The Champion

  Leiba’s cornea swirled with yellow-orange: he was excited, ready to fight the entire team if he had to. The Warrior slowly spun the stun-stick as he glanced from player to player, figuring out his first target.

  More Krakens started to creep forward, faces scowling, bodies leaning in with aggression.

  “Stop it” Yitzhak barked with the full volume of a voice that could make snap counts heard over the din of 150,000 screaming fans. The punch of his words froze everyone cold.

  “This isn’t about mods,” he said. “And it isn’t about anyone but me.” He glanced at Kimberlin. “I’m going. Everyone just stay out of it.”

  With that, he strode to the shuttle and straight up the ramp, so suddenly that the powered-armored Sklorno had to scramble to stay with him.

  Yitzhak stopped at the top, then looked back out.

  “Froese, are you coming? I haven’t got all day.”

  Yitzhak vanished inside.

  Quentin stared after him. Yitzhak was in a hurry to get out of there, and Quentin knew why — he wanted to protect Kimberlin.

  Froese looked at the gathered players.

  “You’re all dismissed,” he said. “We’ll take it from here. Everyone, out. Except you, Hokor, I need to talk to you. And you, Barnes. You’re the team leader, you stay.”

  Some of the players — the Prawatt mostly — left immediately. Others lingered for a few moments, then filed out the airlock door and into the ship proper.

  Quentin watched his teammates filter past. John seethed. Ju looked like he wanted to turn and go after Leiba, stun-stick or no stun-stick. Kimberlin reeked of anxiety, doubt and internal conflict.

  But one player had an expression unique among all the Krakens: relief. That player was Jason Procknow, HeavyG backup defensive tackle.

  Procknow, the only other player from the Purist Nation on the Krakens roster.

  Kimberlin and Procknow were both involved somehow. Quentin knew it, knew it without question.

  The airlock door hissed shut. The shuttle bay seemed empty, suddenly louder with hanging echoes. The glowing sign in the arched ceiling —THE IONATH KRAKENS ARE ON A COLLISION COURSE WITH ANOTHER GFL CHAMPIONSHIP — THE ONLY VARIABLE IS TIME — seemed somehow juvenile.

  Froese and Leiba stood in front of Quentin, Yolanda, Whykor, Gredok and Hokor.

  “Coach Hokor,” Froese said, “I can’t tell you much, but out of respect I want you to know that this is something much bigger than mods.”

  “I assumed,” the coach said. “Frankly, I do not care what is involved. You would not have gone through all this trouble for a triviality, Commissioner. What I care about now is planning our bye week so I can bring another quarterback up to speed.”

  Froese tilted his head toward the airlock door. “Then you can go.”

  Hokor glanced at Gredok.

  “It is fine,” the black-furred Leader said. “I will handle it from here.”

  Hokor turned and walked out of the shuttle bay.

  Could Coach really be that heartless? Didn’t he care about Yitzhak’s life? Maybe he did but was hiding it. Then again, Hokor had lost players on the football field many times — was losing someone for a crime really any different?

  Gredok stood up to his full height. “Unlike my coach, I am very interested in the details,” he said to Froese. “You have interrupted my season and compromised my roster, Commissioner. I expect to be informed of every detail.”

  Froese normally puffed himself up when Gredok started dishing out orders, but this time, the commissioner simply nodded. However much Froese loved his job, at that moment he didn’t want to be the one doing it.

  “That’s fine, Gredok,” he said. “I will keep you informed.”

  Gredok turned to Quentin. “And you. You and I will discuss this later.”

  The gangster then followed the coach out the airlock door.

  Yolanda sniffed. She looked like she might cry.

  Froese cocked his head. “Tears, Yolanda? For a terrorist?”

  “For his friends, you jackass,” she said. “Didn’t you see how awful that was?”

  The commissioner sighed. “I did. But this has to be done.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. It has to be done. You have to do your job, and I have to do mine. I’ve got my story.”

  “There is no story,” Froese said.

  Yolanda looked at him blankly for a moment. She sniffed one more time, almost a leftover shred of the empathy she’d felt seconds before, an emotion quickly vanishing amid a slowly growing cloud of anger.

  “What are you talking about, Froese? This is the story of the year. It runs tonight.”

  “There is no story” the commissioner said, his voice cold and unforgiving. “I’ve already sent a message to your bosses at Galaxy Sports Magazine. I told them you have zero proof to back up your claims.”

  The words stunned Quentin. Froese had helped set the whole thing up, and now he was shutting it down?

  Yolanda’s breathing became ragged. Quentin could see her pulse hammering in her neck and temples.

  “You know I have proof,” she said. “Whykor, tell this idiot about your ...”

  She blinked. Quentin sensed her fury easing off, replaced by a growing tragic awareness.

  Yolanda looked at Whykor.

  “Tell him about the messages, your database, the device,” she said. “Tell him about the evidence.”

  Whykor looked at Froese, and in that moment Quentin understood. Froese had used Yolanda to find the Guild plant — the commissioner had never had any intention of letting the story get out.

  “Go ahead, Whykor,” Froese said. “Answer her question.”

  The Worker’s white fur ruffled. “I have done all I can to find the information you sought, Yolanda, but I found no evidence to support your claims.”

  Her mouth opened; a small breath slid out. Her eyes showed the pain of betrayal. Quentin’s heart broke for her.

  “Whykor, you bastard,” she said. “I trusted you.”

  The Worker’s eye flooded red-orange. He all but burned from total shame.

  “Commissioner Froese is my shamakath,” he said. “I must do as he asks.”

  Froese patted him on the shoulder. “Get into the shuttle. You don’t have to apologize to her for protecting the league.”

  Whykor walked to the ramp. His pedipalps drooped, as did his middle arms; he reminded Quentin of a Human child being sent to his room for doing something bad.

  Yolanda glared at Froese. “You used me, used my skills to find a player in your precious league that is a damn Zoroastrian Guild member, and now you think you can make the story go away?”

  Froese held up his hands in a what can you do gesture.

  “There are no Guild members in the GFL,” he said. “Such a thing would be terrible for the league. It would anger millions of sentients, and it would put players in danger wherever they go. So as I said, there is ... no ... story.”

  Yolanda’s little hands balled into purple-skinned fists.

  “I’ll go public anyway,” she said. “I worked on this for years, you understand me? So unless you think you’re going to take me to whatever secret torture chamber you have hidden away on your ship, unless you think you can actually make me disappear like you plan to do with Goldman, the story runs. Or do you really think you can make a member of the press just vanish?”

  She was calling the bluff he’d dropped on her ten days earlier, just before the Touchback had left for New Whitok.

  Froese smiled. Quentin looked away — those red teeth were so disturbing.

  “I don’t have to do anything to you, Yolanda,” Froese said. “You have no proof for your story. You don’t have the message logs, you don’t have the partial decryptions, you don’t have the device itself, and you don’t have Goldman. My office has already put out a press release that he has illegal mods, which was why we took him into custody. So all you have left is your claim that twelve messages were received by Guild cells and just so happen
ed to coincide with a Krakens away game. The BSI and NCIA will publically state that your information is wrong, that you are making it up.”

  “I’m not making up anything and you know it!”

  Froese shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I know. What matters is who the public believes — a reporter that gets paid for sensational stories, or the government agencies sworn to protect innocent civilians? If you run the story, everyone involved but you will deny everything. You’ll come across like a crackpot conspiracy theorist capitalizing on the tragedy of a player who made bad choices and broke the law so his career wouldn’t end.”

  She sneered, pointed a finger at Froese’s face and started to talk, but he cut her off before she could get going.

  “I’m not finished,” he snapped. “Your bosses at Galaxy Sports Magazine have been informed that if they run any slanderous, unsubstantiated stories about the GFL, I will block any access to the league until the reporter who filed that story is fired. I will then announce that the GFL will not work with said reporter. Seeing as the GFL is the biggest thing going in the history of sports, and seeing it entails Tiers One, Two and Three, no one will employ a reporter that isn’t allowed to cover it. So, no, Yolanda, I don’t need to take you to the Regulator. Run your story if you want. With some luck you might get a job covering the Sklorno soccer league or Harrah tribal death matches. Or, you could ship off to the Prawatt Jihad — who knows, maybe they need someone to start writing about The Game. Whatever happens, you will never cover the GFL again.”

  Yolanda started to tremble, the rage inside of her so volatile it moved her body.

  Quentin was both impressed and saddened. Froese knew how to play the power game as well as Gredok, it seemed, but was the commissioner placing football above justice for those killed by Yitzhak’s involvement? If so, did Quentin have any right to judge? He knew Kimberlin was involved but wasn’t saying anything — yet — because losing Kimberlin affected the Krakens’ chances at another Galaxy Bowl.

  “We’re done here,” the commissioner said. “Don’t worry, Yolanda, there are other exclusives in your future. Just accept that this one didn’t go the way you’d hoped. Don’t rock the boat, and you’ll be happy in the long run, I promise you.”

  “Your promises don’t mean a shucking thing,” she said.

  Froese nodded. “For now. But I help those who help me, and you helped me significantly. Now get in the shuttle so we can get out of here.”

  Her jaw clenched. Her lip curled up in a sneer. Quentin wondered if she might bite through her tongue.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you” she said. “Or with that little cotton ball of a traitor. I’ll find my own ride, Froese.”

  Quentin watched her storm out of the shuttle bay.

  Froese rubbed at his face. He had won but seemed defeated. The effort of bullying Yolanda into silence had taken its toll.

  “We had to do this, Barnes. You understand that, right? For the good of the league.”

  Quentin’s heart hung leaden in his chest, but he nodded.

  “What about Zak’s wife and kids?”

  Froese shook his head. He couldn’t seem to make eye contact.

  “They have to be questioned,” he said. “Local authorities are picking them up now.”

  “Wait a minute ... questioned? You mean like on the Regulator?”

  “No, worse,” Froese said quietly. “By the Creterakians. If Goldman’s family doesn’t know anything, they’ll be fine. If they do?”

  He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to. Back on Micovi, Quentin had seen more than his share of kids cut down by the bats. Creterakians didn’t differentiate between children and adults.

  Froese must have seen the look on Quentin’s face. For once, the commissioner’s expression softened with sympathy.

  “If the wife or the kids get hurt, that’s not your fault,” Froese said. “Goldman should have thought about that before he started bombing innocent people.”

  Quentin nodded again. Froese was right, Quentin knew it ... so why did this feel so horrible, so inexcusable?

  “Barnes, thank you for your help. You’re sure there’s no one else on the team involved with Goldman?”

  “No one,” Quentin said instantly, hating himself for it.

  “Then good luck with the rest of your season,” the commissioner said. “Leiba, let’s go.”

  Quentin walked out of the shuttle bay. This wasn’t over, not by a long shot. As much as all of this sucked, there were still more hard choices to be made.

  “Computer?”

  [YES, QUENTIN?]

  “I want Kimberlin and Procknow in my quarters, immediately. Tell them they both know why.”

  “YOU’RE CRAZY,” Jason Procknow said. “You know that, right?”

  His massive arms were crossed on his massive chest. At seven feet, eight inches tall, Procknow was one of the few sentients that Quentin had to look up to, and at 612 pounds, the HeavyG could probably snap Quentin like a twig.

  Quentin desperately wanted to believe Procknow. Watching Yitzhak get hauled away — and his brave moment to take all the blame, to protect whoever he was protecting — had gutted Quentin. The guy was a terrorist. That should have made it easy to watch his demise, but it had not. If more teammates were taken away, it would be just as hard to handle.

  Maybe Quentin had imagined the emotional reactions of Kimberlin and Procknow, read into them, perhaps. Maybe the two had nothing to do with Yitzhak. Quentin’s heart told him to think that way, but his gut said something else.

  “Jason, stop lying,” Quentin said. “I know.”

  Quentin didn’t actually know. If he had, he might have already turned Procknow and Kimberlin in to Froese. But Quentin only had a hunch, and you didn’t ruin a person on a hunch.

  Procknow made a pffft noise and looked away. “Whatever. This is nuts. I don’t have to put up with this crap just because a dainty little quarterback wants to start something.”

  And yet Procknow made no move to leave. Quentin could see right through the lie, could spot the second-year player’s tells. Procknow was a bad actor — but at least he was better at it than Kimberlin.

  Mike sat on Quentin’s couch, taking up most of it, head in his hands. He was a wreck; not from fear for himself, although there was definitely some of that, but rather for Yitzhak.

  “You don’t know what you’ve done, Quentin,” Mike said.

  “Me? I didn’t do a damn thing. Zak’s in the Guild, Mike, and so are you. So is Jason.”

  Jason came forward, pointing a finger.

  “You keep shooting off your mouth, you little orphan, and you’ll find out—”

  “Stop it,” Kimberlin snapped. He raised his head, looked at Procknow. “Quentin knows. It’s too late to do anything about that.”

  Procknow glared at Kimberlin. “Well, he sure knows now, doesn’t he?” He returned to his spot on the wall and leaned back against it.

  Quentin’s gut instincts were right. He wished they weren’t.

  He hadn’t been called orphan in years. The infinity symbol tattooed on Procknow’s forehead should have been a constant reminder of the man’s true loyalties, but in seeing him every day, Quentin had visually tuned it out.

  “Zak was your teammate,” Procknow said. “How could you rat him out?”

  “I didn’t rat out anyone,” Quentin said. “I had no idea who it was until Whykor turned on that device. He hacked into the Touchback’s systems and accessed communication records or something like that, figured it out from there.”

  “Hacked in,” Procknow said. “Any ship this big has secure systems, Barnes, I’m not buying it.”

  “The Touchback is old, and so is its hardware,” Quentin said. “Whykor told me he could have taken over internal systems if he wanted to. I don’t know the details, Jason, and don’t try to blame me for any of this. I’m not in the ZG, you are, all three of you.”

  “Were,” Kimberlin said. “Past tense, Quentin — you ha
ve no idea what you’ve done.”

  “You can go ahead and stop repeating that,” Quentin said. “I’m not the one that helped start a goddamn uprising in Bord.”

  Kimberlin’s face clouded over with rage. He stood up so quickly the entire couch shot away from him, tumbling across the floor like it had been tossed by a tornado. Eight feet of HeavyG muscle eyed up Quentin.

  “Zak tried to stop the uprising,” Kimberlin said. “But you didn’t bother to talk to him before you ratted him out!”

  Tried to stop it? What kind of crap was Mike trying to pull?

  “I didn’t rat him out,” Quentin said. “Yolanda didn’t even know who was sending the messages. We had no idea until Whykor pinged that device.”

  Procknow made the pffft sound. “Yeah, but you knew somebody was sending signals, right? You knew one of your teammates was going to hang, and you still helped that little purple bitch.”

  Quentin pointed at him. “I don’t need your racist crap right now, Jason. You got it?”

  The defensive lineman pursed his lips, stared back with disgust if not outright hatred.

  Quentin turned back to Kimberlin. “You said you were in the ZG. What the hell does that mean?”

  Kimberlin said nothing for a moment. He turned, picked up Quentin’s couch with one hand, set it back in place, then sat on it.

  “I was in the Guild for years,” he said. “So was Yitzhak. But we got out.”

  It had been heartbreaking to see Yitzhak taken away, but to finally hear this from Mike’s mouth ... from a man that Quentin respected, even idolized.

  “How could you, Mike? How could you join up with those butchers?”

  “We joined because we wanted to end Creterakian rule,” Kimberlin said. “We thought it wasn’t right to have one race controlling the others. That’s not democracy, Quentin. It’s totalitarianism.”

  “This isn’t a tutoring session, so spare me the civics lesson,” Quentin said. “Or are you going to tell me the only path to democracy is by killing civilians?”

  “Whatever,” Procknow said, “Like the bats don’t kill civilians? Maybe all your money made you forget where you come from, what it’s like back in the Nation.”

  As if Quentin could ever forget. He’d seen dozens of people cut down by the bats, sometimes for something as simple as not getting on the ground when asked, asked just one time.