Free Hard Luck Hank: Prince of Suck by Steven Campbell

to
put off my foot duty for a bit.
    MTB was outside in his gear—though I
don’t think he ever took it off. He probably showered with a gun.
    “Boss, there’s trouble at the radio telescopes.”
    “Whoa. Round up who you can,” I said,
indicating the apartments on the street, “we’ll leave in five.”
    The north edge of Belvaille was
completely dominated by some relics of the Colmarian Confederation: giant
telescopes.
    The old empire had used them to spy on
the activities of neighboring species. Now they had taken on a completely
different role and were used as broadcast instruments.
    Belvaille was of strategic importance for
many reasons, but the telescopes were a prime one. I don’t know how they did
it, but they could transmit data maybe a quarter of the way across the
galaxy—as long as there was a single Portal hop in between.
    So we were the media hub of the…whatever
the Colmarian Confederation had devolved into.
    Various parties put out propaganda,
news, and entertainment shows. The telescopes were in operation every minute of
the day and their use was extremely democratic: if you could pay an outrageous
fee to the city, you could use the telescopes.
    MTB could only get about ten people,
including Valia and himself.
    “What’s wrong with your toenails?” she
asked, looking down.
    “Shut up, new guy,” I said.
    We took the train north.
    When we approached the installations, it
was obvious there was trouble. There was a huge crowd of armed men in the
street facing another huge crowd of armed men.
    Totki were on one side, as evidenced by
their array of spears. Hong was whipping them into a frenzy as usual.
    The other side I guessed to be Olmarr.
    The Olmarr Republic concerned me more
than any of the other groups. Despite what Zadeck said, I did keep some track
of the goings-on outside of Belvaille. The Republic had successfully unified a
fair number of planets and even whole solar systems under their administration.
    And they considered Ceredus, the solar
system that Belvaille resided in, their capital.
    The Olmarr were not done with the civil war.
They weren’t tired of it like everyone else seemed to be.
    I didn't know how to identify Olmarr.
The Sublime Order of Transcendence wore robes and headdresses and other garb.
The Totki were all of the same rough ethnic traits and styles and tended to
live in large communities.
    The Olmarr were an idea.
    An understanding that there was some greater
region of space that should all be aligned based on archaic historical
precedence. They specifically made it hard to identify themselves. It was why I
couldn’t think of how to find Two Clem. He could be anywhere, assuming the Olmarr
had truly kidnapped him.
    My Stair Boys elbowed through the
gathering and I saw Peush, the head of the Olmarr Republic on Belvaille.
    “Hank,” he said, smiling wonderfully.
    He was a tall man, middle-aged, with medical
implants on his face and neck. He also had a beautiful speaking voice. A
valuable attribute when your job is to broadcast speeches across the galaxy.
    “What’s going on?” I asked.
    “They racist! They going to threaten
us,” Hong cut in.
    “They are Blocking the Waves,” Peush
countered, which was an official crime. You couldn’t interfere with telescope
transmissions.
    Peush had about fifteen men with him,
armed variously with clubs and chainsaws. But Hong had what looked to be over twenty-five.
    “You try and get us killed! Read this,”
Hong thrust a dog-eared stack of papers into my face.
    “What’s this?”
    “That his speech.”
    I read the first few sentences:
     
    The Totki are sand
rats. They spread disease and eat our food and provide no value to our great
society. They must be eradicated as sand rats are, for they are not Olmarr and
are not people.
     
    There were about thirty pages past that.
    “Where’d you get this?” I asked.
    “Don’t matter. We protect ourselves,”
Hong answered.
    “Is this your real speech?” I