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Chapter Three

Kelso Colony
Kelso Memorial Field
April 7, 2130
Game One of a Three Game Series at Kelso Colony Comets

Jacob Nystrom did not like Kelso Memorial Field. Compared to the Max, it was tiny and dirty. It was older than his home field, and used by the Comets since 2128, and then before that, the Kelso Colony Jackhammers in the old Jupiter League. Like the rest of the agricultural colony, the whole stadium smelled like stale vegetables and food. Although he probably had Kelso to thank for being able to eat heartily wherever he was, it did not mean he had to like where it came from.

Being who he was carried a bit of spectacle wherever he traveled; as the son of the famous Chelsea Nystrom, the former heir apparent to the single season home run record, there were a lot of expectations upon him. This is why he went high in the initial draft when he declared his eligibility from Gerrold Tech Secondary School. Hope Station drafted him first, as they had first pick that year. His scouted ratings all said he would be a superstar in the next five years, and the Giants wanted everyone to remember where he came from.

The Giants front office treated him like a living legend, as survivors often did. Tessa Bonneventure, on the other hand, treated him like a shortstop. He appreciated that, although at times he found the worshipping to be very pleasurable, especially when he had time to cash some of it in for a free meal, or maybe the attentions of a female fan from time to time. He was eighteen years old and allowed his hormones to run wild. He found it difficult to be eighteen and around women who not only shared his passion for baseball, but played as well as he could. Though he would not admit it, he knew that at least Mariposa Quintara could park the ball better than he could. If anyone was the real heir to his mother’s name, it was her.

What he liked most about being a ballplayer was the pampering by the staff. Free food, free lodging, free room service, he did not have to handle his own luggage, and he had his own private quarters aboard the Frozen Rope.

It was the top of the sixth inning, and the Giants were down by two. Mariposa Quintara stole second after grounding into the fielder’s choice and forced Kay-Jay out at second. It was up to him to bring her home so they could halve the Comets’ lead to one run. On the mound for the Comets was Regina Meyer; their number two starter.

Meyer was more of a groundout/flyout kind of pitcher; she relied heavily on the defense to field the pitches that made contact and although she had nine strikeouts, those were usually against the opposing pitcher or a very poor batter. This was Jake’s third at-bat and he grounded out and flied out, but he was sure to get her timing down, because Meyer only threw three kinds of pitches with a decent fastball, a slow sinker, and a slider without much movement on it. He was ready for any of those pitches as he waggled the bat above his head.

The Comets’ pitcher set, wound up, and tossed her fastball, and he swung the bat around to make solid contact with it. He went the opposite way to left field as his frozen rope touched down before the left fielder for a base hit. Quintara was wheeling it hard around third and the third base coach gave her the green light to beat the throw. Jake stood atop first base, smiling toward the dugout as the first run for the Giants posted on the scoreboard in right field. No one cheered, but then, the Comets did not have much draw in the colony. In a stadium that housed nine thousand, not even half of the seats were filled.

He made eye contact with Tessa in the dugout, and she put on the steal sign. Jake responded with his acknowledgment, and got ready by watching the pitcher. Meyer did not have a changeup in her repertoire, so he ran on anything. Unfortunately, his lead was not as large as he liked and the throw from the catcher hit the glove of Greg Vanalstyne, the Comets’ second baseman, and made contact with his leg before Jake’s foot could touch the bag.

Third out.

After grounding out their catcher, Casey Lagrange gave up another hit to the Comets in the bottom of the sixth, when the left fielder Christine Barajas parked his slider into deep center field over five hundred fifteen feet away. It was the second time Barajas homered against Lagrange in that game, the first one in the fourth inning, measured at exactly five hundred twenty feet. After Barajas stomped on home plate, Quintara walked to Lagrange to calm him down. Jake had never seen such a fragile ego in his life. He wondered if maybe the guy needed more time at Central to regain some confidence before coming back. If they were going to win, they would have to take him out, and once again credit him with a no decision for six innings of work. He looked over toward the dugout, but Tessa never moved from her position. Expelling his breath in frustration, he walked over to the mound to participate in the discussion. “What’s going on, guys?”

Quintara wore a large block C on her uniform, now. He heard that Tessa made her the team captain, so now he had to concede to her on the field. She looked at him with minor annoyance. “Just having a little chat, Jake. Why don’t you go back to your position?”

“Well, I thought I might offer up a tip. Greg Vanalstyne is notorious for his groundouts. Keep the ball low and inside; he’ll hit it right to me,” offered Jake. “Also, Jesus Acha after him, low and away, same problem. He’ll inside out it to me. Bam, we’re in the seventh.”

Casey looked at him as if he were about to cry. “Thanks, Jake. Should we try that, Cap?”

Quintara nodded. “Let’s give it a shot.”

They all returned to their respective positions, and Casey reared back and tossed his fastball low and inside. Greg hacked at it the first time, and fouled it off the second time. On the third pitch, he finally made solid contact, but the ball just rolled along the grass to Himuro. Bernie charged the ball, scooped it up and shot it across the diamond to Les D’Agostino. Two away.

The third out came when Acha surprised Jake with a line drive at his face. Bringing his glove up to catch it before it broke his nose, Jake felt the adrenaline surge through him, but calmed down to toss the ball at the mound and head in for the top of the seventh. Quintara ran up next to him and patted him on the shoulder. “Good tips, Jake. Did you study tape on them that I didn’t see?”

Jake smiled. “Nah, Greg and Jesus are Gerrold Tech classmates. Same as me. We all played varsity together.”

Quintara returned his smile. “Nice. Do they have any dirt on you, Jake?”

“No way, Cap. I’m perfect.”

Tessa snorted, eavesdropping on the exchange.

Mathilda “Tilda” Guerrero took her practice swings in the on-deck circle and then stepped into the batter’s box to face Meyer. On the first pitch, she swung hard and roped it into the right field corner and ran like her life depended on it. By the time they tossed it back into the infield, Guerrero had her first triple of the season.

Jake and the rest of the Giants cheered loudly. Jake slapped the metal frame repeatedly with both hands. They were the only ones cheering in the stadium, and they were loud enough to echo within the dome. “Yeah!” he screamed. “Go Tilda!”

Tessa turned to backup first baseman Donnie Vigna. “Donnie, grab a bat, you’re pinching for Big Mac!” Big Mac was Macintyre Jabert, the starting second baseman. Big Mac was hitting poorly against Meyer, as was Patrick Fortenberry. “Joey, you’re pinching for Patrick, so get ready.” She grabbed her lineup card on her personal device as the two backups did as they were told. In moments, the changes were transmitted to the umpires and the Comets’ manager. She put in Donnie for Mac and Joey Wiggins, Quintara’s backup, to pinch hit for Patrick.

Wiggins was a switch hitter, while Vigna batted right. Against a righty like Meyer, they both read the ball better than the starters. Tessa was obviously playing numbers with the Comets in trying to get Tilda home from third. A sacrifice fly would do, and she gave Donnie those instructions exactly. But, he failed when Meyer induced a groundout. It was obvious they were not going to let them try to put the ball in the air.

Joey was not a fast runner, but Tilda could fly low. Tessa changed her instructions to Wiggins, telling him to lay down a bunt. Then she told Tilda to steal home. Jake’s respect for Tessa grew enormously as he watched her put the play in motion. It was gutsy and even if it failed, they would be better for trying than not.

As soon as Meyer went into motion, Tilda did, too. Her cleats clawed at the dirt and kicked up behind her. Joey pushed the bunt up the first base line as Meyer came off the mound to cover the bunt. By the time Meyer had the ball in position to throw, Tilda already touched home, so the only play was to get Joey out at first. Once again, the Giants pulled to within one run of the Comets.

Once again, the Giants cheered thunderously from within the dugout.

After the cheering died down, Jake realized that Casey was at the bat. The skipper was going to let him stay in the game? He was dumbstruck, and the respect she earned from him with the gutsy call lessened some. He grabbed his ballcap in anticipation of the strikeout, and three pitches later he was back at short, tossing the ball around to keep loose.

Gone was Patrick, Big Mac, and Les. In came Donnie at first, Shelley Coca at second, and Simon Rezendes in left field. Shelley was a capable utility infielder, but he questioned Simon’s ability at times. He sometimes lost focus in the middle of the game and it was pretty aggravating. It was the reason why Simon never started. Another plus to working with Bernie at third and Shelley at second was the fact that the both of them were incredibly attractive.

Casey tossed a fastball toward the Comets’ right fielder in the batter’s box, and he slapped it over Jake’s head and into left field before Simon could get to it. No outs, a runner on first.

Before Jake could feel frustration at Casey’s inability to keep runners off base, the pitcher astounded everyone by tossing a pickoff throw to Donnie and successfully picked the Comet off the bag! Jake almost jumped with elation, but instead pumped his fist and slapped his glove. Everyone around him had their index finger in the air, signaling one out along with large grins on their faces.

They pulled their shortstop in favor of a pinch hitter; a bench warmer that Jake had never seen before. He looked pretty confident in his stance and could almost see the contact hitter screaming to get out. He knew he was going to get on base, and the pinch hitter did just that after slapping away Casey’s sinker into the gap in left centerfield.

Casey tried to pick him off twice, but there was no repeat performance, there. Kelso Colony pulled their pitcher for another pinch hitter, and he flied out to right. Casey managed to strikeout their leadoff hitter, Juan Dueno to end the inning.

The top of the eighth brought Bernie, Shelley, and Kay-Jay. If Bernie and Shelley managed to get on base, Jake would be grabbing for his bat and helmet and ready to perform. He cheered when Bernie laid down a bunt single along the third base line to pull the relief pitcher, Michael “Tricky” Trawick off the mound to field it. Then as Shelley was preparing to go take her first at-bat of the season and her career in the majors, Tessa pulled her.

“Billy!” shouted Tessa to William Frisby. “Grab your bat and take a cut for Shelley.”

No need to ask the guy twice; he dashed out there, ready to show his stuff. Billy Frisby settled into the box after warming up quickly. He looked very uncomfortable in the box, Jake thought. He was obviously nervous and knew that he was in a position to be a hero. The first pitch from Tricky landed low and away, ball one. The second pitch was outside, ball two. The first strike against him came when the fastball cut out and then in, and Billy took a swing at it and fouled it into the stands along the first base line.

Jake noticed something and shouted out, “Hey Billy! Keep your damn elbow in!”

Having stepped out of the box, Frisby nodded and smiled at Jake and returned to his batting stance. When the next offering from Trawick sailed into the strike zone, William Frisby kept his elbow in and swung hard. The ball sailed up and into the dome, hitting a catwalk before returning to the field. The ground rule home run measured at a project five hundred twenty seven feet to deep left center. Bernie came home, and the whole club came out of the dugout to congratulate Billy as he stepped on home plate.

“Billy, you magnificent bastard! You knocked the crap outta that one!” Jake could not help himself from hugging the pinch hitter and carrying him back into the dugout in triumph while the Giants continued to celebrate.

Kay-Jay and Quintara quieted the dugout with their failures to get on base, and then it was Jake’s turn to possibly add some insurance to their lead. He wanted to tear the cover off the ball to help the club. But Tricky had other ideas and threw him junk; two nasty splitters and the one fastball he did make contact with popped up to the first baseman. As the ball went sailing up into the air, Jake cursed angrily at himself for being impatient. The inning was over, but they had the lead and a chance to add another win to their streak.

Lagrange stayed in the game, again to Jake’s astonishment; but the shaky pitcher solidified with the lead intact. Billy Frisby earned the right to stay in the game, and Shelley was replaced by a kid named Pete Gordon. Kay-Jay moved to left, and Billy took over center. Casey struck out the first batter, then induced two popouts to bring them back to the top of the ninth.

The Giants’ half of the ninth was equally as uneventful, although Donnie Vigna got on base, it would be Casey Lagrange who grounded out to retire the side.

Ever since the start of the ninth the closer, Quentin “Q-Ball” Longshore, had been tossing in the bullpen to prepare to save the lead. If Tessa had intended to replace Casey with Q-Ball, why didn’t she pinch hit for him? He realized the answer to the question when he returned to the dugout: there were no more bench warmers. Tessa used everyone! Jake laughed to himself.



Once Q-Ball settled on the mound, that was it. The closer was lights out against the Comets and with three strikeouts and the save, closed the game and the Giants won. The streak was now at four games, and they shared second place with no one!

---

Even though the colony provided accommodations, Tessa insisted that the Giants stay aboard the Frozen Rope. The shuttle held their home away from home, including a workout facility and their archive of opposition research. It was like having a mobile front officer at times, with administrative personnel administering to their needs without having to pay for hotel stays. There was no need to get food unless the players had a desire to sample the local cuisine, and in this case, Kelso’s food was second to none. The smell aside, the food was delicious and everyone parties at Esteban’s Bar & Grill.


Esteban’s offered what critics called “comfort food;” offering a wide selection of recipes from hamburgers and French fries, to burritos and lasagna. The bar & grill tried hard to come up with newer and better offerings, branching out to include various ethnic selections. The owner and proprietor of the restaurant was a man named Esteban Edwards. Esteban was legendary within the Corridor and beyond, for providing meals to ships, residents, and whoever ordered long-term delivery and could pay for it. Rumor had it that some of the richer people on Hope Station had accounts with him for weekly deliveries of freeze-dried meals by slow freight.

The Giants loved it, eating there for the first time as a club. Even Tessa and the coaches indulged in their variety, mixing it up and adding some alcohol to those who were old enough to imbibe it. They had a lot of eighteen to twenty year olds on the team, but in spite of the manager and coaches’ attempts to keep them from the drink, they managed to sneak a few here and there.

“Knock it off!” shouted Tessa after it was beginning to get late. “We’ve got two more games, and I don’t want a bunch of hungover morons playing tomorrow. Let’s try to keep this win streak alive.” She looked at Mariposa for support.

Jake also looked at Mariposa, who appeared to be having a good time.

The catcher stood up and nodded. “You heard Skip. Let’s settle the bill and get some sleep.”

“Aw, c’mon, Cap!” said many of the kids still enjoying themselves.

Tessa had had enough. “Bed! Now!”

The youngsters snapped to, running for the docking bay to get back aboard the shuttle. Quintara chuckled. “This is why I said I would’t make a good captain.”

“Sorry to put you on the spot there, M. I had hoped they would listen to you,” replied Tessa.

After everyone had finished filing out and the restaurant was almost empty, Jake kicked back in his chair once and then stood up, stretching. “Thanks for the food, Skip.”

Mariposa looked at Tessa, and gestured with her head toward Jake. “Now’s a good a time as any.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Tessa said, “Y’know Jake... Mariposa mentioned you offered some advice on several occasions to your teammates to help them along. Both times, it was key to getting us ahead. You passed on some knowledge to your team and helped us succeed. It’s more than others have done, and I’d like to encourage that.”

He blushed under the words of his manager. “Well, I’d like to say that you calling for the squeeze play with Bernie and Joey Wiggins was impressive and a brilliant move,” replied Jake. Off the manager’s look and Mariposa’s amused expression, he stammered, “And I don’t mean that to sound like I’m brown-nosing or anything. I mean, I just wanted to tell you what I thought.” How much had he had to drink?

Tessa smirked. “Thank you, Jake. Anyway, the reason why I bring this up is that Mariposa mentioned to me tonight that she thought you might be an excellent candidate for assistant captain. There will be two, and you’ll work with the infield.”

“Assistant captain?” asked Jake. “Shouldn’t that be Les? I mean, he’s first base and he’s got way more experience than I do.”

Mariposa looked away and Tessa appeared to be uncomfortable. Jake put it all together.

“Les isn’t going to be around much longer, is he?” It was obvious, especially since Les had not been producing in the three spot or his recent move to the seventh spot. The guy was producing no runs or even advancing any runners. “Where are you sending him?”

“I can’t confirm or deny that right now,” said Tessa evenly.

“Poor Les,” lied Jake. “I’m really going to miss that guy. Are you going to cut him tomorrow morning or wait until we get back to the station?”

“Again,” stressed Tessa. “I can’t...”

“... confirm or deny, yeah, I got it. Can we stop playing games, here? You want me to be the assistant captain, then maybe I should hear about some of the moves?”

“Well, it concerns the infield, so yeah. We’re going to give him one more chance tomorrow in the two spot. If he goes oh-for-whatever, then we’ll bench him and replace him with Donnie and bring up that Upton girl from Northern in time for the home stand against Callisto,” admitted Tessa. The Northern Nine was the double-A affiliate on Hope Station. On the uppermost deck of the space station where the Max was located, was also a twenty-five square mile metropolis and farmlands. All of their minor league clubs were contained on the space station along with the major league club. “There’s no need to shuttle her out here right now, anyway.”

“Unless Donnie gets hurt,” offered Jake.

Tessa explained her plans. “If that happens, we can use Pete Golden at first for a couple of games. Besides, it’s only two games.”

Jake nodded his understanding. “All right, then.”

They walked together silently to the shuttle, all of them having been exhausted by the day’s events. After Tessa parted from them, Mariposa turned to Jake and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t disappoint me, Jake.”

Jake bristled. “You recommended me.”

“Yes, I did,” confirmed Mariposa.

“If you think I will disappoint you,” he replied in a hostile tone, “maybe you should reconsider.”

She did not say anything for a long while. “It’s too late for that.”

He sighed, realizing that he might have taken her words to be an attack on him. “I’m sorry I said that.”

“You’re tired,” she tried to explain it away.

“That’s no excuse. Look, I’ve seen the way you’ve handled the pitchers lately and I think you managed to get some improvement out of them. You deserve to be our captain. I’m just not so sure I deserve to be your assistant,” admitted Jake. He was shocked at his own admission; he would have never said something so personal to anyone.

Mariposa smiled at him. “I said the same thing to Skip when she told me I was her captain.”

Jake took some solace in that and nodded with a small smile. “Well, then, I guess we’d better lead by example and get to bed now. We have a game to win tomorrow night.”