The Champion

  Gredok had said it well.

  Tomorrow’s position meeting would be a big deal to Becca. Hokor would name her the starting fullback and the backup quarterback. It would be hard on Trevor Haney, but Becca was just that good, and when it came to winning the Galaxy Bowl, “fair” and “nice” weren’t words to be considered.

  Quentin looked at the championship ring on his finger. He decided the ring looked lonely — it needed another one to keep it company.

  “Three days,” Quentin said. “Three days, and I raise that trophy again.”

  • • •

  WHILE HE FELT BAD about not being on the practice field with his teammates, Quentin had to admit that a guy could get used to this.

  He stood in the middle of the Touchback’s VR room. Up above, through the room’s clear dome, the void’s blackness sparkled with twinkling stars and the occasional fire-flutter from one of Jupiter Net Colony’s endless ships. Instead of fielding questions from a dozen reporters packed around him like a violent mob, he had just one interview at a time: relaxed, calm, easy. Occasionally, being a star had its privileges.

  “This is our biggest test of the season, Kinizzle, but we’re up to the challenge,” Quentin said. “We’re here to win.”

  The Creterakian’s leathery wings shuddered, a sound that was hard to miss considering Kinizzle was perched on Quentin’s shoulder. Quentin had come to learn that twitchy wings meant annoyance in that species.

  “Barnes, I did not travel all the way to Jupiter so you could say the same thing to me you say to every other reporter.”

  Quentin shrugged, perhaps a little more than necessary; Kinizzle had to flap a bit to keep balanced.

  “If you think I’m going to give you something that will motivate the Jacks two days before the game, you’re mistaken,” Quentin said. “This is my tenth interview in a row, so forgive me if I sound a little repetitive.”

  Coach Hokor entered the VR practice room, followed by Nancy Wolf, Kopor the Climber and Trevor Haney. Like Quentin, the three players wore their black game jerseys, the same ones they would be wearing come Sunday. Kopor was all business: he’d been through the Galaxy Bowl media circus before. Nancy and Trevor, on the other hand, were bleary-eyed and looked exhausted.

  “Interviews are over,” Hokor said. “Reporters, leave.”

  Quentin smiled apologetically to Kinizzle, then pointed to the VR room entryway.

  “Sorry, time’s up.”

  “Very well,” the Creterakian said. “I am not supposed to take sides, but I hope you win.”

  “Oh? You’re secretly a Krakens fan?”

  “No, I do not like Don Pine — he strikes me as disingenuous.”

  In the past, Quentin would have loved to know more about that, but if he kicked Pine’s ass a second time, the lies and the cowardice wouldn’t really matter anymore. Regardless of what the future brought, Quentin would go forward knowing that he’d won.

  Kinizzle fluttered to the entryway and out of the VR room. The guards posted there — Bobby Brobst and the three-eyed HeavyKi Fon-Ga-Kal — watched him carefully as he left.

  Hokor called everyone to the center of the 50-yard-diameter room.

  “Gather up,” he said. “Gredok is on his way. We have to go over some things.”

  Quentin joined them. “Coach, where’s Becca?”

  “Still on the practice field, busy in an interview,” Hokor said. “She is not needed for this meeting.”

  Gredok strolled in, followed by Virak the Mean wearing his black 58 jersey. They joined Hokor. The players gathered around. Usually, Gredok did the talking, but this time he stood to the side, waiting for his coach to speak. He was there to show that there was to be no disagreement — what Hokor was about to say was official team policy.

  “I have made a decision,” the coach said. “Some of you will not like it. Everyone, take a knee.”

  Even kneeling, the players surrounding him were still taller than he was, yet Hokor commanded absolute authority.

  “Barnes is the starting quarterback, obviously,” he said. “Montagne is the starting fullback. Should Barnes be unable to play, Montagne will take his place. That makes her the numberone fullback and the number-two quarterback.” He turned to face Trevor. “This may be difficult for you, Haney. Montagne is the best choice, even if she’s already played part of the game at fullback.”

  Haney’s black and white face couldn’t hide the disappointment, but he nodded. “I understand, Coach. Whatever is best for the team.”

  Quentin wondered how Becca might have felt if she’d heard Haney say that.

  “Kopor is number two at fullback,” Hokor said. “Any questions?”

  The players shook their heads.

  The speakerfilm crackled briefly.

  “This is Captain Kate. Gredok, are you in the VR room?”

  She didn’t sound panicked, exactly, but something had her on edge.

  “Of course I am,” Gredok said. “You can see that I am.”

  “Cameras are out,” Kate said. “All over the ship. Bad news, boss, I think someone hacked into the Touchback again.”

  “Impossible,” Gredok said. “Do you have any idea how much I paid to have that temporary protection hardware installed?”

  “Well, someone spent more than you did, because I’m blind up here. And ... wait a minute, your new hardware located the source of the hack ... Jason Procknow’s cabin.”

  Virak stepped closer to Gredok, loomed over the Leader like a shield.

  “Captain Kate, this is Virak the Mean speaking. I am assuming command of the ship. Where are the reporters?”

  “Reporter shuttle just departed,” Kate said. “There’s a few stragglers still on the practice field. We ... dammit, we have forced takeover of multiple systems ... blast doors sealed on practice field ... I think the entire team is trapped in there, and—”

  Quentin felt a vibration under his feet, one that hearkened back to the pirate attack of two seasons ago.

  “Detonation detected on Deck Two, repeat, detonation detected on Deck Two.”

  Virak scooped up Gredok in one middle arm.

  “Virak, get us out of here,” Gredok said. “Barnes, Hokor, you come with me.”

  What, they were just going to leave Nancy and Trevor? No way.

  Before Quentin could say anything, the world exploded around him.

  QUENTIN ROLLED to his back. His right ear rang with a constant piercing tone; he wasn’t sure if his left heard anything at all. He coughed, and when he did he felt a stabbing pain in his left forearm. What had happened? VR room ... interviews ... then Hokor ... then Captain Kate, saying someone had hacked ... then ...

  A bomb.

  The dome ...

  He coughed again, peered up through the thin smoke at the stars above. If the VR room’s crysteel dome had cracked, he was dead, as was everyone else around him. He saw glimmering chips of light, the ships of the Jupiter Net Colony moving back and forth in the distance ... but no cracks.

  It would hold, at least for now.

  Becca ...

  Quentin rolled to his hands and knees. Smoke and scattered debris, sentients laying everywhere, some moving, some not. He tried to push off his left hand and stand up, but that jagged ache in his left forearm made him switch to his right. He stood, wobbling, looked at the wound — a thin shard of metal jutted out of it.

  What did first aid dictate? Was he supposed to pull the shard out or leave it in?

  A voice distracted him.

  “Hold on, Nancy, I got you.”

  Quentin turned to the sound of that voice — Trevor Haney, blood sheeting the black and white skin of his face. He pressed blood-covered hands down hard on Nancy Wolf’s thigh.

  Virak stood up, Gredok once again cradled in his middle arm. Blood matted the Leader’s black fur, but Quentin couldn’t spot the wound. Even in the dim light, the Leader’s jewelry still glimmered. Virak’s jersey was torn and wet in places, but he didn’t look hurt.

 
Bobby Brobst stumbled in, his fancy suit ripped and smoldering, spotted with blood. Flames had scorched the right side of his face. He held a pistol with both hands, tight to his chest, the barrel pointed down and away.

  “Brobst, I am not seriously injured,” Gredok said. “Where is Fon-Ga-Kal?”

  “Dead,” Brobst said. The Human reached behind his back and drew a second pistol, this one larger and bulkier than his own. He offered it to Virak.

  “Here’s his piece,” Brobst said. “The poor bastard, he got all tore up.”

  The HeavyKi was dead? What the hell was happening?

  Virak stuffed the pistol into the waistband of his black pants.

  Hokor stood, little furry pedipalps vibrating in time with his coughs.

  “What happened? Did we get attacked by another ship?”

  The question cleared away the last of Quentin’s confusion. No, they hadn’t been shot by another ship; they’d been bombed — bombed by someone with access to the VR room, someone with the money to acquire equipment even better than what Gredok could afford.

  Someone in the Zoroastrian Guild.

  “Procknow was in the Zoroastrian Guild,” Quentin said. He didn’t know why he only said Procknow — and not Kimberlin as well — but those were the words that came out.

  Virak and Gredok looked at Quentin, their expression identical and obvious: how do you know that, and why didn’t you tell us before?

  Quentin saw Virak and Gredok’s gaze shift slightly to their right, Quentin’s left. Gredok’s eye remained clear, but Virak’s instantly swirled with blacks and purples; colors that, together, revealed fear and sadness.

  Quentin turned — there on the floor lay Kopor the Climber in a growing pool of his own blood, his middle right arm gone along with most of his midsection. The Warrior’s half-lidded eye stared lifelessly, the energy that used to be there faded and gone forever.

  Gredok looked to the ceiling. “Captain Cheevers, come in.”

  Everyone waited: there was no response.

  “Comms are out,” Gredok said. He pointed at Kopor’s body. “That death is on your hands, Barnes. I will address your lack of communication later. We have to move before the attackers come to finish you off.”

  “Me? Why do you think they’re after me?”

  “Perhaps for assisting Yolanda Davenport with her story on Goldman. Perhaps someone in our organization took a payoff from the Jacks or someone who bet heavily on the game.”

  “No way,” Quentin said. “Our teammates and the staff wouldn’t betray us.”

  “Money always wins out over loyalty, Barnes, but the reason does not matter right now. If the attackers wanted to destroy the Touchback, they would have targeted the punch drive. Everyone in the organization knew you would be in the VR room this afternoon. Hence, the bomb was for you. This was obviously the work of an amateur, or we would all be dead.”

  Haney scooped up the unconscious Nancy, cradled her in his arms. He’d torn off a shred of his own black jersey and tied it tight around her thigh wound. Hokor stood close, squeezing down on the impromptu bandage with his pedipalp hands to provide additional pressure.

  “We must leave, now,” Gredok said. “If I were the one ordering a hit, I would make sure my employees confirmed the job was complete. Systems have been compromised, which means we cannot trust escape pods. The shuttle is the most logical way off the Touchback. We will go to the landing deck. If our shuttle is undamaged, we will board and exit the Touchback.”

  “Wait,” Quentin said. “What about the rest of the team?”

  “Captain Cheevers told us they are locked in the practice field,” Gredok said. “The attacker has no interest in them, just you. I need to get you to safety, Barnes. Brobst, lead us to the aft lift. We’ll take that or the emergency stairs down to Zero Deck and see if we can go through the locker room to the loading dock.”

  Smoke everywhere, the VR room a wreck, Kopor and the HeavyKi dead, Nancy wounded and unconscious, yet Gredok sounded calm as could be — obviously, this wasn’t the first time the Leader’s life had been in danger.

  The burned Brobst kept his pistol at his chest as he walked to the entryway. Virak followed a few feet behind.

  Quentin thought about the Touchback’s layout. The VR room was on Deck Eighteen of the aft section. All decks but One and Zero ended at the practice field’s black end zone. If the practice field was locked, the only way to the forward section was underneath it, on Deck Zero.

  He reached out to take Nancy, but Haney shook his head.

  “I got her, Q. If they’re coming after you, you need to be able to move.”

  Haney and Hokor followed Virak and Gredok out.

  Quentin was the last one in the VR room, save for the body of Kopor. He took another look at the corpse of his friend and teammate.

  Kopor had just wanted to play football. There was no church that worshiped him, no massive contract, no endorsement deals ... he had just wanted to play. Now he was gone.

  That death is on your hands, Barnes.

  Rage came; Quentin didn’t fight it. He wanted a weapon. He found a jagged pipe, something that had probably once been part of the VR room’s magic. He held it in his right hand. It felt solid and good in his grasp.

  As he exited the room, he saw the remains of the HeavyKi — black blood and entrails splattered across a bulkhead, his insides torn from his long body like someone had skinned a twelve-foot-long alligator. Fon-Ga was his name? He’d had only three eyes left, because Quentin had ruined two of them in a bar fight years ago.

  Now he was dead, too.

  Quentin jogged to catch up with the others.

  Brobst led the group down the high-ceilinged corridor’s orange walls, over its black and white carpeting. Holoframed players, the stars of Ionath’s past and present, looked out, oblivious to the situation. Bobby Adrojnik was one of those framed players: would Quentin wind up just another dead Krakens quarterback cut down in the prime of his career?

  The long hallway ended at the small lift lobby. The emergency stairwell door was on the left, and just past it, the lift doors. Across the lobby were the doors to the Krakens administrative office: shut, hopefully locked. Dozens of staff members were in there, probably — Quentin hoped they were smart enough to hide under their desks and stay put.

  A beep sounded: the lift was on its way up.

  Gredok was right: the killers were coming to finish the job.

  “The stairs,” Quentin said. “Move!”

  Brobst ran to the stairwell door. He pushed it open, aimed in at the same time.

  “Clear,” he said. He held the pistol at his chest, barrel angled at the floor, held the door open with his body.

  Virak carried Gredok onto the stairwell’s metal-grate landing. Virak held Gredok with his middle arms, aimed the dead HeavyKi’s pistol with his pedipalp hands, barrel leading the way down. They descended the metal stairs.

  Haney went next, struggling to carry Nancy’s 320 pounds.

  As Coach Hokor followed them in, the lift door beeped again, and opened.

  The killers were here.

  Quentin couldn’t put Hokor, Haney and Nancy in further danger by following them down. He had to buy them some time.

  Jason Procknow walked out of the lift. He seemed surprised to see Quentin just ten feet away; he stared at the thick pipe Quentin held like a club.

  I can take him out, he’s big but not that fast, I can—

  Out of the lift behind Procknow, skinniness exaggerated by the HeavyG’s wideness, stepped Jonathan Sandoval.

  Quentin froze: he was so screwed.

  Sandoval smiled wide.

  “Hello again, Quentin.”

  “Sandoval, what are you doing?”

  “I wanted to cash in on my extraordinary abilities before the bats took them away,” the reporter said. He thumped Procknow on the shoulder, let the hand linger. “Turns out I lost one job, but got another, thanks to this racist piece of garbage.”

  Out of the
corner of his eye, Quentin saw Bobby Brobst waiting just inside the stairwell door, holding it open with his shoulder, the gun at his chest. He stood still, watching Quentin, waiting for a signal or an opportunity. Quentin wanted to buy Trevor a little more time to get Nancy out of there, for Hokor to get away. Quentin’s body tensed, ready to jump into the stairwell landing at the first hint of Sandoval’s movement.

  Quentin gave the smallest shake of the head: no, not yet. Brobst nodded.

  Stall, buy them time ... maybe this is about you, but they’ll take out anyone else they can to cover their tracks ...

  “You’re something else, Sandoval,” Quentin said. “How did you go from working for the bats to working for the people who want to destroy them?”

  “When I saved your life on Neptune, the guys who were trying to kill you recognized me,” Sandoval said. “They came to my place a few days ago. They wanted to kill me, but we got to talking and worked out another solution.”

  Kimberlin had been right ... the thugs on Neptune had been Guild.

  “Let me guess, Sandoval — they paid you in gems?”

  “Cashable all over the galaxy,” Sandoval said. “I’ll buy me a little ranch on New Rodina and live out my days in comfort. I told you I was going to get paid, you moron. Too bad it has to be this way.”

  Just a few moments more ...

  Sandoval had been paid in gems, which meant the Abernessia were involved ... it didn’t take much to connect the dots.

  Quentin glared at Procknow.

  “You told your new-blood Guild handlers about what Petra wants me to do. I’m so stupid — I talked about it right in front of you, and told you what Whykor said about the Touchback’s old systems. It never crossed my mind you’d use that info to sell out a teammate.”

  “I have kids,” Procknow said quickly, as if having children excused any and all actions. “I know Hokor would have cut me next year, so I’m out of Tier One — no salary, no courier pay. I had to put money away for my family while I still could.”

  “And that’s worth murdering your teammates?”

  Procknow’s brow furrowed with confusion, then he shook his head.

  “No one is going to die. You get roughed up enough that you can’t play on Sunday, but we’re not going to kill anyone.”