Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck (31 page)

The Sublime Order of Transcendence was
organized and had a lot of members, but they were toga-toting wackos. The mere
fact they were conned by Hobardi’s phony religion proved they weren’t a great threat
and were just looking for some half-baked cause.

But these were real people. I could see
merchants and businessmen, gang members, dock workers, couriers, Garm’s
employees, just about every walk of life. I scanned for any of my Kommilaire
but none were in uniform at least.

“I would like to thank Marshelette for
the excellent dinner she served. It’s not easy feeding this many people,” Peush
smiled.

The audience applauded a bashful woman
off to the side and I found myself giving a few claps. Damn, I missed the food.

“The enemy is still present,” Peush said
ominously.

The crowd nodded and muttered.

“The Republic is beset by those who
would bring us down for selfish reasons. But
they
are not the Republic,
we
are the Republic.”

More agreement.

“The Totki are a pestilential filth that
is sapping our native strength.”

No surprise there. They didn’t get along
so well.

“The city, the galaxy, is filled with
traitors and vermin, mutants and aliens. They are not us and we are not them.
They need to go back where they came from. We cannot ever achieve peace with
coexistence. It hasn’t happened in tens of thousands of years and every time we
try, we poison ourselves. I, for one, am sick of poison. I am sick of killing
my children so that the children of beasts might be comfortable.”

Wow. That got ugly fast. But no one was
shocked, they applauded.

“The Republic dawns!” He said again.

“Ever always,” they answered.

“There are Gandrine and Keilvin Kamigans
and Dredel Led on this station. Dredel Led! Who caused us to begin mutating our
own people during the Colmarian Confederation. Why are we consorting with these
species that despise us? Why do we welcome them? We should welcome them to
leave.”

Vigorous applause.

I had really underestimated Peush. He
made the xenophobic Totki look like a take-all-customers prostitute.

“It will require generations to return
to purity, but with time, we will govern ourselves. We will not have to
compromise for a Boranjame and his countless slaves or a Therezian towering
over us.”

Good luck getting rid of Wallow, I
thought.

“The government seeks to take our
rights. Take our property. It fears us because it doesn’t understand us.
Doesn’t understand how great the Republic was and can be again. The Republic
dawns.”

“Ever always.”

“The Second Republic will be established
once we have severed our links to the corrupting influence of the rest of the
galaxy. The Portals must be destroyed.”

I stopped leaning against the doorframe
and if I had been drinking punch, I would have spit it out. Was he serious? Destroy
the Portals? That would completely isolate all the regions that weren’t contiguous.
It would be the Dark Ages that Delovoa had spoken about. And Peush was recommending
doing it on purpose.

“We should have the right to choose our
own path in life, the right to be free as our forefathers were. We cannot do
that the way things currently stand. Look,” he said, “there is the heavy,
mutant hand of the government. It has been sent to spy on us.”

Every person turned around to see where
Peush was pointing.

At me, of course.

“Uh, Republic rising,” I said, pointing
both my index fingers at the crowd in the dead silence. But no one seemed to
find it comforting or amusing.

I wasn’t sure if it was the lack of
amplified speaking that let me hear it or whether it just started, but the
unmistakable sounds of chainsaws and gunfire came to me from outside.

I turned around and left that pleasant
group of people to see if my Kommilaire had similarly been refused refreshments
and gone on a shooting spree.

The reception area was empty. The noise
was coming from outside.

I stepped out and it was mayhem. There
were four bodies on the ground, lots of blood, and chainsaw Republicans were
dueling my Stair Boys.

A quick look showed me two of my men
were down and three remained fighting but were retreating from a half-dozen
Republican guards and their chainsaws. The Kommilaire were likely out of
ammunition at this point and unable to reload without losing an arm.

I moved closer to the fray so I’d be
less likely to shoot my own men, and I took a rifle from my vest. On the way I accidentally
stepped on a fallen Olmarr Republican and he screamed.

The chainsaws turned to face me.

I aimed my rifle and fired, missing.

The guards circled my position cautiously.
I took my time reloading.

I heard some grinding close by and I
guessed one of the guards had attempted to use his blade on me.

I aimed at the attacker to my front,
closing my bad eye, but he danced side-to-side to try and keep the barrel away
from him. I fired, opened both eyes, and saw I missed. How did I miss? He was
like ten feet away.

I threw my gun at him. But if I was bad
at shooting, I was absolutely horrible at throwing. I couldn’t accelerate my
arm fast enough to get any kind of velocity. The rifle clacked on the ground a
few feet away from me where I looked at it sadly.

A guard tried to duck in and steal the
rifle but I swept him closer with my right arm and grabbed him with my left
hand. If you want to fight me, don’t ever get within arm’s reach. I’m not sure
how anyone on this city didn’t know that yet.

“Run, guys!” I said to my men. “Don’t
move or I’ll tear your friend in half,” I told the guards.

My Kommilaire dashed away to safety.

“The Republic dawns,” the guard I was
holding said.

“Ever always,” his compatriots answered
eerily.

They slashed at me with their chainsaws,
pressing the blades in until the teeth ground off the chains. These guys were
serious.

I killed the guard in my hands, turning
on the remaining foes. I suddenly heard:

“Hank,” Peush said.

He stood at the entrance to the building
and had another dozen or more guards with him.

“I just came here to have a conversation
with you. Now look,” I said, gesturing at the carnage.

“You speak false words, Hank of the
Colmarian Confederation,” Peush stated calmly.

“Make up your mind. Did I destroy the
Confederation or create it?”

“You are part of that dead empire and no
longer needed.”

Well, he didn’t sound like a clone,
that’s for sure. He then spoke to his men in some odd dialect. Maybe it was
Olmarrian. Maybe it was baby talk.

“Let me gather my fallen men and you can
gather yours,” I said.

“You seek to treat with us on even
terms?” Peush asked, amused.

“I can go back inside and stomp all over
your fundraiser. And drink all your punch. These chainsaws don’t impress me.”

“No, I don’t imagine they do,” Peush
said. “I will talk with you. However, you must give me five minutes.”

We all stood there waiting.

“Do you mean literally?” I asked after
some time had passed with no one moving.

“Yes.”

“Why?” I asked suspiciously. I wasn’t
sure what all they could bring, but Peush was an unknown quantity to me.

He lifted his head as if he had just
thought of something or just heard something.

“Oh, I guess we can talk sooner than I
thought. Tell me, Hank, do you ever ride the train?”

He turned his head to the upper right
and I realized we were below one of the elevated train tracks.

I looked behind me and saw my magnet was
connected to a long cable that went up.

And then I saw the head of the train zip
past.

“No,” I managed.

I think I dragged on the ground for a few
moments but then I was flying. I was being pulled by the train through the air
at incredible speed!

I was also spinning lazily.

I heard on one planet there was a fat,
fuzzy mammal that would periodically get snatched into the air by giant winged
predators. When they were picked up, the mammals would freeze. Not in terror,
but because these were animals that lived in the lowlands. They were incapable
of jumping, let alone flying. Being in the air was so contrary to their
instincts that they simply had no response. So they just let themselves be
carried away.

That was me.

I was slowly spinning on my cable. When I
became properly oriented to the road and could briefly comprehend what I was
seeing, I would notice people pointing and screaming, then I would tilt back
around and I was lost again.

I had no idea what to do. I kept trying
to brush my hair out of my face as if that would fix everything.

After some time I became aware of a
horrendous sound. I managed to turn around somewhat and I saw half of the last
train car was hanging off the track and being towed along, spewing sparks and
fire.

Think!

Hey, there’s the Avenue Market.

I tried to concentrate on that. What did
that mean? Did it mean anything?

I pushed my hair out of my face a few
more times and of course the wind blew it immediately back.

This train was going to come to a stop
in fifteen blocks. It was going to pass a huge support beam in ten. And the train
hanging off the tracks was going to hit that beam. Because I was trailing on a
cable, I would also hit it or twist around it.

In any case, it was bad.

I closed my eyes. My vision was just
distracting me.

I fumbled with my vest buckles. I got two.

Got a third.

I couldn’t get the last two. I was
rotating on the cable and the buckles were twisted and my hair was in my face.

I was a big fuzzy mammal and I was
frozen in mid-air. I couldn’t think how to get out of my own clothes and I was
going to die because of it.

I struggled and wrenched at my buckles
and straps but got nowhere. I felt my heart rate getting irregular. My blood
was sloshing around my body and I was panicking. I wasn’t designed to be a
projectile. I had trouble enough walking. A heart attack definitely wouldn’t
help me right now.

Finally, I took a deep breath and cleared
my head. I clicked off the buckles like I had done ten thousand times in the
past. I slipped easily out of my harness.

I hit the ground and slid on the
sidewalk. Fortunately, I didn’t hit the road, as its tacky surface would have
caused me to grip and roll. I also didn’t hit a building.

I landed on my back, went rocket
straight about thirty feet, demolishing everyone and everything in the way, and
came to a stop with my head hitting the very machine that had fallen off the
latticework earlier.

There was an enormous explosion down the
street as the train car hit the support beam and the whole train was pulled off
the tracks and detonated on the ground.

I decided to rest my eyes instead of
trying to stand up right this minute. I figured an exploding train would bring
enough Kommilaire that I didn’t have to worry about anyone trying to kill me.

Besides, from the quick glance I took
before slipping into unconsciousness, no one was particularly interested in
getting too close. In fact, they were all running away.

http://www.belvaille.com/hlh3/hanktrain.gif

I heard singing.

No. It wasn’t singing. It was
discordant. Shrieking. Like a thousand different breeds of bird were being
plucked by sadistic little kids.

I woke up and saw nothing but light, but
the noise was still there.

I had never been sure before, but this
time I was certain. I was in hell.

“Supreme Kommilaire, you’re awake?” I
heard a voice ask.

My
eyes slowly cleared and Devus Sorsha stood over me like Death himself. Devus
Sorsha was a medical technician. I believe I was his only client and had been
so for decades. He was an elderly man yet his accumulated medical knowledge
could fit inside a thimble with enough room left over for several fingertips.

“Go
away,” I told him weakly. He always caused more trouble than he solved.

“You need to drink and get your strength
back.”

I was about to answer when he stuck a
spigot in my mouth. I tasted some foul, hot liquid.

There were maybe two working taste buds
on my entire tongue and he had discovered them. My first taste experience in
years was one of bitter revulsion.

I clenched my jaw out of habit, severing
the metal spigot, which caused a torrent of the putrid liquid to jet all over
my face and body.