The Champion (44 page)

TARAT:
It is, Dan. Proper centipede cooking is truly an art.

DAN:
I’m glad it tastes good, because what I’m about to tell you will not sit well in your mouth. Did you read Yolanda Davenport’s column that posted a few minutes ago?

TARAT:
I did not.

DAN:
Yolanda reported that the Krakens have officially moved Becca Montagne to
quarterback
and have put third-string QB Trevor Haney on the practice squad.

AKBAR:
What? She’s an All-Pro fullback! Why would they do that?

TARAT:
Yes, Dan, why would the Krakens do that?

DAN:
The column says that Montagne demanded it or she wanted to be traded.

TARAT:
I am unhappy that Yolanda Davenport acquired this story and I did not.

AKBAR:
She really kicked your ass this time, Tarat.

TARAT:
So who will be the starting fullback for the Krakens?

DAN:
According to Yolanda, that will be Kopor the Climber or rookie Nancy Wolf.

TARAT:
This is a major mistake on the part of the Krakens, Dan. Their offense relies heavily on a mobile fullback that can block and also catch short passes. Often, the Krakens leave a linebacker unblocked at the line of scrimmage, and it is the fullback’s responsibility to stop that player from reaching Quentin Barnes. Kopor the Climber is a personal acquaintance of mine, but he is not at the caliber of Montagne. If she isn’t lined up to protect Barnes, this will cost the Krakens in the long run.

AKBAR:
I guess being the Galaxy Bowl MVP’s girlfriend has benefits, eh, Dan?

DAN:
So it would seem, little buddy.

TARAT:
Or it could be the result of her agent, Danny Lundy. He is infamous for his ability to get his clients what they request.

DAN:
Let’s go to the calls! But first, let me take another bite of this delicious vat-grown protein and ranch dressing sub from Hooper’s Grinders. Hooper’s, take a bite, take a
big
bite. I ... oh my god, that’s disgusting! What’s in my mouth?

TARAT:
I believe you ate my centipede sandwich by mistake, Dan.

AKBAR:
(laughing) Oh man, I switched ’em, and you just ate it!

DAN:
(spitting) Good god, I think I’m going to die!

AKBAR:
(laughing loudly)

TARAT:
Dan, do not be an infant. Insect protein is very good for the Human body.

DAN:
Water! Beer! Oh my god, I think I have a leg stuck in my teeth!

QUENTIN STOOD
in the
Touchback’s
observation deck, his eyes closed, waiting for the punch-out.

“He’s totally gonna puke,” Ju said.

“No way,” John said. “Our little Quentin is all growed up. He doesn’t do that anymore. One fluker does not a puker make.”

Quentin tried to ignore them. That was hard to do when they were here not to see the
Touchback
arrive at Neptune, but instead to watch
him
. He’d made the mistake of mentioning to Ju that he’d thrown up after the Capizzi punch-out, and now his delicate digestive tract was the main topic of conversation between his brothers.

“Puke detector on full alert,” Ju said. “Put your money where your mouth is, John — a six-pack says Q has a yak attack. I even brought the puke bucket.”

Ju held up the small golden trashcan that Quentin had used in seasons past. A plastic trash bag lined the inside, while stickers from GFL teams covered the outside. The latest addition: a red sticker with the black-lined white trident, the logo of the Neptune Scarlet Fliers.

“You’re on,” John said.

Quentin felt the shimmer start, felt himself spreading across an infinite amount of space, then ripping back together at something beyond the speed of light. He was queasy, sure, but he’d gotten so much better at this. That punch-out at Capizzi had caught him by surprise: this time he was ready. The last of the shimmering started to fade away. He was going to make it, he—

Something flicked him in the crotch. Not too hard, but enough to make his breath catch, enough to make him bend over a little. He opened his eyes to see a grinning Ju, offering the golden puke bucket. Next to him stood John, his face an expression of outrage and betrayal.

“No
fair
,” John said. “You can’t touch him if there’s a bet!”

Ju shrugged. “You didn’t say I
couldn’t
touch him, so I can.”

Quentin started to stand up straight, then saw the briefest shimmer as the last of the punch-out effect drained away.

He snatched the bucket away from Ju, who laughed as Quentin threw up.

“Cheater,” John said. “Shucking cheater mega-booger eater. You can’t flick a guy in the nads to win a bet. That’s just not... it’s not
classy
.”

“Six-pack,” Ju said. “And good beer. None of that swill you and Quentin drink.”

Quentin heaved one more time, then the queasiness passed. He stood and performed the last part of the ritual, tying the top of the plastic bag so someone could come in and get it later.

“Nut shot,” Quentin said. “Not very nice, Ju.”

Ju shrugged again. “All’s fair in beer and bets, Q. It wasn’t personal — it was just business.”

Out beyond the observation deck’s crysteel windows, Quentin took in the sights of Neptune. A massive sapphire-blue world, several times bigger than Earth. A gas giant — not as big as Jupiter, but still damn big. Humans didn’t live on Neptune proper, nor did Ki or even Quyth. Harrah were the planet’s only full-time residents; they flourished on the gas giant just as easily as they did on the five planets of the Tribal Accord.

It wasn’t the planet itself that made Neptune, it was the seemingly endless clusters of constructs surrounding it: small vessels, mining barges, stations, manned satellites, decommissioned warships, obsolete cruise ships, old colony arks that had never made it out of the solar system ... all part of the flourishing “world” known as the Neptune Net Colony.

Floating dead ahead was the
Touchback’s
destination point: Trident Station. An old ark originally meant to carry half a million emigrants to Tower, it had fallen victim to a Planetary Union economic depression; the government had run out of money even before fitting it with what would have been the largest — and most expensive — punch drives in history, leaving the ark only three-quarters complete. The massive derelict sat unused for fifty years, right up until the Shell Gas Corporation bought the ark for a fraction of its original cost. The company used a new impulse-drive technology to move the station from a position near Earth to Neptune, a trip that took almost a decade. Trident City now housed somewhere around 400,000 permanent residents in the ark proper and well over 1 million more in the thousands of vessels spreading away from it like a combination asteroid belt/insect hive.

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.