Forging Zero (46 page)

“What
the hell is going on?  Why’d the shooting stop?  Where are you, Fourth?”

“We’re
standing over the bodies of all the bad guys, asher,”
Maggie said.

Joe
scowled at her, but he couldn’t take the time to correct her.  Something about
the situation was bothering him.  “Someone else get that helmet.  This can’t be
all of them.  There’s more out there somewhere.”

“What
if they’re booby-trapped?” Monk asked.

Joe
frowned, watching someone from First Squad grab the helmet.  Booby-trapped?  If
they could bring people back from the dead and mend bones in a few hours, they
probably had the technology to incapacitate an enemy who was trying to use
Congressional equipment.

Before
he could say anything, however, that girl slumped to the ground, the helmet
still stuck to her head.

The
owner of the helmet was clearly as surprised as they were.  His eyes were
showing whites all around and he was obviously wondering whether or not he
would be blamed for their companions’ mysterious unconsciousness.

“Leave
the helmets,” Joe ordered.  “Monk says they’re booby-trapped.”  He nodded at
his groundmate, making her stand up straighter with pride.  “First and Second
Platoons, stay at the flag.  There’s more coming.”  He glanced at the
eighty-some children standing in the tunnel with him.  “The rest of you are
gonna help me find the rest of Second Company.”  He was only now beginning to
feel the pressure of the earth above him, and it was making his hands sweat. 

I’ve
got to get back to the surface,
he thought, with
growing anxiety.

The
rest of Third and Fourth Platoons were only now creeping around the corner,
crawling over the pile of corpses with their guns raised.  They hesitated when
they saw the two prisoners.  It took Joe a moment to realize they were all looking
at him, waiting for something.

“We
should shoot the prisoners, Joe,” Libby prodded.

Joe
grimaced.  “They surrendered.”  He knew she was probably right.  It would take
at least four recruits just to guard these two.  Still, they had surrendered. 
It didn’t seem like the honorable thing to do.

“Hey!”
Joe demanded of their ‘prisoners.’  “You two swear to stop fighting?”

They
both nodded vigorously, relief and gratitude flashing across their faces.

“Okay,”
Joe said, “Third Squad will keep watch on them.  Libby, your groundteam will be
in charge of guarding them.  Everybody else reload.  We’re going back to the
surface.”

The
second wave of attackers fell in the same way.  As soon as they were offloaded,
Joe had Fourth Platoon attack their tunnel and follow them down.  They took
half the second wave prisoner, leaving them with over a hundred captives after
all the attackers were either corpses or disarmed.

They
spent the next couple hours huddling in the pits, sucking on slime-sticks, the
captors playing tic-tac-toe with the captives.  When the Takki arrived to drag
the corpses out, they paused to give the captives an odd look before retreating
with their burdens.  One even paused to whisper to Joe in Congie, “Shoot them. 
Do them a favor.”

Joe
ignored the lizard.  Moments later, Commander Linin’s voice boomed in their
helmets,
“Everyone out of the tunnels for a battalion formation.”
 

When
they got to the surface, the prisoners’ battlemasters descended upon them in a
flurry of wrath.  As Joe and the other defenders were ushered into ranks, the
survivors in black were led to a separate formation facing the main one.  The
black-clad ‘corpses’ that the Takki had dragged from the tunnels were now quickly
being revived by an army of Ooreiki surgeons.  Revival, this time, was
practically instantaneous upon the feeding of the solution into the recruits’
veins, now that their commanders didn’t want to make the kids walk home in the
dark.  As soon as they woke, they were allowed to join Joe and the other
defenders in the main formation. 

Once
everyone was standing and accounted for, the battlemasters handed the Battalion
over to Secondary Commander Tril, who paced in front of the prisoners with a
cold, merciless stare.  The few days he’d been in charge of Sixth Battalion had
lightened his eyes by several degrees.  His skin was also beginning to lose its
rich brown-orange color, dulling noticeably by the week.

“Apparently,
you are unaware of Congress’s policy on surrender,” Tril said.  The tone he
used was so icy that Joe got goosebumps.  “The First Rule of a Congressional
soldier is to obey any and all orders that his superiors give to him without
question.  Do you know what the Second Rule is?”  His voice was ominously
quiet, his snakelike gaze never leaving the fidgeting group of black-clad
prisoners.

“It’s
never surrender.”  He said, his voice a whisper of rage.  “How
dare
you
surrender?!  This is just a
game!
  We are not even in a real battle and
you have the audacity to disgrace me and your battlemasters with
surrender?!”
 
He turned and retrieved a small black handheld device from his vest.  It
reminded Joe of the circular gadget the Ooreiki used to promote them, but this
one was thicker, stockier.

“I
suppose I should be grateful this happened now, before you ashy furglings did
it while Lord Knaaren was watching.  For that, I’ll only give you the weakest
punishment available to me.”  He held up the small black gadget.  “I’m sure you
all remember the day back on the ship when the doctors lodged a small device
into your chest.  It has several purposes, but one of them is to give Congress
an effective means of punishing its soldiers without causing lethal damage.  It
is the most absolute pain you will ever experience, because it releases small
impulses upon command that allow you to feel nothing else.”

Joe
stiffened.  Some of the prisoners in the front row were beginning to cry.

“This,”
Tril said, touching the black gadget, “is the controller that every battalion commander
carries around with him.  It’s indestructible, so don’t any of you furgs get
any ideas.  It has nine settings.  The lowest—what you are about to
experience—will leave you dazed for a few hours afterwards.  It also makes you
release your bowels, so it would be in your best interest to undress before I
use it.”

The
children glanced at one another tearfully, unsure what to do.

“He
said strip!” one of Second Company’s battlemasters snapped.

Still,
only a couple obeyed.

“Suit
yourselves,” Tril said.  “By the authority given to me by the Universal
Congress as your Commanding Officer, I hereby sentence you to the First Degree
of perceptual punishment.”  At that, he touched the black pad in his fingers.

A
hundred kids fell to the ground, shrieking.  It was worse than anything Joe had
seen in the mock battles.  This was long, unyielding agony.  At least the blue
goop killed them quickly.  Tril’s little black device gave them no quarter, and
did not allow them the relief of a fake death.  Joe grew sick watching and had
to close his eyes.  As he stood there, the stench of excrement filled his
nostrils and still they screamed. 

In that
moment, watching the kids writhe on the ground, Joe knew that he would always
hate Congress.  No matter what came in his future, no matter how many rewards
they gave him, he would always hate them.  Shaking, Joe had to turn away.  When
he did, he saw Battlemaster Nebil standing stiffly to one side, sudah whipping
silently in his neck.  He wasn’t watching the screaming children like everyone
else—he was watching Tril.

Exactly
twenty minutes after it began, Tril ended their torment.  The kids on the
ground gasped and stared blankly at the sky.  They lay like the dead, only the
rise and fall of their chests indicating they were still alive.

“Battlemasters,
tend to your platoons.”  At that, Tril turned and walked back to his haauk
.
 
Without another word, he flew away.

“Come,”
Battlemaster Nebil said, sounding tired.  “You owe me an hour for losing
Sixth’s battlemaster.”  He paused.  “And Zero, you get eighteen laps for your
sleeves.”

CHAPTER
22: 
Capture the Flag

Joe
wore his sleeves rolled up proudly the next morning, and caught more than one
strange look from other battlemasters and Ooreiki from other Battalions.  Nebil
had said absolutely nothing about them since he’d run his laps the night before.

“Where’d
you learn to do that?” Maggie asked as soon as she saw them that morning.  She
ran a fascinated finger along the band of cloth around his arm.  “I wanna do
that, Joe!”

“You
can’t,” Joe said.  “Nebil will make you run.”

“I
don’t care,” Maggie whined.  “I want to have my sleeves rolled, just like you,
Joe.”

Joe put
his foot down, however, and had to endure Maggie’s pout for the rest of the
day.  That night, when they formed up in the plaza for their nightly
inspection, Commander Tril saw Joe’s sleeves for the first time.

“Battlemaster
Nebil, have you lost your mind?” Tril demanded, coming to a stop in front of
Joe.

“Zero
chooses to run eighteen laps each night to keep them, Commander,” Battlemaster
Nebil said with a shrug.  “There’s nothing I can do.”

“Nothing
you can—” Commander Tril broke off in the middle of his sentence, gaping at
Battlemaster Nebil.  To Joe, he said, “Fix your uniform, recruit.”

“It is
fixed,” Joe said stubbornly.

“You
see?” Nebil said.  “Nothing I can do.”

Tril’s
sudah were fluttering wildly in his neck.  “Nebil, you will see me in my
quarters tonight.”

“I will
be sleeping in
my
quarters tonight, Commander,” Nebil replied.  “If you
want company, you should go back to
yeeri
academy and apply for
motherhood.”

Tril
stared at Nebil so long that other battlemasters started to fidget.  Nebil met
his eyes unflinchingly, his sudah utterly calm, hands twined casually behind
him around his switch.  Seeing that, Joe got the distinct idea that Nebil was a
moment away from using the weapon on Tril. 

Apparently,
Tril saw it, too.  Sudah fluttering madly, he spun and, without another word,
their secondary commander stormed off, leaving Nebil once more in charge of his
platoon.

“Well,”
Nebil said.  “Now that
that
unpleasantness is over, how do you pukes
feel about a little shuteye?”  His eyes caught on Zero.  “Except for you, you fire-loving
Jreet sooter.  You run laps.”

Joe
felt a surge of triumph that his battlemaster had the balls to stand up to
Tril.  A lot of the other battlemasters did not, and their platoons often
didn’t get enough to eat because Tril ordered them to do more drills than they
could reasonably fit in one day.  Joe found himself proud of the fact that Nebil,
despite Tril’s orders, made sure his platoon got three meals and a full night’s
sleep each night—as long as his recruits weren’t stupid enough to want to run
eighteen laps at bedtime to prove a point.

Joe ran
his eighteen laps that night grinning, finding this small means of rebelling to
be exhilarating instead of exhausting.  Each lap left him with more energy,
until he was running all-out, his head up proudly as he served his penance.

When he
finally charged up the stairs an hour after the other recruits had gone to bed,
Battlemaster Nebil was waiting by the door.

“Looks
like a member of your groundteam will be joining you tomorrow,” Nebil said as
Joe stepped inside.  Without another word, he touched the control pad and the
door dripped shut between them.

Joe
turned and saw Maggie with her tongue stuck in the side of her cheek, rolling
up her sleeves in big, childish bunches.  The other children in the barracks
were watching her silently, though they had enough sense not to follow her
lead.

Joe
groaned.  He knew Maggie would pass out before the tenth lap.  “Mag, what are
you doing?”

Maggie
wiped her face and Joe realized she had tears in her eyes.  “They don’t look as
good as yours, Joe,” she said.  “I can’t make them look that good.”

Joe
took her jacket and frowned at the crude little wads of sleeve she had made. 
He started to unroll them.

“No!”
Maggie cried.  “Battlemaster Nebil said I could have them!”  She
wrenched the jacket out of Joe’s hands and cradled it in her lap.  Soon she
began to rock back and forth, crying.

Joe
glanced at Libby.  “Did he?”

Libby
shrugged.  “He said she could if she wanted to run.”

“Damn
it,” Joe muttered.  “Mag, what are you
doing?”

“I want
to be a soldier like you, Joe!” Maggie wailed.  “I just want to have
sleeeeeves.”
 
She threw herself down on the bed, sobbing.

Joe took
a deep breath and squatted beside her.  “Mag.  Listen to me.  I’ll roll your
sleeves for you tonight, okay?  But I’m not rolling them again after that.  If
you take them out because you don’t want to run anymore, I’m not rolling them
back up again.  Got it?”