Hard Luck Hank: Basketful of Crap

by Steven Campbell

  Belvaille had just been a small piece of the puzzle. He needed somewhere to stockpile those weapons out of Navy view and jurisdiction. And he still had his agents everywhere. The corporations continued to exist, even if their chairman had been disintegrated.

  Killing him had done nothing other than granting him his greatest wish.

  Belvaille itself had survived. We had to wait in our shelters for a week while they repaired the ruptured latticework, which had been disengaged to access the Therezians.

  Approximately one thousand civilians died when the systems shut down. They hadn’t made it to the shelters in time, or had thought it was a drill, or had no clue what was going on, or were too drunk or drugged to notice.

  All the corporate soldiers died as well, but no one cared about them.

  Belvaille was not at the edge of the galaxy anymore. It was smack in the center of a Confederation at war.

  CHAPTER 81

  I sat with Garm and Delovoa in City Hall two weeks after Belvaille had been restored and the scope of our defeat was becoming clear.

  “So what do you guys plan on doing?” Delovoa asked.

  The station was in lockdown, with no one able to leave until the authorities pieced together what had happened.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I feel like I just helped doom our species.”

  Garm took out from her safe an expensive bottle of alcohol. She poured us all glasses.

  “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. The Navy is going to look around Belvaille, kick us a bit, strip out anything dangerous, and then leave. Then I’m going to buy it from them.”

  “Buy the station?” I asked her.

  “Yeah. Belvaille was never profitable and they need every credit they can get.”

  “How much do you think it will cost?” Delovoa asked curiously.

  “If it’s less than a billion, I’m buying.”

  Delovoa and I looked at each other. I knew Garm was rich, but I had no idea she was that rich.

  “What will you do with a junky space station?” I asked her.

  “It’s a junky space station sitting next to the highest concentration of Portals in the Confederation. And it’s one of the only places that isn’t fighting over something, using tanks and Therezians and chemical weapons.”

  “It’s an idea,” I said.

  “I need someone smart here,” she said to Delovoa. “Belvaille hasn’t been updated since it was created.”

  “A job?” Delovoa asked, skeptical.

  “A partnership. There’s going to be a lot of business, a lot of money coming in here.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Delovoa said, but I could already see he was on board.

  “Hank—” she started.

  “I think I should just become a farmer somewhere,” I interrupted.

  “What are you going to do if you fall down while planting?” Delovoa asked seriously.

  “Belvaille is going to be filled with refugees soon. Filled like it never was. It’s going to need security,” Garm said. “I want you to be security.”

  “I can’t do security for a whole city. I was a decent gang negotiator. Terrible doorman. And very skilled civil-war-starter. But you’d need an army to run security for Belvaille.”

  “You are an army. And you didn’t start the war. You broke your back to stop it.”

  “It didn’t help.”

  “Look, you can either beat yourself up forever over something you couldn’t have stopped—that no one could have stopped—or you can make the most of it. As Belvaille’s Supreme Kommilaire.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Whatever you want it to be,” she said.

  I scratched my head, uncertain.

  “Besides, what do you know about farming?”

  EPILOGUE

  The priestess finished inscribing the protective symbols at the mouth of the cave.

  The tree, the horse, the sun, the stream.

  Menfolk congregated nearby out of curiosity. They held their spears tightly, the sounds of the woman screaming from inside the cave making them uneasy.

  The priestess picked up rocks and hurled them at the men. Saying their presence was a bad omen and would anger the spirits.

  The men departed. They gave insults when they were clear of hearing range.

  Inside the cave, two acolytes tended to the woman giving birth on a flat, fur-covered stone. One acolyte daubed the mother’s head with water while the other chanted prayers.

  The priestess washed the paint from her hands and adjusted her rough tunic.

  Kneeling by the birthing woman she lent her voice to the prayers, beseeching Sre, Goddess of Nature, to allow the baby to pass through the Deathlands and enter the world of the living.

  The birthing began and the priestess assisted. The acolytes raised the sound of their prayers to match the screams of the mother.

  The priestess was sure the baby had tripped and fallen in the Deathlands because it did not cry nor make any sound at all when it was free.

  She instructed the acolytes to help the woman as she carried the babe to a nearby stone to prepare it for burial. She made thanks to the Goddess for attempting. She knew Pattoeb, the Deathlands hunt master, did not let souls escape easily.

  The priestess gasped and backed away from the child. The acolytes stopped their activities and looked to her. The priestess made a sign of protection and asked for guidance from the Sky Father.

  The baby was not dead.

  The fact it did not cry wasn’t what frightened the priestess. It was the baby’s solid black eyes.

  It seemed to be looking around the cave, at those present. As if it were not concerned it had just been born and escaped the wolves of the Deathlands.

  Finally, as if realizing where it was and what it had been through, the baby began crying. It was not the bawling that newborns usually made.

  It was the mournful sob of someone who could not escape his destiny, and knew it.

  BACK COVER