The MVP

4





The Game


QUENTIN FACED the Touchback’s tall, broad shuttle bay doors. He closed his eyes and said a brief prayer — just because he no longer followed the corrupt Purist religion didn’t mean he’d lost faith in High One.

We need you now more than ever. Give me strength so that I don’t fail my teammates.

Yellow lights flashed, a warning that manually opening the doors would result in an explosive decompression. Normally these doors opened to the vacuum of space — certain death for anyone who wasn’t inside a shuttle or beyond the airlock that led into the rest of the ship. The Prawatt had said the Touchback was fully enclosed, that this was safe, but were they telling the truth?

He would find out soon enough.

Becca stood on his left, Yassoud on his right. Behind them stood Stockbridge, Mum-O-Killowe, Halawa and Cheboygan. All wore their orange jerseys: it was an away game, after all.

Quentin wore workout pants, his armored football shoes and his orange #10 jersey, but no armor on his legs, no shoulder pads and no rib guards. He wore no helmet. The jersey material felt odd against his bare skin because he wasn’t even wearing his Koolsuit. The Prawatt had ruled out any armor or temperature-modification materials.

Most of the team had gathered in the shuttle bay, a show of unity before the seven headed out onto whatever field awaited. Quentin looked up to the ever-present holographic phrase that floated twenty feet above the shuttle bay’s deck: THE IONATH KRAKENS ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH A TIER ONE CHAMPIONSHIP. THE ONLY VARIABLE IS TIME.

Through the holo, up near the top of the shallow dome’s support girders, he saw movement. Was that … Tara the Freak? Of course, who else would be up there. The mutant Quyth Warrior’s life had improved somewhat from when he arrived at the beginning of the ’84 season. He’d solidified his place on the team, become a key part of the offense. Most players accepted him, although his fellow Warriors still treated him like garbage. Aside from George Starcher, Tara had few friends and preferred to be alone. As far as Quentin was concerned, Tara had earned the right to spend his time however he liked.

Quentin looked to the left, to the airlock doors that led further inside the Touchback. If anything went wrong, there was no point in the entire team dying.

“Everyone, get back inside the airlock,” he said. “Just in case.”

John Tweedy stepped out from the other players. YOU’RE NOT THE BOSS OF ME scrolled across his face. “Shuck you, Barnes. If y’all get sucked into space, we’re going with you.”

The rest of the team stood with John — they weren’t leaving. Quentin looked to the right, to George Starcher standing beside an open panel labeled EMERGENCY RELEASE. Inside the panel, a handle glowed red. Was it ironic that now George would open the shuttle bay doors and possibly send his teammates to their deaths, instead of using the same device to kill himself, as he had tried to do just a few weeks ago? Maybe, but Quentin wasn’t really sure about the difference between irony and coincidence. Or stupidity, for that matter.

Quentin nodded to George. George grabbed the glowing handle and lifted it.

Metallic rattling sounds reverberated through the domed space. The shuttle bay doors started to separate. For an instant, just when that vertical seam first appeared, Quentin held his breath — as if that could help him survive the vacuum of space. Then the doors opened enough for him and his teammates to see what waited on the other side.

He felt a tug on his left jersey sleeve.

“Quentin,” Becca said. “I don’t know about this.”

The shuttle bay doors opened onto the playing field, a huge, oblong surface surrounded by a twenty-foot-high black wall. The curving wall had that same knotted-tree-root texture Quentin had seen plugging the holes in the Touchback’s hull. Atop those walls, waving arms and black bodies filled steeply sloping stands. A horrific sight. Many of them had the familiar X-bodies, but there were other shapes, bizarre shapes he couldn’t quite make out amongst the waving, undulating throng. How many individuals were in those stands? Fifty thousand? A hundred thousand? He couldn’t tell.


Quentin walked out onto the playing area. His six teammates followed. One hundred and fifty yards long from end to end, about sixty yards wide at the middle where a yellow line divided the arena floor into two equal halves. Quentin’s left foot stood on one side of that line, his right foot on the other. In the center of the arena, the line intersected a ten-foot-diameter circle painted the same yellow. At either end of the floor floated three five-foot-diameter rings: one ring about ten feet high, one about fifteen, and the top ring about twenty feet above the surface.

Movement from high up: a hundred feet over their heads, the arena ceiling wiggled and undulated like an endless black mass of sea anemones. Thousands of Prawatt clung there, looking down on the field below.

Quentin tested the footing. The surface felt firm, yet slightly giving, like hard rubber. He stopped and turned to look back at his ship.

The Prawatt vessel’s black material had engulfed the Touchback. All Quentin could see of his ship’s exterior was the opening into the shuttle bay, some twenty feet high and forty feet wide, and a bit of the orange hull on either side. When those doors shut, they would be part of the arena wall.

He had never seen his ship’s exterior this close up. From a shuttle, the Touchback’s surface always looked smooth as glass. From just a few feet away, however, he saw the dents and the dings, the pits and scratches, fifty years worth of wear and tear hidden beneath the orange paint.

Quentin looked at his teammates. He took in their bright orange jerseys with white-trimmed black numbers and letters. Becca, the HeavyG woman; Yassoud, the Human man with his stiff, braided beard; Mum-O-Killowe, six feet of his six-hundred-pound body parallel to the ground, six feet rising up; and finally Halawa, Stockbridge and Cheboygan. All three of the Sklorno wore their orange jersey and nothing else, exposing their see-through bodies, showing the clear blood coursing through their flesh and the black bone that gave them their form.

Quentin stepped toward his teammates, and they stepped toward him. They gathered close, the only spots of color in a sea of black.

He noticed something falling from up above. Seven bodies dropped from the ceiling, seven Devil’s Ropes each trailing bright blue streamers. He watched the descent, wondered if they would smash into the black surface and die, but they landed and stuck like big cats, flexible legs and arms absorbing the impact.

Quentin looked at his teammates. “That was a hundred-foot fall, and they’re fine,” he said. “If you throw them, you won’t hurt them. If we want to put them down for good, we will have to slam them into the ground.”

Becca nodded. “Or put them into the wall, just like hockey.”

Yassoud flashed her a funny look. “Hockey? What is that?”

She shook her head. “It’s an Earth thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

The seven Prawatt lined up on the yellow mid-field circle. They each reached one flexible arm in, locked their slim fingers together, then ran around the circle, a black pinwheel marked by their trailing, bright blue streamers. They broke the circle and lined up single file along the mid-field line. They waited.

Quentin knelt on one knee. The others gathered around him. “Krakens, this is real,” he said. “Every second of this game, remember that the lives of our teammates depend on what you do today. Play to win … and play mean.”

He stood. Together, they walked to mid-field. The seven Krakens lined up along the yellow line, each standing face to face with an opposing Prawatt. In the very center of the alien arena, Quentin Barnes faced off against starship captain Cormorant Bumberpuff.

“Welcome,” Bumberpuff said. “You have familiarized yourself with the rules of the Game?”

Quentin nodded. “Put the ball through any of the three hoops, that’s ten points. After a goal, the scoring team returns to mid-field and the scored-upon team takes possession. We’ll figure out the rest as we go.”

“Good enough,” Bumberpuff said. “There are two halves of twenty minutes each. High score wins, not that the final score will matter — most of your team won’t make it through the Game alive.”

Quentin smiled. Again he had that strange feeling that if he closed his eyes, he’d be talking to a Human — a Human that was talking smack. Maybe it was true that the Prawatt had originated on Earth.

The Krakens turned and jogged back to a yellow line that ran from side to side about ten yards in front of the three vertical rings. That line paralleled both the horizontal mid-field line sixty-five yards away, and sixty-five yards beyond that an identical line in front of the Prawatt rings.

The arena crowd started making a hissing noise, like ten thousand poorly tuned violins each making a different, off-key note. From the ceiling a hundred feet above, something descended on a black cable. This creature was much larger than Captain Bumberpuff or the other X-Walkers. It had six triple-jointed limbs and had to weigh at least a ton. It landed inside the center circle, then placed three spheres on the mid-field line — a gold one the size of a basketball and two smaller red ones on either side of it.

Quentin pointed to the balls and shouted to his teammates. “Those red balls fly, they move on their own. They can strike at any time, so keep your head on a swivel. Mostly they target the sentient carrying the gold game-ball. If you don’t have the game-ball, be ready to protect the player that does.”

“Wait a minute,” Yassoud said. “In this game, even the ball is trying to kill us?”

Quentin nodded. He saw that Becca, Stockbridge and even Mum-O-Killowe were looking into the crowd, lost in the strange spectacle of sprawling black.

He clapped three times to get their attention. “Get your damn heads in the game! After we win you can take in the sights all you want.”

The big creature at mid-field turned what had to be a head toward Quentin.

“Krakens,” it said in a powerful voice that echoed through the arena. “Are you ready?”

It was now or never. He and his teammates could do this, they had to do this. He cupped his hands to his mouth. “The Krakens are ready!”

The creature turned to face the other way. “Harpies, are you ready?”

The Harpies? Bumberpuff had an organized team? This might be even harder than Quentin had thought.

He heard Bumberpuff’s distant voice: “The Harpies are ready!”

Quentin dropped into a three-point stance, digging the toes of his shoes into the firm footing. His teammates did the same.

The huge creature at mid-field raised four strange limbs high into the air, then dropped them sharply as it screamed: “Let’s get it on!”

Quentin and the Krakens shot forward. Before they made it three steps, the two red balls zipped up into the air. Cheboygan and Halawa sprinted for the gold ball still sitting at mid-field. Quentin, Yassoud and Becca ran behind them, Mum-O-Killowe scurrying on his six legs to bring up the rear. Stockbridge stayed back, ready to guard the rings.

The oncoming Prawatt didn’t run, they rolled, pinwheeling on their extended arms and legs so fast they looked like a spinning disc. So much speed!

Cheboygan and Halawa reached mid-field about the same time the Prawatt did, creating a brief six-on-two mismatch. The two species slammed into each other. The slinky, black X-creatures hit with coordination, two of them on each Sklorno, driving the Krakens players hard to the ground.

Captain Bumberpuff scooped up the gold ball. Holding it seemed to stop him from pinwheeling, but his two long, flexible legs still gave him blistering speed. He cut to his right, an echoing army of broken violins screeching in support.


Quentin ran left to cut off the captain’s path and force him back to the middle of the field. A blur of red — one of the free-floating balls dive-bombing Bumberpuff, who held up the golden game-ball in a snap reaction. Red bounced off gold, then jetted away to find another victim.

Quentin closed in. Becca was to his right, Yassoud to his left, the three of them eliminating any angle the captain might have. Bumberpuff ran straight in and leaned forward for a head-to-head hit. Quentin leaned forward himself, lip curling back in a sneer, big arms wide and already starting to crush together.

Just before contact, the captain leapt. The black X-body shot twenty feet overhead as Quentin fell face-first into the hard, gnarled surface. He bounced off and scrambled to his feet in time to see Bumberpuff land lightly and run straight for the rings, straight toward Stockbridge.

The Sklorno cornerback knew how to play a leaping opponent. She jumped right after the captain did, timing it so she would keep her body between the Prawatt and the rings before hitting him in mid-air. Just before their contact some fifteen feet above the surface, Bumberpuff tossed the game-ball to the right, where another airborne Prawatt caught it, landed, then jumped untouched through the highest hoop.

Harpies 10, Krakens 0.

The violin hissing grew so loud Quentin covered his ears. When he did, he felt the blood sheeting his face. How embarrassing — his first wound caused not by a smash-mouth collision, but by a fancy move that made him look like a fool.

The Prawatt team ran to the mid-field line. Quentin raised his hands, curled his fingers in repeatedly, calling his teammates to huddle up.

A wide-eyed Yassoud shook his head in amazement. “Damn! Did you see how those guys move?”

“Shut it,” Quentin said. He looked at the stunned faces of the Krakens. Clear blood dripped from the base of one of Halawa’s three eyestalks. Cheboygan held a tentacle against her hip, where she’d taken a hard hit.

“They’re fast,” Quentin said. “So what? We deal with speed every game. It’s not like you all haven’t played against sentients that can leap. Becca, how do you take out a leaping Sklorno?”

“Time her arc,” Becca said. “Once they’re airborne, they can’t change direction or speed, so hit them as the come down and light ’em up.”

Quentin nodded. “That’s right. If they want to play the vertical game, we have to punish them when they land. A couple of big hits will slow them down just fine.”

He pointed to the Touchback’s closed, orange doors. “That is our ship. That means this is our house. Let’s play ball. Ready?”

The team leaned in around him, the seven of them barking out the word “break!” before they lined up on their horizontal stripe.

Since they had been scored upon, they got to take the ball out from their own goal. Quentin tossed the hollow gold ball from hand to hand, feeling its weight, its roundness.

“Cheboygan, you stay on my right,” he said. “Keep one eyestalk on me at all times. No matter what position I’m in, be ready for a pass.”

She didn’t have to answer; he knew she would do as she was told.

“Cheboygan and Halawa, go wide, draw defenders away from me,” Quentin said. “The rest of us, fall in behind Mum-O. Mum-O, show these crawlies what it means to get hit by a Ki.”

The monstrous official scurried out to mid-field. Its voice echoed through the arena, audible even over the hissing crowd. “Krakens! Are you ready?”

Quentin held the ball in his left arm, cupped his right hand to his mouth. “The Krakens are ready!”

The official whipped its arms toward the ground. “Then let’s get it on!”

Six Krakens rushed forward from their goal line, six Prawatt pinwheeled off the mid-field line to meet them.

Mum-O-Killowe took the lead. Slow but big, he formed the point of the attack, Yassoud on his left, Becca on his right, Quentin just behind. Cheboygan flared right, Halawa left, each drawing a defender to cover them. The four remaining Harpies barreled in at high speed. As the two sides collided, Mum-O grabbed the first Prawatt, lifted it, then smashed it into the ground. Bits of black material scattered. Quentin wasn’t sure if they came from the playing surface or from the Prawatt itself.

Captain Bumberpuff jumped high, arcing over Mum-O. While he arced down, Yassoud shifted direction and ran to the spot where the Prawatt would land. Quentin slowed, giving Yassoud room. The same instant as the captain’s feet hit the surface, ’Soud blasted the Prawatt — Bumberpuff tumbled to the right in a tangle of arms and legs. Quentin cut left, looking for open space. Another Prawatt barreled in, black arms whipping forward, blue streamers trailing behind.

Quentin’s hyper-processing mind saw Cheboygan fifty yards downfield. He stopped and threw, getting the pass off before the pinwheeling Prawatt tucked its arms and legs in tight and delivered a crushing impact. Quentin landed hard, then rolled to an elbow and watched the pass. He’d thrown up high, where only a Sklorno could get it. Cheboygan leapt, graceful and strong for her thick size —

— but her Prawatt defender went right up with her. It extended its black arms and grabbed the golden ball. Interception.

Quentin banged a fist against the ground. “Are you kidding me with this?”

The Prawatt landed before Cheboygan did, then rushed toward the Krakens’ goal. Becca tried to cut it off, backpedaling to time the creature’s leap, but a red ball flew in out of nowhere and hit her in the back, launching her face-first into the gnarled surface.

“Becca!” Quentin ran to her, ignoring the ball carrier. He knelt by her side as she rose to her knees, bleeding from the forehead.

The crowd roared its violin roar.

She did not seem happy. “They scored?”

Quentin looked back to see the Prawatt Walking-Xs celebrating in the Krakens’ zone. Harpies 20, Krakens 0.

She punched him in the shoulder. “Why didn’t you defend?”

“I … I thought you might be hurt.”

She stood. “I can take as good as I give, Barnes, you got that? Worry about winning the game, not about me.”

Her eyes blazed white and blue from behind skin streaked with flowing rivulets of red. How had he forgotten that Becca “The Wrecka” Montagne was an All-Pro fullback, not some delicate flower?

He nodded. “Yeah, Becca. Sorry.”

Down by 20, the Krakens jogged back to their zone. The team gathered around him, waiting for strategy. They had no experience playing this game; they couldn’t afford to fall further behind. Quentin needed a strategy that played to Ionath’s strengths.

“Surprise, they can defend the pass,” he said. “Let’s find out how they defend the run. We get behind Mum-O and drive forward until they have to bring everyone they have to stop us — then we use short, fast passes to keep the ball moving. Got it?”

His teammates nodded. They didn’t look shell-shocked anymore — they looked angry.

He smiled at them. “Hey, there’s the Krakens I know and love! You all finally figure out this is just another game?”

Heads nodded, Sklorno jumped and Mum-O grunted something that was probably obscene.

? ? ?



LONG BLACK FINGERS WRAPPED around his neck and his bicep. His right hand locked onto the cold metal of an X-body arm, holding off the 350 pounds as best he could, keeping his left hand free. As he fell, Quentin threw the golden ball to Cheboygan, who was sprinting across the floor in front of the rings. She caught the ball in stride just as the Prawatt goalie hit her full-speed and held on, but Cheboygan kept moving forward, too big to be easily brought down. The rookie receiver flipped the ball behind her, where Yassoud caught it and threw it in the same motion. The ball sailed through the undefended goal, and the Krakens were finally on the board.


? ? ?



THE HARPIES SCORED to go up 30-10. The Krakens again answered, but the points came at a cost. Cheboygan’s left tentacle hung limp and useless. Quentin moved her to goalie and brought Stockbridge out to fight on the field. His team lined up on the yellow mid-field stripe as the Harpies stood on their own goal line, waiting to bring the ball out.

The six-legged official dropped down to the field. Quentin tried not to look at the creature but knew the ref would haunt his nightmares for weeks to come. The official asked both teams if they were ready, then shouted “let’s get it on” and the game was once again under way.

Running behind a wall of five Prawatt, Bumberpuff carried the golden ball. The red balls swirled around both teams, waiting for whatever unknown signal that caused them to attack.

Stockbridge hadn’t run much, so she was fully rested. She shot forward, pulling ahead of even Halawa. Quentin started to shout at Stockbridge to slow down, to wait for her teammates, but with all the violin hissing she wouldn’t have heard anyway. Like an orange missile, Stockbridge drove into the Harpy wall. She knocked the first Prawatt to the ground, but the next two smashed her backward. She hit, rolled, then popped up just as Bumberpuff raised the game-ball to deflect a streaking bit of red.

A streaking bit of red that ricocheted off at a sharp angled and hit Stockbridge in her hairy head.

She sagged more than she fell, a limp pile of tentacles and eyestalks. Captain Bumberpuff broke right. Becca dove for him, but he hopped over her and sprinted for the rings. Quentin angled to cut him off. Bumberpuff threw the ball to his right, across the field, where a teammate caught it and dove toward the lowest ring. Cheboygan leapt to block, but she had no forward momentum — the Prawatt slammed into her, knocking them both through the ring and putting the Harpies up 40-20.

? ? ?



STOCKBRIDGE DIDN’T GET UP. Quentin and the Krakens stood over her. Cheboygan knelt next to her, touching her lightly, trying to ascertain the level of injury.

Quentin felt the playing surface vibrate. He looked up to see the six-legged monstrosity of a ref walking toward them.

“The Krakens player rises on her own power,” the ref said, “or she must leave the game until she re-enters without assistance.”

Quentin looked at his fallen teammate, tried to control his rage. In a violent, high-impact game, a game without padding, someone was bound to get hurt. But in truth this wasn’t a “game” at all, it was a fight for survival. When the Krakens won, he hoped Stockbridge would be conscious to enjoy the victory.

“Take her to the Touchback,” he said. “She’s out.”

Becca and Halawa gently put Stockbridge on Mum-O’s back. Quentin ran to the Touchback and banged on the huge doors. After a pause, they opened enough for Doc Patah to flutter out. Other Krakens took Stockbridge and carried her inside. The doors rattled as they slid shut.

The Game did not allow for subs. The Krakens were now one player down.

Quentin walked back to the Krakens’ goal line. His teammates gathered around him. They seethed with fury, just like he did.

“I’ve had enough of this,” he said. “The Prawatt know how to play this game, but we are among the best athletes in the galaxy. Time to change tactics.”

He turned to Becca. “In the Purist Nation, we invented this game called basketball. You ever hear of the give-and-go?”

She laughed and shook her head. Her lip curled into a cocky smile he hadn’t seen on her face since she’d killed North Branch. Blood pulsed from her broken nose, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Barnes, the Purists didn’t invent basketball, and I can prove it — if we make it out of this alive, I will dunk all over your sorry ass. So, yeah, I’ve heard of the give-and-go. I know what to do.”

He tossed the gold ball from hand to hand as the Krakens stood on their goal line. They’d lost Stockbridge, but he knew, now more than ever, that the Harpies could be beat. He tucked the ball under his left arm, tapped out a quick ba-da-bap on his stomach, then the big ref started the game.

Five Krakens sprinted forward. Six Prawatt pinwheeled across the pitch to meet them. Mum-O and Yassoud rushed forward to block. Bumberpuff and one other Prawatt came around them, closed in on Quentin at mid-field. Before they hit him, he snapped the ball to his right, to Becca, and kept moving forward. The captain’s attention followed the ball, letting Quentin sprint past him.

When Quentin looked right, the ball was already in the air — Becca had caught and thrown in the same instant. The ball practically vanished in Quentin’s thick hands. His feet chewed up the yards. Bumberpuff was faster — Quentin’s mental clock tracked where the captain would be, how long it would take before Prawatt arms wrapped around Human legs.

Another Prawatt rushed head-on at Quentin — big mistake. Quentin shot his right hand forward in a stiff-arm move. He grabbed the Prawatt’s arm where it met the X-body, then lifted and threw, tossing the 350-pound sentient aside like so much trash.

He saw Halawa running free off to his right. Quentin closed in on the goal-rings — he had only a second or so before Bumberpuff brought him down from behind. Quentin reared back for a throw at the bottom ring. He snapped his hand forward, the goalie leapt high to block — but Quentin didn’t let go of the ball.

As the goalie rose up, unable to change its trajectory, Quentin whipped the ball behind his back, to the right. The ball sailed across to Halawa, who caught it and jumped, arcing untouched through the top ring.

Goal. Prawatt 40, Krakens 30.

? ? ?



THE KRAKENS HAD FIGURED out how to play the game and had tied it up at 50-all, but down a player, the Harpies still held a significant advantage. A big hit sent the ball sailing into the stands and out of play. The ref stopped the game, giving possession to the Krakens — the next time that happened, it would go to the Harpies, with possession alternating each time.

Quentin held the gold ball, waiting for the ref to restart the game. His teammates gathered around him. He coughed, feeling his ribs scream in complaint. He hoped they weren’t broken. Doc Patah wasn’t allowed to come out and do the sideline repairs Quentin and his teammates had become so accustomed to. No bone fuses, no skin seals, no nanocyte bandages, no lung re-inflations — in the Prawatt Game, you played as is.

He knelt. Five heads closed in above him.

“We lost a player, and that’s hurting us. We have to even the odds. Becca, I need you to take a hit, and you have to sell it.”

Quentin traced his torn fingertip across the hard surface, using his own blood to draw out a play as if he were a child and this was a dirt patch back on Micovi. “Yassoud, you line up here. Becca, you cross here, and Yassoud, you block her defender. When Becca goes here, I throw to her. She takes a hit, gives up the ball. We actually want that, because Mum-O will be here. Everyone got it?”

Tired heads nodded, but Mum-O made a strange, repeating noise — the big Ki was laughing.

The Krakens lined up. On the ref’s signal Quentin rushed forward, two teammates on his left, two on his right, Cheboygan staying back to defend the goal.

He slowed, letting his teammates run ahead of him. Becca crossed the mid-field line, then broke right. Her defender stayed a step behind her but fell hard to a big block from Yassoud. That left Becca wide open, but Quentin waited, waited until another defender started over to cover her. Then he threw, knowing that she was going to get hurt but also knowing this had to be done.


He’d thrown it higher than he needed to, forcing her to reach up, exposing her body. Just as her hands closed on the golden ball, the Prawatt slammed into her ribs, rocking her back in a head-snapping hit. The golden ball sailed free and bounced off the pitch. The Prawatt who hit her changed direction and scrambled after it.

Just as the Prawatt’s black fingers closed on the golden orb, its Game ended forever.

Mum-O had used the fumble as a distraction to close in. The Ki’s body fully compressed, going from twelve feet, six inches to a dense, compact four feet long from head to rear. It suddenly extended, six hundred pounds of angry Ki shooting out like a battering ram. The Prawatt’s arms and legs disintegrated in a cloud of spinning metallic bits. Its X-body spun away down the pitch in a mad, bouncing cartwheel.

The crowd let out a strange, unified squeal.

Yassoud scooped up the loose ball and ran wide right. Two Prawatt closed in on him fast, but he was ready — just as they tackled him, he threw the ball forward. It bounced once, then Cheboygan scooped it up with her one good tentacle. She had left the Krakens’ rings unguarded to rush out as a surprise player that the Harpies hadn’t expected. Prawatt chased her, but they were a step too slow.

The big rookie Sklorno closed in on the goalie — it would be a one-on-one challenge. The X-Walker goalie danced from foot to foot, trying to guess what deft move Cheboygan would throw before she leapt for the rings.

But Cheboygan didn’t try to make a move. The 360-pound Sklorno ran the goalie right over, stomping her foot down on its chest for good measure as she jumped through the lowest ring.

The score gave the Krakens their first lead of the game, and now — unless that shattered Prawatt could somehow reassemble itself — the two sides had the same number of players.

? ? ?



BOTH TEAMS HAD SIX PLAYERS remaining. In the second half, momentum quickly swung in the Krakens’ favor. Constant hitting and smashing started to slow the Prawatt down. Without their speed advantage, they could do little to stop the bigger, stronger Human, Sklorno and Ki players. When the ref called full time, the Krakens had defeated the Harpies by a score of 120 to 80.

The Game was over. The violin hissing continued, but at a lower pitch — maybe the home crowd was booing, Quentin didn’t know. He set the golden ball inside mid-field circle. He wiped the blood from his face, then flung his hand at the ground to splatter wet red on the black playing surface. They’d won, but at such a cost.

Captain Bumberpuff walked up to him, limping a little. A vicious hit had bent his lower left leg, tearing small holes in the semi-see-through material. Tiny pieces of metal flaked off as he walked, leaving a trail in his wake — and some of those pieces were moving. The leg seemed to be crawling with little black bugs, some that pulled off broken bits and tossed them away, others that swarmed into the holes, filling them, repairing them.

“Barnes,” the captain said, “you have won your freedom.”

Quentin nodded. “Thank you for giving us the chance to play.”

“Did you enjoy the contest?”

Enjoy it? It was a good thing that being so exhausted helped him control his temper. “No, I didn’t,” he said, but he knew that wasn’t entirely true. A life-and-death battle in an alien arena? Such were the things of childhood fantasies. He’d not only lived through the ordeal, he’d emerged victorious.

“We won,” he said. “That means we’re free. When can my ship leave?”

Bumberpuff rattled slightly. “No alien team has ever won before. Our kind will want to meet you.”

That word again, alien, but it applied to Quentin. No matter how many races he met, he would never get used to the fact that for all but Humans, he was the alien.

Quentin shook his head. “I appreciate that, Captain, but we have to get back.”

Bumberpuff said nothing for a moment. As odd as it seemed, Quentin could tell the creature was at a loss for words, as if it never occurred to him that someone wouldn’t want to meet more Prawatt.

“We will repair your ship,” he said finally. “We will deliver you back to the Sklorno border sometime after that.

Sometime, but he didn’t say how long that would be. Was Bumberpuff going back on his word? Were the Krakens still in mortal danger? Quentin couldn’t afford to press the captain — all he and his teammates could do was wait and see if Bumberpuff would honor the agreement.

Quentin looked to his right, at a pile of bug-like metal bits surrounding a battered, legless and armless X-body. The bright blue streamers still affixed to that body lie limp, trampled and torn.

“I’m sorry about your teammate,” Quentin said. “Can you, uh, fix him?”

“No. His reality has ended. Do not worry, Smooklegroober died happy.”

The boogeymen of the galaxy, the mysterious monsters that struck fear into all other races, they had names like Bumberpuff and Smooklegroober.

“Smooklegroober? That was his name? Seriously?”

“Of course,” the captain said. “A warrior’s name. Know that Smooklegroober died facing the greatest team the Prawatt have ever played. Our contest will be watched over and over again by billions of our kind, from infant crawlers to explorers to the ancient forms. My race underestimated the toughness of you gridiron players.”

“That you did,” Quentin said. “Listen, I mean no disrespect, but I need to check on my teammates.”

“I understand,” the captain said. “You have earned my admiration, Quentin Barnes. I will enter your name and face into the collective consciousness of our species. You will be able to pass freely through Prawatt space at any time. Please consider coming to the home planet to play the Game again.”

Captain Bumberpuff offered a tattered, three-fingered metal hand. Quentin shook it — cold metal, but also moving with life — then ran for the Touchback’s open shuttle bay. The rest of his teammates had already entered. The big doors rattled as they closed behind him.

The holographic letters floating in the curved bay roof glowed down on a hastily assembled triage area. Three portable med tables sat in the center of the shuttle bay, surrounded by equipment, IV racks and portable rejuve tanks. Most of the Krakens who hadn’t played in the game were packed in around the middle table — Quentin knew that Stockbridge lay behind that wall of bodies.

Becca sat on the right-most table. She held a small bone sculptor against the bridge of her nose and stared off into the distance. Yassoud lie on the left-most bed, a few tubes running into his arm. He smiled at Quentin, flashed a thumbs-up — Yassoud was fine. Cheboygan stood a little to his right, her tentacle dipped into the pink fluid of a rejuve tank.

Quentin walked up to the middle table. Teammates saw him coming and made room. Sure enough, Stockbridge lay there, tubes of clear fluid connected to her body. Her jersey had been cut away to make room for Patah’s efforts. The Prawatt’s hit had crushed her chest. Her left tentacle dangled almost to the floor. Her right tentacle was curled up on her body, spasming and twitching. Two of her eyestalks lie limply on the table. The other two stared at Quentin with undeniable reverence.

Doc Patah floated next to her, his wings slowly undulating to keep him in place. He wasn’t working on her … why wasn’t he working on her?

The Harrah turned to face Quentin. “She has been holding on until she could talk to you.”


Holding on? “But, Doc, you’re right here … help her.”

Doc Patah’s sensory pits flexed, alternately widening, then tightening. “There is nothing that can be done,” he said. “I am sorry.”

Something twinged in Quentin’s throat. This wasn’t possible. Doc Patah could fix anything.

Quentin looked down at Stockbridge. He noticed — for the first time — that she wore a chain around her neck, a chain that held a small, orange-and-black medallion. The medallion showed Quentin’s profile: the symbol of the church founded in his name.

Along with Milford, Stockbridge had spent her off-season proselytizing his name, converting hundreds of thousands of Sklorno into followers of the CoQB. For seven seasons with the Krakens, she had played hard. Even when her skills started to fade, she embraced her backup role and did anything she could to further Ionath’s championship quest. When Quentin had asked her to join him in the Prawatt arena, she hadn’t hesitated, she hadn’t flinched. He had never been close with her, but for three seasons Quentin and Stockbridge had been teammates.

And now her story would end.

Stockbridge lifted a clear, spasming tentacle, reached it toward him. He held it, felt the firm, pliant texture of her ghost-like flesh.

“I’m sorry,” Quentin said.

“There is no sadness in me, Quentinbarnes,” said the battered Sklorno. “I served his holiness well?”

She was dying, and she still thought he was some kind of a god. A real god would have saved his follower. Quentin was just a man. But if it made her last moments any better, he could pretend to be what she thought he was.

“You served flawlessly,” he said. “You have —” he had to clench his teeth against that feeling in his throat, the burning in his eyes “— you have pleased me with your performance. I promote you to, uh, high priestess of the Church of Quentin Barnes.”

From behind him, he heard Sklorno chitter madly with sounds of shock, of awe. Stockbridge’s last two eyes blinked. Her body trembled, but only for a few seconds. The eyestalks sagged, then dropped.

Her shaking ceased. A piece of equipment let out a soft, shrill monotone. Doc Patah fluttered to a rack and flipped a switch — the monotone stopped.

“She is gone,” the Harrah said.

Quentin couldn’t stop the tears. He still held her tentacle. Another dead teammate — he would never get used to this feeling.

Doc Patah noiselessly floated over to Quentin’s shoulder.

“I don’t know if you’ve been studying Sklorno culture, young Quentin, but promoting her to high priestess was the greatest thing she could have heard,” Doc Patah said quietly. “You made her passing a thing of glory. You did well.”

Quentin turned to face his teammates. Some stared, some looked away, some were crying just like he was, but they all waited for him to speak.

Why did he have to be the one to say something? He was only twenty years old. He was an uneducated orphan from a primitive culture. On the football field he ruled, but off the field he had no idea how life worked. What words of wisdom could he possibly give?

And yet despite his shortcomings, his lack of eloquence, they wanted to hear from him. The looks in their eyes said it all — they wanted Quentin to give this some kind of meaning. No matter how hard it was to speak, he would not fail them.

“Killik the Unworthy died fighting the pirates that wanted to murder us all,” he said. “Stockbridge died so that we could keep our team whole. We’ve lost others — Mitchell Fayed and Aka-Na-Tak.”

His tears stopped. He suddenly knew what words to say, how to properly honor her, how to make everyone see that her life mattered.

“We’re going home, but not quite yet,” he said. “First, we will continue on to Yall to watch the Galaxy Bowl. Next season, we will play in that game. We will win. We will put the names of our fallen on the banner they raise at Ionath Stadium, and they will forever be remembered as champions.”

Silence filled the shuttle bay. Brave words, important words, but they didn’t dull the hurt. Quentin clenched his jaw tight as he walked through his teammates and headed for the locker room. He needed to lose himself in the scalding water of the Ki baths.

“Hey,” John said. “What’s that funky smell?”

Quentin stopped and sniffed. He noticed it, too — something that smelled faintly of lemons and machine oil.

Poison!

“Gas masks!” he shouted, even though he had no idea where the masks or rebreathers or oxygen tanks were kept. He looked up to the ceiling. “Ship, we’re being gassed! Filter out the air or something.”

[OUR ATMOSPHERIC PROCESSORS WERE DAMAGED IN THE ATTACK AND HAVE BEEN SHUT DOWN FOR REPAIR.]

Quentin heard a thump. Back by the triage area, Doc Patah had fallen to the deck. The winged Harrah lay there, quivering slightly.

Cheboygan fell, her limp arm snaking out of the rejuve tank and flinging a stream of pink fluid onto the floor.

Quentin started to run to his teammates, but his legs suddenly felt weak, boneless.

Thump. Thump-thump. Thump.

All around the shuttle bay, teammates fell. Human, Sklorno, HeavyG or Ki, they slumped, dropped and lay motionless.

Liars! The Prawatt lied to me …

His butt hit the deck. He’d fallen. The domed room seemed to swim around him, blend and blur and take on so many shapes and colors.

He saw something fall from the ceiling — Tara the Freak, slipping from the rafter railing to land hard on top of a sprawled-out Sho-Do-Thikit. Neither player moved.

Quentin felt the deck’s coolness against his cheek just before he passed out.



From Net Colony News Syndicate



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Buddha City Elite wins Tier Two Tourney

by JONATHAN SANDOVAL

HUDSON BAY, EARTH, PLANETARY union   — For the first time in 16 seasons, a team from the Purist Nation will join the ranks of Tier One.

The Buddha City Elite won the T2 Tourney championship with a hard-fought 24-22 win over the Sheb Stalkers. Buddha City was in Tier One as part of the 2664 GFL expansion, which included the Hittoni Hullwalkers and the Srabian Salient, but was relegated in 2669.

Sheb’s second-place T2 Tourney finish puts them in Tier One for the first time in franchise history.

The Stalkers had a 22-17 lead with six seconds to play when Buddha City quarterback Gary Lindros threw a desperation 60-yard pass into the end zone. The throw was incomplete, but officials called a controversial pass-interference penalty. As a game can’t end on a defensive penalty, the Elite were given the ball on the 1-yard line with no time left on the clock. On the game’s final play, Lindros scrambled right and dove in for the winning touchdown.

“We just want to thank High One for this win,” said Elite coach Ezekiel Graber. “All the glory goes to Him. The Stalkers played well, but in the end this result was preordained.”

Sheb Stalkers owner Kovacs the Red had other thoughts.

“That call was [expletive],” Kovacs said. “And [expletive] and also [multiple expletives]. Who calls a pass-interference call on the final play of the game? Who does that?”

Sheb moves up to the Solar Division to replace the relegated Sala Intrigue. Buddha City replaces the Lu Juggernauts in the Planet Division.

The Elite won the union   Conference title with an 8-1 regular-season record, making them the top seed in the Tier Two Tournament. In the first round, Buddha City defeated Harrah Conference champion Stilt Skygods 17-16 on a last-second field goal. In the semi-finals, the Elite won an all-field-goal game 12-9 over Ki Conference champ Closs Cannibals.


Sheb won the Quyth Irradiated Conference with an 8-1 record. In the first round of the T2 Tourney, the Stalkers topped Sklorno Conference champ Klipthik Parasites 28-14, then moved on to a dominating 35-17 semi-final victory over Whitok Conference champ D’Oni Coelacanths.

This marks the third straight year that a team from the Quyth Irradiated Conference has won promotion from Tier Two into Tier One. The Ionath Krakens did it in 2682, followed by the Orbiting Death in 2683. Along with the Themala Dreadnaughts, the Quyth Concordia has four teams in Tier One — the most of any governmental system.



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