THE ALL-PRO (Galactic Football League)

by Scott Sigler

  “But I must protect you!”

  “No. You and I are done.”

  A swirl of colors: blue, pink, black. “Quentin, please ... I fought for you. I did not think about it at the time. My life has become all about protecting you and now ... now I have nothing. I am Ronin.”

  That word again. The same one Tara had used.

  “Ronin. What does that mean?”

  “It is a rough translation,” Choto said. “It means I have no leader. I have no master. In our culture ... it means I have nothing. I am nothing.”

  Choto started to shake. Big, bad, mean Choto the Bright, gangland bodyguard, GFL linebacker — he was so afraid, he shook. Maybe Gredok could hide his emotions to manipulate Quentin, but Choto was not Gredok. This was genuine.

  Quentin walked closer. “So, what do you do now?”

  Choto again looked at the floor. “I do not know. I will finish the season, fulfill my obligation to the team. And then ... I will try to find a new leader. Or I will end my time.”

  “Why don’t you just not have a leader at all? Be your own sentient?”

  Choto’s good pedipalp quivered, then he winced. With the damaged one, it hurt to laugh. “That is not the Warrior way. I am not capable of that.”

  “Tara is capable of it.”

  Choto stared, then his eye swirled purple — sadness, pained confusion. “I am not Tara.”

  Had Tara carried such a burden all this time? Tara the Freak. Outcast. Ronin. The sentient was far stronger than Quentin had thought. Stronger than Choto. The entire Quyth life cycle hinged on structure, on authority. A Warrior had to have someone to follow.

  And then Quentin put the pieces together. “Choto, are you saying that you want me to be your leader?”

  Swirls of yellow — excitement, nervousness — and pink. That was exactly what Choto wanted. The thought of it thrilled him, gave him hope. It also terrified him — if Quentin said no, Choto would have nothing.

  “During the fight at Torba’s, I just reacted,” Choto said. “I did not think things through, but I knew what would happen. I knew the choice I was making. I chose you, Quentin. If you will have me, I will serve you faithfully. I will serve my Shamakath.”

  Had they had spent so much time together that Choto had imprinted upon Quentin? If Quentin cast him away, what would happen to him? And if Choto hadn’t stepped in, could Quentin have beaten Virak? Vinje would have just escaped. Quentin might never have gotten answers.

  He could not abandon Choto, not now.

  And hell, he already had millions of sentients worshiping him, what was one more?

  “Okay,” Quentin said. “I’m ... uh ... I’m your Shamakath, or whatever. Is there some kind of a ceremony or something?”

  Choto’s eye flooded a light orange. Total happiness. “No, it is not like that. With your words, it is done. I am yours to command, Shamakath.”

  “Okay, first thing, don’t call me that. Ever. I am Quentin, do you understand?”

  Choto nodded, a humanesque gesture that required the Warriors to move their whole upper body.

  “Good,” Quentin said. “And second, you tell no one of this. You don’t get to share the info. As far as the world knows, you are Ronin.”

  “But, why? Being Ronin is a mark of shame.”

  “Because you need to know what you’re getting into here. I’m not going to threaten you, or tell you I’ll kill you if you don’t obey or any of that crap. I wouldn’t do that. But you have to know, Choto, that I am going after Gredok the Splithead. Not this season and I don’t know when, but I will get revenge for what he did to me. If you’re following me, then you’re going to wind up going head-to-head with Gredok, probably head-to-head with your buddy Virak. I don’t want them to know I’m your leader. Do you understand?”

  This time, Choto’s eye swirled with inky black. Anger. Rage. Not at Quentin, but at Gredok and Virak.

  “I understand,” Choto said. “And I was hoping, very much, that was what you wanted.”

  Maybe this was a mistake, but Quentin didn’t know what else to do. If Choto was for real, he would be a valuable ally in the fight to come.

  “Shama ... Quentin,” Choto said. “It is almost time for practice. Shall we walk to the stadium?”

  Quentin shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure I’ll play for that betrayer.”

  Choto’s pedipalps twitched and he winced again. “Please, stop joking,” he said. “It hurts when I laugh.”

  “What are you laughing at?”

  Another twitch, another wince. “The thought of you not playing against the To Pirates? As if you were even capable of that. You are very funny, Quentin.”

  Quentin’s anger flared up, then it faded away. Choto was right. No matter what Gredok had done, Quentin Barnes wanted the ball. Needed it. He could stop playing no more than he could will his own heart to stop beating. He had to get his head back into the game.

  “That’s me,” Quentin said. “A regular comedian. Let’s get to practice.”

  • • •

  QUENTIN LIMPED into the training room.

  A hovering Doc Patah spun in place, saw the Human and paused.

  Quentin had waited until late after practice, until everyone had been patched up, showered, dressed and headed back to their apartments. Patah had lied about Cillian being Quentin’s genetic father. Quentin had trusted Doc Patah without question — a fact that Gredok had known, yet another element the crime lord had used to manipulate.

  After the fight at Torba’s, Quentin had avoided Doc Patah. This was the first time they’d seen each other since the dinner.

  Quentin still didn’t know much about Harrah emotions, but he knew fear when he saw it — and Doc Patah was afraid. Damn well he should be. The floating creature’s sensory pits widened and his mouth-flaps changed from light gray to a darker shade.

  “Young Quentin,” Doc Patah said. “I know that you must be furious with me, but I—”

  “Shove it,” Quentin said through clenched teeth. “Doc, it’s taking every bit of control I have not to rip you in half. I’m going to ask questions, you’re going to answer. Understand?”

  Doc’s wide wings undulated slowly, keeping him in place. “Yes. I understand.”

  Quentin stripped off his gear, limped to the rejuve tank. He slid in. This time, the pink fluid’s penetrating warmth did little to elevate his mood. Hate pumped through his veins — he didn’t want it to go away. That’s what he was now, a creature of anger, a creature of fury.

  Doc paused, as if he wasn’t sure what to do.

  Quentin pointed to his knee. “Fix this.”

  Doc fluttered over, his mouth-flaps pressing and pulling at the joint. He swung in a clamshell clamp and started affixing it to the knee. He was close enough that if Quentin reached out and grabbed him, Doc wouldn’t have time to react. They both knew it.

  The knee, a silly injury. Quentin hadn’t been paying attention in practice. Hard to do that, hard to think about anything but the way Gredok had screwed him, about the sister that was still out there, somewhere. Quentin couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t execute. He’d even forgotten about his red no-touch jersey, how the defenders wouldn’t hit him. Instead of running a boot play in practice and just slowing down when the defense approached, he’d accelerated, gone head-to-head with Virak the Mean.

  Virak hadn’t slowed either.

  It was practice, but if the quarterback initiated contact, a defender wasn’t just going to get run over. Virak had responded to the challenge by diving at Quentin’s legs, undercutting him, putting a helmet into Quentin’s knee.

  If Quentin played like this against the To Pirates? If he couldn’t get his head back in the game? The Krakens were in a lot of trouble.

  Quentin talked as Doc worked. “You’re going to tell me why, Doc. Tell me why you lied to me, told me that shucker was my father.”

  Doc’s mouth-flaps seemed to move automatically, doing the work they’d done hundreds of times before. “Gredok
gave me no choice,” he said. “He has information on me, Quentin. If he exercises that information, my life is over.”

  Blackmail. Threats. Violence. Death. These were the tools of Gredok. “And if you’d refused to lie for him?”

  “I imagine I would already be dead,” Doc Patah said. “And in a way that is too horrible to describe. It involves something called a flaying hook.”

  The clamp clicked home, bringing with it the brief sting of needles penetrating the joint just before it shut off Quentin’s nerves. Thirty minutes, then the knee would be as good as new.

  “Doc, would you like to be free of Gredok’s control?”

  “Quentin, just because I wronged you doesn’t mean I want to listen to stupid questions. Do you think I’d let him control me if I had any choice?”

  Doc Patah, the sentient that dared not enter Coranadillana, the sentient that dared not cross Gredok. Secrets. Quentin hated secrets.

  “Someday I’m going to come to you and ask you for a favor,” Quentin said. “Whatever it is, you’re going to do it. You won’t ask questions, you won’t second-guess me, you’ll just do it.”

  “Would this favor involve my debt to Gredok?”

  “Funny,” Quentin said, “that sounds like a question and I haven’t even asked you for the favor yet.”

  Doc pressed a few buttons on the clamp, then flew over to his monitor alcove. “Point taken,” he said as he looked at the holos showing the inside of Quentin’s knee. “I wronged you, Quentin and you have never wronged me. Therefore, I will do what you ask.”

  Quentin nodded. He laid his head back on the tank’s edge. “Good. Then I don’t have to kill you. Now get out of my sight until this thing is done cooking my knee.”

  Doc Patah fluttered to the training room door, then paused, turned. “Is there anything else I can possibly do to earn back your trust? To make this up to you?”

  “Sure,” Quentin said. “Do you have twenty-five million credits?”

  Doc Patah’s mouth-flaps darkened again. “Of course I do not have that kind of money.”

  Quentin looked up, shrugged. “Well, find it. That’s what I lost because of you. You owe Gredok? Too bad, Doc, because now you owe me, too. And when he’s gone, I’ll still be right here, waiting for my money.”

  He closed his eyes, again rested his head on the tank’s edge. He waited until he heard Patah flutter away, then let sleep take him.

  • • •

  QUENTIN DROPPED BACK, eyes flicking through his receivers. Everything seemed so fast. Sometimes the game slowed down and he sped up, but today it felt like he was the one in slow motion.

  His black-clad offensive line battled against the brutality of the To Pirates’ five-man defensive front. The Pirates — black shoes, blood-red leg armor with white-trimmed black Ki skulls on the thighs. White jerseys with black-lined red numbers down near the waist to make room for the black-fanged, red Ki skull-and-cross-bones logo that spread across the chest. Blood-red helmets with that simple, white-lined black stripe down the middle.

  Tara the Freak, cutting across the middle from right to left. Quentin tracked, knew he was locked on Tara, knew he was staring for too long, but he couldn’t look away. He started throwing even as part of his brain screamed don’t! but his left arm acted on its own accord. He threw. The ball hung a moment too long, long enough for Pirates linebacker Richard Damge to step in front of Tara, snag it out of the air and sprint the other way.

  Quentin’s third interception of the game.

  Damge cut toward the visitors’ sidelines. Quentin turned and ran, all the frustration and rage exploding inside him. He didn’t see a linebacker; he saw Rick “Sarge” Vinje. Beneath that bloodred helmet, Quentin saw the face of the man who’d shattered his soul.

  Damge moved the ball to his left arm, close to the sidelines. He reached out his right hand as Quentin closed in. Damge was a linebacker, not an experienced ball-carrier and his stiff-arm was clumsy.

  Clumsy and ineffective.

  Quentin launched himself head-first, swatting the stiff-arm aside just a fraction of a second before his forearm ripped up and through Damge’s chin, snapping the helmeted head back harder than a close-range gunshot. The big Human linebacker’s feet flew out from under him. Instantly unconscious, he seemed to float out of bounds, into the sea of red leg armor and white jerseys on the Pirates sidelines, weightless and limp for that half-second he remained in the air, then he landed hard on his back and tumbled forward like a rag doll.

  Quentin ran three steps to the fallen player, stood over him and shook his fist.

  “You like that, you shucker? You like that?”

  Whistles blew just before big hands grabbed Quentin and pushed him back. He saw an unknown Quyth Warrior wearing a white jersey, so he threw a punch at it. Off-balance from another push, Quentin’s fist just grazed the Warrior’s mouth.

  Someone pushed Quentin hard in the chest, knocked him on his ass. Flags flew, more whistles blew. Black jerseys dove into the fray. Quentin scrambled to his feet — the Pirates wanted a fight? That could be arranged.

  Quentin took one step back into the scrum, then a pair of giant-sized hands grabbed either side of his chest, lifted him, turned him away from the fight. Quentin clawed and kicked, but he couldn’t pry away hands that were as big as his forearm —

  — The hands of Michael Kimberlin.

  • • •

  “CHICK, IT LOOKS LIKE the officials have control over the fight. We have flags down.”

  “Unsportsmanlike conduct on Barnes, Masara. No question there. Fifteen yards from the infraction, which will give the Pirates the ball on the Krakens’ seventeen.”

  “Chick, I think that interception wraps up the game. With only three minutes to play, the Pirates are up ten and they have the ball in scoring position.”

  “I think you’re right, Masara. It’s been a tale of two quarterbacks this evening. The living legend Frank Zimmer playing lights-out ball, throwing for three touchdowns and three hundred fifty yards, while Barnes has countered with three interceptions. You can’t do that in a game against a first-place team.”

  “No, Chick, you just can’t. Chick, it looks like Damge is still down.”

  “I’m not surprised, Masara. Barnes certainly landed a snot-bubbler on him.”

  “A what?”

  “A snot-bubbler. That’s when you hit a Human so hard that his head is knocked back fast and the snot kind of stays in the same place due to inertia. It bubbles out onto his nose like a mucus volcano.”

  “Chick!”

  “Let’s see if our producer can get a close-up booger-shot of Damge’s face. Zoom in, Polly, zoom in!”

  GFL WEEK TEN ROUNDUP

  Courtesy of Galaxy Sports Network

  A HOT WEEK OF FOOTBALL brings us closer to a final postseason picture. The Vik Vanguard (6-3) closed in on the third playoff spot in the Solar Division, thanks to a 26-10 win over the Texas Earthlings (3-6). With three games to play, the Vanguard needs just one more win to guarantee a postseason appearance, thanks to losses by Bord, D’Kow, Shorah and New Rodina, all of which dropped to 3-6.

  Wins by Neptune (8-1) and Jupiter (8-1) mean both teams have wrapped up a playoff berth.

  The Planet Division picture is not so nice and neat. Wabash and To are tied for first at 8-1. Wabash stayed in first with a 30-24 win over the Bartel Water Bugs (4-5), while To won 38-28 over Ionath (6-3). That loss drops the Krakens to fifth place, hurting their playoff chances. Even if Ionath wins their final three games, they still might not make the postseason.

  Yall’s 57-10 whipping of the Lu Juggernauts (0-9) moves the Criminals into a second-place tie with the Isis Ice Storm, as both teams sit at 7-2. Isis edged the Bord Brigands 17-14. As Week Ten closes out, Lu, Coranadillana (3-6), Alimum (2-7) and Hittoni (3-6) have all been eliminated from playoff contention.

  The Juggernauts can only avoid relegation if they win their final three games and Alimum loses their final three. The two teams play each other
in Week Thirteen.

  Deaths

  Much sadness and anger in the Quyth Concordia this week following Monday Night Football, when the Coranadillana Cloud Killers visited OS1 Orbiting Death. Excitement over the renewal of this rivalry shifted to tragedy as a riot in the stands left 15 dead and 47 injured. It is unclear how the fight broke out between the supporters of both teams. After the riot was subdued and the game resumed, the Death won 42-10.

  Offensive Player of the Week

  Neptune quarterback Adam Guri, who set a single-game yardage record with 513 in the Scarlet Fliers’ win over New Rodina. Guri completed 42-of-56 throws on the day, including four TD passes.

  Defensive Player of the Week

  Themala linebacker Tibi the Unkempt, who had an interception, five solo tackles and a sack in the Dreadnaughts’ win over the Sala Intrigue.

  21

  WEEK ELEVEN:

  D’KOW WAR DOGS

  at IONATH KRAKENS

  PLANET DIVISION

  8-1 Wabash Wolfpack

  8-1 To Pirates

  7-2 Isis Ice Storm

  7-2 Yall Criminals

  6-3 Ionath Krakens

  6-3 Themala Dreadnaughts

  4-5 OS1 Orbiting Death

  3-6 Coranadillana Cloud Killers

  3-6 Hittoni Hullwalkers

  2-7 Alimum Armada

  0-9 Lu Juggernauts

  SOLAR DIVISION

  8-1 x - Neptune Scarlet Fliers

  8-1 x - Jupiter Jacks

  6-3 Vik Vanguard

  4-5 Bartel Water Bugs

  3-6 Bord Brigands

  3-6 D’Kow War Dogs

  3-6 New Rodina Astronauts

  3-6 Shorah Warlords

  3-6 Jang Atom Smashers

  3-6 Texas Earthlings

  1-8 Sala Intrigue

  x = playoffs, y = division title, * = team has been relegated

  QUENTIN PULLED OFF his practice jersey and flung it into his locker. His Human teammates milled about the locker room. They all seemed distant, almost afraid to come near him. Good. That was the image he wanted to project. He didn’t want to talk to anyone.