Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy
Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy
Steven Campbell
CHAPTER 1
The space station Belvaille was not the most corrupt city in the galaxy, but we liked to think we were in the top five.
My job here was as a negotiator and general purpose goon. At the moment I was running late for an assignment to help settle a business disagreement. If I arrived too late, the interested parties would take it upon themselves to resolve their differences and things might get a bit gory.
I currently stood at the edge of the elevated railway. The train, in typical Belvaille fashion, had broken down and left me stranded. I was in the warehouse district by the space port. There were squat, metal, box-like buildings packed tightly all around me. Like a very unimaginative architect had gone mild when designing our city.
It was a five-block walk to the nearest stairs or a fifty-foot plunge straight down to the gray metal sidewalk.
I jumped.
After a lazy mid-air somersault, I landed approximately on my head. My guns flew from my holsters and I tumbled on the ground a good ten feet.
“Ow,” I said to no one in particular, rubbing my neck.
I sluggishly got to my feet and examined my clothes, finding my roll had torn a hole in my three-quarter length synth jacket. Not only that, but I noticed a bunch of small holes in the back of my pants. Where did those come from? I didn’t think the fall could have caused them. Had I been walking around all day like this and no one said anything?
I recovered my four-barreled shotgun and my plasma pistol and looked around to see if anyone had noticed my ungraceful descent. Someone had.
“Did you just dive headfirst from the train tracks?” Garm asked, astonished. She had been standing in the street under the rails and must have seen my head plant.
“I meant to land on my feet.” I secured my guns back in their holsters under each arm, the shotgun bulging out closer to my waist.
“I wish I had your mutation,” she said wistfully, walking closer. “I heard the train stopped so I came to see if you were stuck. Figures you’d just throw yourself off a five-story platform.”
Garm wore her usual decorative military attire, heavy pistol on her thigh and dark sunglasses. She was young, had that nervous energy young people have. I think “enthusiasm” is what they refer to it as. She was only about eighty-five years old and I’d known her for the last twenty or so she’d been on the space station. She wore her black hair short and straight like a knife. There wasn’t a round surface on her, she was all edges, like she was made out of triangles. If she wasn’t so intimidating she would be extremely attractive.
Garm ran Belvaille. I believe her official title was Adjunct Overwatch, but everyone just called her by name. She was the senior liaison with the Colmarian Confederation’s armed forces, which ostensibly governed our city.
“I don’t get you,” Garm stated.
“What’s not to get?” I asked.
“You’ve been here on Belvaille longer than anyone, right?”
“No way. You know Chepless, the lady who runs that noodle shop in the southeast? She’s been here way longer. And Orgono Dultz, that guy with metal legs who works on the sewers? He was here before Belvaille even opened. Working on the sewers.”
“Yeah, but how long you been here? How many years?”
“About a hundred.”
“Right, so a lot longer than nearly anyone.”
“So?”
“And you’re mixed up in just about every scam that comes by. You’re practically my employee.”
“What’s your point?”
“How are you so poor?”
“Who says I’m poor?”
“I can see your underwear,” she said, indicating my pants.
I turned around from where I had been re-clasping my boots.
“What are you doing looking at my butt?”
“I’m not looking at your butt. I’m looking at your tatty clothes. You look like a vagrant.”
“So what’s this job, anyway?” I asked, trying to change the subject.
“It’s not far from here. We need to hurry. Follow me.”
We started jogging. Or she jogged and I did my best.
“What are you doing?” she asked, in mid-stride.
“You’ve never seen me run before?”
“You’re running? You look like a fat kid with flat feet trying to dance.”
I grumbled, but it was true. I was a class-four mutant. Most people, if they were anything, were class one or two. My body was dense, very difficult to hurt, which was how I could jump off trains and not suffer a scratch. In fact, I was pretty much bulletproof. They told me if I was made out of solid steel, I would weigh less than I do now, so it’s all weird stuff. Unfortunately my muscles didn’t keep up with my size. I wasn’t weak, but I was underpowered for my mass. I liked to think I had torque instead of speed, but that was probably me being generous.