Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (10 page)

So that’s why these siblings looked so
different.

“Why did you come to me? You don’t need me to
stand up to a destroyer, you can just have your brother think it away.”

“He might be able to do that. But he can’t
forever and they’ll keep looking for him. The drugs will eventually kill him,
you know that. We just want to be left alone. Like you.”

I looked around the room and weighed what Jyen
had just said. If I was a boss, like a galactic one, and there was a tool that
could unmake everything I had done, I could see not wanting anyone to have it.
And definitely not wanting it to have its own free will and decision-making
ability.

And then it hit me.

“The Dredel Led are here for him. Not me.”

Jyen looked guilty.

“When I escaped with my brother, we tried to
cover our tracks as best we could. But he can only make things he understands.
Making a new body was hard enough,” she said, looking down at the wasted man.
“But all the passports and clearances and permissions, they’re too complicated.
Microscopic. We used my identity for a while until we could get forged
credentials. I believe they may have tracked us here.”

“So,” I began awkwardly, “you guys going to
leave now?”

“We need your help,” she said.

And I laughed. I realized it was a pretty bad
move snickering in front of a twitchy level-four mutant and one of the most
powerful entities in the galaxy—who also happened to be an addled drug user.
But the concept was simply ludicrous.

“How can I possibly help you two? I should be
asking you guys for help.”

“We’ve been imprisoned for the last
thirty-something years,” she pleaded, and my smile immediately vanished. “We
don’t know anything. Where would we go? How? It took everything we could do to
get here and we were still followed. My brother is all I have. We want to be
safe. We don’t want to hurt anyone.”

It was heartfelt. Those blue eyes were
streaming tears. I didn’t know what to tell her.

“Jyen, I haven’t left this station in about a
hundred and forty years. You probably know more about the galaxy outside
Belvaille than I do.”

“Why have you stayed so long?” she asked,
obviously not so enamored with the charms of the city.

The question threw me.

“I suppose I’m scared to leave.”

There was an ugly silence.

“Can you help us?” she asked.

“What can I do that he can’t?”

“Look at him,” she said. “It takes all his
concentration—all his drugged concentration—to be able to change things. It’s
really difficult for him.”

“I just don’t know what I can do for you guys,”
I explained.

“Can you get us fake documents? And transport?”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Yeah, I can get all
kinds of stuff like that. I was thinking…I don’t know, you wanted me to take on
the Colmarian military or something. You came to the right place for
forgeries.” I was quite relieved.

Jyen jumped up and buried her face in my chest,
her arms around me. Which was considerably more pleasant than being hit with an
electric jolt.

“Thank you. Thank you,” she bubbled.

I was back in my native environment. Sort of.

“Documentation, egress, ingress, orange stamps,
R.O.M.s, no problem. We can also book some fake passage for your existing
identity and place it in some other part of the empire while you guys move.
We’ll have to think of a good place for you to migrate.”

Jyen held her hands clasped and the tiniest
squeal of joy escaped her. When she wasn’t blasting people or wearing sexy
clothes she really seemed like a little girl.

“Let me make some calls. I’ll get back to you
tomorrow, okay?”

“That’s perfect.”

As I was about to leave, trying my best to
ignore the smeared metal walls, Jyen reminded me:

“Please do not say anything of what you saw
here.”

It wasn’t a threat. But when it comes from the
sister of a guy who can earthquake an entire space station at will, it pretty
much becomes a threat.

Outside the building I felt good. I hadn’t
realized I’d previously felt bad, but the specter of an entire species gunning
for me had apparently weighed on my mind. Now it was just a matter of getting Jyen
and Jyonal off Belvaille.

It might be hard without clueing Garm in,
especially since she had closed the port when the Dredel Led showed up. Would
she buy that it was for the greater good? Probably not. I had to convince Jyen
to let Garm in on their secret.

I was thinking of people to get in touch with
first when I heard a familiar noise. I looked back just in time to see a figure
streak by, followed by a hard landing not five feet behind me.

“Son of a bitch.”

The Dredel Led was not looking at me, however.
It faced the apartment building I had just exited.

I pulled my plasma pistol out with my left
hand, tossed it about one foot to my right hand, so I could aim better. This
was a terribly dangerous thing to do, but I did it without thinking. I caught
it, raised it, powered it on with my thumb.

“Eat suck, suckface!”

Click.

Click.

Click.

I looked at my Ontakian pistol. There was no
green glow. There was no abdomen-throbbing hum. It was absolutely inert even
after flipping it on and off multiple times.

The robot turned around to face me and I knew I
was going to die, really going to die. This was a new sensation for me: fear.
Real, “there’s a poisonous spider in my pants” fear. I had to do something
drastic.

I lunged forward and could tell the robot was
the one from the video. Its right arm rose, attempting to become level with my
chest. On the other robot, that same arm had owned a cannon that sent me
cartwheeling through the air like the last chip on a gambling binge.

But I was at it. Toe-to-toe. I knew it could
fly, and if it got away, got some range between us, it would just blast me
until I was chunks. My theory was that, no matter what metal this thing was
made out of, it was still metal. If it fired at this range it would kill the
both of us. And hopefully it didn’t hate me more than it liked itself.

I had to incapacitate it or it would just move
away, and there was no way my slow ass would stop it. I put my arms around it,
wrapped my legs around its legs.

Now what?

The robot’s face was really a poor imitation of
a Colmarian. I actually noticed the small gizmos just inside its eyes that
controlled the movement of its lids and such. And its expressions in general
seemed to be random as opposed to being tied to any action it was doing. Like
it smiled briefly. Then it twitched. Then it crinkled its nose. Its features
were all mismatched and unaligned. It was truly ugly and disturbing.

But its face wasn’t my concern. It had put its
left hand under my right arm and was trying to break free of my bear hug. It
was stronger than me. I could feel it in its grip alone. I wasn’t going to be
able to hold onto it. But as we stumbled around, one thing became obvious: I
outweighed it.

I heaved forward as hard as I could, keeping
one leg behind it so it couldn’t easily reposition itself. We tumbled over and
fell onto the sidewalk.

It then went into overdrive. It was hitting me
and kicking and twisting its legs and moving every single piece of its frame
independently, trying to get out from underneath. I was desperately trying to
keep it pinned down.

I took a huge risk and with my left arm I
reached into my coat and fumbled for my shotgun. I took blow after blow from
the Dredel Led, and while they weren’t incredibly painful I became dizzy. He
would start causing organ damage to me soon, no matter how hard my bones and
exterior were.

I had my shotgun out in one hand and I pulled
both triggers. The gun flew from my grasp because of the recoil. The face of
the Dredel Led was gone. The outer material was gone. The features were gone.
The little motors were gone. But the head, as it were, was still there.
Underneath that cheap material was simply a knob. A silver metal bulb of sorts
with no distinguishing features at all.

The robot did not vary one iota in its
resistance.

I’d screwed up and assumed it was a Colmarian
and that its vitals would be in its head. But why would they be? This was a
robot—it could have its brain, or equivalent, in its elbow. Or two brains. Or
no brain. How was I going to kill this thing?

I felt myself losing the fight. I got tired and
it did not. I could try and take it up to Jyonal and let him turn this stupid
thing inside out after he ingested some drugs, but I was not confident he could
do it in a timely manner.

I similarly wasn’t confident I could stop the robot
from murdering Jyen and Jyonal, despite each of their mutations. And I was very
worried what Jyonal would do under pressure. It wouldn’t do much good if he
destroyed Belvaille while trying to kill the robot. No good for me, anyway.

So I thought about what was the most dangerous
thing on this adversary. It was that energy cannon. If it didn’t have that, at
least I’d have a chance.

The Dredel Led’s arms were moving so quickly
and were so powerful it was hard to even get hold of one. But I finally took hold
of its right arm. I could vaguely feel an extra bulge outside its forearm that
I guessed was a barrel.

In a desperate move, I let go of its body and
both my hands secured its arm. Using all my weight, I banged the cannon against
the ground over and over, trying to damage the weapon.

The robot had not been prepared for such a
sudden shift. It was fighting to get me off its whole body, not protect one
limb. But then the robot used its free arm to push me off and got to its feet.

I was lying on the ground. If it was going to
make a move, this would be it. Two things had to be true for me to live. The
cannon had to operate like a traditional firearm, and I had to have somehow
dented or otherwise compromised that barrel.

If you take an extremely high-powered weapon,
like that energy cannon, and bend the barrel, anyone who fires it is in for a
world of hurt. Because if the obstruction provides enough resistance, the
projectile is going to explode the gun itself. Of course, that’s just how
Colmarian weapons work, not necessarily things carried by Dredel Led.

I didn’t even try and get to my feet. It would
be pointless if he was just going to fly back a few steps and shoot me. Yeah,
that’s how lazy I am.

The Dredel Led faced me, though it was kind of
hard to tell since it didn’t actually have a face, then it kicked me in the
jaw!

Thank the Colmarian Congress’s sticky floors.

I actually smiled as it walked over and clamped
its insanely strong hands on my neck. The idea of dying wasn’t so bad, it was
dying without even a chance of fighting back that bothered me. It punched me
and kicked me and I took it like a trooper.

As little as we knew about Dredel Led, they
obviously didn’t know anything about us either. It hit me in some pretty
useless locations. Like my upper shoulder. Or square in the chest.

It was, however, smart enough to stay out of my
reach. It knew once I had it in my grip I could get it on the ground. But
whether its rocket pack had been damaged like its cannon or it didn’t feel I
was worth the fuel, it stayed relatively close as it pummeled me and I did my
best to protect myself.

After some minutes of this, I had lost the good
spirit that originally came from finding it wasn’t using its cannon. I was just
as useless fighting it hand-to-hand as I’d be if it were hurling exploding
light at me from a safe distance. This way was just taking longer.

My pistol seemed broken, so my guaranteed way
of killing it was now gone. My shotgun didn’t do anything except mar its
aesthetics. And the robot was too quick for me to get a hold of.

I just didn’t see a whole lot of options.

Maybe I could slowly make my way upstairs while
yelling, to give Jyen and Jyonal time to prepare. But if it was here on the
station to kill Jyonal, it seemed like a bad idea for me to bring it to him.

I needed something that could hurt it. Then I
got an idea. A really bad idea.

I would have to go many blocks away. And how
would I keep it with me that whole time? And how did I know it would even work?

I had no other choice.

I knew one way to make the Dredel Led move was
to walk towards it. Pretty simple. It would then step back, smack me a few
times, and return to being comfortably out of my reach.

With arms outstretched, I stomped forward as
fast as I could.
Pow
,
kick
,
jab
, it hit me. It then hopped
backwards. Ha hah. I’d successfully moved it four feet after taking three
punishing blows. I only had to do that like a million more times.

After I had moved it an entire half block, I
was wondering if its limbs would hold out forever. Even machines break, right?
They break all the time around here. Why should its arms be any different? That
was the mantra I kept repeating to myself as I got my torso hammered over and
over.

As we moved, I tried to put what street we were
on out of my head as it was depressing. But people noticed us as our fight—that
being a generous term—carried us onward.

The battle had now been going on for hours, I
was sure of it. People were calling out to me, but I didn’t exactly have the
chance to speak to them. My ears were bleeding. I think my whole body was. I
could tell it wasn’t sweat because it was hot.

I knew there were a lot of people around now.
Just normal citizens who were watching me die to a Dredel Led. I could see that
being interesting.

I kept pushing it forward. Occasionally I would
manage to grasp its wrist or arm briefly, but it always pulled back with such
force I couldn’t hold on. But it gave me hope that it was doing the Dredel Led
equivalent of getting tired.

My sense of place was nearly gone. I wasn’t
thinking much more than of pushing this thing back as my lungs heaved and I
dragged my legs.

Then I heard a very distinct voice.

“Hank. Move.”

It was Garm, and her voice was amplified. I
looked around and saw no people, the streets clear of spectators. I took a few
hits during this time and covered myself. I looked up the street and saw it:

Garm had her artillery piece out, pulled by a
car. It was aimed in my general direction.

I tried to say “no,” but nothing came out.

I couldn’t distance myself from the Dredel Led.
I was waving Garm down with one hand while trying to fend off the robot. She
wouldn’t shoot that at me, it was for buildings, right?

BOOM!

I was on the ground and so was the robot. I
looked back and sure enough, that gun was designed to knock down buildings.

A five-story office structure behind us was
missing about half its side. I scrambled to my feet as the top part of the
building began to bend in an ear-piercing cacophony.

The Dredel Led was not amused. Or maybe it was,
I couldn’t tell. But finally. Thankfully. It was limping. An artillery shell
and a ripped building had given it a sore ankle apparently.

It was like a race between two mountains, their
movements measured in geological terms, as I hobbled to get ahead. I was no
longer chasing him, it was after me. I tried to get my bearings and realized I
was only a block away from my destination.

The architecture of course all looked the same,
but the decorations were different. The street was deserted.

Suddenly I got worried. What if he wasn’t here?
What if—

“Hank!” Wallow was standing right in front of
me.

I sighed. Glancing back, I saw the Dredel Led
had not yet entered the street. I tried to collect myself as I looked up at
Wallow. If this monstrosity could not kill the Dredel Led, I doubted anything
on the station could. Or in the state of Ginland. The slight problem was
convincing him to try.

“I’ve come here to settle the score, Wallow.
I’m going to bust you up.”

Wallow’s face contorted into rage and that
gigantic arm lifted back to smear me into the road. I have to work on my
wording.

“Wait! Not me. I’m not going to fight you. My
buddy is. He’s tougher than me and I hired him and he says you’re weak and
stupid and-and ugly and fat,” I said, hoping at least one of those would
register as an insult.

“Where is he?” Wallow barked in a challenge.
His arm thankfully returned to his side, though it still ended in a clenched
fist.

“He’s coming. Be here in a second. Gray jacket.
Green pants. Kind of…no head.” I looked back up the street, as did Wallow.

I saw no silhouettes, heard no footsteps
approaching.

“Yup. He should be coming really soon. Just up
that street. Ready to fight you,” I sniffed a bit and absently dabbed at my
contusions.

“He might have stopped for something to eat.
He’s kind of—”