Forging Zero (32 page)

“Anan,”
Joe said to his feet.

“Why
not?  Isn’t that what Kihgl taught you?  Take from your comrades instead of
share?  Pretend to clean their scales so you can drive a talon through their
innards?  The traitor contaminated you all.  Look at me.  I would see your
face.”

Heart
pounding like a hammer in his brain, Joe tore his eyes from the ground far
enough to look at the Dhasha’s massive chest.

“I
said look at me!”

“I am
looking at you,” Joe said, continuing to stare at the iridescent chest. 

“What
did you say, Human?”

“I said
I
am
looking at you.”

“The
Takki has a spine.  Look me in the eyes and tell me that.”
  The Dhasha poised above him, waiting to strike.

Joe
knew his next choice would mean either life or death.  He kept his eyes down.

The
Dhasha’s colorful lips peeled away from its triangular black teeth and Joe saw
pieces of the other children stuck between the razor rows.  It began to bark in
Joe’s face, clacking its teeth together like knives.  Sprayed with blood and
saliva, Joe thought he was going to puke.

As
quickly as it had begun, the Dhasha closed its mouth and moved on.

“I
like the look of your fingers, girl.  By the laws of the Pact, I claim you for
my service.”

The
girl the Dhasha had chosen stumbled out of line with an uncomprehending look at
the purple Takki tugging her away from the rest.

“And
him.  He doesn’t have the look of a warrior.  He’ll do well as a slave.”

The
Takki tugged the boy out of formation and Knaaren moved on.  A new sort of anger
filled Joe.  The Dhasha was taking
slaves
.  Right out in the open!  And
no one was going to stop him.

Knaaren
made a barking sound of disgust. 
“You’re not warriors.  You should all be
slaves.  Him.  He’s a fat one.  I could use him tonight.  Him.  And her.  And
her.”
  The Dhasha made another full circuit, circling Tril’s battalion once
more, claiming over two dozen children.  He stopped back in front of Joe. 
“Him.”

Joe
braced himself as the Takki rushed toward him. 

But it
wasn’t Joe that Knaaren wanted.  It was Elf.  The Takki took him out of line
and dragged him to stand amidst the whimpering, white-faced children following
the Dhasha in a frightened mass.  Joe could do nothing but watch, stunned and
relieved, and shamed at his relief.  Shamed to his core.

“There. 
That should suffice for now.  If you continue to fail in your training, I’ll
take more.  Until then, you may share the other battalions’ day of liberty,
even though you haven’t earned it.”
  At that,
Knaaren padded toward the next battalion.  The desperate look that Elf gave Joe
as they led him away seared Joe’s memory like a curse.

After
another hour of terrifying the recruits further down the line, Knaaren
departed, taking his slaves with him.  He hadn’t claimed a single recruit since
taking the two dozen from Sixth Battalion.  Once he was gone, the Ooreiki
descended upon them.  “You got off easy,” Commander Tril told them.  “He only
took twenty-eight.  We still have a chance.”

“What
about the ones he killed?” Sasha demanded, her voice rigid with anger.  “Do I
get a replacement?”

Tril
glanced at the torso still splayed on the ground in front of her.  “He only
killed one.  The other two will get prosthetic limbs.  They should be back in a
day.”

“She
was in my ground team,” Sasha cried.  “Now we’re down to
four
.”

“Do you
wish to join them, recruit?  Recruit Battlemaster does not make you immune. 
Far from it.”

Sasha
seemed to shrink in on herself and shook her head.

“Then
do not argue.  A Dhasha can always find a place for one more.”

Joe
stared at Tril.  How could he threaten them like that after what they’d just
been through?

“We are
running out of time,” Tril continued, as if he had said nothing out of the
ordinary.  “Lord Knaaren looks at you unfavorably because of Kihgl’s treason. 
We will have to spend every free moment training, until you are better than the
others.”

The
shock was beginning to wear off and many of the kids were starting to cry.

“Silence
your recruits, Battlemasters!” Commander Tril snapped.  “Anyone who makes any
more noise will clean up the mess Knaaren made.”

Joe
felt a twist of rage in his gut, hearing those words.  Knaaren’s ‘mess’
included several partial bodies, bits of flesh, and gallons of blood.

“We’ll
use this day to practice,” Tril continued.  “Kihgl’s trial is scheduled in
eight days Standard.  We must be ready by then.”  Tril paused.  “And…I’m
sorry. 
Zahali.
  Kihgl was deranged, and many of you will pay for it.”

As he
said the words, Nebil’s sudah fluttered suddenly and he looked to the side,
watching something in the distance.  Joe noticed his boneless fingers
tightening into ropy knots in front of him as Tril continued his explanation of
what had occurred with their secondary commander.

A
‘shame,’ he called it.  An ‘unfortunate inevitability.’  A ‘tragedy that it was
allowed to go on this long.’  Most of the battlemasters—and even Small
Commander Linin—seemed to follow Nebil’s lead in finding something else to look
at while Tril droned on about the expectations and responsibilities of a
secondary commander in the Congressional Army, and how Kihgl had fallen short.

And
why, once Kihgl’s crimes were discovered, Tril had been granted his rank as a
reward for bringing about the capture of a traitor.  For, Tril declared
proudly, it had been
he
who had discovered Kihgl’s treacherous nature
and
he
who had been responsible for making his corruption known to
Peacemakers.

One of
the battlemasters walked off suddenly, making Tril stop and give the Ooreiki’s
retreating back a narrow look.  When he went on, it was to discuss the possibility
that the ranks were filled with ‘sympathizers’ and ‘collaborators’ and to be
alert for any symptoms of disloyalty to Congress.  The Peacemakers, Tril added,
were offering ten turns off the enlistment of any recruit who could provide
information leading to the detainment and conviction of other defectors.

Joe
felt goosebumps crawl up his arms at that, but somehow kept his eyes forward.

Once
Tril finally finished and dismissed them, Nebil and the other battlemasters
broke the battalion into their ten platoons and began marching them to separate
areas of the plaza.

Thus began
the longest day of Joe’s life.

They
marched until their feet were blistered and their calves ached, got their
rifles and broke them down until they could see the individual parts every time
they closed their eyes, straightened their rumpled lines, received glossy new
helmets and learned about the onboard computers, gasped and retched as the battlemasters
ran them in formation around the plaza, listened to Congie curses until their
ears burned, and shouted
“Kkee nkjanii!”
until their throats were
hoarse.

By the
time Nebil led them from the plaza, they were barely able to put one foot in
front of the other.  They didn’t realize their torment was over until they were
standing at the base of a switchback black stair, facing the long climb back to
the barracks.

“Get up
there!” Battlemaster Nebil shouted at them in Congie.  “You’re not done yet,
you soot-eating jenfurglings!  Faster!  Faster! 
Run!”

The battlemaster
stopped them halfway up the six-story climb, telling them to do it again.  The
second time, they ascended the staircase even slower than the first.  Nebil
made them do it again.  And again.  They climbed stairs until Joe couldn’t tell
if he was going down or up, with the battlemaster pacing them easily every
time.

Joe
didn’t remember reaching the top.  Inside, Battlemaster Nebil had them check
their weapons for diamond chips and stack them into a locker at the end of
their communal beds.  Then they had to undress together, on command, taking off
each article of clothing and folding it as Nebil shouted out its name in
Congie.

They
stacked their clothing inside their lockers, under their guns.  Their boots
came last.  Joe had thought they were too heavy for regular boots—and he was
right.  As their heads bobbed with exhaustion, Battlemaster Nebil had them
break down their boots, uncovering the tools and weapons hidden within and
going at length to describe their names in Congie and how each could be used on
the battlefield. 

Then,
when they could barely keep their eyes open, Nebil made them stand beside their
big round beds in a circle with their groundmates and say,
“I am a
grounder.  These are my groundmates.  Apart, we are nothing.  Together, we are
a groundteam.  I will never abandon my groundteam and my groundteam will never
abandon me.  I will live with my groundmates, fight with my groundmates, and
when I die, my essence will be carried on by my surviving groundmates.  I will
obey the commands of my ground leader without question.   I am a grounder.”

Only
then could they crawl into bed.  Joe’s groundteam was down to five.  Elf had
not been replaced.

CHAPTER
15:  Called Out

“He’s
the one they predicted you’d save, isn’t he?”  Nebil’s voice was soft from the
dim hall outside his prison.

Kihgl
was slumped against one wall of his cell, staring at the floor.  He didn’t lift
his eyes.  “They’re recording everything about your visit.  If they find
anything they don’t like, they’ll try you as a traitor as well.”

“I
disabled it,” Nebil said.  “I got you into this mess with that damned
kasja
. 
Do you want me to get you out?”

Kihgl
wanted it more than life itself.  Yet he had to fight the urge to laugh.  “I
chose my path, Nebil,” Kihgl said softly.  “Don’t twine your fate with mine.  I’ll
only take you down the tunnel with me.”

Nebil
seemed to digest that a long moment.  “Why didn’t you kill him, knowing what it
would mean?”

Kihgl
looked up at Nebil.  His old friend looked agonized.  Softly, Kihgl said, “Would
you have killed him, knowing what he’ll do?”

Nebil
took a long time to respond.  “It was an honor to serve with you on Ubashin.  I
hope you can find peace with yourself before the end.”

“No
soldier does.”

Nebil
gave him a long, unhappy look, then nodded once and left.

#

As the eight days of intensive
training before Kihgl’s trial wore on, Joe drank up the information like
water.  That worried him.  He had to remind himself that he wasn’t going to
become a soldier, that he was going back to Earth.

And yet, everything here was so
easy
for him.  Marching was simple.  Tactics were a breeze.  And when he picked up a
gun… 

It was like the gun spoke to him,
whispering its secrets, baring its faults.

Back in school on Earth, he had
struggled through every class, just barely doing well enough to pass to the
next grade.  He went for the football and the friends, not for education. 
Here, he couldn’t stop learning.  His brain consumed every scrap of information
like it was starving.  He seemed to already have an innate knowledge of the
Congressional military, like everything the Ooreiki told him was already
floating under the surface of his subconscious and he just needed their words
to unlock it.  He soaked up the terminology, the strategies, the customs, the
weaponry—and craved more.

I’m becoming one of them,
Joe realized one night in horror.  He pulled out his dad’s Swiss Army knife and
rubbed his thumb along the smooth red plastic, thinking about home, ashamed he
had allowed himself to be brainwashed by the enemy.

The next day, Joe left others to
answer the teachers’ questions, deliberately made mistakes in the drills, and
purposefully dropped his rifle when Battlemaster Nebil passed out the
ceremonial weapons that they would need for Kihgl’s trial, naming them
otwa
.
   

Though Nebil said nothing else
about them, Joe knew that it was a design from countless years ago, one only
used for important events.  The gun felt old in his hands, a wizened thing of
beauty.  Its stock was formed from the same black rock that covered Kophat, and
the metal held a blue-white sheen.  He felt an instant respect when touching
it, knowing that it meant something special to the aliens.

I’m not one of them,
Joe
thought suddenly, his admiration shutting off as if a switch had been flipped
in his mind.
 
I’m not going to fight for them.  I’m going home.
 

The next morning, when Nebil
showed them how the
otwa
worked, Joe pretended to be baffled.  As an
older model, it was more complex than anything Joe had taken apart thus far. 
It had over twenty pieces, all fitting together in odd and complex ways. 
Inside the outer layer of stone, strange interlocking pieces of different
metals and compounds fitted together in ways that seemingly defied all logic. 
Faking ignorance was easy when the rest of the kids were completely bewildered
by it.