Scott Sigler - The Rookie

Richfield vibrated with anticipation as the punt sailed through the air, but it had excellent hang-time and she was forced to call a fair catch at the Krakens’ 35.

Quentin and the offense ran onto the field for the first time.

“JUST WHAT IN the heck is going on here, Masara?”

“I don’t know, Chick, but it looks to me like Donald Pine is calling the play in the huddle.”

“But I thought Pine wasn’t even practicing with the team.”

“That’s what everyone was told, Chick. But Krakens Coach Hokor the Hookchest and Earthlings’ Coach Pata the Calculating are two of the trickiest strategists in the game. Word has it that Pata the Calculating has something up his many sleeves — he wouldn’t allow any media in his practices for the last two weeks. And as for Pine not practicing with the team, Maybe Hokor was just being disingenuous.”

“Hey now, easy on the big words, Masara!”

“It’s not a big word, it’s a very common — ”

“Hold on there Vocabulistic Vinnie! The Krakens are lining up for the play, and — what the heck , that’s Mitchell Fayed’s number in the backfield.”

“Someone get us a close-up of that guy!”

“Well grease me up like a well-used sock monkey, Masara, that’s Quentin Barnes at tailback!”

“Is he crazy, Chick? The defense will tear him apart!”

“Well, this makes about as much sense as a Sklorno receiver walking unclothed into a bedbug convention, but it’s definitely a new wrinkle that I don’t think the Earthlings are ready for.”

“The defense looks a bit anxious, Chick.”

“That they do Masara, like the mother of three hot triplets who just realized her jailbait daughters are well into puberty and drawing the attention of the void-bike gang next door.”

“Chick, take it easy…”

“Sorry, Masara, sorry folks at home, here go the Krakens in I-formation…”

QUENTIN LIGHTLY RESTED his hands on his slightly bent knees. He stood directly behind Tom Pareless, who crouched in a three-point stance. Donald Pine looked down the left side of the line, then the right, barking out signals.

“Blue, sixteen! Bluueeee, sixteen!”

The play was an off-tackle left — away from Chok-Oh-Thilit, a strategy the Krakens would try to follow for most of the day. No point in wasting time, Quentin had to get it over with if he was going to be effective.

“Hut-HUT!”

Pine turned as Pareless drove to the left. Quentin followed him, his eyes fixed on the ball held in Pine’s outstretched hands.

Don’t fumble don’t fumble don’t fumble –

Quentin raised his right elbow high, the back of his hand on his chest. His left hand rested against his lower stomach, thumb forward — the way he’d been taught to take a handoff. Pine stabbed the ball towards his stomach, holding it so that the ball’s points were parallel to Quentin’s body. Quentin’s left hand cupped the bottom of the ball as his right elbow snapped down, trapping the ball between his thick forearms. Only after he felt the ball was snugly in place did he look up to run.

Pareless pushed through the hole and notched a solid fit on the linebacker. Quentin ran straight into the hole. Like some evil magical portal, the hole instantly vanished. Defenders appeared in front, on his right and left — Quentin put his head down and drove forward.

Wham WHAM!

Two hits in rapid succession, one from the left, the next from the right, as the defensive tackle and then the middle linebacker smashed into him. Quentin’s right arm went instantly numb, but he held onto the ball as the two big bodies dragged him down. He wound up on his back, looking straight up into the face of his countryman Alonzo Castro.

“What in the void could you be thinking, boy?” Alonzo asked, a look of concern on his face. “You need to get your tail back behind that big offensive line of yours, or you’re going to get hurt.”

Quentin’s right arm felt all tingly and hot — not in any shape to push Alonzo away — so he laid still and tried to play it cool.

“Good to see you again,” Quentin said. “But if anybody’s going to get hurt, it’s going to be you when I run you over.”

Alonzo laughed, not an evil laugh, but as if an old friend had told him a good joke. He stood and reached out a hand.

“We’ll see about that,” Alonzo said as he helped Quentin off the ground.

Quentin ran back to the huddle. He could barely move his arm, but the tingling feeling was already fading away. If that was the best hit Alonzo had to offer, Quentin thought me might make it through the game after all. He ran to the back of the huddle to stand in the tailback’s spot, thinking how strange it was to watch someone else call the play.

“Quentin!” Pine barked. “Take it easy when I hand you the freakin’ ball, you almost took my hand off.”

“Oh… sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it. You feel better now?”

The question confused Quentin for just a second, then he realized the butterflies were gone and he no longer had to pee.

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “I guess I do.”

Pine nodded, just once, then his eager eyes swept the offensive players. “Okay, they’re already confused by Quentin, and they’ll be looking for him, so we go play-action right, towards Chok-Oh-Thilit, hot-pass to Warburg.”

“At least someone will throw me the ball,” Warburg said.

“Shut up, racist” Pine said. “Keep your mouth shut in my huddle, got it?”

Warburg glared, but nodded.

“Okay, on two, on two, ready…”

Quentin lined up in the I-formation once again. Pine barked out the signals. The linemen smashed together. Quentin drove to the right, left hand on his chest, left elbow high. Pine stabbed the ball towards his stomach again and Quentin brought his forearms together, except this time there was no ball at his stomach. He put his head down and leaned forward, charging into the line. He ran just outside Wen-Eh-Deret’s right side: the hit came from his right, enough to spin him around, then a freight train smashed into his chest. The world spun in a wild circle, and something hit him hard in the left shoulder — it took him a full second before he realized that last hit had been the ground.

Quentin gazed up into the black eyes of Chok-Oh-Thilit, who looked down at him the way a spider looks at a bug caught in its web.

Alonzo’s grinning head appeared next to Chok-Oh-Thilit’s. “Don’t he just hit like a tank ?”

“My… gramma… hits harder,” Quentin said, although his voice cracked just a bit when he said it. Alonzo helped him up once again.

In the huddle the Krakens were excited and eager for the next play. Quentin realized he had no idea if the play had been successful — he looked at the scoreboard: first-and-10 on the Earthlings’ 44.

Warburg stood and looked back at Quentin. “So that’s what it’s like to catch a pass.”

Pine reached out and slapped Warburg hard in the head. “Dammit, Warburg, shut your pie-hole!” Warburg turned and bent, leaning over in standard huddle position so the players behind him could see Pine.

“Okay, now we go for the throat,” Pine said. “B-set, twenty-two post. Hawick, I’m putting the ball in the air whether you’re covered or not, you go get it or I’ll never throw you another pass as long as you live.”

A silence filled the huddle. Quentin just stared, amazed at Pine’s ruthlessness — it would have been like telling a Holy Man that if he didn’t catch the ball he’d been damned to hell by St. Stewart himself. Hawick started to shake.

“Shake all you want, sissy girl, every defensive back on the field is going to know it’s coming to you when I drop back, and it doesn’t matter — you don’t catch the ball, and you’re excommunicated from the Church of Donald Pine, do you understand?”