THE RIDER (Galactic Football League Novellas Book 4)

  Pete pulled on the reins, turning Bess in place to face the Ridgebacks dugout.

  “Clark, pick play!”

  Clark finished his wheel move and came forward again, seemingly running head-on at Bess. The apiom grabbed at Missy’s legs and tail, but couldn’t find a grip, while Yar did the same to the apiom. At the last second, Clark angled Missy to his left, just brushing Missy’s right flank against Bess’s right flank — the apiom didn’t react in time. Bess lowered her armored head and smashed into the 800-kilo opponent. The hit devastated the apiom, sending it tumbling backward, but that wasn’t the only impact — Bess’s momentum carried her straight into Dar/Yar, bowling over the xiongguanlong, sending both rider and mount tumbling.

  “Pete, the femora!” Ian screamed over the comm.

  “Bess, belly!” Pete shouted. The mount didn’t hesitate; she started to lower and turn, a move that scraped her belly on the ground even as she changed direction, but it was too late. Something smashed into Pete, rattling every atom in his body, sent him sailing from the saddle. His vision blurred but he heard his armor’s internal gears shifting, screaming, whirring, pulling him into a fetal position, then he hit the ground almost as hard as if he’d been hit by the femora. His armor clanged: he was airborne once again before he hit the ground a second time, hit and skidded — how far he didn’t know, but his slide stopped when he heard the distinctive crash of armor hitting armor.

  He heard the crowd roaring, a distant thing, something from another time and another place, then the bahhh-bah-bah-bah-bomp indicating the end of the round. His vision cleared. He heard those same gears reversing, releasing their hold; he rolled flat on his back, his helmeted head atop something: he stared straight up at the armored maw of the femora. It wasn’t big enough to swallow him, but that wouldn’t stop a bite and a shake, a head-rattling attack that could take Pete out of the match.

  The ground trembled beneath Pete: the big femora scurried away, chased off by a looming Tyrannosaurus Rex intent on protecting her rider.

  Guestford’s voice echoed through the arena: “Score, Critter Clark on Missy! Teams, return to your start lines.”

  Pete groaned as he rolled to his hands and knees. The thing under his head had been Dar, turtled up in her armor.

  “Dar, talk to me. You okay?”

  “Ouch,” she said over the comms. Her armor whirred and clanked, releasing her as Pete’s had released him. She flopped to her back, legs and arms out straight. Had this been a casual outing and not a life-or-death match, she could have moved those arms and legs to make a little dirt angel.

  “Sorry, Cap,” she said. “I heard you call the pick, but I was focused on the apiom.”

  “You could have got killed,” Pete said. He looked at Yar, who was already on her feet, armor scuffed and scraped. “Worse, you could have got your mount killed.”

  He offered a hand. She took it, and he hauled her to her feet.

  “This isn’t practice, Dar. You let your mark through, then blindly chased it instead of looking for a better opportunity. Smarten the shuck up, and now.”

  Her helmeted head nodded. “Okay, okay.”

  He thumped her on the shoulder pad, pushed her toward Yar. Pete turned to Bess. She was limping slightly.

  Pete raised his hands toward her. She took three steps to him, favoring her right foot, then lowered her head to the ground. He grabbed the reins and scrambled into the saddle.

  “Bess, dugout.”

  He monitored her gait as she jogged back to the Ridgebacks’ end of the arena. The limp wasn’t too bad, seemed like just a twisted foot, or a bruise, something she’d recover from quickly. Pete glanced up to the overhead screen, which showed the replay: first Ian on Bucky, body-blocking his apiom, leaving room for Clark on Missy to cut to the outside where the achillobator’s blazing speed left everyone behind; then a slow-mo of the femora, sailing through the air, front arms tucking in and head ducking down, hitting Bess on the left side of her neck, knocking her to the ground and sending Pete sailing. Bess had clearly seen the attack at the last second, had managed to turn away, to roll with the hit and escape the full effect of the femora’s concussive blow.

  If it hadn’t been for Ian’s warning, the femora would have hit Bess at the base of the neck. Armor gave some protection, but that much mass moving at that speed? No telling what damage would have been done.

  “Ian, nice work,” Pete said.

  Ian and Bucky ran out in front of Bess. Ian was waving to the roaring crowd.

  “Nothing to it. You okay, old man? Arthritis acting up?”

  “Shut up,” Pete said.

  “Hey, what about me?” Clark’s voice, crackling in Pete’s helmet. “I scored the damn goal, you know.”

  “I’ll buy you a friggin’ cookie, Critter,” Pete said. “Now get your ass on the line.”

  The four red-armored Ridgebacks tandems reached the laser line painted in the dirt, and as a group, turned to face the enemy.

  “We’re up one,” Pete said. “We hold them here, we take this game.”

  “Hey, Cap,” Ian said.

  “What now, Ian?”

  “Do we call you Cap because you run the team, or is that short for Captain Obvious?”

  Pete heard Clark’s laughter.

  Goddamn Ian: so solid on the pitch, but he always found a way to be a jackass.

  At the far end of the arena, the orange ball dropped. Pete expected one of the apiom riders to take it, but to his surprise the mimtai’s pedipalps scooped it up and reached over its head, handing it to its little rider.

  “They’re gonna bulldoze,” Pete said. “I’ll blunt the attack with bess twenty meters out. Clark, see if you can harry that femora, keep it away from me. Ian, stay back and guard the line, do what you can if they get past us. Dar, your mount has the biggest vertical, look for an opportunity to jump up on the mimtai and attack its rider, see if you can get the ball or force a fumble.”

  “You got it, Cap,” Dar said. “What about the apioms?”

  “Don’t engage with them unless they get the ball. I doubt the mimtai’s rider could throw the ball five meters. We focus on stopping the mimtai — if they find another way around us, that’s just too bad.”

  The trumpets sounded. The Resurrected came on. The mimtai was out in front, and the others must have been in single file behind it because Pete couldn’t see any of them thanks to the monster’s mass. It pounded ahead mostly on two rear legs, tiny front arms galloping as well, helping the mimtai’s overly forward weight. And was it ... yes, it was limping, too. Bess’s leg sweep had done some damage after all.

  “Bess, attack!”

  The T-Rex rushed out from the line. Pete drew his lance, carried it point-up. On contact, he could try to joust the mimtai rider right out of the seat. Pete couldn’t see his teammates, but knew that Dar/Yar and Clark/Missy were close behind.

  Bess closed on the mimtai. Pete gripped the reins tighter and lowered his lance. The Sklorno rider had its little tentacle arms wrapped around the ball, a ball that was more than half its size — it couldn’t possibly field a weapon.

  Ten meters from the collision, the mimtai suddenly lowered its rear end, braced its feet, and skidded, slowing sharply. Pete only had a moment to wonder what it was doing before the femora arced over the mimtai, and he saw the plan: the Resurrected didn’t give a damn about this first game, all they wanted to do was damage Bess.

  No warning from Ian this time, almost no chance to react at all to the flying, armored thing. In that split-second, Pete’s mind auto-fired through options — go left, go right, go down, bite, duck — and then the moment was gone, because he hadn’t reacted in time and Bess made the decision for them both, made the wrong decision: she opened her lethal mouth wide and leaned back as the femora came in. She crunched down on the femora’s armored, bony head.

  It was possibly the worst thing Bess could have done. Tyrannosaur teeth chipped and cracked, flew in all directions like enamel shrapnel as she took the
femora’s full force square on, snapping her head back as if an invisible giant had landed a vicious overhand right. Bess had ten times the femora’s mass, but took all of that mass in the mouth. Bess rocked backward, stumbled, tilted and started to fall.

  Pete held the lance tight as he leapt from the saddle. Bess could be hurt, could be dying, could be dead, and Pete didn’t have a spare moment to think about it. He held the lance across his chest as his feet hit hard; he let the momentum carry him into a tight roll.

  The femora landed just after Bess crashed down, the former hitting awkwardly but on its feet, the latter on her back, little forearms waving helplessly, huge legs kicking out without purpose. The femora’s momentum slid it across the pitch. The monster’s feet dug in, slowing the skid, but Pete was already on the move, lance held up at a forty-five-degree angle like some pole vaulter rushing toward the high bar.

  He’d closed half the distance before the femora stopped, half again as the Sklorno rider turned the 600-kilo beast for another cannonball shot on Bess, and half yet again before the rider saw Pete — but by then, it was too late.

  Pete screamed in rage as he attacked, a flea rushing a beast that weighed ten times more than he, that was almost five meters long, that’s rear hip was a meter above Pete’s head. Pete let the lance tip fall, aimed for a thin gap in the femora’s neck armor — he drove the point grinding past two blue and green plates and into the flesh beneath. The hit jolted him, not only brought him to an instant stop but actually flung him backward as if the lance handle had been driven into him, and not the point into the enemy.

  The femora’s head pinched left toward the lance sticking out of its body, and it started scooting its rear legs right, spinning the beast in a strange, shaking circle. The Sklorno rider held a saddle horn as it tried to kick the lance free.

  And then a shadow fell on Pete, blocking out the light like a moon passing in front of the sun.

  He looked up to see the mimtai’s armored pedipalps reaching for him, armored chelicerae twitching with hungry eagerness. The head — bigger than three Petes put together — lowered, and he knew there was nowhere to run.

  Another flash of movement, also from above, there then gone as it passed out of sight above the mimtai’s head — Dar and Yar, a picture-perfect image of grace and power, beauty and savagery. The mimtai’s head lifted and Pete’s feet came unglued; he sprinted left, armor plates clacking against one another as he hit top speed, which wasn’t that much speed at all. He looked right and saw an image that almost made him explode with pride — Yar, rear claws spread wide, digging into armor and leather and anything that gave purchase, Dar still in the saddle, Yar’s head snapping down to bite the orange ball and yank it away from the Sklorno rider. Yar was on top of the mimtai, a lion on the back of an elephant. Yar yanked, and the ball came free just before the xiongguanlong fell away, ball held firmly in its mouth. Dar leaned hard right in the saddle, countering Yar’s tilt. The dino hit hard and stumbled, but Dar adjusted her weight, helping her mount keep balance, and then Yar recovered and was sprinting the other way, twisting its head back, offering the ball to Dar — she stood in the stirrups, and grabbed it tight.

  The trumpets sounded, bahhh-bah-bah-bah-bomp, and just like that, it was over.

  “The Ridgebacks defend their goal line, stopping the Resurrected from scoring. Game, Ridgebacks!”

  Pete was sprinting to his mount before Guestford’s amplified voice died out among a crowd that was already chanting Dar and Yar, Dar and Yar, Dar and Yar! He reached Bess, fearing the worst, but she was already getting her feet under her, slowly lifting her six-tonne body.

  He whispered a silent prayer for the armor that encased her, protected her; with so much mass from such a height, Pete knew as simple a thing as a T-Rex falling on her side could prove to be a fatal blow.

  Half of her helmet had broken off, was lost somewhere on the pitch. Her mouth hung open, blood dripping from it, most of her teeth missing, the broken ones that remained sticking out like blood-smeared white daggers waiting for a victim. Flesh had torn away from her forehead above her left eye. She squinted and blinked at the blood dripping into it, but the eye itself seemed to work.

  He had to get her into the dugout proper, get Baiman to work on her while the wheel platform rolled out and the second game was selected.

  “Bess,” he shouted up to her. “Dugout!”

  She heard him, he knew she heard him, but for the first time Pete could remember, she didn’t obey. It actually confused him for a moment — she was so loyal, so obedient, he didn’t know how to process this change in behavior.

  He started to yell the command again, then realized she was staring out across the pitch, eyes narrow, nostrils flaring, focusing on one thing and one thing only. When Pete followed her gaze, he saw was what that one thing was.

  The femora.

  Pete saw its two riders finally work his lance free, sliding it out as a jet of gray fluid pumped in an arc to splash down on the arena’s dirt floor. Pete wished the lance-tip was pointier, sharper, so he could have driven it in as far as it would go, all the way through, in fact, but he’d still managed to stick it in about a foot deep. He’d wanted to kill that creature, strike it dead as a doorknob, and as he glanced back at his bleeding friend, her blood splattering down on the dirt and her eyes narrowed with animalistic fury, Pete knew that Bess wanted the exact same thing.

  Ol’ Bess, the lovable lug, the agile heavyweight, the T-Rex that graced a million T-shirts, was flat-out pissed. But he couldn’t lose control of her. There were two games to be played, and without her focus, that was two games to be lost.

  “Bess! Dugout, now!”

  She turned to look at him, blinking away the dripping blood. She lowered her head and nudged him lightly — lightly for her, anyway — smearing his red armor with her red blood. Then she turned and limped to the dugout.

  This time the wide doors had already swung open, as they always did between games. Bess entered, followed her training and limped up to a wheeled metal scaffold just inside the door. On top was Doc Baiman, standing next to plastic crates full of bandages, chemicals, and equipment. She went to work on Bess’s head while Jared slapped a scanning device on her troublesome foot.

  Pete left them to their work. He walked to his teammates, all of whom had dismounted. Their helmets were off. They drank from squirt bottles while their mounts lapped at large tubs of water. Stikz ran from mount to mount, examining them for wounds, but other than some scratches in their armor and the occasional feather jutting out from between plates or joints, at first glance they seemed none the worse for wear.

  “Dar, that was spectacular,” Pete said, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a little shake. “That’s highlight-reel stuff, girl.”

  She grinned madly, half sheepish, half proud.

  “Yar’s got some big ups,” she said.

  Clark held his arms out wide, pretended to be the entire crowd: “Yar and Dar! Yar and Dar! Did you hear that out there?”

  Even Ian grinned. He didn’t say anything to congratulate her, but for once he didn’t try to draw attention to himself.

  A super-sized yelp of pain drew Pete’s attention to the scaffolding. Doc was patting Bess’s exposed face, on an un-injured area, probably saying soothing words to the giant.

  Pete shouted up at her. “Doc! How is it!”

  “I stopped the bleeding,” she shouted down, her hands back to work on the wounds. “Nanoclot salve, plus fifteen staples, we need to get her helmet fixed up, Pete.”

  “Her armor’s in bad shape,” Jared called out. “Spiderweb cracks on her neck plates, helmet is shot to hell. If she takes another hit like that, Cap, she could be in trouble.”

  The arena boomed with Guestford’s voice.

  “The second game is ... Capture the Flag!”

  “Doc, finish up,” Pete shouted as he ran to the scaffolding. “It’s game time.”

  He ran up the switch-back steps until he reached the top platfor
m. When he did, Doc started down, giving Pete a few seconds to examine her work. As she had said, fifteen staples — the exposed metal of each the length of Pete’s hand — bound the long gash together. Purple salve coated wound and staples alike, but it didn’t completely stop blood from oozing out.

  Bess’s cracked helmet made Pete think of an ancient play that had survived through the centuries, Phantom of the Opera. The broken half-helmet, the horrid wound, those made Bess look even more monstrous than she had before — and that took some doing — but these things weren’t what made Pete suddenly nervous.

  Her eyes.

  Bess was a descendant of an apex predator, the kind of animal that walked through the valley of the shadow of death and feared no evil, because she was the evil — the biggest, baddest, meanest bastard in that valley or any other. She crushed her foes, sometimes swallowed other riders whole, and obeyed Pete’s orders with a joy for battle that transcended time itself.

  No matter the species, true fighters lived to fight.

  But now, her eyes looked ... different. The lids were narrowed with an expression that Pete could only think of as hate. She wasn’t looking at him; she wasn’t looking at anything in particular.

  “Bess, snap out of it, girl. I need you on-point for this game.”

  The T-Rex continued to stare out into nothingness. Had that femora rung her bell? Pete knew dino brains were tiny things, even in gen-modded T-Rexes like Bess, whose brain was five times the original size — was that large enough for her to get a concussion? If she wasn’t all there, was it safe to take her out? Another hit from that femora, or a strike from the mimtai’s three tails ...

  “Bess! Look at me!”

  The dino blinked rapidly. She didn’t turn her head, but did turn her softball-sized eyes. The slitted pupils contracted, focused on him, and he knew she had come back to reality.

  Clark shouted up from just outside the dugout doors: “Cap, come on!”