Scott Sigler - The Rookie

“Why, so you can fail again?” Hokor’s voice caught him by surprise. He turned, an unexpected sense of trepidation in his chest, as if he were a teenage boy caught in the middle of masturbating.

“End simulation!” Hokor barked. The tiny Quyth Leader marched towards Quentin as the field, the fans, the stadium and the players vanished, replaced by the clear dome and the sparkling stars.

“Barnes, what in the name of your primitive, backwater gods was that ?”

Hokor’s fur seemed to stand on end, making him look thicker than normal. Quentin knew that was some instinctive reaction, evolutionarily designed to make Hokor look bigger, therefore more dangerous, but in reality it just made him look fuzzy, like a stuffed animal. Still, his voice had a tone of command Quentin’s previous coaches had never possessed. Or, perhaps more accurately, had never used , at least not on him.

“That was an interception, Coach,” Quentin said calmly.

“Why did you throw it?”

“Well, I thought I had Scarborough on the streak.”

“You thought? You thought ? Don’t you know who the Warpigs’ safety is?”

Quentin assumed it was a rhetorical question, but Hokor seemed to wait for an answer. Quentin shrugged. “Nope.”

Hokor’s pedipalps quivered with anger. “You don’t know who it is, but you threw the pass anyway? You didn’t know that the Warpigs’ picked up Keluang in free agency?”

“Keluang?” “I thought he, I mean, she , played for the Hullwalkers, in Tier One.”

“Well now she plays for the Warpigs!” Hokor’s furry body shook with anger. “You stupid Human, you don’t even know who you’re playing against and you just blindly throw into coverage.”

Quentin smiled. “Take it easy, Coach. How am I supposed to know who’s on what team right now?” Quentin saw Pine and Yitzhak duck their heads in an effort to conceal their grins. Yitzhak hid his face in his hands and slowly shook his head.

“It’s your job to know,” Hokor said coldly. “You are a quarterback for the Ionath Krakens. We will not make it to the Tier Two tournament and therefore back into the glory of Tier One if my helpless quarterbacks don’t know everything there is to know about the opposition. You must be punished for this error. You will report to me after practice. And by tomorrow, you will know the defensive roster of all nine teams in the Quyth Conference.”

“By tomorrow? Come on, Coach — I figure that out on the field. Nobody knows all that stuff, nobody except sports reporters.”

Hokor turned to face Pine. “Who is the second-string free safety for the Sheb Stalkers?”

“Fairmont,” Pine answered instantly.

“What are her stats?

“Last recorded time in the 40 was a 3.2. She’s seventeen years old, an eight-year veteran, tends to jump the short routes and give extra space on deep routes for passing situations. She comes in as nickel back, but doesn’t like to hit big tight ends head-on.”

“Yitzhak, what is the strategy when playing her?”

“Passing situations, send tight ends on deep outs or deep curls. She doesn’t pressure the tight end enough, usually allowing for a little extra time to make a well-placed throw. Shouldn’t go deep on her if avoidable, but put the ball up high if you must because her vertical leap of twelve feet usually can’t compete with our receivers.”

Hokor turned back to Quentin. “ That is why these men have been around the league for so long.”

Quentin sneered. “With all due respect Coach, just because you guys memorize one player doesn’t mean anything. I may be young, but I wasn’t born yesterday. You guys set that up just to impress me.”

Hokor’s fur rippled, and his pedipalps were a vibrating blur. “Pick a player.”

“Huh?”

“Pick a player.”

Quentin felt a sinking feeling. “From what team?”

“Any team in the Quyth Irradiated Division.”

“Okay, how about this? The second-string weak-side linebacker for the Bigg Diggers.”

“Ripok the Stonecutter,” Pine and Yitzhak said simultaneously.

“Last recorded time of 3.9 in the 40,” Pine said.

“Five-year veteran, the last three with the Diggers,” Yitzhak added.

“Very disciplined,” Pine said. “Plays excellent zone, makes excellent reads, but poor lateral movement due to leg-replacement surgery in 2671.”

“Use quick tight end out patterns,” Yitzhak said. “Or, bring wide receivers on crossing patterns and throw when they are equal to Ripok, because he can’t break on the ball as fast as they can.”

Quentin just stared. He didn’t know that much information about his own linebackers for the Raiders, let alone for another team. And these guys had ripped off the info without a second thought.

“Now are you impressed?” Hokor asked.

Quentin nodded dumbly.

“By tomorrow,” Hokor said, “know every player on the rosters. We will work on stats and tendencies throughout this week. Let us commence with our position meeting. We are six days from the season opener against the Woo Wallcrawlers. It will take us four days to reach Ionath. We will practice on the Touchback until we reach Ionath, then shuttle down to the field facility for on-field practices.”

BY THE TIME the position meeting ended, Quentin felt thoroughly annoyed. He had several days of busy work lined up — rote memorization of defensive players and schemes in addition to his offensive studies. And the real annoyance was that none of it really mattered. When he took the field, that’s when all this garbage would fade away, once Hokor saw what he could do.

After the position meeting, Quentin followed Pine and Yitzhak onto the dining deck. He had an uneasy feeling he couldn’t quite explain. He’d never done ‘team functions’ with the Raiders, he’d always done his own thing. Here, he gathered, he was expected to dine with the team. The brightly lit room held over twenty tables, each surrounded by a variety of chairs designed for the different body types of Humans, Sklorno, Quyth Warrior and Quyth Leader. Unlike the corporate offices, there were none of the six-foot-long, table-like chairs made for Ki.

“We have to eat with the sub… I mean, the other races?”

Pine stared at him. “What, you can play a game with them, but you can’t eat with them?”

“You have to have the different races to win the game,” Quentin said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to eat with them, for High One’s sake.”

“It’s a league rule,” Yitzhak said. “All species must use the same dining facilities. Remember the Creterakians’ whole point of this league is to create a sense of ambassadorship amongst the races.”

“Are the Ki an exception, then?” Quentin didn’t see any of the monstrous creatures in the dining hall.

Yitzhak shuddered before he answered. “Their eating habits are a little, er, messy compared to the other races. They eat alone.”

“What do you mean, messy ?”

“They butcher their food at the table,” Pine answered. “They eat it raw.”

Quentin looked at both men. “You’re kidding me, right?”

They shook their heads.

“It’s horrific,” Yitzhak said. “They kill the animal right there on the table. The table is even designed to catch all the blood so they can drink that, too.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“That’s not the worst of it,” Yitzhak said. “That’s just the ones from the Ki Empire planets. The ones that come from the Ki Rebel Establishment planets, they don’t even bother to kill the animal before they start eating.”