HE SAT IN HIS ROOM, marveling at how much a body could hurt after just one practice. It wasn’t enough to stop him from playing. Nothing hurt that much. But it sure wasn’t a walk in the park either. Quentin’s fingers deftly worked game controls as he guided his players around the holo tank. Games were a good way to get his mind off of practice — he didn’t know who “Madden” was, but “Madden 2683” was the best football sim he’d ever played. His To Pirates were up 22–16 over the Jupiter Jacks in a re-match of Galaxy Bowl XXIV.
His door-buzzer rang.
[MITCHELL FAYED IS AT YOUR DOOR]
Quentin hit pause and limped to the door. Fayed stood there, all 6-foot-9-inch, 350 granite-block pounds of him.
“Good evening, Quentin.”
Quentin just nodded.
“Why are you not at second meal?”
Quentin shrugged. “Just wanted to relax after practice.”
“You do not make friends easily with the rest of the team.”
Quentin didn’t know what to say. It was a statement, not a question.
“It does not matter,” Fayed said. “I came to say something to you.”
Fayed paused, as if waiting for permission.
“Well go ahead,” Quentin said.
“I have been in Tier Two for seven years now. Three with the Citadel Aquanauts, and four with the Krakens. I have worked all my life to reach Tier One. That is all I want.”
Quentin nodded.
“I came here to tell you that,” Fayed said. “I hope reaching Tier One is as important to you as it is to me. If you should take over the quarterback position, I will support you. I think you have talent. I want you to be strong in these first few weeks. I suspect you have not been hit like this before?”
Quentin shrugged. “There were some big hits in the PNFL.”
“And none of them reached you,” Fayed said. “I have watched holos of your games. You are new to this level of hitting. And it will get worse during the games. Far worse.”
Quentin tried to imagine how he could be hit any harder. Maybe if he crashed a hoversled into a brick wall at 180 miles per hour. Maybe.
“You get used to it,” Fayed said. “You have a big, strong body, like me. I have watched you. You can take the hits. You may not know it yet, but you can take the hits. Be strong. Keep working hard and good things will come.”
Fayed then nodded once, turned, and walked away.
Quentin stared out the door for a few seconds, then returned to his game. Did Fayed want something from him? Why was be being so nice? He didn’t know what to make of the guy. Hell, he didn’t know what to make of any of his teammates. But… did Mitchell “The Machine” Fayed believe in him? Quentin shook his head. This had to be something else. Fayed had to have some kind of motive for this. Couldn’t trust him. Couldn’t trust anyone on this team. A voice in the back of his head reminded him he hadn’t trusted anyone on the Raiders, either. Hadn’t trusted anyone in a long, long time.
He picked up the controller, trying to ignore the pangs of loneliness as he focused on making his To Pirates win Galaxy Bowl XXIV.
BOOK THREE: THE REGULAR SEASON
An hour before the game, the Humans started dressing. The stadium was already mostly full. Even three stories below the stands, inside the locker room’s thick walls, they heard the crowd’s roar.
Music pumped from Yassoud’s locker. He loved scrag music: loud, boisterous, boasting rhymes produced from the downtrodden culture of Rodina. Several people had asked Yassoud to turn it down, but John Tweedy liked the music, so nobody pressed the point.
Quentin sat on the bench, already dressed, his thoughts focused on the game ahead. His first Upper Tier game. He barely noticed his teammates or the music. He didn’t come out of it until he felt someone near, staring at him. Quentin looked up and saw Don Pine only a few feet away. Quentin’s eyes narrowed to hateful slits.
“What do you want, Pine?”
Pine shrugged. “Nothing.”
“So go stare at someone else’s booty.”
“Kid, you need to relax.”
“I really didn’t appreciate your joke back on the landing platform.”
“What joke?” “What are you talking about?”
“Denver. You had Denver come up to me — in front of everyone — and ask if I needed help with my passing.”
Pine blinked a few times. “You thought that was a joke?”
“Not a very funny one,” Quentin said. “You’ll get yours.”
Pine shook his head in amazement, then sighed. “Well if you get in today, kid, good luck.”
He turned and walked away. Quentin didn’t return the sentiment.
THE KRAKENS PLAYERS GATHERED in the tunnel that led to the field.
The announcer said something in Quyth, then repeated it in Human: “Here is the visiting team, the WooooooOOOO Wallcrawlers!”
A scraping sound filled the stadium, like a million carpenters sanding a million rough boards. Quentin pressed his hands to the ear holes of his helmet. He turned to Yitzhak. “What the hell is that?”
“Fur-scraping,” Yitzhak said, leaning into Quentin and shouting so he could be heard over the horrible noise. “Workers scrape the bristly fur on their forearms together — it’s kind of like a Human booing.”
The Krakens packed tightly into the small space. Clean or-ange-and-black jerseys covered the bodies and armor of Human, Heavy-G, Sklorno, Ki and Quyth Warrior. No one pushed, no one shoved, no one threatened. The very walls vibrated with the growing roar of the capacity 185,000-being crowd. Intangible electricity filled the air, making the skin on the back of Quentin’s neck tingle with excitement.
Racial hatred disappeared. That wasn’t quite true — it didn’t disappear as much as it transformed, mutated, moving from alien teammates to the unified body of the enemy: the Woo Wallcrawlers. The Krakens players were no longer individual species, no longer individual beings with petty biases and hatreds and arguments.
They were warriors.
Headed to battle.
The announcer said something in Quyth, and the crowd erupted with the roar of the High One himself. The unified army of orange-and-black surged forward. The announcer repeated the call, this time in Human.
“Beings of all races, let’s hear it for, your, Ionath, KRAAAAAA-KENNNNNNNS!”
Quentin found himself carried along in a wave of teammates. This was nothing like it had been on Micovi, where the starters were introduced one at a time, and the largest crowd he’d ever played before amounted to 24,500.
The team sprinted out through the tunnel mouth into the perfect daylight of Ionath Stadium. Quentin had never seen such a concentration of life. The crowd’s roar hit like a physical, concussive force. At the sidelines, the Krakens gathered in a tight circle. Quentin found himself packed in shoulder-to-shoulder against Milford on his right, pressed next to Mum-O-Killowe on his left, and Killik the Unworthy behind him. In front of them all, at the center of the circle: Donald Pine.
“This is it,” Pine said. He wasn’t yelling, yet his words carried loudly despite the crowd’s massive volume. “This is what we’ve worked for. The road to Tier One starts right here, right now.”
His voice rang with authority and command. All around him, Quentin felt Krakens players leaning in towards Pine. The veteran quarterback radiated calm and utter confidence. Creterakian civilians dressed in tiny orange and black uniforms flittered about, translating Pine’s words into Ki.