Forging Zero

by Sara King

  Joe stared at the Ooreiki. “You mean they don’t want to be soldiers? Just like us?” He found it hard to believe Battlemaster Nebil and Commander Tril might actually desire to wear the bright cloth of the civilians.

  “Only the Dhasha and the Jreet want to be soldiers. The rest of Congress is filled with lovers of peace. That’s why there is a Congress. Without it, the Jreet would renew their wars with the Ooreiki and the Dhasha would eat us all.”

  “So why don’t you just kill all the Dhasha and stop drafting people?” Joe asked.

  Yuil glanced back to his friends. “As much as I love a good conversation, this is not a subject I should be discussing in public. Especially not around Army property.”

  “Then take me somewhere,” Joe said. “We can talk there.”

  “Joe!” Libby cried.

  The young Ooreiki hesitated, glancing at Libby. “Perhaps another time, Choe. It is too dangerous now—everyone is watching because of their singing.” Yuil hesitated, then quickly got back on his haauk and floated away.

  Joe felt the lost opportunity like a knife in his gut.

  “Come on,” he muttered, stepping back inside the barracks and entering the alien code to shut the door—it was remarkably easy, the same set of characters that meant 4-1-6, or Fourth Platoon, First Company, Sixth Battalion. “Let’s go back to sleep.”

  #

  Tril caught Commander Lagrah’s arm as he approached Lord Knaaren’s elevator. “Commander, a word?”

  Lagrah nodded at his aides, who boarded the elevator and waited for him. “Commander Tril, I’m quite busy,” Lagrah said, turning to him with a tired look. “Priests from Poen have come to collect Kihgl’s remains, and my battalion is currently preparing for a hunt.”

  Tril felt his sudah quiver angrily. “That’s what I wanted to talk about. Sixth Battalion has been overlooked in the drawings for the hunts eight times now. No one is acknowledging my requests.”

  “And I’ll be surprised if they ever do,” Lagrah said, body rigid. “You’ve doomed your Battalion, Commander Tril. There is much resentment for Kihgl’s death.”

  Lagrah had confirmed his fears. Tril’s unanswered messages and lonely meals weren’t a mistake. The other Ooreiki were avoiding him.

  “He did that to himself,” Tril snapped. “If he hadn’t taunted the—”

  Lagrah held up a hand scarred by onen. “I am not arguing with you, Commander. If you hadn’t turned him in, someone else would have. His lifestyle led to his demise. Still, Kihgl was loved. The regiment feels you bear the responsibility for his demise.”

  “You called for his death, Lagrah,” Tril retorted, disgusted that the Ooreiki could not see his own hypocrisy. “Not I.”

  Lagrah snorted. “You furg… The last thing Kihgl wanted was for the Peacemakers to take him to Levren.”

  Tril frowned at him, having to take a moment to comprehend the inference. “You mean you wanted him to die before he could be questioned?” he blurted. Was the whole regiment filled with traitors?

  Lagrah narrowed his eyes. “Regardless of his fascination with the Fourfold Prophecy, Kihgl deserved an honorable death. There are many who would see you disappear for what you did. And plenty of them are capable.”

  The symbol of Planetary Ops—a single sphere with a diagonal slash through its center, one half red, one half blue—stood out on Lagrah’s shoulder where he had earned it from many years of tunnel-wars and special operations. From many years of killing.

  “Is that a threat?” Tril managed, taking a reflexive step backwards.

  Lagrah gave him a very long, cold look, then said, “I suppose the fact that Kihgl was a better friend—and oorei—than you will ever be crosses my mind often.”

  Tril just stared at him, unable to speak. The…nerve. “I could tell the Peacemakers—”

  Lagrah just smiled at him, his pale, elderly eyes filled with disdain. “Commander Tril, there are fifteen Planetary Ops veterans who were brought in to teach this Human regiment alone. How long do you think you will survive if you betray another of your comrades to the Peace Corps?”

  Tril blinked. He, a yeeri, was being threatened. By a vkala. It was so utterly beyond his comprehension he could only stare. After a long moment of trying to compose himself, he said, “I am formally requesting for Sixth Battalion to be included in the next hunt.”

  Lagrah just watched him a moment, then shook his head. “Commander, your recruits are not ready.” He reached forward and touched his arm in a beseeching gesture. “Forget our personal differences for a moment and think of your charges. Do them a favor and wait.”

  “It’s been three weeks!” Tril snapped, shrugging off the vkala’s repulsive grip. “Three weeks, Commander.”

  “And they’re not ready,” Lagrah said. “You’ll only humiliate yourself if you enter your battalion in a hunt.”

  Tril stiffened. He was a yeeri. He refused to be told he was inadequate by a Fire God. It was beyond humiliating. Forcing his body into rigidity, he growled, “Every day the Sixth wastes preparing for the hunts, your battalion is getting better, and we are being left behind.”

  “Commander Tril, you’re not the commander Kihgl was,” Lagrah said softly. “The other Ooreiki battalion commanders despise you. If you take the Sixth out to the hunts now, it’ll become the weakling the other battalions rip apart. You’re too inexperienced to keep your recruits from disintegrating under that kind of pressure. Had I to make the judgment, I would say only Battlemaster Nebil is worthy of the job.”

  Yet another mention of Battlemaster Nebil’s supposed ‘worthiness’ made Tril want to scream. The impudent Ooreiki battlemaster had been a talon in his side ever since Kihgl’s trial. “If Nebil were ‘worthy’,” Tril growled, “he wouldn’t have been demoted to battlemaster. Repeatedly.”

  Lagrah gave him a tired look and appeared for a moment as if he wanted to argue, then just shook his head. “Tril, withdraw your recruits from this cycle and wait for the next training schedule. You would have a better chance if you started with a new regiment. Bring your papers to me and I will approve your request.” It almost sounded like…an order.

  “My battalion will enter the hunts if I have to write the invitation myself,” Tril said, fingers knotting in fury.

  Commander Lagrah eyed the scars on Tril’s right hand where he’d been forced to remove the adpi to enter recruit training. After a moment, he said, “The Army is not like yeeri academy, Tril. Failing here means death. If you subject your troops to hunts with this regiment, against commanders and battlemasters who had once been Kihgl’s closest friends, your recruits will become like beaten Takki. Seeing that, the Dhasha will swoop down on them and eat what remains. They will all die for your pride.”

  “My pride is not the issue here,” Tril snapped. “You just don’t want a yeeri crushing your pathetic battalion against his boot, you bigoted old ashsoul.”

  Commander Lagrah stared at him long and hard. Then, softly, he said, “So be it.”

  #

  This afternoon, like every day for the past week, Battlemaster Nebil was in a bad mood. He barked complicated commands in Congie, cursed them even if they did their tasks right, and ran them down the glittering black roads until kids began falling down puking. Halfway through the afternoon, in a particularly wrathful mood, he pulled out a white, arm-length switch that he began using on every recruit who dared to make a mistake in front of him.

  Finally, Sasha made a minor misstep in her marching commands and Nebil laid the switch across her back. Instead of humbly falling back into place in front of the platoon, she turned on the Ooreiki and shouted, “Stop hitting us! It’s not our fault he ate your stupid traitor friend!”

  Nebil’s entire body posture tensed and, without any other warning, the Ooreiki yanked Sasha out of line and began whipping her with a violence Joe had never seen before. His huge Ooreiki arms lashed out with full force, the white switch turning pink as it cut through the cloth of Sasha’s cammi jacket and into her flesh.
His wet eyes glinting with fury, Nebil continued beating her until her entire body was a mass of bleeding red welts and her Congie blacks hung from her limbs in gory strips. Even Joe, who had for weeks wished Nebil would do that very same thing, felt nauseous watching the flesh peel from Sasha’s limbs and back.

  After several minutes beyond the point where Sasha had finally stopped her piteous whimpering and wasn’t even twitching anymore when Nebil hit her, Joe finally couldn’t take it anymore. “Stop it, you asshole!” Joe snapped. He stepped out of formation and grabbed Nebil by the arm. “You’re killing her, goddamn it!”

  Nebil instantly spun and took Joe by the throat, his stinging grip tightening on his neck like a boa constrictor. Looking into Nebil’s furious brown eyes, Joe knew he was going to die. His vision dimmed and he struggled for breath, his knees already going weak as his brain was denied oxygen.

  Suddenly, Nebil stopped tightening his grip. For a long moment, he just scowled up at Joe, the gills in his neck flipping madly. Then he released Joe and shoved him roughly backwards. “Get back in formation, Zero.”

  Without another word, Nebil dropped the switch and turned back to face Sasha’s limp and bleeding form. Looking irritated, he pulled a black box the size of a cigar case from his vest. He took out a silvery vial and a huge needle with a handle that kind of looked like a tiny screwdriver. Unstoppering the lid on the vial, he dipped the tip of the needle into the silvery solution. On the ground, Sasha was much too pale.

  Nebil slackened the muscles in his lower body and pooled beside the girl. He rolled her onto her back and yanked her jacket apart, exposing her breasts. As her eyes widened and she feebly reached up to try and stop him, he stabbed her in the chest with the silvery needle. Every recruit recoiled in sympathy as Sasha’s body jerked when the needle sank through her ribs, all the way to the handle. Then Nebil yanked it out, replaced needle and vial in their case, and returned the box to his vest and stood.

  “Take your battlemaster to medical,” Nebil said brusquely. Then, without another word, he turned and strode off, the switch still on the ground where he’d left it.

  Libby immediately walked up and broke the switch in half over her knee, glaring after the Ooreiki.

  “Come on,” Joe muttered, stepping up to squat beside Sasha. “Scott, Libby, help me here.” Joe grabbed Sasha’s arms, his groundmates each grabbed a leg, and together they carried the unconscious girl to the front of the hospital. Ooreiki medics rushed out upon seeing them approach and began firing questions at them about her condition.

  “We didn’t do it,” Libby snapped. “Battlemaster Nebil did it. Then he stabbed her in the heart with a needle and walked away.”

  The medics seemed to think that was perfectly normal, because they stopped asking questions and just relieved them of their burden.

  Later that morning, Battlemaster Nebil returned. “Listen carefully, you Takki turds. I’ve got bad news—we’re finally doing a hunt. That means your recruit battlemaster will be working closely with your squad leaders to conduct you through the exercise.” Battlemaster Nebil once again carried a switch, though he seemed content with pacing along the ranks, scowling at them. “Squad leaders, this is where you shine. A squad leader is in charge of three groundteams. It’s your job to know exactly what each groundteam is capable of and use them to follow your recruit battlemaster’s orders. It is not your job to tell each grounder what to do. That is for their ground leaders.”

  Battlemaster Nebil stopped, glaring at Joe. “Tomorrow’s only going to be practice, Company-on-Company, but we’ll be getting the real thing here soon. That jenfurgling Tril’s made sure of that.”

  Nebil sighed and looked down at the switch he carried, then collapsed it in a telescoping patty and stuffed it into his vest. “Zero, you’re in charge until Chins gets back. Make sure they get some food and take them to Tril for drills.” Then Nebil simply turned and departed, leaving Joe standing there, staring after him with his mouth hanging open.

  Sasha returned to Nebil’s platoon that evening and, upon seeing Joe standing in her spot at the head of the platoon, she gave him a look that could have cut through metal. She reclaimed her position rudely, barking at him to return to his groundteam. Joe did, unable to stop staring at her.

  Sasha’s face and arms were a mass of puckered pink scars. Half of her ear had been cut off, giving her a wretched, lopsided look, and apparently the medics had seen no need to replace it. Joe felt sorry for her, despite himself.

  The next day, Battlemaster Nebil lined them up outside the barracks and handed everyone a blue cartridge for their rifles. Earlier that morning, Battlemaster Nebil had singled Joe out for screwing up and had stood on his back with one heavy, cylindrical boot while he made Joe do pushups until his arms gave out. Joe got a fleeting rush of excitement as Nebil handed him the cartridge, thinking about how easy it would be to load it into his rifle and blow off the Battlemaster’s foot.

  Self-preservation, however, kept Joe’s itchy fingers at his side. Ooreiki were fast. He’d only get a toe, at best.

  “Load your cartridges!” Nebil shouted.

  Ninety recruits hurried to do as he asked.

  “Now,” Battlemaster Nebil said, “Chins, you’re leading them today. You know how to talk to the squad leaders on your headcom?”

  Of course she doesn’t, Joe thought.

  “Kkee, Battlemaster,” Sasha said.

  “Good.” Nebil swung around to face Joe. “Squad leaders, get your groundteams cleaned up and dressed in their full tunnel gear, then get them back down here in nine tics. The battalion’s going on a hunt.”

  “You heard him, let’s go!” Sasha said. “Upstairs! Get up there you useless Takki worms! Pushups for the last one to the top!”

  They climbed up the stairs to the barracks, stripped out of their diamond-encrusted clothing, and filed into the shower. The noxious vats of liquid were big enough to fit twenty at a time, though nobody stayed in them long enough for them to fill up. As Joe dunked himself, every scrape that he had endured in the last few days burned like fire, making the experience akin to throwing himself into a vat of needles. Still, the endless laps around the base of the barracks that Battlemaster Nebil dished out to recruits caught not bathing made the alternative even less pleasant.

  Once he’d sluiced the diamond dust from his body, Joe hurried back into the hall, still unable to see or breathe. The fans on the wall activated at once, chilling him to the core as the alcohol evaporated from his skin. Once dry, he threw on a new set of clothes, shouldered his gear, and stumbled back down the stairs to where Battlemaster Nebil stood, waiting for them.

  “You’re late!” he barked, swatting Joe across the arm with his switch. “You call yourself a squad leader?!” Joe flinched at the sting, but held his composure while inwardly hating Sasha, who was giving him a smug look from the recruit battlemaster’s position. She had been the first one back down the stairs and Joe knew she hadn’t bathed. She’d taken too much time to harass the kid who’d made it up the stairs last.

  Battlemaster Nebil marched them to the plaza, where a flotilla of large haauks waited for them. Other platoons were already boarding, the plaza a milling mass of confusion and shouting Ooreiki. Nebil loaded them all onto a giant haauk and pulled the gate up, locking out the other straggling platoons. The platform jerked as the Ooreiki pilot lifted off and began following the other haauk down the black diamond road.

  “Shut up and listen,” Nebil shouted, though no one was talking. “We’re about to start an in-battalion hunt. It’s a practice hunt for when they put us up against another battalion. Attackers wear black, defenders wear white. Second Company defends, First Company attacks. Defenders will be at the bottom, trying to keep us out. Somewhere underneath you’ll find a Congressional flag, if you get that far. That’s your goal. Reach that, and the hunt is over.”

  Joe’s hands grew sweaty where they gripped his rifle, his focus suddenly narrowing to the battlemaster’s every word. Somewhere…undern
eath? Were they sending them down tunnels?

  “Any of you janja pellets have questions?” Battlemaster Nebil demanded.

  Joe cleared his throat. “Is this live ammunition?”

  “Does it look like it’s live ammunition, jenfurgling?” Several kids snickered. A furg, as Linin’s eye-opening Species Recognition classes had taught them the evening before, was a short, squat, very hairy alien that was as ugly as it was stupid. A furgling, a younger version of the same primitive beast, was shorter, hairier, and stupider. A jenfurgling was an evolutionary offshoot of the same species that had lost a few brain cells along the way, and delighted in beating its hairy face against the ground and playing with its own excrement. The video clip of a group of them running in circles around a boulder, shrieking and flinging excrement at each other, had been the highlight of their capture.

  Remembering the gun Kihgl had shoved into his face, Joe said. “Well…yeah.”

  A look of respect passed through Nebil’s sticky brown eyes before it was hidden again. “It’s not. It’s full of marker shots. Real plasma will twist the light until it hurts to look at it. Even a soot-eating furg knows that.”

  “So what happens if we get hit?” Libby asked, giving her gun a nervous look.

  “Don’t get hit,” Nebil growled. “You will not like it if you do. Any other questions?”

  “Where are we going?” Libby asked.

  “Practice Flats Ninety-Five,” Nebil said, as if that answered her question.

  Not to be outdone, Sasha said, “So what do we do when we get there?”

  “You charge the tunnels. If you survive, you fall back and try again.”

  “That doesn’t sound very smart.” In horror, Joe realized the words had left his mouth before he had a chance to stop them.

  The Ooreiki swiveled to face him. “Say that again, Zero?”

  Joe bit his lip. “Why can’t we just drop a bomb down there and blow them up?”