John didn’t seem to care about the amazing view: he’d lost a bet to his brother, and he was flaming mad about it.
“Q, you promised we’d go out after the game,” John said. “No backing out this week. You got me?”
The look on John’s face made it clear Quentin got him, whether Quentin liked it or not.
“Sure, John. I’ll go.”
That seemed to mollify John.
“Well, good. Ain’t no pub crawl like a Net Colony pub crawl, Q. Trust me when I say that the Neptunians really know how to party.”
“I think its Neptoids,” Ju said. “Or maybe Neptons?”
John shrugged. “Whichever.”
[FIRST-SHUTTLE PASSENGERS, PLEASE REPORT TO THE SHUTTLE BAT] called out the Touchback’s computer. [DEPARTURE IN FIFTEEN MINUTES]
Ju gripped Quentin’s shoulder, gave it a friendly shake.
“Come on, Q. John and I will walk you to the landing bay. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. I think it’s time we discussed you changing your last name to Tweedy.”
John’s face lit up, both in expression and in a flash of glowing orange exclamation points. “Sensational idea, my good man! A postulatory exposition the likes of which society beckons to hear on a rare basis!”
Quentin rubbed his temples as he walked.
“What does postulatory mean?”
John shrugged. “I don’t know, but it has five syllables. I counted.”
John and Ju continued to babble about why Quentin should change his last name, but Quentin slowly tuned them out; his mind relaxed into the total focus of game preparation.
The Krakens were undefeated; he would make sure they stayed that way.
THE NEPTUNE SCARLET FLIERS took the field to the roar of 150,000 fans, all screaming for their team to knock off the defending Galaxy Bowl champs. A win would put Neptune at 3-1 and keep them in the Solar Division playoff hunt, while a loss would leave them three full games behind undefeated Bartel, who had topped D’Kow earlier in the day.
The stadium’s bottom pointed down toward the blue gas giant beneath; the domed top faced out into the void. A noon local-time start put the distant sun directly overhead. Sunlight blazed down on scarlet helmets with a white-then-black outlined trident displayed large on each side. The jerseys were black with a large faded trident logo starting on the left shoulder pad, the trident’s three prongs ending at the right hip. The same symbol ran down the outer thighs of scarlet leg armor. White-trimmed scarlet letters spelled FLIERS across their chests, with white-trimmed scarlet numbers below.
The Fliers looked sharp, looked confident, looked ready to take on all comers — right up until the game actually started.
From the first snap, it was obvious that Neptune wasn’t at Ionath’s level, at least not that Sunday afternoon. In the fourth quarter, with the score 28-10, the Fliers looked deflated.
They looked beaten.
Quentin stood on the sidelines, watching his defense and whispering a silent thank you to High One that he didn’t have to line up against them.
Mum-O had a pair of sacks. He’d begun his night by knocking the Fliers right offensive tackle out of the game, and since then he’d been toying with the second-stringer the way a cat toys with wounded prey that it will soon dispatch to that great animal kingdom in the sky. Four seasons ago, Mum-O had been a rookie alongside Quentin and — just like Quentin — had fully come into the prime of his body and abilities. The young Ki had an intangible that Quentin did not, however: Mum-O was just plain mean. He’d always been a badass, ready to brawl at the drop of a hat, but the way he hit now, the way he put everything he had into every tackle — Mum-O enjoyed hurting other sentient beings.
As if Mum-O wasn’t enough for offensive lines to deal with, they also had to face Ionath defensive ends Alexsandar Michnik and Ibrahim Khomeni. Before gorillas went extinct centuries ago, there must have been five-hundred-pound members of that species, tree-trunk-sized arms pounding massive fists into the ground as they roared and rushed, thick muscles fluttering with movement, shaking at each impact. It would have been a terrifying thing to see, though probably not quite as frightening as watching the orange-and-black clad Michnik and Khomeni rage forward with reckless abandon. Michnik had one solo sack, and another when he and Khomeni had reached Neptune quarterback Adam Gurri at the same time. After that hit, Quentin had been shocked to see Gurri get up, but he had — the Fliers signal-caller was one tough bastard.
Even when Gurri could get a pass off, which wasn’t often, his day hadn’t got any better. The Krakens secondary — Wahiawa and Bumberpuff at the corners, Niami at strong safety and Katzembaum Weasley at free safety — had gelled as a unit. They were quite possibly the league’s best. If not, they were second only to Jupiter’s D-backs, a group that literally gave Quentin nightmares.
To top off a defensive line that couldn’t be blocked and a secondary that Yolanda Davenport had recently nicknamed the “Blast Shield,” there was Ionath’s biggest defensive star: one Jonathan Wilmer Tweedy. Before every snap, he stood in the middle of the field, pointing, spitting, snorting, screaming insults and nonsensical words at Gurri, at the Fliers running backs Lizard Gaston and Jerome Bird. On every snap, John crashed around like a tank, spinning off of blockers and driving all his hate into whoever was dumb enough to carry the ball.
Choto and Virak played on either side of John. Their mission was simple — if they couldn’t make the stop, they’d force the play back inside where John could finish it off. When they did make tackles, they did so in differing styles: Choto had perfect form, wrapping up his opponents and efficiently bringing them down, while Virak unleashed his pent-up rage and just generally knocked the snot out of anyone. Runner or blocker, it didn’t matter to Virak as long as he had someone to hit.
Quentin was grateful his first game with Kopor the Climber at starting fullback came against the Fliers, who didn’t exactly have the league’s best defense. Kopor had missed two key blocks that day. On the first one, Quentin had been lit up by linebacker Jan “The Destroyer” Dennison. On the second, Quentin had almost lost his head to defensive tackle Chris Maler. Two sacks wasn’t that bad, though. For most of the afternoon, Quentin had been able to stand tall in the pocket and deliver. He’d torched cornerback Fanning Springs and free safety Tulsa, repeatedly hitting Denver, Milford and Halawa on long passes. His main victim of the afternoon, however, was the Fliers’ newest player: Prawatt cornerback Scootchie-Poo Pootersnoot.
Pootersnoot was among the handful of Prawatt players that had signed with teams other than the Krakens, an obvious indication that the GFL was well on its way to fully accepting the species. At the end of the day, owners and coaches really only cared about one thing: getting the best player for the position, regardless of race, nation of origin, ideology or anything else that made one sentient different from another. Pootersnoot had shown great potential early in the season, but was still a rookie cornerback, and rookie cornerbacks were a thing to be used and abused. Quentin had done just that, hitting Cheboygan on a beautiful 75-yard TD strike right over the top of the Prawatt defender.
At game’s end, the Krakens walked off the field with a 35-10 win. Everything had gone smoothly and by the numbers. The only odd thing was Becca’s uniform: clean, untouched. Near the end of a game, her uniform, helmet and face usually carried the marks of an afternoon’s violence. But that afternoon, she had stayed on the sidelines.
Quentin didn’t know if that bothered her. He hoped it did, and at the same time, he hated himself for feeling that petty.
When the final gun sounded, the Krakens had once again shown the league that they were not paper champions. On offense, Ionath would light you up. On defense, they would beat you damn near to death.
The Krakens were 5-0. They held the title, and they were ready to defend it against all comers.
IF THE BEER-STAINED, SLIGHTLY PEELING wall covering had once been smart paper, it had stopped working long ago. The mismatched tables were
made of salvaged starship hulls, and every one of them wobbled at least a little. Of the four beers on tap, Quentin knew all their names — not a pretentious microbrew in the house. There wasn’t even a menu, just popcorn, ziggynuts and flash-dried spiders (the latter of which, he had to admit, he’d developed a taste for, thanks to hanging out with Choto for so long).
The place was a dive; Quentin felt right at home.
This was the sixth stop on John’s pub crawl. Or maybe the seventh, Quentin wasn’t sure. They had left Trident Station and hit the web of ships surrounding it, their limo/shuttle taking them from one station (or converted starship or retired freighter or anything that was airtight and had engines) to the next. The bars were mostly packed with Humans, but there were other species as well, including more Harrah than any place Quentin had seen outside of Tribal Accord space.
Their latest stop, a hole-in-the-wall called Kessel’s Run, had been filled with Scarlet Fliers fans still enjoying their night even though the game had ended six hours earlier. Unlike other cities — such as OS1, for example — the Neptune fans welcomed opposing team players and opposing team fans. Aside from two Harrah aerial duels that had popped up out of nowhere, the evening had been remarkably violence-free.
Ju was standing on one of the wobbly tables, beer mug in hand and at least some of the sloshing beer remaining in it. He was trying to get the dwindling crowd to sing a sixth-straight rendition of “Black Velvet Band,” but the sentients remaining weren’t that interested; the novelty of bellowing songs with a GFL star had worn off about three renditions ago.
John was passed out, flat on his back on another table, legs and arms hanging, a half-empty beer balanced on his chest. HeavyG backup defensive end Cliff Frost’s massive shoulders shook with laughter as he drew on John’s face with a black pen.
Yassoud Murphy and backup linebacker Pishor the Fang were arm wrestling. ’Soud was drunk, sweat pouring off him, his body shaking with intensity and effort. Pishor matched that intensity, his baseball-sized eye swirling with the black of anger and the dark red of surprise — he couldn’t believe how strong Yassoud had become.
Quentin sat in a booth with Choto. Quentin had been drinking in moderation, but he consumed alcohol so infrequently during the season that even his four beers were making him a little tipsy. Choto drank something that smelled awful and looked like gray sludge. Whatever it was, this was his third mug. His eyelid sagged shut. He slowly slid to his left, then the eye shot open and he sat bolt upright.
Choto blinked rapidly, but the eyelid was already starting to sag again.
“I am very tired,” he said. “And also possibly intoxicated to some degree.”
It was good to see his friend and bodyguard relax for a change. And why not? They’d earned the right to celebrate. The Krakens had taken all three games of a brutal road trip. Soon they would depart for Ionath, and next Sunday they would be heavily favored against the 2-2 Alimum Armada at Ionath Stadium — the Krakens had an excellent chance to finish the first half of the season undefeated.
Choto pointed a wavering pedipalp at Yassoud and Pishor.
“They were just arm wrestling a few minutes ago. How many times have they done this?”
“Still the first time,” Quentin said. “Ten minutes and going, by my count.”
Choto muttered something in Quyth. He sounded impressed.
Ju tried to do a little dance but stepped on the edge of the table — it tilted under him, sending him crashing down on John, smashing the mug on John’s chest and dropping both of them to the floor. The bar patrons cheered and laughed.
Something caught Quentin’s eye: a Human man sitting at the bar stood up to adjust his seat, then sat back down again. Quentin only noticed because of the man’s height — in that brief moment when he stood, he towered over the other patrons. Six-ten, maybe ... maybe even as tall as Quentin, but skinny. He wore a long black coat with the collar up, obscuring part of his face, and a fedora down low so the brim covered most of the rest. But Quentin could see the man’s skin ... a deep, dark chocolate color.
“Dammit,” Quentin said. He leaned closer to Choto. “I think that tall guy over there is Jonathan Sandoval.”
“The reporter?”
“Yeah,” Quentin said. “We should get everyone out of here before he makes up some story about our drunken escapades.”
“Does John and Ju crashing to the floor not qualify as an actual drunken escapade?”
“Not to Sandoval,” Quentin said. “He’ll invent something far worse. Or hang around until John wakes up and wants to fight someone. Come on, Choto, sober up. We need to get our guys to the limo and return to the Touchback.”
Ju pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees, then stood with the help of Frost. Ju had blood on his chest.
“Dangit,” he said. He reached up to his sternum, pulled free a shard of blood-smeared mug and tossed it to the floor.
John sat up. His face tattoo scrolled gibberish beneath magic-marker whiskers, pointy eyebrows and a kitty nose.
“Not a party until Ju bleeds,” John said.
Ju held up his blood-covered fingers. “It’s a party.”
Two scarred HeavyKi bouncers, each six hundred pounds at least, pushed through the remaining crowd. They came in like they were going to roust everyone out, but one look at Frost — a six-foot-eleven HeavyG — made them stop in their tracks.
Frost smiled at them. “You fellas have something to say?”
John tried to get up. “They wanna go, Cliffy? I say we floor the mop with their faces!”
Quentin nudged Choto. “Tell those bouncers we’ll get everyone out of here.”
Choto slid out of the booth. He walked to the bouncers, wobbling only a little, his middle and pedipalp arms outstretched in a we don’t want any trouble gesture.
Quentin walked to Ju, who was picking up the table: not to put it where it belonged, but to throw it at the bouncers.
“Put it down,” Quentin said. “Bleeding or not, the party’s over.”
Ju harrumphed.
John finally managed to stand. “Come on, Q! These guys is be busting’ up our place! Someone should smack them in their hexamouths, or whatever the hell they call those face-holes of theirs.”
Cliff’s impromptu art made John look ridiculous.
“Hello, kitty,” Quentin said. “John, this is their place. We are the ones busting it up. So by your logic, what should happen?”
John frowned. “Someone should smack us in our hexamouths?”
Ju shook his head. “We don’t have hexamouths.”
Quentin grabbed Frost’s shoulder. “Get these two to the limo, got it?”
Frost smiled wider and gave a snappy military salute.
“Tweedy brothers,” he said, “fall in”
The huge defensive end shepherded the drunken Tweedys past the bouncers. Quentin saw Choto tapping the credit box strapped to his wrist — he was probably paying for the damages. The linebacker called to Frost.
“Clifford, may I use your pen?”
Frost tossed a pen to Choto, who promptly signed the left upper arm of each 600-pound HeavyKi. The bouncers seemed very pleased with how things had turned out.
Quentin heard the grunting of a Human and the deep clicks of a Quyth; Yassoud and Pishor were still at it.
“It’s a tie,” Quentin said to them. “We’re leaving.”
Both sentients struggled, arms shaking.
“Let go,” Yassoud said.
“You let go,” Pishor said. “I will not slam your scrawny arm through this table, I promise.”
Quentin walked over, grabbed their wrists, squeezed as hard as he could and yanked them apart.
“I said, we’re leaving.”
The two Krakens stood up, both laughing, both rubbing their now-painful wrists.
“Damn, Q,” Yassoud said. “You’re stronger than you look. Wanna arm wrestle?”
Quentin pointed to the door. Yassoud and Pishor stumbled toward it. Choto fel
l in at Quentin’s side.
They left Kessel’s Run. There were no “streets” to speak of in this place, just a long central corridor with a curved ceiling some fifty feet overhead. Bars, restaurants and shops lined the corridor. The ship had once been a water tanker, almost eight hundred meters long, but its punch drives had worn out. It still had impulse engines and — like every other ship in the Net Colony — could shift its orbital position at will. Almost every vessel in the Net Colony could move, and often did; Quentin had heard the locals use the phrase “never the same neighbors twice.”
The former tanker thrummed with activity. Every store, restaurant and bar was still open, holo signs above them blazing brightly. Crowds of Humans wandered from club to club, most of them holding colorful plastic cups of various shapes and sizes. Each bar had a signature drink, it seemed, and each signature drink had a signature take-home container. Up above, the air was thick with Harrah. Most bore the colors of their local tribes, but many trailed streamers of scarlet, white and black — the colors of the Fliers. More than a few trailed streamers of orange and black: Harrah who either lived here and were Krakens fans or had traveled to the gas giant to catch their beloved team in action.
If there was one thing Quentin loved about a place with too many Harrah, it was the near absence of Creterakian soldiers. In the Net Colony’s smaller ships, John said, bats tended to disappear — the Harrah Neptunians hated their winged overlords and would take them out any chance they got. There weren’t enough Creterakians garrisoned in the Net Colony to investigate every death and disappearance. The all-encompassing hand of the Empire wasn’t quite as all encompassing as Quentin had once thought.