Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (28 page)

I reluctantly left my shotgun at home. It would
be of no use to me.

Jyen, Jyonal, and I went outside to the cars
that were waiting. We had borrowed some gang bosses’ cars and thus we looked
like an army of pimps. We had ten soldiers, all armed with rockets, everyone
wrapped head to toe in thick body plating. I seriously doubted the soldiers
would be of use, but if nothing else they were more targets for ZR3 to deal
with.

We drove to pick up Delovoa, who had finally
cleaned himself up and actually wore a fine suit.

“If I’m going to die…,” he started, seeing my
expression at his wardrobe.

“Is Garm going to help?” Jyen asked. For
whatever reason, those two didn’t like each other. Sometimes pretty women are
like thugs from different gangs: they dislike each other on principle.

“She’s showing all Belvaille’s secrets to the
Navy and helping coordinate. She won’t be any use in this battle, anyway.”

Jyen seemed pleased with that as we drove off
to our deaths.

“Sir, the target has been located. Twenty-three
blocks from here,” one of the soldiers said to me.

Sir. Strange galaxy we live in.

“Where’s our other team?” I asked. Wallow being
a team unto himself.

“En route,” he answered.

I had some small hope Delovoa could stop the
robot. I had smaller hope Jyen could maybe phase it. I had a prayer that Jyonal
could suddenly “see” it. I had almost no hope the soldiers could do anything.
And I knew for a fact I was worthless.

But Wallow. As he approached us in that silly
black armor, probably a millionth as strong as his natural skin, that gigantic
truncheon in his hand, it really buoyed the spirits. We all got out of our vehicles.

“Hank,” he yelled down at me. Seriously, how
had I ever pissed him off?

I looked straight up and realized I could
actually fit in his nose. The soldiers were all talking at once trying to calm
him, to no avail.

“We’re on the same side now,” I said.

Then Jyen abruptly cried out, pointing.

It was the Dredel Led, and it was moving
towards us.

“Everyone get ready,” I commanded.

The soldiers fanned out. Jyen did like I told
her and got off by herself near a building. Delovoa hid behind one of the cars.
Jyonal began taking drugs. And I stood there alone making myself a very
convincing target.

“On my mark,” I shouted.

“I kill you,” Wallow yelled, and I realized he
meant me.

The robot paused. Maybe it was deciding what to
demolish first in our target-rich environment.

“Wallow,” I said, momentarily looking away from
the machine, “I’m an Oberhoffman in the Navy now.” I stood on my tiptoes so he
could be a whole few inches closer and see my insignias. “I’m the
highest-ranking person here.”

At that, ZR3 definitely swiveled and started to
run straight at me.

“Oh, right, so NOW you can understand
Colmarian?” I asked it.

Delovoa began spewing nonsense to the Dredel
Led at break-tongue speeds. It was moments from impact with me. I had
instructed everyone to give Delovoa as much time as possible before fighting
back, as he theorized that once it was engaged in combat, talking to it might
be impossible.

The robot clanged up, its metal feet screeching
on the sidewalk. It stopped in front of me, took that huge handless arm, and
swung it for a mortal blow to my chest.

I saw it coming in slow-motion.

Closer. Closer.

And it passed right over me.

Because I ducked.

I was ducking! I was crouched on my knees, my
head down. I couldn’t believe it. I was both surprised and ecstatic. This was
easy.

But the Dredel Led’s torso could spin. So it
just whipped around and its other arm hit me in my now-lowered position.

I went rolling like a ball and crashed into a
car, practically splitting it in half.

My sight dimmed briefly. But I knew I had
ducked. It couldn’t take that away from me.

I heard what sounded like twenty rockets
exploding nearby, because twenty rockets exploded nearby.

I looked up in time to see ZR3 walk over and
stand on my leg. There was a terrible cracking noise followed by me shrieking
in pain.

It raised its arm and I knew I had a few
moments to live.

I lay in front of this stark white robot, its
crude, hole of an eye staring at me. I wanted to think a profound thought
before I died, but all I could think of was, “Ow.”

There was a blinding flash and for a
split-second I thought I might be in some kind of afterlife, but I was in way
too much pain for that.

The light grew so bright I couldn’t keep my
eyes open.

It was Jyen. She was throwing about a hundred
thunderstorms at this thing and I was right next to it. I had to cover my face
and ears.

My body shifted and the lightning was over. The
Dredel Led had moved.

No, it had been moved.

As my hearing returned and I could almost see
again, I looked up and saw Wallow. And heard him. He roared as he picked the
robot up.

He cupped it in his hands, but it was obviously
incredibly heavy. His knees buckled as he hoisted with his back. Then he pushed
it over his head, triumphant.

There was no corner of the city that did not
hear Wallow screaming. His face was the living embodiment of violence. It was
so ferocious I nearly forgot the only thing keeping my leg from separating from
my body was my mangled armor and skin.

Wallow stood fully erect, his arms stretched
high above. You got the idea he could hold the Dredel Led there forever, like
some benevolent god sacrificing his life for all of ours.

But that was not how Wallow worked.

He brought his arms down and slammed the Dredel
Led into the city floor.

I flew four feet into the air and felt like I
broke another few bones from the shockwave. The Dredel Led was literally wedged
into the superstructure of the space station, only half of it visible.

Nothing. Nothing could survive that.

Except ZR3.

I sat there in disbelief, and considerable
agony, as I saw it trying to extricate itself. It was beyond comprehension.
What use were rockets, or even lightning, against such a construct? It had just
been forced four feet into solid metal and was still going.

It whirled spastically until centrifugal force
popped it out.

I looked over and saw Jyen slumped against the
building. I didn’t see any injuries though.

ZR3 showed the first real signs of intelligence
I’d seen when it turned to face Wallow. All the rest of us it could kill at
leisure.

Wallow wasn’t going to go easily. He lifted his
massive foot and stepped on the robot, knocking it down. I think.

It was hard to tell because he kept stomping
and stomping and yelling and I was getting bounced around and my leg hurt and I
wanted to be in my apartment or even the hospital. Anyplace but here.

Then Wallow yelped in pain.

I looked up to see him falling.

“Come on,” I managed to grunt, right before he
fell on top of me.

I definitely passed out. For how long I didn’t
know. When I came to I wondered if we were winning yet.

With difficulty, I managed to twist myself to a
nearly upright position and saw a big pile of Wallow on the ground, no longer
on top of me, but oddly splayed across the street. The robot was chasing
soldiers.

The cars were in shreds and burning.

Jyen was gone.

But I heard Delovoa still talking his crazy
lingo as he darted around the street in a panic.

I was running out of options.

I struggled to rise and the searing pain made
me think hard about playing dead. I mean, it’s a robot, right? It’s not going
to check my pulse. It doesn’t even have hands.

But I saw ZR3 literally run over a soldier,
breaking him to pieces, and I knew I had to do something.

“Hank, I can’t see it,” came the voice of
Jyonal, whose pleasantly high manner was obscenely out of place in this
carnage.

Holding on to the wreckage of the vehicle
behind me, I pulled myself up to one leg. My other leg was twisted at a weird
angle and it sickened me to look at it.

Unless I was going to rust it up with my blood,
I really only had one outside hope.

I took my plasma pistol out of my jacket and
powered it on, which is more than I thought it would do after having been sat
on by a giant.

ZR3 seemed to sense its new priority, or
realized the Oberhoffman wasn’t quite dead yet, and it turned to me.

To keep my balance on my one good leg, I clung
to the car as the robot ran towards me.

“Eat thuck! Ow!” I grabbed my mouth, realizing
my jaw must be broken.

I could tell right away my Ontakian pistol
didn’t fire normally.

Mostly because it exploded.

The vehicle kept me upright, but I smelled my
burnt flesh. The Dredel Led was a step away. I thrust myself at it with my last
bit of energy and grabbed hold with both arms.

“Gona. I ’ave it! Can you gee me?”

I heard some talking, as if from far away.
Heard the word “inject” and then I woke up with a start. A group of medical
technicians stood by my bed. But instead of fumbling with my intestines, they
appeared to have matters under control. It was then I knew I wasn’t on
Belvaille.

“Good evening, sir,” one of them said.

I looked around at the fantastic array of
medical gear that was deployed. They were almost comical in their
sophistication. Like a computer systems salesmen had taken out every model he
had in hopes that at least one would be of interest. Their bleeping lights and
sounds were like a little symphony.

“What ship am I on?” I asked.

“Medical Sloop J-B,” another answered.

I tried to look at my leg, but I couldn’t rise.
I felt it there, but I knew that didn’t mean anything.

“How many pieces am I in?” I asked.

“You appear to be in perfect health, sir,
though your physiology limits our ability to ascertain your precise
disposition. However, your leg has reset itself somewhat irregularly at the
knee.”

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“You may have some discomfort or off-gait in
your left leg.”

“A limp? How long?”

“It would be permanent,” the technician said
solemnly.

“So I’m going to be even slower?”

“There is a possibility that we could re-break
your leg and see if it heals properly this time. We would need to construct
some machines for the task.”

What an option.

“There’s one more thing,” one of the
technicians said. “We weren’t able to correct this.”

And he handed me a mirror.

“Really?” I asked, not looking at it. “Do you
really think you should say that and give a patient a mirror?”

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
^nd
and 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.