The MVP

2





Contact


QUENTIN HAD MET many alien races in the past two years — Ki, the three Quyth castes, all of the Human variants, Sklorno, Dolphin, Leekee, Creterakian — but nothing could have prepared him for this.

Through the open bulkhead door, death walked in on long legs.

Quentin dared not breathe, tried to not even blink.

A Prawatt. A Walking X.

Its flexible, two-sectioned legs resembled those of a spider. The thigh and foreleg looked exactly the same, each section about two feet long, the foreleg ending in a long, slim, three-toed foot. Quentin could see through the legs in some places, as if they were a thick, shiny vapor or perhaps made from some kind of dense mesh. The thighs connected to a hard-shelled middle section shaped like a squat, thick X — also shiny but not see-through. The middle part, at least, seemed solid. From the upper parts of that middle X extended two arms that looked almost exactly like the legs, except the arms were coiled around a thin-but-deadly-looking rifle.

It had no head, just the body, the arms and the legs.

The Walking X, his people had called the Prawatt. The Devil’s Rope. Satan’s Starfish.

And to think … he’d once considered the Ki alien-looking.

? ? ?



THE CREATURE TOOK FOUR LONG STEPS into the bridge, then paused. It turned its body in a way a Human would have were that Human looking from left to right. Quentin saw small, reflective dots on the X-trunk and more of the same at the joints of the arms and legs. The Prawatt equivalent of eyes?

The Prawatt vibrated, just once, then six more of his kind strode through the door. Five walked erect, like the first, but the last one moved on all fours, further reinforcing the impression of a strange, four-limbed spider.

The five members of the Touchback crew and the four Krakens players stayed very still. Captain Kate casually swung her left foot back and forth under her command chair. She took another swig from the bottle.

The four-legged Prawatt stepped forward. Blue lines and some alien writing marked its X-trunk. Quentin’s time in the GFL had taught him that members of an alien race might all look the same at first, but there were always differences. His eyes hunted for ways to tell the individual Prawatt apart.

What would happen next? Would the Prawatt kill everyone on the bridge? Would they take prisoners?

There is a way out of this, just stay calm, stay calm and watch.

The four-legged X-Walker rose up to stand erect. “I am here to discuss your transgression,” it said. “Which one of you is in charge?” It spoke in perfect English. Quentin couldn’t see where the voice came from — did it have a mouth? Or maybe some kind of speakerfilm, like the Harrah used?

Captain Kate raised her hand. “That would be me,” she said, then took yet another sip. They could all die here, and she was getting drunk. Quentin wanted to yell at her, but he kept his mouth shut.


The blue-lined Prawatt pointed an arm at her bottle. “Put that down and stand up.”

Kate complied. She stood straight.

The Prawatt walked forward to stand before her. The intersection of its X-body was just over five feet above the deck. Its arms were pointed up and out, waving slightly, an implied threat that it might gather her in at any moment and pull her toward an as-yet-unseen mouth.

“You are in charge,” it said. “Does that mean you’re the captain of this vessel?”

Eyes wide, she nodded. “I am. I’m Captain Kate Cheevers.”

“I am Cormorant Bumberpuff, captain of the Grieve.”

Kate’s nose wrinkled in disbelief. “Bumberpuff?”

“Yes.”

“Your name,” she said. “Your name is Bumberpuff?”

“That is correct. I am the captain of the Grieve.”

Quentin watched, but he also listened. If he’d closed his eyes, the exchange would have sounded like a conversation between two Humans — one a bossy woman that slurred her words, the other a man with a metallic-tinged, Earth-like accent.

Kate eyed the bottle she’d set on the floor, then looked up again. “Look, maybe your name is Bumberpuff, or whatever the hell ridiculous name you want to call yourself, but enough with the mind games,” she said. “No military in, like, the entire galaxy would ever send a ship captain to board another vessel. That would be as dumb as, I don’t know, sending a ship captain down to the surface of an unknown planet or something.”

Bumberpuff vibrated once, the motion producing a noise from his body not unlike a rattlesnake’s rattle. “You think I would let someone else take the glory of being first?”

Kate rubbed her face. “Okay, whatever you say. You’ve got us dead to rights, after all. But what the hell is a bumberpuff, anyway?”

The Prawatt seemed to stiffen. “A Bumberpuff is the sentient who will decide if you live or die. Does that answer your question?”

Kate closed her mouth and nodded.

The Prawatt captain walked around the room, pausing for one second in front of each frightened sentient.

“You have invaded Prawatt space,” he said. “This is an act of war.”

Kate shook her head. “We were attacked by pirates. They jumped us coming out of punch-space, four small fighters launched from a support ship. We had to flee into Prawatt space just to survive.”

Captain Bumberpuff — Quentin had to admit that Kate was right, the name was ridiculous when applied to such a nightmarish creature — paused for a second. For some reason, he reminded Quentin of a dog tilting its head to listen for a command.

“I am getting reports of heavy damage to your vessel,” Bumberpuff said. “The appearance and nature of this damage would seem to support your story.”

Quentin realized that when the alien spoke, some of the silvery dots vibrated so fast they blurred. His guess had been correct — some of the dots acted just like speakerfilm.

The sinewy Prawatt took another walk around the bridge, again looked at each sentient. When he stood in front of Quentin, Quentin had to force himself to not look away. The Prawatt’s arms and legs weren’t mesh, exactly, but they were some kind of segmented or sectioned metal. And he could see through them in parts, if the light hit them just right.

The Walking X.

The Devil’s Rope.

Quentin guessed the Prawatt weighed three hundred pounds, but the apparently hollow limbs made it hard to gauge.

Bumberpuff’s body rattled again.

“You will all be taken to the Grieve,” he said. “We will interrogate you individually. Your ship will be destroyed. If our tribunal determines you were invading, you will be executed. If they determine you were fighting for survival, as you say you were, you will be delivered to a Creterakian intermediary.”

Kate smiled and let out a huge, held breath. She seemed to sag a little. “Hooo, that’s what we needed to hear,” she said. “As long as no one from the Touchback gets stupid, everyone might make it out of this alive.”

Bumberpuff turned toward her. Quentin realized there were far fewer reflective dots on the Prawatt’s back.

“The process I specified is for non-Sklorno only,” Bumberpuff said. “Any Sklorno on board will be detained indefinitely. They will not have access to a tribunal.”

Quentin’s Sklorno teammates. His friends. Hawick, Milford, Halawa, Cheboygan, all the others. Detained indefinitely by a hostile race, one with whom the Creterakians were on the brink of war, one that was suspected of destroying a passenger ship and killing fifty thousand Sklorno in the process? He couldn’t allow that to happen.

He wanted to protect them as individuals, but there was something more than just that — the Sklorno were also the team’s defensive backs and his receivers. The next Tier One season was just seven months away. If Ionath lost those players, there wasn’t time to find enough real talent to replace them. There would be no run at the 2685 championship. The Krakens would be lucky to win a single game.

He had to protect his friends, and he had to protect his franchise. Quentin drew in a deep breath — he needed to make a stand.

“Captain Bumberpuff,” he said, “this is unacceptable.”

Everything seemed to pause.

Captain Kate took a step toward him. “Barnes,” she said in a low tone. “You need to shut your mouth.”

Quentin ignored her. “Any Sklorno on this ship must come with us,” he said to Bumberpuff. “They’re not operatives or spies, they’re football players. We’re all members of a team in the Galactic Football League.”

The Prawatt turned toward Quentin. “I am familiar with your sport,” he said. “We have seen the endless broadcasts. This football is a competition for weaklings.”

They knew about football? And they — hey, wait a minute …

“Weaklings?” Quentin said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Football is the most dangerous sport in the galaxy.”

All of the Prawatt started vibrating, waves rippling across their semi-see-through legs and arms, softly reflecting the bridge’s overhead lights and the glow from the holographic Touchback.

“Dangerous,” Bumberpuff said. “Is that why you wear the combat armor? Because this dangerous game might damage your frail and delicate bodies?”

“Well, yeah,” Quentin said. “We have to, or sentients would get hurt more often.”

The alien creatures vibrated again, more intensely this time. Was this reaction some religious thing? Some sign of aggression?

Then it hit him — they were laughing. Laughing, at him.

Quentin was still afraid, but a new emotion joined the fear; he felt angry. They thought his sport was for weaklings? What would they know about it? That made him think of the holo that Kimberlin had shown him, the shaky footage of Leiba the Gorgeous and other sentients playing the Prawatt’s strange game — flying balls smashing into sentients’ heads, bone-crunching hits, beings literally dying on that black playing field. The Prawatt sport looked violent, certainly, but it wasn’t the same thing as …

That was it … that was it.

He lifted his right hand, bringing up his palm-up holodisplay. He started tapping the floating icons that appeared, working his way to his personal files.

“What are you doing?” Bumberpuff said. “Put that down.”

“It’s okay,” Quentin said. “I just want to show you something.” His fingers flew through the directory.


One of the other Prawatt stepped forward and leveled his weapon at Quentin’s face. Bumberpuff held up a long-fingered hand, a very Human gesture.

“Hold your fire,” he said. “Barnes, put that display away.”

Quentin tried not to look at the gun pointed at his head. He had to find that file …

“You were warned,” the captain said. “Execute the aggressor on the count of three. Three, two, wuh—”

The holoclip appeared on Quentin’s hand, the stadium and the players so tiny they could barely be seen. He curled his fingers and thumb around the hologram, then threw it at the glowing display of the tiny Touchback and the massive Grieve. The bridge computer read his motion and transferred the file — those images vanished, replaced by a large image of the strange alien arena.

Static and fuzz dotted the low-resolution footage, which was obviously shot with a small, personal camera and not the high-end rigs that networks used to broadcast GFL games. Sloping stadium stands surrounded the black pit of a large arena floor, on which sentients competed in a fast-moving game. Tens of thousands of Prawatt packed those stands, crammed in so tight you couldn’t make one out from the next. Spindly arms waved like black grass under a heavy wind. He saw Walking-Xs, but many other body shapes as well, the details lost in the crowd density and the poor image quality.

Quentin pointed at the holo. “That! We want that!”

Bumberpuff watched the game for a moment. The other Prawatt did as well, the closest one lowering its weapon. Alien or not, Quentin instinctively understood the reaction of a fellow athlete: the Prawatt on the bridge didn’t just watch this game, they were players.

The holo showed two seven-sentient teams battling it out. One team wore red streamers, the other, yellow. A red-team Prawatt carrying a ball leapt high into the air and started to throw. A yellow-team Prawatt leapt to block, but was too late — the ball sailed through the upper-most of three rings.

Quentin walked to the holotable and jumped up on top of it. He stood in the middle, his body distorting the footage that played across his chest and face. He spread his arms wide and stared down at Bumberpuff.

“We’ve heard that you make sentients who cross into your space play this game,” Quentin said. “If they win, they earn their freedom. So the Ionath Krakens throw down a challenge. Seven of us against seven of you. If we win, you let us go.”

Bumberpuff stayed still, but the other Prawatt moved slightly, swayed, shifted their balance from one coiled foot to the next. Quentin watched them, trying to take in as much detail as he could. Were they angry? Insulted? Or, were they excited?

Captain Kate walked to the edge of the table, put her hands on the surface. “Barnes! Get down from there, you’re going to get us killed!”

Bumberpuff walked closer. Kate backed away. The Prawatt captain stepped up onto the table to stand before Quentin, Prawatt and Human sizing each other up. Quentin felt like he was a kid again, back in the mines of Micovi, trying to look intimidating so that he didn’t have to fight some miner that was twice his age.

Bumberpuff raised his arms to their full ten-foot height. He waved them. “Your ship is impounded. You are prisoners of the Jihad. You will make no demands.”

Quentin pointed his left finger. He moved it forward slowly until it touched the center of Bumberpuff’s X-body. Quentin tapped his finger twice on the hard, cool surface, once to emphasize each word: “Shuck … that.”

Captain Kate again walked up to the table. She was shaking with rage. “Barnes, we can get out of this alive. Will you shut your mouth?”

Quentin turned to look down at her. “Cheevers, be quiet!” The words came out of his mouth as a roar, the same volume he used to call signals over the cacophony of 185,000 screaming fans. In the close confines of the bridge, his voice rang louder than he’d ever known it could. Kate leaned away, her eyes wide with surprise.

He again faced the Prawatt captain. He saw no reaction from Bumberpuff.

Quentin banged a fist against his chest. “I am the leader of this ship, not Captain Cheevers,” he said. “I am the leader of the Ionath Krakens, and I have the authority to challenge your kind. If you hurt any of my teammates, it shows that you know you can’t beat us without cheating. You can decline my challenge, you can kill us all, but we’ll die proud knowing that you took the coward’s way out because your species … is … afraid.”

The aliens stopped shifting, stopped swaying. Quentin waited, holding his gaze steady on the leader. What he had just said hit home — had he called them names? What had he been thinking? He felt the fear, but his breathing stayed normal and his face didn’t flinch; his mental battles with Gredok had taught him how to hide his emotions.

Bumberpuff shivered once. “We are far from our planet,” he said. “The travel there would take three months of Earth standard time.”

Three months? Quentin tried to imagine the distance involved. He looked to Kimberlin for an answer.

For the first time since the Prawatt had come onto the bridge, the HeavyG lineman spoke.

“The longest trip across known space is from Tower in the Tower Republic to the planet Lashan in the Rewall Association,” Kimberlin said. “That trip takes seven days.”

Bumberpuff rattled and vibrated. “Our sovereign territory is vast. From where we are now, it takes three months to reach home. You can have your game, Krakens, and if you win, we will bring you back here.”

Quentin had to think of something, and fast. The 2684 season was almost over. The Touchback had been en route to the planet Yall for the Galaxy Bowl between the Themala Dreadnaughts and the Jupiter Jacks. That game was only days away, then came seven months until the beginning of the 2685 Tier One preseason. If Bumberpuff took them to the Prawatt home planet, three months out and three months back … that would put the Krakens too close to missing those invaluable preseason practices.

He looked around the bridge, trying to find something that might give birth to an idea. Then his gaze fell on the viewport.

Their ship …

“Captain Bumberpuff, why do we need to go to your planet?”

“To play the Game,” the Prawatt said. The emphasis on the last word told Quentin that the strange sport was called simply that: the Game.

Quentin pointed out the window to the mass of gnarled black that had engulfed the Touchback. “I just saw your ship … uh … bud … or whatever you want to call it. It stuck out a huge, uh … a thing that moved out, and … ”

He couldn’t find the word. He looked to Kimberlin.

The big lineman shrugged. “Pseudopod?”

Quentin turned back to the Prawatt. “Yeah, a pseudopod, one so big it ate our whole ship. If your technology can do that, don’t try and tell me you can’t make an arena.”

The five standing Prawatt started shifting again, faster than before. The idea of creating an arena inside the massive vessel seemed to excite them.

Bumberpuff lowered his long arms. “We could make a playing field. If we allow you to play the Game, it is by our rules. And do not think that your Sklorno crew members can avoid playing, they will —”

“Kick your asses,” Quentin said. “Our Sklorno crew members will beat the crap out of the best you’ve got, send you crying home to your momma.”

Quentin let the words hang. He had no idea if Prawatt even had mommas. Or asses, for that matter.


The captain stepped closer. All of its eye-things seemed to focus on Quentin’s face.

“I have seen you on the broadcasts,” Bumberpuff said. “The captain of your ship called you Barnes. You are Quentin Barnes? From the Purist Nation?”

Quentin kept a straight face despite the utter shock of hearing that this alien not only knew who he was, but knew where he had come from. Just how much football did the Prawatt watch, anyway?

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“And you will play?”

Quentin smiled. “I will if you will.”

Bumberpuff’s body rattled, just once, from the tips of his long, black fingers down to the ends of his long, black toes.

“I accept.”

The mood of the room changed. He and his teammates were still in an infinite amount of trouble, of danger, but this wasn’t a military situation anymore. Now? Now, it was about playing a game.

And Quentin Barnes played to win.