Chapter Forty-Two

The stadium had a virtually empty parking lot, but there were a handful of vehicles there at least. I had a vague memory of the black van near the front, and a bunch of hulking humans piling out. ‘I will never drink again.’ I promised as I recalled the hangover the following day. I still wondered if the ambassador himself remembered much about that evening.

We exited the van and began hauling the boxes into the stadium, even though either Boatswain or Byron were easily large enough and strong enough, the bulk of the boxes was a bit excessive, and so we had to make two trips into and out of the empty stadium to make it work.

Of course when I say ‘we’ I mean ‘they’. As for myself, when I entered the wide open stadium I found a dozen of Byron’s behemoths sitting on the bleachers with bottles of ale from a place called Stone Brewery, they were sizable bottles, but then again, these were sizable males of their species.

“Can you help me lay this out? I’ll explain the rules while they get the rest of it.” I asked, and a couple of the hulking humans got up without hesitation, though most of them moved right away, I needed only two or three to assemble the remaining boxes and place them into position just behind a white line on the field. Strangely, despite the entire world using a single standard measuring system, this one sport uses an outdated ‘imperial’ method from centuries before referred to as ‘yards’. I made a mental note that if Ballyball ever did amount to anything, the measurements might have to change. I snorted at the very idea.

‘This is just a simple teamwork study on interspecies relationship building.’ I reminded myself while the humans put together the boxes we would use for the successful scoring, but as the humans continued getting the spaces lined up for use they started to reminisce about how much fun they had with embassy security. There were nicknames thrown around about their quickly struck up friendships, and it was then that I learned something remarkable and unexpected.

‘They’ve been keeping in touch?’ I could hardly believe it. ‘They met only once, and were all thoroughly drunk… I think. At least by the end.’ I tried to wrap my head around it, and was still trying when the greater part of embassy security walked in behind Boatswain and Byron.

Several minutes passed in which no work was done.

The reason none was done was because the two groups approached and began shaking hands and chattering, shoulder slaps, back slaps, and the occasion ‘bro hug’ as I came to learn the name, were exchanged.

It was undlamisan, but very human to put off work in favor of socializing, but there it was, a core trait of my people’s identity was tossed aside seemingly without noticing as soon as a handful of their favorite humans showed up.

I covertly glanced at my datapad, I wanted to know how much time would be spent in socialization before they remembered we had to finish setting up… but then the X factor intervened.

“They didn’t.” I muttered and, like everyone else, I looked up toward the sky as a roar of a freighter transport rang out over the empty stadium. Most any freighter would have some small transport ships to make minor supply runs, deliver people or goods, or even serve to help a lucky few escape disaster.

They were rectangular shuttles with sloped fronts and energy based shielding in the front. I couldn't see Captain Bonny from where I stood on ground level, but as the ship roared in and cleared the top of the stadium, I had a distinct feeling she’d be present.

‘And she was probably steering it, too.’ It felt wrong to make a leap like that, like I was accusing her, but I nonetheless felt as sure about that as I was sure I felt the soft ground beneath my feet.

A multitude of eyes turned toward me. “I didn’t tell them to do that.” I protested while the shuttle landed outside. It wasn’t exactly quiet, and I was more than a little bit certain this would attract some unlooked for attention. ‘But what’s a few more at this point, I’ll explain it to security, as long as they don’t damage anything, I don’t ‘think’ any laws have been broken.’

Still, it made my tail stiffen. “Avast! Avast and have at ye! No matter the games ye land lubbers play, Captain Bonny Red will always get’er way!” She shouted when she sauntered into view while followed by two dozen of her crew, they were a motley lot, Bonny herself was dressed in something a little bit closer to modern tactical equipment, with closer fitting leather short pants emblazoned with the skull and crossbones over her thighs and a leather bodice with the same insignia over the middle. Her eyepatch was gone, revealing two perfectly good eyes, and her gold earrings clinked together as she approached.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“At least she didn’t bring her sword.” I said when humans and dlamisan security personnel both stared my way as if to say, ‘What is this?!’

Her crew wasn’t that different than her, save being mostly male and shirtless, though a few wore sashes across their chests, and a few wore tricorner hats.

They were not, for the most part, as large as either security team, but they were clearly lean, strong, and a few were missing fur in places that were scarred over from what could only have been zenti cutters. As my species went, they were a fearsome looking little lot.

“I briefed me crew on the rules of yer game there lad,” Captain Bonny said as she brushed past the security teams to approach me directly, she was a tad taller than I, and smacked her hand down hard on my shoulder, “now where’s that lass with the ball. Or at least the ball?”

I was about to tell her that Fauve wasn’t able to make it when we were interrupted by yet another noise.

“Fight. Fight. Fight. With all our might. Fight. Fight. Fight. With all our might.” I knew some of those voices.

“The football team…” I stopped and my hand darted for the datapad, a higher pitched set of far more feminine voices picked up the tempo. “By the dead gods of men… what have I done?!” I exclaimed and sought the email messages.

I tapped on the one from Coach Wills and read it out loud. “Anyone who puts themselves in danger to help a little kid is worth helping out, if it would be useful, I can have the whole team show up and you can change things up a bit.”

I backed out of that message and tapped on Lisa’s message. “I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for William’s help with tutoring. If you like, I’ll ask my team to come out and support you, after all, you’re part of the team. But is it OK if we bring some friends just to watch?”

“Laddy, ‘ey laddy!” Bonny said, waving her hand in front of my face, “Dlamias to Bailey, you hear what I ask?”

“No, sorry, what?” I asked, blinking a few times before the red furred dlamisa spoke again.

“What’s with the crowd?” She asked, “How many people did you invite to this thing?”

“Not… this many.” I admitted, “But-” I stopped when she tapped her nose several times with one finger.

“Laddy, I was a scout, you might a’well cut yer nose off as compare it to the likes a’ me, savvy? I’m not barkin about these here. I’m talkin about them what comin this way.”

“I-I don’t… what do you mean?” I asked, but before she could answer, I saw Mavis and Coach Wills walking over to me dressed like they were ready for a game.

“I hope you don’t mind, but the team thought the idea of an exhibition game with our alien visitors was so good that they told a few people.” Mavis admitted… same for the cheerleading squad, actually. “I mean do you blame them? Nobody’s ever gotten to play a sport with a bunch of aliens before?” Her attempt at imitating Coach Will’s stern and serious demeanor were failing rapidly. She was practically dancing.

It was all going so fast, I could hear the sound of honking cars.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the cheerleaders setting up, stretching and making themselves ready for their routines, and Coach Wills addressed me, “Listen, you may be a good scientistical alien and all, but you ain’t a coach. You lemme look at those rules, I’ll get the most out of everybody.”

“And… what do I do?” I asked.

“You write stuff down, that’s your job, and course, you the waterboy. Keep the water coming. Or’d you quit?” He asked, his heavyset body seemed all the larger the way he asked that, and once again my attempt at objection was overruled.

“Ey, I like this one.” Bonny said and looked the coach up and down, “Got spirit, he has. Arrr, give’m the rules, mate, just take yer notes an let us all do the rest.”

I felt quite outnumbered in that moment, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made, I could take better notes if I were standing off to one side, and Coach Wills did have team management experience that it would take me years to pick up.

I handed over my datapad, and Mavis picked up the whistle dangling around her neck and blew, hard. Dlamisans winced and let out a long ‘rooooo’ noise, adding to the brief cacophony before seeing him call everybody to him.

While I went back to get the table laid out with water, I listened in while the coach began going over the rules. It was not lost on me that a handful of people began to trickle into the stands and take out their phones and other devices to start recording.

“This… this might have been a little bit much.” I said to myself as I walked through the dim corridor and started filling coolers, the lack of ice was unfortunate, but I could already see Coach Wills mocking any complaints, and I wasn’t going to be the cause of that.

It took me almost twenty minutes to get it all ready, filling enough extra coolers that I had to grunt and strain, leaning back with all my weight to pull the cart with me back out the door and into the long corridor that would take me outside again.

I turned around and leaned forward, grunting with the strain as I pulled what felt like several times my bodyweight in water, trying at the same time not to knock over the plastic foldable tables and disposable cups I’d need to keep filled.

I was straining so hard that I must have distracted myself, because despite having better hearing than humans, I never heard the hum of the drones until I stepped out of the shadow, into the light, and saw them hovering above the stands like a swarm of mosquitos, and nearly as numerous.