Coach Rick Stern got banned from spaceball for shooting a referee on live vid. Fifty trillion people watched it happen. In his defense, the guy had it coming.
Two years later he's broke, blacklisted, and asleep in a hibernation tube at the far end of the galaxy - exactly where he wants to be. Then a quintillionaire thaws him out with a job no sane coach would touch: build a team and win the Cup. In two weeks. In the middle of an interstellar war.
Every coach with any sense already said no. Rick was the last name on the list.
So he drafts the only roster he can get: pirates, felons, a teenage kicker, a retired sex robot who throws a perfect spiral and would rather maul you than flirt, and the ex-wife who once put a bullet in him. Spaceball was never about scoring. It's about the mauling.
What nobody mentions is that the Cup is bait - and sixty trillion people are about to watch someone try to end the war live on the broadcast, with Rick's whole team floating in the blast radius.
Win the game. Don't die. Ideally in that order.
MAUL BALL - a fast, filthy, foul-mouthed space comedy with a body count and a heart. Scoring is optional. The mauling is mandatory.*
For readers who take their science fiction with the safeties off - and like a washed-up disaster they can root for.