Authors: M.D. Hall
The second segment began, with some spectators missing it because they were more interested in talking about the first half. As the ball dropped, most people thought their view screens were faulty, and it was not until replay, during the second interval, that they could clearly make out what happened. In what appeared to be little more than a blur, Genir had taken the ball and moved beyond Daraq, who had started to commit himself to a new move he never completed, and sent the ball with pinpoint accuracy to Gorn.
Instead of waiting to see if his friend received it he sped, diagonally, across and down towards the third level. Until now, no players had moved into any level other than the first.
Some Fleet defenders moved to intercept him, while Eclipse players seemed confused, all save Zan who looked once at Gorn before moving towards a point away from Genir, to the second level. Before any of this had happened, Gorn had deflected the ball away from Fleet goals and towards an emitter in his own half. A sharp intake of breath was taken by the crowd, and nearly two and a half billion Te’ans across six hundred light years, as they watched every player go one way and the ball another.
Just as the ball hit the emitter Genir changed direction, so quickly he might have been pulled by an invisible wire, and shot to the second level. Some of Fleet who had been slow on the initial uptake had just got to the second level. One of them started to make for Genir, but Zan hit him so hard, from the side that he collided with another of his teammates.
Meanwhile, the spin put on the ball was such that it shot downward, and sideways towards the second level, there it struck another emitter and came off at a speed that, again, was too quick for everyone there, everyone but Genir.
In less than the time it took to blink, he had taken a fearsome deflection, and did not even look as the ball crashed into the grid. Eclipse supporters and Darl were on their feet, the sound deafening. This is what they came to see.
Long before the end of this segment, when the score was Eclipse 26, Fleet 24, it was now obvious what had taken place. The release of the training recording had been engineered. Rumours began to circulate that Darl, himself, was behind it. It showed no deflection tactics, and Genir appeared much slower than he was. Most of the team would be ignorant of what was happening, as they needed to be, with the exception of Zan - there would have been ample opportunity for him to speak to Genir, before the match. The recording had not shown what had happened after thirteen of the Eclipse players departed.
In the first segment, Genir bided his time with Daraq to give Gorn all the time he needed to size up the opposition, and analyse their plays. Eventually, they ran out of ideas and surprises, and that was when they were hit. They were unable to cope with the speed and variety of shots from Gorn, and the speed of Genir was beyond anything they had ever come across.
Yes, they had seen him play before, but never had he played to the level of which he was capable. To Genir, zagball was merely a game without his friend, but together they were invincible. Every level was employed, every goal attacked, nowhere was safe from them.
The rest of the team were not to be left out. Zan had recruited them, during the first interval as defenders of Gorn, even the keepers were to come out, when it was known they would not be needed in their traditional role.
To a lesser extent, they were to protect Genir, lesser because this was a role assigned specifically to Zan who would look to Gorn as he received the ball from Genir, and take his cue from where Gorn looked. No matter what else was happening in the cuboid, he would make his way to that point. Zagball captain and bridge tactical officer, he may have been, but he was happy to take his orders from a tactical genius.
Unlike the first segment, when the activities of Fleet started to border on the tedious, the crowd, even Fleet supporters, did not tire of the exploits of Gorn and Genir, or the physicality provided by the blocking troopers, commanded by Zan.
An ever-changing pattern evolved during the second segment, and everyone who watched was in awe at the sheer brilliance and elegance of the play. For all that Genir was known as a physical player he was now seen for what he truly was, the man who alone could match the speed of Gorn, and convert his astounding exploits into goals.
Yet, despite this, crowds are always greedy for more and, consummate player that he was, Gorn was happy to oblige. Towards the end of this segment, with all goals being scored by Genir, no goals had come directly from a deflection, the ultimate skill, if the purists were to be believed.
Few people watching had ever seen a goal from more than two deflections. Some recalled the only match played by the greatest ever zagball player, Zaran who, before refusing to join the military, played in one recorded match where he became the first, and only player, to register an official score from a triple deflection.
Rumour had it that Gorn had scored from a triple deflection as a student, before his academy days. Even if true, that was a world away from this level of play. Nevertheless, everyone, including Zaran himself, present by courtesy of his sister’s influence, wanted to see him perform the ultimate feat.
There was a palpable feeling of expectation, of something about to happen. It did not worry Genir and Gorn that their opponents might spot what they were doing, they were incapable of stopping it. Genir looked at his friend for the sign they had agreed. Gorn rotated his shoulders, and Genir smiled.
With no apparent effort, Genir once again outmanoeuvred Daraq and passed the ball to his friend. This time Genir did not move, taking everyone except Gorn by surprise. He, in turn, hurled the ball at the nearest second level emitter with such force that when the ball deflected for the first time, and hurtled towards the second emitter, the speed was greater than anything seen that day.
The deflection back to the first level was of no danger to anyone as Gorn had calculated everything with precision. The third, and final deflection was not, as anticipated, to the first level goal, but the second level. Even if the keeper had, correctly, anticipated the direction, there was nothing he could do to prevent the inevitable. Everyone, other than some hardline Fleet supporters, and even they were begrudgingly enjoying the spectacle, rose as one. The noise was unprecedented.
The second interval was called, with the crowd restored to a more composed state of mind, but only because they wanted to talk about what they had just witnessed. The question on everyone’s lips, after those two segments,
what next
? Most already knew the answer; the match was over and what they expected was an exhibition, the likes of which no one had seen before.
The majority, including the pundits, were in complete agreement, they were witnessing zagball history. People would talk of this for years to come, young players would seek to emulate the performances, and the sport would scale its greatest heights, purely because of this game.
As anticipated, the final segment did become an exhibition, showcasing the skills of two men. Fleet was not to score again. Gorn demonstrated that the three-deflection goal was no random event, but he had not finished. At the close of the final segment, Genir once again, placed him in possession. His reaction, was a nod to both Genir and Zan.
As he hurled the ball at the furthest emitter, not guarded by a Fleet player, his friend and their captain moved towards the Eclipse level one goal, with the rest of the team following suit. Gorn needed time for them to get into place. In the single second it took for the ball to move from one emitter to another, he was able to survey his opponents. There was not a single Eclipse player in his sights, they were all behind him.
Fleet were confused. They were torn between looking at Gorn and following the ball, which was now a blur approaching a third emitter.
None of the live spectators moved, they were all on the edge of their seats, hardly daring to breath. The ball was a long way from goal, and even at the incredible speeds generated by three deflections it could still be intercepted by one, or more of the quickest Fleet players. Everyone, except Eclipse, was trying to predict where the ball would go, they were all wrong, it struck the final emitter thirty metres from Gorn and flew, straight at him.
If silence could be deafening, the entire stadium would have ruptured eardrums. Of Fleet, no player was close enough to Gorn to tackle him. Expecting another three deflection move, they covered the approaches to their goals. The ball took a fraction of a second to reach the author of their destruction.
A split second before the ball had struck the third emitter, he had moved slightly out of position. Now, as the ball came at him he moved his hand out to the right and caught it with a speed and deftness that would have taken the breath away, if the audience had still been breathing at that point. He looked at the ball, for the briefest of moments, then to the part of the stadium where he knew his father sat, and nodded.
Fleet, as one prepared to converge on him, too late. He threw the ball down into the second level and waited.
There were a number of predictive difficulties associated with deflector goal attempts: there had to be crystal clear perception of the field of play, not only knowledge of everyone’s position, but where, given the increasing speed of the ball as it was successively deflected, they were likely to be.
The more intelligent defenders could work out, with some degree of accuracy, the likely deflections a ball could take, and could deploy players to cover most possible routes, but some of the really skilful exponents of the deflection technique had learnt to apply differing amounts of spin to the ball, so as to confound the predictions of the defence. The spin, when applied adroitly, would produce pandemonium in defensive ranks. Predicting placements of fellow team members without communicating strategy too soon, was difficult. If attackers were told to avoid certain areas, the defence would watch for those gaps, and plug them. The difficulty, for would be defenders, was coping with the unpredictability of a nascent deflector attack; the more deflections there were, the greater the level of unpredictability.
Today, minutes from the end of play, something altogether new was happening. The strategist had taken all attacking players out of the equation, made his calculations, and committed himself to the play. It was out of his hands. What would, what could Fleet defence conjure up?
The ball struck the second level emitter at a point which, when taken with applied down-spin, edged with right side spin, sent the ball further down, into the third level and into the final third of the Fleet half. Forty-five metres from the third level goal, the ball struck the top of the emitter reversing the spin and sending it towards the thirty metre emitter on the left side of the second level.
Since the beginning of the final segment, all Fleet players had become defence in the hope of reducing the loss, to a rout. The first level retained a handful of defenders, while the majority had flowed into the third level hoping to block the path of the ball. Unfortunately, this left only one player in defence on the second level. Immediately, players from the first level flooded below, between the emitter the ball was streaking towards, and the goal.
They had just got into position when the ball struck the emitter and, instead of heading for goal shot towards the emitter immediately opposite.
By now the speed was so fast it would take less than a second for it to cover its one hundred and twenty metre journey. The time for it to deflect into the goal, thirty metres from that deflector, would be less than a tenth of a second. There was no more time. Three defenders were vaguely in position between the emitter and the second level goal. There was an outside chance they, and the keeper, would prevent the impossible; a four deflection goal.
The commentators had been silent from the moment Gorn had sent his team out of the way. Later, some would say they had anticipated that this move predicated an attempted four deflections, but then there are always those who are wise after the fact.
Despite everything happening with blistering speed, the crowd’s adrenalin levels were so elevated, it gave them the edge they needed to keep up with the action.
Back in the cuboid, the ball struck the last emitter and rocketed into the bottom right hand corner of the first level goal, no defenders, only a solitary keeper who expected the second level goal to be attacked.
He would say, when asked, that he was only aware of the goal from the sound the ball made when it crashed into the grid.
Every person in the stadium, who had remained stationary until this very moment, leapt into the air. The stadium sensors recorded more hits on the seat retention fields than had taken place, cumulatively, over the previous three years. Not a single spectator remained seated, not even Fleet supporters.
Eclipse players had stripped off their helmets before the end of the match had been sounded. While the ball had been retrieved and was now hovering above the centre spot, there was no one there to retrieve it, not even Daraq, who was stunned and incredulous, along with every one of his team.
The score no longer mattered, Gorn had given the crowd what they wanted. He looked towards where he knew his father sat, and raised his arm in salute. He then left the cuboid without joining in the celebrations, acknowledging his teammates as he passed. Zan’s smile was still grim. Genir, with his face beaming, came over and accompanied him to the exit, where he stopped and turned to his friend. ‘Not for you, this?’ he gestured to the frenzied crowd. Gorn shook his head. Genir continued. ‘You won't mind if I milk it for all it’s worth?’