Forging Zero (31 page)

“Takki
have delivered night-wear to your barracks,”
Nebil
finally said. 
“The sun will disappear in three hours and return in another
four days.  The ferlii branches trap in the heat and the spores act as
insulation, but the dark side of the planet often drops below freezing anyway. 
As soon as the formation is over, you will don your night gear and continue
wearing it until the night cycle is over.

“Until
then, I want your minds sharp.  Prime Commander Knaaren has decided to inspect
you.  He’s finding all of our setbacks to be inconvenient and already suggested
Congress sell Sixth Battalion to one of his brothers, so you Takki sootwads had
better be on your best behavior if you want to stay out of a Dhasha’s slave
pens.

Libby’s
voice broke through the silence, loud and angry.  “We’re not slaves.”

Nebil merely
glanced at his protégée and Joe felt a pang of jealousy.  If
he
had done
that, Nebil would have pounded him flatter than a pancake. 

“If
you fail to learn, Congress has every right to sell you.  Your species is still
very new and very rare, so Dhasha will pay enormous prices for Humans.  The
Army can fund twenty ships for a year just from the sale of one dysfunctional
battalion.  You’re a novelty, plus you have no scales, so you’re easy to eat. 
That makes you high-demand, and the Dhasha hold a lot of sway in Congress. 
They’ve already had several bidding wars over which Dhasha planet gets the
first load of Humans to fail training.  If you want to avoid that, you need to—”

“I
will take the platoon from here, Battlemaster.”
 
It was the first time Joe had seen Commander Tril since landing on Kophat, and
his presence now seemed ominous.

Battlemaster
Nebil stiffened bodily, then slowly stepped out of the way without looking at
Tril.

Commander
Tril moved to the front of the platoon and his eyes locked on Kihgl’s
kasja.
 
“You can’t wear that, Zero.  Bring it to me.”

“It’s
mine,” Joe blurted.  “Commander Kihgl gave it to me.”  That morning, Nebil had
told him to wear it openly, that it deserved to be on the outside of his
sleeve, not hidden under his clothing in shame.  He knew he should be relieved
Tril would take it from him, but after seeing the golden designs engraved on it
after waking, the thing had grown on him.  Besides, it was Kihgl’s.  Not
Tril’s.  “Commander Kihgl gave it to me.” 

A look
of satisfaction crossed Commander Tril’s face. 
“Commander Kihgl is being
tried for treason,”
Tril said. 
“I am now secondary commander of Sixth
Battalion.”

Joe
felt like he’d been punched in the gut.  Nebil, too, looked similarly upset. 
The battlemaster looked away, his sudah flipping wildly in his neck.

Tril
pointedly eyed the triangle on Joe’s chest. 
“You can give me the
kasja
or you can lose Squad Leader.  Pick.”

Joe
stared at Tril, feeling the beginnings of hatred.  For some insane reason, he
wanted to tell Tril to get stuffed, keep the armband, and lose his rank.  The
kasja’s
golden alien designs easily could have fit on the shelves beside the collection
of Celtic armbands and neck ornaments that his dad had pounded out of silver at
the base hobby shop.  He opened his mouth to tell Tril where he could stuff his
demands. 

“Give
it to me, Zero.”
  Nebil stepped forward. 
“I’ll
see you get it back.”

Tril
stiffened. 
“He won’t get it back unless I give it to him, Battlemaster.”

Battlemaster
Nebil ignored him, his sticky brown eyes holding Joe’s. 
“You’ll get it
back,”
he repeated.

Even
after beating him and running him until Joe was puking like a dog, there was
something about Battlemaster Nebil that Joe trusted.  He reluctantly tugged the
kasja
over his bicep and lowered it into Nebil’s open tentacles. 
Battlemaster Nebil tucked it under his arm and went back to formation. 

“I’m
turning it in to the Peacemakers,”
Tril snapped. 
“Give
it to me.  It belonged to a traitor.”

“It
belongs to Zero now,”
Nebil said, making
absolutely no motion to obey.

Commander
Tril’s sudah were fluttering rapidly as he glared at Nebil.  After a long
silence, he snarled,
“Get them moving.  We’ve got two hours to teach these furgs
to march as a battalion.  We’re already underpowered and I don’t want Lord
Knaaren claiming any more of them than necessary.”
  Then he stalked off to
another platoon, leaving Nebil once more in charge.

Under
Tril’s orders, the ten Ooreiki battlemasters gathered their platoons and formed
them into a square five groundteams deep by thirty groundteams wide.  A sense
of urgency began to permeate the air as the Congies laid
out the basics of marching in a battalion.  Each recruit was to
keep an arm’s distance from the kid in front of him while keeping an eye on the
recruits to either side in order to stay in perfect line, their boots landing
in time to their battlemasters’ orders—which were given in Congie, not
English.  Joe only knew half of them, and he had memorized every word that Tril
had taught them on their trip here.

From
the start, all of the Ooreiki turned their translators off, so it was left to
the humans to decipher what they were trying to say fast enough to keep from
getting singled out for stupidity.  The battlemasters cuffed dozens of kids for
minor errors, and the recruit battlemasters got worse.  One was beaten bloody
for stepping forward when the order was to stop.  Another had her jaw shattered
when she missed a step and sent her entire column out of sync.  Sasha garbled a
command, confusing the platoon, and Commander Tril broke her arm for it.  Takki
came to spirit her away and Battlemaster Nebil made Libby take over in her
place.  Though Joe was initially worried for her, Libby somehow managed to
perform the drills perfectly, even in the alien language.  It made Joe feel
jealous listening to her smooth, confident commands.  Again, he thought,
That
should be me up there.
 

The
rest of the platoon was almost pissing themselves in fear.  As the Ooreiki’s
orders grew more frenzied, the recruits’ anxiety rose until all of them were
shaking, unsure what to expect next. 

It was
the most nerve-shattering experience Joe had ever had.  When Commander Tril
finally called a halt, Joe felt the mass terror emanating from those around
him, but their secondary commander either did not notice or did not care.

A horn
reverberated across the glossy faces of the enormous buildings.  Deep,
resonant, it made everyone jump.  Immediately, Commander Tril ordered them to
march to one corner of the cleared parade grounds.  Around them, black-clad
recruits were flowing into the plaza in perfect, sharp formation.  Joe glanced
at Sixth Battalion’s ragged columns and he felt a new wave of fear. 

Their
formation stood out amongst the others like a two-year-old’s attempt at
geometry mixed into an upper-division calculus assignment.

Their battlemasters
stopped them at one end of the plaza and had them turn on heel to their left,
leaving Joe in the front row with thirty other kids.

“Get
your fire-loving eyes on the ground!”
Commander
Linin shouted. 
“If a Dhasha’s inspecting, keep your heads lowered and your
bodies bowed like you gotta shit yourself.  And
don’t move. 
His
lordship Knaaren is a son of Prince Rethavn.  That means he’s a believer in the
Old Pact. 
That
means he can take you ashy furgs and make you pick his
scales or eat you, whatever burning mood he’s in.  Whatever happens, don’t move
unless you’re told to.  And never look him in the eyes.  Dhasha declare
ka-par
by looking each other in the eyes.”

Then
Tril, Linin, and the battlemasters left them, moving to join the other Ooreiki
standing in their own formation across the plaza.

This is
bad, Joe thought.  He stood as still as he could, despite the tremor in his
limbs.  Around him, a wild-eyed hysteria was spreading through the kids as they
stood there, waiting.  Most knew what it meant to be inspected by a Dhasha and
they were so frightened they were trembling.

A
commotion erupted at the far end of the plaza, but Joe kept his eyes down as
Linin had told them.  A girl beside him went pale, her eyes wide.  “It killed
someone.”

Joe
glanced down the rows at First Battalion.

A
grizzly-bear-sized monster was strutting down the ranks, a screaming, armless
girl thrashing on the ground in its wake, spreading blood over her stone-still,
wide-eyed companions.  A couple of the Takki trailing behind the monster
stopped to bind up the girl’s stump.  Then one of them picked up her discarded
rifle as they carried her away. 

For the
first time, Joe realized Sixth Battalion was the only battalion not carrying
their rifles.  He wondered what Tril had been thinking, making them march for
hours when it would have been better to grab their rifles and take two hours to
line them up perfectly before the Dhasha showed up.  They could spend time on
marching later. 
Now
was the time they needed not to look like sootbags.

“She’ll
be fine,” Joe said to the kids around him.  “Everybody look at the ground.”  He
hoped Tril’s marching frenzy hadn’t put the kids in a mood to bolt.  He had the
feeling the predator five battalions down would give chase and eat them alive.

Knaaren
passed the rest of the battalions with only brief pauses at each.  Then he was
there, filling Joe’s vision with a scaly rainbow of colors, his long black
talons digging into the glittering gravel at Joe’s feet as it moved.  The thing
was
huge.
  It radiated a sense of power that made the back of Joe’s
throat slick with fear.  Inwardly, Joe prayed the other children could hold
still long enough for Knaaren to pass by, but he heard the gasps and strangled
sobs just as well as the Dhasha.  Joe felt sick when Knaaren came to a sudden
stop in front of them.

A
harsh, guttural snarl erupted from the Dhasha’s enormous, sharklike mouth.  All
around Joe, children whimpered and cringed. 
“So this is the traitor’s
battalion,”
the translator around its neck said. 
“How pathetic.  I saw
you marching.  You move like frightened Takki.  You’re an abomination!  I
thought the others were bad, but you are worse.  It shames me to have you in my
regiment.  Are you afraid of me, Human slaves?  You, are you afraid of me?”
 
Knaaren lowered its head so he was staring directly at the girl in front of
him, his huge, gaping black mouth wide enough to engulf her.

The
girl stared at the ground, too petrified to speak.

“Answer
me!”

“K-k-kee,”
the girl whimpered.

“Good
answer.  You should be.  I should sell you all to my father.”
  The Dhasha continued down the row, stopping at Joe. 
“What
about you?  Are you afraid of me?”

Joe
could feel the monster’s rotten breath on his face.  The bottom row of black,
triangular teeth were only inches from his neck, the impossibly huge,
egg-shaped green eyes boring down on him with the cold intensity of emeralds.

“Kkee,”
Joe said, staring at his feet. 
So scared I want to piss
myself.

The
creature moved on. 
“What about you?  Are you afraid of me?”

The
girl in question snapped her head up, wide-eyed, and began to whimper an
unintelligible garble of fear.

In an
instant, the black jaws descended, snapping her in half.  The lower body and
some loops of intestine fell to the ground, knees first.  For a moment, Joe
wasn’t completely sure he hadn’t imagined it.  Then the children around the
torso began to scream and back away.

“Get
back into your lines!”
Nebil shouted at them. 
“Return
to your places or more will die!”

The
Dhasha, meanwhile, had wandered further down the ranks.  Joe was watching him
openly, now, fury rising in his chest.  Knaaren relieved two more kids of limbs
for minor infractions before circling around the back and returning to stand a
few children away from Joe.

“My
slave is right.  You all smell like cowards.  Where are your rifles?  You dare
come to a battalion inspection without your rifles?  You sniveling Takki!  I
bet there’s not one amongst you who will look me in the eyes.”

Joe felt
a cold tendril of fear curl in his gut. 
Don’t do it,
he thought.
 Please don’t do it.

Apparently,
the other kids were either too smart or too scared to look up.  Everyone kept
their eyes focused solidly on their feet.

Except
Joe.  He was too busy glancing around to make sure the other kids were keeping
their eyes down.

“You.”
  The Dhasha stopped in front of Joe. 
“You’re not staring at
your feet like the rest of the Takki.  You must enjoy being so big.  Do you
bully the other children?  Do you take their food and steal their gear?  Answer
me!”