The Rookie

BOOK TWO: PRE-SEASON

HE WAITED for it.

Waited for the punch-out.

His pulse raced in a way it never did on the football field — a panicky way. He felt anxious, tried to control his breathing.

This is your fourteenth flight, everything went fine before.

The ship started to vibrate, just a little. A thin sheen of sweat covered his hands, which clutched tightly to his playbook messageboard. They were about to drop out of punch space and back into what people once called “reality.”

This is the most statistically safe method of travel in the galaxy.

Statistics didn’t stop newscasts, however, especially newscasts of passenger ships forever lost in punch space, or the horrific remains of a ship that met some stray piece of debris during the punch-out back to relativistic speeds. They called it the “reality wave,” the feeling that washed over the ship when it dropped out of punch space and back into regular time.

You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine, you’ll be –

His breath seized up and he squeezed his eyes shut as the shudder hit. That sickening feeling of splitting, or spreading. He knew everything blurred, himself included. He’d seen that blurring the first time he’d flown — seeing it once was enough.

Oh High One oh High One oh no oh no…

And then it was over. He forced himself to relax, forced open his tightly clenched teeth. He opened his eyes. The observation deck was still there. Quentin slowly let out a long-held breath. Everyone else on the deck looked relaxed. Everyone else always did. He liked to tell himself that they were just oblivious to the danger, rather than tell himself to stop being such a pansy.

Four seasons in the PNFL had taken him to every major city in the Purist Nation. He’d seen all four planets, Mason, Solomon, Allah and Stewart, as well as most of the colonies. Space travel was nothing new to Quentin, but this time it was different.

This was his first trip alone, without the familiarity of his teammates. But on this flight he certainly didn’t suffer for lack of attention. On a ship full of Purist Nation businessmen, the league’s MVP never went wanting for a drink or a dinner or some fat old fool looking to shake his hand.

One guy on the ship, Manny Sayed, followed him everywhere, trying to get Quentin to endorse his luxury yacht company. Quentin wasn’t endorsing anything just yet — he didn’t want to associate himself with one company before he signed with an advertising firm that could connect him to the hundreds of industries trying to cash in on the phenomenal marketing power of the GFL.

The distance of this trip also made it different. The Purist Nation was only twenty light years across at its widest: most flights took only half a day. This time, however, he was at the edge of the Galactic Core, at Creterak — the end of a three-day journey of some forty-five light years.

Quentin stared out the huge observation window, looking into space as the passenger liner gradually slowed to a halt some ways off the Creterakian orbital station Emperor Two. It was a huge construct, bigger than anything Quentin had ever seen. Hundreds of ships surrounded the station, all a respectful distance away. The tiny, flashing dots that were shuttles constantly flew back and forth from the ships to the station, like a glowing rainstorm simultaneously falling towards and away from mile-long piers that jutted from the station’s equator.

He heard the rhythmic clonk of a now familiar footstep. Quentin grimaced, waiting for the fat voice to speak.

“You think this is big, you should see Emperor One,” said Manny Sayed. “It’s almost twice as big.” He bore the forehead tattoo and the blue robe of a confirmed church man — a big robe to cover his wide girth. He also brandished a half-dozen rings fashioned from the rare metals of the galaxy and a Whopol necklace suffused with a glowing silvery light. Manny’s left leg was missing just below the knee, yet he managed to turn even his handicap into a show of wealth: his platinum, jewel-studded prosthetic leg announced his presence wherever he walked.

Three days ago, the ostentatious show of wealth on a man wearing the blue took Quentin by surprise. The ship was full of such men… businessmen who paid lip service to the tenets of the Church but also bore the trappings of a more powerful religion — commerce.

“I’m just taking in the scenery by myself, if you don’t mind,” Quentin said.

“Don’t mind at all.” Manny stood next to Quentin and looked out the bubble-like view port. “Hell of a sight.”

Quentin shook his head and sighed.

“It’s ironic,” Manny said. “Creterak is somewhat like the Purist Nation — no non-Creterakians are allowed on the planet. All trans-galactic activity is handled on one of the five orbital stations. But while we do it for religious purposes, the Creterakians do it for reasons of defense.”

“Why do they need to worry about that? They rule the whole freakin’ galaxy.”

Manny laughed. “If you add it up, there’s over four hundred million Humans, Ki, Harrah, Sklorno and Leekee who’ll do anything to end that rule. Patriots attack Creterakian garrisons all over the galaxy, every day. Imagine what they’d do if they could actually land on the Creterakian homeworld.”

Quentin noticed Manny used the word “patriots” instead of “terrorists.”

“They think all the other races are too warlike to be trusted. Don’t forget your history, my son. They hid their sentience from the rest of the galaxy for over two centuries. They just sat there and listened to the rest of us killing each other.”

“No offense, Mr. Sayed, but I’ve had my history lessons. I’d like to be by myself now.”

“You’re headed to the Combine, am I right?”

Quentin nodded.

Manny pointed to a bright star off the port side. “That’s it right there.”

Quentin leaned into the window and stared at his future. “What’s it like?”

Manny shrugged. “Looks like any other station, really. Used to be a prison station, where the Creterakians shipped their prisoners of war during the Takeover.”

“That’s just a myth.”

“‘Fraid it’s quite true, my son. From 2643 to 2659, the station that is now the Combine was one of the worst places to be in the entire Galaxy. They kept thousands of prisoners there. Not that many people made it out, and those that did were never the same.”

“Why’s that?”

“Torture, interrogation. The Creterakians wanted to learn everything they could about their new subjects, and they view prisoners of war as property. Creterakians breed in the billions, and they only live for ten or fifteen years, so life and death doesn’t mean the same thing to them as they do to us.”

“Great. So I’m headed to a former prison station that was used to torture and execute millions.”

Manny smiled and reached up to clap Quentin on the shoulder. “Oh come on, my son, you’re on your way to the GFL! Hell, if I made it out alive, a big kid like you will have no problems.”

Quentin looked inquisitively at the fat man. “You were in the Combine?”

Manny’s smile faded and he shook his head. “Not the Combine. You might say I was an original tenant.”

Quentin’s eyes went wide with surprise. He hadn’t met many veterans of the Takeover. The majority of soldiers who served in that short, failed war were long-since dead. Creterakians fought viciously and rarely left their enemies alive.

“Which planet did you fight on?” Quentin asked quietly.

“Allah.” Manny stared out the view port. “The homeworld itself. They only managed to land four ships — our boys in the sky destroyed about four hundred others. We like to remember that we destroyed ninety-nine percent of the infidels, but that last one percent was all they needed. High One knows that was all they were planning for, with their strategy of victory through overwhelming numbers. The Creterakians packed one million soldiers into each landing vessel. Packed them in there like a gas, filling up every nook and cranny. And they came out like a gas, too. An endless cloud of them. We had a half-million soldiers on the ground — so just like that we were outnumbered ten-to-one.”

Manny’s voice trailed off, the memory etching a tired, sad expression on his face.

“What was it like?” Quentin asked. “The fighting, I mean.”

Manny laughed, a dark, hopeless laugh. “Don’t believe what the Holy Men write in the history books. It wasn’t a fight, it was a slaughter. They moved so fast, flying in low, millions of them, so many you could barely make out an individual amongst the masses. You’ve seen the sparrows flocking on Allah?”

Quentin nodded.

“Well, think of that, except they’re so thick they darken the sky, the entire horizon, and each one carries a little entropic rifle. I remember the first wave came flying over the hill, and we let them have it — sonic cannons, laser sweeps, shrapnel dust, you name it. We killed thousands of them, tens of thousands, but the rest just poured over us. I was hit in that first wave…”

His voice trailed off. Quentin didn’t want to look at Manny’s leg, but he had to, then looked up again.

“The rifle take off your leg?”

Manny smiled, a sad smile with no humor as his eyes looked into some faraway memory.

“No, my son, I did that myself. I was hit in the shin. I don’t know why I didn’t go into shock, like most of my friends did when they were hit. I looked down and my leg was just disintegrating, down towards my foot and up my leg as well. Those entropic rifles, if you don’t get to the wound fast, there’s nothing left of you. I got out my hatchet and just swung it.”

Quentin winced at the thought of such horror.

Manny’s eyes refocused, and he looked at Quentin. “Well, anyway, we beat off that initial attack. My friends, the few that were left alive, managed to stabilize my wound. But the bats came again. There had to be at least 200,000 in that wave. I watched every one of my friends disintegrate within thirty seconds. That’s how fast it was over. Thirty seconds. Did your history books tell you that?”

Quentin shook his head. “The history books tell us the fight went on for days.”

“Right,” Manny said. “Figures. It was over just like that. For some reason the High One spared me, and they just shot everyone around me while I stood there, firing away, killing a few, as they ignored me. The funny thing is when I got back home, all the Holy Men called my survival a miracle. They said the High One was watching over me. I guess there were only a few miracles to go around that — there weren’t any available to all my friends, or the 490,000 men that died that day. When everyone else was gone, the bats surrounded me and told me to surrender or die. Regardless of what I’m told awaits me on the other side, I’m not that partial to dying. They drugged me up and shipped me off to what’s now known as the Combine.”

Quentin waited for more of the story, but Manny said nothing.

“What was it like,” Quentin asked finally. “What did… what did they do to you?”

Manny shook his head and forced a practiced businessman’s smile. “I don’t talk about that anymore, my son. High One saw fit to see me through. But don’t you worry about it. It’s a different world now. The Creterakians run everything, and they’re very fond of the GFL, so they won’t hurt the players. I know a lot of Nationalites think you’re a race-traitor for leaving, but I hope you do well. Just try not to get killed in the first season. That’s always embarrassing.”

“I’ll do my best.”

A flock of five Creterakians flew onto the observation deck in a sudden blur of motion. Just as quickly, they perched on any available surface. Manny, Quentin, and the three other Humans on the observation deck froze in place, a reaction bred from thousands of stories of Creterakians shooting anyone who moved too fast or in a threatening manner. The five-pound, winged creatures all wore the tiny silver vests that marked them as security forces, and each held a small entropic rifle. Manny started to sweat and the fat on his chin quivered — but he stayed perfectly still.

The Creterakian body consisted of, ironically, a football-shaped trunk, one end of which tapered off into a flat, two-foot-long tail — like the body of a tadpole, but with the tail flat on the horizontal plane instead of the vertical. Their bodies were different shades of red, some a solid color, some with splotchy patterns of pink or purple. Thin, short legs ended in feet with three thin, splayed toes that curled up around anything available. Two pair of foot-long arms reached out from either side of the body. The upper pair were webbed with membranous, patterned wings that ran from the tip of the arm to the base of the tail. The bottom pair looked just like the first, but without the membrane.

The bottom arms held the deadly entropic rifles.

Quentin had always found Creterakian heads rather revolting. Three pairs of eyes lined the round head: a pair looked straight ahead, a pair sat a bit below those and on the outside looking out to the left and right, and a pair that pointed straight down.

“Quentin Barnes,” two of them said in unison, their brassy, high-pitched voices sounding almost as one. The other three simply sat, feet shuffling back-and-forth. “You will come with us.”

Quentin let out a slow breath and tried to calm his heart rate. Not since he’d been a child of eleven had a bat actually spoken to him. There had been a riot at the mines. When the bats came to break it up, they killed fifteen men.

“Good luck, my son,” Manny said as he bowed twice in the respectful manner of the Church. He handed Quentin a small plastic chip. “My card. I’ll be at Emperor One for a week, so if you need anything give me a call. And think about my offer — you’d look very photogenic at the helm of a luxury yacht.”

Quentin slipped the chip into his pocket. “Thanks,” he mumbled, then walked out of the observation deck. The Creterakians whipped into a hovering formation around him, surrounding him like an honor guard.

An honor guard or a prison escort, Quentin thought. I’ve got armed military guards leading me to a former prison station. Great, just great.

Somehow, his introduction to the Galactic Football League wasn’t quite as glamorous as he’d expected.