THE CHAMPION by Scott Sigler

Author:Scott Sigler [Sigler, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Empty Set Entertainment
Published: 2014-09-16T19:12:00+00:00

QUENTIN STEPPED UP into the pocket.

Around him, black-armored, orange-jerseyed Ionath linemen struggled to hold back the onslaught. Yall’s deep-purple jerseys looked almost black in the afternoon light. Black-trimmed white numbers and letters spelling CRIMINALS across the chest blazed in the sun, as did white arm guards, hardened gloves and three parallel stripes that ran down deep-purple leg armor.

Yall’s white helmets looked like they’d been through war. Most of the purple “ball-and-chain Sklorno” logos on the sides were scratched, gouged and chipped, so typical of gear near the end of a Tier One game. The jerseys of both teams were streaked with the dark-green paint that made up the field’s lines, and with white from the field itself.

Quentin looked for Denver: covered. Milford and Halawa, also covered. Yall defensive tackle Anthony Meaders spun off a Sho-Do-Thikit block and rushed in, the HeavyG’s all-fours gallop closing the five feet in a blur.

Quentin juked left and ran right, out of the pocket, away from Meaders, just out of reach of the long HeavyG arms. Quentin tried to look downfield, but linebacker Riha the Hammer rushed in on a delayed blitz. Still sprinting, his mental clock ticking away, Quentin took a half-step forward to freeze Riha and pushed off that foot in almost the same instant, once again running right. His mental clock told him he had half a second before Meaders reached him: there was Denver coming back to help out her scrambling QB. Quentin started to throw, then something hit his feet — he went down fast, his facemask skidding across the white field.

Quentin heard whistles blow: his team had used its last timeout.

He’d been sacked, caught from behind. It didn’t make any sense ... he’d seen Meaders coming, knew the tackle’s top speed. Quentin hadn’t taken any hits that slowed him down. So what had he missed? What had gone wrong?

A big hand on his shoulder.

“Q, you all right?”

Kimberlin, leaning down.

“Fine,” Quentin said.

He let the lineman help him up, then jogged back to the huddle. He couldn’t worry about the sack, not with thirty-four seconds to play in the fourth quarter and his team down 21-17.

The sack had brought them up to fourth and fifteen on the Yall twenty-eight. They were inside Morningstar’s range, but the Krakens had used all their timeouts: even if they made the field goal attempt, they’d still have to get the ball back via an on-side kick, then get into range for a second field goal before time expired. Long odds indeed.

Quentin tapped the side of his helmet, activating his heads-up display.

“Coach, we gotta go for it.”

“Of course we do,” Hokor said. “You look slow as frozen mud out there, Barnes. Are you okay to run it on a quarterback keeper?”

“I’m fine, but we need fifteen yards ... we need a pass, not a keeper.”

“Yall’s tendencies indicate they will rush four and blitz Riha, leaving Cauthorn back twelve yards,” Hokor said. “They think blitz pressure will force you into a short pass over the middle, letting Cauthorn make the tackle shy of the first down.

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