Ultraball #2 Read online

  “Wait,” Strike said. “Back up. You think Zuna is up to something huge? Like what?”

  “Not sure,” the governor said. “All I know so far is that there’s a lot of suspicious activity going on in and around North Pole Colony. I even got a bizarre report of a big footprint in the Tunnel Ring near North Pole station.”

  The hairs on the back of Strike’s neck rose. “Was it a wraith’s footprint?” he asked. The old folktales about something haunting the Tunnel Ring after dark were just stupid ghost stories to frighten kids. Weren’t they?

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It was probably just one of my agents seeing things in the dark. It’s easy to get spooked inside the Tunnel Ring at night.” Katana leaned in, lowering his voice. “But there’s no doubt that something moon-shattering is going down. I’ve even wondered if Zuna is allowing those nuclear parts to be stolen and taking a cut of the profits. Or secretly using them to build his own private nuclear arsenal.”

  “Not even he would do that,” Rock said. “Would he?”

  “I wouldn’t put anything past him. He’s hell-bent on gaining control of the Council of Governors, and the best ways to do that are through money and intimidation.” He looked to a giant picture of the Miners mounted on the wall, signed by each member of the Fireball Five. “How do you like your chances this year?”

  Strike’s eyebrows pinched together as he considered the sudden change in topic. “We’ll try our best. We always do.”

  Katana interlaced his fingers, squeezing hard. “I wasn’t sure if I should tell you this. The last thing you need is extra pressure. But you’re more an adult than a child. Frak, you’re the general manager of an entire Ultraball franchise. You deserve to have all the facts.” He took a deep breath, cracking his knuckles. “My sources tell me that Zuna is doubling down. He’s bet his entire remaining fortune on his Neutrons winning this year’s Ultrabowl. If he succeeds, he won’t need the Council of Governors to launch a military strike. He’ll be able to make it happen all on his own.”

  Katana paused, letting the stunned silence hang over the room. “You’re both too young to remember Earthfall. An entire planet—over thirty billion people—dead, within the course of a single day. All because of eight bloodthirsty dictators, fighting each other for control of the Earth. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Zuna is cut from the same cloth as those eight tyrants.”

  Strike and Rock exchanged a wide-eyed glance. They’d heard lots of stories about the Earthfall Eight, but more as monsters out of legends than as real people.

  “I don’t know what Zuna is planning, but I’d bet it’s even bigger than his scheme to take over and destroy Taiko Colony last year,” Katana said. “We have to stop him. Cutting off his finances is the best way to do that. If you guys keep his Neutrons from winning the Ultrabowl, he’ll lose all his money. All his power.”

  The claustrophobia mounted in Strike’s chest, a feeling like all the walls were closing in on him. He looked at the four Ultrabowl plaques mounted in the governor’s office—every one of them a runner-up award. As if Strike didn’t need a title badly enough. Now it was up to him to stop Raiden Zuna, a man the governor had just put in the same league as the Earthfall Eight?

  Strike squeezed his fists tight. It was unfair for the governor to put the fate of the entire moon upon his shoulders. “We’ll be up on the victory stand this year,” he said.

  But not for Katana. Not for anyone else but Rock, TNT, Pickaxe, and Nugget.

  4

  Showdown vs. The North Pole Neutrons

  GAME DAY.

  Every time the Miners battled the Neutrons, it was an explosive game of smashmouth, ground-pounding Ultraball. It was impossible to ever be confident against a team like the Neutrons, but Strike was feeling good. He’d come up with a perfect way to cover up his secret for one more week. A passing game focusing on short throws—ones he could easily complete—would make for a killer surprise strategy against the Neutrons. It had taken a while for everyone to get on board with it, but Strike had the team convinced that it was going to pay off. Even he was starting to believe it.

  On their way to North Pole Colony, the Miners sat together inside an Ultraball tram zooming through the Tunnel Ring, listening to Rock go over the game plan. Jasmine sat next to Rock as his makeshift assistant, feeding him papers filled with detailed gameplay notes. “We’ll have to be careful of the Neutrons’ Nuclear Fallout defensive scheme,” he said. “It’s a big improvement on their Nuclear Waste defense.” He swayed as the tram jolted and slowed as they came to their next stop. “The Neutrons will drop Meltdown into Ion Storm’s crackback slot whenever we look to be setting up any formation similar to a . . . to a . . .” He trailed off, looking out the window.

  “To a slingshot V,” Jasmine said, completing Rock’s sentence. “Right?”

  Strike nodded. He’d been skeptical of having Jasmine work for them as a gofer, but she’d proven quick on the uptake. Maybe it won’t be so bad having her around, he thought.

  The tram halted, making its automated stop at Moon Dock station. Rock focused even harder on something in the distance, his neck craned forward. “That’s odd. Very odd.”

  “What’s odd?” Strike asked.

  “Besides Rock, you mean?” Pickaxe said. He laughed, but no one joined him. “What? It was funny.” He pointed to Rock’s notebook. “Aren’t you going to write that down in your list of jokes?”

  “Uh-huh,” Rock said, his attention unwavering from whatever it was he was studying. Leaning into the side of the tram, he got so close his nose smooshed against the glass window. The door slid open and he poked his head out.

  “I’ll write it down for him,” Jasmine said. “Should that go under ‘Witty Humor’ or ‘Self-Deprecating One-Liners’?”

  “Never mind that.” Strike peered over Rock’s shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

  “The airlock door,” Rock said.

  “What about it?” Strike focused on the massive impactanium door in the distance, involuntarily shuddering at the endless expanse of black death on the other side of it. This empty station had been rendered useless after Earthfall, since no one had any reason to use the lone airlock separating the United Moon Colonies from outer space. But the Council of Governors had mandated that all trams stopped here, to remind people of the horrors the Earthfall Eight had unleashed upon humanity.

  “Why isn’t it dusty?” Rock asked, his brow furrowed in concentration. “This station doesn’t have daily maintenance. The Cryptomare engineers have their hands full keeping the other stations running.”

  “How could you possibly notice dust on a door?” Jasmine asked.

  “He notices everything,” Nugget said. “He noticed when Pickaxe didn’t poop for four straight days last month.”

  Pickaxe flushed red. “I’ll poop on you,” he muttered.

  Nugget snickered. “Except that you couldn’t, you were so stopped up!”

  Rock pulled out his notebook. “I’ll be right back.”

  “What are you doing?” Strike asked, catching the back of Rock’s jumpsuit. “We have a lot more game planning to go over.”

  “Aw, let him do it,” Nugget said. “Five hardtack bars says he makes it there and back before the doors close.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” Pickaxe said. “Easiest five hardtack bars ever.”

  “Everyone, focus on the North Pole Neutrons,” Strike said. “Rock is not going to run—”

  “I’ll do it!” Jasmine said. She sprinted out the doors, taking off like a shot.

  “She’ll never make it . . .” Pickaxe trailed off as the girl accelerated, her legs blurs of motion. “You know what? She might actually make it.”

  Jasmine put on a crazy burst of speed, jumping over benches, hurtling around lampposts. She stopped momentarily to look at the huge airlock door, and then sprinted back toward the tram.

  A series of beeps sounded, signifying that the tram was preparing to leave the station. Strike nudged Rock. “Be
t you ten hardtack bars that she doesn’t make it.”

  Rock studied the little girl zipping back. He made a quick calculation in his notebook. “Let’s make it twenty.”

  Strike peered nervously at all the numbers in the notebook. “How about we keep it at ten? Or maybe let’s just call it off.”

  “Too late. I agree to the original bet,” Rock said.

  “She’s huffing and puffing,” Strike said. “Bet you didn’t factor fatigue into your calculations.”

  “Ha,” Pickaxe said, jabbing his brother with an elbow.

  “Actually, I did,” Rock said. “She’s not slowing down as much as I thought she would.” He beamed at Strike and Pickaxe, pointing as Jasmine deftly hurdled a set of benches.

  “Ha!” Nugget said. He stood up, wiggling his butt at his brother.

  Pickaxe quickly punched it, making Nugget shriek.

  The final beeps sounded, and the tram doors started to close. With a final burst, Jasmine sped through just before the doors slid shut, her momentum nearly causing her to slam into the opposite wall. She plopped into her seat, catching her breath. “You were right, Rock,” Jasmine said. “Very little dust on the doors. I’m impressed. You notice everything.”

  “You owe me five hardtack bars, booger brains,” Nugget said to his brother.

  “I’ll give you five boogers,” Pickaxe grumbled. He pressed a finger over one nostril and tipped his head up, aiming to shoot a nose rocket at Nugget.

  Rock rolled his eyes as the brothers wrestled each other to the floor. “Just as I thought,” he said. “Now, how many specks of dust per square centimeter were there?”

  Jasmine raised pleading eyebrows to Strike. “Is he joking?” she asked.

  Strike burst out laughing. “Welcome to my world.”

  “What’s so funny?” Rock asked. “Or is that a sad sort of laugh based on the fact that you owe me ten more hardtack bars?”

  “We never shook on it.”

  Rock flipped through his notebook to a page marked “Hardtack Bars Strike Owes Me,” and changed the number to thirty-two. The next page was a list titled “Ways of Tricking Yourself into Believing that Hardtack Bars Aren’t Disgusting.”

  The rest of that page was blank.

  The tram shuddered and then picked up speed, moving down the tracks. Rock studied the sweaty little girl, who had already caught her breath. “How’d you get to be so fast?”

  Jasmine scrunched her mouth into a crinkled line. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why?” Rock asked. “It’s incredible. You’re faster than Strike. Maybe even TNT. Perhaps whoever trained you could train— Ow!”

  Strike jabbed Rock with another elbow. “Her trainer was probably Torch,” he whispered.

  “Ah,” Rock said. “Right.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Let’s get back to game day preparations, then.”

  Jasmine looked down, shuffling through Rock’s stack of gameplay notes. Not meeting anyone’s eyes, she quietly sniffled and wiped away tears as she handed the next sheet to Rock.

  The Miners stared at each other in silence. Rock tried to start up the strategy session once more, but he kept on petering out at the sound of Jasmine’s weeping. Finally, he cleared his throat. “Maybe we’ve gone over enough for now. Let’s take a break.”

  Strike’s mind turned to Torch and the curse he had supposedly brought onto his old team. An eerie shiver went up his spine as he watched Jasmine out of the corner of his eye, wondering if the Torch’s Curse had latched on to the Miners, its shadow following them into today’s game.

  When the Miners ran out of the tunnel into Neutron Stadium, the thunderous boos crashed down like a massive cave-in. Strike had played here many times over his four-year career, but the raw hatred was something he never got used to. Fans in the front rows pelted the Miners with trash, hardtack bars, even rocks. This was technically illegal and could get a fan ejected, but the Blackguard security officers weren’t doing anything to stop it. One guy in a black jumpsuit even joined in, hurling a stone right at Strike’s head. It was a good thing that they did no damage to the impervious Ultrabot suits, but the barrage constantly triggered warning lights inside the helmets’ heads-up displays, making the salvos hard to ignore.

  The two teams met at the fifty-meter line. It took a full five minutes for the armored refs to quiet the fans down enough to go through their pregame routine. The head referee, decked out in full body armor and a stainless steel helmet, signaled for the clear impactanium barriers to go up, protecting the crowd from the action on the field. He motioned everyone in. “You all know the rules,” he said, screaming to make himself heard over the crowd noise. “I want a clean game, no penalties. Score often, and score a lot.”

  Strike stuck out a closed fist for White Lightning to tap, the traditional way for captains to start a game. But the Neutron in Fusion’s old number 9 suit barely looked up. White Lightning raised a fist and gave the barest of taps before quickly shuffling away. Strike stared at White Lightning’s back, wondering why he wouldn’t even meet Strike’s gaze.

  It was almost as if he was hiding something.

  Someone punched Strike’s chest plate, making him flinch. “Hey,” TNT said over the Miners’ helmet comm. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Strike said. “Let’s go.”

  The crowd’s roar ratcheted back up as the Neutrons lined up to receive the kickoff. Neutron Nation was in full effect today, almost everyone in the stands decked out in the bright red of North Pole Colony. Strike raced forward toward the Ultraball, swinging his leg with all the might his suit could provide, the steel ball rocketing off his boot like it had been shot from a missile launcher. The ball soared, looking like it might even hit the roof of the cavern, a hundred meters above. A perfect kick, leaving plenty of time for the Miners to sprint down the field.

  TNT led the Miners, three steps ahead of everyone else. He threw himself into one of Neutron Stadium’s slingshot zones, accelerating to hyperspeed before blasting out the other side. His aim dead-on, TNT exploded into one of the defenders like a supercharged tank, blasting the Neutron backward.

  Strike let out a scream as he smashed into the Neutrons’ crackback 2, Ion Storm, with a metallic clang so loud it reverberated throughout the stadium. But Ion Storm was better than Strike had remembered, staying on his feet to hold his ground as they wrestled for position.

  The Neutron ball carrier, hiding behind Ion Storm, jab-stepped left. In the split second that Strike had taken to process the guy’s move, Ion Storm shifted his weight and threw Strike off balance. With a burst of speed, the ball carrier crashed into both of them, trying to muscle his way through. Miners and Neutrons came crashing in, piling up in a scrum.

  Directly on top of Strike, Ion Storm flipped his visor to clear, his lips pulled back in a menacing growl. He drew back a gloved fist and punched Strike’s left shoulder so hard that Strike could almost feel it through the indestructible armor. “Deathstrike!” he yelled. He slammed another punch into Strike’s shoulder. And then another. And another.

  Deathstrike? The word stabbed fear into Strike’s chest as he tried to wriggle out from under the pile. As more players slammed in, fighting each other for the ball, another Neutron pushed in to pin Strike’s arms down. Ion Storm whaled away at Strike’s shoulders, each blow faster and harder than the one before. Panic mounted in Strike as everything closed in on him, conjuring terrifying images of a coffin slamming shut over his face. Then his frenzy turned to shock when he realized where Ion Storm was targeting every single one of his punches.

  Does he know my secret?

  When the refs finally came in to break things up, Ion Storm grabbed Strike and stared at him through his clear visor, his mouth twisted into an evil grin. He gave Strike a hard shove before walking to his huddle.

  The Neutrons went four and out on their first series, turning it over to the Miners on the fifty-meter line. The first play out of scrimmage, the Miners lined it up in a slingshot V formati
on, with TNT far backfield, ready to be accelerated into rocket speed by Rock and Pickaxe. Strike took a long glance at a slingshot zone—hopefully enough to make the Neutrons think a long bomb was coming. “Mercury eighty-six!” he yelled. “Mercury eighty-six fireball!” The audible was a fake, but two of the Neutrons seemed to bite, shifting toward the slingshot zone.

  Rock dropped back to where TNT was, and both of them sprinted toward the line, Rock leading the charge as TNT’s blocker. Nugget hiked the ball to Strike just before Rock crossed the line of scrimmage, cannonballing into one of the Neutron defenders with a metallic crunch.

  TNT hurdled over everyone and streaked toward the slingshot zone. His defender was with him every step, both of them bumping and shoving for position. TNT hit the slingshot zone first and boomed out the other side, hurtling into the sky. The defender hit the zone only a split second later, but with the burst of slingshot speed, TNT was already meters ahead. “I’m open!” he yelled into the helmet comm.

  Safely in the pocket behind Nugget and Pickaxe, Strike wound up for the big throw. His heads-up display targeted onto TNT, flashing green. Every cell in his body screamed to let it fly, just like the old days. But he pulled the ball down, juked left, and spun under an oncoming defender. Rock had crept into the midfield, and Strike dumped it to him.

  The Neutrons converged on the Miners’ rocketback 2, quickly corralling him. Meltdown rammed his shoulder into Rock’s chest plate, knocking him backward. Radioactive smashed in next, slamming both Rock and Meltdown to the turf.

  The play was over, with a short gain just like the Miners had planned. Strike jogged forward toward the pile. But someone cracked into him from the side, lifting him off his feet. The defender held him high in a bear hug and then threw him to the turf.

  Disoriented, Strike looked up to see Ion Storm’s sly grin right above him. Another Neutron shielded them from the ref’s view. I’m gonna bury you, Ion Storm mouthed before slamming a punch into Strike’s shoulder. “Deathstrike!”