THE RIDER (Galactic Football League Novellas Book 4)

by Scott Sigler

  Pete watched, stunned. Bess was smart enough to not only know what he was saying, but to understand that Baiman wanted to end the match? Even after all these years there was more to these dinos than anyone understood. That thrilled him, and terrified him at the same time.

  Bess finished, but kept her head low, her mouth parted.

  Baiman stood tall, her face wrinkled in fury. She pointed a wet finger right at Bess’s nose.

  “Next time you need medicine, forget the treats,” she said. “It’s all suppositories from here on out.”

  Bess rose up, her good eye open wide: she understood that comment, too.

  “Sometimes glory has a price, old girl,” Pete said. “Jared, lances for all!”

  As Jared distributed lances, Pete looked down at Sydney. Her left arm was tucked up tight against her chest. Like Ian’s armor, something big and powerful had left deep toothmarks in the raptor’s armor. But not only did Sydney seem unfazed, she seemed ... calm. The raptor’s armored head craned back, nuzzled against Ian’s neck.

  “I’ll be damned,” Pete said. “Is that the same dino we brought from Roughland?”

  Ian’s armored hand thumped lightly on Sydney’s neck.

  “She wasn’t getting the right exercise, Cap. Some are built for speed, some for strength — this one is built for war.”

  Pete felt a cold thrill wash over him.

  “I was wrong about you, Ian.”

  “Goddamn right you were,” Ian said. “I play to win. Just like you.”

  No sneer in Ian’s voice this time. No ego. If anything: relief. In those few words, Pete finally got it. Ian idolized him. Like a son rebelling against a father to find his own identity, so much of the conflict between Pete and Ian had been Ian trying to step out of Pete’s shadow, to become his own rider, to found his own legacy. And instead of supporting that, Pete had felt challenged. Maybe even offended.

  “Thirty seconds to the next match!”

  “Ian, you ready to ride?”

  Ian’s helmeted head nodded. “Balls to the wall, old man.”

  Dar sighed. “This again? Seriously, you guys, we need an HR department so I can report you. How about we say whatever it takes instead?”

  “Ridgebacks, line up,” Pete said.

  It was high time to realize that Ian Bahas wasn’t just a kid. He was a man. He was capable of making his own decisions. He knew damn well he was putting his life at risk, yet he still wanted to play. And was Pete any smarter? Every breath was an exercise in agony. He didn’t have to be a doctor to know that if it hurt to breathe, things weren’t good.

  “Alrighty, young ones,” Pete said. “We take this game, we’re in the championship tourney.”

  “What’s the strategy, Cap?” Ian said.

  Pete smiled. “Shuck strategy. Let our mounts do what they want to do. Whack ‘em and stack ‘em.” He looked down at Dar. “Whatever it takes.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Ian said.

  “Pansies,” Dar said. “I, for one, am going balls to the wall.”

  Pete laughed, and that hurt.

  The trumpeters sounded off: bah-bah-bah-bah, BAHHHH!

  Pete squeezed his legs tight to the saddle. He leveled his lance.

  Time to do what he’d been born to do.

  “Bess, attack!”

  • • •

  Pete lay in the thick fluid of a rejuve tank. His right arm was locked down tight in a metal contraption a visiting Harrah doctor had put on him. Two days for the collarbone to heal, apparently. Not that it mattered.

  The season was over.

  “You sure that’s what you want?”

  Pete looked at the man asking him that question. Two meters tall, athletic, dressed in doctors clothes. It was the same Human he’d talked to a few days earlier — the same one — but he looked completely different.

  “It’s what I want, Fred,” Pete said. “Can you make it happen?”

  Fred looked off. He took a big breath, let it out in a lip-flapping huff.

  “Yeah, I can make it happen. But I won’t lie — it will cost you.”

  One arm locked up meant one arm free, and one arm free meant Pete could drink beer as he floated along. One full mag can — and two empties — floated close by.

  He took a sip. Might as well enjoy it: if this didn’t work, he wouldn’t even be able to afford beer.

  “I know,” Pete said. “Just do it.”

  Fred brushed blonde hair out of his eyes. Pete wondered if that was his real hair, or was as fake as the red hair he’d had while impersonating a certain bartender back in Roughland.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Fred said. “If it’s any consolation, Pete, that first game was a thing of beauty. And I don’t even like sports.”

  Fred turned and walked out of the rejuve room.

  No ... that wasn’t any consolation.

  Pete still couldn’t believe it: they’d lost. They’d lost the last two games. The Ridgebacks finished the season at 7-5, one game behind the Stompers for the last slot in the championship tournament.

  He’d wanted the Dinolition title: the Ridgebacks hadn’t even qualified for the championship tournament.

  Pinky, the proactor, hadn’t been able to continue for the second game. Hermano, Pinky’s rider, had switched to Wee Bob to replace Bocephus, who was marinating in Bess’s digestive system. Bocephus was the Ogre’s team captain. Without him, Pete had thought the Ridgebacks could win one more game and take the match.

  Instead, what he’d seen, what the fans had seen, what most of the galaxy had seen by now, was the birth of a superstar. Much like Ian and Sydney clicked, Hermano and Wee Bob just worked. The final two games made it clear that Bocephus didn’t know how to fully utilize Wee Bob’s size and strength. With Hermano as Wee Bob’s rider, the mammoth had dominated Dismount, long trunk plucking Pete from his saddle and tossing him aside, then swatting Dar right off Jerry’s back. Ian had faced four-on-one odds. He’d performed spectacularly, dismounting the riders of both Brain and Crazy Jake, then putting Andy out of the match for good with a spectacular Sydney leg-kick that broke the Andrewsarchus’s right knee. Almost, but not quite a legendary come-from-behind win: when Ian/Sydney passed by Wee Bob, Hermano made every sports highlight reel there was by sliding down low on Bob’s side, reaching out, and snatching Ian out of the saddle with one hand.

  The sports sites were already going crazy over the match. Much of the galaxy tuned in to see the first appearance of a triceratops. They got that, and they also witnessed the birth of a new rivalry: Ian Bahas vs. Hermano. The two young stars put on a show for the ages. With Bocephus turtled up in Bess’s belly, and Pete barely able to move thanks to the cracked collarbone, the old men were sidelined while the future of the league battled it out on the pitch.

  The final match had been Tug Of War. Pete had thanked the High One for that, because he wouldn’t have been able to make it through a third full-contact game. He’d hoped for a win, but Bess hadn’t been quite right after that head-shot from Wee Bob. Despite giving up over a thousand kilos, it turned out that a Mammoth, a proactor and a Glyptodon trumped a scrambled T-Rex, an exhausted Triceratops and a wounded Austroraptor. Even though it was 3-on-3, the Ridgebacks couldn’t counter the pulling power and leverage of Wee Bob, who didn’t seem the least bit fatigue.

  Pete sipped his beer. LoPPu stadium not only had the best pitch, and the best locker rooms, it also had the best medical facilities. Not just one, but three full-sized rejuve tanks for mounts of all sizes. Those were filled up: Andy and his broken leg, Pinky with a dislocated hip, Sydney with her torn rotator cuff. Ian was being looked to in the training room. Bocephus had yet to be pooped out by Bess.

  That left Pete alone, dealing with harsh disappointment. Ogres two games, Ridgebacks one — match over, season over. He kept catching himself hoping it was a dream, that he was hallucinating or something, that it wasn’t real, that the Ridgebacks could go back in time and win one of those games.

  But that was a
dream. Reality didn’t give a stinky pile of dino shit about dreams.

  The door to the rejuve room opened. In walked Ian Bahas, on crutches. White plastic encased his leg. He looked pale, maybe from the after effects of blood loss.

  “Hey, Cap,” the dwarf said. “How’s it hanging?”

  Pete drained his beer, reached out and plucked his last mag can from the thick rejuve fluid.

  “I’ve seen better days,” he said.

  Ian nodded. “You and me both.”

  Pete wanted to laugh. The kid was twenty years old: he’d heal so fast that nine puncture wounds in his thigh would be little more than an inconvenience. Pete would spend weeks recovering. You and me both ... the kid had no idea what age would do to him.

  Pete nodded toward a seat at the side of the rejuve tank.

  “Wanna sit down, have a brew?”

  Ian shook his head. “Don’t have time. Things are poppin’, Old Man. I came to tell you something because I think you deserve to be the first to know.”

  No smile. No arrogant sneer. Ian looked sad, but committed. He was here on business.

  “Season’s over,” he said.

  “That it is,” Pete said.

  Ian looked off. His fingertips played with the handle of his left crutch.

  “Out with it, kid,” Pete said. He tried to keep his voice neutral. Supportive, even. But he couldn’t hide a strand of anger; he knew what Ian was going to say.

  “I’m leaving the Ridgebacks,” Ian said finally, words that clearly hurt while bottled up, and hurt even more as they came out. “I’m signing with a new team.”

  “And how is Anna Villani these days?”

  Ian’s face when white.

  “I ... how did you know?”

  “Does it matter?”

  Ian looked down again. This had turned out to be even harder than he’d thought.

  “No, I guess not. I ... I just wanted to tell you first, Cap. I learned a lot from you, but it’s time to move on.”

  “I get it,” Pete said. “You want to lead a team, and you sure as hell aren’t going to lead the Ridgebacks. That’s my gig. I know we didn’t get along all the time, Ian, but ... well, I have to be honest with myself, and with you. You’re wondering if you’re ready to lead a team? You are.”

  Those big eyes looked up again, wide with hope, with eagerness, with an almost desperate need for approval.

  “You think so, Cap?”

  Pete nodded. “I do. Good luck. But know that when I face you on the pitch, Bess and I are going to kick your ass.”

  Ian finally smiled. That smile said: I know something you don’t.

  “We’ll see,” he said. “Well, I’ve got to go. I have a press conference scheduled in an hour.”

  Pete drained his last beer, tossed the empty mag-can away, then offered his hand.

  “Good luck, kid. I think you’re going to do great things.”

  Ian leaned on his crutches to shake Pete’s hand. Then, without another word, the young man turned and hobbled out of the room.

  Ian thought he had the inside info, did he? Well, that was just fine. Pete wanted him to think that until it was too late. He liked the kid, but the kid was no longer a teammate.

  “I bleed crimson and black,” he said as he sank deeper into the revue fluid. “Everyone else is my enemy.”

  • • •

  The sling’s strap chafed Pete’s shoulder, but that was probably because he was sweating right through his shirt. One more day of this damn thing, two, maybe, and he’d be mostly back to normal.

  He stood in the tack room. Alone. Waiting. Nervous as hell. Fred’s message had been delivered. Now, Pete had to deal with what he’d asked for.

  Another season in the books, and with it over Smithwick’s Arena seemed like a ghost town. Empty suits of crimson and black armor stared at him from their stands. Tiny little Samurai, judging him on what he’d done right, what he’d done wrong. Pete couldn’t help but think those suits were quietly whispering: you stupid little man, you’ve gone too far.

  Maybe he had. He was putting his life on the line for what he believed in, though. Bess was his. He wasn’t going to give her up. Not for money, not for power, not for anything. He had no spouse, no kids, no significant other. He had his career as a rider — which couldn’t last more than another season or two, honestly — and he had that T-Rex.

  “High One, Pete,” he said to himself. “How about you get a dog? You’ll live longer.”

  Only Bess wasn’t just a pet. She looked like a T-Rex, walked like one, but she was more than that. All the dinos were more. Bess’s ability to understand things, lately it had become ... well, kind of spooky. Would that continue? Pete didn’t know, but whatever came, he would be there for her.

  A black-furred bejeweled Quyth Leader and a big Human in a three-piece suit entered the tack room. Pete steeled himself: this was a different kind of game, and he had only one chance to get it right.

  “Poughkeepsie Pete,” said Gredok the Splithead. “I’ve traveled a long way to talk to you.” He gestured to the big Human, silver bracelets tinkling when he did. “This is my associate, Bobby Brobst.”

  The Human nodded. “Nice to meet you, Mister Poughkeepsie.”

  Pete waved a hand. “Just call me Pete. None of this Mister stuff.”

  “All right,” Bobby said. He smiled. “That first game against the Ogres was shucking amazing, Pete. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Enough,” Gredok said. “Bobby, did I ask you to talk Pete’s ear off?”

  Bobby’s smile didn’t fade, and his eyes didn’t leave Pete. He shook his head. “No, Mister Splithead, you didn’t. My apologies.”

  The Human said those words sincerely, but also like he’d said them a hundred times before. Bobby Brobst seemed like the kind of sentient who knew exactly how to walk the fine line his lethal boss laid out for him.

  Pete had fought many sentients of various species. He knew how to size someone up. Bobby Brobst wasn’t some discount thug a gangster hired for cheap. Everything about him screamed lethality. Pete could kick the crap out of many people twice his size, but one glance told him it wouldn’t be that way with Brobst.

  Gredok walked to a battered suit of armor set up on a stand. It just happened to be Pete’s. The Leader’s pedipalp reached out, black-furred fingers tracing the long fissure left on the forehead by Bocephus’s axe.

  “Impressive,” the Leader said. “Violence so intense it damages even the best armor. Hard to imagine a blow like this doesn’t damage the brain inside the armor. Human brains are such delicate things.”

  Pete rapped his knuckles against his own forehead.

  “No scrambling here. Right as rain. Did you watch the match?”

  Gredok turned. His clear, softball-sized eye gazed at Pete.

  “There is but one sport, and its name is football,” the Leader said. “I’ve not watched even a moment of your glorified gladiator circus.”

  Pete winced at the Leader’s choice of words. Maybe Gredok didn’t really understand what a circus was. Pete understood, all too well.

  Gredok stepped closer.

  “In my chosen profession, most Humans are of grotesque size. It is rare that I can stand face-to-face with one.”

  “Funny,” Pete said. “I stand face-to-face with Leaders all the time. Although by the time I’m finished with them, they’re usually face-down, on the ground.”

  Pete had tried for at least a little intimidation, but Gredok seemed unfazed. Pete wanted to kick himself — as if this gangster would ever be afraid with his killer bodyguard standing close by.

  “I am here because I was told you were going to pay Salton’s debt,” Gredok said. “For some unknown reason, you insisted on paying me directly.”

  Pete nodded. “Yes, that is what you were told.”

  Gredok stared for a moment. The faintest ribbon of black flickered across his cornea. Pete had been around Salton enough to know what that meant.

  “Go
nzaga,” Gredok said, drawing out the word. “He lied to me. Again.”

  Pete shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that. What I do know is I can get you more than what you’re owed. A lot more.”

  The Leader turned toward Brobst.

  “This miniature version of a Human says he can get me more than what I am owed. Did you hear that, Bobby?”

  Brobst nodded. “I did, Mister Splithead.”

  Gredok again faced Pete. “That is good, because at first I thought it was my imagination. Tell me, Pete, why would you give me more than I am owed?”

  “Because I get something out of it, too.”

  The Leader nodded, a mannerism that required his species to move head and shoulders together.

  “Of course. Every good businessbeing wants something for their troubles. Tell me, Pete, what is it you are offering?”

  And there it was: the moment Pete had angled for. He had to go for it.

  “The Ridgebacks,” Pete said. “I’m offering you the entire franchise, lock stock and barrel.”

  Gredok stared for a few moments. Nothing moved except his soft, black-furred eyelids.

  “Pete, it is unfortunate that you were unaware I do not like having my time wasted. Such an action makes me upset. Making me upset carries consequences.”

  “But I’m not wasting your time,” Pete said, shaking his head. “This offer is—“

  “The Ridgebacks are not yours to sell,” Gredok said. “The organization is the property of Salton the Grimy. Unless, perhaps, you have taken legal ownership in the time it took me to travel here from Ionath?”

  “Uh, no. It’s not like that.”

  “So you can not sell me this franchise,” Gredok said. “And even if you could, why would I want it? I own a Tier One GFL franchise. What business would I have with your backwater regional sport?”

  The Leader turned and walked to Brobst.

  “Bobby. I am upset. Please show this speck of a Human what happens when sentients make me upset.”

  Brobst frowned. He clearly didn’t want to do what he was asked, but was going to do it any way.

  “Yes sir, Mister Splithead.”

  The big Human stepped forward, fists clenched.

  Pete stood his ground. “Gredok, I told you I’d get you more. Are you really that stupid you don’t even want to listen? I thought your kind were supposed to be smart.”