Hard Luck Hermit

“Tell me when you’re ready,” Dr. Theddis said.

“We both know you don’t give a shit,” Corey snapped.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Theddis said. “That’s why I already did it.”

“You wha- oh.”

Corey held up his left hand, and wiggled a set of brand new fingers. There was still some visible burn scarring below the prosthetic, but it had been minimized.

“Damn. That was easy.”

“Prosthetics were mastered long ago,” Farsus said. He emphasized his point by removing the middle finger on his left hand and then reattaching it.

“You’ve had a prosthetic finger this whole time?”

“Did you really think a man with my habits had kept all his fingers?”

“Fair,” Corey said. “Do I need to do anything with this?”

“Most amputees say putting lotion on the scars helps with chafing,” Dr, Theddis said. “But unless it actually breaks, no, doesn’t really require maintenance. Just don’t do anything with it you wouldn’t do with regular fingers.”

“I’ll try. Thanks, doc.”

Kamak’s shoulder had already been patched up, so they had nothing else left to do at Theddis’s office. They left and headed straight for the center of Centerpoint.

The several swaps it had taken for them to travel from the battlefield to Centerpoint had allowed plenty of time for news to spread, and apparently for some important decisions to be made. The ruling body of the Galactic Council had invited them to come for a personal audience, which Kamak was choosing to interpret as a special occasion just for them. Maybe a parade. Definitely a paycheck. A big one, with lots of zeroes. It was an optimistic appraisal, but the universe owed him some good karma. Even so, Kamak made sure not to look excited as he rode the elevator up to the council chambers.

“Good afternoon, crew of the Hard Luck Hermit.”

They’d been hoping for a much larger welcoming committee, maybe with some applause and confetti thrown in, but To Vo La Su was a nice surprise anyway. She was wearing a crisp new uniform, with a fancy hat and a few shiny badges.

“Hey, To Vo,” Kamak said. “Didn’t waste any time getting your old job back, I see.”

“Oh, no. I’ve actually asked for, and been granted, a promotion,” To Vo said. She grabbed the hems of her uniform and tugged at them awkwardly.

“Oh, I see,” Kamak said. “Took over Mokai’s old spot, right?”

“Oh, no...again,” To Vo said. “Internal Affairs, actually.”

“Investigating corruption and abuse of power within the Galactic Council itself,” Farsus said. “An admirable goal.”

“Aww. It’s cute you think that’ll help,” Kamak said. Doprel reached to punch him in the shoulder, remembered his injury, and then reached further to punch him in the other shoulder. “Ow.”

“It won’t be easy,” To Vo said. “And maybe it won’t even be productive. But I want to try. And if it ends up not working out...well, there’s always bounty hunting.”

“Heh. We’ll see if we’ve got the budget for you.”

“Oh no, I was thinking about Khem,” To Vo said. “I’ve heard he’s seeking new recruits, and I really admire his rules based approach.”

Kamak raised an eyebrow. To Vo La Su didn’t blink. She started giggling after a few ticks. Kamak dignified her with a single chuckle, while Tooley mocked him with a full-on laugh. She’d pay for that later.

“It’ll work out,” Corey said. “You’ll do fine.”

“Thank you, Corey. And thank you again, Corey, and all of you, for saving me,” To Vo said. “And, of course, the whole universe. But you’ll probably hear that a lot soon.”

She waved towards the door to the council chambers.

“I shouldn’t hold you up anymore. Good luck, and see you all soon.”

To Vo waved goodbye and waved them inside as the council doors opened. The room looked like it seat hundreds in the many circular booths that lined the towering cylindrical room, but only half a dozen currently occupied it, arranged in a short row around the opposite sound of the room. The harsh-faced and visibly elderly aliens appraised the crew of the Hermit quietly as they walked in.

“Welcome, crew of the Hard Luck Hermit,” The grand councilwoman said. “On behalf of the United Council Races, we would like to thank you for your intervention in a potential crisis. And to apologize for suspicion and accusations levied against you as the late Morrakesh’s deception was carried out.”

Kamak bowed gratefully. He wanted to rub their noses in it a little, but that kind of behavior might cost him a paycheck. Just hearing the words “the late Morrakesh” was a nice little delight, for now. The Collective that bore its name was already collapsing, with a few worlds defecting to the Galactic Council and those that remained splintering into warlord states vying for power. Just a few swaps, and the “eternal empire” was already collapsing.

“We also assure you that all charges against you have been dropped, and proper accounts of recent events will be spread to exonerate you in the court of public opinion.”

They’d already received messages from the Bounty Hunters Guild and Timeka saying that their names were effectively cleared -though Timeka’s message hadn’t exactly been friendly. Kamak would take ‘not trying to kill him’ as a good baseline for his relationship with Timeka going forward. He’d kind of wanted to cut ties anyway.

Corey folded his recently repaired hands behind his back and waited. Then kept waiting. The council members stared at the crew blankly.

“You may go,” the councilwoman said.

“Sorry?”

“You are dismissed,” the grand councilwoman said. “Unless you have questions?”

“Yeah, I have a question,” Tooley said. “We saved your lives, and by extension the entire universe, are we, like, getting paid for that?”

“Charges have been dropped and your names will be cleared,” the council repeated.

“Yeah, no shit, that’s like, the default,” Tooley said.

“Given your current reputation, the extensive campaign of image rehabilitation we are performing on your behalf is a much needed and resource-intensive effort.”

Something in Kamak’s brain clicked.

“We saved the fucking universe and you want to pay us in good publicity? Could we skip the publicity tour and give me a paycheck, maybe?”

“Your actions, while unarguably intended as heroic, have incurred significant losses to the Galactic Council military,” another council member said. “The losses in starships and manpower alone total in the billions, and the longterm diplomatic consequences will no doubt increase that deficit.”

“What consequences?”

“We united the universe against a common enemy,” Farsus said. “Surely that does more good than not?”

“Briefly united,” the grand councilwoman droned. “To answer your summons, the Doccan violated several travel restrictions and skirmished with local security forces across the universe. Additionally, the Structuralists are suing the Council for their losses incurred, as well as demanding the immediate capture and surrender of one Tooley Keeber Obeltas, self-proclaimed ‘greatest pilot in the universe’.”

“Hey, you drop that ‘self-proclaimed’ shit, I got other people proclaiming it now,” Tooley said. She held up her datapad, displaying an interview she’d done with a piloting news site.

“The point remains,” the councilwoman said.

“I suppose it was too much to hope we’d all make friends and hold hands,” Doprel said.

“Even without the Bang Gate, the threat of the Horuk remains,” Farsus added. “They would be wise to dispose of such petty grievances.”

“Unfortunately, the people are not always wise,” the councilwoman said.

“Case in point,” Kamak said, glaring in his direction. “Can I at least get a god damned medal? Something I can point to so people buy me drinks? Doesn’t have to be solid gold or anything, just has to look nice.”

The six council members looked at each other.

“We will discuss this,” the councilwoman said. “In the meantime, there is one additional opportunity we have to discuss with you.”

“Lay it on me,” Kamak said. The councilwoman quickly interfaced with a computer in her podium and sent some information to Kamak. A list of names, specifically. “And these are?”

“A list of Morrakesh’s known associates,” the councilwoman said. “Given your experience with his methods, and your previous line of employment…”

Kamak stared at the names. When he spoke again, it was through gritted teeth.

“After all this,” he hissed. “You want us to get right back to bounty hunting?”

“The bounty prices are well above standard Galactic Council rates.”

Kamak looked at the price tag. Those actually were some pretty nice paydays. And without the support of Morrakesh’s brain and the overall might of the Collective, a lot of them actually would be pretty easy to collect…

“Alright,” Kamak said. “But this is an exclusive contract! I don’t want any other hunters on this.”

“And we’re getting medals,” Corey insisted.

“And we’re getting medals!”

The grand councilwoman rolled her eyes.

“You have a deal,” she said. “You are dismissed.”

She said it more forcefully this time, letting the crew know it was no longer optional.

“Uh, wait, one more quick question, please,” Corey said. “Hi, Corey Amadeus Vash, the guy who singlehandedly killed the indestructible leader of the hostile alien army?”

Tooley snickered when he said “singlehandedly”. Corey flexed his recently repaired fingers and ignored that.

“I just had a question. I’m from Earth. Morrakesh said you knew about that planet.”

The council members had become very good at hiding their emotions over years of debate, but their faces tilted slightly towards the ground when Corey mentioned Earth.

“Do you really know? And if you did...why didn’t we get uplifted?”

The councilwoman took a deep breath before she spoke.

“Corey Amadeus Vesh, you must understand, the Uplifting process is slow, and involved. Proper methods must be taken to ensure that unique cultures are not quashed by oppressive alien influence, and that technology is not introduced in such a way that disrupts-”

“Oh for stars sake, woman,” another council member said. He turned to Corey and spoke directly at him. “Earth was far away, and we were over budget. It’s as simple as that.”

Corey took a few seconds to process that.

“Heh. Yeah, that tracks,” he said.

“It will be the first planet on our list as soon as we begin another campaign,” the councilwoman said. Her pale face was flushed red with embarrassment.

“Yeah, sure, you do that,” Corey said. He turned his back on the council and started to walk away, prompting the rest of the crew to join him.

“All that trouble and all that pain, and we got one shitty answer and a few dozen pretty-good bounties to show for it,” Kamak said. “I truly hate being alive.”

“Cheer up, Kamak,” Doprel said. “We all made it out inta- mostly intact.”

Doprel glanced nervously at Corey’s hand.

“We’ve got everything we need to make this a new start. We made it through with our lives, our stuff, and our ship.”

“Legally speaking, I can’t let you fly this.”

Kamak gave his usual mechanic a good, long stare. He’d been coming to Turka’s shop to get the Hard Luck Hermit repaired for years, and trusted his judgment, but that statement demanded a hell of a lot more information.

“Obviously I couldn’t stop you if I tried, but I really got to say I do not recommend it,” Turka said. He gestured the Hermit and waved one of his tools at it. “The old girl could snap in half if I looked at her funny.”

Turka retrieved a datapad displaying the Hard Luck hermit’s internal superstructure. Kamak was familiar with the shop’s visual shorthand, so he knew that red was bad, and there was a whole lot of it. A good forty percent of the ship was colored in red, and most of the remaining sixty percent was black, which he’d never seen before.

“What’s the black mean?”

“Oh well that’s usually reserved for when we do damage assessment on crashes,” Turka said. “I’ve never actually seen a ship be in that bad of a shape and still fly.”

Kamak scanned the fatal assessment of his ship’s structural integrity and sighed heavily. In a way, he wasn’t surprised. After months of frequent battles, high-speed chases, and risky maneuvers, it was no surprise the Hermit was suffering severe stress damage.

“So what do we do?”

“In my professional opinion, you take the loss,” Turka said. “Doing a full repair on this magnitude would pretty much mean disassembling the ship and rebuilding it from scratch. You could buy two, maybe three ships of the same model for what it’d cost you in parts and labor.”

The Hard Luck Hermit had already been an older model when it had been gifted to Kamak decades ago, so it was a difficult repair job even under the best circumstances. The parts needed, and the expertise to work with them, were in short supply and came with a significant price tag. Kamak double checked his bank account, and the bounties he’d been offered lately. Both came up short.

“Shit.”

“If you want some good news, that last stunt you pulled turned it into some official war memorabilia,” Turka offered. The Horuk Invasion would hopefully consist of only one battle, but it was still technically a war. “Some weird old collector types love that stuff. You would’ve gotten pocket change for this as scrap, but I know a fella who’d give you at least two million for it, easy, even non-functional.”

“Well, there’s that,” Kamak sighed. He looked to his crew and found them to have similar defeated looks on their faces. Except for Tooley, who was frantically tapping away at her datapad, probably already looking for new jobs. “Any objections from the crew?”

“It is your ship, captain,” Farsus said solemnly.

“Your call to make,” Doprel agreed.

Kamak hated when things were on his shoulders. At least there was only one call to make, really.

“Look around for a buyer and let me know,” Kamak sighed. “But don’t sell it until I say so. I got a friend who might want to come and say some goodbyes.”

Turka nodded, and returned to his tools. Kamak took a long look at the Hermit. It was a boxy, ugly, slow, poorly armed piece of shit -and it had been his only real home for decades.

“Wish I’d known you were taking your last flight,” Kamak said. “Would’ve made an occasion out of it.”

“Sometimes things don’t take you as far as you want them to,” Corey said. “Only as far as they need to.”

There would always be journeys left untaken -and words left unsaid. Corey, for his part, was ready to start letting things stay in the past.

“Don’t try to get poetic, Corvash,” Kamak snapped. “Help me get all our shit off the ship.”

They had some maglev sleds ready to move most of their gear, and Turka provided a dumpster for their trash -and then a second dumpster, to contain the surprising quantity of empty alcohol bottles, spent power cells, ruined outfits, and other detritus the ship had accumulated. After a few cycles of labor, Kamak did one last scan of the ship, made sure everything was in order, and kicked the wall on his way out. He grabbed one of the sleds full of their stuff and started hauling it down the halls of Centerpoint.

The shameful march lasted exactly twenty ticks before he realized he had no idea where he was going.

“Fuck. Do we have to get a hotel, or what?”

“Good luck finding one with a bed Doprel’s size,” Corey said.

“I could sleep on the floor.”

“Oh hell,” Kamak said. “How are we going to get to the fucking bounties? You can’t bounty hunt taking public shuttles!”

“Well, we could surely get to some of them, then use the profits to-”

Their nightmarish situation veered sharp to the left as Tooley put her datapad away and shushed them all.

“Gentlemen. If you’ll follow me for a moment.”

Even Kamak wasn’t in the mood to protest now, and he followed along as Tooley took charge and led the makeshift caravan of crew and equipment towards the outskirts of Centerpoint. Towards the hangars, specifically.

“Tooley…”

“One moment, please let me make the dramatic reveal on my own terms,” she said. She took a quick look at a map of all the hangars and made a beeline for one near the edges of the hangar cluster. A green humanoid with scales across his face met her going the other way.

“Tooley Keeber Obeltas?”

“That’s me,” she said. “Best pilot in the universe.”

“So I’ve heard,” the scaly alien said. A broad smile crossed Tooley’s face. “Glad she’ll be in good hands. Here you go.”

The alien tossed over a small rod, which Tooley caught out of the air and held firmly in her hand. She pressed a thumb down and let some kind of scan begin, and Kamak finally realized what was happening. That was a bio-encoder. The kind used to put a DNA lock on a ship. Tooley held a short aside with the scaly alien, finalizing a few business details, and then bid him goodbye as she continued towards the hangar.

“My friends—and Kamak—please feast your eyes on my new ship!”

She threw the hangar door open wide and swept her hands towards a shining new star cruiser. It was a broad, boomerang shaped ship with a silvery sheen, more than twice the size of the Hermit, and in much better condition. The new vessel was sleek, heavily armed, and looked fast even when sitting completely motionless. Farsus actually whistled in admiration.

“Shin-Copa Thirty Eight Multipurpose Star Cruiser,” Tooley said, beaming from ear to ear. “Luxury style, racer speeds, and military armaments. Always wanted one of these bad bitches.”

Kamak could actually see his reflection in the hull. He stared at himself for a moment before turning to Tooley.

“How the fuck did you afford this?”

“I’ve always had some money pigeonholed for a new ship,” Tooley said. “That, and for the past couple swaps every spacer show in the universe has been hitting me up for interviews. Every pilot wants to know how I pulled off the ‘Tooley Maneuver’.”

The sudden light-speed dash into sub-light maneuvering she’d pulled off in the battle against the Horuk was the kind of flying most pilots only dreamed of. And probably should have kept only dreaming of.

“Is that safe?”

“Oh absolutely not,” Tooley said. “Literally everyone else who’s attempted it has died.”

Approximately thirty-seven people across the universe had already tried and failed to imitate her stunt, and every single one of them had been reduced to a fine atomic mist. Thankfully they’d all been trying the evasive maneuver on asteroids, not Bang Gates, so they hadn’t taken anyone else with them.

“I do say ‘don’t try this at home’ in every interview, so I’m legally in the clear. Don’t worry about it.”

Corey might have said something about ethics, but he got the feeling Tooley wouldn’t really care.

“Your savings and interview fees paid for all this?”

“Well, mostly,” Tooley said. “There are also some very significant loans involved.”

Kamak raised an eyebrow. That explained everything. He could see where the conversation was going now.

“So, I was kind of hoping for that ‘saved the universe’ payday to take care of the loans, but since that’s not happening,” Tooley said. “I am willing to contract out my shiny new ship to, say, a crew of bounty hunters looking for a ride?”

Kamak walked over to Tooley, stared her down, and cross his arms.

“I’ll give you a ‘saved the universe together’ discount,” Tooley said, locking eyes with Kamak. “Twenty percent increase over my old rate.”

“Ten.”

“Eighteen.”

“Eleven.”

“Really?”

“Fine, Twelve.”

“Seventeen.”

“Really?”

“Fine. Fifteen,” Tooley said. “And you remember that it’s my ship, my rules now.”

Kamak looked at the new ship, back at Tooley, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

“Your ship,” Kamak said. “My crew. You make the rules on the ship. I give the orders on the job.”

“Fine,” Tooley said. “Partner.”

“Good deal. Partner.”

Both briefly contemplated shaking on the deal, and decided against it. This was bad enough without having to touch each other. Tooley grabbed the control rod for the ship instead, and opened up the loading bay.

“Alrighty, let’s load up and get comfortable,” Tooley said. “I get first dibs on picking quarters, the rest of you get to fight over whatever’s left.”

Tooley asserted further dominance over her new ship by being the first to walk aboard, and benevolently allowed Corey to trail just behind her. The interior of the ship was as sleek and futuristic as the exterior, a far cry from the cramped, grungy halls of the Hard Luck Hermit.

“Holy shit,” Doprel said. “I can go through the doors without having to bend over!”

He walked back and forth through one such door, basking in the novelty of not having to duck his head. The new ship was more spacious in every way, not just in headroom. Farsus began to array some of their food and supplies in the full sized kitchen, and Tooley snatched a bottle of shiiv off the top of one of their coolers and cracked it open.

“Can’t say I won’t miss the Hermit,” Tooley said. “But looking at all this is really helping me get over it.”

She ran a hand along the interior metal paneling and took a seat on one of the plush couches of the ship’s common room. Like the Hermit, it had a central living space, but the rooms were spread out across long hallways in each of the “wings”. The extra privacy would be a nice boon alongside the extra space.

“Hell of a pick, Tooley,” Kamak said. “You named her yet?”

“I’m still contemplating,” Tooley said. “I reserve the right to make the final choice, but I’m open to suggestions.”

Corey stepped up to the cockpit, and took a look out the window. The hangar door was open, and Corey peered through the energy barrier out into the stars. His thoughts drifted for a moment to Earth, somewhere out there in the stars, and everything he had left behind there.

“A name, huh?” He said. “How about ‘Matilda’?”

Tooley had been midway through sipping on her drink, and she nearly choked on it.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Kamak’s hand had skipped to his gun, and Doprel’s mandibles were contorted in horror. Even Farsus looked offended.

“What? That’s my mom’s name!”

“Your mom’s name is Ma-”

Tooley caught herself midsentence. She couldn’t bring herself to say it. The tension in the room defused slightly, though Corey’s confusion didn’t change.

“Oh. Mom’s name. Yeah that sort of makes sense,” Kamak said. “Different languages, and all that.”

“You should be aware, Corvash, that word is one of the most offensive and vile slurs in the known universe,” Farsus said.

“Yeah man, even the Structuralists wouldn’t say shit like that,” Tooley said. “That’s just wrong.”

“My mom’s name is an ultra-slur?”

“Looks like it,” Doprel said. “Good thing you didn’t say that earlier. Kamak might’ve shot you if he liked you less.”

Corey was not in any way comforted by Kamak nodding when Doprel said that.

“Okay. Maybe I don’t get to name the ship, then,” Corey said.

“Maybe not.”

Corey distracted himself from the accidental hate crime he’d just committed by burying his face in his datapad. The long list of bounties they’d just acquired showed promise as a way to keep himself occupied, as he scanned a long list of names and faces he had no context for and did not recognize.

Until he found one he did.

“Huh.”

Corey tabbed into the bounty listing to show more information.

“Hey, so, I don’t get to pick the name, obviously,” Corey said. “But can I put in a vote for our first target?”

“What you got?”

Corey turned the tablet around to display his target. Kamak and Tooley took one look at it, and a broad smile spread across both their faces.

“I think we can swing that,” Kamak said.

“And even make a quick detour after,” Tooley said.