The Champion (68 page)

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

47

Playoffs Round One:
Buddha City Elite at Ionath Krakens

QUENTIN STOOD TALL
in the pocket, eyes tracing the paths of power that had guided his throws and runs all day long. Seeing Milford about to break open far downfield, he stepped up and gunned the ball.

He knew he was imagining it, knew there weren’t any
actual
lines of energy. His best guess was that his mind had found a new way to show him information that could not be put into words. But just because he was imagining it didn’t make it any less
real
.

The ball glowed and pulsed like a flying heartbeat made of pure life. A perfect spiral, a perfect arc, a hypnotizing thing of beauty that might only be rivaled by a star igniting for the first time.

He saw where Milford would jump before she left the ground, saw where the ball would meet her.

Forty-five yards downfield, trailed closely by Perth, Milford went airborne — her black-uniformed body an image of fluid grace. Perth, Quentin’s former teammate, looked beautiful, emerald green helmet sparkling in the afternoon sun, a white-lined black stripe down the middle and a black-trimmed white infinity symbol on either side. On the back of her white jersey, the word PERTH in black-trimmed emerald green, her number 45 done in the same style, only larger. Emerald green armor graced her powerful legs, a wide black-lined white stripe ran from her hips down to her emerald green armored shoes.

Perth was a vision, but she wasn’t Quentin’s target, which meant try as she might, there was nothing she could do. The lines of energy coalesced, a perfect union between quarterback and receiver — Milford’s tentacles cradled the ball of light and energy, brought it to her chest, and she came down in the black end zone of Ionath Stadium for six.

The crowd’s passion flowed into Quentin, damn near made him levitate.

A pair of hands grabbed his jersey, and a man with a braided beard laughed.

“Good
god
, Q!” Yassoud had to scream to be heard, but scream he did. “What’s gotten into you? You’re making this look like a video game!”

“Team effort,” Quentin said.

Yassoud threw back his head and roared. “Whatever you say, oh yep!”

They ran toward the sidelines. Before they got there, Quentin’s heads-up display popped down.

“Barnes, go ahead and take a seat,” Hokor said. “You’re done for the day. I think six touchdown passes is enough — I do not need another starter getting injured at this point in the game.”

“Okay, Coach.”

Quentin didn’t want to come out, didn’t want to leave that lovely energy behind, but Hokor was making the smart move. Up 45-7 with five minutes to play, there was no point for the starters to be in. And besides, Trevor Haney needed some playoff reps.

The Tweedy brothers waited on the sidelines, faces beaming, mouths screaming and arms spread. As Quentin ran off, they wrapped him up in a big Tweedy sandwich. He gave them their moment of craziness, then thumped each of them on the shoulder pads and pushed past to the med pods.

There he found Choto the Bright. The Warrior lay on the table, leathery eyelids squeezed shut in agony. Doc Patah buzzed around a leg sheeted in blood.

Quentin knelt next to his friend.

“That doesn’t look good, Choto.”

“That is because it is bad, Quentin,” the Warrior said, his words forced, clipped. “The pain is extraordinary.”

Quentin glanced down at the wound. The chitin looked cracked all the way around the left foreleg, and he could see muscles and ligaments inside — those, too, were torn. He glanced up at Doc Patah.

“Four weeks,” Patah said. “At a minimum.”

That meant Choto was done for the season: no Planet Division final, no Galaxy Bowl.

Quentin gripped Choto’s middle arm. “So sorry, my friend.”

The Warrior’s eye opened. His cornea was flooded purple. “As am I,
Shamakath
. I am sorry to let you down.”

“Shushit,” Quentin said. “Don’t you worry, I’m going to get you that second ring.”

He sat with Choto for a few minutes, until Tommyboy Snuffalupagus picked off a Gary Lindros pass to give the Krakens the ball once again. Then Quentin moved to the sideline to watch Trevor Haney at work.

If it had been a close game, Becca would be taking those snaps. Just one drive would give Haney invaluable playoff experience. Injuries could take anyone at any time. One had taken Choto, one could take Quentin and one could take Becca — if that happened, the title rested on Haney’s arm, and Quentin wanted him to be ready.

From
UBS Sports

Thrilling First Round Capped Off by Jupiter’s Double-OT Win

by
PIKOR THE ASSUMING

RED STORM CITY, JUPITER NET COLONY, PLANETARY UNION — The wily old veteran did it yet again. Don Pine led the Jupiter Jacks to a 16-13 double-overtime victory against visiting Texas and one game closer to playing for a GFL title on their home field.

Jupiter (11-2) led early, scoring a touchdown on their opening drive when Pine connected with Beaverdam for a 55-yard strike. On the Jacks’ second possession, an 84-yard run from CJ Wellman put them in range of an easy 17-yard field goal for Jack Burrill. After that, however, the Texas defense shut Pine down for most of the game, picking him off once and sacking him to force a fumble. Wellman, who finished the day with 186 yards on thirty-two carries, was the go-to solution for Jupiter but couldn’t break off another big run.

The Earthlings got on the board in the second quarter with a 45-yard Gregg Anderson field goal. Anderson hit again from 51 yards in the third quarter to trim the lead to 10-6. Late in the fourth, a 12-yard Case Johanson to tight end Bates McGee touchdown put Texas up 13-10.

Jupiter got the ball back with two minutes to play. Pine completed five straight passes to get the Jacks into field goal range, where Burrill nailed a 35-yarder as time expired to send the game into OT.

Neither team could advance the ball in the first overtime. In the second OT, Pine hit Beaverdam on a simple out pattern that turned into a 63-yard gain when Prawatt cornerback Macklestink Gooberman missed the tackle. Burrill hit a 12-yard field goal for the win.

The Jacks host Bartel in the semi-finals.

Bartel (10-3) won 17-14 on a franchise-record 61-yard last-second field goal from Eddie Jones. The Water Bugs scored touchdowns on runs from Robert Shonfelt and quarterback Andre Ridley. Vik quarterback Rich Barchi and receiver Gouroch combined for two TD strikes, one from 35 and one from 7 in the loss.

In the Planet Division, the Orbiting Death dominated their first-round game, defeating Yall 30-17. OS1 slinger Condor Adrienne threw for three TD passes and 231 yards in the win. Linebacker Yalla the Biter sacked Yall QB Rick Renaud in the end zone, forcing a fumble and recovering it himself for the Death’s other TD.

The OS1 defense largely bottled up Renaud and the high-flying Criminals offense. Renaud was sacked three times, twice by Yalla and once by rookie defensive end Brian Kane.

“We got after Renaud,” Kane said. “We got our win. Now we get another shot at the Krakens, and that’s what we’ve been working toward for the past month.”

In the Planet Division side of the bracket, Ionath obliterated Buddha City 48-14. Krakens QB Quentin Barnes — who was just named the 2686 League MVP — threw for a playoff-record six TD passes, each to a different receiver. Kicker Arioch Morningstar was a perfect two-for-two, hitting from 46 and 44 yards.

Buddha City’s first-ever trip to the Tier One playoffs did not turn out the way the Elite had dreamed. The only bright spot was tight end Rick Warburg, who had two TD receptions and caught nine balls for 98 yards.

“We didn’t have an answer for Barnes,” Warburg said. “Frankly, no one has an answer for that kid right now. He’s on another level. As long as he’s running Ionath, no one is going to beat the Krakens.”

Ionath hosts OS1 in the Planet Division final. Jupiter hosts Bartel in the Solar final. The winners of those games meet in Red Storm City for Galaxy Bowl XXVIII.

48

Playoffs Round Two:
OS1 Orbiting Death at Ionath Krakens

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR COULD MAKE
. A season ago, Quentin had fought hard to be named the League’s Most Valuable Player, but had been passed over when that honor went to Yall’s Rick Renaud. This season, it was Quentin’s turn to be named the best in the sport — and he didn’t give a damn about it.

All-Pro, MVP, this honor or that honor, none of it mattered anymore. He and his teammates were two wins from a second-straight league title — wins that would be far harder to grab now that one of their starting linebackers was out of the picture.

On the
Touchback’s
practice field, John Tweedy tore off his helmet and slammed it into the turf so hard that parts broke off and spun through the air.

The entire team stopped their drills and turned to watch. Quentin held the ball, waiting for John to do his version of coaching. Quentin said nothing, Hokor said nothing: the defense belonged to John Tweedy. Ju and Becca stood next to Quentin, waiting until it was time to run the next play.

In a way, it was no different than a regular-season practice — offense in orange, defense in black, quarterbacks in red — but everyone was on edge, knowing that one more win put them into the Galaxy Bowl.

John stood in front of Samuel Darkeye, who had taken Choto’s place at right outside linebacker. Sweat sheened Samuel’s face and matted his black hair to his head.

“
Dammit
, Darkeye. You have to
scrape
, not
over-penetrate!
”

“Sorry,” Samuel Darkeye said. “I know that. Sorry.”

John stepped to the linebacker, his brow furrowed deep, his lip curled.

“If you’re taking Choto’s place, you have to
play right
,” he said. “What’s the matter, Sam? Don’t you
want
to win another title?”

GET ME SOMEONE WHO WANTS TO WIN
scrolled across John’s face.

Darkeye leaned back, almost as if he’d been slapped.

“Yeah, of course I do! I got it, John, honest.”

John’s face twisted into something horrible. He reached down, picked up his helmet by the facemask and whipped it to the turf again. This time the facemask
snapped
, coming clean off the helmet.

“I don’t want
honest!
I want
proper technique!
I want a gangster that delivers a proper pizza
on time
and learns how to
shucking scrape to the ball!
”

Wild-eyed, John turned in place, looking for something, then found it.

“Pishor! Get in here, and don’t make a molehill mountain out of a skinned cat! Darkeye,
get off my field
!”

Ju nudged Quentin.

“Your brother is crazy,” Ju said. “You should be ashamed of your family.”

“You’re the one that shares his genes,” Quentin said.

“Nah,” Ju said. “I got all the good genes. John is all junk DNA.”

Becca laughed, shook her head.

Darkeye looked up to Hokor’s floating golf cart, silently asking the coach if he had to obey John’s demand.

“You heard him,” Hokor said, the cart’s speakerfilm amplifying his voice. “In fact, while Pishor gives it a try, you should run laps for your total incompetence, and think about the fundamentals of your position while you do.”

“Laps? How many laps, Coach?”

“
Until I get tired of watching you! Now run the laps that I called!
”

Darkeye cursed under his breath and jogged to the sidelines, kicking John’s broken helmet when he passed it.