Forging Zero (63 page)

CHAPTER
29: 
Night Terrors

The
hunt the next day ended in humiliating defeat.  Sixth Battalion was too
exhausted from Tril’s drills the day before to mount much of an offense, and
Second was bright-eyed and quick to pick off careless attackers, doubtlessly
due to a good rest beforehand.

Tril,
as expected, called out a huge portion of recruits for real or imagined
failures and punished them in front of the battalion.  Then he sent them all to
the barracks without that evening’s meal.

That
night, the mood in the barracks was sour.

“We’re
not gonna have the energy to run down the tunnels if he won’t even feed us!”
Carl said.  “What’s he expect us to do?  Starve
and
win the hunts?”

“Second
Battalion had it easy,” Scott said.  “All they had to do was hole up in the
towers and pick us off.  How were we supposed to know there were gonna be
snipers?”

“We
weren’t,” Joe muttered.  “Lagrah was planning on ambushing us all along.”

“I hear
Second gets double rations and two hours of liberty every time they beat us,”
Carl said.  “What do we get?  More pushups.”

“They’re
eating our food?” Maggie whimpered.  “That’s not fair.”

Joe
added his agreement to the others sitting around his bed.  It had become a sort
of rebel hotspot—over the last three hours, at least thirty recruits had voiced
their disgust for their commander and for the Second Battalion pansies in
general.  Aside from Sasha, who was sulking in her own bed, the general
consensus was that Sixth was the better battalion, but they were being worked
too hard to prove it. 

“So why
don’t we go
show
them?” Maggie demanded.  “You can open the door, Joe. 
I’ve seen you do it.”

“Yeah!”
Scott cried.  “Maybe some haven’t been locked up for the night.  We could
ambush them!”

“Who
says we can’t just invade their barracks?” Joe asked.  “Do this right, instead
of sneaking around half-assed?”  When they just stared at him, he said, “Come
on, guys, think about it.  Why should we hunker down
hoping
to catch
maybe one or two kids, when we could take out a whole
platoon
?”

Every
kid in the room went silent, staring at him, their mouths open.

“Their
battlemasters sleep on a separate level,” Joe went on.  “I can get us in.  We
could have the whole barracks to ourselves.”

“The
barracks
?”
Maggie asked, wide-eyed.  She was the first to regain her composure.  “But if
we get caught in the wrong barracks, they’d make us run…”

“We
already run,” Scott pointed out.  “More than we should.  I heard one of the
medics tell Nebil that he should watch for heart failure.”

Heart
failure? 
Joe frowned at that.  What kind of sane
commander would put them on a routine that could produce heart failure?  And
none of them were over fifteen!

“They
call us the Sick Battalion from hacking up spores,” Scott continued.  “They’d
stop laughing at us if we captured one of their platoons.”

“If
we’re gonna do this,” Joe said, “Why stop at just one platoon?  If we can sneak
into one, why can’t we sneak into all of them? 

 “So
you want to get the rest of Sixth involved?” Scott asked, sounding excited.

“No,”
Joe said.  “Let’s do it ourselves.  Just Fourth Platoon.  We’ll take them on one
barracks room at a time.  Tie them up in their sleep, draw a big X on their
forehead, maybe take their clothes.  Show them who they’re dealing with.”

“Not an
X,” Maggie cried, delighted.  “It should be a Zero!” 

Joe immediately
winced at the idea of putting ‘0s’ on faces, pretty sure he knew who would be
doing the running, then.  Then again, an X could mean anything…

“The
whole
regiment?”
Monk whispered.

“No,”
Joe said, deciding.  “That would take too long.  Just Second Battalion. 
They’re getting too proud of themselves.”

“So
you’ll go with us, Joe?” Maggie asked, gleeful.

“After
today?  Hell yeah,” Joe said, still fuming that Tril had withheld their food. 
“Those pricks need to be taken down a few pegs.”

“What
about Commander Tril?” Monk asked.  “He’ll be pissed.”

“I’m
tired, hungry, and Commander Tril can kiss my ass,” Joe replied.

“I’ll
tell him if you go anywhere,” Sasha said, her voice ringing out loud and
clear.  When they turned, she cast them a sweet smile from her bed.  “We’re not
supposed to leave the barracks,
remember,
Zero?”

Libby
and Joe glanced at each other.

Joe
cleared his throat.  “But this could really work, Sasha.”

Sasha
sighed and began trimming her nails with her knife.  “You know the rules, Joe. 
I’m your battlemaster.  I say you stay, you stay.”

Joe
gave Scott and Libby a pointed look.  “We could really use your help in this,” he
told Sasha. 

“I said
no,” Sasha said.  “You keep begging and I’ll go right now and tell him.  Tril
will have you all running laps for days if he finds out you want to—”  She let
out a sudden squeak as Libby sprang forward and grabbed her knife wrist.  In
one swift motion, Libby disarmed Sasha and stuck the blade under her belt.

“Well,”
Joe said, amused by the startled look on Sasha’s face, “If you’re not with us,
you’re against us.  Maybe you can help us practice.”

Sasha’s
wide-eyed look flickered to him, then back to Libby.  “Give it back.”

Libby
shrugged and turned away.  Sasha tried to jump on her, but Joe got between
them.  Monk and Maggie were on her in an instant, and as Sasha struggled, they
bound their recruit battlemaster hand and foot, gagged her, and tucked her
beneath the covers.  When they were finished, only her head was above the
covers, her eyes filled with murder.

“Hey,”
Monk said, “Whaddaya know?  She’s actually kind of cute when she’s not acting
like a bitch.”  She leaned forward and tweaked Sasha’s nose.  Everyone laughed.

“Leave
her alone,” Joe said.  “We’re in enough trouble as it is.”

“Well,”
Monk said, “If we’re already in trouble…”  She pulled an indelible black marker
from her vest and leaned forward long enough to draw a mustache on her disabled
battlemaster.  The entire barracks burst out in laughter at Sasha’s feeble
struggles.

“Quiet!”
Joe ordered.  “You want Nebil to hear us?  Monk, stop it.  Save your ink for
Second Battalion.”

Monk
tucked the marker back in her vest and admired her handiwork, apparently
oblivious to the smoldering look of hatred Sasha was giving her. 

“Let’s
go,” Joe said.  The way Sasha was staring at Monk was making Joe’s skin
prickle.  “We’ve only got another six hours before wakeup.”

Joe opened
the door for them and they quietly snuck from the barracks and down the stairs,
walking lightly upon the stairwells to avoid waking the Takki sleeping inside
the honeycombed hollows.  They stopped at the second level of the barracks and
circled around the huge balcony wrapping around the building to the sleeping
chamber of Second Battalion’s First Platoon.  The other kids waited nervously
as Joe entered the code—1-1-2, or First Platoon, First Company, Second
Battalion—then they stepped inside the first of Second Battalion’s ten platoon
barracks rooms unimpeded.  Everyone inside was sleeping.  They hadn’t even
bothered to post a guard.

Not
that we ever post a guard, either,
Joe thought. 
They would have to consider that after their prank was over, in case Second
Battalion thought to retaliate.

Disabling
them was almost too easy.  With all of Second Battalion’s recruits sleeping,
Joe’s platoon went bed by bed, stifling their victims’ shouts with hands over
mouths as they gagged and bound them.  Monk and Maggie did the honors of
drawing a big ‘0’ on the forehead of each of the recruits they subdued. 
Looking at the bedfuls of ‘dead’ recruits, Joe knew his platoon was going to be
in trouble in the morning.  Right now, however, he didn’t care. 

He was
having too much fun.

Like
wraiths, Fourth Platoon filed out of the room and padded out onto the balcony. 
There, they threw down all the boots and clothes they had collected from their
victims, leaving a pile of black on the stone that a handful of their group
spirited away. 

“Okay,
the next one,” Joe whispered, once they’d completely ransacked their victims’
barracks.

Second
Platoon, too, went off completely without a hitch.  And Third.  And Fourth.

By the
time they got back to the barracks, they’d successfully visited all ten of
Second Battalion’s platoons and it was only minutes before Battlemaster Nebil was
due to wake them that morning.  Joe led the other recruits back to their own
barracks still riding the rush of excitement and adrenaline, feeling like he’d
slept all night.  He actually felt a rush of pride as the rest of Fourth
Platoon deposited their last armloads of stolen clothes in the bottom of the
baths and went to crawl into bed.  Everyone was grinning and chatting with pent
up enthusiasm, telling stories and giggling.  Nobody, Joe knew, was going to do
any sleeping.  He stopped at Sasha’s bed.

“I’m
gonna untie you,” Joe said.

Sasha’s
eyes burned with malevolence.

“But,”
Joe said, “I want you to think long and hard about whether or not you’re gonna
tell Battlemaster Nebil about this.  Do you really want to admit to him that
your entire platoon—even your own groundteam—tied you up and left you here
while they went to fight Second Battalion?” 

Monk
came to stand beside him and grinned down at Sasha.  “In case you’re too stupid
to get it, you don’t want that, because as soon as he finds out what a crappy
leader you are, he’ll put Joe back in charge.”

Sasha
flushed a deep red, then looked away.  Joe cut her loose, then handed her knife
back to her, handle-first.  She took it slowly, and for a second, Joe thought
she might try to use it on him, but she tucked it back under her pillow,
instead.  Then she gave them a cold sneer filled with hatred.  “You’re all
gonna be sorry.”

“Nice
mustache,” Monk said.

“Get to
bed, Monk,” Joe said.  “She won’t tell.”  He crawled under the covers and lay
there, waiting for Nebil to arrive.  Despite the sleepless night, he couldn’t
lie still.  He saw the other recruits were having the same problem.  Everyone
was grinning and laughing about the night’s adventure, the whole platoon in an
entirely different mood than eight hours before.  Lying there listening to it,
Joe felt a swell of pride that he had been able to help restore their spirits
so thoroughly.

When
Nebil arrived, everyone jumped out of their groundteam beds immediately, fully
dressed and wide awake.

The battlemaster
hung back in the doorway, his eyes wary.  “What’s going on?  Why are you all
awake?”

“Just
happy to see you,” Joe said, grinning, feeling like himself for the first time
since stepping out of Knaaren’s den.

Nebil
eyed the other recruits, then his gaze fell back to Joe.  “Furgsoot.  What did
you charheads do?”

He
found out soon enough.  A frantic Battlemaster Gokli came up to them in the
middle of marching drills, asking if Nebil had seen any extra cammies lying
about. 

“Cammies?”
Nebil asked, giving the other battlemaster a quizzical look.

“Some
thieves crept into the barracks last night and stole some of our gear,” Gokli
said.  “Just a minor inconvenience, that’s all.”

“They
crept
into
your barracks?” Nebil asked.  “You didn’t lock up?”

“They
unlocked the door,” Gokli said briskly.

“To
steal gear?”

“They
tied up a few recruits, too,” Gokli said.  “Graffitied on Congressional
property…  Nothing major.”

“What
kind of graffiti?”

Gokli’s
sudah looked like they were going to fly away.  “They drew on our recruit’s
faces.  Indelible ink.  The kind issued for marking on maps in hostile
climates.”

“Really?”
Nebil asked calmly.  “How many recruits?”

“We
think an entire platoon was involved in last night’s crimes,” Battlemaster
Gokli growled.

“No,”
Nebil corrected.  “How many recruits were graffitied?”

The
other battlemaster made a grunting sound.  “If you see any spare gear lying
around, let us know.  Right now, we’ve got our recruits wearing defenders’ whites.”

“How
horrible.”

“Yeah. 
Uh.  You didn’t happen to notice anything strange with your recruits this
morning, did you?  My recruits all agree that the attackers wore their uniforms
in your…unique…manner.”  He nodded at Fourth Platoon’s rolled sleeves.

Battlemaster
Nebil replied with a deadpan look that he had seen absolutely nothing out of
usual that morning, that perhaps some other platoon was imitating them in order
to get them into trouble.  Then, as soon as Battlemaster Gokli left, Nebil
turned on them in a fury.  “You stupid self-molesting furgs!  Was the whole
Battalion involved or just you sootbags?!”