No Middle Ground (Spineward Sectors: Middleton's Pride) (39 page)

Chapter XXXII: A Lesson in Game Theory

“All right, Lancers, listen up,” Walter Joneson barked as soon as the entire
Pride of Prometheus
’ Lancer contingent had stepped off the shuttle and set foot on a gently rolling plain of bright, green grass. It was a sixty by one hundred twenty meter patch of which had been cut to form a short, thick carpet of turf that looked so inviting that Lu Bu had to fight the urge to throw off her cleats and go running barefoot. She had never seen so much grass in her entire life!

But she fought against her primal urge and gave her Sergeant the attention he deserved, noting several of the newer Lancers nervously adjusting their smashball pads, reminding her of her very first professional game where she had done likewise throughout the entire game.

“The unit’s been through a lot lately,” Joneson continued as he tossed the ball into the air methodically while he paced up and down in front of his Lancers, “so I thought we could mix business with pleasure today and run through a few plays instead of our usual calisthenics routine.”

The four Tracto-ans stood over to the side of the group with looks of patent disinterest, which made Lu Bu’s previous visions of frolicking through the meadow vanish as she soon desired nothing more than to get them focused on the task at hand.

“For those of you who don’t know,” Joneson added, casting a wayward glance toward the Tracto-ans, “first we’ll talk history. This game was adapted from an ancient form of fully-armored gladiatorial combat known as ‘football,’ which is not to be confused with the inexplicably popular game of the same name played on Ancient Earth around the time of
real
football’s inception. The false version did involve a lot of actual
kicking
of a soft, round ball, but it was played by mama’s boys in bright-colored, meticulously-pressed shirts who apparently spent as much time rolling around feigning injury as playing the actual game.”

There was a chorus of snickers which Lu Bu even participated, having never heard this particular bit about smashball’s history before.

“The other version—the
real
version—featured so little actual kicking that it’s something of a mystery to modern historians why it was even called ‘football’ in the first place,” Walter Joneson continued after the laughter had died down. “But that’s the one that persisted throughout the centuries, eventually giving birth to the greatest game ever devised by man: smashball. The rules for smashball are simple,” he said, gesturing to Corporal Gnuko, “first we have to divide our twenty two remaining Lancers into two teams of eleven, which just so happens to be the actual size of a smashball side. Gnuko, you pick first; we’ll go serpentine.”

Gnuko nodded and gestured to the farthest Tracto-an—a hulking brute of a man named Atticus with the longest, most powerful arms Lu Bu had ever seen—“Team Gnuko takes Atticus first.”

Lu Bu was actually offended that she had been passed over with the first pick. It was utterly inconceivable to her that anyone—not even Walter Joneson himself, given his relatively advanced age—would be more highly valued than she would for a smashball team.

Joneson nodded and pointed the ball at Lu Bu, “Team Joneson takes Lu and Sherman.”

Lu Bu stepped over to stand behind Walter Joneson and glared at Corporal Gnuko for daring to suggest she was in any way, shape, or form less desirable of a player than Atticus.

“Gnuko takes Brasidas and Peleus,” the Corporal said without hesitation.

“Joneson takes Thomas and Gagne,” the Sergeant added.

“Gnuko takes Laertes and Hart,” Gnuko said, and Lu Bu realized this wasn’t just a game…there was some sort of lesson being taught here, and the Tracto-ans were clearly the target audience.

The rest of the selections went off, and the two teams were assembled and squared off against each other as Walter Joneson moved to the middle of the group and turned the oblong ball, which tapered to a point on each end, over in his hands.

“Now since the days of this sport’s infancy,” Walter Joneson explained as he stood between the two groups, “there have been minor adjustments to the rules—”

“Sergeant,” Atticus interrupted in his deep, rumbling voice with obvious impatience, “you brought us here to play your game; we should begin.”

Joneson slowly turned his head to face the man, and while holding the Tracto-an’s gaze, asked over his shoulder, “Lu, what’s the average length of a starting-caliber smashball player’s career?”

“Four point three two seasons, Sergeant,” she replied snappily.

“Four and a third years,” Joneson said before pressing various points on the practice ball, which Lu recognized as ‘setting’ the ball to recognize the two teams by their members’ biometrics. “That is a number which, despite massive improvements in medicine and kinesthesiology, has remained relatively constant throughout this sport’s history. The only significant thing that’s changed in all the centuries between Ancient Earth football and modern smashball,” he flipped the ball to Atticus, who caught it deftly, “is what you’re holding in your hands. All you’ve got to do is get that ball to the far end of the field to score.” He snickered before adding, “Shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

With that, he turned and led his team back to a well-demarcated set of hash-marks which marked their team’s apparent starting point, and Lu Bu felt a familiar rush of endorphins as her body primed itself for her favorite game.

“Huddle up,” he commanded as soon as they were out of immediate earshot of Team Gnuko. When the Lancers had entered the huddle, Joneson said, “You all know your positions, except you, Lu. We’re on defense,” he said, causing her to wrinkle her nose in derision. She despised defense, since it was so much less challenging than offense from a tactical standpoint. “So for this play, Lu, you’re the Leo; Gnuko will probably start out as their prime back before shifting to the line after showing those Tracto-ans the basics of the playbook. That uppity blighter thinks he can fill my shoes,” he said with a harsh chuckle. “Let’s see if he’s ready; we run a cover three shell with press-man coverage on the receivers and crash pressure at the line. You bring the prime back down, Lu—along with anyone that gets in your way,” Joneson said severely.

“Understood, Sergeant,” she said, and she actually thought she did. This was an object lesson of some kind but she didn’t quite know what lesson was to be imparted, so she focused on doing her task to the best of her ability.

Gnuko led his men to the line, and Joneson did likewise, with Lu Bu lining up behind her front four on the right side. Her job as the Leo was simple: get to the prime back and bring him down before he could execute a play. Of course, there were at least five men standing in her way—four of them Tracto-ans, who had all taken positions on the offensive line. Atticus was the left tackle, which seeing as Gnuko was right-handed, meant Atticus was the most likely to interdict her efforts to disrupt Corporal Gnuko.

“Set,” Gnuko called, fixing his eyes on Lu Bu as she assumed a three point stance just outside the left tackle’s immediate zone. She had always gotten a better first step out of a three point stance, owing to her incredibly powerful lower half. “Hike!” Gnuko barked, and the center offensive lineman snapped the ball to him. Before it hit the prime back’s hands, Lu Bu had come off the line and ran straight at Atticus while blatantly lowering her shoulder at him.

The larger man easily shucked the defensive lineman to the ground with one hand before squaring off on Lu Bu, and his quick work of the other man after just two steps was a testament to his raw, physical abilities.

At the last step Lu Bu juked to the right, which was the obvious path to the prime back, who was still waiting for a play to develop downfield. Atticus bit on her juke, and she exploded on a cutback which she knew no ordinary human could execute without destroying their right knee. Atticus, to his credit, kept his balance and threw his long, impossibly thick arm out to corral her. But she used a simple swim move to clear his arm from her path. He was brutally strong, but she had leverage and momentum, so his body went to the ground—hard—as her momentum drug him well off-balance.

A second later, she crashed into the Corporal and sent him to the ground while deftly making an attempt to punch the ball loose. But Gnuko was savvy, and he held onto the ball as he hit the grass, prompting Joneson to bark over the din of grunts and shouts, “Play’s dead!”

Lu Bu stood and offered Gnuko her hand, which he accepted and the two teams quickly re-formed into their huddles. “Good work, line,” Joneson said as the huddle formed before nodding at Lu Bu, “nice juke-and-swim, Lu. That was a wicked cutback.”

“Sergeant,” she acknowledged as the other men finally returned the huddle.

“Alright, this will be a run, but we’re still in cover three,” Joneson said as though it was obvious, which to Lu Bu it was. “Lu, you’re the deathbacker,” he said. “We wall the line off on this one; forget about getting to Gnuko,” he said as he took a quick glance before adding, “looks like he’s got Atticus as his smash back. If he gets into the secondary, the deathbacker lays him out—fast,” he added with a pointed look.

Lu Bu started to begin the lesson they were teaching, and nodded with a savage grin, “Yes, Sergeant.”

The teams re-formed at the line, and sure enough Atticus was lined up behind Gnuko as the smash back while the entire offensive unit had formed into a power-running formation. Lu Bu lined up behind the front seven, just a couple steps ahead of Corporal Thomas, the lastbacker.

“Set…hike!” Gnuko called, and the lines crashed into each other with Joneson’s team doing their best to create a contiguous wall of bodies to plug the holes. Lu Bu didn’t even need to cheat a step on the play, waiting for Atticus to actually accept the ball before she began crashing toward the scrum to provide support.

Atticus got a hole on the right side which was just large enough for his massive girth, and he took the ball through that hole before being met by Walter Joneson. The Sergeant managed to get a hand on the larger man before being stiff-armed viciously into the ground by the larger, burlier man.

Having brought Joneson down, Atticus lowered his shoulder and charged into Sherman. Being nearly twice the size of the smaller man, he easily went through him but her teammates had created the ideal angle for her to attack the ball carrier—and attack she did.

She sprinted toward the gap and turned her body into a missile, with her right shoulder directed at Atticus’s midsection as her left arm punched out as hard as she could, aiming for the ball.

When her shoulder hit him, it was like she had struck a brick wall and she actually felt something give in her upper chest. But her left hand got through just before he was able to react to her last-second strip attempt, and the ball went flying from his massive, vice-like hands.

Normally Lu Bu would have been able to recover the ball after a forced fumble, but the Tracto-an’s massive body had absorbed every bit of her body’s kinetic energy and she was unable to beat the other players to the quickly-formed dog-pile.

“Play’s dead,” Joneson called, and the men in the pile slowly began to withdraw until it became clear that Team Gnuko had recovered the ball.

“Huddle up,” she heard Gnuko snap as Team Joneson did so without being prompted. Atticus cast a dark look in Lu Bu’s direction before finally re-joining his teammates.

“All right,” Joneson said, his nose dripping blood as he shook his head at a proffered chem-stick which would have cauterized the wound. Lu Bu also despised those devices for the fiery, stinging sensation they caused to erupt inside her skull, but she had found herself requiring their use on more than one occasion during her own playing career. “It’s the Pits getting old,” Joneson said with resignation after wadding up some gauze and plugging his nostril with it, eliciting a chorus of chuckles from her teammates. “This one’s a pass play and if I’ve got my read on the Corporal, he’s going to line Atticus up in the slot as a crossing receiver. Thomas, you’re a wingbacker on this one and I want you to press Atticus—but don’t bring him down, just slow the play and harry him. I don’t care how far that brute gets downfield—I just want this play to last five seconds, clear?”

“You got it, Sarge,” Thomas replied with a grin.

“That makes you the lastbacker, Lu,” Joneson said. “Everyone else, blitz at the line to clear that oaf’s path; we know where the ball’s going, and Lu’s fast enough to contain the play if Gnuko
doesn’t
sling it to Atticus. When the play-clock’s at five seconds, Lu will teach that pasty caveman why this game’s called ‘smashball’.”

The other Lancers snickered, and Lu Bu felt herself swell with pride at being given such a measure of trust. The lastbacker was, arguably, the most important position on the defensive side of the ball. It required not only top-notch physical tools like speed, balance, and power, but also a sound tactical mind to not only contain every play as it developed, but to create additional pressure when pressure was needed.

Naturally, since it was so challenging, it was Lu Bu’s favored position on defense.

The teams lined up and Gnuko made a silent count snap, sending both sides in motion. Just as Walter Joneson had predicted, it was a pass play with Atticus running a crossing route. Thomas, though almost comically overmatched by the seven foot tall Tracto-an, kept on the larger man’s hip throughout the play. Even after Atticus received the ball two seconds into the play and attempted to stiff-arm the smaller Thomas into the ground, the Corporal kept upright and maintained pressure by somehow effectively body-checking the larger man even while off-balance.

Three seconds into the play, Lu Bu began to drive toward the ball-carrier. Atticus viciously backhanded Thomas in the chest and his raw power was too much for the smaller man, who went flying almost two meters before landing on his feet and backpedaling to a stop.

Four seconds into the play, Lu Bu saw Atticus adjust his grip on the ball to compensate for its increased weight and she felt a sneer spread across her face. She remembered her first time receiving a proper ‘smash’ after the ball had become unbearably heavy, and she had every intention of making his memory of the experience just as vivid as hers.