Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (17 page)

“No, it’s not. Why would Dredel Led write
Colmarian letters on the front of one of their people?” he asked, indicating
the ZR3.

Delovoa had his arms crossed, his hip cocked.
He spoke to me like I was being irrational even though in the very same room
sat the shattered pieces of a Dredel Led which had casually taken so many
lives.

“You jerk, this could have been the reason why
those other two came. They might have been looking for it.”

“It’s been sitting down here gathering dust for
years.”

“It could have taken them that long to get
here. You don’t know. It might have radioed for help.” I was starting to doubt
how intelligent Delovoa really was.

“If it was operational, it would have killed me
long ago. I’ve taken every kind of saw, torch, beam, and hammer to it I could.
I could never get it open.”

“You’ve been sitting down here banging on it?”

“I did, but that was a while ago.” He moved
over and peeked into its front eye-thing. “I was going to access it from here.
If I could extend my torch, I might be able to slice out some parts. But I
never got around to it.”

Delovoa was clearly insane. I was in a room
with two Dredel Led and I was apparently the only one concerned.

“What,” I started, trying to keep myself calm,
“are you going to do with it?”

“Nothing.”

“The military is going to want to see it!” I
screamed.

“It’s not a Dredel Led, Hank. They’re not going
to care.”

“Not going to care? So you think they’re going
to walk down here, take a look at this broken one, notice that one standing
there, and not ask you anything? Do you really believe that?”

“No. I’m not going to show them. I’ll hide it.”

“You’re not going to hide it,” I said
forcefully.

“It’s just an antique. It’s like your pistol.
There’s all kinds of stuff like this around. It’s not evil. It’s just scrap.”

“Then you don’t mind losing it.”

“No. I paid a lot for it. It’s not going to
attack anyone. Watch.” He took a small hammer from a table and began beating on
the Dredel Led all over. It made me extremely nervous.

“Quit it. You don’t know what that thing is or
what it can do.”

“It was probably some heavy mover of some kind.
It doesn’t have hands, so I figure its forearms went into sockets and it pushed
or pulled or carried something.”

“That’s silly. Why not use a tractor instead?”

“No Dredel Led is going to write on itself,” he
repeated.

“So you feel safe just because it says ‘ZR3’?”

“
Yes.
”

The voice was languid. Almost sleepy. It was
deep. Slow. And it came from the mountainous white Dredel Led standing against
the wall.

Delovoa and I stood in front of his statue of a
robot for an hour, scared witless. But the Dredel Led didn’t move. We finally
got up the courage to try and ask it questions, but it didn’t answer. The only
sign that it wasn’t carved from inert metal was that when someone said “ZR3,”
it would answer.

At the very least, it didn’t sound menacing. It
didn’t answer with attitude. Each time it seemed as if it was being roused from
a deep sleep.

Another hour of that and we decided there was
nothing we could do. Well, I decided that. Delovoa wanted me to stay, but I’d
had my fill of robots already. If every tool he owned had failed to scratch the
thing, what was I supposed to do?

So I left for home and went to sleep.

I woke up and briefly everything was fine. Then
the sleepiness wore off and I realized the sheer number of ways that I could
die. My cube of delfiblinium could blow a hole in our space station; Delovoa’s
Dredel Led could come to life and smash us all; the Navy could blast us from
space; angry gang members could choke me to death; Jyonal could get a headache
and melt all our faces by accident.

I never used to think about dying. Never. Not
once in a century. Other than the occasional, “I wonder when I’ll croak.” Now
the possibilities were so varied I could hardly keep track of them.

I used the bathroom and did my morning rituals.
I then crossed into my living room for some breakfast when I noticed Garm was
sitting on my couch. She was working on her tele.

“Hey Garm. What are you doing here?” I asked. I
figured she had heard about Ddewn or ZR3 and was probably going to shoot me
again.

“Just letting you get some sleep,” she said,
not looking up.

“I was going to get some rations, you want
any?” I asked warily.

“No, thank you.”

I got my food and sat down to eat, facing her.
She was definitely up to something.

“So,” I began, “you heard about Ddewn?”

“Yeah,” she answered, disinterested.

I kept eating, nearly choking on my food.

“And?” I prompted.

“And what?” she said, finally looking up.

“About Ddewn,” I pushed.

“I suppose he had it coming,” she shrugged.
“You done eating?”

“No,” I said hastily, opening another packet of
rations. Was this my last meal? Did she figure out all the things I was juggling
and was going to artillery my apartment?

I got dressed just so I could put on my guns. I
had purchased the flare from Delovoa—or I guess more accurately, I had failed
to return it when we got slightly sidetracked by the appearance of a new Dredel
Led. I taped the weapon to the outside of my boot, it being too large to put
inside.

I picked up my Ontakian pistol and really
wished it was working. I clicked it on sadly and to my amazement, it came to
life. The green glow. The deep rumble.

“Hey, Garm. Check it out, my pistol is working
again,” I said, as happy as I had been in ages.

“Gah. Put that damn thing away,” she said,
shielding her face from it.

Wow, I couldn’t believe it. My pistol worked. I
powered it off and put it in my holster.

“Right, so I came here because I have a job for
you. First off, do you have everything…under control? No citywide catatonia?”
she asked.

There wasn’t really anything under control. We
could dump ZR3 in space, but what if it decided not to go while we were moving
it? My delfiblinium was dangerous anywhere you put it. And Jyonal and Jyen I
had no idea what to do with.

“Yeah, everything is as good as it can be,” I
said.

“Alright,” Garm said, clearly not liking to be
in the dark, “I’ve got some rats I need taken care of.”

“Some what?”

“Not everyone who works for me has been happy
with the way I run things here. They’ve sent all kinds of messages reporting me
to the authorities, highlighting my various mismanagements and so-called dirty
dealings.”

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“No. But the funny thing is they know we work
at a communications station and I’m a Military Intelligence officer, yet they
thought I couldn’t intercept their messages.”

“They just sent these?”

“Oh, no, it’s been going on for years. They
didn’t seem to care they weren’t getting any replies.”

“Why didn’t you bring it up earlier with them?”
I asked.

“Because it didn’t matter. And because they had
jobs to do. But now with battlecruisers coming, it’s going to matter if they
start talking.”

“You want me to kill your soldiers?” I asked,
surprised.

“They aren’t soldiers. They’re just
professionals. We can’t kill them all, I figure we can get by with two out of
the five. So when they ask where all the employees are”—Garm shrugged in mock
confusion—“it’s not statistically significant.”

She handed me a list with five names on it. I
knew a couple of the names vaguely, but they were obviously in a different
crowd. If they were squealing on Garm, they were in a very different crowd.
Must be a lonely life for an honest citizen on Belvaille.

As I looked at the list my door buzzed. I
thought I had turned it off. I ignored it.

“You going to get that?” Garm asked.

I shook my head and kept looking at the five
names as if I were reading something incredibly complex.

Garm went to my door and opened it.

I looked outside and saw it was one of Ddewn’s
old thugs. Oh great. A payback? I took out my shotgun and hurried as fast as I
could to back up Garm.

“Yes?” Garm asked.

The poor guy looked terrified. As I rounded up,
gun in hand, he threw out his arm towards me. He held a token.

“From Big Moff,” he blurted.

It was a token for eighty thousand credits.
Hey, a bonus.

“Oh, yeah,” I said, taking the token.

“Who’s Big Moff?” Garm asked, clearly not
favoring the name.

“He’s the new boss in Ddewn’s old territory,” I
stated as if she should know these things.

After depositing the token, I holstered my
shotgun and turned back to the thug.

“Tell Big Moff thanks,” I said. “What’s your
name?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he stammered, and hurried
off.

I closed the door and went back inside. Things
were looking up.

“Was that eighty grand?” she asked.

“Yup,” I said happily. But then I got serious
looking back at the list. “So I can scare these guys, but I’m not going to be
so scary once your friends from the Navy get here.”

Garm smiled.

“Hank, you are far scarier than you can
possibly imagine. I think you get scarier by the minute. I’m scared of you.”

I laughed at the idea.

“Weren’t you just shooting me a few days ago?”

“Yeah, and it didn’t do anything. These people
will be plenty frightened. You can kill two if you have to, but not more.”

Garm opened my door to leave.

“How’s the contraband coming?” I asked.

“Terrible. We might have to seriously clean
house around here to get compliance. You shooting Ddewn was probably the best
thing that happened to make this go easier, because I just tell people he chose
not to cooperate and ‘girk.’”

She drew a line across her throat.

When Garm left, the first thing I did was tele
Jyen. I left her a message saying I’d like to hang out with them later and do
something fun. I used my most pleasing voice and hoped I didn’t sound as
insincere as I felt.

As I walked to the train to run a few errands
in the meantime, I heard an odd hissing noise. It grew more pronounced and I
saw Rendrae off to the side trying to get my attention by nonchalantly waving
his arms around. There weren’t a lot of shadows on Belvaille because of the
overhead lights, but somehow he had found one to hide in.

“Rendrae, what are you doing here?” I asked.

“Shh. I see you’re still working for Mistress
Garm,” he said acidly.

“Okay, you were right about a lot of things.
She is Military Intelligence, the station does conduct surveillance, and the
Navy is about to land on our throats.”

“That’s old news,” Rendrae snapped. “Though I’m
glad to see you finally came to reason.”

“But Rendrae, we’re all on the same side. No
one wants the military here. And with you printing all these scandalous truths,
you’re going to lead them right to us.”

“All of Belvaille mysteriously passes out for
hours and you’re worried about police inspections?”

“I didn’t pass out,” I said coolly.

“I know. You and about twenty other people.
Mostly those who were insulated or beneath ground. But I’m sure you have a
perfectly logical explanation for it.”

“I do.”

“And you can’t tell me again, of course.” His
eyes rolled dramatically.

“No.”

“I don’t know whether to laugh or cry for you,
Hank. The extent of what is going on around here is vast.”

“There’s plenty to worry about, I know.”

“Like Garm trying to kill me?” he asked.

“She’s not trying to kill you. She’s trying to
get you to be quiet. You’re drawing bull’s eyes on all our heads. You’re not
even writing in code anymore.”

“What’s the point when you’re surrounded by the
Confederation’s greatest code breakers?”

“I think that’s being a little excessive,” I
said.

“Really? How’s this for excessive: two
dreadnoughts are converging on Belvaille as we speak.”

“I thought it was just one.”

Rendrae looked sad I wasn’t shocked at his
revelation.

“You heard that? But no, it’s two. What do they
need two of the empire’s largest ships out here for?”

“But hey, that’s good,” I said, thinking.

“What? No, it’s not.”

“No, listen. I was worried they were going to
use the dreadnought to blow up the station. But they don’t need two for that.
So they must have another reason.”

Rendrae seemed to think about this.

“Maybe we’re going to attack someone. The
Dredel Led,” he said to himself.

My face immediately contorted into disbelief.

“The Colmarian Confederation start a war? You kidding?
We’re the fat kid of the galaxy, who could we possibly beat?”

“I don’t know, ask Garm. But it’s clear we have
to stand up to the military before they completely take us over. It’s us
against them. No one has ever bothered Belvaille before now.”

“Except the Dredel Led,” I corrected.

“But they’re gone.”

“Rendrae, just lay low. Print some…sports
stories or something. I don’t know. Just don’t keep pushing. At least for a
while. Otherwise Garm really is going to take a hit out on you. And standing in
the corner isn’t going to save you.”

Rendrae mulled this over.

“Tell you what, if you can get Garm to promise
to stay off my back, I’ll do like you say. But I need your word.”

“No problem, you have it. But don’t be
surprised when the battlecruisers show up, you get a personal invitation to
meet them. You’re making it hard on yourself, too.”

“I am prepared to die for my principles,” he
said, sticking out his chest.

“And what principles are those? Keep Belvaille
dirty?” I said with a snicker.

“Keep Belvaille free,” he countered with
conviction.