The MVP

11





Preseason Week Three: January 15 to January 21


QUENTIN LOOKED UP at the sky above Ionath Stadium. A pair of Harrah high above were diving and banking around each other. He saw a flock of five Creterakians cross from one side of the stadium to the other, too high up for him to see if they were civilians or military. Quentin absently watched the aerial displays as he waited for Coach Hokor.

The yellow-furred Quyth Leader stared at his holoboard. He looked up at the three Sklorno receivers gathered in front of him. “How about Pickle Lake? What’s your opinion on that cornerback?”

“Unworthy,” Hawick said.

“Pickle Lake should be killed,” Milford said.

“And eaten,” Halawa said.

Hokor entered those opinions on his holoboard, then called up more players and studied his notes.

It was free-agent day, an annual preseason event when unsigned players came to Ionath to fight for a roster spot. Quentin had spent the last two hours throwing passes to Hawick, Milford and Halawa as free agent defensive backs tried to cover them.

Gredok had cast his nets far and wide, bringing in unsigned talent from all over the galaxy. There were Tier Two players looking to gain Tier One experience before going back to their franchise, a process known as “loaning” a player; there were a couple of Tier Three players who hadn’t been drafted; and there were a few Tier One players that had recently been cut from their teams. In the GFL, the really good players were already signed — unsigned players had to take whatever franchise would have them, and a franchise that needed help had to take whatever it could get.

Nine Sklorno DBs had been invited to try out. They stood there, some trembling, white helmets held in their tentacles as they waited to see if their dreams would come true. Ionath needed to build some depth in the secondary. Losing Perth and Stockbridge hurt, and as the season went on, injuries were bound to happen.

Hokor looked up at his receivers. “What about Emmitsburgh? She seemed adept at covering deep routes.”

One of Hawick’s eyestalks turned to look at one of Milford’s, which turned to look back — the Sklorno equivalent of sharing an unspoken thought.

“Partially worthy,” Hawick said.

“I would wound her for being incompetent but not kill her,” Milford said.


“I would nibble on her left foot but leave most of her alone,” Halawa said.

Hokor tapped the icons floating above his holoboard. He turned to the gathered free agents. “Emmitsburgh, free safety! Luanda, cornerback! Millington, cornerback! You are to report to Messal the Efficient in the locker room. You will practice with us for the next two weeks, and then we will see if you’re good enough to wear the Orange and the Black for the rest of the year. The rest of you, thank you for coming, now get off of my field.”

The Krakens now had three more defensive backs. Quentin had mixed emotions. It felt great to add some depth, but he’d thrown against those players and knew they were unsigned for a specific reason — because they weren’t that good. Still, Emmitsburgh, Luanda and Millington would have two weeks of practice to show they were skilled enough to make the final fifty-three-player roster. Quentin would do his part to help them prepare, because if the starters fell to injury, any of those three players might mean the difference between victory and defeat.

? ? ?



MICHAEL KIMBERLIN SIGHED with audible frustration. “Quentin, maybe you don’t understand the definition of the word theory.”

Quentin, Kimberlin and Choto sat at the kitchen table of Kimberlin’s apartment. Even though the preseason took up most of Quentin’s time, he didn’t want to let his studies slip. Kimberlin tutored him on several subjects: math, physics, government and, today, biology.

The lessons were a rare moment away from the mental focus of football. As hard as they were, Quentin loved to learn. On Micovi, his teachers hadn’t thought he’d been worth educating. Now that he was out of the Purist Nation, there was nothing to stop him from learning everything he could about the galaxy and the beings that lived in it.

Choto always insisted on coming with. The Warrior refused to let Quentin out of his sight. The fact that Choto seemed to already know everything Kimberlin taught didn’t bother Quentin a bit — unlike the Purist Nation, it seemed, the Quyth Concordia believed in educating all of its citizens.

Quentin leaned back and crossed his arms. “I understand the definition of theory perfectly, Mike. Theory means something that you think is right. It’s an educated guess.”

Kimberlin shook his head. “Not in the scientific sense. In science, a theory is a coherent set of factual observations that support a hypothesis. The concept of a theory as a guess is colloquial, you understand?”

“That depends,” Quentin said.

The big HeavyG lineman sighed again. “That depends on what colloquial means?”

Quentin smiled and nodded.

“It means casual speech,” Kimberlin said. “Colloquial meanings are what people say in everyday interactions, in common usage. Colloquial use of the word theory means a guess, but in scientific terms, a guess is better represented by the word hypothesis. A hypothesis is something that you think is right, while a theory is what you have if experiments prove that your hypothesis was correct. The theory of evolution is scientific fact, Quentin. It’s not open to debate.”

Quentin shook his head. “Well, I don’t believe it.”

Choto’s baseball-sized eye blinked rapidly, the Quyth equivalent to shaking one’s head in disbelief.

“Quentin, you are making jokes,” the Warrior said. “Please be serious — you do accept the common knowledge that all life evolved from previous forms … do you not?”

“No, I do not,” Quentin said. “And I’m not making jokes. There’s no way that one day a monkey was a monkey, and then the next, it gave birth to Human babies.”

Choto blinked faster.

Michael put his hands on the table, seemed to gather himself. “Monkeys did not give birth to Human babies,” he said. “Evolution is a gradual accumulation of small changes that take place over millions of years. If those changes provide some kind of survival advantage, it increases the chance that the individual with those changes will survive long enough to reproduce, thereby passing on those changes to the next generation.”

Quentin rolled his eyes. “You have your opinion, I have mine. I’ve never seen anything evolve, okay? Neither have you guys. I just don’t believe in the theory of evolution.”

Choto’s pedipalps twitched in annoyance. “Have you ever heard of the theory of gravity? If you do not believe in the theory of gravity, do you think you will float up into the air?”

“Well … no,” Quentin said. “But that’s different. That’s gravity, not evolution.”

“They are both theories,” Choto said, his volume increasing. “How can you think they are different?”

How could these guys be so oblivious to reality? “They’re different because I can look at my feet and see that I’m not floating. Even though I don’t know how gravity works, my own eyes tell me that it’s real.”

Kimberlin nodded. “You observe that gravity works. Very good. However, you can see that you don’t float, but you can’t see gravity. The theory of gravity is testable and predictable — if you drop something from the top of the Krakens Building, that theory will tell you exactly how long it takes for that something to hit the street.”

Quentin thought about that for a moment. One of Mike’s lessons had been about terminal velocity, how a falling object accelerated to a certain speed then accelerated no more.

“So the theory of gravity says we can predict how fast something will fall,” Quentin said. “Which means we can drop something and show that the fall matches those predictions?”

Kimberlin nodded.

Quentin tapped the table to emphasize his words. “All right, then predict that something will evolve, then show it replacing its ancestors.”

Choto started wringing his pedipalp hands. His eye swirled with violet-red, showing that he was just as frustrated as Kimberlin.

“Evolution happens too slowly for that,” Choto said. “And evolution does not replace a species — you don’t have species X on Tuesday, then on Wednesday it’s gone and species Y is in its place.”

“Well, that’s convenient,” Quentin said. “You’re saying evolution can predict stuff, but you’ll never be able to measure the results of that prediction to see if you’re right because it takes too long for it to happen.”

Choto suddenly stood up. “Michael, I have reached the end of my tolerance level regarding this discussion. Do you have any snacks?”

Kimberlin tilted his head toward the kitchen. “I bought some candied mice for you. They’re in the fridge.”

Choto walked into the kitchen.

Kimberlin rubbed his eyes. “Quentin, perhaps we will discuss evolution later. Let us switch to algebra, as you were having trouble with it last time.”

Quentin put his elbows on the table and groaned. He hated algebra. Michael knew that, which meant this was a subtle punishing for being stubborn about evolution. Quentin didn’t have to like math to know that it was one of the most important subjects a sentient could study, so he’d do the work as best he could.

Kimberlin called up a lesson on his messageboard, but instead of dreaded formulas, a football field appeared.

“Last time you had trouble with the Cartesian coordinate system, or the X/Y axis you see so often,” Kimberlin said. “Think of the X-axis as the line of scrimmage, a horizontal line, and the Y-axis as a vertical line, moving downfield or running away from the line of scrimmage. Now, let’s write a formula to plot out the positions of a defensive backfield.”


Quentin’s eyes went wide — by using football, Michael had made a difficult concept click home with just a single sentence. Quentin forgot about his annoyance at the biology lesson and silently thanked High One for the presence of such a patient and clever teacher.

? ? ?



THE TARGET AND HIS BODYGUARD walked down the streets of Ionath City. Night had fallen, turning the massive city dome into a sprawling convex of blackness. Lights lit up the sidewalks and cast moving reflections onto the passing grav-cabs, private cars and the wheeled cargo trucks that seemed to run at all hours of the day.

The agent watched. Target and bodyguard both wore plain sweatshirts with big hoods pulled up over their heads. It was both ironic and funny: ironic that the oversized individuals thought such a simple disguise could hide their identity and funny that — the majority of the time — it actually worked. Most sentients didn’t want to bother someone that big, even if they did suspect the towering individuals might be the Ionath Krakens’ star quarterback and their starting outside linebacker.

The agent slowly raised his palm. Dimmed icons floated over the skin. He tapped the ocular icon, then increased magnification and turned on the infrared overlay. It was silly, but due to the hoods he actually had to make sure they weren’t some other seven-foot-tall Human and six-foot-tall, muscle-bound block of a Quyth Warrior.

Hardware and bioware embedded in the agent’s eyes shifted and adjusted as his mods activated. He got a brief glimpse of a Human face inside the hood. The ocular implant digitized the image and fed it to the neural processor mod embedded at the base of the agent’s spine. The agent’s software didn’t access the ’Net, but rather referred to a localized database grafted into his right hip; he couldn’t risk accessing any remote servers, lest his stray signals be picked up and possibly cause his cover to be blown. The digitized images hit his processor’s analytics engine, creating an algorithm of shapes, curves, angles and distances between known points such as the inside corners of the eyes, nostril width and the outside corners of the mouth. Even though the agent’s optics caught only a shadowy bit of the target’s face, the processor did the rest and fed the data to the screen embedded in his left iris.

[QUENTIN BARNES, IDENTIFIED, 100% ACCURACY.]

The agent then looked at the Human’s bodyguard and repeated the process.

[CHOTO THE BRIGHT, IDENTIFIED, 89% ACCURACY.]

The processor had trouble with Quyth Warrior faces, but the agent wasn’t concerned — wherever Quentin Barnes went, so went Choto the Bright.

The agent stayed still, waiting until the backs of Barnes and Bright were a good block away, then he activated the recorder embedded in his jaw.

“Bright Light and Shield One leaving the home of Michael Kimberlin. Note time, location and direction of subjects. Recommend full background check of Kimberlin, Michael, age thirty-one Earth years, former employee of the Jupiter Jacks, now employed by the Ionath Krakens. Continuing surveillance.”

The agent started down the sidewalk after Barnes and Choto but froze when Choto suddenly turned around. The agent stopped walking, an instant reaction, before remembering that standing still only drew attention; he started walking again. He kept his eyes fixed on the ground, but he touched his right index finger to his right thumb three times fast, activating the camera implant in the base knuckle of that finger. He then just let his hands move normally and watched the motion-stabilized image that played in his iris-screen.

The agent tried to stay calm as he walked toward the two sentients, appreciating once again just how big they were up close. Seeing them on holocast among other huge individuals made you forget their freakish size.

He drew close to the pair, then walked past them, turning his hand slightly in order to keep watching Choto. The Warrior was looking back the way he and Barnes had come, looking all around as if he thought someone was following them.

Someone was.

The agent kept walking. He hadn’t been made. Even so, he couldn’t risk following them anymore that night. Choto was a trained bodyguard, an excellent observer and a known killer. Someday, it might come down to the agent’s superiors paying Gredok the Splithead to pull Choto away from bodyguard duty and leave Barnes exposed. A Warrior always listened to his shamakath, and Gredok always listened to money.

The agent turned down the first corner he came to, leaving Bright Light and Shield One behind. He clicked the tip of his tongue four times against the back of his teeth, activating his transmitter aug.

“Boss Four, this is Desert Sun.”

There was a brief pause, a bit of annoying static, then the high-pitched voice of a Creterakian.

“Desert Sun, your signal is clear.”

“I have to break off monitoring for now,” the agent said. “Shield One seems alert. Bright Light probably headed back to his apartment. Have Cloud Two pick up surveillance to maintain tracking continuity.”

“Understood, Desert Sun. Break off. Regain target monitoring tomorrow.”

The signal clicked off. Creterakians didn’t wait for permission.

The agent heard the flapping of leathery wings. He glanced up to see five bats soaring overhead in a tight formation. They wore ridiculous, garish, civilian clothes, but they were military: trained in espionage. The agent wanted to ask for a live feed, but that was stupid — live feeds could be intercepted, which could lead to the target learning he was under surveillance.

And besides — Quentin Barnes was a creature of habit. He was heading home and probably going to bed so he could be up early and hit the practice field before anyone else. No point in risking a blown cover for that.

The agent walked down Radius Four, lifting his palm as he did. He tapped on icons, ordering his kidney augs to start filtering out the stim he’d taken to stay alert. By the time he got back to his room, he’d be naturally sleepy. Mods could let you do just about anything, but sooner or later biological laws had to be obeyed. No need to push his body into the danger zone, not when this assignment might last months, if not years.

The Creterakian Ministry of Religion wanted to know everything that Quentin Barnes did. They wanted to monitor the growing influence of the CoQB. The CMR was nothing but analysts — when field work was required, that fell to the Non-Creterakian Intelligence Agency.

The NCIA paid the agent for this effort. And paid him well, more than a hundred times what he earned in his cover job. For that kind of money, the agent was more than happy to follow Quentin Barnes, day after day, night after night, city after city.

? ? ?



QUENTIN ROLLED LEFT, Becca out in front to block. He loved rolling out, especially left as that favored his dominant hand. A rollout let him move; instead of standing in the pocket, waiting to be hit, the defenders had to chase him down. A rollout also created more time for receivers to get open and, if the defense did catch up with him, gave him the option to tuck the ball and run — something he did exceedingly well.

His orange-jerseyed receivers ran their patterns: Crazy George Starcher in an out-route that took him on a shallow path toward the left sidelines; Milford on an in-route that took her 10 yards down the left sideline, then in at 90 degrees toward the middle of the field; and Hawick — who had lined up in the slot halfway between Starcher and Milford — on a flag pattern, where she ran 10 yards straight downfield, then angled toward the end zone’s back-left corner.


Black-jerseyed defenders worked to stop the play. John Tweedy came in fast, ready to take on Becca to get to Quentin. Virak the Mean ran with George Starcher, covering the tight end while also staying close enough to come up hard if Quentin chose to run the ball and cross the line of scrimmage. Cornerback Berea ran step for step with Hawick, while Davenport, the strong safety, had come up to cover Milford’s in-route. The defensive linemen chased after Quentin, but they were already too far behind to worry about.

Hawick turned on the jets and pulled a step ahead of Berea. Still running, Quentin gunned the ball 30 yards downfield, aiming for a spot some 25 feet above Hawick’s head. Hawick sprang high on a path that would let her extend to her full length to catch the ball, then bring her down at the end zone’s back left corner. Berea went up with her. Two long, flowing, graceful bodies — one in orange, one in black — battled for the ball, but Quentin had placed it perfectly: Hawick’s fully extended tentacles were a good three or four inches beyond Berea’s reach. Hawick snagged the ball out of the air, but Berea didn’t give up on the play — as they descended, the cornerback pulled and ripped at Hawick’s tentacles. Watching a Sklorno fall was like watching someone drop a cat; both bodies twisted and turned so they would land on their feet.

They hit the ground. Hawick landed with her right foot in the end zone’s paint: touchdown.

Berea’s effort to strip the ball made her land off-balance. She reached out with her right foot, extending it as if she thought she would land a split-second before she actually did. The foot hit, and the now-straight leg snapped in the wrong direction.

Quentin jogged to a stop, awash in disbelief. Even from 30 yards away, he could see the damage. Berea rolled on the ground, her tentacles clutching at her knee. Light from above played off the clear wetness leaking out from her black armor.

Doc Patah shot off the sidelines toward Berea, but Quentin didn’t need a doctor to know the injury was bad, bad enough to take one of Ionath’s starting defensive backs out of the lineup.

The only question was, when would she be back? No, there was a second question, a more ominous question — would she be able to return at all?

? ? ?



COACH HOKOR THE HOOKCHEST had two offices. One was up on the Touchback’s 18th deck, behind the practice field’s orange end zone. The other, where Quentin and John Tweedy currently sat, was in Ionath Stadium, just off the central meeting room.

Coach Hokor decorated his office with holoframes showing action shots of his days coaching the Jupiter Jacks, the D’Kow War Dogs and the Chillich Spider-Bears. He also had images of dozens of players: it wasn’t lost on Quentin that those players included Mitchell Fayed, Aka-Na-Tak, Stockbridge and Killik the Unworthy. He wondered if the images of players wearing the yellow and black of the Spider-Bears or the gold, silver and copper of the Jupiter Jacks had also died while Hokor was their coach.

Quentin’s favorite part of the office, however, was the old-fashioned flat pictures showing ancient coaches from football’s primitive formation: Tom Landry in his houndstooth-pattern hat, Bear Bryant surrounded by crimson-clad players in gear that didn’t look like it would stop a stiff wind and a smiling Vince Lombardi riding atop the shoulder pads of two men from the Green Bay Packers.

He loved seeing those historic images, but at the moment they brought him no joy. He and John sat in front of Hokor’s desk. The coach sat behind it, Doc Patah floating just above and behind his tiny upper-left shoulder. On Hokor’s desk, a hologram of a Sklorno’s see-through knee.

Sklorno’s thighs were composed of a pair of long, thin femurs that connected on either side of a flexible shin. At that joint, computer-drawn red lines marked cracks in the black bones.

“Berea is out for the season,” Doc Patah said. “This type of damage is a rare and unfortunate injury.”

Sklorno were far and away the fastest, most athletic species in the GFL, but they were also the least durable. There was no telling what might injure them; they could play through big hit after big hit from powerful Human running backs and Quyth Warrior linebackers, then be taken out by something that looked relatively harmless. Berea had gone airborne literally thousands of times since Quentin had joined the team. In this one instance, however, she had just landed funny — and that was that.

John reached out a finger and poked at the hologram, as if it might become solid at any moment and his touching could heal his starting cornerback. “How about next season, Doc? Can she come back?”

Doc Patah’s long pause said more than his words. “Possibly. I have successfully repaired these kinds of injuries before, when I was the chief surgeon for the Intergalactic Soccer Association, but my success rate was less than one might hope.”

The Krakens’ team doctor loved to brag about his skills. The fact that he now sounded so modest painted a picture of doom.

“Less than one might hope,” Quentin echoed. “Doc, exactly how many knee injuries like that did you operate on, and how many players made a full recovery?”

Doc again paused before answering. “I operated on sixteen such injuries,” he said. “Two were able to return to full playing form.”

John’s fist slammed down on the desktop. His jaw muscles twitched. Quentin leaned away from him, just a bit — John looked like he wanted to kill something.

Coach Hokor waved his pedipalps over the desk; the hologram blinked out.

“That is the second cornerback we’ve lost this year,” he said. “This time, one of our starters. The rookie Niami is clearly not yet first-string material, so we’ll start Vacaville in Berea’s place.”

John shook his head. “Vacaville is a backup at best, Coach. We have to trade for another corner, and fast.”

The Krakens had picked up Vacaville in free agency the year before, as a backup to Berea. Ionath’s bad luck in the defensive backfield was starting to look like the work of the Low One: first Standish had become pregnant in the 2683 season, ending her career, then Tiburon had been cut due to fading abilities brought on by age, then Stockbridge’s death in the game against the Prawatt, and now the season-ending injury to Berea.

Ten days until the regular season began. Every quality free-agent cornerback had already been signed. John was right: if the Krakens wanted to bolster their defense with a high-level corner, they had to make a trade.

“I agree,” Hokor said. “And so does Gredok. To get a starting cornerback, we have to give up a quality player. There is one position where we have a quality player sitting on the bench — at quarterback. Gredok is soliciting offers for Don Pine.”

Quentin leaned back in his chair. Gredok was a lot of things — brilliant, evil, deadly, corrupt — but one thing he was not was slow. Berea’s injury wasn’t even five hours old, and the Splithead was already trying to replace her.

And, yes, Don Pine was once again the logical choice. Where else were the Krakens deep enough to trade for a starting cornerback? Not on the offensive line; Quentin wasn’t about to give up any of the five sentients who protected him, and the backup linemen weren’t good enough to land a top-level defensive back. The Krakens had plenty of wide receivers, but Quentin also didn’t want to lose the chemistry he had developed with his pass catchers.

Don was near the end of his career. He was also a two-time Galaxy Bowl-winning quarterback, and for that experience, some teams would give up just about anything.


“Depends on who we’d get,” Quentin said. “And where he’d go.”

“We have an offer from the Mars Planets,” Hokor said. “They want to make another run at Tier One, and they feel Pine has three or even four good years left. They offered an even trade for Matsumoto.”

John leaned across the desk so fast that Hokor flinched away.

“Matsumoto,” John said. “As in, All-Pro cornerback Matsumoto? That one?”

“Correct,” Hokor said. The coach stared at Quentin. “Barnes, your thoughts?”

Quentin didn’t want to trade him for two reasons. First and foremost, Don Pine was a great insurance policy for the Krakens. In the GFL, injuries happened all the time. If Quentin went down for a game or two, Don could step in and win. If Yitzhak Goldman, the third-string QB, had to come in, that probably meant an Ionath loss.

The second reason, however, was that Quentin hadn’t forgiven Don for his cowardice. Don had let Quentin hang, let an entire galaxy think Quentin was a cheater, a tanker, a criminal. Don had done that specifically so he could keep his reputation clean, to avoid bad press that might drop his trade value. And now, because of that cowardice, Don Pine might start for the Mars Planets? No. No way.

“We can’t let Pine go,” Quentin said.

John’s jaw dropped “Q, are you crazy? Our defensive backfield is in real trouble. We lost Perth, Berea is out, Vacaville ain’t that great, and on top of that, Rehoboth isn’t playing that well at free safety. I think Sandpoint is going to beat her for the position. That gives us a weak cornerback and a rookie free safety. We won’t be able to stop anyone. Matsumoto is an All-Pro. With her and Wahiawa at the corners, we can cover any team’s number-one and number-two receivers. It’s a night and day difference, and you know that.”

Quentin did know that. If he faced a weak cornerback and a rookie free safety, he’d pick them apart all day long. Other quarterbacks would do the same.

But to let Pine go be a starter again …

“I know Pine is paid too much to be a backup,” Quentin said. “But it’s worth it — if I get hurt, do you guys really want to rely on Yitzhak?”

John shrugged. “Maybe we don’t have to rely on Zak. Becca won a whole lotta games in Green Bay. Maybe it’s time to give her a chance, see if she’s ready to be your backup.”

Becca. Since she’d earned All-Pro honors as a fullback last season, Quentin had almost forgotten about her history as a QB in the Tier Three NFL. He’d almost forgotten how she showed up to practices before anyone else, sometimes even before him, always with a ball in her hand. He’d almost forgotten about her use of the virtual practice field to keep her throwing skills sharp.

Xs and Os flashed through Quentin’s mind. If they traded Don, picked up Matsumoto, moved Becca to backup … that would make Kopor the Climber the starting fullback — he was a big drop-off from Becca, but he was still very good … that would solve several problems at once …

He shook his head. “We’re not going to take the league’s best fullback and use her as a backup quarterback, John. Her blocking is the reason your brother breaks those big runs. Without her our running game isn’t the same.” He stood up. “I’ll talk to Vacaville. She’s in the Church of … I mean … well, the church of me. Maybe I can get her to step up her game.”

Hokor’s eye swirled with black. “So if I tell Gredok that I want this trade, you will tell him not to make it?”

“That’s right,” Quentin said. He felt bad for saying it, because it would show, once again, that Gredok valued Quentin’s opinion more than Hokor’s. Hokor had lost power not to the owner, but to a player — it had to be both frustrating and humiliating.

“This is the right call, Coach,” Quentin said. “And, I also think we should move the whole team to the Touchback for the last week of preseason practice. We can get away from all distractions and really focus on the defense. We concentrate on helping Vacaville and Sandpoint, get them ready for the season. What do you think, Coach?”

Hokor hopped off his chair. “Whatever you think is best, Barnes. I’ll handle the logistics myself. Why have Messal the Efficient handle it when I am available to manage whatever tasks you assign?”

Hokor walked out of the office. Quentin watched him go, feeling a bit dumbfounded at the coach’s actions.

“Jeeze,” Quentin said. “He’s overacting a bit, don’t you think? Everything is going to be fine.”

John stood up. “As long as you get what you want, right, Q? Then everything is okay, right?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. He stormed out of Hokor’s office.

John was mad at him. Hokor was, too. Quentin didn’t like it, but being a leader sometimes meant making hard decisions. Keeping Don Pine was the best move for the team.

Wasn’t it?