The Starter Read online

  Next to Wen-Eh stood the final white-jerseyed player, another Human. Pancho Saulsgiver, number 48. Pancho, the third tight end on the roster behind Yotaro Kobayasho and Rick Warburg, hadn’t played much during the Tier Two season. Pancho had been with the Krakens for ten years — an eternity in the brutal world of the GFL.

  Ten years.

  A missing leg.

  A broken back.

  And then Quentin understood the reason for the special jerseys.

  Hokor spoke in his small but gravelly voice. He was tiny, even downright cute in his little jacket and little hat, but when he spoke, everyone listened.

  “Gredok the Splithead cannot be here today,” Hokor said. “He has business elsewhere, but told me he is proud of all of you.” Quentin just hoped that business didn’t involve Virak and Choto playing the role of gangland muscle.

  Coach Hokor continued. “Tomorrow afternoon, Ionath City is throwing us a parade to celebrate our promotion to Tier One. Then we have a week off, then three weeks to prepare for the Isis Ice Storm. Right now it is time to descend to Ionath, a trip that marks the official end of our Tier Two season. As such, we honor the players that are retiring as Krakens.”

  Hokor’s words echoed through the mostly empty shuttle bay then faded out, leaving silence. Quentin didn’t know what to say. He imagined his teammates didn’t either.

  “These three players wear white,” Hokor said. “The white jerseys are the original jerseys the franchise had in the year of its founding, 2662. To wear the white is the highest honor the Krakens organization can bestow. Pierson, Wen-Eh-Daret, and Saulsgiver played hard, they gave everything they had, but all careers must end. Active players, pay your respects to them as you board the shuttle.”

  Quentin watched the Krakens starters filter onto the shuttle, each stopping to say something to the three white-jerseyed, soon-to-be-ex-teammates. Quentin watched until he realized he was the only active player standing in the shuttle bay.

  He walked up to Pierson. Quentin offered his hand, which the running back shook. Pierson was 29, a decade older than Quentin. Years in the league had aged the man — Pierson looked ready for a rest.

  “Sorry you won’t be joining us,” Quentin said. “Gonna be a hell of a year.”

  Paul laughed. “I played two seasons in the bigs, with the Dreadnaughts. You think our T2 season was tough? Good luck, brother, I hope you do well.”

  Pierson’s smirk made it clear he thought he would have the last laugh, that he had been tough enough to last a decade, but Quentin was not. Pierson radiated disdain and jealousy of Quentin’s rising star.

  This whole process made Quentin uncomfortable, and he didn’t know why. The chrome of Paul’s foot reflected the landing bay lights, streaky flashes visible even though Quentin wasn’t looking at it.

  Wen-Eh-Daret was next. Quentin stood in front of the monstrous creature, unsure of what to say or do. Wen-Eh’s black eyespots stared blankly. The pink hexagonal mouth twitched, lip flaps hiding the disturbing triangular teeth. Quentin still didn’t understand the Ki all that well — did Wen-Eh want to say something?

  The Ki four-armed lineman reached up his two right arms, then smacked them against his tubular chest. If he had been wearing football armor, the movement would have produced a clack sound — the Ki equivalent of saying I will go to war with you.

  The gesture hit Quentin much harder than Paul’s condescension. Somewhere during the season, the Ki had accepted Quentin as a fellow warrior. He’d led them into battle, led them to victory. Fighting and winning were all that seemed to matter to the Ki.

  Quentin swallowed the lump in his throat, then brought up his right fist and pounded it twice against his chest. That was all that needed to be said.

  He finished with Pancho, who stood just outside the shuttle door.

  “Quentin, you little rascal, I’m gonna miss you this year.”

  “You and all the shuckers trying to tackle me,” Quentin said, laughing that Pancho had called him little. Quentin had two inches and more than a few pounds on the man.

  “It was great to be your teammate, Q,” Pancho said. “Let me be an old fart and give you some unsolicited advice. Cool?”

  Quentin rolled his eyes. “Sure, Pops, go ahead.”

  “Pro football is a marathon, not a sprint. Just remember that. Paul and I both made it ten years, which is damn near impossible. We were good players. You’re a great one. If you last ten years? You’ll re-write every record in the league.”

  “Just ten? At that point, I’ll just be getting warmed up.”

  Pancho smiled and nodded. “I hope so, Q. Have a great season. Ever been fishing?”

  Quentin shook his head.

  “If you need a break, just let me know. I’m heading back to Earth, to a little town in a place called Michigan. Anytime you need to get away from it all, you call me.”

  Where Paul’s well-wishing had reeked of bitterness, Pancho’s rang with genuine affection. The tight end raised his right fist and banged his chest twice. Quentin did the same, then turned and boarded the shuttle.

  All that touchy-feely emotional stuff was fine and good, but those three players just creeped him out. Correction; those three former players. All of a sudden, Quentin had to admit he didn’t want to be anywhere near them. It was stupid to feel that way, he knew, but those three retired players suddenly seemed almost... diseased.

  Quentin found a Human-sized seat near Hawick, the Sklorno receiver. He sat and buckled in. She trembled a little, but not as bad as Denver or Milford would have done. Quentin was still trying to deal with the fact that Sklorno now worshiped him like some kind of false idol. Hawick was clearly in awe of Quentin, although apparently she wasn’t an official member of the “Church of Quentin Barnes,” or the C-o-Q-B as they called it.

  He braced himself as the landing bay catapult tossed the shuttle out into the void. He stared out a view port, taking in the void’s star-speckled blackness. The shuttle floated for a few minutes until it cleared the Touchback, then the engines kicked in.

  The shuttle banked. As it came around, the planet Ionath slid into view. Red, cracked, cratered. From this far up, Ionath was an image of death, of the folly of constant war, of how things were before the Creterakians took over. For all the authoritarian rule of the bats, at least they kept the peace.

  A chime sounded. Quentin automatically looked up to holo-icons floating near the roof. Graphics showed an unbuckled seat belt, and next to it simple pictures of walking Ki, Humans, Quyth, and Sklorno. The HeavyG players thought the signs were racist, because they showed the rough dimensions of a normal-G Human. Quentin thought that was ridiculous — two arms, two legs, a body, and a head were two arms, two legs, a body, and a head. You didn’t hear the Quyth complaining about their icon, despite the drastic size difference between Leaders, Warriors, and Workers.

  He unbuckled, then walked to one of the shuttle’s larger view ports. Only a few of the Krakens players onboard moved within the cramped space. Some of the vets had seen the orbital approach so many times they were no longer impressed. Michnik and Khomeni were among those, apparently — that, or they were too busy eating the huge sandwiches sitting in their laps. The only movement came from Shizzle, the team’s translator and lone Creterakian. Shizzle fluttered to keep his balance on Kill-O-Yowet’s shoulder.

  Quentin stared out the view port, taking in the ruined planet. He wondered if there might be messages waiting for him when he reached the surface. Maybe his father had seen his game against the Earthlings a week ago. The T2 Tourney didn’t get the ratings of Tier One, but it was still broadcast galaxy-wide. Maybe his mother had seen a newscast, seen Quentin’s now-adult face and instantly recognized her baby boy.

  Maybe. Or maybe he’d never hear from either of them.

  A heavy hand hit his shoulder; hit and held. Quentin winced — his shoulder still hurt from the game against the Earthlings a week earlier. The strong hand shook him, the friendly-if-painful grasp of John Tweedy.
/>   “What’s up, Q? I know you got the tar knocked out of you by those Tex linebackers, but come on, trooper, you should be happy. You brought us into Tier One, man. You get a week off! Maybe now you can do something with your money, like get an apartment or something. Hey, maybe you can live near me! We could be shucking neighbors, brother!”

  When Quentin didn’t respond, the words TURN THAT FROWN UPSIDE DOWN scrolled across John’s face tattoo.

  “Come on, Killer Q,” John said. “What’s got that mopey sad-boy look on your face?”

  “It’s just... ah, never mind, I don’t wanna talk about it.”

  “Come on, trooper! Uncle Johnny’s been in the GFL five years, another three in the lower leagues, all that time trying to get to Tier One. It’s been my dream, Q! And that dream came true ‘cause of you. What’s eating ya? Ya need a girl? Wanna go out and paint the town orange?”

  “No, that’s not... well, yeah, we should go out and hit the town, but that’s not what I mean. This Tier One stuff is a big deal, I just wish my parents could see it.”

  “Why aren’t they here? Your Dad have attitude? Want me to whip your Pop’s ass? ‘Cause I will whip his ass, I assure you.”

  Quentin laughed. He didn’t feel like laughing, but John’s always-on intensity could make anything seem funny. “I don’t know where they are, John. I don’t even know if they’re alive. They vanished when I was real little. Happens a lot in the Nation.”

  Tweedy looked around behind him to the left, then to the right, then to the left again. His eyes lingered on Shizzle, who was farther back in the small shuttle, still perched on Kill-O-Yowet’s shoulder.

  Tweedy leaned in close to Quentin and spoke in a whisper. “Hey, Q, you told anyone about this?”

  Quentin shook his head. “Not really. Warburg knows, some ex-Nationalites in Ionath City, but I guess that’s about it. Why?”

  Tweedy did the left-right-left look again, the move probably drawing more attention to him than if he’d just talked quietly. “Listen, you might not want to make your situation public, you know? That’s the kind of thing Gredok can use against you.”

  “Why would Gredok use it against me? I’m his quarterback.”

  John shook his head slowly, as if he couldn’t believe he was looking at someone so stupid. The funny thing was that John wasn’t the sharpest laser in the kit, but he was so sure of himself and had such conviction that when he thought you were dumb, you actually felt a little dumb even if you knew you were right.

  “You challenged Gredok,” John said. “You challenged his authority, and won. You know what that means? Don’t they have crime bosses on Micovi?”

  Quentin thought of Stedmar Osborne, and nodded. Stedmar was the owner of the Micovi Raiders, Quentin’s Tier Three team back in the Purist Nation. Stedmar was a not a man to be trifled with.

  “Yeah,” Quentin said. “All teams are owned by gangsters. I know that.”

  “You know that, but you don’t know it. You get away with stuff because you win games. Gangsters like to win, winning makes money, but the most important thing is respect and control. You challenged Gredok’s authority — he’s not gonna forget that, Killer Q.”

  Quentin hadn’t thought about it that way until this moment. Don Pine had owed millions to Mopuk the Sneaky, a gangster that forced Pine to shave points, even throw games outright. Quentin orchestrated an effort to pay off Don’s debt. When Gredok had discovered Pine’s betrayal, he wanted to kill the man. Quentin threatened to walk away from the Krakens if Gredok hurt Pine in any way. Quentin had reacted on instinct, done what he had to do for the good of the team, never really connecting the dots that there could be long-term consequences for those actions.

  “Anyway,” John said, “Gredok’s not going to have you whacked. Not yet, at least. But you don’t want to give him any more leverage over you, right?”

  Quentin nodded. “Then how do I go about finding my parents? We have the season coming up, it’s not like I can go out and look for them.”

  John did the left-right-left look again, then leaned in. I KNOW A GUY scrolled across his forehead in small letters. “Don’t you worry about it, Q. Uncle Johnny-Boy The Minister of Awesome will hook you up. You put it out of your head for now.”

  John turned and walked away, leaving Quentin alone at the view port window.

  The shuttle rattled as it entered Ionath’s atmosphere. Quentin gripped one of the many hand/tentacle rings lining the shuttle. He looked out at what he now called “home.” A Sklorno saturation bombing 124 years earlier had wiped the planet clean of all advanced life. Only bacteria had remained, and not much of that. Ionath had remained lifeless, damn near sterile, until the Quyth Concordia colonized it. The Quyth seemed immune to the same radiation that killed every other known sentient in the galaxy. The Quyth were in the midst of a centuries-long process of transforming the planet. Much of Ionath still looked lifeless, lined with massive craters and cracks, but those scars were also blurring under an ever-increasing carpet of orange, red, and yellow plants.

  The shuttle approached Ionath City. Built in the middle of a ten-mile-wide bomb crater, Ionath City’s clear dome glowed like a torch lit up by the lights of thousands of buildings beneath. As the shuttle drew closer to the dome, Quentin stared in amazement as those lights changed. The white, blue, red, and yellow glow of a bustling, nighttime cityscape steadily blinked off as a new color steadily blinked on.

  That color was orange.

  The domed metropolis of Ionath City flickered, blinked, and in a span of ten or fifteen seconds, changed into a gleaming black jewel glittering with millions of glowing orange facets.

  The orange and the black.

  Ionath City welcomed its warriors home.

  The pilot dove straight for the huge dome, which obligingly disintegrated a temporary, shuttle-sized hole. The circular roads of Ionath City seemed to guide them in like the concentric rings of a bull’s-eye. Straight streets dissected sixteen equivalent sectors, all intersecting at the city center — intersecting at the home of the Krakens.

  In Ionath City, all roads led to the football stadium.

  The shuttle angled closer. Quentin saw more lights flare up, the sides of buildings coming to life with skyscraper-high motion clips of the orange- and black-clad Krakens players: Scarborough hauling in a pass; Aleksander Michnik sacking a quarterback; Quentin running through the line, a sweat-dripping snarl splayed across his face; Virak the Mean, black and red blood streaking his jersey, pointing out a gap just before the snap of the ball; and then one that made Quentin’s soul hurt — number 47, Mitchell “The Machine” Fayed, standing over the crumbled, purple-and-white clad form of Yalla the Biter. After Yalla had ripped off Paul Pierson’s leg, Fayed had gone headhunting for the linebacker and crushed him in a highlight-reel hit. Quentin blinked back tears for his dead friend. Reaching Tier One had been the Machine’s ultimate dream. He’d died just two games shy of seeing that become a reality.

  Sixty-foot-tall motion clips of so many players, orange and black giants making the nighttime skyline dance with life. So many Krakens, but the changing images featured one more than all the others combined.

  “Zak,” Quentin called out. “You seeing this?”

  Yitzhak Goldman quickly walked over to stand next to Quentin. The third-string quarterback looked out the window, then took a deep breath that exhaled into a smile saturating every iota of his face.

  “Ah, good to be home,” Yitzhak said loudly. “Nothing quite like being welcomed home by towering visions of... well... of me.”

  All the players on the shuttle laughed, even the mostly humorless Michnik and Khomeni. Ionath City residents adored Yitzhak, even if most of them didn’t really understand he was a third-string quarterback and fairly insignificant to the team’s success. That lack of knowledge didn’t change the fact that businesses wanted Yitzhak’s name associated with their companies, wanted his picture on their products. He was the face of Junkie Gin, the dashboard voice of Hundai Grav-Lim
os, and the chisel-chinned image of Farouk Outdoor’s popular anti-rad suits that let the adventurous non-Quyth species explore the vast planet. Compared to the advertising money he earned, Yitzhak’s actual salary was probably insignificant.

  The shuttle slowed as it approached the roof of the Krakens building, and landed feather-light. The side door lowered. Quentin and the others started filing down the ramp, ready for the now-familiar customs check. While the Quyth Concordia was independent of Creterakian control, GFL rules still applied to every team.

  Team buses had diplomatic immunity. GFL players could not be searched or detained. This had been implemented to prevent local system police from harassing players based on species bias. For a team to compete, it had to have players from the main races. Immunity allowed teams to move across systems without fear that some of their players would be arrested, possibly even killed. But just because the players themselves couldn’t be detained didn’t mean the Creterakians would allow team busses be a conduit for weapons or explosives that could be used against the ruling empire. The shuttle had to be searched every time it landed.

  Quentin walked out. A red line glowed on the roof. He dutifully took his place on that line, John Tweedy on his right, Scarborough on his left. They all stood, quietly waiting as a white-uniformed, blue-furred Quyth Leader walked up and down the twelve-player line. The Leader’s middle arms held something behind his back. Two white-uniformed workers slid a grav-cart into the shuttle.

  “I am Kotop the Observer,” the Leader said. “I am duly appointed by the Galactic Football League to inspect your shuttle.”

  Quentin sighed. He knew who Kotop was. Everyone knew who Kotop was, because Kotop inspected the shuttle every time it landed. The little Leader insisted on formally identifying himself. Kotop always seemed annoyed that the players were probably using their personal immunity to smuggle in information, drugs, or other contraband. The unwritten rule was that whatever a player could carry on his person — as long as it wasn’t a weapon — remained totally above the law. Kotop did little to hide his disdain of athletes. He usually had something derisive to say.