Scott Sigler - The Rookie

“I don’t need any help,” Quentin said coldly. “I’ve learned to figure things out for myself.”

Pine’s smile faded, just a little, then returned as he shrugged. He waved another man over. “Suit yourself. Let me introduce you to another Krakens’ QB, Yitzhak Goldman.”

Yitzhak stepped forward and shook Quentin’s hand. At 6-foot-4, he was very short for a quarterback. He had the bleach-white skin of a Tower Republic native of the planet Fortress, along with equally white hair and eyebrows. The only things of any color were his deep black eyes. The irises were just as black as the pupils, giving the man an eerie, haunting stare.

“Welcome aboard,” Yitzhak said.

Quentin simply nodded. He’d seen Yitzhak play last year when Pine was out two weeks for knee replacement. Quentin had been less than impressed.

Through the flurry of meet-and-greet, a strange creature crawled forward. Quentin couldn’t help but take a step back — he’d never seen the like before. It resembled a Quyth Leader, or Warrior, or at four feet tall maybe something in-between. It had only one eye, which was much smaller than a Leader’s or a Warrior’s. The creature’s pedipalps were long, almost three feet long, and so thick they seemed like Human arms. It smelled like onions.

The creature reached out with one of the pedipalps and gently tried to take Quentin’s bag. Quentin turned his shoulder, pulling the bag slightly away. The demonic-looking creature made his skin crawl, but he concentrated on staying his ground, dead-set against repeating the embarrassment he’d felt when he hit the deck at the sound of Swizzle’s flapping wings.

“What’s the matter?” Pine asked. “Pilkie here will take your bag for you.”

“Pilkie?” Quentin said, never taking his eyes of the creature.

“It’s okay, Quentin,” Yitzhak said. “You look tense.”

Quentin looked at Yitzhak, then at Pine, then lifted the bag-strap off his shoulder and set it down on the deck. Without a sound, Pilkie grabbed the bag and walked towards a door at the edge of the landing bay.

Pine laughed. “You okay, boy? You act like you’ve never seen a Quyth Worker before.”

Quentin shrugged. “I haven’t.”

Pine and Yitzhak laughed, then stopped when they realized that Quentin wasn’t kidding.

“Sorry about that, Quentin,” Pine said, clapping Quentin on the shoulder. “I forgot you’re fresh off the Purist Nation. Come on, we’ve got a position meeting in twenty minutes. Hokor handles the quarterback meetings, and trust me, you do not want to be late.”

“So are there any other kinds of Quyth?” Quentin asked. “I’m getting kind of tired of surprises.”

“Just the females,” Yitzhak said. “But there’s none of those onboard. Females are sacred in Quyth culture. No non-Quyth are even supposed to lay eyes on them. Females never leave their home planets.”

“Can we see the field?” Quentin asked.

Pine nodded. “Right this way, kid.”

A central tunnel, large enough for heavy equipment, ran from the flight deck all the way to the other end of the ship. The tunnel, with its arched ceiling and curved walls, acted like a main highway — every thirty feet or so, smaller tunnels branched off at right angles, leading into the ship’s numerous sections. Quentin followed Pine straight down the main tunnel, until it opened up into the huge space that was the Krakens’ practice field.

The clear dome revealed the black expanse of space. Thousands of bright sparks glittered; the stars of the Milky Way Galaxy. Ten yards or so past the end zones and sidelines, the ship’s decks rose up eighteen levels high.

They walked onto the field, entering at the orange end zone. The surface had some give and felt a lot like the Carsengi Grass that covered most Purist Nation fields, but he could tell this was artificial. Hundreds of flat, circular, white creatures, each the size of a pancake, moved around the field. They moved slowly, but quickly scooted out of the way of approaching feet.

“I think you guys need to call an exterminator,” Quentin said.

“Those are clippers,” Yitzhak said. “This is nanograss, self-replicating mechanical cells that grow constantly to give us a good practice surface. The clippers are little robots that keep the nanograss at a constant height.”

“They ever get underfoot?”

Yitzhak shook his head. “Naw, they steer clear of anything that moves.”

As they walked past the 50-yard line, Quentin noticed that the white disks cleared out in front of them, then closed in behind as the Humans passed by. He looked around, trying to take it all in — this is where his destiny would start.

Just past the black end zone, the three men stepped aboard a lift. Pine pressed a button, and the lift rose swiftly to deck eighteen.

Quentin followed Pine down the hall. The orange walls complimented the white and black carpet. Most of the diverse furnishings — two seats each for the varying body styles of Quyth, Ki, Sklorno and Human — were also done in orange-and-black. The high ceiling allowed Human and Sklorno alike to pass in comfort. Holoframes covered the walls, showing great players from the 23-year history of the Ionath Krakens. Most holoframes, of course, depicted players or scenes from the Krakens’ Tier One Championship of 2665.

That had been the franchise’s heyday, back when quarterback Bobby “Orbital Assault” Adrojnik put together three fantastic seasons, culminating in the ‘65 title, a 23–21 thriller over the Wabash Wall. After that game, Adrojnik died in a bar fight under conditions most called “suspicious.” Krakens fans blamed Wabash supporters, or possibly even the Wabash owner herself. Gloria Ogawa, who had founded the Wall in the GFL’s inaugural season of 2659, was a known gangland figure in the Tower Republic and had not taken the loss well.

“This deck holds the Krakens’ corporate offices,” Pine said. “Communications with the league, archiving, marketing, network relations, stuff like that.” Pine looked at the famous holoframe of the smiling Adrojnik, held aloft by two Ki linemen, raising the Championship trophy high in one hand.

“Is that what you’re going to be kid?” Pine said quietly. “The next Adrojnik? The future of this franchise?”

Quentin shrugged. He’d never seen Adrojnik play. Sometimes you could score pirated games on Micovi, or on Buddha City, but for the most part the old historical GFL stuff just wasn’t available.

Pine grinned, looked at Quentin, and continued down the hall. “Yep, you could be the savior. What are you kid, twenty-one? twenty-two?”

“Nineteen,” Quentin said.

Pine’s eyebrows rose up. He looked at Yitzhak, who let out a low whistle and shook his head.

“Nineteen,” Pine said. “Kid, you play your cards right you could have a great career ahead of you.”

“Of course, that’s what the press said about Timmy Hammersmith in 2678,” Yitzhak said. “And Crane McSweeney in 2680, after Hammersmith washed out in just two seasons.”

Pine smiled and nodded, looking at Quentin the whole time. “Yeah, that’s right! But McSweeney didn’t last much longer. He might have developed into something big if he hadn’t died in the season opener against the Wallcrawlers in 2680. Rookie QBs just don’t seem to fare too well around here.”

“It seems veterans don’t fare too well, either,” Quentin said. He wasn’t going to put up with this rookie bull — he was no normal rookie, something they’d all find out soon enough. “They brought you in to finish the 2680 season, didn’t they, Pine? Two seasons at the helm, and the Krakens are still Tier Two.”

Yitzhak stopped and turned to face Quentin. “Hey, now you’d better watch yourself, rookie, you don’t — ”