Forging Zero

by Sara King

  For the first time, Joe realized Sixth Battalion was the only battalion not carrying their rifles. He wondered what Tril had been thinking, making them march for hours when it would have been better to grab their rifles and take two hours to line them up perfectly before the Dhasha showed up. They could spend time on marching later. Now was the time they needed not to look like sootbags.

  “She’ll be fine,” Joe said to the kids around him. “Everybody look at the ground.” He hoped Tril’s marching frenzy hadn’t put the kids in a mood to bolt. He had the feeling the predator five battalions down would give chase and eat them alive.

  Knaaren passed the rest of the battalions with only brief pauses at each. Then he was there, filling Joe’s vision with a scaly rainbow of colors, his long black talons digging into the glittering gravel at Joe’s feet as it moved. The thing was huge. It radiated a sense of power that made the back of Joe’s throat slick with fear. Inwardly, Joe prayed the other children could hold still long enough for Knaaren to pass by, but he heard the gasps and strangled sobs just as well as the Dhasha. Joe felt sick when Knaaren came to a sudden stop in front of them.

  A harsh, guttural snarl erupted from the Dhasha’s enormous, sharklike mouth. All around Joe, children whimpered and cringed. “So this is the traitor’s battalion,” the translator around its neck said. “How pathetic. I saw you marching. You move like frightened Takki. You’re an abomination! I thought the others were bad, but you are worse. It shames me to have you in my regiment. Are you afraid of me, Human slaves? You, are you afraid of me?” Knaaren lowered its head so he was staring directly at the girl in front of him, his huge, gaping black mouth wide enough to engulf her.

  The girl stared at the ground, too petrified to speak.

  “Answer me!”

  “K-k-kee,” the girl whimpered.

  “Good answer. You should be. I should sell you all to my father.” The Dhasha continued down the row, stopping at Joe. “What about you? Are you afraid of me?”

  Joe could feel the monster’s rotten breath on his face. The bottom row of black, triangular teeth were only inches from his neck, the impossibly huge, egg-shaped green eyes boring down on him with the cold intensity of emeralds.

  “Kkee,” Joe said, staring at his feet. So scared I want to piss myself.

  The creature moved on. “What about you? Are you afraid of me?”

  The girl in question snapped her head up, wide-eyed, and began to whimper an unintelligible garble of fear.

  In an instant, the black jaws descended, snapping her in half. The lower body and some loops of intestine fell to the ground, knees first. For a moment, Joe wasn’t completely sure he hadn’t imagined it. Then the children around the torso began to scream and back away.

  “Get back into your lines!” Nebil shouted at them. “Return to your places or more will die!”

  The Dhasha, meanwhile, had wandered further down the ranks. Joe was watching him openly, now, fury rising in his chest. Knaaren relieved two more kids of limbs for minor infractions before circling around the back and returning to stand a few children away from Joe.

  “My slave is right. You all smell like cowards. Where are your rifles? You dare come to a battalion inspection without your rifles? You sniveling Takki! I bet there’s not one amongst you who will look me in the eyes.”

  Joe felt a cold tendril of fear curl in his gut. Don’t do it, he thought. Please don’t do it.

  Apparently, the other kids were either too smart or too scared to look up. Everyone kept their eyes focused solidly on their feet.

  Except Joe. He was too busy glancing around to make sure the other kids were keeping their eyes down.

  “You.” The Dhasha stopped in front of Joe. “You’re not staring at your feet like the rest of the Takki. You must enjoy being so big. Do you bully the other children? Do you take their food and steal their gear? Answer me!”

  “Anan,” Joe said to his feet.

  “Why not? Isn’t that what Kihgl taught you? Take from your comrades instead of share? Pretend to clean their scales so you can drive a talon through their innards? The traitor contaminated you all. Look at me. I would see your face.”

  Heart pounding like a hammer in his brain, Joe tore his eyes from the ground far enough to look at the Dhasha’s massive chest.

  “I said look at me!”

  “I am looking at you,” Joe said, continuing to stare at the iridescent chest.

  “What did you say, Human?”

  “I said I am looking at you.”

  “The Takki has a spine. Look me in the eyes and tell me that.” The Dhasha poised above him, waiting to strike.

  Joe knew his next choice would mean either life or death. He kept his eyes down.

  The Dhasha’s colorful lips peeled away from its triangular black teeth and Joe saw pieces of the other children stuck between the razor rows. It began to bark in Joe’s face, clacking its teeth together like knives. Sprayed with blood and saliva, Joe thought he was going to puke.

  As quickly as it had begun, the Dhasha closed its mouth and moved on.

  “I like the look of your fingers, girl. By the laws of the Pact, I claim you for my service.”

  The girl the Dhasha had chosen stumbled out of line with an uncomprehending look at the purple Takki tugging her away from the rest.

  “And him. He doesn’t have the look of a warrior. He’ll do well as a slave.”

  The Takki tugged the boy out of formation and Knaaren moved on. A new sort of anger filled Joe. The Dhasha was taking slaves. Right out in the open! And no one was going to stop him.

  Knaaren made a barking sound of disgust. “You’re not warriors. You should all be slaves. Him. He’s a fat one. I could use him tonight. Him. And her. And her.” The Dhasha made another full circuit, circling Tril’s battalion once more, claiming over two dozen children. He stopped back in front of Joe. “Him.”

  Joe braced himself as the Takki rushed toward him.

  But it wasn’t Joe that Knaaren wanted. It was Elf. The Takki took him out of line and dragged him to stand amidst the whimpering, white-faced children following the Dhasha in a frightened mass. Joe could do nothing but watch, stunned and relieved, and shamed at his relief. Shamed to his core.

  “There. That should suffice for now. If you continue to fail in your training, I’ll take more. Until then, you may share the other battalions’ day of liberty, even though you haven’t earned it.” At that, Knaaren padded toward the next battalion. The desperate look that Elf gave Joe as they led him away seared Joe’s memory like a curse.

  After another hour of terrifying the recruits further down the line, Knaaren departed, taking his slaves with him. He hadn’t claimed a single recruit since taking the two dozen from Sixth Battalion. Once he was gone, the Ooreiki descended upon them. “You got off easy,” Commander Tril told them. “He only took twenty-eight. We still have a chance.”

  “What about the ones he killed?” Sasha demanded, her voice rigid with anger. “Do I get a replacement?”

  Tril glanced at the torso still splayed on the ground in front of her. “He only killed one. The other two will get prosthetic limbs. They should be back in a day.”

  “She was in my ground team,” Sasha cried. “Now we’re down to four.”

  “Do you wish to join them, recruit? Recruit Battlemaster does not make you immune. Far from it.”

  Sasha seemed to shrink in on herself and shook her head.

  “Then do not argue. A Dhasha can always find a place for one more.”

  Joe stared at Tril. How could he threaten them like that after what they’d just been through?

  “We are running out of time,” Tril continued, as if he had said nothing out of the ordinary. “Lord Knaaren looks at you unfavorably because of Kihgl’s treason. We will have to spend every free moment training, until you are better than the others.”

  The shock was beginning to wear off and many of the kids were starting to cry.

  “Silence your recruits, Battl
emasters!” Commander Tril snapped. “Anyone who makes any more noise will clean up the mess Knaaren made.”

  Joe felt a twist of rage in his gut, hearing those words. Knaaren’s ‘mess’ included several partial bodies, bits of flesh, and gallons of blood.

  “We’ll use this day to practice,” Tril continued. “Kihgl’s trial is scheduled in eight days Standard. We must be ready by then.” Tril paused. “And…I’m sorry. Zahali. Kihgl was deranged, and many of you will pay for it.”

  As he said the words, Nebil’s sudah fluttered suddenly and he looked to the side, watching something in the distance. Joe noticed his boneless fingers tightening into ropy knots in front of him as Tril continued his explanation of what had occurred with their secondary commander.

  A ‘shame,’ he called it. An ‘unfortunate inevitability.’ A ‘tragedy that it was allowed to go on this long.’ Most of the battlemasters—and even Small Commander Linin—seemed to follow Nebil’s lead in finding something else to look at while Tril droned on about the expectations and responsibilities of a secondary commander in the Congressional Army, and how Kihgl had fallen short.

  And why, once Kihgl’s crimes were discovered, Tril had been granted his rank as a reward for bringing about the capture of a traitor. For, Tril declared proudly, it had been he who had discovered Kihgl’s treacherous nature and he who had been responsible for making his corruption known to Peacemakers.

  One of the battlemasters walked off suddenly, making Tril stop and give the Ooreiki’s retreating back a narrow look. When he went on, it was to discuss the possibility that the ranks were filled with ‘sympathizers’ and ‘collaborators’ and to be alert for any symptoms of disloyalty to Congress. The Peacemakers, Tril added, were offering ten turns off the enlistment of any recruit who could provide information leading to the detainment and conviction of other defectors.

  Joe felt goosebumps crawl up his arms at that, but somehow kept his eyes forward.

  Once Tril finally finished and dismissed them, Nebil and the other battlemasters broke the battalion into their ten platoons and began marching them to separate areas of the plaza.

  Thus began the longest day of Joe’s life.

  They marched until their feet were blistered and their calves ached, got their rifles and broke them down until they could see the individual parts every time they closed their eyes, straightened their rumpled lines, received glossy new helmets and learned about the onboard computers, gasped and retched as the battlemasters ran them in formation around the plaza, listened to Congie curses until their ears burned, and shouted “Kkee nkjanii!” until their throats were hoarse.

  By the time Nebil led them from the plaza, they were barely able to put one foot in front of the other. They didn’t realize their torment was over until they were standing at the base of a switchback black stair, facing the long climb back to the barracks.

  “Get up there!” Battlemaster Nebil shouted at them in Congie. “You’re not done yet, you soot-eating jenfurglings! Faster! Faster! Run!”

  The battlemaster stopped them halfway up the six-story climb, telling them to do it again. The second time, they ascended the staircase even slower than the first. Nebil made them do it again. And again. They climbed stairs until Joe couldn’t tell if he was going down or up, with the battlemaster pacing them easily every time.

  Joe didn’t remember reaching the top. Inside, Battlemaster Nebil had them check their weapons for diamond chips and stack them into a locker at the end of their communal beds. Then they had to undress together, on command, taking off each article of clothing and folding it as Nebil shouted out its name in Congie.

  They stacked their clothing inside their lockers, under their guns. Their boots came last. Joe had thought they were too heavy for regular boots—and he was right. As their heads bobbed with exhaustion, Battlemaster Nebil had them break down their boots, uncovering the tools and weapons hidden within and going at length to describe their names in Congie and how each could be used on the battlefield.

  Then, when they could barely keep their eyes open, Nebil made them stand beside their big round beds in a circle with their groundmates and say, “I am a grounder. These are my groundmates. Apart, we are nothing. Together, we are a groundteam. I will never abandon my groundteam and my groundteam will never abandon me. I will live with my groundmates, fight with my groundmates, and when I die, my essence will be carried on by my surviving groundmates. I will obey the commands of my ground leader without question. I am a grounder.”

  Only then could they crawl into bed. Joe’s groundteam was down to five. Elf had not been replaced.

  CHAPTER 15: Called Out

  “He’s the one they predicted you’d save, isn’t he?” Nebil’s voice was soft from the dim hall outside his prison.

  Kihgl was slumped against one wall of his cell, staring at the floor. He didn’t lift his eyes. “They’re recording everything about your visit. If they find anything they don’t like, they’ll try you as a traitor as well.”

  “I disabled it,” Nebil said. “I got you into this mess with that damned kasja. Do you want me to get you out?”

  Kihgl wanted it more than life itself. Yet he had to fight the urge to laugh. “I chose my path, Nebil,” Kihgl said softly. “Don’t twine your fate with mine. I’ll only take you down the tunnel with me.”

  Nebil seemed to digest that a long moment. “Why didn’t you kill him, knowing what it would mean?”

  Kihgl looked up at Nebil. His old friend looked agonized. Softly, Kihgl said, “Would you have killed him, knowing what he’ll do?”

  Nebil took a long time to respond. “It was an honor to serve with you on Ubashin. I hope you can find peace with yourself before the end.”

  “No soldier does.”

  Nebil gave him a long, unhappy look, then nodded once and left.

  #

  As the eight days of intensive training before Kihgl’s trial wore on, Joe drank up the information like water. That worried him. He had to remind himself that he wasn’t going to become a soldier, that he was going back to Earth.

  And yet, everything here was so easy for him. Marching was simple. Tactics were a breeze. And when he picked up a gun…

  It was like the gun spoke to him, whispering its secrets, baring its faults.

  Back in school on Earth, he had struggled through every class, just barely doing well enough to pass to the next grade. He went for the football and the friends, not for education. Here, he couldn’t stop learning. His brain consumed every scrap of information like it was starving. He seemed to already have an innate knowledge of the Congressional military, like everything the Ooreiki told him was already floating under the surface of his subconscious and he just needed their words to unlock it. He soaked up the terminology, the strategies, the customs, the weaponry—and craved more.

  I’m becoming one of them, Joe realized one night in horror. He pulled out his dad’s Swiss Army knife and rubbed his thumb along the smooth red plastic, thinking about home, ashamed he had allowed himself to be brainwashed by the enemy.

  The next day, Joe left others to answer the teachers’ questions, deliberately made mistakes in the drills, and purposefully dropped his rifle when Battlemaster Nebil passed out the ceremonial weapons that they would need for Kihgl’s trial, naming them otwa.

  Though Nebil said nothing else about them, Joe knew that it was a design from countless years ago, one only used for important events. The gun felt old in his hands, a wizened thing of beauty. Its stock was formed from the same black rock that covered Kophat, and the metal held a blue-white sheen. He felt an instant respect when touching it, knowing that it meant something special to the aliens.

  I’m not one of them, Joe thought suddenly, his admiration shutting off as if a switch had been flipped in his mind. I’m not going to fight for them. I’m going home.

  The next morning, when Nebil showed them how the otwa worked, Joe pretended to be baffled. As an older model, it was more complex than anything Joe had t
aken apart thus far. It had over twenty pieces, all fitting together in odd and complex ways. Inside the outer layer of stone, strange interlocking pieces of different metals and compounds fitted together in ways that seemingly defied all logic. Faking ignorance was easy when the rest of the kids were completely bewildered by it.

  Still, Battlemaster Nebil gave him an odd look when Joe struggled with every slide and pin, finishing only third from the last when he and Libby were always first. The next day, he did the same. It was on the third day that Libby confronted him about it.

  “Why are you pretending you don’t know anything?” Libby asked.

  Joe had taken off his sweat-stained shirt, and now had it stretched out on his knee as he polished his rank. The rest of his groundteam was dead asleep, as they had been for the last two hours, ever since the rest of the platoon got to retire while Joe had to run laps because someone in his squad had screwed up the drills.

  Joe gave her a tired look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lib.”

  She narrowed her pretty brown eyes at him. “Yes you do. You’re like me—you can see all the pieces in your head before you even touch them.”

  Joe went on polishing the silver triangle embedded into the fabric of his shirt. One thing Battlemaster Nebil required of him was that it held a perfect shine at all times, even after he’d been crawling through the diamond dust.

  “Joe!” Libby poked his bare shoulder.

  “Go back to bed,” Joe muttered.

  “What’s wrong with you, Joe?” Libby insisted. “Are you sick?”

  “I’m not gonna be a Congie,” Joe said. “I’m going back home.”

  Libby’s young brow furrowed instantly. “No you’re not.”

  “Just because you wanna stay here doesn’t mean the rest of us do.” Joe flipped his jacket off his knee and held it up to inspect the silver triangle.

  It should be a star, a rebellious part of him thought before he squashed it.

  Irritated with himself, he folded his jacket neatly in his locker-niche and began unlacing his boots. “As soon as I get the chance, I’m out of here. I’ve figured out some of their writing, Lib. I got the barracks door to open for me on duty last night. Won’t be long before I can do it every time.”