Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy

by Steven Campbell

  Freighters had been languishing around the station for months, but people couldn’t be put in cargo holds, they’d die in transit. We figured only a few thousand people at the most could be evacuated from the station using every ship we had. Because of that, we decided to not even try, lest open conflict broke out for those precious seats. The dock was closed.

  Jyonal knew a world-ship was coming before the rest of us did when the Navy tried to kidnap him before they left. That didn’t turn out so well for the poor souls who failed to realize what he was capable of.

  But as strong as he was:

  “I can’t hurt that thing,” Jyonal told us. “It’s too far away, I can only affect stuff I can see. Besides, it’s a planet.”

  We had all gathered at City Hall. With Delovoa, Garm, and many of the bosses on the steps addressing the crowd. Seemed like every person in Belvaille was there. Old, rich, poor, children. The streets were crammed with folks looking for a miracle, as they were well aware of what was in store for us all.

  Garm stood up to begin. She spoke into a microphone.

  “Does anyone have any ideas?” she started with confidence.

  “If we get out of the way of the ship, won’t it just leave us alone?” I asked. “We’re pretty small.”

  “That’s a good point,” Delovoa stated. “If they are after resources, they’d expend more trying to deal with us than they could ever recoup.”

  An old-timer who ran systems spoke up quietly.

  “Belvaille can move. In addition to its stabilizers it has real engines, but they haven’t been turned on in fifty years at least. And it’s not fast. It’s a space station,” he explained.

  “The Boranjame aren’t fast either,” Delovoa said.

  “Those engines don’t work,” another old-timer, clearly involved with the same work, replied. They began to argue about it.

  “Can’t we take the Portal? I know there’s some ships here,” one person asked.

  “Not enough time and not nearly enough ships,” I said.

  “Can’t we send a ship to them and talk? Work out an agreement?” a boss naïvely asked.

  “That’s a world-ship. That means somewhere on board is a member of the royal family. Anything that gets remotely near it will get scanned down and destroyed,” Garm replied.

  “Delfiblinium can’t be scanned,” I blurted.

  “Hank, that square of delfiblinium you have won’t do anything to a world-ship,” Delovoa cautioned.

  “You got some delfiblinium?” one of the bosses asked me with respect.

  “We have as much as we could possibly need.” And I looked towards Jyonal.

  CHAPTER 44

  Most of the station was trying to get the engines going and get us fit for travel.

  Jyonal was at the dock with Jyen creating as much delfiblinium as he could.

  And I was getting the bad news from Delovoa and Garm.

  “We can’t just stick it in a shuttle,” Garm said. “They would detect the shuttle even if they didn’t scan the metal.”

  “Why does it have to be a shuttle? Tie it together with a rope and push it out,” I said.

  “The real problem is how do we detonate it?” Delovoa asked.

  “I thought it was super explosive.”

  “It is, but not to start. It’s an ultra-complex alloy with very specific requirements to trigger it.”

  “Can you make a detonation device?” Garm asked.

  “Yes, if I had more time, but it’d need a very strong transmitter and power source as well as the ability to track the Boranjame ship. The problem is any large electronics will be scanned. They’ll see it and shoot it to be safe. Their range is much further than the radius of any explosion we create.”

  “They can block any remote electronic signals,” Garm said. “The Navy jammed our teles with just a dreadnought, so I assume a world-ship can do more.”

  I took a deep breath.

  “Give me the detonator and I’ll go,” I said.

  They looked at me. If they weren’t convinced I was an idiot before, they were now.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. What will that provide?” Garm said dismissively.

  “They can’t scan me,” I stated. “No one can. That’s why medical instruments never work even when they’re shoved up my butt and how my distant relatives managed to fight on the Ontakian home world for decades.”

  The pair eyed me curiously—and maybe with a little unease thinking about the butt-thing.

  “I can explode the metal however close you want me to be,” I said.

  “There’s got to be some other way,” Garm argued.

  Delovoa was thinking.

  “If we put him in a spacesuit, fashion some irregular metal hull to store the delfiblinium, they’ll just think it’s part of the debris that Belvaille has dumped over the decades. They wouldn’t shoot it just because. That might give it more velocity than it already had and potentially make it dangerous,” he said.

  “No.” Garm was adamant. “Can’t you rig some kind of smart trigger? Why does he have to go?”

  “The more scannable components we put out there, the more likely it is to be destroyed. I can make a simple physical detonator, some gas canisters so he can steer it, and…a window for him to see out of,” he added quietly, realizing what he was saying.

  “The question is will it be enough to destroy that ship?” I asked.

  “Oh, no,” Delovoa said. “If this entire space station were made out of delfiblinium it wouldn’t be enough.”

  “Then forget it,” I said.

  “But it will still do damage, Hank,” he added. “And it IS a royal vessel. They aren’t going to hang around if delfiblinium starts exploding around them.” He looked to Garm for confirmation and her sad eyes seemed to agree.

  “How close would I have to be?” I asked.

  “Just before you collide with it would be best,” Delovoa said sagely.

  I stood at the dock dressed in my insanely clunky spacesuit looking at the scrap heap that I’d ride like a missile to my doom.

  “That looks safe,” I said.

  It was about as big as my apartment, had odd, jutting pieces of metal to make it scan like natural debris, and it was chock-full of delfiblinium.

  There were thousands of people crammed nearby to see me off. The mood was somber. Funereal. Not sure what they were all so upset about, it’s not like they were about to commit suicide.

  I had been pumped full of slow-release vitamins and salts and whatever else they could think of for the long trip. Although the “ship” was sealed, there was no air inside to reduce any chance of it being scanned, and I certainly wouldn’t be able to eat or drink.

  Delovoa came over with last-minute instructions.

  “There are windows in it. I made marks for you to judge how fast you’re going based on the size of the world-ship. You have three jets to help you maneuver, but don’t waste them; you can only make small course corrections. When you get close, the world-ship is going to take up the whole window and you’re going to have to guess. It’s important you don’t detonate too early.”

  He handed me a small device. It was a metal cylinder maybe six inches in length. It looked somewhat like the flame-tube I had purchased from him before.

  “Flip the cap off and press this. That’s it,” he said.

  “And you’re sure delfiblinium can’t be scanned?” I asked.

  “Well, technically anything can be scanned,” he said simply.

  “What? Why are you telling me this now?”

  “It’s just so unlikely. It’s about the rarest substance in the galaxy. There’s no reason to ever scan for it.”

  “That’s a planet. How do you know they don’t have a million people doing nothing but scanning for delfiblinium and level-four mutants hurtling towards them?”

  “I don’t,” he said like a jerk. “But it’s a little late to go back to the drawing board.”

  Which was certainly true. Even
if this was the longest of long shots. Our engineers couldn’t get Belvaille started for the simple reason that the engines had been removed and sold almost half a century ago. Funny thing, I think I was part of that deal.

  “It’s going to take you anywhere from two to four days to reach their ship, depending on how fast they move,” he continued.

  “Is this stuff you pumped in me going to keep me alive that long? Four days? I can’t go four hours without eating.”

  “Do you know how to meditate?” someone in the audience asked, and if I had seen who it was, I would have shot him.

  Yeah, I was carrying my shotgun. My only possession I wanted to die with. I would have kept my plasma pistol if it hadn’t blown up. I knew what kind of mission this was. A few hours before I suited up, I beamed an anonymous donation to the Ginland glocken team, The Reskin Sleepers, who have a 138-year unbroken losing streak. It was my entire life savings of almost 45 million credits. Maybe those losers will finally win a game—if Ginland isn’t destroyed.

  “Just try and be focused,” Delovoa said. “Get as much sleep as you can early. As you get closer you’ll need to stay awake. Try and feel the gravity. And avoid going to the bathroom.”

  “What? I can’t pee for four days? What do you think I am?” I asked.

  “I mean, you can,” he seemed to think to himself. “But you’ll be soggy.”

  With that, he shook my hand and went to make the last preparations on my coffin.

  I turned to the assembled crowd. They seemed to be expecting a speech. I cleared my throat.

  “My name is Hank. As of seven months ago, I have been on this space station for 132 years. I’ve watched it transform this way and that way. People come and go. I’ve worked for many of you. Against many of you. I’ve…killed more people than I can count, not always for good reasons. Of that, I am not proud. I’ve settled your fights, fixed your business deals, done your dirty work, and generally done what I was told. And I’d like to say that all you immature bastards can kiss my ass.”

  There was very little reaction to my talk. One guy screamed, “Woo!”

  Garm approached me. She seemed unsure of herself for the first time ever. She didn’t look me in the eye.

  There was a pause and Jyen ran up past Garm and kissed me on the mouth, knocking her teeth into mine. She was crying.

  “Thank you for all you’ve done,” she said, her nose running.

  “Alright, alright, if Hank kisses everyone he’s ever known it’ll take a month,” Garm said, tugging me away from Jyen. We headed away towards the ship.

  “Can’t wait to get rid of me?” I asked her.

  “Why didn’t we ever get together?” she responded quietly. But there was no accusatory undertone.

  “I think,” I began, “I just didn’t want you as an ex-girlfriend.”

  She didn’t answer as I ducked inside the ship. I turned back to see her at the entrance.

  “Garm, if you manage to survive this, I want you to go on. Living,” I said sincerely.

  She gave me a strange look.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Delovoa strapped me in, attached the detonator to the stockpile of metal, and then fastened it to the wall beside me. He put on my helmet and checked all the manual systems and backup systems. I looked like I was in an iron lung. They closed off my area of the port and made final preparations.

  Given my last experiences in shuttles and how long I would have to be in here, I truly hoped I didn’t throw up in my suit.

  I didn’t ask how they propelled my ship. I figured I didn’t want to know. I was sure that after a point it was strictly momentum. There were was no sense of acceleration past the very beginning of the trip.

  You’d think there would be a lot of things to ponder in the void of space. Out here alone with myself.

  But mostly it was death.

  Being surrounded by countless tons of delfiblinium in a primitive raft of a spaceship on my way to blow myself up might have had something to do with my morbid disposition.

  I admitted I was afraid. I guess afraid of dying. I wasn’t much on big thoughts, but I knew I hadn’t lived the best of lives. Maybe this final act was a way to get a bit of redemption, for what it was worth.

  I woke up to an odd feeling. My back was wet. I guessed I was sweating. As I cleared the cobwebs from my mind, I realized that didn’t make any sense. Any liquids would just roll around in my suit. Then I noticed my arms were no longer floating. I had weight.

  I looked back through the window and saw solid red. An orange-red mass. It filled all the windows simultaneously.

  “Holy crap,” I breathed.

  I tried to focus my eyes. I was likely travelling at tens of thousands of miles an hour. Or who knows?

  I grabbed the plunger and clicked it open.

  I needed details. What was I looking at? How close was I? It was impossible to tell. My heart was going crazy in panic, my thumb on the trigger. I had never felt so much adrenaline, I could hardly think.

  “Don’t waste it. Don’t die for nothing.”

  Then I saw structures. Squares and rectangles created by hand, as they were too uniform to be natural. But were they buildings? Cities? There were no clouds or atmosphere, I had no perspective.

  There were more. Whole clusters of them. A whole world of them. But I couldn’t tell their scale. I realized I had to do it. I still couldn’t be sure, but I didn’t want to risk pancaking into them.

  “Eat suck, suckface.”

  I clicked the plunger and nothing immediately happened. I looked at boxes that contained the alloy, expecting some glowing chain reaction, but it was just sitting there.

  I clicked the plunger repeatedly, pushed in the cord at the bottom to make sure it was secure. Nothing.

  “No!” I screamed.

  CHAPTER 45

  I was expecting a sudden cessation of momentum with me crushing into oblivion, but it didn’t happen. I slowly became aware of a sound in the ship. How could I hear anything in a vacuum?

  A yellow light engulfed me along with a horrible grinding noise. Sparks and hot metal fragments ricocheted around the vessel like a meteor shower. The side of my ship was cut away and some creatures approached the opening.

  They had no discernible heads and no great abundance of torso. They were a large sprout of arms/legs which seemed to be interchangeable. They would cartwheel up and down or forward and backward as part of their locomotion.

  My mind skipped gears. Either every religion was extremely wrong, or I wasn’t dead yet.

  The creatures stood maybe five feet tall, with most of their mass in their appendages; I tried to count how many they had, but they tumbled around so much it was impossible to tell. It was even disconcerting looking at them, like staring at an optical illusion. Their skin colors varied between pastel greens and blues.

  About seven squeezed into my ship. I believe they were carrying weapons.

  They tried to urge me out of the ship but I was anchored by my spacesuit. They then consulted one another for a second or two via gestures, and essentially attacked me.

  What felt like a hundred hands dismantled my suit completely. It wasn’t rough at all, just surprising.

  They not only removed my suit, but also my tele and my shotgun and I think the lint in my pockets.

  I could breathe. Which was always nice. The air mixture was not the same as Belvaille’s, but I didn’t get a sense it was toxic. It had a slightly industrial odor.

  Outside my ship, I saw what looked like dozens more of the creatures. They all moved too quickly to be sure of their exact numbers.

  We were in a hangar of gigantic proportions. Fleet ships could dock in it I suspected. They had somehow pulled my ship in and brought it to a halt without me ever feeling it.

  I thought briefly about trying to grab one of their guns and shooting the delfiblinium to try and damage this world-ship, but I figured I was much too slow, and I didn’t think it would work. For all I knew they could be ca
rrying water pistols.

  They ushered me along in a great mob, not saying anything. I didn’t know if they could even speak. It was slowly dawning on me that I was here. I had landed on the Boranjame planet and was being escorted through its interior by odd creatures.

  I had failed in my mission and Belvaille would be destroyed and maybe even the Colmarian Confederation.

  I felt the floor shaking and looked up. Two. Two Therezians flanked our group wordlessly.

  They wore ornate clothes, jewels that were the size of me, and carried long staves even taller than they were. I actually paused in awe. So that’s what non-crazy Therezians looked like. They really were magnificent.

  But they also gave me more of a gauge of the dimensions of the area. Belvaille might be able to fit inside this docking bay.

  The arm-creatures made way for one of their kind wearing purple bracelets. It didn’t move nearly as much as the others. It spoke to me.

  “Do you speak the Standard tongue?” it asked. I saw that it created sound by manipulating some objects with its many hands. Like it had different ones for bass sounds, for middle range, for treble. It was quite dexterous as they were mechanical devices, not electric.

  “You mean Colmarian?” I asked. “Yeah, of course.”

  “Follow,” it said.

  Without further word, I was taken to a room that was merely a few hundred feet in each direction. The walls were gently arcing, smooth and bare. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all the same metallic color, which gave the uneasy impression there were no dimensions at all because they blurred into each other.

  I paced around nervously for some hours. I assumed they were deciding how to kill me for daring to attack them. The purple creature returned with his Therezian guards and a group of his many-armed comrades.

  “Are you a representative of your people?” it queried. “And are you authorized to negotiate on behalf of your species?”

  I looked up at the Therezians. I didn’t figure it would do me much good to tell them my real objective or that I was merely a thug on a space station.