DogForge

by Casey Calouette

  The cadre woke them with blaring lights and shock sticks. The conscripts leaped from their sleeping pads and attacked the steaming breakfast rations. Then they sprinted out to run. Again.

  This time Corporal Rain took them on a new path. They sprinted away from the usual cargo bays and found themselves in a new bay filled with starships. They were different from the blunt nosed fighters in the other bays. Some were graceful and light, others blocky and stubby like squares smashed together. On the far side of the bay, a wall of shimmering light marked the end of atmosphere.

  Corporal Rain took them in a trail next to the shimmering light. The coolness of the vacuum outside seeped into the floor. The static made their hairs stand on end.

  Armored dogs stood at posts all throughout the hall. Armed dogs, Denali noticed, some wore rifle packs on their backs while other wielded fusion lances. She recognized the basic weapons from training session.

  They sprinted around the corner of a starship with edges like knives and Corporal Rain barked them to the side. Arrayed near the starship was a company of beings unlike anything Denali had seen yet.

  They were soldiers, of that she was sure. Each wore a suit of shiny armor, with faceshields flipped up and the everpresent energy shield buzzing. Their faces were narrow with a beak like a crab. Hard carapace wrinkled up next to a set of metallic eyes. They seemed surprised at seeing the conscripts and some raised weapons.

  A dog, striped with rank and half armored, snarled at Corporal Rain. “Corporal! This is off-limits, take these stinking savages somewhere else!”

  Corporal Rain halted and snapped off orders to the conscripts with his eyes locked forward. “Move!”

  Denali ran past with her head straight forward but her eyes taking in the details. Then she saw more. Beings that were short and fat, things that were tall and spindly, and things traveling inside smoky boxes. They all had escorts of high ranking dogs and Denali saw all of them glaring at the conscripts.

  They finally exited the hall and went past a group of somber faced dog-troopers.

  Corporal Rain waited until everyone was out and the rest of the Cadre caught up. She stalked down the line and glared at the panting conscripts. “Remember them. Remember the smell. Remember how they look. And never, ever, trust an alien. They’re mercenaries, plain and simple.”

  “Corporal!” Mjol barked. “Why use them?”

  Corporal Rain glanced back at the armored Cadre and then back to Mjol. “Because we don’t fight men. They do.”

  Denali swallowed hard. Men. They said men. Real men.

  “Now move!” Corporal Rain barked, and off they went again.

  When Denali felt like she couldn’t run a step farther, they marched into a room and sat. She kept her eyes forward and heard the door close. They’d had some class time already, but this place was different. There were cabinets, screens, and lockers.

  Sergeant Roo strutted into the room and stood in the corner.

  A dog bearing the rank stripe of an officer walked slowly to the front of the room. He smiled and bared his teeth as he scanned the conscripts. His armor was worn in spots, chipped in others, and adorned with campaign awards. He stopped in from of them.

  “Why do you fight?” he asked in a low voice. He cocked his head to the side and looked out curiously. “Why do you fight?”

  Denali wanted to squirm. They hadn’t had to answer any questions yet, not like this. She darted her eyes and saw the other conscripts also looking. She didn’t want to be the first to answer, but she wanted someone to answer.

  “Sir! Because we’re ordered to, sir!” a sandy haired dog named Yeti answered.

  The officer nodded slowly. “But why?” He watched the room and nodded his head. “I know this is all new and intimidating, so I’ll help you out.”

  Denali leaned in, focused. She liked the officer. His manner was calm and cool with a touch of slyness. The way he walked, the way he talked, the control he exerted. She’d follow him anywhere.

  “You fight for your families. You fight for your homes.” He let the words hang. “You come from a place that is special, all of you are the best. The toughest. The strongest. The fastest. Your world, and others like it, are made harsh and kept harsh, so that you can protect those who can’t protect themselves.”

  Denali felt pride and raised her head up. She wasn’t the only one, others sat rigidly and puffed themselves larger.

  Bullshit.

  Denali furrowed her brow and pushed away the sarcastic feelings. She’d nearly forgotten about Cicero. She wasn’t even sure if he was real, or just how her brain dealt with the stress.

  “Your worlds, while harsh, are crucial. They are the cradle of our elite, but also where we gain crucial minerals and salvage. Without the trials your families endure, there could be no victory.”

  The officer stepped aside and walked to the edge of the wall and keyed a data pad. The wall dimmed into a shade of gray and then there was a face of a man. The room was deathly silent.

  The man smiled and his eyes glistened. He was bald, with liver spots on his skull, but his face looked young. His eyes were soft and brown with a touch of scar tissue near them. The room around him was adorned in screens, three dimensional displays of star systems and a great brass wheel. He looked out of the screen and nodded with a warm smile.

  “My troopers,” he said in a rich accent. “You are the tip of the spear, the brunt of the shield, and the mind of the soldier. All of your lives have led up to this day, this very moment, and for that, I salute you.”

  Caesar raised his arm and brought his hand to his brow. A tear ran down the corner of his eye.

  He looks the same.

  Denali tried to push Cicero out of her mind but she could feel him close. This was her moment! She wanted to savor it, the pride, the duty, but anger seethed out of Cicero.

  He’s good at this, god do I know that, the bastard.

  “Our borders are under assault, your freedoms are at risk, but justice will be done. And you,” he said with a swing of his arm, “you are the instrument of my wrath.”

  “Attention!” the officer barked.

  The room jumped up and stood at attention.

  “Do your families proud,” Caesar said, and bowed his head.

  The screen dimmed back to gray and the image was gone.

  Bullshit.

  “Sergeant,” the officer called. “You may begin.”

  The officer loped out.

  Sergeant Roo took his place and stared out with an evil grin. “And you thought it was tough before. Now sit!”

  The screen flickered again and writing came upon it in giant block letters.

  Denali sat slowly and studied the shapes on the wall. She’d seen it before in the ruins and sprawled on the ageless wreckage of man. Her mind still reeled from the sight of Caesar, a man. Then she thought of Corporal Rain’s comment about the aliens, and how they fight men, not them. A cloud of doubt came over her and she glanced around at the rest of the conscripts. They looked proud, excited, eager.

  We can’t attack men. That was why they rebelled.

  Sergeant Roo tamped down on the datapad with his armored foot and leaned closer to the conscripts. “This,” he said with a hard voice, “is the letter A.”

  Denali wished, more than anything, that she was racing back through the halls. Day after day she absorbed knowledge. The instructors cycled through and repeated letters and numbers. They merged that into words and finally sentences. Two weeks later they were writing crude sentences on a glass plate. A week after, they were reading. Then it clicked.

  She delighted in seeing words as they exercised in the mornings. Engineering. Manufacturing. Resource Extraction. At every passage she’d read and was delighted. The meanings didn’t matter to her, it was the fact that a new and amazing layer to the world bloomed.

  Then the rate accelerated. They counted and then progressed into basic math. Denali excelled. The others plateaued in arithmetic but Denali grasped everything the
y tossed at her.

  Geometry was like a beautiful dance of lines. She could see shapes in her head and always answered before the rest. She loved the numbers, they tickled her brain. Most of all, she loved the praise. Runt no more, she was at the head of the class.

  In the dimness of the barracks hall she’d help those who didn’t understand. They’d sit, half a dozen at a time, and listen as Denali broke down a line of algebra. All except Samson, he did well enough to avoid the tutoring but not well enough to help tutor. He’d glare at Denali. She’d ignore him and take pride in the fact that she had found a place, a place where size alone didn’t dictate who she was.

  But still, Cicero’s words haunted her. Anytime she became too excited, his anger and sarcasm bled through. She didn’t dare speak to him, she never had a private moment.

  They marched into a hall and stood in ranks of four. Each line held nine dogs. The Cadre spread out to the corners of the room with only Sergeant Roo remaining in the center. The room was nearly a hundred meters wide.

  Denali stood in the middle of the third line. She kept her eyes ahead but took in as many details as she could. There was a smell of violence in the air, a touch of sweat, and the scent of caribou. Caribou? She hadn’t tasted real caribou, the sweetest of meats, since... A touch of homesickness came and she exhaled loudly through her nose, purging the home smell.

  “You can run. You can read and write. You’ve learned what you fight for,” Sergeant Roo said slowly. He turned his head and snapped a small sphere off of his armor. It fell to the floor with a clunk. “Now you will learn how to fight.”

  The conscripts murmured with excitement. The intensity grew like a rising storm. The tension that had been restrained was now on the edge. Denali could feel it and pulled back into herself. This was not a challenge she could win.

  “But not like you did before,” Sergeant Roo said.

  Denali perked up her ears.

  “Geff Forge, Vera Forge, Gallus Forge, and Denny Forge. Front and center!”

  Denali’s heart skipped a beat and she raced to the front of the group. She stood at rigid attention before Sergeant Roo. Then it hit her, the smallest dogs in the entire group were in front.

  “We don’t lead by size,” Sergeant Roo said, and stepped to the side. “These are your new squad leaders.”

  Oh no.

  “Their word is my word. Their success is your success. But... all of you will fail together if you don’t work as a team.” He stamped down onto the sphere. It leaped into the air and exploded in size. It drifted down and bounced gently onto the floor.

  “This is your objective. Each team is assigned a corner. You guard your corner and get the ball into the opposite corner. First team to score eats caribou for dinner.”

  Denali eyed the ball and the thought of caribou, even just the smell, set her on edge. It would be a taste of home. She wanted it. She needed it.

  How quaint, Cicero mumbled in her ear.

  It took all of her will not to shout out at him. She wanted to be a trooper. To lead, to fight, to have a place. Not to deal with some sarcastic figment of her imagination. She huffed and sighed quietly.

  “You have thirty seconds and we start the first round. Oh, and the losers don’t eat anything,” Sergeant Roo barked, and dismissed them.

  Denali spun and raced to the nearest corner. She turned and saw her team. Mjol, Seblig, a trio from the deserts—Haru, Sabu, and Rok, a chunky bruiser named Bellow, a female with a foxy face named Bev, and Samson.

  Samson slunk across the hall, the last one to come to the group. His lips quivered with anger.

  Denali could see it and ignored him. She eyed her team, they looked slow. Very, very slow. “I go in quick, everyone else get moving towards me. I’ll push it back towards you, then, we’ll—”

  Sergeant Roo barked, “Go!” and they were off.

  Denali sprinted directly for the ball. Geff darted in just as quick with Vera and Gallus holding back. The rest of the dogs lumbered out in great clumps all surging towards the center. The room was strangely silent. Everyone focused on the oversized sphere in the center of the room.

  Geff pounced first and the ball exploded away from him.

  Denali caught the full brunt of it right on her snout. She flipped over backwards and landed hard with a crunch. Her breath was gone and her eyes watered.

  The first thing that ran through her mind was how dumb she was. What did she expect to happen?

  Her squad rushed past, a flurry of legs and fur, and joined a general melee. The ball bounced off the ceiling, careened across the ranks, and was finally rushed into Vera’s corner by a lucky bounce.

  Sergeant Roo barked angrily and stomped to the center of the room. “You fight like animals! This isn’t a test of strength. Again! Thirty seconds, now go!”

  “Hurry, hurry!” Denali snarled and called her squad. This time she didn’t rush to the corner. “Let it bounce, everyone stick together. Get it inside of us, keep them away from it and we’ll guide it in. Bellow, you’re in the lead. Once we have it, keep it trapped between us.”

  Sergeant Roo barked and the squads charged. The movement was slower this time. Each squad had a different formation, gone was the mad rush. Vera’s squad huddled tight and reached the ball first, but no one pounced. The other squads came in and no one wanted to be first to bounce it away.

  “Bellow! Turn!” Denali barked. She stood in the middle of her squad and peeked between their legs.

  Bellow cocked his massive skull and pivoted like a lumbering giant. There was an opening and the squad pressed forward. Bellow lashed out with his great maw and slammed aside the leading dog from Vera’s team.

  “Sabu!” Denali yipped and darted out through the gap. Sabu followed a quick second after. Denali slapped the ball with her metallic foot and bounced it off Sabu. Then it was caught in the midst of her squad.

  The other squads pummeled Denali and Sabu, separating them from the rest of the group. Denali’s squad flailed from one side to the next, under constant assault. Finally they broke apart and the ball was caught up by Gallus’s squad and steered into the opposite corner.

  “One more time!” Sergeant Roo barked. “Thirty seconds!”

  Denali saw the flaw in her plan: they were too tight, not enough offense, all defense. Then an idea ran through her mind. Instead of sprinting to her team, she rushed at Vera. “Split?”

  “What?” Vera barked back. She eyed Denali suspiciously and cocked her head.

  “Team up, we split it?” Denali barked again. She could see Vera’s eyes darting from side to side.

  “Deal!”

  Denali grinned, sprinted back, and made it to her team just in time to hear Sergeant Roo start it all.

  They rushed once more at the ball. Denali barked out orders, Bellow was in the lead, the trio from the desert all around her, with the rest running offense. Samson lingered in the rear with a scowl on his face.

  Mjol worked with Bev and the pair smashed into Gallus’s line. They bowled over the front dogs and the rest snarled. They broke into a brawl and were halted.

  On the other edge Gallus meta with Vera and the two squads were halted as each side tried to push through the next. Vera was on the front with her teeth bared and trying to pull Gallus down.

  Bellow reached the ball, nudged it with his nose, and passed it to Denali. Denali punched it into his back and they corralled it past Vera’s brawl.

  Denali looked back and felt a surge of pride. They were going to do it! But then she saw that Mjol and Bev were pinned down.

  Gallus howled to his squad and they sprinted towards Denali’s team. Denali’s defenders were down, three dogs were necessary to steer the ball. Only Samson was left.

  Samson. To have her success ride on him made her angry. She eyed up the corner. “Faster! We’re almost there!” She judged the path of the ball, the speed of the team, and how quickly Gallus’s group approached. “Faster!”

  The ball lurched and bounced drunkenly and
careened off of Bellow. It rebounded off the ceiling.

  “Get it!” Denali shouted. Her heart was racing. Damn, she thought. Damn! She knew she’d have to call Samson to hold them, but she couldn’t bear to make him the savior.

  Then Gallus and his squad was on her. They bowled over Haru and Sabu. The two sandy haired dogs thrashed on the floor with their attackers and Denali was left with Bellow. Samson took on a single dog but the fight wasn’t in him, he danced back and watched.

  “Go!” Denali barked and felt teeth on her back leg. She slammed into the floor and watched helplessly as the ball was carried away.

  Gallus steered it into the other corner and howled as it sunk home.

  Denali lay on the floor and felt her defeat. If she would have ordered Samson out, he could have held them, she knew it, but she’d be damned if he was going to save her.

  “Get up!” Sergeant Roo barked into her ear.

  Denali snapped onto her feet and shook with anger.

  Sergeant Roo leaned in close with his nose almost touching Denali’s ear. His voice was low, calm, and deadly serious. “I don’t care what feuds you had on the ground. You could have won this. I know it, you know it, everyone knows it.”

  She stared straight ahead and took in his words.

  “Pull a stunt like that again and I’ll see you licking the latrines clean until you turn gray.” He turned away in disgust. “You could have made Samson your staunchest ally, now he hates you.”

  Denali controlled her breathing and saw Samson glaring at her. She still hated him, and to hell with what Sergeant Roo said.

  “Gallus’s squad, follow Corporal Rain, he’s going to get you dinner.”

  A cheer broke out from Gallus and his squad and they sprinted out of the room.

  “The rest of you can’t very well sit around for the next few hours. So run!” Sergeant Roo barked.

  Denali felt the gaze of the losers on her and realized she’d let down two squads. But most of all, she let down herself. All over a world she’d never know again and a past she was determined to forget. She gritted her teeth and tried to put it behind her.