Battleship (Movie Tie-in Edition) by Peter David Read Free Book Online Page A

Instead his foot struck Hopper full in the face.
    One moment Hopper had been preparing for the ball, and the next he was hurtling through the air, landing with a heavy
thud
some feet away. There was a collective gasp from the crowd of onlookers. Even for the level of violence to which this hard-fought game had escalated, this was pretty bad.
    And in the startled, momentary silence that followed, Hopper heard a familiar female voice cry out,
“Hopper! Oh my God!”
    Hey
, he thought happily,
Sam came. She said she wouldn’t be able to make it but she came. How nice
.
    Then he started to black out.
    No. Oh hell no. You are
not
going to give that son of a bitch the satisfaction
.
    He fought his way back to consciousness before the darkness could completely overwhelm him. The world came back into focus, one piece at a time. First the concerned muttering of his teammates who were standing above him, and then the brightness of the sky overhead against his closed eyelids. From the things they were saying—“Should we get him a doctor?” “Do you think he’s dead?”—he gathered that only moments had passed since he’d gone down.
    He also became aware of the throbbing in his shoulder. He’d landed on it fairly hard when he’d hit the ground. It was hard to decide which hurt more: that or his face. Hopper decided to push himself all the way back to wakefulness and sort it out later.
    His eyes snapped open, taking in the concerned expressions of his teammates. “Didn’t hurt at all,” he said, lying through his teeth.
    They must have known he was full of crap, but no one was about to call him on it, although Stone was slowly shaking his head in disbelief. His older brother looked inclined to leave Hopper lying right where he was, presumably while he went to get a medic for his prone brother. Beast, however, kept his priorities firmly in order and reached down to Hopper, gripping him tightly by the arm. Unfortunately it was the arm with the injured shoulder, and it was all Hopper could do not to scream at the top of his lungs as Beast hauled him to his feet. His face went white as a sheet, and he gasped repeatedly in order to get enough air into his lungs.
    “Alex, you sure—?” Stone said.
    Hopper managed a nod and forced a wry smile. Preferring to double down on the lie rather than admit to it, he said, “Never better.”
    Apparently this latest overaggressiveness had been the final straw for the refs. Or at least it was for the American ref. The Japanese ref was angrily protesting, but his counterpart was shaking his head as he shoved his way through the crowd of onlooking American sailors. “Penalty kick. End of injury time. This is it.” He leaned in and looked into Hopper’s eyes. “You in shape to take it, son?”
    “Oh, I can take it.” He raised his voice to make damned sure the Japanese players heard him. “I can take whatever they dish out!”
    This was all that was required to get the Americans psyched up. Shouts of “U.S.A! U.S.A!” rose from the onlookers,mixed with chants of “Hopper! Hopper!” The Japanese, meanwhile, were trying their best to keep their expressions carefully neutral. But Hopper was sure that he saw growing nervousness in their eyes. They were aware that the tide was shifting against them, and that Hopper could single-handedly tie the game and force them into overtime. Furthermore Hopper was convinced that when that happened, the Americans would have the momentum to run roughshod over them.
    He took a few steps forward on his own and then pain ripped through him. It wasn’t his head or his legs; instead it was his shoulder, which was hurt worse than he’d thought. His arm was hanging at an odd angle; it had been dislocated.
    He looked toward the sidelines to see if Sam had noticed, since she was the one he was most concerned with. She knew his body better than anyone except himself, so if anybody was going to be aware of the level of damage he had sustained …
    Yup. She