Forging Zero (48 page)

“Burn
that,” Linin said.  “You get the tunnel we give you.”

Frustrated,
Joe started firing at the movement in the shadows.  “Fourth Platoon’s got
cover!  Second and Third jump in there!”  Libby squatted beside him and opened
fire.

“Burn
it, Zero.  Take your own platoon down there.”
  Joe
recognized the speaker as Third Platoon’s battlemaster.

“You
know, the nine tics doesn’t start until you get off the haauk
,”
Commander Linin said casually, leaning against the skimmer’s armored side.

“
Someone’s
gonna have to get in there,” Joe shouted.

“We
could sure use some grenades,” someone muttered.

“That
would plug the tunnel,” Commander Linin commented behind them.

Joe
frantically tried to figure out what to do.  Two attackers had already been hit
and the game hadn’t even started yet.  He peered into the darkness of the
tunnel.  There couldn’t be more than two defenders down there.  The attackers
had them outnumbered, but none of them wanted to climb out of safety and go
press their advantage. 

Joe
surveyed First Company.  They had pulled away from the hatch in the massive haauk,
huddling down and to the back to avoid the spray of goop.  Several of the kids
were watching him, and not all of them were from Fourth Platoon, either. 

Joe
took a deep breath.  The longer they waited, the more time the defenders would
have to reinforce their tunnel.  Steeling himself, he said, “Libby, Scott,
Maggie, Monk, down the hole!”  He got up and lunged through the open gate, down
into the dark pit, firing as he fell.  Libby was right behind him.  Seeing more
attackers pouring in after them, the defenders pulled back, shouting for help
from their companions.

Libby
started to follow the retreating defenders, but Joe grabbed her arm.  “No,” he
said.  “Fourth Platoon stays at the surface.”  She gave him an odd look, but
stayed.

Behind
him, the rest of First Company was pouring from the skimmer, swarming the
tunnel.  “Fourth Platoon hang back!” Joe shouted.  “We’ll protect our ass!”

If the
other Battlemasters heard, they were too busy shouting orders, pushing their
own platoons deeper into the warren.  Soon thereafter, one of them started
screaming.  In minutes, only Fourth Platoon was still in the entryway.

“I’ll
go keep watch,” Libby said, moving toward the rim of the pit.

“Wait,”
Joe said.  “Maybe if we make it look like the tunnel’s empty, they’ll come to
get us.”

Which
is exactly what happened.  One entrepreneuring squad leader rushed his recruits
across the surface, thinking to take them by surprise.  Joe and his squad
surprised them and disabled all eighteen without losing a single recruit.  Then
they waited, hunkered down in their pit, surveying the abandoned landscape for
any signs of another attack.  There were none.  They were alone.

Still,
Joe couldn’t bring himself to lead them back to the fight.

“They’re
all down below,” Scott said.  Like everyone else, he could hear the fighting
taking place over the headcom.  “Why’re we still up here, Joe?”

Joe
tensed, wondering if his groundmates had any suspicion of his fears.   He’d
been afraid Libby had begun to catch on, but when he looked at her, she said
nothing. 

How
are you gonna lead these kids if you’re goddamn claustrophobic?

Joe
glanced at his friends’ faces, his hands sweaty.  They looked irritated for the
lack of action, but they didn’t appear to notice he was procrastinating.  That
wouldn’t last long, though.  They were glancing at each other, then out across
the pitted clearing, obviously noticing the fact that there was no one here for
them to fight.  In his ear, the other battlemasters were demanding that Joe get
down there and help them.  Joe pulled off his helmet and took a deep breath. 
He was letting everyone down.  He had to do something. 

And
yet, the idea of leading them down into the darkness below made his guts clench
up in terror.  He already felt like he had to take a massive liquid dump, just
from the sheer proximity of the dark hole in the ground.  “Listen up,
everybody,” Joe managed, his voice cracking.  His hands, he noticed, were
shaking badly.  “We’re changing tunnels—there’s too much fighting blocking the
path to the flag with this one.  We’re gonna change to a different entry point,
but first I need a volunteer, someone to go out there and see if anyone shoots
at you.”

Several
recruits’ faces soured at that, but Maggie immediately raised her hand and said,
“I’ll do it, Joe!”

Joe
gave her a relieved grin.  “Okay, Mag.  Give your spare ammo to somebody.  Then
run out that way as far as you can until I tell you to come back.  Act like
you’re running scared.”  Joe pointed toward the other side of the clearing.

Maggie beamed
and handed her ammo to Monk.  Then she got up and crawled out of the pit.  When
nobody shot at her, she broke into a run.  Libby watched her as she crossed the
surface, her face unreadable.

“She’s
not getting shot,” Libby said finally.

Joe
called her back, and when Maggie returned, she was flushed and panting.  She
hacked up a lump of red from her chest and took her ammunition back from Monk.

“What’d
it look like out there?” Joe asked.

“Nobody
out there,” Maggie replied.  “I even looked down a few holes.  Everything’s
empty.”

Joe
slipped his helmet back on.  “Okay everybody, let’s go.”  He got up and led
them sprinting across the landscape, ignoring the other platoons’ shouts in his
headcom.  He found a tunnel entrance on the other side of the battlefield and
Joe only hesitated a moment, eying the height and width of the walls before
hurrying inside. 

Almost
immediately, they got lost.

“I
can’t see anything,” Monk muttered, after they’d been wandering for hours.  The
space was dimly lit with the glowing blue light of their guns, all the tunnels
looking the same in the underground maze. “Where are we, Joe?”

“We’re
lost, stupid.”  Sasha, who had been demoted to a grounder after her walking
episode three days earlier, was haphazardly gripping her rifle with one hand, leaning
against the tunnel wall with the same air of casual indifference she had borne
ever since losing her rank to Joe.

“Just
shut up, Sasha.”  Joe had finally given up on trying to get to the flag in the
center chamber and now just wanted to get them back to the surface.  He slumped
against the wall.  His hands were shaking outright, now.  He was using every
spare ounce of self-control trying to keep himself from panicking in front of
the little kids and he felt himself dangerously close to a breakdown. 

“Maybe
they ended the hunt,” Libby said.  “I haven’t heard anything in a while.”

“Me,
neither,” Joe said.  “But that could just mean the rest of the platoons are
dead.”  He cleared his throat, glad to have a distraction to take his mind from
the fact that he had spent the last several hours trapped and lost under the
earth.  Into his headcom, he said, “Hey, any other battlemasters out there?  This
is Zero, Fourth Platoon.  Can anyone hear me?”

There
was no reply.

“Well, soot,”
Joe said.  “If I could make this stupid thing work, I could tell you where we
are, but I can’t read Congie.”  Joe flipped his Planetary Positioning Unit away
in disgust.  In the gloom, Libby bent to pick it up.  The unit was surprisingly
sturdy, made from some sort of metal composite that refused to scratch, dent,
or bend. 

She
handed it back to him.  “Nebil said we run laps ‘til our feet bleed if we lose
anything,” she reminded him.

“Thanks,”
Joe muttered.  He stuffed it back into his cargo pocket in disgust.

“Last
time the hunt ended, we heard it in our helmets,” Scott said.  “I haven’t heard
anything like that.”

“Maybe
we’re out of range,” Libby said.

“Out of
range?” Sasha scoffed.  “These things work in outer space.”

“There’s
a lot of diamond dirt above our heads,” Scott said.  “Maybe it’s blocking the
signal.”

Joe’s
skin grew slick and cold with the thought.  He closed his eyes and took a deep,
steadying breath.  “If the hunt was over, they’d send Takki after us,” Joe
said.  “So we’re still supposed to be trying to find the flag.”

“Then
let’s find the flag,” Libby said.  “It’s gotta be down here somewhere.”

“Scott,
which way’s the way we came in?”  Joe asked, able to only really think about
the surface at this point.  His hands hadn’t stopped shaking in hours.

Scott
sheepishly pointed to a wall of dirt.

“Fat
lot of good that does us!” Joe snapped, losing it.  Then, at Scott’s cringe, he
caught himself and took a deep, steadying breath.  The walls hadn’t closed on
him yet.  He was doing fine.  All he had to do was keep his cool.  He let his
breath out slowly.  “Can you get us out of here, Scott?” he asked.

Libby
shot him a glance and said, “Can you get us to the
flag?
”

Monk
sniffed.  “Maybe we’re at the bottom already.  We went down a
long
ways,
Joe.  Like my Uncle George in the mineshafts right before they collapsed and
they gave Aunt Susie that huge check.”

Oh
God,
Joe thought, his fingers reflexively
clutching his rifle. 
Oh God oh God oh God…

But the
other kids went on as if Monk hadn’t said anything out of the ordinary. 

“Seriously?”
Scott said.  “A check?  Like how much of a check?”

“A big
house and new car and llamas check,” Monk replied.  “She bought llamas.  They
spit.”

“No
they don’t,” Maggie said.

“Do
too
,”
Monk retorted.  “One of them spat in my hair.  It was green and gooey.”

“My
grandmother had llamas,” Scott said.

“The
flag
,
Scott,” Libby reminded him.

“Oh.” 
He winced guiltily.  “Yeah, I dunno.” 

“Well,
how did you get us back home?” Libby demanded.  “Can’t you do the same thing
and get us to the deep den?  You said you felt the
city
, Scott.”

Scott
grimaced.  “Yeah, uh, okay.  If I knew where it was, I could get us there, but
right now, all I can do is guess.  Like, I can feel there’s a tunnel directly
underneath us, but that’s like twenty feet down.”

Twenty
feet down…
  Joe felt his face break out in sweat
and his heart start to hammer.  The flag, he knew, was always in the deepest
section of the tunnels.  They had to go
deeper
… 

“Joe,
maybe we should let Scott lead.”  Libby was looking at Joe, eying him a little
too carefully.

“I
don’t wanna lead,” Scott said, eying the empty black tunnel ahead of them. 
“The ones who lead get shot.”

“Try,
okay?” Joe managed.  “We’ve tried marking our path and turning left at every
intersection.  That just got us even more lost.  Maybe you should see what you
can do, okay?  We can’t get any worse off than we are right now.”

“Second
Battalion could find us,” Monk reminded them.

“Right
now, I’d
love
it if Second Battalion found us,” Joe retorted.  “At least
if Lagrah’s recruits found us, we could all get shot and we won’t end up having
to explain to Tril why we ran away.”

“We
didn’t run away,” Maggie said, frowning.

“I
know, Mag,” Joe said.  “But you gotta admit it looks pretty damn bad.  Scott,
how ‘bout it?  Think you can get us out of here?”

Scott
straightened, looking increasingly irritated.  “You want me to get us out of
here or find the flag?  Which is it?”

“The
flag
,”
Libby snapped.

“Too
bad!” Scott snapped back.  “I can’t do either.  It’s a burning
maze.
  A
sense of direction doesn’t mean jack shit if I can’t go where my head’s telling
me to go.” 

“Don’t
be an asher, Scott,” Joe muttered.

“
Libby’s
the asher,” Scott screamed.  “We’re
stuck
down here and we’re not
getting home and it’s her fault because she wouldn’t
listen
to me when I
kept telling her she was taking the wrong tunnels!”  He sat down and crossed
his arms over his knees.

A hand
touched Joe’s shoulder.  “Excuse me,” a kid said quietly.

Joe
rounded on him.  “What?!”

The kid
nervously pointed at Scott.  “Is that the kid that got your groundteam back to
Alishai before all the others?”

Joe
frowned at the newcomer.  “Yeah.  Why?”

The kid
blushed and dropped his eyes.  “I played a lot of video games before the
Draft.  Pyramid PI was almost exactly like this.  It was a huge Egyptian maze
with the Pharaoh’s tomb at the end.  I’m the only one I knew who could get all
the way to the tomb and then all the way out again without using the magic
transporter at the end.  If I can use Scott as a…a…”  The kid swallowed and
looked at his feet.