Scott Sigler - The Rookie

Quentin sat on the bench, already dressed, his thoughts focused on the game ahead. His first Upper Tier game. He barely noticed his teammates or the music. He didn’t come out of it until he felt someone near, staring at him. Quentin looked up and saw Don Pine only a few feet away. Quentin’s eyes narrowed to hateful slits.

“What do you want, Pine?”

Pine shrugged. “Nothing.”

“So go stare at someone else’s booty.”

“Kid, you need to relax.”

“I really didn’t appreciate your joke back on the landing platform.”

“What joke?” “What are you talking about?”

“Denver. You had Denver come up to me — in front of everyone — and ask if I needed help with my passing.”

Pine blinked a few times. “You thought that was a joke ?”

“Not a very funny one,” Quentin said. “You’ll get yours.”

Pine shook his head in amazement, then sighed. “Well if you get in today, kid, good luck.”

He turned and walked away. Quentin didn’t return the sentiment.

THE KRAKENS PLAYERS GATHERED in the tunnel that led to the field.

The announcer said something in Quyth, then repeated it in Human: “Here is the visiting team, the WooooooOOOO Wallcrawlers!”

A scraping sound filled the stadium, like a million carpenters sanding a million rough boards. Quentin pressed his hands to the ear holes of his helmet. He turned to Yitzhak. “What the hell is that?”

“Fur-scraping,” Yitzhak said, leaning into Quentin and shouting so he could be heard over the horrible noise. “Workers scrape the bristly fur on their forearms together — it’s kind of like a Human booing.”

The Krakens packed tightly into the small space. Clean or-ange-and-black jerseys covered the bodies and armor of Human, Heavy-G, Sklorno, Ki and Quyth Warrior. No one pushed, no one shoved, no one threatened. The very walls vibrated with the growing roar of the capacity 185,000-being crowd. Intangible electricity filled the air, making the skin on the back of Quentin’s neck tingle with excitement.

Racial hatred disappeared. That wasn’t quite true — it didn’t disappear as much as it transformed, mutated, moving from alien teammates to the unified body of the enemy: the Woo Wallcrawlers. The Krakens players were no longer individual species, no longer individual beings with petty biases and hatreds and arguments.

They were warriors.

Headed to battle.

The announcer said something in Quyth, and the crowd erupted with the roar of the High One himself. The unified army of orange-and-black surged forward. The announcer repeated the call, this time in Human.

“Beings of all races, let’s hear it for, your , Ionath, KRAAAAAA-KENNNNNNNS!”

Quentin found himself carried along in a wave of teammates. This was nothing like it had been on Micovi, where the starters were introduced one at a time, and the largest crowd he’d ever played before amounted to 24,500.

The team sprinted out through the tunnel mouth into the perfect daylight of Ionath Stadium. Quentin had never seen such a concentration of life. The crowd’s roar hit like a physical, concussive force. At the sidelines, the Krakens gathered in a tight circle. Quentin found himself packed in shoulder-to-shoulder against Milford on his right, pressed next to Mum-O-Killowe on his left, and Killik the Unworthy behind him. In front of them all, at the center of the circle: Donald Pine.

“This is it,” Pine said. He wasn’t yelling, yet his words carried loudly despite the crowd’s massive volume. “This is what we’ve worked for. The road to Tier One starts right here, right now.”

His voice rang with authority and command. All around him, Quentin felt Krakens players leaning in towards Pine. The veteran quarterback radiated calm and utter confidence. Creterakian civilians dressed in tiny orange and black uniforms flittered about, translating Pine’s words into Ki.

“We’ve got to go out there and establish ourselves right now ,” Pine said. “No waiting. They won the toss. Defense, I want the ball back. Offense, I want to score on our first drive. Then I want to score on our second drive. Then I want to score on our third drive. No letting up.”

He raised his fist and the circle tightened in a convulsive surge. Hands, pedipalps, chitinous arms and raspers reached out to Pine, who stood in the center of it all like a battlefield hero. Quentin found, to his surprise, that he instinctively reached out his own hand as well — but he stopped himself only a few inches from the veteran quarterback, pretending that he couldn’t quite reach.

Every player let out a single, deep, guttural grunt that transcended language, then the circle broke apart, the players gathering in groups: kickoff team, defense, offense and second-stringers. Across the field, the Woo Wallcrawlers broke from their own huddle. They wore pinkish leg armor and white jerseys with letters and numbers in light-blue rimmed by purple. Each jersey had the word “‘Crawlers” stretched across the chest above their number. A stylized purple creature on the right shoulder of each jersey spread forth long tentacles: two down the chest, two down the back, and two down the right arm (or arms, in the case of the Ki).

Five graceful, boneless Harrah floated onto the field. Their soft wings undulated in wave-like patterns, carrying them smoothly forward. They wore black-and-white striped jerseys custom fitted to their flat bodies. Quentin suddenly understood why the Harrah made great refs — they could fly up to monitor the twenty-foot-high mid-air battles between Sklorno receivers and defensive backs. A grounded ref could never accurately judge interference.

Pine walked up next to Quentin. He saw the younger QB looking at the refs.

“Never seen flying refs before?”

Quentin shook his head. “No, but it’s a great idea.”

“Stupid zebes, they hate the Krakens. We always get crap calls.”

“What’s a zebe ?”

“That’s what they call refs.”

“But what is it?”

“I think it’s short for Zebra. ”

“What’s a Zebra?”

Pine shrugged as he put on his helmet. “Beats me. Some animal with black and white stripes, I guess. From Satirli 6, I think.”

The Krakens lined up for the kick-off. The crowd of 185,000 started beating their feet in place. Quentin looked at the stands behind him: the crowd was mostly Quyth, with Workers filling the higher rows and upper decks. Plenty of Humans, Quyth Warriors and Quyth Leaders filled the lower seats. He spotted the distinctive shape of many Sklorno females in the stands, most of whom wore replica Krakens jerseys with number “80,” Hawick’s number.

Special sections of the stands were packed with the bouncing, one-foot diameter fuzzy balls that he now knew were Sklorno males. These sections were enclosed in clear crystametal. The males bounced up and down inside — there had to be a thousand of them in each enclosure, moving so fast he could barely make out individuals. Quentin wondered why, when looking at a stadium packed with a half-dozen races, the Sklorno males were segregated.

Quentin nudged Yitzhak. “Why are the Sklorno males in that cage?”

“The bedbugs? Because they get so turned on watching the females that they will rush the field and try to mate with them.”

Quentin grimaced. “What? Really?”

“Oh sure. They’re horny little buggers. Watch out if you’re around any of our receivers or DBs in public, the little scumbags lose it and will just start humping them. That’s why the females wear full-body clothing in public, otherwise the bedbugs might impregnate them.”

The crowd’s foot-pounding picked up in intensity, and was joined by a low “oohhhhh” that quickly increased in pitch and volume. Quentin turned in time to see the kicker’s foot slam into the ball exactly at the moment the crowd’s “ohhh” turned into a sustained “ahhh!” of excitement. The ball sailed through the air as the Krakens kickoff team pounded down the field.