Hard Luck Hank Screw the Galaxy(98)

I ordered that Rendrae be brought to me, and he was, kicking and screaming. I told him to start up The News again as we needed it.

“You’re not cut out for a revolutionary, Rendrae. You’re a reporter,” I explained.

“Editor-in-chief and publisher,” he corrected.

“People need to know what’s going on and I can’t answer every tele from a quarter-million people on the station.”

“I’ll do it if you designate me the official information source of Belvaille.”

Considering he never had a competitor in all the years he published:

“Absolutely, I can’t think of a better authority,” I said.

Garm tracked me down somehow, as I was constantly moving to try and shake off all the responsibility. The guards around me didn’t like her. She was still “the traitor.”

She saw my scarred face.

“And I didn’t think you could get any uglier.”

“I like them, they add character.”

“Yeah, character was totally what you were missing before,” she sniffed.

“What happened to Wallow?” I asked, wondering if I had fared better than he.

“Few broken bones I think. The medical ships were much too small for him. He’s got his leg propped on a house in the south,” she explained. “Zadeck’s men are mostly looking after him and being reimbursed by the Navy.”

“Zadeck is still alive?” I’d just assumed he was dead when Wallow got co-opted by the Navy.

“He’s very much alive. No one knows all the details of how he lost Wallow. But he’s a completely new person. Playing nice with everyone.”

“I bet. Without his muscle, he’s not much.”

“He still has the richest block in the city. That’s a lot of influential friends,” she countered.

“I guess,” I said begrudgingly. “Wouldn’t it be kind of funny if the Boranjame didn’t show up? All this work for nothing. Not that I’d be complaining.”

“There’s a ton of chatter on the telescopes. More than we’ve ever seen. But enough small talk, you have a lot of decisions to make, Oberhoffman.” She hauled out a folder with what looked like hundreds of forms.

I gazed at the stack of work and my heart sank.

“I quit,” I said seriously. I had been thinking of the best way to do that all day. I established a Governing Council. Garm, some of the bosses, some Naval officers, merchants, and a few chief engineers who kept Belvaille afloat.

I basically gave them all the decision-making power and I went back to being Hank, though with a really cool uniform.



With my new freedom I stopped by to see Jyen and Jyonal. Jyen was as worried as ever, practically trembling.

“You need to work on how you handle stress,” I said once I had stepped inside.

“I was so worried about you. I’m worried about all of us.” Her eyes were lucid. You could be swallowed by them.

However, before that could happen, Jyonal came in looking like he had just woken up.

“Hank. Great to see you,” he said, shaking my hand. “Sorry about trapping you with the Dredel Led, it was the only thing I could think of.”

“No problem, it worked.”

“He’s been feeling guilty for weeks,” Jyen explained.

“You guys want to eat?” I said to prove there were no hard feelings. They were good, if very troublesome, kids.



I awoke in my apartment later that night to sirens and screaming. I staggered outside to see what the commotion was.

I grabbed a soldier running by.

“Are the ships ready?” I asked him, assuming the Boranjame had finally made an appearance.

“We’re evacuating now, sir,” he said quickly and rushed off.

Huh? I meant were they attacking.

Back inside as I dressed, I tried contacting anyone I knew on the big ships. The Wardian, General, anyone above me. No one responded.

I got a tele from Garm.

“The Boranjame,” I said.

“I know,” she replied. “It’s a royal world-ship.”



Garm, Delovoa, and I were in one of the telescope buildings looking at data I didn’t understand. Even the normally calm operators were tense and sweating.

“See this,” Delovoa said, pointing at abstract numbers and swirling magnetic patterns. “That’s them.”

“So what’s that mean?” I asked.

“It will take them a while to get here depending on how quickly they travel. It can’t be very fast just because of its mass,” he said.

“Can the Navy destroy it?”

“Hank, technically we’re in a wide orbit around that ship. If it gets much closer, its gravity alone will tear us apart.”

“Dreadnoughts are designed to destroy planets, right?” I begged.