The Champion

by Scott Sigler

  “That’s easy for you to say. You want to play quarterback, and you’re playing quarterback. Such a sacrifice you’re making.”

  He slapped his chest. “In my rookie year I played running back when Mitchell Fayed died. I let Don Pine play quarterback and I ran the ball because that gave my TEAM the best chance to win, so don’t you lecture me about sacrifice.”

  She held up a single finger. “One game! You were a running back for one damn game! This is my fourth season at fullback. Every play I’m at risk, just like everyone else. Any play could be my last — I have to go after my dream now.”

  “This is the life we chose, Becca. You know injuries are part of the game.”

  She nodded. “Injuries and death. I know the dangers we face better than you. I’ve killed players — you haven’t.”

  In her first game as a Kraken, her very first play in Tier One, she’d been on kickoff return against Isis. She’d laid a devastating full-speed block that killed Ice Storm player North Branch. Becca had almost quit football over that. Quentin had all but forgotten that incident — clearly Becca had not. The look in her eyes said she lived with that guilt every day; she just chose not to talk about it.

  “Okay, sorry,” he said, lowering his voice. “Look, the team needs you at fullback. Why are your needs so much more important?”

  She answered his question with one of her own.

  “Quentin, why don’t you get it? It’s not just the chance of injury that makes me go after this now. Next year, maybe the year after that, our galaxy is going to war. We could all die — I’m not going to miss out on my dream.”

  Petra again, her manipulations, spreading everywhere, corrupting everything.

  “Don’t tell me you buy into her crap.”

  Becca stared at him, astonished.

  “You don’t believe her? You don’t think the Abernessia are coming?”

  He crossed his arms. “Petra is a liar, Becca. She proved that.”

  Becca shook her head slowly, her expression a combination of both disbelief and realization.

  “In the months we spent on Earth, you barely spoke of the trip to the Cloud,” she said. “I let that go because I thought you were so worked up over Jeanine and the duel and everything else. I thought you’d want to talk about the invasion in time, but you don’t even believe it’s real.”

  She looked at him like she was waiting for him to contradict her, but he said nothing.

  “Quentin, you and I were on Sanctuary together. We met Petra, we were inside of her. If you were honest with yourself, you’d admit that she wouldn’t lie about something this serious.”

  “A liar is a liar,” Quentin said. “She lied about my sister, and—”

  Becca grabbed her holotank and threw it to the floor, where it broke into several sparking pieces.

  “Give it a rest with your damn sister already!”

  Heavy black hair hung in front of Becca’s face, so thick that Quentin could only see her right eye.

  “Your sister is safe! Petra did a horrible thing. Jeanine could have died, sure. So could’ve you. So could’ve I and the others, but you know what? We did not die. That’s because Petra knows what she’s doing. She’s eight centuries old and she’s made up of thousands of smart sentients who merged with her so they could all become even smarter.”

  “Being old isn’t the same thing as being wise,” he said. “My time in the Purist Nation taught me that.”

  Becca’s head tilted back but her eyes stayed fixed on him, as if he’d just said something so stupid she couldn’t believe it had come out of his mouth.

  “You’re comparing a bunch of racist old Humans to her? You don’t think there’s a difference?”

  He thought of Bumberpuff’s blind devotion to Petra, and how Petra used that any way she wanted.

  “No, I don’t see any difference at all.”

  Becca put her hands on her hips. “Then we’re done talking about it. So, are you going to tell me what Gredok decided, or do I have to call Danny for the details? Am I getting traded or not?”

  Quentin’s jaw clenched involuntarily. He’d argued with Danny, and with Gredok and Hokor, but Danny won, and Quentin had been reminded yet again that when push came to shove he was Gredok’s employee, not Gredok’s equal.

  “Hokor insisted you stay at fullback for this week,” Quentin said. “Kopor needs more first-team reps in practice, so I don’t get decapitated when he starts against the Fliers in Week Five.”

  Becca’s eyes widened. “So ... when we play Neptune, I’m ... I’m officially a Tier One quarterback?”

  “Third string,” Quentin said. He meant that to sound insulting, but her position on the depth chart didn’t matter. They both knew she was better than Zak and Haney — if Quentin went down, Becca would go in to replace him.

  “Gredok is putting Trevor Haney on the practice squad,” Quentin said. “To make room for you on the QB roster. I guess no one cares about his dream to play quarterback, huh?”

  Her eyes narrowed to slits.

  “So his dreams are more important than mine? Right, Quentin, because you know Trevor Haney so well. You guys are just best buddies, right? So sure, take his side.”

  “It’s not about taking sides,” Quentin said. “It’s about what’s best for the team. But I guess that doesn’t matter to you.”

  She sneered. “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  “You have two more weeks at fullback, Becca. Think you can be a team player for that much longer and do your real job?”

  The second that left his mouth, he regretted it. Rebecca Montagne was an All-Pro fullback, a consummate professional who had risked her own safety time and time again to protect him: both on the field and off.

  She pointed to the door. “Time for you to leave.”

  He wanted the words that would make this right, that would get her to think of the team and to show her how much he wanted to stop fighting, how he wanted to go back to the way things were ... but if those words existed, he didn’t know how to find them.

  Becca had what she wanted. Quentin just hoped that her dream wouldn’t sink the Krakens’ chance at another title.

  “You’re right, it is time to go,” he said.

  He turned and walked out.

  THE TOUCHBACK’S SHUTTLE DESCENDED over the endless city of Virilliville. Dense civilization blanketed the entire surface of Yall, making the planet glow like a light bulb, marred only by a few uneven strips of darkness where the oceans were too deep for buildings, too rough for permanent platforms. The endless city lights lit up the bottoms of pink clouds, formed by billowing columns belching forth from hundreds of skyscraper smokestacks.

  Quentin stared out a window, knowing that he shouldn’t, knowing what he saw made him even sicker than dropping out of punch-space.

  “I wish they wouldn’t do that,” he mumbled.

  John heard him, came over and looked out over Quentin’s shoulder.

  “Do what, Q? I can’t see a damn thing through all that smoke.”

  “The smoke is what I’m talking about,” Quentin said. “They’re cooking each other, John — a feast for a football game shouldn’t mean death for thousands. It’s horrible.”

  “Oh, no, it’s delicious.”

  Quentin glared at him.

  “Ahhhh,” John said slowly. “Not horrible as in tastes bad, you mean horrible as in not a nice thing to do, right?”

  “Can’t put one past you, Uncle Johnny.”

  SHARP AS A WHIP scrolled across John’s face.

  “I don’t know, Q — have you ever eaten Sklorno?”

  “Of course not!”

  John shrugged. “Well, then maybe you should try some before you get all riled up about this sort of thing.”

  Dancing letters on John’s forehead spelled out TASTES LIKE CHICKEN.

  Quentin flashed a guilty glance at Denver and Milford, who were sitting a few rows back.

  “John,” he said through clenched teeth, “you shouldn’t
say things like that in front of our teammates.”

  John laughed. “Q, it’s been such a long time since you went all hayseed on me. The question isn’t who has eaten Sklorno, it’s who hasn’t” He looked across the aisle. “Hey, Choto, you ever munched down on a little grasshopper casserole?”

  Choto looked up at John, then saw Quentin staring angrily — the Warrior hesitated.

  “Answer him,” Quentin said. “Have you actually eaten a sentient being?”

  Please say no, please say no ...

  Choto’s eye swirled with red-orange.

  “Yes, but I was a guest at a protandry ceremony,” he said. “It would have been bad form to turn down the main course.”

  Quentin shook his head. “That’s gross, Choto. Gross.”

  John shouted back to Denver and Milford. “Hey, ladies, have you ever eaten Sklorno?”

  The two receivers started hopping up and down. Their raspers lolled. Spit suddenly flew everywhere, a long strand splattering across Virak the Mean.

  “Feasting time!” Denver said.

  “Feed the tribe!” Milford said. “Celebrate life!”

  John shrugged, then turned back to Quentin. “Seems like they’re fine with it. It’s their species, Q — maybe you shouldn’t judge?”

  “The sentients that live always seem to be fine with the death of those that don’t,” Quentin said. He heard the shortness in his voice, the anger. He was lecturing John, who was only trying to help. “Sorry. I know they have their own culture and everything, it’s just that ... well—” he pointed to the window, which looked to be a sheet of pink as the shuttle sailed right through a smoke column “—all of this is apparently done to celebrate me.”

  John hit his forehead with the heel of his hand.

  “Ow,” he said. THAT HURT: DON’T KNOW MY OWN STRENGTH scrolled across his skin. “Now I get it, Q. That could make a fella feel bad. If you don’t like it, why don’t you do something about it?”

  “What the hell can I do about it, John? There’s trillions of Sklorno. What should I do, have the shuttle land at every pillar of smoke so I can go in and single-handedly shut down the incinerators like I’m Patuth the Muscular? Life isn’t like the movies.”

  John stared, then shook his head in that way that made Quentin feel stupid.

  “Q, didn’t you single-handedly stop the Sklorno from going to war with the Prawatt?”

  Quentin opened his mouth to argue ... but he couldn’t, because John was right.

  “Yeah. I guess I did.”

  The shuttle broke through the cloud. Quentin stared at Virilliville’s towering, densely packed skyscrapers, at the multi-layered roads weaving between them. Even the smaller buildings here towered over Ionath City’s tallest. Many skyscrapers were painted in the purple and white of the Yall Criminals. And up ahead, the spectacle that was the Tomb of the Virilli Stadium, shimmering with waves of light and cascading color.

  Beyond the stadium, more columns of pink smoke lit by the city beneath, stretching all the way back to the horizon. Could he do something about that? No, he couldn’t — the Sklorno culture had been this way for millennia. Still, he had stopped that war. He didn’t want to change the Sklorno way of life ... he just didn’t want anyone cooked in his name.

  Was that really so much to ask?

  He gave his head a hard shake. Imposing his will on other cultures wasn’t his business — his business was winning football games. And this week? The showdown everyone in the galaxy would be watching: Quentin Barnes vs. Rick Renaud.

  Everyone expected a shootout, and Quentin planned to deliver.

  QUENTIN STEPPED UP into the pocket.

  Around him, black-armored, orange-jerseyed Ionath linemen struggled to hold back the onslaught. Yall’s deep-purple jerseys looked almost black in the afternoon light. Black-trimmed white numbers and letters spelling CRIMINALS across the chest blazed in the sun, as did white arm guards, hardened gloves and three parallel stripes that ran down deep-purple leg armor.

  Yall’s white helmets looked like they’d been through war. Most of the purple “ball-and-chain Sklorno” logos on the sides were scratched, gouged and chipped, so typical of gear near the end of a Tier One game. The jerseys of both teams were streaked with the dark-green paint that made up the field’s lines, and with white from the field itself.

  Quentin looked for Denver: covered. Milford and Halawa, also covered. Yall defensive tackle Anthony Meaders spun off a Sho-Do-Thikit block and rushed in, the HeavyG’s all-fours gallop closing the five feet in a blur.

  Quentin juked left and ran right, out of the pocket, away from Meaders, just out of reach of the long HeavyG arms. Quentin tried to look downfield, but linebacker Riha the Hammer rushed in on a delayed blitz. Still sprinting, his mental clock ticking away, Quentin took a half-step forward to freeze Riha and pushed off that foot in almost the same instant, once again running right. His mental clock told him he had half a second before Meaders reached him: there was Denver coming back to help out her scrambling QB. Quentin started to throw, then something hit his feet — he went down fast, his facemask skidding across the white field.

  Quentin heard whistles blow: his team had used its last timeout.

  He’d been sacked, caught from behind. It didn’t make any sense ... he’d seen Meaders coming, knew the tackle’s top speed. Quentin hadn’t taken any hits that slowed him down. So what had he missed? What had gone wrong?

  A big hand on his shoulder.

  “Q, you all right?”

  Kimberlin, leaning down.

  “Fine,” Quentin said.

  He let the lineman help him up, then jogged back to the huddle. He couldn’t worry about the sack, not with thirty-four seconds to play in the fourth quarter and his team down 21-17.

  The sack had brought them up to fourth and fifteen on the Yall twenty-eight. They were inside Morningstar’s range, but the Krakens had used all their timeouts: even if they made the field goal attempt, they’d still have to get the ball back via an on-side kick, then get into range for a second field goal before time expired. Long odds indeed.

  Quentin tapped the side of his helmet, activating his heads-up display.

  “Coach, we gotta go for it.”

  “Of course we do,” Hokor said. “You look slow as frozen mud out there, Barnes. Are you okay to run it on a quarterback keeper?”

  “I’m fine, but we need fifteen yards ... we need a pass, not a keeper.”

  “Yall’s tendencies indicate they will rush four and blitz Riha, leaving Cauthorn back twelve yards,” Hokor said. “They think blitz pressure will force you into a short pass over the middle, letting Cauthorn make the tackle shy of the first down. If you get through the line of scrimmage, Cauthorn is the only one you have to beat — can you put a move on him?”

  Quentin had to stop himself from glancing over his shoulder at the Criminals defenders, who were lined up and waiting. Forrest Dane Cauthorn was an excellent middle linebacker. If Quentin didn’t make him miss, it was game over.

  “Just give me the ball, Coach.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” Hokor said. “Audible out if you see something else. Your call. Make it happen, Barnes — the game is on your shoulders.”

  And I wouldn’t want it any other way.

  Quentin tapped away the heads-up and looked at his huddled teammates. Ju, Becca and George Starcher had gone to the sidelines, replaced by Yassoud — who was a better receiving running back than Ju — Cheboygan and Tara the Freak. That gave Ionath four receivers.

  The crowd created an oppressive wall of noise; it sounded like a bomb going off in an endless detonation. Quentin had to scream just to be heard in the huddle.

  “One-back, four-wide. Delayed quarterback draw. X-flag, Y-streak, Z-flag, B-out and A-hook-right.”

  The called routes would send Denver wide right, up and toward the end zone’s right corner, taking her defender with her. Cheboygan, who would be five yards inside of Denver, would streak straight toward the
end zone, taking the safety with her and away from the middle of the field. On the left side, Milford and Tara the Freak would mirror Denver and Cheboygan’s patterns, taking their defenders with them. Yassoud would come out of the backfield and curl right, hopefully pulling Cauthorn away from his middle-of-the-field placement.

  The play-call was one hell of a gamble; it meant that Hokor had full confidence in his veteran quarterback to make the on-field decision.

  “Everyone, run those routes like your life depends on it,” Quentin said. “We need to sell it. And if I audible to a pass, run those same routes. Yassoud, be ready to come back and block the second I cross the line of scrimmage, got it?”

  “Got it, boss,” the running back said.

  Quentin gave each player a quick hard look as he finished up, screaming to be heard over the Tomb of the Virilli crowd.

  “We execute this play, we get this first down, and we’ll win this game, I promise you. On two, on two ... ready?”

  “Break!”

  The Krakens jogged to the line. It seemed impossible, but the crowd cranked its punishing roar up a few more notches. Last season, the Krakens had defeated a Criminals squad dubbed “the best team ever assembled,” knocking them out of the playoffs. The Yall fans still felt the Galaxy Bowl title should have been theirs, and they wanted payback.

  In the stands, white flags with purple ball-and-chain Sklorno waved, white and purple pom-poms shook, and tens of thousands of fans decked out in purple and white tried to scream out the few thousands clad in orange and black.

  Quentin glanced to the Yall sidelines and saw his opposite, Rick Renaud, watching. Renaud had been the best in the game for the past few seasons. He was still an amazing quarterback, but his time at the top had passed — Quentin was about to demonstrate that right here on the man’s home field.

  He looked over his offensive line at the battered white helmets and torn dark purple jerseys of the enemy. Defensive tackles Meaders and Kin-Ah-Thak were digging their feet in, hoping to time Quentin’s snap count and come in hard. The Criminals HeavyG defensive ends were low to the ground, tree-trunk legs bent and ready to drive forward. The linebackers — Cauthorn and Riha the Hammer — both crept up to the line, showing blitz. Which one would come? Quentin saw a flare of black swirl in Riha’s eyes, there and gone as the Warrior tried to hide his emotions, but it was too late; Quentin had been watching him the whole game, knew him from last year, knew that Hokor was right — Riha was coming. Cauthorn would cover over the middle.