Scott Sigler - The Rookie

QUENTIN WALKED into the central locker room to find the place already half-full of players, and buzzing with excitement. The players crowded around the holotank in the center of the room.

“What’s going on?” Quentin asked.

“Oh yep,” Yassoud said, making room for Quentin. “Check out our first break of the season.”

The holotank showed two Human broadcasters, Christoff Berman and Dr. Mary Warwick, reviewing a holographic replay projected on the desk between them. The ESPN GameDay logo circled above them.

“The Orbiting Death’s upset win over the Whitok Pioneers puts the Death in a three-way tie for first,” Berman said. “But the bigger story is this injury to the Pioneers’ money-man, Condor Big-Playdrianne. Just how long is Adrienne out for, Mary?”

The replay froze. She poked the tip of a plastic pointer into the holographic display. In the display, Condor Adrienne had his right hand on the ground, obviously trying to keep himself from going down. A defensive lineman for the Orbiting Death, dressed in a white jersey with black trim and metalflake-red helmet, was also frozen in mid-fall, leaning against Adrienne’s arm. Quentin suddenly realized that Adrienne’s arm was bent the wrong way.

“As you can see here, the elbow is badly hyper-extended,” Dr. Warwick said. The replay moved forward another second, then froze. Adrienne’s arm bent further, and a bone poked out of his skin accompanied by a freeze-frame flash of blood. A groan of disgust rippled through the Krakens players.

The holo started to move forward, then backward in re-wind, then forward again, over and over to show the injury.

“Like a chicken wing!” Yassoud shouted joyfully.

Dr. Warwick continued. “Here we see severe bone and ligament damage to Adrienne’s arm. This will require major reconstructive surgery. He could be out three to four weeks while they rebuild the joint.”

Quentin felt bad for the man, but also felt a surge of excitement. With him gone, the Pioneers were no longer the unbeatable machine they had been for the first four weeks. The Pioneers’ win over the Krakens meant that even if the Krakens won out, and the Pioneers only lost one more, both teams would finish at 7–2 and the Pioneers would win the conference on the head-to-head tiebreaker. But if the Pioneers lost two games, the Krakens had a chance to win the conference outright. The Orbiting Death was also 4–1, but they only had to lose one more game — that week’s game, against the Krakens.

If the Krakens prevailed against the Orbiting Death, both teams would hold 4–2 records. However, that same head-to-head tiebreaker would this time favor the Krakens. Even though the Krakens’ shot at a conference title meant they had to win their last four games, the injury to Adrienne and the upcoming match with the Death made all things seem quite possible.

To Quentin, it felt like a shroud had lifted. In a two-game span, the team had gone from falling to 1–2 and losing its starting QB to crawling back to 3–2 with an outside shot at a title.

Two days of practice on the Touchback , then two days at Orbital Station One, home of Orbiting Death. Orbital Station One, “The Ace,” was even larger than “The Deuce.” Even the fact that Quentin was about to see yet another new world was not enough to offset his rage.

He was still on the bench, backing up a tanker.

IT WAS ONLY A FEW minutes after breaking out of punch space that Quentin found himself in the observation deck, looking out at another massive, mobile, artificial world. The Ace was an order of magnitude larger than The Deuce. Where The Deuce had seemed like a spherical sea urchin, complete with long, tapering spines, The Ace looked more like a medieval mace. Short, blue, stubby points dotted its spherical shape — the remnants of framework spikes, like on The Deuce, but with the area between filled in by harvested space debris.

Quentin walked up to Virak the Mean. “Just how big is that?”

“Largest artificial construct in the galaxy’s history,” Virak said. “Much larger than Emperor One.”

Quentin let out a long whistle. “I bet the Creterakians don’t like that.”

“They hate it.”

“How many beings live on that thing?”

“One-point-one billion.”

Quentin shook his head. That was more beings than all the Purist Nation’s outlying colonies combined. Hell, it was more than two entire planets, Allah and Stewart. The Ace wasn’t a station, it was a whole world. Still, while Allah and Stewart, especially Stewart, looked alive and vibrant, The Ace looked like a rock studded with blue metallic points.

“Not much to see from space,” Quentin said.

“Inside it is amazing,” Virak said. “Even better than Orbital Station Two.”

Quentin didn’t have to wait long to see the inside. The Touchback locked into orbit near an entrance shaft. Quentin rode down on the first shuttle. He wasn’t starting, yet he was listed on the starters’ shuttle. He didn’t know what that meant — what he did know was he didn’t want to talk to Donald Pine on the way down.

Pine couldn’t even meet Quentin’s eyes. The older quarterback spent most of the trip staring out the window, ignoring the hateful glances Quentin couldn’t help but shoot his way.

If Pine tanked a game, the Krakens were out of the playoff hunt, plain and simple. But if Quentin told anyone, it would destroy not only Pine’s career, but the man’s reputation and legacy as well. Maybe Pine was a moron for getting himself into trouble, but he was also a two-time Tier One champion. Did Quentin have the right to ruin that?

Pine wasn’t the only one acting odd. John Tweedy sat in a chair, left fist methodically punching into right hand. Whap. Pause. Whap. Pause. Whap …

MOM ALWAYS DID LOVE YOU BEST scrolled across his forehead.

Quentin nudged the massive Khomeni, then gestured at Tweedy.

“What’s his deal?”

“This is the biggest game of the year for him,” Khomeni said in a voice that sounded like a deep well full of gravel. “The Death’s running back is Ju Tweedy, John’s brother.”

Quentin had read about “The Mad” Ju Tweedy, Tier Two’s leading rusher, in the weekly reports and seen him run on the highlight reels, but he had never connected the last name.

“John looks like he’s about to kill someone,” Quentin said. “He and Ju get along?”

Khomeni laughed as he pulled a large sandwich out of his duffel bag. “Yeah, they get along.” He took a big bite, then spoke around a mouthful of ham on rye. “They get along about as well as the Purist Nation gets along with the League of Planets.”

Quentin left Khomeni to his sandwich as the shuttle slid into the entrance shaft. At The Deuce, the crystalline growths had been mostly straight, like green quartz crystals. Here, they curved in all directions, like crystals of blue gypsum, sometimes spiraling outward like a ram’s horn. Curls grew off of curls that grew off of curls, until the walls of the shaft were like a tangled jungle overgrowth of translucent blue. There were also smooth facets, their polished surface matching the contour of the shaft’s outer diameter.

“Why isn’t it as orderly as The Deuce? This looks like crap.”

Virak seemed to wince at the comment, and before Quentin could ask why Choto the Bright slid out of his seat and stormed over. Choto’s eye flooded a deep green. His strong pedipalps reached for Quentin. Quentin felt a blast of adrenaline rip through him in response to the oncoming 400-pound linebacker. Without even thinking, Quentin’s fists balled up and he started to look for an opening.