The MVP

19





Week Seven: Shorah Warlords at Ionath Krakens



PLANET DIVISION

SOLAR DIVISION



5-0 Yall Criminals

4-1 Bartel Water Bugs



4-1 Wabash Wolfpack

4-1 Jupiter Jacks (bye)



3-2 Alimum Armada

4-1 Neptune Scarlet Fliers



3-2 Isis Ice Storm

3-2 Jang Atom Smashers



3-2 To Pirates

3-2 Texas Earthlings



3-3 Buddha City Elite

3-2 Vik Vanguard (bye)



3-3 OS1 Orbiting Death

3-3 Bord Brigands



2-3 Themala Dreadnaughts

3-3 Sheb Stalkers



1-4 Ionath Krakens

2-3 D’Kow War Dogs



1-5 Coranadillana Cloud Killers

1-5 New Rodina Astronauts



1-5 Hittoni Hullwalkers

0-6 Shorah Warlords





THE DAWN SUN LIT UP the clouds of Ionath, filling the stadium with a pink light. The Krakens were home again, preparing for their Week Seven tilt against the winless Shorah Warlords. Yet another must-win game, but preparation had to wait for a racial integration session.

A session led by none other than Ma Tweedy.

She stood at mid-field, right on top of the Ionath Krakens logo. On her left stood the four Prawatt players. On her right, the twelve remaining Sklorno players.

Ma Tweedy squinted at both sides. It was hard to tell if her eyes were actually open, but she seemed to look at each player individually.

“I hear you boys have been fighting,” she said. “Which one of you is Bumberpuff?”

The captain raised a flexible arm. “That’s me.”

Ma Tweedy curled her finger in. “Come here.”

Bumberpuff looked at Quentin. “What is this? This tiny Human woman is not an official part of the organization.”

“Do what she says,” Quentin said. “Unless you want to sit out the game against Shorah?”

Bumberpuff’s body rattled once in annoyance, then he walked up to Ma Tweedy — a spidery X-Walker standing over a four-foot-tall Human woman wearing an orange and black Krakens jacket.

She looked up at him. “You’re the leader?”

“I was the commander of the greatest warship in the history of civilization,” Bumberpuff said. “The Prawatt on this team were under my command, so yes, I am effectively their leader.”

Ma Tweedy nodded. “You’re the leader, and you get into stupid little fights?”

Bumberpuff’s body rattled. “Stupid little fights? That cricket attacked me!”

Ma pointed a finger at him. “Shushit! We do not use that kind of language here! You were attacked, but the way I heard it, Quentin knocked the Sklorno player off of you, then you came in for more, is that right?”

“Well, she was the one—”

“Shushit! Did you come in for more?”

Bumberpuff turned to Quentin. “This is ridiculous. I don’t have to stand here and listen—”

“Last warning,” Quentin said. “One more word out of you, John and I tell Coach Hokor that you need to sit this week out. Don’t you want to be on the field against the Warlords?”

Alien or not, Quentin knew Bumberpuff’s competitive streak. The sentient had left everything he knew behind to come and play football for the Krakens. If he wasn’t playing, he’d made that sacrifice for nothing.

The Prawatt turned back to Ma Tweedy. “Yes, I came in for more.”

“Ma’am.”

“What?”

“Ma’am,” she said. “Since you seem to have trouble respecting others, you call me ma’am.”

Bumberpuff’s body rattled. He hated this. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” Ma Tweedy said. She turned and squinted at the Sklorno players. “And which one of you is Vacaville?”

Vacaville jumped high. “That is me! Me-me-me!”

She waved the Sklorno forward. Vacaville sprinted in — even though it was only ten feet, she sprinted anyway. Her race knew only knew one speed: all-out.

Ma Tweedy stared at Vacaville. “Why did you attack him?”

“He is a demon! He is a devil! Evil-evil-evil!”

Ma Tweedy nodded. “And this devil also took your starting spot, did he not?”

Vacaville’s eyestalks quivered. “Yes! And he should not have! He played awful! He cost us the game against Buddha City! Devil-devil-evil kills my people! He—”

Ma Tweedy’s finger snaked out lightning quick and tapped Vacaville between her tentacles.

“Shushit!”

The Sklorno leaned back. Quentin saw that John and Ju were trying not to giggle.

Ma Tweedy waggled her finger at Vacaville. “You lost your starting spot because you weren’t good enough to play it.”

Vacaville’s eyestalks quivered again, then sagged.

Ma shook her head. “I know you’re upset about that. Anyone would be, but the game of football isn’t about making sentients feel good. It’s about winning games. You lost your spot, you can be sad about it, but it’s the way life goes.”

Vacaville’s legs wobbled as if she might collapse at any moment. “But the demons took roster spots from our sisters! And Bumberpuff did not play well! I have worked hard my whole life and waited-waited-waited for my chance to play Tier One! It is not fair to lose my spot to a monster!”

“Life ain’t fair,” Ma Tweedy said. “Get used to it.”

She slowly turned in place, affixing her squinty gaze on the other three Prawatt and the other eleven Sklorno players. “You all hate each other? You are teammates. You are Krakens. I’m not going to stand by and watch your hatred mess things up for my three boys.”

Quentin’s skin tingled with goosebumps at those words. Ma Tweedy meant it — he was just as much a son of hers as John and Ju.

Ma clapped her hands together. “No one in the Krakens organization gives a damn about your race, your wars, your religion or whatever other silly reason you’re at each other’s throats.”

John raised his hand. “Ma, the Prawatt don’t have throats.”

“Jonathan, shushit! Another word out of you and you’ll join them.”

John took one step back, then one step behind his brother.

She moved her gaze across the Sklorno and Prawatt like her eyes were machine guns leveling enemy soldiers.

“You don’t have to like each other, but you will respect each other, you will play as a team,” she said. “You all want to act like children? Then you’re going to get treated like children. Raise your hands — or tentacles, or whatever — if you were in that fight in the Buddha City locker room.”


There was a pause. All four Prawatt raised a biomechanical arm. Five Sklorno raised a tentacle: Vacaville, Cheboygan, Davenport, Wahiawa and the rookie Niami. All the guilty parties had admitted it.

Ma Tweedy waved them forward. “All of you sit here on the Krakens logo. Alternate species — Prawatt/Sklorno, Prawatt/Sklorno. Make a circle. Hurry up! I don’t have all day! My shows are on soon, and you better not make me miss them!”

The players scrambled into a sitting circle. There was something undeniable about Ma Tweedy. She wasn’t much bigger than a Ki snack, but all races seemed to react to her commands.

She’s a leader, Quentin thought. Sentients just respond to her, the same way they respond to me.

Quentin saw John and Ju elbowing each other lightly. Whatever Ma had planned, the boys had obviously been on the receiving end many times before.

Ma Tweedy stood in the center of the circle. “Now, all of you reach out a tentacle, or whatever, and hold hands.”

Eyestalks shot up. Prawatt bodies quivered.

Bumberpuff stood. “No! I will not hold hands with these bloodthirsty primitives!”

Quentin stepped forward. “Bumberpuff, that’s it. You’re out.”

“What?” he said. “Come on, Quentin! Playing against Sklorno on the field is one thing, but to touch them? In a friendly way? That’s ridiculous.”

Quentin jerked his thumb toward the locker room. “You’re out. You don’t play this week.”

Bumberpuff’s eyespots seemed to shake, catching the afternoon sun. “No! I have to play! We have to beat Shorah!”

“Too late. I warned you.”

The captain suddenly sat. “I’ll do it. I’ll hold hands.”

Quentin stared at him, then looked at the Tweedy brothers. They were laughing so hard they had to hold each other up — they weren’t going to be any help. Quentin looked at Ma Tweedy. “What do you think? Should I let him off the hook?”

She nodded. “Give him one more chance. Just one.”

Quentin shrugged. “Okay. Bumberpuff, you better do what she says.”

Bumberpuff reached out his arms and grabbed the tentacle of Niami on his right and Vacaville on his left. The Sklorno started to pull away.

Quentin stepped closer, pointing his finger at them. “Knock it off! The same punishment goes for all of you. If you don’t hold hands, you don’t dress for the game.”

There was a pause, then all nine sentients begrudgingly reached out to each other.

Ma Tweedy smiled. “Good. Now you can all stay here holding hands for the next hour, and think about how this will happen again every time you fight.”

Quentin stared, amazed — Sklorno and Prawatt alike sat there quietly. He walked over to Ju and John.

“Did Ma used to do this to you guys or something?”

Ju nodded. “Oh, yeah,” he said, wiping away tears. “John and I used to fight a lot. She’d make us sit on the front steps of our building and hold hands for hours.”

“We hated it,” John said. THINGS YOU HATE ARE ALWAYS FUNNY WHEN THEY HAPPEN TO SOMEONE ELSE scrolled across his face. “We were so embarrassed. People would walk by and laugh at us, which was bad, or they would say awww, look at those cute boys holding hands, which was worse.”

“Mega-worse,” Ju said. “If we didn’t do what she said, she’d take away privileges.”

Privileges … this was the same thing, wasn’t it? These two races wanted to kill each other, but they held hands because if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be allowed to play football. If he wasn’t seeing it with his own eyes, Quentin would have never believed it.

An elbow slammed into his shoulder.

“Here’s the good part, Q,” John said. “Just watch.”

The rest of the team came out of the tunnel. Human, HeavyG, Ki and Quyth Warrior all walked out toward the quiet spectacle. The Humans and HeavyG hooted and teased. The pedipalps of the Quyth Warriors quivered in laughter. The Ki didn’t have any reaction — to them, sentients clustering tightly together seemed perfectly normal.

Coach Hokor flew out on his hovercart. He descended into the middle of the circle. Prawatt and Sklorno both looked at him expectantly, hoping he would end the charade.

Hokor hopped out onto the painted grass. He looked at the players sitting there, holding hands. “Barnes! Is this your doing?”

Quentin was about to take the blame, but Ju spoke first.

“John and I did it, Coach! We brought you in a consultant who knows how to make sentients get along.”

Hokor looked at Ma Tweedy. She smiled and nodded at him. Hokor again stared at the seated players. His eye swirled with orange, and his pedipalps twitched once.

“Look at you all,” Hokor said. “You’re getting along like teammates. Let’s start practice with O-line versus D-line. I think we can live without our wide receivers and defensive backs for quite a while.”

Eyestalks and lenses looked to the ground — grown sentients sagging like children in trouble. John and Ju started laughing all over again, and Quentin had to fight to stop from doing the same.

? ? ?



DESPITE A SPLIT LIP, a black eye and a bruise that wrapped from his left chest, around his shoulder and all the way to his spine, Quentin felt fantastic. No matter how bad the beating, a victory always took the pain away. Most of it, anyway.

He and his teammates had run their victory lap around Ionath Stadium, high-fiving every fan that could reach over the retaining wall. He’d then gone to the locker room, taking the time to speak to each and every teammate about what they did well that afternoon. He even spoke to the players that hadn’t gotten into the game, thanking them for a great week of practice that contributed to a Krakens win. He finished up his post-game ritual with a trip to the Ki baths. Finally free of the game’s blood, dirt and blue Iomatt stains, he put on his fancy suit and followed Messal the Efficient to the press conference.

Messal led Quentin out into the media room. Orange skirting decorated with the Krakens logo hung around a black-topped table. A small podium sat in the center of the table. The smart-paper wall behind the table showed the slowly moving logos — the Krakens logo and the GFL shield, as well as advertisers like Junkie Gin, Farouk Outdoor Wear and Xibi Anti-Rad Suits. He noticed a new logo advertising a movie: Overlord Doom, Part IV.

As Quentin sat in his chair, he realized the movie featured Patuth the Muscular, who had starred in the first three movies of the series. But Patuth’s usual co-star, Gloria Wanganeen, wasn’t there. Instead of Gloria, Quentin saw a familiar face — Somalia Midori. His rock-star girlfriend was now going to be a movie star? He almost hadn’t recognized Somalia’s face; instead of a spiked Mohawk, her hair looked long, brown and soft.

Quentin realized he hadn’t talked to her in weeks. All the business with the Prawatt, preparing for games, meeting his sister, all the traveling, those things had consumed every last moment of his time. He made a mental note to call her that afternoon.

He sat in his spot at the table to the right of the podium. On the other side of the crysteel security windows sat the fifty-headed monster known as the media. These were the Krakens beat reporters, sentients from all across known space that followed every moment of the Ionath season.

Messal stood on a stool behind the podium and addressed the reporters. “Elder Barnes will now take questions regarding the Krakens’ forty-eight to forty-four win over the Shorah Warlords. Please keep your questions specific to the game. If you wish to discuss other matters with Elder Barnes, contact me through proper channels and we will schedule an interview. First question?”


The fifty-headed monster erupted, all heads calling out Quentin! Quentin! which was odd, considering that Messal was the one who picked which reporter could speak.

Messal pointed to a black-striped, blue-skinned Leekee. “Go ahead.”

The Leekee looked at Quentin. “Kelp Bringer, Leekee Galaxy Times. Quentin, your offense was unstoppable today. Six hundred and ten yards, Ju Tweedy rushed for over a hundred yards, you threw for four-fifty and set a franchise record today with six touchdown passes, breaking the five-TD-pass record set by Bobby Adrojnik in 2665. How does it feel to break Adrojnik’s record, probably the first of many you’ll break?”

As he always did at every press conference, Quentin heard the voice of Don Pine: Think before you talk. Don’t rush your answers. A pause actually makes you look smarter, more introspective.

Quentin took a breath and formulated his answer. “It’s an honor to be mentioned alongside Adrojnik,” he said. “But, I wouldn’t say I’m in his company. Adrojnik led Ionath to a GFL title. Until I do that, I’m not his equal in any capacity. Next question?”

Quentin! Quentin!

Messal pointed to a black-skinned Human. The fifty-headed monster quieted as the man stood.

“Jonathan Sandoval, Net Colony News Syndicate. The Krakens are averaging thirty-five points a game, and you’re averaging four-point-two touchdown passes per game. Through six contests, you’ve got twenty-five touchdown passes and only two interceptions. You’re making it look like a video game out there.”

“Uh … I haven’t really looked at my stats so far this season.”

The fifty-headed monster laughed, but he wasn’t joking. He’d been too busy to pay attention to stats — those numbers were insane. Sandoval was right; it sounded like something you got when playing Madden 2685 on the easiest level.

“Quick follow-up question,” Sandoval said. “How much of this offensive success do you attribute to Don Pine finally leaving the team?”

Quentin felt a surge of anxiety, but he took a slow breath and calmed himself. How ironic that Don Pine’s advice helped him relax when it was a loaded question about Don Pine himself?

He had to watch his words. Someday, maybe, he could tell the truth about Pine, about how he’d betrayed the game and his teammates, but now was not that time.

“I owe him a lot,” Quentin said. “Our successes or failures have nothing to do with Don leaving. This is Tier One football — you lose players, you gain players. Trading him brought us Denver, just in time to help us out after Hawick got hurt. The Krakens are a team, no player is more important than any other. Next question?”

Messal pointed to a Quyth Leader.

“Pikor the Assuming, UBS Sports,” the Leader said. “Quentin, you just beat a winless team at home, and barely won at that. Next week you go on the road against four-and-two Alimum, a team that’s won two straight and is vying for the Planet Division title. Do you think you stand a chance against a solid outfit like the Armada?”

If these reporters thought he’d boast or say something stupid that would provide the Armada with locker-room fodder, they were wrong. He wasn’t an ignorant rookie anymore.

“Alimum is a great team,” he said. “We need a great week of preparation if we hope to beat them. Next question.”

Quentin! Quentin!

Messal pointed to a purple-skinned Human woman with white hair. Quentin couldn’t stop himself from smiling. Once he had despised this woman, but she had risked her life to connect Quentin with his sister. With that one act of kindness, all was forgiven.

“Yolanda Davenport, Galaxy Sports Magazine. As my colleague pointed out, you’re having an amazing individual season. In fact, if it weren’t for the play of Rick Renaud, you’d be the favorite for league MVP honors. Yet despite your play, the Krakens have only two wins — that’s clearly because your pass defense is the worst in the league. Ionath just gave up forty-four points to the winless Warlords. Are those defensive struggles due to the racial conflicts between the Prawatt and the Sklorno players? There have been reports of racial slurs in the locker room and even a race-riot that injured players. If your own team can’t get along, how can you hope to avoid relegation?”

Quentin saw the fifty heads lean in closer. Leave it to Yolanda to ignore the stats and go for the hard-hitting question. How had she found out about the locker-room fight? And for once, couldn’t this woman just back off?

“We handle all issues internally,” Quentin said. “There has been an … adjustment period … with our new players. I’ll put my Prawatt teammates up against any receiver in the galaxy. I’m as proud of them as I am of my Sklorno teammates. Next question.”

The rest of the questions were fairly stupid, further evidence that most of the sentients who reported on football had no idea what it took to play the game. He answered each question slowly and carefully, thinking his answers through before speaking, but he couldn’t get Yolanda’s question out of his head — If your own team can’t get along, how can you hope to avoid relegation?



GFL WEEK SEVEN ROUNDUP

Courtesy of Galaxy Sports Network



Can anyone stop the Criminals? That’s the question being asked around the league this week after Yall (6-0) embarrassed the Isis Ice Storm (3-3) by the staggering score of 70-7 in front of a galaxy-wide audience on Monday Night Football. The 63-point margin of victory is the highest in league history.

This Criminals squad is already being dubbed “the greatest team in GFL history” and not just because of quarterback Rick Renaud. Eight different Criminals players scored touchdowns against Isis. Renaud threw for three of those. Running back Jack Townsend rushed for 151 yards and a touchdown, fullback Tay “the Weazel” Nguyen added another 112 yards and a rushing touchdown of his own. Even backup quarterback Morite Whittmore added a pair of scores, one in the air and one on the ground. The Criminals returned a punt for a TD, and linebacker Forrest Dane Cauthorn notched a pair of defensive touchdowns.

“It was the worst butt-whipping I’ve ever experienced,” said Ice Storm coach Joe Carlson. “Offense, defense, special teams, they outclassed us in every possible aspect of the game. I don’t see anyone beating Yall for the rest of the season.”

Yall is now two full games ahead of the three teams tied for second place: Alimum (4-2), To (4-2) and Wabash (4-2). Alimum beat Wabash 25-7, while To hammered defending champion Themala (2-4) by a score of 38-14.

Ionath (2-4) moved one game clear of the Planet Division relegation bubble, thanks to a 48-44 shootout over winless Shorah (0-7).

In the Solar Division, Bartel (5-1) continued its charmed season with a 24-14 home win over the Jupiter Jacks (4-2). Coming into the week, Bartel, Jupiter and Neptune (5-1) were all tied for first in the division. Neptune remains tied for first thanks to a 24-14 win over Jang (3-3).

“This proves we’re for real,” said Bartel owner Fish Fin Chewer. “Halfway through the season and we’ve lost only one game. We won’t accept anything less than the playoffs.”

Jupiter falls into a third-place tie with Vik (4-2). With 15 seconds to play, Vanguard linebacker Mur the Mighty sacked Texas QB Case Johanson, forcing a fumble that she also recovered. Vik kicked a field goal as time expired, winning 27-24 over the Earthlings (3-3).

With the season half gone, the relegation race is starting to heat up. Coranadillana (1-5) and Hittoni (1-5) are in trouble in the Planet, while Shorah (0-7) and New Rodina (1-6) both face difficult times in the Solar.


Deaths

No deaths reported this week.

Defensive Player of the Week

Yall Criminals middle linebacker Forrest Dane Cauthorn, who had six solo tackles, ten assists, one fumble return for a touchdown and one interception return for a touchdown in the Criminals 70-7 blowout of the Isis Ice Storm.

Offensive Player of the Week

Alimum running back Dave Frizzell, who carried the ball 22 times for 109 yards and three touchdowns in the Armada’s 25-7 win over the Wabash Wolfpack.