The Alpha Choice

by M. D. Hall

  In the first segment, Genir bided his time with Daraq to give Gorn all the time he needed to size up the opposition, and analyse their plays. Eventually, they ran out of ideas and surprises, and that was when they were hit. They were unable to cope with the speed and variety of shots from Gorn, and the speed of Genir was beyond anything they had ever come across.

  Yes, they had seen him play before, but never had he played to the level of which he was capable. To Genir, zagball was merely a game without his friend, but together they were invincible. Every level was employed, every goal attacked, nowhere was safe from them.

  The rest of the team were not to be left out. Zan had recruited them, during the first interval as defenders of Gorn, even the keepers were to come out, when it was known they would not be needed in their traditional role.

  To a lesser extent, they were to protect Genir, lesser because this was a role assigned specifically to Zan who would look to Gorn as he received the ball from Genir, and take his cue from where Gorn looked. No matter what else was happening in the cuboid, he would make his way to that point. Zagball captain and bridge tactical officer, he may have been, but he was happy to take his orders from a tactical genius.

  Unlike the first segment, when the activities of Fleet started to border on the tedious, the crowd, even Fleet supporters, did not tire of the exploits of Gorn and Genir, or the physicality provided by the blocking troopers, commanded by Zan.

  An ever-changing pattern evolved during the second segment, and everyone who watched was in awe at the sheer brilliance and elegance of the play. For all that Genir was known as a physical player he was now seen for what he truly was, the man who alone could match the speed of Gorn, and convert his astounding exploits into goals.

  Yet, despite this, crowds are always greedy for more and, consummate player that he was, Gorn was happy to oblige. Towards the end of this segment, with all goals being scored by Genir, no goals had come directly from a deflection, the ultimate skill, if the purists were to be believed.

  Few people watching had ever seen a goal from more than two deflections. Some recalled the only match played by the greatest ever zagball player, Zaran who, before refusing to join the military, played in one recorded match where he became the first, and only player, to register an official score from a triple deflection.

  Rumour had it that Gorn had scored from a triple deflection as a student, before his academy days. Even if true, that was a world away from this level of play. Nevertheless, everyone, including Zaran himself, present by courtesy of his sister’s influence, wanted to see him perform the ultimate feat.

  There was a palpable feeling of expectation, of something about to happen. It did not worry Genir and Gorn that their opponents might spot what they were doing, they were incapable of stopping it. Genir looked at his friend for the sign they had agreed. Gorn rotated his shoulders, and Genir smiled.

  With no apparent effort, Genir once again outmanoeuvred Daraq and passed the ball to his friend. This time Genir did not move, taking everyone except Gorn by surprise. He, in turn, hurled the ball at the nearest second level emitter with such force that when the ball deflected for the first time, and hurtled towards the second emitter, the speed was greater than anything seen that day.

  The deflection back to the first level was of no danger to anyone as Gorn had calculated everything with precision. The third, and final deflection was not, as anticipated, to the first level goal, but the second level. Even if the keeper had, correctly, anticipated the direction, there was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable. Everyone, other than some hardline Fleet supporters, and even they were begrudgingly enjoying the spectacle, rose as one. The noise was unprecedented.

  The second interval was called, with the crowd restored to a more composed state of mind, but only because they wanted to talk about what they had just witnessed. The question on everyone’s lips, after those two segments, what next? Most already knew the answer; the match was over and what they expected was an exhibition, the likes of which no one had seen before.

  The majority, including the pundits, were in complete agreement, they were witnessing zagball history. People would talk of this for years to come, young players would seek to emulate the performances, and the sport would scale its greatest heights, purely because of this game.

  As anticipated, the final segment did become an exhibition, showcasing the skills of two men. Fleet was not to score again. Gorn demonstrated that the three-deflection goal was no random event, but he had not finished. At the close of the final segment, Genir once again, placed him in possession. His reaction, was a nod to both Genir and Zan.

  As he hurled the ball at the furthest emitter, not guarded by a Fleet player, his friend and their captain moved towards the Eclipse level one goal, with the rest of the team following suit. Gorn needed time for them to get into place. In the single second it took for the ball to move from one emitter to another, he was able to survey his opponents. There was not a single Eclipse player in his sights, they were all behind him.

  Fleet were confused. They were torn between looking at Gorn and following the ball, which was now a blur approaching a third emitter.

  None of the live spectators moved, they were all on the edge of their seats, hardly daring to breath. The ball was a long way from goal, and even at the incredible speeds generated by three deflections it could still be intercepted by one, or more of the quickest Fleet players. Everyone, except Eclipse, was trying to predict where the ball would go, they were all wrong, it struck the final emitter thirty metres from Gorn and flew, straight at him.

  If silence could be deafening, the entire stadium would have ruptured eardrums. Of Fleet, no player was close enough to Gorn to tackle him. Expecting another three deflection move, they covered the approaches to their goals. The ball took a fraction of a second to reach the author of their destruction.

  A split second before the ball had struck the third emitter, he had moved slightly out of position. Now, as the ball came at him he moved his hand out to the right and caught it with a speed and deftness that would have taken the breath away, if the audience had still been breathing at that point. He looked at the ball, for the briefest of moments, then to the part of the stadium where he knew his father sat, and nodded.

  Fleet, as one prepared to converge on him, too late. He threw the ball down into the second level and waited.

  There were a number of predictive difficulties associated with deflector goal attempts: there had to be crystal clear perception of the field of play, not only knowledge of everyone’s position, but where, given the increasing speed of the ball as it was successively deflected, they were likely to be.

  The more intelligent defenders could work out, with some degree of accuracy, the likely deflections a ball could take, and could deploy players to cover most possible routes, but some of the really skilful exponents of the deflection technique had learnt to apply differing amounts of spin to the ball, so as to confound the predictions of the defence. The spin, when applied adroitly, would produce pandemonium in defensive ranks. Predicting placements of fellow team members without communicating strategy too soon, was difficult. If attackers were told to avoid certain areas, the defence would watch for those gaps, and plug them. The difficulty, for would be defenders, was coping with the unpredictability of a nascent deflector attack; the more deflections there were, the greater the level of unpredictability.

  Today, minutes from the end of play, something altogether new was happening. The strategist had taken all attacking players out of the equation, made his calculations, and committed himself to the play. It was out of his hands. What would, what could Fleet defence conjure up?

  The ball struck the second level emitter at a point which, when taken with applied down-spin, edged with right side spin, sent the ball further down, into the third level and into the final third of the Fleet half. Forty-five metres from the third level goal, the ball struck the top of the emitter reversing the spin and sending it tow
ards the thirty metre emitter on the left side of the second level.

  Since the beginning of the final segment, all Fleet players had become defence in the hope of reducing the loss, to a rout. The first level retained a handful of defenders, while the majority had flowed into the third level hoping to block the path of the ball. Unfortunately, this left only one player in defence on the second level. Immediately, players from the first level flooded below, between the emitter the ball was streaking towards, and the goal.

  They had just got into position when the ball struck the emitter and, instead of heading for goal shot towards the emitter immediately opposite.

  By now the speed was so fast it would take less than a second for it to cover its one hundred and twenty metre journey. The time for it to deflect into the goal, thirty metres from that deflector, would be less than a tenth of a second. There was no more time. Three defenders were vaguely in position between the emitter and the second level goal. There was an outside chance they, and the keeper, would prevent the impossible; a four deflection goal.

  The commentators had been silent from the moment Gorn had sent his team out of the way. Later, some would say they had anticipated that this move predicated an attempted four deflections, but then there are always those who are wise after the fact.

  Despite everything happening with blistering speed, the crowd’s adrenalin levels were so elevated, it gave them the edge they needed to keep up with the action.

  Back in the cuboid, the ball struck the last emitter and rocketed into the bottom right hand corner of the first level goal, no defenders, only a solitary keeper who expected the second level goal to be attacked.

  He would say, when asked, that he was only aware of the goal from the sound the ball made when it crashed into the grid.

  Every person in the stadium, who had remained stationary until this very moment, leapt into the air. The stadium sensors recorded more hits on the seat retention fields than had taken place, cumulatively, over the previous three years. Not a single spectator remained seated, not even Fleet supporters.

  Eclipse players had stripped off their helmets before the end of the match had been sounded. While the ball had been retrieved and was now hovering above the centre spot, there was no one there to retrieve it, not even Daraq, who was stunned and incredulous, along with every one of his team.

  The score no longer mattered, Gorn had given the crowd what they wanted. He looked towards where he knew his father sat, and raised his arm in salute. He then left the cuboid without joining in the celebrations, acknowledging his teammates as he passed. Zan’s smile was still grim. Genir, with his face beaming, came over and accompanied him to the exit, where he stopped and turned to his friend. ‘Not for you, this?’ he gestured to the frenzied crowd. Gorn shook his head. Genir continued. ‘You won't mind if I milk it for all it’s worth?’

  ‘Certainly not, I know you’ll do us both proud.’

  They clasped each other’s shoulders, and Gorn made his way to the changing rooms. As he did so, he could not help thinking, when I've done, will any of this be left?

  Ω

  With the furore surrounding the match taking several days to subside, Gorn and the other players were given three days shore leave to get themselves back to reality. All of them bar one were interviewed, and in his absence pundits fell back on speculative theories to explain how he could achieve such prodigious feats, most were nonsense.

  Gorn did not need time to collect himself, and only Genir understood that. To Gorn, zagball meant nothing, it was merely a game, albeit one in which he excelled. As the person closest to him, Genir was interviewed the most. Asked questions relating solely to his friend, he sidestepped them as neatly as he had outmanoeuvred Daraq in the cuboid. When the interviewers became exasperated he would smile and ask: ‘Now, what do you want to know about me?’

  Darl came to see Gorn once during this time. Once the superlatives were exhausted, he asked why Gorn had not joined in the celebrations. Rather than tell the truth - it was imperative he keep Darl on his side - he said that he put everything into the game and, as his abilities were purely instinctive, he did not want to muddy the waters, with half baked attempts to rationalise what he had done. The best way to avoid those questions, was to avoid the people who asked them.

  His commander appeared satisfied with the explanation, after all men of extraordinary skill, like men of genius, were notoriously difficult to fathom, and Gorn was both a young man of extraordinary skill, and a genius.

  The day after the match, the extraordinary young man went to see his father.

  Zaran invited him into his simple apartment, and they both sat. ‘Thank you,’ he began.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘The goal!’

  ‘I thought you’d like that. Of course, you knew it was coming?’

  ‘Only when I saw you move your players out of the way. You knew it was impossible to navigate them, as well as your opponents. Even then, I wasn’t convinced you could do it, but that’s the difference between us. Your mind can compute faster than anyone I've ever known, and I've met some smart ones. If anyone could do it then it would be you,’ he paused, looking with unbounded pride, at his son. ‘I’d like to say that your mother would have been proud, except we both know she couldn't stand the game,’ he paused again, and while he laughed, his son’s eyes brightened, in the knowledge that what his father said, was absolutely right.

  Sobering Zaran continued. ‘Still, she would have been proud, I certainly was. I wanted to shout out that’s my boy down there, but we both know that can’t become common knowledge.’

  Gorn nodded.

  ‘But the game isn’t why you're here, is it?’

  ‘No,’ Gorn answered.

  ‘You're joining your ship in three days, and you’ve been asking yourself whether you can do what Narol’s asked?’

  Gorn nodded again. To his father, he was not the all conquering zagball hero, he was his twenty-one year old son, who was about to embark on something incalculably dangerous, with consequences that would shape the lives of almost two and a half billion people, not counting any other races.

  ‘You’ve already made that decision.’

  ‘I don’t know if anyone can do it, but Narol’s right, if I can’t no one can. Maybe I can do it, and we both know there’s only one way I can find out.’

  ‘So if it isn’t that, what brings you here to ask my advice?’

  There was an awkward silence that answered for his son.

  ‘Narol, you want to know if she can be trusted?’

  Gorn did not need to say anything, the look on his face was confirmation enough.

  ‘I can't pretend I’m comfortable with what you’re about to do. It’s not that I think it shouldn’t be done, but I have selfish reasons to prefer that it wasn’t you. We've just begun to get to know each other properly, and the first advice you ask of me, as your father, and not a zagball coach, is probably the most difficult you’ll ever ask. The course you’ve chosen is terribly dangerous. If you survive, it will change you in ways you can’t imagine. You’ve always been alone, confided in no one, and now you need to know that you won't be alone on that ship, Narol will be there for you, and you can trust her.

  ‘I love my sister, but I respect her more. I admire her commitment, which is absolute, and by that I mean nothing is more important to her than the cause to which she has dedicated her life. So, to answer your questions, she will do everything that can be done to make sure you succeed, because that will aid her cause, and she will do that, without regard for your personal safety. I don’t believe she’ll deliberately place you in harm’s way, but if you find yourself in danger, Narol will do nothing to save you unless, inaction risks mission failure, or exposure of the cause. As for trust, you can trust her to do what she thinks is right, and that might not necessarily be what’s right for you.’

  Gorn had his answers, he was alone. He would proceed, Zaran was right about that, but he did so knowing he could trus
t no one, but the man in front of him, and Genir, and that created its own set of problems, how much should he tell his friend?

  They stood and embraced, neither sure they would see each other again.

  Zaran watched his son walk down the pathway that led away from the apartment block, then spoke the name of an old friend into the console. It was time they talked.

  Ω

  Just as he preferred walking to swifter modes of transport, Gorn always chose transfer by shuttle over teleportation, and for the same reason. He enjoyed being alone with his thoughts and the instant transfer, afforded by teleportation, robbed him of that.

  Site-to-site teleportation was limited, because of the energy necessary to extend a teleport field beyond an enclosed area, such as a ship or a building. Extending a field from an orbiting ship to the ground took an inordinate amount of energy, that could be better employed, elsewhere. However, an exception was made in the transfer of crew about to embark upon active service, here the Council’s view was that it seemed less than noble to penny pinch. Gorn hoped it would be a long time before random teleportation was possible, notwithstanding his preliminary research papers on the subject.

  He was fairly unique in his views on teleportation. Indeed, it was a source of constant frustration to most Te’ans that despite its discovery, six hundred years earlier, their scientists had spectacularly failed to advance the technology beyond its ‘field’ limitations. As with much of Te’an technology, teleportation had been stolen from a conquered race, one that, rather than submit to domination, destroyed their only planet, together with all their science not already purloined by their conquerors.

  The Te did manage to capture a ship when it failed to self-destruct, but to no avail. Resigned to their ship being seized, the crew chose to kill themselves, taking their secrets with them. From the ship’s logs it was apparent that the, now extinct, race had mastered random teleportation, however, no clue was given as to how that technology operated. It was possible for Te’an engineers to replicate the limited field teleportation on board ship, but they could go no further, and Te’an ability to teleport remained limited.