Forging Zero

by Sara King

  “Yeah,” Monk said. “Stuff it.”

  Sasha narrowed her eyes. “It’s safer if we all stay together. So you’re coming.”

  “We’re not gonna walk off a cliff just because the rest of you do,” Libby said. “Joe’s our squad leader. If he says we go, we go.”

  Sasha’s smile faded, and her spine straightened proudly. “He might be a squad leader, but I’m battlemaster. Get back in the group.”

  “Just go burn off, Sasha,” Joe snapped.

  “Yeah,” Monk said. “Burn off.”

  “I’ll tell Nebil if you don’t listen to me,” Sasha said, glaring at Monk. More children were coming to stand around Joe, almost half a platoon, now.

  “We are listening to you,” Libby said. “And when Nebil promotes Joe to battlemaster because you’re a dumb bimbo who doesn’t know her ass from her head, we’ll be listening to that, too.”

  “Fine. Go with him.” She waved a disgusted hand at Joe. “I’ll just make you all run laps around the barracks until you all puke,” Sasha sneered. At that, she jogged to catch up with the rest of the battalion as it departed.

  Within minutes, Joe and his group were the only ones remaining in the war-pocked city that was Practice Flats Ninety Five.

  “Well, let’s get this over with,” Joe said, turning toward the other side of the clearing with a sigh. He knew Sasha would be as good as her word, regardless of who got back to Alishai first.

  “You won’t be sorry,” Scott insisted. “I’m right. I know it.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you’re right,” Libby said, sounding tired. “Sasha’s in charge of us and we didn’t listen to her. Nebil’s gonna be pissed.”

  As it turned out, she was right.

  Not because they went the wrong way—Scott’s instincts had proven right and they were the first and only squad to appear at Alishai under their own locomotion. The other platoons arrived huddled on haauks, red-eyed and white-faced, their battlemasters still screaming at them in Congie. As they shuffled off the ships and directly into drill, however, Nebil descended upon Joe with even greater fury.

  “You disobeyed your battlemaster?!” Nebil screamed at him. “Why?!”

  “Because I believed my groundmate was right,” Joe replied, cringing for a blow.

  The blow did not come. “What?”

  Joe hastily explained how Scott had pleaded with him to go the opposite direction. As he told his story, Nebil’s sudah fluttered more and more rapidly until they were a blur down the sides of the battlemaster’s neck.

  “You said he felt the city?” Nebil demanded finally.

  “Kkee,” Joe replied.

  “Tunnel instinct,” Nebil barked. “Burning tunnel instinct. You lucky Jreet-loving sooter.” Nebil shook his head.

  “What is—” Joe began.

  “Never mind!” Nebil snapped. He suddenly lashed out, lifting him off his feet by his jacket. “Listen up, you soot-eating asher. This is the only time I’m gonna tell you. You disobeyed a direct order. That is un-burning-acceptable, you get me? The commands of your battlemaster supersede anything you want, no matter how burning stupid she is.” He released Joe harshly. “A hundred laps around the barracks. Once you finish that, go rake down the plaza. Alone.” Then Nebil turned and stormed off to help the other Battlemasters yell at their platoons.

  Joe took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The massive barracks tower had a base the size of a football field, and raking the plaza was usually a whole platoon’s job. Apparently, Nebil had decided he wasn’t going to sleep that night. Setting his shoulders and lowering his head, he began to jog.

  As he passed the Prime Commander’s tower, he caught sight of a dead-eyed human descending the stairs, one of the slaves Knaaren had captured the week before. The boy was so badly scarred that Joe missed a stride, almost falling flat on his face. Only the boy’s hands were untouched, beautiful and slender, the hands of an artist. As Joe watched, the kid reached the bottom and entered one of the rooms at the base of Knaaren’s tower.

  That could have been me, Joe realized, guiltily. He bit his lip and pushed himself back into a run.

  Well into the night, Sasha joined him. She was as full grown as she was ever going to get, with wide hips and a thin, wiry frame. Her face, however, reminded him of a pouting child.

  “You told him,” she accused. “You liar.”

  Joe, whose lungs were already struggling with the dual load of ferlii spores and running, had to pant. “What…are you…talking about?”

  “You told him I didn’t listen to you.”

  “You…didn’t.”

  “You were the only ones who wanted to go that way!” Sasha shouted.

  “But we…were right.”

  Sasha’s eyes narrowed. “The battlemaster gave me a hundred laps and then I have to help you with the plaza.”

  “Good…luck,” Joe said. “It’s gonna…be time to…wake up…before you even…get done with your laps.” Then he fell into silence because it was either that or pass out.

  “You better listen to me next time,” Sasha said, eyes glittering.

  Joe rolled his eyes and ran faster. Even fresh, Sasha couldn’t keep up with him, nor did she have the heart to try. She just settled into a lazy jog and waited for him to pass her on another lap. The longer they ran, the slower she went, until she was running slower than most people could walk. Then she stopped running altogether and sneered at him every time he loped past.

  Joe was on his eighty-seventh lap when Battlemaster Nebil popped out of a door in front of him and nearly bowled him over.

  “Zero! Why aren’t you on the plaza yet?”

  Joe doubled over, gasping. “Eighty-seventh…lap.”

  “What about your battlemaster? I sent her out here four hours ago.”

  It was too much. Joe started dry-heaving into the diamond dust.

  Fortunately, Joe didn’t need to explain. Sasha rounded the corner at a walk and by the time Nebil was finished with her, she was running as fast as Joe had ever seen her go. When Nebil returned, his sudah were beating in his neck. In a deft maneuver, Nebil snaked an arm under Joe’s sweat-soaked jacket and pressed the metal ranking unit to Joe’s chest. In an instant, the silver triangle on Joe’s breast began to morph into a four-pointed star. “You’re the new recruit battlemaster for Fourth Platoon,” Nebil growled. “You’ll also be the ranking battlemaster on the field, so you’ll be in charge of all of First Company. Don’t burn it up.”

  Joe’s mouth dropped open. All he could say was, “I will?”

  “No, that star on your chest is just for show. Now go finish your laps. The plaza can wait. We’ve got a hunt coming up tomorrow, and I won’t have my battlemaster falling asleep in the middle of a raid.”

  Joe stumbled back into a run, but the prospect of being in charge of half the battalion on the next hunt gave him the extra energy to once again find his stride. He finished and, not even glancing at Sasha, climbed the barracks steps.

  Sasha ran up behind him and grabbed his shirt. “Where are you going? We’re not done with the plaza.”

  “Battlemaster Nebil said I could do it later,” Joe said.

  Sasha released him. “Well, if you’re not gonna run, I’m not gonna run either.”

  The ridiculousness of the statement would have made Joe laugh if he weren’t so exhausted. He just nodded and somehow found the energy to finish climbing the stairs to the barracks room.

  CHAPTER 20: Yuil

  “Choe.”

  Joe was just cresting the stairs to Sixth Battalion’s barracks balcony, his exhausted body feeling as if it were made of lead, when he heard the odd sound seemingly coming from a Takki tunnel near his feet. Ahead of him, Nebil had left the barracks door open for his return. The barracks room beyond was silent but for the snores of other recruits. Thinking he had imagined it, Joe kept trudging forward, so tired he was having trouble staying upright.

  “Choe.” A cold, metal-tipped finger brushed his arm, and goosebumps was
hed down his spine in a startling wave at the contact. Joe jerked and turned.

  The young Ooreiki that had come to listen to their Christmas songs was standing in the shadows outside the barracks, glancing nervously at the open door. “Do you still want to talk?”

  Joe felt his heart skip a beat and he instantly forgot about sleep. “Do you?”

  “Kkee,” Yuil said. “But you need to come with me.”

  “He’s not going anywhere with you,” Libby’s voice said suddenly. She had stayed up late cutting holes in her gear and now stood near the barracks door, Joe’s Swiss Army knife still clutched in her hand. She was scowling at Yuil, looking ready to use the knife on the Ooreiki.

  Staring at the knife, the pupils in Yuil’s huge, sticky brown eyes dilated until they looked completely black.

  “I’ll go,” Joe interrupted, scowling at Libby.

  Yuil was obviously reconsidering his plan. “It is dangerous if she tells.”

  “She won’t tell,” Joe said, giving Libby a warning glance. “Not this time.”

  Libby cringed, glancing at the Swiss Army knife in her fist.

  Yuil hesitated, then he shrugged a long swath of brilliant blue fabric off of his shoulders and held it out to Joe. It changed colors in his hands. “Wrap yourself in this,” Yuil said. “You’ll resemble an Ueshi if you hunch down.”

  Joe obeyed, ignoring the dirty looks Libby was giving him. The cloth felt unnaturally smooth in his hands and glided over his calluses like cool water, not even catching on the rough skin of his palm. It felt like something sultans and emperors would wear back on Earth. “I’ll be back soon,” Joe said to Libby. “Get some sleep.”

  “Nebil made you run all night,” Libby insisted, scowling at the Ooreiki. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Joe said.

  “What if Nebil comes in and finds you never came back from your laps?” she demanded.

  “Tell him I lost something and had to go find it.”

  Libby wrinkled her nose, giving the Ooreiki a bitter look. “I don’t like him, Joe.”

  Joe’s chest clenched at his groundmate’s lack of civility. Desperate not to lose their first real contact in this alien place to the manners of an eight-year-old, he gave Libby a pointed glare and said, “You just wanna talk, right Yuil?”

  “Of course, Choe. There are many things that fascinate me about Humans.”

  “See,” Joe said, following Yuil around the corner to a lavishly-decorated haauk. “He just wants to talk.” Gems and ribbons adorned the sides, glittering and flapping in the alien breeze. Joe’s cloak had shifted to canary yellow by the time the Ooreiki youngster began powering up the haauk.

  “You don’t know him,” Libby pleaded, having followed him around the balcony. She grabbed Joe’s arm. “What if he sells you to the Dhasha?”

  Yuil grunted laughter. “I think your friend is safe. Nothing could get me within a ferlii-length of a Dhasha.”

  Libby released Joe and gave Yuil a cold glare. “If you don’t bring him back I’ll kill you.”

  Joe sucked in a breath. He knew enough about Congie society to know a death-threat against a civilian could get her executed.

  The Ooreiki youngster stared at her, then lowered his head solemnly. “I will bring him back, little one.” He plucked a smooth silver scale from his clothing and handed it to her. As it caught the light, it swirled with every color of the rainbow. From the delicate way the Ooreiki handled it, Joe guessed it was expensive. As Libby reluctantly took the Dhasha scale, Yuil said, “It’s a promise.”

  Then the Ooreiki ushered Joe onto the haauk and maneuvered them into the air. In moments, they were out of sight of the barracks.

  “We’ve gotta be careful,” Yuil said as they flew. “All Congressional property contains tracking devices, even soldiers. They insert them in places that you can’t cut off, like your head or your chest.”

  Joe stared down at himself, remembering the gun that the Ooreiki doctor had fired into chest on the ship. “So they’ll come looking for me?”

  The Ooreiki gave Joe a mischievous look. “You don’t grow up on Kophat without learning ways to bypass Congressional security measures.” He plucked a metal ring from under the rim of the skimmer’s control panel and showed it to Joe. “An akarit. All Congressional frequencies within three bodylengths are voided.”

  Joe touched the thing and turned it in his hand. To all appearances, it was just a band of gold. It even felt heavy, like his dad’s wedding ring. He returned it to the Ooreiki with reluctance. “Isn’t it illegal to carry something like that?”

  “How can it be, when so many use it?” Yuil demanded. The haauk soared skyward, leaving the ground behind with such rapidity that the crushed black gravel seemed to fall out from under them. Joe gasped and his fists spasmed reflexively around the railing.

  The young Ooreiki seemed to enjoy Joe’s reaction. “I worked for six turns to save up the regard for this haauk. It’s of special Ueshi design. Maybe someday I’ll show you the things I can do with it.” He veered teasingly.

  “That’s okay,” Joe said, feeling ill. “I believe you.”

  Yuil slowed near the edge of the city, proceeding towards a jagged roof that looked unfinished. The Ooreiki maneuvered the haauk up and under a lip of rock and a wide cave appeared before them, invisible from the outside.

  Yuil set the haauk down and brought the akarit out from under the dash of the control panel. Then he stepped off the craft and began to walk back toward the entrance of the cave, motioning for Joe to follow him.

  The view was frightening. This close to the edge of the city, the ferlii trees seemed too large to be real. From his vantage, Joe could see the red masses of spores atop the branches and immediately his lungs began to itch. He hacked up a red glob of mucus and glanced at the Ooreiki.

  Yuil was watching him. He turned away quickly, pretending he hadn’t been, but Joe had seen. He had the uneasy thought that maybe Libby was right, that he was simply bringing Joe here for a rendezvous with a slave trader.

  “I found this place when I was in yeeri academy,” Yuil said. “Back when Alishai voted to commission a seventh ring. They abandoned it because draak could reach it from the ferlii branches. They’ll finish it the next time they add a ring to the city.”

  “You go to school?” Joe felt a surge of hope, of kinship.

  “I went. I failed. My art was not good enough.” Yuil made a disappointed sound.

  “Your…art?”

  Yuil held up his silver-encased fingers. The Celtic knots winding their way around the four tentacles on his right hand reminded Joe of Kihgl’s kasja that Nebil had taken from him. “I am of the yeeri caste. We are expected to either excel in art or devote ourselves to tending our ancestors’ oorei. I will probably be shipping off to Poen soon, unless I can hire myself out to a foreigner. Even poorly-trained yeeri are in high demand in the newer planets. I might even be able to find work on Earth.

  “We have artists on Earth,” Joe said. “Good ones, too.”

  Yuil scoffed. “Nothing in the universe can compare to a master yeeri. People will impoverish themselves simply to pay for the right to watch her work.”

  “Wait,” Joe said, frowning at the Ooreiki. “You’re a girl?”

  “I could be if I wanted to. The yeeri is the only caste allowed to reproduce. It helps keep the lines clear of Fire Gods.”

  Joe stared at the Ooreiki, trying to understand if she was telling him she was a girl or could get a sex change if she felt like it. Then something very pressing occurred to him. “Are my commanders all girls, too?”

  Yuil looked as if he’d insulted her. “Yeeri aren’t drafted. It was written into the Ooreiki Pact. Your superiors are probably hoga or wriit, but one or two might be Fire Gods.”

  “You worship gods of fire?” Joe had not envisioned the Ooreiki, with all of their superior technology, to be pagans.

  “No. Fire Gods. Vkala. They’re the descendants of the diplomats who signed th
e pact that made the Ooreiki one of the eight founding members of Congress. The Ayhi gave them the Jreet’s ability to resist fire so they could visit Vora and sign the Pact. They would not go otherwise.” Yuil gave him a funny look. “Do you know nothing, Choe?”

  Joe ignored the jab. “Because Ooreiki hate fire,” Joe said, thinking of what Kihgl had said.

  “Kkee. Fire. It is the greatest danger to an oorei, aside from maybe the Dhasha.” Her face twisted at the last. “The gods are unjust, letting Knaaren survive after what he did. I hope the ghost sickness claims him swiftly, for your sake, Choe.”

  “What’s a Fire God look like?” Joe asked, still thinking of the Ooreiki castes. He was pretty sure he could already guess.

  Yuil pulled a wisp of gauzy fabric away from her chest, bearing a small, puckered mark on her stomach. “They bear no Shenaal because their skin does not burn during the Niish Ahymar. The priests put them in cages or pits with immature onen. Most get ripped to pieces, but the ones who survive are given to the Army, marked by thousands of scars crisscrossing their bodies so every Ooreiki remembers what their ancestors did.”

  That meant Kihgl and Lagrah were both Fire Gods.

  “Vkala are the lowest caste,” Yuil continued. “They are still paying for their ancestors’ sins.”

  “Back when they signed the Ooreiki up for the Congress,” Joe said.

  “Kkee,” Yuil said, nodding.

  Joe cleared his throat. “Wasn’t Congress formed two million years ago? When will they be forgiven?”

  Yuil’s face instantly darkened. “When Congress no longer exists.”

  “So you guys hate Congress as much as we do.”

  “Kkee. Everyone hates Congress.”

  “So why don’t you disband it?” Joe asked.

  Yuil laughed. “Do you realize how difficult it is to kill a Dhasha? Their only vulnerability is a tiny nerve center at the back of their head, under their horns. The only way you can hurt them there is if you hit them with a direct blast of energy fire. Then you’ve only got a few moments to get to it and tear out the nerve center, or cut away enough scales to give it a direct blast to its core. Either that or Jreet poison, but Jreet die before giving up their poison sacs and even if you had it, you’d have to get it past the scales to make it work.”