened her hair and smoothed her
uniform, neither of which appeared unkempt even after she disarmed me.

“Right. As some of you may have heard, the
Colmarian Navy has sent a battlecruiser group to Belvaille. It is on its way.
The Captain of that detachment has already declared martial law on this
station. Twenty-five thousand soldiers are going to be disembarking and living
here. The duration is unknown.”

“Do they just want to make sure the Dredel Led
are gone?” an ancient boss asked.

“I do not know what their priorities are,” Garm
said. “But the way I see it, every bit of contraband that exists anywhere on
this station has to be destroyed or hidden. And if it’s hidden, it has to be
hidden well.”

“I’m not flushing my livelihood down the toilet
just because some Colmarian monkeys show up,” Ddewn said. I figured he’d be
trouble. But there were lots of agreements to his outburst.

“There’s one thing the Captain specifically
didn’t tell me about, but I learned anyway. On the other side of the Portal—”

“You mean that broken thing that’s preventing
us from getting any goods in or out of here?” a boss who I knew to be big on
foodstuffs said. A chorus echoed his anger.

“The Navy controls the Portals,” Garm said, and
by her manner you could tell she had explained this many times recently. “They
turn it on or shut it off as they see fit. Don’t blame me. But anyway, on the
other side of that Portal sits a dreadnought.”

She had obviously meant this to have some
meaning, but it was clear no one here had any stake in it.

“Put it this way, a dreadnought makes a
battleship look like a mouse. I mean a mouse compared to something really big.”

Still no recognition.

“Okay, a dreadnought is the Colmarian Navy’s
largest capital ship. Its weapons are only good for shooting other massive
ships. Or bombarding planets. Or…blowing up space stations.”

That got some reaction.

“You’re worrying about losing some liquor or
some drugs? I’m worried about them turning on that Portal, wheeling that
dreadnought through, and having it kill every living thing on Belvaille,” she
said.

“They wouldn’t do that!” an obese boss named
Galagher yelled. He wasn’t much of a boss, but we extended the net pretty wide
for this meeting. He was a recent addition to the station, one of the newer breeds
trying to buy his way up.

“Why? Because Belvaille is such a bastion of
noble enterprise?” Garm asked. “We were just compromised by Dredel Led. What do
we have going for us?”

“Would they really kill all these people?” I
asked.

“They’re bringing transports. Presumably they
have enough space to evacuate us. But will they chance that with Dredel Led
around? They might not even disembark. Saying they’re bringing transports could
be them trying to con us so a panic doesn’t break out over their real intentions
of destroying the station.”

“So why bother?” said a gloomy man with a face
to match.

“That’s worst-case scenario. Actually, that’s
just one. The other is they stay here. Forever. Battlecruisers hovering nearby
and a quarter-million soldiers.”

“How many?”

“That battlegroup,” she said, “holds anywhere
from 200 to 300 thousand troops.”

The bosses, so recently worried about the
prices of liquor, their shipments perpetually stalled at the Portal, and
various other small things, found themselves pondering an ocean of police
trampling them underfoot. That is, if they weren’t destroyed from space.

“Can we leave Belvaille? I know the Portal is
down. Could we load our goods on ships and wait them out?”

“They would scan us,” Garm said. “The Navy is
coming from as far away as the Colmarian capital, which is why it’s taking them
so long to get here. That’s how big a deal it is. Our port is closed. It is to
remain closed until they arrive. If a ship left and was scanned down, they
wouldn’t bother boarding it.”

“So is there nothing we can do?” Tamshius asked
plaintively.

“First off, look around. Go on. Everyone here
is now your best friend. If ANY static goes off between you, I will have you
killed. And I’ll use Hank, who will beat you to death and, knowing him, will
complain about it to your corpse for the next month,” she said.

I kind of snapped out of my reverie at the
mention of my name. This was really a lot of bad information for anyone to
handle. But I didn’t mind being the heavy if it kept us alive.

“What I’m counting on is them not staying for
too long. They have blueprints of Belvaille, but they are old ones. We’ve made
changes to the station that aren’t recorded anywhere. That means there are
buildings, sewers, ducts, structures that the Navy won’t know exist unless they
trip over them. We can use those as caches to hide our stuff. And even with all
the troops here, most of the southwest is still going to be shut down. We can
risk hiding things there too. But look, we don’t have a ton of room. You’re
going to have to dump a lot.”

“And let me guess, you’re selling us the right
to use that space?” Ddewn said, his eyes slants.

“You don’t get it?” Garm asked, shaking her
head. “Belvaille is a clean city as of now. There are no deals going on. None.
If you spit on the sidewalk I’ll have you arrested for littering.”

“How are we supposed to survive like this?” a
thin boss with a raspy voice wearing a poofy brown robe asked. I was wondering
the same thing.

“I don’t know. Talk to some normal businesses
here and find out what they do,” Garm said.

There was a lull, with everyone somber.
Thinking about how much money they would lose. Or what having your city
destroyed by a dreadnought would feel like. Or me sitting on them until they
died.

“If there’s going to be twenty-five thousand
troops here,” I said slowly, “they’re going to want to party. I don’t care
where they came from or what branch of the service. This could be a business
opportunity for you guys.”

And it was like a huge beam of sunshine hit
them.

That Garm immediately obscured.

“But wait first. We don’t know their
intentions. I mean I don’t, and I’m an Adjunct Overwatch in the Colmarian
military. I find that distressing to say the least.”

“Maybe they’re looking to replace you,”
Tamshius said not-so-under his breath, which garnered some laughs.

“They don’t need a dreadnought to replace me,”
Garm replied icily. “Unfortunately, this isn’t a voluntary program. If you
choose to not dispose of your illegal goods, I’ll be doing it for you. Because
I’m not going to have you get caught and go crying about me or him or him,” she
said, pointing at random people.

The room was indignant. These were businessmen.
The idea of throwing away goods was repugnant to them. Garm cut through their
noise.

“I don’t want to risk venting too much contraband
from the station, especially once the big ships pass the Portal. So we need to
get that done fast. If there’s an asteroid belt of stolen electronics orbiting
Belvaille we won’t fool anyone. I know it’s hard to do, but it has to be done.
We’re going to be visiting each of you this week.”

You could see there were a lot of questions,
but at the moment they were swallowed up in fear.

“That’s it, folks,” she said far too
cheerfully.

I hung around to talk with Garm.

“Is there really a dreadnought sitting at the
Portal?” I asked.

“Not yet. We still have some time, but I wanted
to get started early because I know this is going to be rough. But yeah, it’s
on its way. I had some people contact me. It’s pretty hard to keep a thing like
that secret.”

“Could it be coming out here for another
reason? You said the telescopes saw stuff around here.”

She looked at me and seemed tired. Garm was
never tired.

“Hank, there is no reason whatsoever for a ship
of that size to be so far away from home. Out of the millions of ships the Navy
has, they’ve got seven dreadnoughts.”

I picked up some food at a corner joint and
from there headed to Jyen and Jyonal’s apartment. I wondered if I should grab
some kind of gift, but I didn’t want to contribute to them feeling at home. The
sooner they left Belvaille, the better.

I buzzed the door and Jyen let me in.

“Hank!” she said, looking thrilled. She gave me
a hug straightaway, wearing a robe that was obviously for lazing around the
apartment. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“I figured we could do dinner, I brought some
food,” I said.

“Let’s go out. We hardly ever leave. You know
the station so well.”

“Uh, sure,” I said reluctantly.

“I’ll get changed and let Jyonal know.” She
practically danced out of the room.

Left alone with three hot meals in my hands, I
looked around the apartment. Much to my concern, it seemed even more domestic.
Desks crammed next to couches next to tables next to chairs. Whether Jyonal had
conjured them up or they had purchased them was unknown to me.

After a bit, Jyen returned wearing a low-cut
blouse and skin-tight slacks. She had Jyonal in tow, who looked terrible. He
could barely stand, the skin on his face was considerably darker, his hair had
fallen out in patches, and he looked emaciated. He had seemed so healthy last
time I saw him.

“Some days are worse than others,” she
explained, seeing my expression.

I needed to take them to a place that was
inconspicuous or where I didn’t know a lot of people. A low-class place might
not be phased by Jyonal’s dubious eccentricities, but it also might have
clientele with no manners. I could take them to some small restaurant in a
business district, but then it would be obvious I was trying to hide. I didn’t
feel it was wise to offend them.

I decided on Daavisim’s club. He was an old
boss I had worked with long ago. Smart guy, mostly kept to himself. I wished I
could work with him more because he had no drama, but because he had no drama,
he never needed my help.

Jyen was absolutely tickled to be out. She was
almost skipping down the street as we headed for the train. Jyonal was another
story. He had yet to acknowledge my presence and only seemed to be following
Jyen out of habit. I can safely say it troubled me having a mutant of his power
scuffing his feet and wobbling along next to me.

I didn’t know the doormen at the restaurant,
but it was clear they knew me, as they stopped talking when we approached and
nodded in the way tough guys do on recognizing another tough guy. Jyonal was
invisible to them. Jyen got more than an appreciative glance.

Inside, the place had been redone and it was
all bright lights and open tables. It seemed mostly to be a dancing and
drinking establishment now, with the tables occupied by working girls and guys.

I asked someone nearby by if they still served
food here and he said he thought so.

“Let’s stay,” Jyen said, excited. “Even if they
don’t have food we can have some drinks. You want a drink, Jyonal?”

“Yeah,” he said immediately, which was the
first sound I’d heard him make all night.

I led them as far away from the main floor as
possible and we got a small table in the corner.

A waitress came by and asked for our orders. I
was thinking of the weakest alcoholic drinks to get everyone. I ordered a
Fizzback, a weak girlie drink, and told Jyen it was really tasty in hopes she
would order it too.

“Double Gofuse,” Jyonal slurred. It was one of
the strongest mixed drinks there was. Jyen also ordered a Gofuse.

“
The News
said you’ve killed people
before. What’s that like?” she asked inquisitively.

“Well, I’ve never killed anyone who wasn’t
asking for it. Or, anyone I wasn’t paid to,” I amended after a moment. “I don’t
go around shooting people. But some guys are just stupid. A lot of guys. If
given the choice between backing down and living, or standing tall and dying, a
lot will choose dying. Even though no one will remember what you did a month
later.”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she asked, those
brilliant crystal eyes peering into mine. “Oh, I’m sorry, I don’t know how it
is on Belvaille. And with your culture. Please tell me if I’m being rude.”

It felt odd talking like this in front of her
brother, even though he was only slightly more active than a lamp.

“The station is a really small community, only
like fifty thousand people here. So everyone knows everyone else’s business.
You know.”

Jyen looked confused.

“So you’re not seeing anyone?”

“No,” I said plainly.

“Do you like men?” she shrugged, confused.

“Are those my only options?”

“Well, you seem to be really popular. I figure
you could be with someone if you want, right?”

I looked around for our drinks.

“I’m just not really big on talking about
myself. Tell me about you, Jyen. Where did you grow up?”

“A military laboratory, mostly. Once they found
out about Jyonal, they locked us both up and worked on us. They thought I might
have the same potential as he does, though I don’t. But they kept me around to
keep Jyonal happy and to threaten me. I don’t know what happened to our
parents. We never knew them. We didn’t even have any parental figures on the
base, because the leadership kept changing.”

“Ah,” I said, now really looking for those
drinks.

“So why don’t you like talking about yourself?
You seem so interesting.”

“It just makes me uneasy. I don’t know.”

“Not even about the fights you’ve been in?”

“I honestly can’t remember them all that well.
And
The News
exaggerates quite a bit.”

“It’s so wild beating up people is your work,”
she said.

“That’s not all I do,” I said defensively. “I’m
an arbitrator. There are all kinds of regular businesses on Belvaille too, you
know.”

The server finally came and I snatched my
little fruity drink in its goofy artistic glass like my life depended on it.
Though I could probably drink a thousand of them and not feel a thing—other
than my bladder rupturing.

“Cheers,” I said. And Jyen and I clinked
glasses as Jyonal merely downed his.

I was saved from more awkward talk when
Daavisim himself walked up.

“Hank, my friend, I haven’t seen you in ages.”
He was dressed in a smart suit that had more flash than I was used to seeing on
him—it literally had blinking waves of light. He didn’t wear it well.
Presumably his club’s transformation had required him to adopt this new look
and he wasn’t easy with it.

“Good to see you too,” I said.

He looked over at Jyen, waiting for an introduction.
I said nothing.

“I’m Jyen,” she said, darting out her blue
hand. “And this is my brother Jyonal. We’re good friends of Hank.”

“Hank’s friends are welcome here. Especially
one so lovely,” Daavisim said. He then regarded Jyonal, expecting an acknowledgement,
but found him staring blankly at the wall, so he returned to me. “If you have a
moment could we talk, Hank?”

“Sure,” I said, standing immediately.

“Want me to refill your drink? What are you
having, a Gofuse?”

“Yes,” I answered, quickly nudging my Fizzback
closer to Jyen.

“Can I come?” Jyen asked, like we were going to
play a game.

We both glanced at her and Daavisim raised an
eyebrow at me.

“We’ll be right back. It will only take a
minute, right?”

“Absolutely,” he said. “Some more drinks over
here,” he snapped to his servers.

His office was small, modest. There were crates
stacked along the walls. It smelled like boxes. I liked it.

“First, I want to thank you for all you’ve done
for us recently. You need any help with your hospital costs?” he asked, after
closing the door behind us.

It was the first time I’d thought about it.

“I think it was free. No one mentioned it,” I
said.

“I’ve been getting a kick reading about your
old stories in
The News
. Belvaille sure was a rough place a while ago.”

“Most of that stuff is made up,” I brushed it
aside, wanting to get past the small talk.

“Is that your sweetheart out there?”

“Her? No, I barely remember her name,” I said.

“Jyen, I think she said.”

“Hmm. So what’s up?”

“Do you think I could get a hit done?” he asked
plainly. He sat on the front of his desk with his arms folded. There was a
chair behind the desk, but it was covered in junk.

“You’re kidding,” I said, surprised. “You were
at the meeting. No fighting.”

“This is a special case. Oluv-Jos.”

He laid the name out there with finality. I
struggled with it a bit.

“Oh, Ddewn’s guy?” I remembered.

“That’s the one. He knocked over my register,
took a decent bit of change.”

“After the meeting?” I was shocked. The guy
must be suicidal.

“No. No.” Daavisim stood and looked around for
someplace else to sit, saw there was none, and sat back down on his desk. “I
think a few days before. But still.”

Daavisim wasn’t speaking plainly, which wasn’t
like him. As I recalled, the same guy had taken Tamshius. The two acts were
probably linked. Not that he robbed Daavisim to pay Tamshius—he was probably
trying to start a war. This was the trigger. It wasn’t an easy thing, starting
a war. You’d think it would be, but in the short term, it’s always bad for
business.

“It could cause problems,” I said.

“Better done now and we start with a clean
slate, or have this thing explode when the cops are here?” he asked innocently.

“Whoa! Garm will beat the crap out of you if
you threaten her like that. You know she’s panicked as it is.” I wondered if
the new club-owning Daavisim had been required to change personalities.

“I’m not threatening anyone, Hank,” he
protested. “We’re just talking. I’m talking to you as a pal. I’m not the only
one out for him, right?”

“I know there’s Tamshius,” I said.

“And I think Leeny,” he said, as if he didn’t
know, but he obviously did.

And my brow furrowed. That’s three bosses Ddewn
was bugging. At least. I didn’t see any connection between them, though. They
weren’t geographically near each other or joined by past partnerships—of which
I was aware. What was his goal?

This stuff could get so confusing. It could be
a brilliant, subtle plan or it could have been the dumbest of dumb mistakes.
Oluv-Jos might simply be a moron. There was no way to know.

This was when my services were usually
employed. I could go between the bosses and straighten this stuff out, as I
didn’t really work for anyone and they couldn’t brush me aside by blackmailing
my kneecaps.

“Garm will want it talked,” I said resolutely.

“But what if they won’t repay?” he asked with
exaggerated sincerity. “That’s a lot of bad blood stewing for however long
those cops are here.”

I could see what he was getting at. They
weren’t so blind as to miss the play going on. But now that Garm had put her
foot down, they figured they could use that as cover to take out Oluv-Jos and
whatever coalition, if any, was behind him wouldn’t be able to react. Either
way, one side or the other would be upset.

“The simple answer is you’re going to have to
speak to Garm,” I began.

Daavisim was about to respond when he started
shaking uncontrollably and then collapsed on the ground.

I hurried over to check on him when I heard
Jyen scream from outside. I rushed out the door. The music had stopped and
there was no movement at all in the building.

Except for one person.

I looked back at our table and saw the most
frightening thing I’d seen in my life.

Jyonal was floating a few feet from the ground,
his arms were thrown wide, his eyes glowed with that otherworldly glare, and
his face was stretched into a scream that was so ferocious I couldn’t tell if
it was terror or fury.

The entire club full of patrons was lying on
the ground unmoving.

“It’s not his fault,” I heard Jyen say at my
side, but I couldn’t process it. He just murdered hundreds of people.

Like a light switching off, Jyonal immediately
dropped to the floor, as if he had been suspended from strings now cut.

I stepped through the bodies over to Jyonal’s
still form and my hand was going into my jacket. This…thing can’t live. He’s
too dangerous.

Jyen stepped in front of me, her hands on my
arm.

“Hank. They’re alive. It just knocks them out,
they’ll be okay. It doesn’t work on me. I guess it doesn’t work on you. It
wears off, I promise. When you were gone some men came over and they were
bothering us…,” she trailed off. As if there could be any kind of valid reason
for doing this.