The Starter (34 page)

Quentin ran to the line, waving the rest of the team up with him. Yassoud’s strong run filled Quentin with hope; hope that his friend could put in a big game and build some confidence. The Krakens scrambled into position. The Dreadnaughts did the same, their linebackers getting into place before anyone else. They had prepared for the Krakens’ no-huddle offense.

Quentin let his players settle in, then called the snap-count.

“Blue, sixteen! Blue, sixteeeen!
Hut!
”

He waited a fraction of a second to see if the Dreadnaughts jumped off-sides, but they did not. His team would go on the next sound.

“
Hut!
”

Quentin turned to his left. Pareless shot by. Quentin extended the ball for Yassoud, who practically tore Quentin’s arm off taking it. Yassoud drove into a hole created by Pareless and Kill-O-Yowet. Quentin watched, everything moving in that strange, slow-motion sensation he experienced on the field. He saw a white-jerseyed linebacker slip through a block, filling the hole. Quentin waited for Yassoud to cut back inside to the seam that was just forming there, the seam that would have given Yassoud at least a 5-yard gain, but ’Soud didn’t cut back. Instead, he lowered his shoulder and went head-to-head with the linebacker.

Yassoud lost that battle. The Quyth Warrior linebacker knocked Yassoud backward, putting the Human flat on his ass.

Second and ten on the Dreadnaughts 47.

“Move, move!” Quentin called, waving his team to the line of scrimmage for the third pre-called play. Yassoud was slow to rise.

“Murphy!” Quentin screamed. “Get up, let’s go!”

Yassoud rose, but not fast enough. Once again, the defense had time to swap personnel, defeating the purpose of the no-huddle offense. Yassoud stumbled to his position at tailback. Quentin felt anger and annoyance swirling in his chest, but he forced it away to concentrate on the next play.

He surveyed the defense. They had pulled one defensive back and brought in a defensive tackle, effectively switching from a three-four to a pass-rushing four-four. Yassoud stayed behind Quentin as a single back, but Tom Pareless lined up as a right wing, just behind and outside of tight end George Starcher (who had painted his face with red stripes this week). Hawick was lined up wide right, almost to the sidelines. A cornerback covered her, and Quentin could see the safety cheating that way to provide help. That meant one of the four linebackers would probably be in single coverage on Starcher: Quentin had the defense right where he wanted them.

“
Hut!
”

The lines collided as he pushed off of his left foot, going back and also to the right. He sprinted right, the rush of pure speed coursing through his veins. Tom ran right as Quentin’s lead blocker, waiting to stop the first defensive player that came in. Hawick drove off the line, shooting straight downfield on a streak pattern. The Themala cornerback had no choice but to turn and run with her, clearing out the shallow right side of the field. George Starcher blocked down, hitting the defensive end, then bounced off and ran to his right; a shallow, 5-yard pattern. The Quyth Warrior linebacker had him covered.

Quentin took two steps toward the line of scrimmage, like he was going to tuck the ball and run. The linebacker covering Starcher came up immediately, but Quentin then shot to the right, still parallel to and behind the line of scrimmage. The Quyth Warrior linebacker tucked and rolled to the side, just a few yards behind Quentin and closing fast.

Quentin waved his right hand, urging Starcher to deepen the route, but Starcher was already doing just that, automatically moving to the open space. The linebacker closed. Quentin threw a bullet before the linebacker sprang out of his roll and brought Quentin down. The ball hissed out, a throw hard enough to kill, but Starcher’s huge hands grabbed it as if it were a floating child’s balloon. The big tight end turned upfield.

Watching Starcher run was like watching a sprinting tree, big legs punishing the ground with each step. The three defensive backs converged on him. He threw a forearm at the closing cornerback, crushing her to the ground, then shook off the strong safety and made it another twenty yards before the free safety drove him out of bounds.

Quentin’s first pass of the day, and it picked up 38 yards. First-and-ten on the Themala 9.

Starcher had just
known
where to go, instinctively, or almost like he’d read Quentin’s mind. And Quentin knew full well that Starcher would do that all day.

Hokor’s fuzzy yellow face popped up in Quentin’s helmet VR. “
Barnes!
Good job on that play. Run the same thing. Warburg is coming on to spell Starcher. The linebacker will follow Warburg out on the pattern, you turn it upfield.”

“No, Coach, leave Starcher out here, I need him for that play.” Warburg started running onto the field. Quentin held up a hand, palm-out, signaling Warburg to stop. At the same time, Quentin tried to wave Starcher back onto the field.

“
Barnes!
Just run the plays that I call!”

“I will, Coach, but send George back on here or I’m not running anything.”

Warburg hesitated, then started again toward the huddle. Quentin held his hand up again, far more emphatically this time. Rick Warburg stopped again, a man isolated by confusion in front of 185,000 sentients.

“
Barnes!
We’re going to get a delay of game penalty!”

“Then you better send George out here, right now.”

A second later, Quentin saw George Starcher’s big body lumbering onto the field. Warburg looked at Quentin. Even from a distance of some twenty yards, Quentin could see Warburg’s expression of hate. Hate could wait, a touchdown could not. Quentin called the play as soon as Starcher reached the huddle, then followed his team to the line. The crowd screamed for blood. Past an end zone painted in the blazing Krakens orange, beyond the goal posts, Quentin saw the sea of fans dressed in orange, black and white. No one wearing crimson and yellow here.

He forced his attention back to the game, saw that the Dreadnaughts were again in a three-four. That gave them more speed. Would the play still work?

It would work. He smiled, his hands tapping out a quick
ba-da-bap
on Bud-O-Shwek’s rear. Quentin settled in under center.

“Blue, twenty-two,” he called. “
Bluuuue
, twenty-two... hut-hut!”

The lines clashed. Quentin pushed to his right. Everything seemed to slow to a crawl.

BLINK

Quentin’s brain soaked up every last detail as he ran right. The defense seemed to be moving in slow motion. The left inside linebacker blitzed forward, but Tom Pareless threw a waist-high block that sent both Pareless and the linebacker to the turf. Quentin watched Starcher block down, then spin with a ballerina’s grace and run toward the sidelines, just like the last play. Quentin tucked the ball and started to cut upfield, to run for the touchdown, when he saw that Starcher had a step, just a
step
on the Quyth Warrior linebacker covering him. Still running forward, Quentin raised the ball and fired it as hard as he could.

The linebacker reached out a pedipalp to knock the ball away. The stadium was too loud to hear the
snap
, but Quentin saw it, saw the pedipalp hand bend back the wrong way. The ball kept going, deflected downward by the impact. Quentin watched, amazed, as George Starcher reacted instantly, diving down, big hands strangling the ball just before it hit the ground. George landed on his back in the orange end zone... touchdown.

BLINK

Everything snapped back to normal speed, the crowd’s roar deafening this close to the end zone. What a catch! George started to get up, but Quentin ran at him and tackled him out of pure joy. Hawick jumped on the pile and squealed, as did Scarborough and a few other teammates, hundreds of pounds of sentients weighing down on Quentin.

“Nice catch!” he screamed into George’s face. “That was really something!”

“I told you to throw
hard
,” George said. “The fates that be let not the straight arrows of fortune go awry.”

“Starcher, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about most of the time, but you make catches like that and you can keep on babbling whatever you like!”

Hands and tentacles pulled Quentin to his feet. He knelt and reached down to the turf. He picked up a few torn, orange-painted circular leaves. Some of the paint had flaked off due to cleats or crashing bodies, revealing the translucent-blue plant material beneath. Quentin held the ripped leaves to his nose and inhaled deeply.

The smell always reminded him of cinnamon.

He ran to the sidelines as the field goal team came on. Arioch Morningstar kicked in the extra point, and the Krakens led 7-0.

• • •

“
MY FATHER-MOTHER, CHICK
, did you
see
that throw?”

“Barnes was on a full-out sprint to the right, Masara, and he fired that ball in at terminal velocity. There wasn’t a passing window, so Barnes
made
one by brute force alone.”

“I’m
stunned
, Chick! I think Barnes threw the ball so hard he broke the pedipalp-hand of Tibi the Unkempt.”

“Masara, I haven’t seen anything hurled with that kind of velocity since I drank those two bottles of Junkie Gin after an all-you-can-eat Quyth barbecue. I was projectile-spewing legs and thoraxes all over the place.”

“Chick! That’s not something we—”

“Sorry, Masara, sorry folks at home. Let’s get back to the action on the field.”

• • •

THE TWO TEAMS BATTLED
for the rest of the half. Quentin hit Starcher three more times, as well as completing passes to Denver, Hawick, Scarborough, Milford, and even one to Rebecca Montagne when she came in to spell Tom Pareless. Despite all the completions, he couldn’t get the Krakens into the end zone again. Arioch Morningstar hit two field goals, and the defense gave up a long run. At the end of the half, it was Ionath 13, Themala 7.

• • •

FIVE MINUTES TO PLAY
in the third quarter, fourth and inches on the Themala 35-yard line. Too far out for a field goal attempt from Arioch Morningstar, maybe too close in to punt. At any rate, a punt would give the Dreadnaughts the ball back. Up 13-7, if the Krakens could pick up another five or six yards, Morningstar could kick a field goal and make it a two-score game. Better to be aggressive and go for the first down rather than give up the ball.

Hokor called an off-tackle run up the middle. Coach held an old-school philosophy that if you couldn’t convert a fourth-and-inches, you didn’t deserve to be on the field. Quentin walked up behind center, saw all the linebackers cheating up. With the three-four defense, that meant seven players packed in tight at the line of scrimmage. Quentin wanted to audible to a pass play, because aside from Yassoud’s big first run the guy hadn’t done anything all day.

Run the plays that are called
.

Quentin lined up under Bud-O-Shwek. He ignored his instincts. The linebackers cheated up even farther.

“
Green
, thirty-two! Hut-hut...
hut!
”

He took the snap and turned left. Tom Pareless ran past, trailing a thin stream of blood that poured from a fresh cut on his left forearm. Quentin extended the ball. Yassoud took it, but without the
snapping
intensity he’d shown in the first quarter. Kill-O-Yowet and Sho-Do-Thikit drove forward. The Themala defensive tackle fought back hard as the Dreadnaught linebackers crashed in. The pile of sentients met at the line of scrimmage with a clattering
smash
of armor, yells of aggression, and grunts of pain. Yassoud went down. Bodies stood, clearing the area. When the zebe flew in, picked up the ball and spotted it, Quentin could clearly see the Krakens were short by half a yard.

The Krakens hadn’t converted on fourth down. The Dreadnaughts had the ball on their own 35, with a chance to drive the field and take the lead.

The Krakens had needed one damn
inch
, and Yassoud had actually
lost
ground. The offense ran off the field. Yassoud ran off slower than the others, limping, head down, arms hanging loosely. His jersey was torn in three places and blood sheeted down his left hand.

Quentin waved to Doc Patah, then pointed to Yassoud. The Harrah doctor flew onto the field, already examining Yassoud’s arm as they came off the field together and moved to the bench. Quentin looked at the other Krakens players, at how
they
watched Yassoud. These weren’t looks of admiration and support. They were looks of annoyance, perhaps a few of slight betrayal. Any tailback in the league should be able to pick up one
inch
, especially at such a critical juncture in the game. The fact that Yassoud had not picked up those yards?

Maybe he didn’t have it after all.

An angry roar from the crowd drew Quentin’s attention back to the field. Just as he looked, he saw Don Dennis, the crimson-helmeted Dreadnaughts running back, running up the sidelines right in front of the Krakens bench. Dennis was already past most of the Krakens defenders — only Berea and Perth had a shot at him. Berea closed for a tackle, but Dennis spun just as she jumped. She hit empty air, then the ground. She scrambled up, but even with her blazing speed it was already too late.

Perth had an excellent angle of pursuit. She closed in as Dennis passed the 15-yard line. He ducked his shoulders in, out, then in again. The rapid-fire movement threw Perth off-balance a little. Instead of hitting him hard and clean, she awkwardly wrapped one tentacle around his chest, her other tangling in the back of his white jersey. Dennis was spun around but he kept moving downfield, backpedaling now, his feet barely landing in just the right places to keep the stumbling body aloft. Perth fell but held on, her tentacles stretching as Dennis tried to pull away. She dragged along the ground behind him, sliding across the blue Iomatt. Dennis finally fell, but broke the plane of the goal line just before he did.