Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy (30 page)

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 carrying 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.

“Yes,” I said unsteadily. “I’m His Excellency,
Hank the Boss of the Colmarian Confederation. Are you the representative for
the Boranjame?”

“You see the Po,” the purple creature said.
“Slave species of the Boranjame.”

“Ah, yes,” I said, as if I had known that but
merely forgotten.

“Please follow,” it said, doing what I guessed
was its approximation of a bow.

The Po wriggled forward on its many hands, and
between it and the Therezians and the constantly moving swarm of Po flanking
me, I was by far the slowest. The purple Po routinely paused to wait for me.

No description as to the size of the ship was really
adequate. It was a planet. The place I assumed was a hangar branched off at
regular intervals with similar-sized passageways. I then realized I was merely
in a hallway. The enormous room I had waited in was probably a closet or maybe
a desk drawer.

There were no decorations of any kind that I
could see. It was purely functional, covered in pipes and conduits and
electrical cables and bolts and all manner of industrial machines. The only
thing intriguing about these features, besides their absolutely enormous size,
was their composition. The ship seemed to have strata or layers. At one point
everything would be a brownish-red color, and after some time walking, the same
walkways and railings and tubing would be gray and have a slightly different
texture.

If it was true the Boranjame gobbled up planets
to construct this ship, you could literally see where one ended and another
began.

The temperature was cool, but it was humid. I
looked for mold or mildew, which should have definitely been present given the
level of water in the air, but I saw none, even in the remotest crevices.

The purple Po was obviously making a conscious
effort not to be as twitchy as his comrades. Actually I couldn’t say that for
sure, since I had no idea about their physiology. Maybe it was just old.

We kept going and going and going. My recently
busted knee was slowing me down more than usual. Finally I had to speak up.

“Um, excuse me, can we take a break?”

“Break?” it asked.

“I’m tired. You’re too fast. How far away
is”—and I realized I didn’t know where we were going or what we were doing—“do
we have to go?”

“You are fatigued?” it asked.

“Yes.”

“You shall rest.”

I sat on the floor and caught my breath.

Looking at the Po I could see how they’d
evolved. You could literally not tell which direction they were going until
they were there. A pouncing animal would just as likely hit a tree as catch one
of these things.

After a bit we headed off again. We passed
quite a few more hallways and I couldn’t be sure, but I think more Po joined us.
The Therezians were as impassive as ever. Yeah, imagine an army of them. I
wondered if they knew Wallow.

It took a while, but we finally stopped outside
another opening.

“Hank the Boss. You may enter. You will speak
later.”

I was expecting to see the Boranjame inside,
not that I would recognize one if I saw it, but instead it was simply an
unbelievably ornate room filled with creatures.

The aliens in the room were a long ways off and
clustered into individual groups as if they were shy. Or racists. There were
some Po, but the rest of the creatures, dozens of them, looked to represent
every major species in the galaxy.

The lighting in the room was dim, with the
figures obscured in shadows. The carpeting was thick, red, and luxurious. There
was statuary and artwork placed all over. It reminded me of the Belvaille
Athletic Club where the gang bosses congregated.

I wasn’t particularly sure where I was or what
I was supposed to do, but I knew I was hungry, and tired, and a bit gross from
my time in space.

I figured I had better freshen up and get
something to eat before presenting myself, or the rest of the galaxy would
think Colmarians are a disheveled race with growling stomachs that smell of
space urine. Much to my delight, one of the first items I saw inside the room
was a refrigerator. I walked over to it, grasped the handle and tried to pull
it open, but only succeeded in bending the metal frame.

“Stop it,” the refrigerator said.

“Oh,” I said, backing up. “Sorry, I was just
looking for something to eat.”

“Do I look edible?” it asked. Its voice, though
clearly artificial, was full of sarcasm.

“I thought you were a container,” I explained.
“What…what exactly are you, if I may ask?”

“I believe your species refers to us as ‘Dredel
Led,’” the refrigerator said with clear distaste.

Surely there was no other Colmarian in history
who had seen and fought and tried to get food from as many Dredel Led as I had.
It’s like they were stalking me.

For a moment I was worried it might cause
trouble, but then I realized it wouldn’t fight here—not on a Boranjame ship.
Not when they got two Therezians strolling around.

“What brought you guys to Belvaille, anyway?” I
asked, figuring now was a good time to inquire.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” it
answered.

“Those dead…uh”—wondering what I should call
them instead of Dredel Led—“robots at Belvaille.”

“Dead? Your species is so pathetic. You have no
idea what this galaxy holds.”

“Well, our empire stretches across most of it,”
I said with some small amount of umbrage.

“You don’t have an empire. It’s a collection of
all the races no one else wanted.” The robot, if it’d had features, would have
been sneering. Though the corner where I’d bent it kind of looked like it was
grinning stupidly.

“Maybe. Maybe. But we sure killed the crap out
of those robots you sent to Belvaille,” I said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the
refrigerator repeated.

I wasn’t going to outsmart this metal box and
it obviously didn’t have any food, so I left.

Making friends. Making friends.

“Excuse me,” I said, trying to grab a Po and
missing utterly.

More of them flittered by and I decided to try
and communicate with my arms, waving them around excitedly. Hopefully they
wouldn’t take offense.

One “paused” in front of me, though it
continued to move even while staying relatively in the same spot.

“Hi. I’m really hungry and covered in waste. Is
there any place I can wash and get something to eat?”

The Po in front of me motioned wildly. The
signal was picked up by another across the room. And another. Then another.
Within seconds, Po I hadn’t even seen were all taking up the call. A group
corralled me and got me moving again.

I followed them for some time, winding through
the ship, and they led me into a room that had a bed, although it was so large
you could land a shuttle on it. The Po departed and closed the giant doors.

The room itself had no carpeting and was warmer
than the rest of the ship had been. Its surfaces and structures were composed
of what looked to be a dark green, crystalline material. It was smooth to the
touch, but hairline fractures could be seen all throughout it, which gave an
odd impression that the room was going to shatter at any moment. It was
decorated much like a hotel room of enormous proportions.

I looked around and while I didn’t find a sink,
there was a swimming pool. It had entry points with steps of various sizes,
some utterly massive.

I tested the water, found it a bit chilly but
good enough, and sunk into it. The water immediately turned murky at my entry,
but was quickly filtered clear again.

Floating in the water gave me the ugly
sensation of being back in space, so I cleaned up as best I could and exited. I
then noticed a whole wardrobe had been placed nearby. Those Po sure were
sneaky.

They even had a pink bathrobe with my title and
name on the front. On the rear it said “Colmarian Confederation.” Like that was
my sports team.

I looked at the robe for some time, wondering
if I should get them to exchange it, but they had gone to the trouble to get it
monogrammed. Besides, just because pink was a pansy color where I came from
didn’t mean anything out here. For all I knew it could be the galactic color of
death and destruction.

I finished putting on the clothes, which
included underwear, shirt, pants, and slippers, all perfectly fit. Did they
take my measurements when they ripped off my spacesuit or were the Po the
universe’s super tailors?