Forging Zero (39 page)

“Come
on,
Joe.  You’re gonna get in trouble!”  Libby had stepped back within the confines
of the barracks, leaving him alone with the civilian.

The
bright-clad Ooreiki looked from Joe to Libby and back. 
“Your name is Choe?”
 

“Kkee,”
Joe said reluctantly.  “Joe Dobbs.  Who are you?”

“Choe.” 
The Ooreiki youngster’s eyes began to gleam with excitement.  “Yuil.”  He
stepped closer and glanced inside the barracks. 
“Ghosts,”
he said in
astonishment,
“They make you live like the Jreet.  Where is your art?”

“I
don’t think the battlemasters care about art,” Joe said.  Around them, the last
children’s song was dying down and the barracks once more descended into
silence.

“Every
Ooreiki cares about art.  We did not evolve out of the darkness of the lower
canopy not to appreciate beauty.”
  Yuil flourished
his metal-tipped fingers toward the
ferlii
trees ringing the edge of the
city. 
“It’s an abomination that Congress makes us give up so many young
ones for the Draft.  To wear black all day—”
  Yuil’s sudah began to
tremble. 
“It’s unnatural.”

Joe
stared at the Ooreiki.  “You mean they don’t
want
to be soldiers?  Just
like us?”  He found it hard to believe Battlemaster Nebil and Commander Tril
might actually desire to wear the bright cloth of the civilians.

“Only
the Dhasha and the Jreet want to be soldiers.  The rest of Congress is filled
with lovers of peace.  That’s why there is a Congress.  Without it, the Jreet
would renew their wars with the Ooreiki and the Dhasha would eat us all.”

“So why
don’t you just kill all the Dhasha and stop drafting people?” Joe asked.

Yuil
glanced back to his friends. 
“As much as I love a good conversation, this
is not a subject I should be discussing in public.  Especially not around Army
property.”

“Then
take me somewhere,” Joe said.  “We can talk there.”

“Joe!”
Libby cried.

The
young Ooreiki hesitated, glancing at Libby. 
“Perhaps another time, Choe. 
It is too dangerous now—everyone is watching because of their singing.”
 
Yuil hesitated, then quickly got back on his haauk and floated away.

Joe
felt the lost opportunity like a knife in his gut.

“Come
on,” he muttered, stepping back inside the barracks and entering the alien code
to shut the door—it was remarkably easy, the same set of characters that meant
4-1-6, or Fourth Platoon, First Company, Sixth Battalion.  “Let’s go back to
sleep.”

#

Tril
caught Commander Lagrah’s arm as he approached Lord Knaaren’s elevator. 
“Commander, a word?”

Lagrah
nodded at his aides, who boarded the elevator and waited for him.  “Commander
Tril, I’m quite busy,” Lagrah said, turning to him with a tired look.  “Priests
from Poen have come to collect Kihgl’s remains, and my battalion is currently
preparing for a hunt.”

Tril
felt his sudah quiver angrily.  “That’s what I wanted to talk about.  Sixth
Battalion has been overlooked in the drawings for the hunts eight times now. 
No one is acknowledging my requests.”

“And
I’ll be surprised if they ever do,” Lagrah said, body rigid.  “You’ve doomed
your Battalion, Commander Tril.  There is much resentment for Kihgl’s death.”

Lagrah
had confirmed his fears.  Tril’s unanswered messages and lonely meals weren’t a
mistake.  The other Ooreiki were avoiding him.

“He did
that to himself,” Tril snapped.  “If he hadn’t taunted the—”

Lagrah
held up a hand scarred by onen.  “I am not arguing with you, Commander.  If you
hadn’t turned him in, someone else would have.  His lifestyle led to his
demise.  Still, Kihgl was loved.  The regiment feels you bear the
responsibility for his demise.”

“You
called for his death, Lagrah,” Tril retorted, disgusted that the
Ooreiki could not see his own hypocrisy.  “Not I.”

Lagrah
snorted.  “You furg…  The
last
thing Kihgl wanted was for the
Peacemakers to take him to Levren.” 

Tril
frowned at him, having to take a moment to comprehend the inference.  “You mean
you
wanted
him to die before he could be questioned?” he blurted.  Was
the whole
regiment
filled with traitors?

Lagrah
narrowed his eyes.   “Regardless of his fascination with the Fourfold Prophecy,
Kihgl deserved an honorable death.  There are many who would see you disappear
for what you did.  And plenty of them are capable.”

The
symbol of Planetary Ops—a single sphere with a diagonal slash through its
center, one half red, one half blue—stood out on Lagrah’s shoulder where he had
earned it from many years of tunnel-wars and special operations.  From many
years of killing.

“Is
that a threat?” Tril managed, taking a reflexive step backwards.

Lagrah
gave him a very long, cold look, then said, “I suppose the fact that Kihgl was
a better friend—and
oorei
—than you will ever be crosses my mind often.”

Tril
just stared at him, unable to speak.  The…
nerve
.  “I could tell the
Peacemakers—”

Lagrah
just smiled at him, his pale, elderly eyes filled with disdain.  “Commander Tril,
there are fifteen Planetary Ops veterans who were brought in to teach this
Human regiment alone.  How long do you think you will survive if you betray
another of your comrades to the Peace Corps?”

Tril
blinked.  He, a
yeeri
, was being threatened.  By a
vkala
.  It was
so utterly beyond his comprehension he could only stare.  After a long moment
of trying to compose himself, he said, “I am formally requesting for Sixth
Battalion to be included in the next hunt.”

Lagrah
just watched him a moment, then shook his head.  “Commander, your recruits are
not ready.”  He reached forward and touched his arm in a beseeching gesture. 
“Forget our personal differences for a moment and think of your charges.  Do
them a favor and wait.”

“It’s
been three weeks!” Tril snapped, shrugging off the
vkala’s
repulsive
grip.  “Three
weeks
, Commander.”

“And
they’re not ready,” Lagrah said.  “You’ll only humiliate yourself if you enter
your battalion in a hunt.”

Tril
stiffened.  He was a
yeeri.
  He refused to be told he was inadequate by
a Fire God.  It was beyond humiliating.  Forcing his body into rigidity, he
growled, “Every day the Sixth wastes preparing for the hunts, your battalion is
getting better, and we are being left behind.”

“Commander
Tril, you’re not the commander Kihgl was,” Lagrah said softly.  “The other
Ooreiki battalion commanders despise you.  If you take the Sixth out to the
hunts now, it’ll become the weakling the other battalions rip apart.  You’re
too inexperienced to keep your recruits from disintegrating under that kind of
pressure.  Had I to make the judgment, I would say only Battlemaster Nebil is
worthy of the job.” 

Yet
another
mention of Battlemaster Nebil’s supposed ‘worthiness’ made Tril want to
scream.  The impudent Ooreiki battlemaster had been a talon in his side ever
since Kihgl’s trial.  “If Nebil were ‘worthy’,” Tril growled, “he wouldn’t have
been demoted to battlemaster.  Repeatedly.”

Lagrah
gave him a tired look and appeared for a moment as if he wanted to argue, then
just shook his head.  “Tril, withdraw your recruits from this cycle and wait
for the next training schedule.  You would have a better chance if you started
with a new regiment.  Bring your papers to me and I will approve your request.” 
It almost sounded like…an
order
.

“My
battalion will enter the hunts if I have to write the invitation myself,” Tril
said, fingers knotting in fury.

Commander
Lagrah eyed the scars on Tril’s right hand where he’d been forced to remove the
adpi
to enter recruit training.  After a moment, he said, “The Army is
not like
yeeri
academy, Tril.  Failing here means death.  If you subject
your troops to hunts with this regiment, against commanders and battlemasters
who had once been Kihgl’s closest friends, your recruits will become like
beaten Takki.  Seeing that, the Dhasha will swoop down on them and eat what
remains.  They will all die for your pride.”

“My
pride is not the issue here,” Tril snapped.  “You just don’t want a
yeeri
crushing your pathetic battalion against his boot, you bigoted old ashsoul.”

Commander
Lagrah stared at him long and hard.  Then, softly, he said, “So be it.”

#

This
afternoon, like every day for the past week, Battlemaster Nebil was in a bad
mood.  He barked complicated commands in Congie, cursed them even if they did
their tasks right, and ran them down the glittering black roads until kids
began falling down puking.  Halfway through the afternoon, in a particularly
wrathful mood, he pulled out a white, arm-length switch that he began using on
every recruit who dared to make a mistake in front of him.

Finally,
Sasha made a minor misstep in her marching commands and Nebil laid the switch
across her back.  Instead of humbly falling back into place in front of the
platoon, she turned on the Ooreiki and shouted, “Stop hitting us!  It’s not our
fault he ate your stupid traitor friend!”

Nebil’s
entire body posture tensed and, without any other warning, the Ooreiki yanked
Sasha out of line and began whipping her with a violence Joe had never seen
before.  His huge Ooreiki arms lashed out with full force, the white switch
turning pink as it cut through the cloth of Sasha’s cammi jacket and into her
flesh.  His wet eyes glinting with fury, Nebil continued beating her until her
entire body was a mass of bleeding red welts and her Congie blacks hung from
her limbs in gory strips.  Even Joe, who had for weeks wished Nebil would do
that very same thing, felt nauseous watching the flesh peel from Sasha’s limbs
and back.

After
several minutes beyond the point where Sasha had finally stopped her piteous
whimpering and wasn’t even twitching anymore when Nebil hit her, Joe finally
couldn’t take it anymore.  “Stop it, you asshole!” Joe snapped.  He stepped out
of formation and grabbed Nebil by the arm.  “You’re
killing
her, goddamn
it!”

Nebil instantly
spun and took Joe by the throat, his stinging grip tightening on his neck like
a boa constrictor.  Looking into Nebil’s furious brown eyes, Joe knew he was
going to die.  His vision dimmed and he struggled for breath, his knees already
going weak as his brain was denied oxygen.

Suddenly,
Nebil stopped tightening his grip.  For a long moment, he just scowled up at
Joe, the gills in his neck flipping madly.  Then he released Joe and shoved him
roughly backwards.  “Get back in formation, Zero.”

Without
another word, Nebil dropped the switch and turned back to face Sasha’s limp and
bleeding form.  Looking irritated, he pulled a black box the size of a cigar
case from his vest.  He took out a silvery vial and a huge needle with a handle
that kind of looked like a tiny screwdriver.  Unstoppering the lid on the vial,
he dipped the tip of the needle into the silvery solution.  On the ground,
Sasha was much too pale.

Nebil
slackened the muscles in his lower body and pooled beside the girl.  He rolled
her onto her back and yanked her jacket apart, exposing her breasts.  As her
eyes widened and she feebly reached up to try and stop him, he stabbed her in
the chest with the silvery needle.  Every recruit recoiled in sympathy as
Sasha’s body jerked when the needle sank through her ribs, all the way to the
handle.  Then Nebil yanked it out, replaced needle and vial in their case, and returned
the box to his vest and stood.

“Take
your battlemaster to medical,” Nebil said brusquely.  Then, without another
word, he turned and strode off, the switch still on the ground where he’d left
it.

Libby
immediately walked up and broke the switch in half over her knee, glaring after
the Ooreiki.

“Come
on,” Joe muttered, stepping up to squat beside Sasha.  “Scott, Libby, help me
here.”  Joe grabbed Sasha’s arms, his groundmates each grabbed a leg, and
together they carried the unconscious girl to the front of the hospital. 
Ooreiki medics rushed out upon seeing them approach and began firing questions
at them about her condition.

“We
didn’t do it,” Libby snapped.  “Battlemaster Nebil did it.  Then
he stabbed her in the heart with a needle and walked away.”

The
medics seemed to think that was perfectly normal, because they stopped asking
questions and just relieved them of their burden.

Later that
morning, Battlemaster Nebil returned.  “Listen carefully, you Takki turds. 
I’ve got bad news—we’re finally doing a hunt.  That means your recruit battlemaster
will be working closely with your squad leaders to conduct you through the
exercise.”  Battlemaster Nebil once again carried a switch, though he seemed
content with pacing along the ranks, scowling at them.  “Squad leaders, this is
where you shine.  A squad leader is in charge of three groundteams.  It’s your
job to know exactly what each groundteam is capable of and use them to follow
your recruit battlemaster’s orders.  It is
not
your job to tell each
grounder what to do.  That is for their ground leaders.”