The Champion (65 page)

Once the revolt was put down and the instigators either killed or carted off to detention facilities, the Grand Tribe Master of the Yashindi herself visited Coranadillana. She brought her private guard and assigned them to garrison the city.

As the winds of independence sweep through the inhabited galaxy, what government will next suffer this problem?

The echoes of this clash resonate across the planet. Reports have come in of additional, smaller-scale revolts, some of which are still going. Sources say this is nothing more than lower-level tribes using the violence as an excuse to finally make their move on the tribes above them, but this reporter is not convinced.

The Ki Rebel Establishment uprising on planet Ol last month was also a fight for independence from Creterakian rule. Now the Harrah Tribal Accord is facing similar violence. As the winds of independence sweep through the inhabited galaxy, what government will next suffer this problem?

The Creterakian Empire has ruled for over forty standard years. Entire generations of sentients have been born under Creterakian control have never known any other way of life. Perhaps more importantly, those born under that rule do not remember the almost constant state of war that existed before the Creterakians forced peace upon the galaxy.

45

Week Twelve:
Ionath Krakens at
Wabash Wolfpack

x = playoffs, y = division title, * = team has been relegated

• • •

NO MORE HEADACHE,
not even a trace.

Quentin sat on the exam table, once again in the presence of Doc Patah, the three league doctors, their escort Leiba the Gorgeous and Gredok the Splithead. This time Gredok had brought Bobby Brobst in addition to Virak the Mean. Apparently Gredok wanted a higher intimidation factor than just Virak alone. Still, Quentin would have put his money on Leiba — something about that guy just radiated
mean
.

The gathering didn’t really hold Quentin’s attention, though — it should have, they were deciding his fate for Week 12 — because Doc Patah had put a news channel on one of the holotank medical monitors. A Harrah battle cruiser assigned to the planet Yarah had declared itself independent of the Creterakian Empire; the Empire, and the rest of the Tribal Accord fleet, were less than pleased.

The GFL docs were heavily into their discussion with Patah and Virak. It surprised Quentin that he didn’t really care: they were going to decide what they were going to decide. He’d taken the tests and done his part. Now it was out of his hands. And while he still breathed and bled the sport, at that moment football didn’t seem
quite
as important as watching distant footage of what looked like a fighter battle.

“Anything new?”

Quentin glanced right: Bobby Brobst, Gredok’s big Human bodyguard, had slipped away from the discussion and was staring into the holotank.

“A squadron of Creterakian fighters tried to escort a troop ship full of bats to the battle cruiser,” Quentin said.

“How’d that work out?”

“The troop ship got destroyed, apparently. So did all the Creterakian fighters.”

“Harrah small attack craft,” Bobby said. “Nothing can touch them. This is getting nuts. First Bord, now this ongoing thing in the Accord. I wonder what’s gotten into sentients.”

Quentin wondered, too. Wondered if the Zoroastrian Guild was behind the Harrah revolt, wondered if “untraceable” money was involved, wondered if the Harrah Kimberlin knew had participated.

Had the ZG caused this?

You’re dividing us
 ...
you’re trying to turn us against each other, make it easier for you
 ...

Bobby and Quentin both became aware of a black-furred jewelry-encrusted Quyth leader standing only a few feet away, staring at them.

“Brobst, I do not pay you to watch the news.”

“Sorry, boss,” Bobby said and walked back to stand next to Virak.

“As for you, Barnes, perhaps you could join us,” Gredok said.

“I’m kinda busy right now, Gredok. Just tell me what they decided.”

The Leader’s cornea swirled with sudden curls of dark red: pure surprise.

“Barnes, are you telling me that you don’t care if—”

“Gredok, am I in or am I out?”

The red swirled again, then faded. “You are in.”

Quentin slid off the table. “Great. I’ll let Coach Hokor know. See you later, Gredok, I’m going to watch footage of Wabash.”

He walked out of the medical facility. He should have been elated; he was happy, sure, but not as much as he would have thought. That battle cruiser was a single ship against the Creterakian navy, and it was going to burn. No question about it. The bats wouldn’t stand for anything else. How many Harrah on that ship? Five hundred? A thousand?

There was no question that the battle cruiser’s crew knew rebelling would mean their death, yet they rebelled anyway, probably to become martyrs for a greater uprising.

Such
sacrifice
. He couldn’t get his head around it.

Maybe he’d give it some thought later, maybe talk to Becca about it, maybe Jeanine.

And, maybe, Michael Kimberlin.

But for now, he had a job to do.

Gloria Ogawa, you already hate the Krakens. Come Sunday night, you’re going to hate us even more
.

HE DIDN’T JUST SEE
everything
, he saw
more
than everything.

Quentin tried to stay calm. That was hard to do, because he felt like the universe had just opened up all of its secrets. He’d always been good at monitoring the defense as the game progressed. He looked for tells, mentally cataloging bits of data: the position of feet to the bends of knees; the way some linebackers flexed their fingers before a blitz; the tendency of Sklorno defensive backs to look away from their receivers with
three
eyes instead of
two
if they were in zone coverage; visually clocking the speed of every player and processing the rate at which they slowed down as the game wore on ... all those data points and a thousand more. He’d been good at it, sure, but
this
?

On the last play, something had happened ... something
wonderful
. He saw the entire field in front of him; not a spot or an area, but
all
of it, a hundred eighty degrees of full awareness. He saw the players, knew their state of exhaustion by how fast they breathed in and out, knew which ones still had gas in the tank and which ones were spent. He saw the turf itself, a hundred chewed-up divots his feet needed to avoid so he could maximize his speed.

His brain re-ran the sixty-two offensive plays the Krakens had run that evening, re-ran them
all at the same time
. It should have been an avalanche of information, of hallucination, a data overload that should have had him drooling and screaming in insanity, but it wasn’t like that. He processed all those plays at once, he saw the motion of his team and the way the defense moved in response. Plays weren’t even
plays
— they were choreographed dances:
I move, you move, I step, you step
.

Xs
and Os ceased to exist. He saw movements as paths of light, where players were going and when they would arrive, possible branches flaming to life or fading out based on that constant
I move, you move
dance. He saw
patterns
, he saw
tendencies
, he saw
probabilities
.

Even when the defense tried to be unpredictable, they did so in a predictable way. Football wasn’t a random, chaotic clash of elements; it was
science .
.. science with reproducible results.

A lifetime of practice and repetition and games, of endless study and analysis, it all coalesced, became a dense mass of knowledge that ignited in a Big Bang of ultimate understanding. He had transformed — Quentin had become a living computer the likes of which Petra Prawatt could only dream.

“Q?”

Becca was at his side, her helmet battered, her orange jersey bloodied. Quentin realized he’d been just standing there, staring up into the stadium lights and the stars in the night sky. There was no noise, just the humming of the universe and the voice of the woman he loved.

“Q,” Becca said, “snap out of it.”

Ju leaned in, face scowling, steam wafting up from his sweaty face.

“He’s high,” Ju said. “Like,
mega-
high. Nice timing, Q. Ma’s gonna be so disappointed.”

“Shut up,” Becca said. “He’s not high.”

Quentin knew he wasn’t high because he didn’t do drugs, hadn’t taken any painkillers. Had he been smacked in the head too many times? Was he crazy now, like George when the tight end was off his meds? No, not crazy, either, because the lines of power that Quentin saw, the way his mind processed so much data all at once, it
worked
. He wasn’t imagining this. He couldn’t explain it but it was real, and it was pure power.

Becca reached up and gripped Quentin’s facemask, gently forced him to look at her.

“Q, time to come back from la-la land. Right now, or I’ll have to call a timeout.”

A timeout? No, they needed those.

Reality slammed back home, and with it came the constant roar of the crowd. They were standing on the black-lined cream-colored field of Wabash Stadium. The Wolfpack was up by three, sixteen seconds to play in the game. First down and ten on the Wolfpack 28-yard line. Quentin had just scrambled for 32 yards. But the game wasn’t over, not yet, not until he put that ball in the end zone.

“Huddle up,” he said.

Becca pointed to her left. The huddle was already formed. Eight more Krakens were watching him, waiting, shifting in place, wondering what was going on.

“Oh, right,” Quentin said.

His heads-up display popped out of his helmet.

“
Barnes
! Will you stop grab-assing out there? Here’s what we’ll—”

Quentin reached up, snapped off the display and tossed it aside. He liked Hokor. The coach was crazy, but Quentin liked him. Quentin didn’t need Coach’s little voice distracting him at that moment, because
(the patterns, I can still see the patterns, I step, you step)
he knew exactly what to do.

“Pro-set spread-right shotgun, X streak, Y hook, Z slant-and-go. Denver, on that slant-and-go, you’re going to draw double-coverage from Gladwin and Mississauga, stay on your route — they’ve been tracking my eyes and I’ll look them both off. On
three
, on
three
, ready?”

“Wait,” Becca said. “Q, you didn’t give Ju a pattern.”

“He won’t need one.”

Ju looked confused. “You want
me
to block?”

“Yes, just block. On
three
, on
three
, ready?”

“
Break
”

Quentin lined up five yards behind Bud-O, Becca a yard to his right, Ju a yard to his left. He was aware that if he wanted a blocking back, he should have called for Yassoud, but there were glowing lines on the field and Quentin knew exactly how long this would take — the defense wouldn’t have time to get past even Ju’s crappy blocking.