Scott Sigler - The Rookie

This resulted in many new teams and a constant football presence. By 2668, the UFL boasted 32 teams and had crowned six champions. The “never-ending season” format worked so well and created so much fan interest, the Creterakians modified it when they forcibly disbanded the UFL and reinstated the GFL. The first half of the year is the Tier Two season. The second half is for Tier One. Tier Three runs constantly, with two seasons a year. Roughly half of the Tier Three leagues run simultaneously with the Tier Two season, and the other half run simultaneously with Tier One.

The result of this “back-to-back” scheduling is that some rookies moving up from Tier Three to an Upper Tier team have only two weeks before the season’s first game. Rookies must be cleared through the Combine, and can only be brought in for the roughly one week that remains of the preseason. After the preseason, teams can fill roster gaps only by grabbing free agents who have already played on a GFL roster.

THE SECOND DAY, the computer woke Quentin and told him to dress. He followed directions, and didn’t have to wait long before the door opened and something started to come through, to float through. Quentin jumped away from the door, his back hitting the small cell’s wall.

It floated at chest height, a white, tapered, flattish creature about four feet across and six feet long. At the outer edges of the body, thick skin moved in undulating waves, like the long wings of a stingray or a skate. A row of six deep, black sensory pits lined the creature’s curved front.

A Harrah.

“My goodness,” the creature said. “Are you all right?”

The creature hadn’t said it, because Quentin didn’t see movement from anything that might be a mouth. He realized that the words came from a small metal machine strapped to the creature’s back.

He recognized the creature as resident of one of the five gas giant planets that made up the Harrah Tribal Accord. He’d never seen one in person, just on holos as GFL refs. He’d also studied them in the classes that taught every Purist Nation child how to kill the sub-races. The common nursery rhyme jumped unbidden into his head:

A punch in the pit, any of them will do

Grab the wings and pull down, so blessed are you

Bring up your knee, oh so so so high

Let this enemy of High One die

He remembered that kind of move put sudden compression on the Harrah’s heart, causing it to rupture.

The Harrah’s sensory pits combined to produce a kind of sonar that let them “see” everything via sound waves. A curled tentacle sat outside the leftmost and rightmost black pit — the Harrah equivalent of hands. It wore a pack of some kind on its back, an orange-and-black pack with many compartments and pockets.

Quentin stared for a second before he realized his hands were balled up into tight fists. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the Krakens’ team doctor. You may call me Doc. Please relax, my good man. I’m here for your physical.”

“I don’t get a Human doctor?”

“Harrah make excellent doctors, I assure you. I’ve been studying multi-species sports medicine for fifty years. I realize that my appearance may be a bit startling to you, Quentin, but I pose no danger. Now please, sit and relax.”

Doc reached a tentacle into his backpack and came out with a bracelet done in a bluish metal.

“Please disrobe and hold out your wrist.”

“I want a Human doctor.”

“That’s fine. But I’m the team doctor for the Ionath Krakens. If you want to play for the Krakens, I have to examine you. If you want to go back to the PNFL for another year so you can find a team with a Human doctor, that is your prerogative.”

Quentin gritted his teeth. He wasn’t waiting another year. He stripped out of his bodysuit and held out his hand.

Doc’s tentacles shot to the long scar on Quentin’s right arm. Quentin managed not to flinch as the alien examined the old wound.

“How did this happen?”

“Grinder accident when I was a kid, working in the mines. I almost lost my arm.”

“But that scar… did they use stitches ? With a needle and thread ?”

“It was a pretty bad injury, I think they did a great job. They grafted the bone together, repaired the muscle connections and stitched the whole thing up.”

“Stitches and bone grafts,” Doc said quietly. “Sheer barbarism.”

Doc fastened the bracelet around his wrist.

“This device will check all of your vital signs. I already have a great deal of physical information on you from yesterday’s test, so this is somewhat of a formality. Now I’m going to check your joints — machines can’t always find what can be found by touch.”

Quentin’s lip curled involuntarily at the thought of that thing touching him. But he’d have to get used to aliens, so he might as well start now.

Doc’s tentacles gripped his arm. They were warm and soft, not cold and clammy as he’d expected. Doc bent his arm at the elbow, then straightened it, pushing against the joint.

“Does it hurt when I do this?”

“No,” Quentin said. Doc continued his examination, moving from joint to joint.

“PNFL doesn’t give out medical records. What sports-related injuries have you sustained?”

“None.”

Doc paused. “There’s no use in lying, my good man, I’m going to find any injuries you’ve had.”

“Search all you want,” Quentin said.

The Harrah doctor continued looking. After five minutes of gentle poking, prodding, and bending, he stopped. He pulled the device off Quentin’s wrist, looked at it for a moment, then returned it to his backpack.

“How is it,” Doc said, “that you played football for four years yet you have no injuries?”

Quentin shrugged. “I don’t get hit very much.”

“Yes, well I suppose you don’t. Now we have just one more test, Quentin. We must check you for a hernia.”

Quentin’s heart sank. He’d forgotten about that most invasive part of the sports physical.

“I don’t have one.”

“I need to check. Please stand.”

Quentin sighed.

Tentacles on my testicles , he thought. I’m really moving up in the world.

QUENTIN SPENT two days at the Combine, but experienced nothing as arduous as the initial test, or as disturbing as his exam with Doc. League officials continued to test his reflexes, his strength and his endurance. The initial exam created a baseline of his physical capabilities. Subsequent tests further developed that analysis, and were combined with extensive measurements of intelligence, analytical thinking and mental reaction time. Meal trays slid through a slot in his cell walls, three times a day, the same time every day. The best of that food tasted like a bland nothing, the worst like some kind of rancid sawdust. He ate it anyway. Quentin wondered if the food would be like this on the Krakens’ team bus — the thought made him shudder. He wanted some good old-fashioned Nationalite cooking.

After his last test, a holographic video game that had him slapping colored balls in a pre-described pattern as fast as his hands could move, Quentin returned to his cell to find new clothes laid out on his metal bunk. Loose fitting sweat pants and a sweatshirt, new Nike football shoes and socks, all in the orange-and-black colors of the Ionath Krakens. A orange-and-black bag sat next to the clothes, containing a second set of sweats and the clothes he wore when he arrived at the Combine. The last item, the one that really caught his attention, was an Ionath Krakens jersey.

A jet-black jersey, it had an orange “10” with white trim on the front and the back. He was glad to see he’d keep his old number from the Raiders. Orange, black and white Krakens logo patches were sewn onto each shoulder. A “Kraken” was a huge oceanic predator native to Quyth, the Concordia’s capitol planet. As long as two-hundred feet, with a twenty-foot-wide tail and six tentacles that ended in sharp, jagged hooks, the Kraken was a vicious hunter. Quentin thought it a fitting nickname for a football team, much better than, say, the scientific-based names of League of Planets teams like the Wilson 6 Physicists or the Satirli 6 Explorers.