The Champion (45 page)

At game’s end, the Krakens walked off the field with a 35-10 win. Everything had gone smoothly and by the numbers. The only odd thing was Becca’s uniform:
clean
, untouched. Near the end of a game, her uniform, helmet and face usually carried the marks of an afternoon’s violence. But that afternoon, she had stayed on the sidelines.

Quentin didn’t know if that bothered her. He hoped it did, and at the same time, he hated himself for feeling that petty.

When the final gun sounded, the Krakens had once again shown the league that they were not paper champions. On offense, Ionath would light you up. On defense, they would beat you damn near to death.

The Krakens were 5-0. They held the title, and they were ready to defend it against all comers.

IF THE BEER-STAINED, SLIGHTLY PEELING
wall covering had once been smart paper, it had stopped working long ago. The mismatched tables were made of salvaged starship hulls, and every one of them wobbled at least a little. Of the four beers on tap, Quentin knew all their names — not a pretentious microbrew in the house. There wasn’t even a menu, just popcorn, ziggynuts and flash-dried spiders (the latter of which, he had to admit, he’d developed a taste for, thanks to hanging out with Choto for so long).

The place was a dive; Quentin felt right at home.

This was the sixth stop on John’s pub crawl. Or maybe the seventh, Quentin wasn’t sure. They had left Trident Station and hit the web of ships surrounding it, their limo/shuttle taking them from one station (or converted starship or retired freighter or anything that was airtight and had engines) to the next. The bars were mostly packed with Humans, but there were other species as well, including more Harrah than any place Quentin had seen outside of Tribal Accord space.

Their latest stop, a hole-in-the-wall called Kessel’s Run, had been filled with Scarlet Fliers fans still enjoying their night even though the game had ended six hours earlier. Unlike other cities — such as OS1, for example — the Neptune fans welcomed opposing team players
and
opposing team fans. Aside from two Harrah aerial duels that had popped up out of nowhere, the evening had been remarkably violence-free.

Ju was standing on one of the wobbly tables, beer mug in hand and at least some of the sloshing beer remaining in it. He was trying to get the dwindling crowd to sing a sixth-straight rendition of “Black Velvet Band,” but the sentients remaining weren’t that interested; the novelty of bellowing songs with a GFL star had worn off about three renditions ago.

John was passed out, flat on his back on another table, legs and arms hanging, a half-empty beer balanced on his chest. HeavyG backup defensive end Cliff Frost’s massive shoulders shook with laughter as he drew on John’s face with a black pen.

Yassoud Murphy and backup linebacker Pishor the Fang were arm wrestling. ’Soud was drunk, sweat pouring off him, his body shaking with intensity and effort. Pishor matched that intensity, his baseball-sized eye swirling with the black of anger and the dark red of surprise — he couldn’t believe how strong Yassoud had become.

Quentin sat in a booth with Choto. Quentin had been drinking in moderation, but he consumed alcohol so infrequently during the season that even his four beers were making him a little tipsy. Choto drank something that smelled awful and looked like gray sludge. Whatever it was, this was his third mug. His eyelid sagged shut. He slowly slid to his left, then the eye shot open and he sat bolt upright.

Choto blinked rapidly, but the eyelid was already starting to sag again.

“I am very tired,” he said. “And also possibly intoxicated to some degree.”

It was good to see his friend and bodyguard relax for a change. And why not? They’d earned the right to celebrate. The Krakens had taken all three games of a brutal road trip. Soon they would depart for Ionath, and next Sunday they would be heavily favored against the 2-2 Alimum Armada at Ionath Stadium — the Krakens had an excellent chance to finish the first half of the season undefeated.

Choto pointed a wavering pedipalp at Yassoud and Pishor.

“They were just arm wrestling a few minutes ago. How many times have they done this?”

“Still the first time,” Quentin said. “Ten minutes and going, by my count.”

Choto muttered something in Quyth. He sounded impressed.

Ju tried to do a little dance but stepped on the edge of the table — it tilted under him, sending him crashing down on John, smashing the mug on John’s chest and dropping both of them to the floor. The bar patrons cheered and laughed.

Something caught Quentin’s eye: a Human man sitting at the bar stood up to adjust his seat, then sat back down again. Quentin only noticed because of the man’s height — in that brief moment when he stood, he towered over the other patrons. Six-ten, maybe ... maybe even as tall as Quentin, but skinny. He wore a long black coat with the collar up, obscuring part of his face, and a fedora down low so the brim covered most of the rest. But Quentin could see the man’s skin ... a deep, dark chocolate color.

“Dammit,” Quentin said. He leaned closer to Choto. “I think that tall guy over there is Jonathan Sandoval.”

“The reporter?”

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “We should get everyone out of here before he makes up some story about our drunken escapades.”

“Does John and Ju crashing to the floor not qualify as an
actual
drunken escapade?”

“Not to Sandoval,” Quentin said. “He’ll invent something far worse. Or hang around until John wakes up and wants to fight someone. Come on, Choto, sober up. We need to get our guys to the limo and return to the
Touchback
.”

Ju pushed himself slowly to his hands and knees, then stood with the help of Frost. Ju had blood on his chest.

“Dangit,” he said. He reached up to his sternum, pulled free a shard of blood-smeared mug and tossed it to the floor.

John sat up. His face tattoo scrolled gibberish beneath magic-marker whiskers, pointy eyebrows and a kitty nose.

“Not a party until Ju bleeds,” John said.

Ju held up his blood-covered fingers. “It’s a party.”

Two scarred HeavyKi bouncers, each six hundred pounds at least, pushed through the remaining crowd. They came in like they were going to roust everyone out, but one look at Frost — a six-foot-eleven HeavyG — made them stop in their tracks.

Frost smiled at them. “You fellas have something to say?”

John tried to get up. “They wanna go, Cliffy? I say we floor the mop with their
faces
!”

Quentin nudged Choto. “Tell those bouncers we’ll get everyone out of here.”

Choto slid out of the booth. He walked to the bouncers, wobbling only a little, his middle and pedipalp arms outstretched in a
we don’t want any trouble
gesture.

Quentin walked to Ju, who was picking up the table: not to put it where it belonged, but to throw it at the bouncers.

“Put it
down
,” Quentin said. “Bleeding or not, the party’s over.”

Ju harrumphed.

John finally managed to stand. “Come on, Q! These guys is be busting’ up our place! Someone should smack them in their hexamouths, or whatever the hell they call those face-holes of theirs.”

Cliff’s impromptu art made John look ridiculous.

“Hello, kitty,” Quentin said. “John, this is
their
place.
We
are the ones busting it up. So by your logic, what should happen?”

John frowned. “Someone should smack us in our hexamouths?”

Ju shook his head. “We don’t have hexamouths.”

Quentin grabbed Frost’s shoulder. “Get these two to the limo, got it?”

Frost smiled wider and gave a snappy military salute.

“Tweedy brothers,” he said, “
fall in\
”

The huge defensive end shepherded the drunken Tweedys past the bouncers. Quentin saw Choto tapping the credit box strapped to his wrist — he was probably paying for the damages. The linebacker called to Frost.

“Clifford, may I use your pen?”

Frost tossed a pen to Choto, who promptly signed the left upper arm of each 600-pound HeavyKi. The bouncers seemed very pleased with how things had turned out.

Quentin heard the grunting of a Human and the deep clicks of a Quyth; Yassoud and Pishor were
still
at it.

“It’s a tie,” Quentin said to them. “We’re leaving.”

Both sentients struggled, arms shaking.

“Let go,” Yassoud said.

“
You
let go,” Pishor said. “I will not slam your scrawny arm through this table, I promise.”

Quentin walked over, grabbed their wrists, squeezed as hard as he could and yanked them apart.

“I said,
we’re leaving
.”

The two Krakens stood up, both laughing, both rubbing their now-painful wrists.

“Damn, Q,” Yassoud said. “You’re stronger than you look. Wanna arm wrestle?”

Quentin pointed to the door. Yassoud and Pishor stumbled toward it. Choto fell in at Quentin’s side.

They left Kessel’s Run. There were no “streets” to speak of in this place, just a long central corridor with a curved ceiling some fifty feet overhead. Bars, restaurants and shops lined the corridor. The ship had once been a water tanker, almost eight hundred meters long, but its punch drives had worn out. It still had impulse engines and — like every other ship in the Net Colony — could shift its orbital position at will. Almost every vessel in the Net Colony could move, and often did; Quentin had heard the locals use the phrase “never the same neighbors twice.”

The former tanker thrummed with activity. Every store, restaurant and bar was still open, holo signs above them blazing brightly. Crowds of Humans wandered from club to club, most of them holding colorful plastic cups of various shapes and sizes. Each bar had a signature drink, it seemed, and each signature drink had a signature take-home container. Up above, the air was thick with Harrah. Most bore the colors of their local tribes, but many trailed streamers of scarlet, white and black — the colors of the Fliers. More than a few trailed streamers of orange and black: Harrah who either lived here and were Krakens fans or had traveled to the gas giant to catch their beloved team in action.

If there was one thing Quentin loved about a place with too many Harrah, it was the near absence of Creterakian soldiers. In the Net Colony’s smaller ships, John said, bats tended to disappear — the Harrah Neptunians hated their winged overlords and would take them out any chance they got. There weren’t enough Creterakians garrisoned in the Net Colony to investigate every death and disappearance. The all-encompassing hand of the Empire wasn’t quite as all encompassing as Quentin had once thought.

He looked up and down the expansive corridor, craning his head to see past the crowds of late-night revelers. He saw Yassoud and Pishor heading to the loading dock — that was a relief, as he wouldn’t have been surprised if the two had searched for another bar in which to continue their undecided battle. He didn’t, however, see the rest of his friends.

“Choto, you see John anywhere?”

“I do not,” Choto said. “Clifford seemed quite sober — I suspect he already has John and Ju at the limo.”

Quentin hoped so. He didn’t want to come back out here and hunt for the drunken Tweedys.

“Come on,” Quentin said. “Let’s head ou—”

Choto suddenly turned and shoved Quentin, hard. Quentin flew to his left — a metal pipe hissed through the air where his head had just been. He slammed into a Human woman; they both crashed to the metal deck. People scattered out of his way.

He looked back at Choto, who drove a knee into the ribs of the HeavyG holding the pipe. The attacker doubled over, face scrunched in pain. Choto swung a pedipalp fist into the man’s mouth, knocking him to his knees.

Quentin scrambled to his feet. A blur of motion hit Choto from behind: a Ki had expanded and slammed into Choto’s back. The two landed hard, skidding and rolling. Quentin ran toward Choto. He saw Yassoud and Pishor coming from the other direction. A Human near them turned sharply, swung a baseball bat into Yassoud’s stomach. ’Soud’s mouth opened in a breathless look of surprise; he dropped hard. Pishor’s fast pedipalp hands grabbed the bat out of the man’s grip, then jammed the end into the man’s mouth, knocking his head back. Pishor raised the bat to strike again, but three more attackers slid out of the crowd and gang-tackled him.

The Ki that had leveled Choto rolled on top of the Warrior, six legs straddling him, and started raining down blows with all four hands. The Ki wore Scarlet Fliers fan gear: a crimson lower-body suit, a black jacket with four long sleeves. The five Ki eyes saw everything, but seeing Quentin barreling in and reacting in time to do anything about it were two different things. Quentin drove his shoulder into the sentient, knocking him off Choto and driving the Ki to the deck. Quentin followed up with an elbow to the soft spot just below the Ki’s mouth. The effect was the same as hitting a Human in the throat: the ten-foot-long creature sputtered and gasped, spitting clear fluid out of his hexagonal mouth.

Choto stood on wobbly legs.

Yet another attacker slid from the crowd, a Quyth Warrior, middle hands reaching out and slapping against Choto’s chest — there was a
crack
of electricity; Choto flew backward, sending smaller sentients sprawling across the corridor deck.

Choto didn’t move.

The attacker turned to face Quentin. Like most Warriors, this one had multiple engravings on his reddish carapace. Quentin recognized some of them — gang symbols and the marks a Warrior got while serving prison time.

The Warrior wore gloves on his middle hands. A thin cable ran from each glove to a box on his belt. The gloves smoked slightly. Curls of black wormed across his cornea, but there were also strands of pink — nervousness — and some of blue —
fear
.

The HeavyG that Choto had taken out stood up. He weakly wiped blood from his mouth, grabbed the pipe, then fell in at the red Warrior’s side.

The coughing Ki struggled to get his six legs beneath him.