Scott Sigler: The Rookie

So strong , Gredok thought. I’ve never seen a Human quarterback so strong.

Already moving upfield and now free of the clutching defensive end, Quentin tucked the ball and ran. The defense shifted from their pass coverage to come after him, but in the two seconds after his initial cut he was already ten yards upfield and cutting to the outside.

“ Hikkir ,” Hokor said quietly — the Quyth equivalent of “oh my .”

The crowd roared as the cornerback streaked towards Quentin, but the defender came in too fast. Quentin juked to the right, to the inside, but in the same second was moving back to the left. The cornerback stumbled and started to fall — he reached out for Quentin, who slapped his hands away like an angry parent scolding a spoiled child.

“ Hikkirapt ,” Hokor said, a little louder this time, the Quyth equivalent of “ that’s quite impressive. ”

Quentin sprinted down the sideline. The free safety closed with a good angle of pursuit. There was nowhere to cut this time, so Quentin lowered his right hand, and brought it up hard just as the free safety reached for the tackle. Quentin’s thick forearm caught the free safety under the chin, lifting him off his feet. The free safety seemed to float for a second, moving downfield at the same speed as Quentin, before crashing into the ground and skidding clumsily across the torn Carsengi Grass.

“ Joro jirri ,” Hokor said loudly. That loosely translated into “ You’ve got to be kidding me. ”

Stedmar jumped up and down and screamed nonsensical syllables, his drink spilling onto the floor. His bodyguards had lost discipline, straying from their posts to get a glimpse of the sprinting quarterback. Hokor leaned forward so far his neon-bright yellow eye pressed against the luxury box’s glass windows.

It boiled down to Quentin and the strong safety, who closed in as the quarterback passed the 30-yard line. Quentin looked back once, then turned his head upfield and seemed to take off , as if he had booster rockets. Quentin strolled into the end zone for a 52-yard touchdown run.

Raiders 41, Corsairs 3.

“Just how fast is he?” Gredok asked quietly.

“Yesterday in practice they timed him at 3.8 in the 40-yard dash.”

Gredok simply nodded. Of course. Why not? Why shouldn’t the nineteen-year-old huge quarterback, with a plasma rifle for an arm, the eyes of an aerial predator and the mind of a general run a 3.8 second 40-yard dash? That was faster than most Human running backs and definitely faster than the typical 380-pound Human tight end. It wasn’t nearly as fast as a Sklorno wide receiver or defensive back, but it was about equal with a Quyth Warrior linebacker. A Tier One linebacker — Quentin would leave most Tier Two linebackers in the dust.

Hokor still leaned forward, his eye and both sets of his hands pressed against the glass, his antennae quivering like drug-addled snakes. Gredok poked him again — hard. Hokor looked up and saw Gredok’s eye clouding over with just a touch of black. Hokor swept a pedipalp over his head, submissively pushing his antennae back, then sat quietly in his seat.

Gredok stared at his coach. Hokor had come across a holo of Barnes, and had instantly insisted the boy was Tier One material. Gredok had argued — there were reasons no Nationalite had ever quarterbacked a championship team. Most Nationalite quarterbacks, in fact, washed out within two seasons. Despite the boy’s skills, he had no experience dealing with other races, let alone leading them. There was more to quarterbacking than pure football skill. Far more.

But Gredok believed in his coach. He’d already leveraged his entire organization’s finances to create the team Hokor wanted, the team that would make the leap from Tier Two to the big time… to Tier One. Hokor wanted Barnes, but to get Barnes, Gredok needed to make a play that could have serious business consequences.

Gredok’s wide eye asked an unspoken question: Are you sure? Is this kid really worth it ?

Hokor stared back with an unspoken answer: Absolutely.

“I think Kollok is going to pay through the nose for this kid,” Stedmar said quietly, a smug smile on his lips. “Don’t you think he will, Shamakath ?”

The time had come to formally open up the power game. Gredok wasn’t taking any chances.

“Actually,” Gredok said, “Barnes might do well on my team.”

Stedmar raised his eyebrows in a Human expression for surprise. Gredok sensed Stedmar’s body heat — very steady, only a hair above normal. Stedmar concealed his emotions very well, which was just one of the reasons Gredok liked him. Stedmar was also smart and ruthless. But for all his strong points, he should have known better than to play the game with Gredok the Splithead.

“You’ve got Don Pine,” Stedmar said. “Why would you want anyone else?”

“Pine is not what he used to be.”

Stedmar nodded. “But I’ve already got a considerable offer from Kollok.”

“You should just give me Barnes’ contract as tribute.”

Stedmar smiled. “Now come on, we both know tribute doesn’t cover something like this. You wouldn’t want me in your organization if I’d do something as stupid as give up this kid for free.”

Gredok thought for a second, then nodded. Stedmar played it smart: polite, respectful, and logical. “What is Kollok’s offer?”

Stedmar walked to the bar and poured himself another drink. “Well, Barnes’ contract is negligible,” he said. “I have him signed for another year at one million credits.”

Such a low number for such talent , Gredok thought.

“That is impressive, Stedmar. Barnes is worth three times that amount, even for a Tier Three team. How did you manage it?”

Stedmar shrugged and smiled. “Technically, I don’t have to pay him at all. He’s an orphan, like about a million other Nationalite kids his age. Pogroms, coups, fundamentalist revolutions, power struggles — thousands of people die or just disappear every year. Quentin never even knew his parents. They disappeared when he was one, maybe younger. He had a brother, got hung for stealing food when Quentin was only five. That was all the family he had.”

“How old was the brother?”

“Nine or ten, Quentin doesn’t remember for sure. Anyway, in the Purist Nation, family members are responsible for crimes committed by other family members, up to three generations. Since Quentin was the only one left in his family, they put him to work in the forced-labor mines.”

“A five-year-old Human, working in the Micovi mines?”

Stedmar nodded. “Happens all the time. Makes for a very cheap labor source.”

“Slave labor is always the cheapest.”

“The nice term is ‘honor worker,’ as in working in the forced-labor camps clears your family honor, you know? Only takes twenty years.”

Gredok’s antennae circled slowly. He didn’t like Human systems to start with, and the Purist Nation was by far the worst of the lot. “So if he was an honor worker in a mine, how did you discover him?”

Stedmar laughed. “It was the craziest thing. I was driving out to the mines to conduct some business. So I’m driving by in my limo when the workers are on break. There’s a crowd built up like it’s a fight. Well, I love to watch a good fight, especially on this planet — did you know if you kill a man in a fair fight here, you don’t go to jail?”

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Anyway, so people really go at it. So I pull up to see what’s going on, only there’s not a fight, everyone is laughing and clapping, looking at each other in amazement. There’s this giant-sized shucker, must have been 425 pounds, built like an air-tank with legs, you know? Anyway, this guy looks pissed. He heaves back and chucks a rock, maybe the rock is a pound or two, chucks it about sixty yards, really impressive throw. Some guy runs the rock back, and that’s when the workers start flashing money back and forth — they’re making bets. Then this scrawny kid steps up, he’s about six feet tall, but you can tell he’s real young. The big guy has a look on his face like he could eat a bat whole, entropic rifle and all, you know? He’s looking at this kid like he wants to kill him. And the kid is just laughing. The kid takes the rock, pretends like he’s lining up under a center and actually barks out some signals. He’s looking left, looking right, then takes a five-step drop like he’s quarterbacking the Rodina Astronauts or something, and he heaves that rock. I mean the thing flew eighty-five, maybe ninety yards. I just about crapped myself.”