Forging Zero

by Sara King

  “She’s giving it to you,” Scott insisted, coming over with her. “You can have some of mine, too. Here. There’s a little left in the bottom.” The ten-year-old proudly offered up what remained of his meal.

  Joe laughed, touched. “I don’t think that’ll fly.”

  “We won’t tell anybody,” Libby said, hurriedly scooping half of hers into Scott’s bowl. “If you eat it real fast they won’t know.”

  Joe looked down at Scott’s bowl as the others added their portions, leaving him with more than he would have had if he had gotten his from the food line. He swallowed and glanced at Battlemaster Nebil, wondering if it was worth risking a beating to eat.

  The Ooreiki was standing at one end of the cafeteria, fingers tangled behind him, calmly watching the tables with the acuity of a hawk.

  Hunger eventually won out over fear. When Nebil’s head was turned, Joe gulped down their offerings. When he was done, he shoved the bowl back in front of Scott and waited, nervous. He spent the next ten minutes tense, waiting for some blow, some bellow from the front of the room. Apparently, the alien hadn’t seen. Joe perked up when he realized they had actually gotten away with it.

  When everyone had finished eating—or not—Battlemaster Nebil took them to another dark, amphitheater-style classroom and made them sit down in the odd, scoop-shaped seats overlooking the stage. Commander Linin stood at the podium as they settled, looking bored.

  “This,” Linin said, pointing to a picture of a stocky, bobcat-shaped animal with glorious rainbow scales dominating the screen behind him, “Is a Dhasha. They’re the deadliest fighters in the universe and they delight in taking multi-fingered sooters like you as slaves.” The Ooreiki eyed them, his eyes as sharp as the five-pointed star set in a silver circle on his chest. “I am Small Commander Linin. This is your Species Recognition Class and that—” he jammed a boneless extremity at the screen, “—is responsible for ninety-eight percent of the soot we gotta go through as Congressional soldiers. Dhasha. Males can withstand direct hits from laser and plasma fire. When we first found them on their sootwad planet, Dhasha warriors became our greatest asset. Congress sent them to colonize hundreds of planets, boosting our strength a thousandfold in just a few short centuries.”

  The Ooreiki made a face and turned to look back over the auditorium of students with depressing sobriety. “But we made our own burning ashes. We should have left them eating themselves, digging holes in the dirt to survive. Hell, we should’ve wiped out their whole fire-loving solar system. See, the Dhasha began to rebel, and every time they do, Congress has gotta devote fifty percent of its fighting power to keeping those fire-loving monsters from carving out a chunk of a galaxy. As it is, it’s been over a hundred turns since the last one, so the next Dhasha prince will probably get cocky sometime within your lifetimes. When he does, and Congress assigns you to fight him, you can all kiss your asses goodbye because you’re not gonna survive it.”

  The Ooreiki changed the image and a wide swath of shredded meat appeared on the screen. Joe shifted uncomfortably, realizing that it was a field of dead Ooreiki.

  “This is what happens when you go to war against the Dhasha.” He changed the picture again, giving them a close-up of a grotesquely mauled alien body, internal organs weeping through huge gashes along its chest. “Notice the soldier’s armor. The hardest material Congress can make and Dhasha talons slice through it like nuajan.”

  Joe glanced around him. The other children were staring with wide eyes, their jaws hanging open. Many of them looked like they were about to cry.

  Linin grunted. “Lucky for you furgs, Dhasha rebellions are almost always contained in-species, or, if things get really ugly, they’re put down by Jreet. Usually they don’t have to get lesser fighters involved.”

  Lesser fighter? Joe prickled, despite himself.

  “If they do send you, at least it will end this charade. Once a few Human battalions get ripped apart, those jenfurgling ashsouls on Koliinaat will realize they shouldn’t have forced us to dress you Takki up like soldiers. You aren’t even good as beasts of burden. Hell, you’ll probably end up crawling the slave tunnels to get torn to pieces in the Dhasha deep dens—you’d be good at that.”

  Joe’s heart began to thud, his pulse racing in his limbs. Tunnels? It was the second time one of the Ooreiki had mentioned tunnels. Maybe they were just trying to scare them. Maybe they’d end up jumping out of planes, instead. Joe could handle that. He’d love to jump out of planes. Oh please God let it be planes.

  The Ooreiki gave the room a disdainful look. “Not that it’d be worth the trouble to fit you with a biosuit. Suited up, you charhead furgs couldn’t even match an Ooreiki naked.”

  Joe raised his hand. “Are they really sending us down tunnels?”

  Linin’s dark brown eyes came to rest on Joe. “You were enlisted as part of the Ground Force. Of course they’ll send you down the tunnels. Who else would do it? The Space Force?” He made a derisive snort, expelling a rush of air through the frills in his neck. “Those cowards don’t even know what war is.”

  Joe swallowed hard. His hands felt clammy. “Commander Tril told us we’d probably become interpreters.”

  “Commander Tril is a furg.”

  “Can I change to the Space Force, then?”

  “No.” The disgust in Commander Linin’s eyes made Joe’s throat burn. He looked at his fingers and closed them into fists to stop the shaking. Already, he could feel the pressure of the earth closing in on him. He felt queasy. How much space will the tunnels have? Dhasha are big, so ten feet? I can handle it if it’s ten feet. But didn’t he say they were Takki slave tunnels? If Takki are the size of humans, that would only give me a couple inches… Thinking about that, Joe fought to control impending panic.

  “So when do we get to see a Dhasha?” a girl asked excitedly.

  “Pray you don’t,” the Ooreiki said. “Even friendly ones eat their own troops, and all the War Commission does is slap ‘em with a fine and give them an extra couple of turns before granting them another rank. To Congress, if we all died feeding a Dhasha warrior fighting under the Congressional banner, then our deaths would have been worthwhile. Here, let me show you furgs why.” Commander Linin lifted a black, circular briefcase-like box onto the table and opened it. Inside, nestled in a black, velvety substance, was an elongated, six-inch-wide metallic scale. Even in the reddish light, it gleamed with unearthly iridescence. Beside it lay a wedge-shaped black talon twice the length of Joe’s middle finger.

  Commander Linin used metal tongs to lift the talon from its bed, taking great care not to touch it. He held it up so they could see. It had a slight curve to it, like a scythe.

  “A Dhasha claw.” He motioned at Nebil. “Battlemaster?”

  Nebil came to stand before him and held out a tentacle, looking bored.

  “Dhasha claws are the perfect cutting device, their edges a perfect mono-molecular surface able to cleave into any substance at an atomic level.” Commander Linin held the tongs out two inches above Battlemaster Nebil’s arm and released the talon.

  Nebil grunted as the claw hit his arm and burrowed in more than halfway down the ebony tip. Thin, brown-tinted liquid began to leak from the wound, pattering upon the glistening black floor of the ship.

  “As you can see,” Commander Linin said, gently retrieving the claw from Nebil’s arm with the tongs, “Their own weight is enough to cleave flesh. Imagine thousands of pounds of muscle behind it and you are beginning to get an idea of how dangerous these creatures are.”

  “Don’t forget the scales,” Nebil muttered, rubbing the wound on his arm. Already, it was healing.

  Commander Linin returned the talon to its case and retrieved a scale. “We will pass this around for you to examine. It’s an outer scale from a Dhasha male. Utterly indestructible.”

  “What he means is,” Battlemaster Nebil said, “if every star in the universe suddenly decided to explode at the same time, these things would still be around a mil
lion years from now, after the dust settles.”

  Yeah, right.

  But when Joe finally got his hands on the scale, he got goosebumps. It felt unnatural in his hands, gliding across his fingers like it was slick with water. It had absolutely no give whatsoever, and though it was only six inches across and nine inches tall, it weighed more than a sack of potatoes. It also stank like rotten fish.

  Looking at the scale made Joe’s eyes ache. It was never a single color at any time—the rainbow iridescence seeming to swirl across it unnaturally, pooling in yellows, reds, greens, purples, blues, oranges. Joe quickly passed it off to the next recruit and wiped his sweaty palms on his shirt.

  Once they were finished examining the scale, Commander Linin went on. “Takki,” he said, flipping on a screen showing a short, bipedal purple lizard with pupiless, egg-shaped sapphire eyes similar to the Dhasha and kreenit’s emerald. “The ancestral Dhasha slaves, evolved on the same planet as the Dhasha and the kreenit.” Linin’s voice held an unmistakable note of disgust. “Without them, the Dhasha would never have developed their own technology and would still be starving on Tenyuir where they belong.” Abruptly, he switched the screen off. “That’s all you need to know about them.”

  “How big are they?” Joe asked, sweat slickening his palms and dampening his underarms.

  Commander Linin eyed him carefully. “Taller than Ooreiki. About your size, actually.”

  Oh shit, Joe thought. Shit, shit shit…

  Commander Linin let that sink in, then changed the image to another picture of a male Dhasha, this one sitting on a pile of pillows like a smug cat. “Now to discuss how to keep from getting killed when you’re around Dhasha…just keep in mind you’re Takki soot. As Takki soot, you must avoid eye contact. Dhasha find a lesser creature’s gaze repulsive and they will eat you for it.”

  “Will we see Dhasha where we’re going?” someone asked.

  Linin grunted. “When we left, Congress was still undecided. Your body composition might be too…tempting.” The Ooreiki glanced at the screen. “But if they do decide to put you under a Dhasha commander, you’ll see one as soon as we land on Kophat.

  Something about the word Kophat was familiar, as if he had heard it somewhere before. Joe sat up, desperate to drag his mind away from the thought of tunnels. “Kophat? That’s where we’re going?”

  “Kophat is the training center for the Congressional Army. Of course that’s where you’re going, furgling.” It sounded to Joe like the translator meant, ‘moron.’

  Giving Joe an irritated look, Linin went on, “If you are given to a Dhasha Prime, this class will save your life. Never make eye contact, even in conversation. Always bow your heads when a Dhasha passes. If a Dhasha requests something of you, do it quickly, without question. Never speak to a Dhasha unless asked a specific question.” The Ooreiki’s snakelike eyes came to rest on Joe and stayed there. “And never show any insolence—you will be killed for it. Dhasha are not as merciful as certain Ooreiki Secondary Commanders.”

  Joe flushed and suddenly found his lap fascinating.

  Linin’s scowl moved on. “But, even if you follow all of these steps, many of you will get eaten anyway. Dhasha are prickly and unpredictable.” His face wrinkled in an Ooreiki smile. “And each one of them is worth ten thousand of you, on a bad day.”

  “Like Jreet,” Nebil grunted.

  “Yes,” Linin said. “Like Jreet.” He flashed a new picture onto the screen, this one of what looked like a crimson, scaly cross between a man, a bat, and an adder. It had two huge, muscular arms with bony, clawed fingers, and a long, twisted body like a snake. Most of its flat, diamond-shaped head was taken up with massive, predatory jaws and two huge, concave, ribbed depressions where a man’s ears would have been. Though it didn’t have wings, it was carrying a wicked-looking spear, tipped in what looked like milky glass, and was striking a tired pose, covered in blood and gore.

  Joe frowned, unable to see why that would be worth ten thousand of him.

  “They can render themselves invisible at will, and just a scratch of the poison they carry in their chests will kill anything in Congress,” Nebil said, when he asked. “Instantly.”

  Oh.

  Linin glanced at Joe again. “But there are very few Jreet, so they are only used as Sentinels. They’ve only had three planets, in all of history. Their breeding habits are…less viral…and their training customs ensures only about one in a hundred actually survive to adulthood. Thus, if too many Dhasha princes rebel at one time, that’s where you weaklings will come in.”

  Joe swallowed, suddenly not feeling very well.

  At lunch, Nebil again let the youngest decide who ate. Again, Joe’s team shared while the others squabbled. Again, they somehow evaded Ooreiki notice. Afterward, Joe watched the bullies move between the groups, taking whatever bowls of food pleased them, punching or hitting anyone who tried to resist, and a little ball of fury rose in his chest. He stood up before he really even thought about it. “Scott, Libby, come with me. Elf, Monk, you stay here and make sure Mag doesn’t follow us.” Then Joe was walking toward the last kid who’d had his meal stolen. Curious, Scott and Libby got off the bench and followed him.

  “Hey,” Joe said, touching the crying boy on the shoulder. “You’re still hungry, right?”

  Looking up with wide eyes, the boy nodded.

  “Then follow me,” Joe said, glaring at the big kids who were still roaming the tables. “We’re putting an end to this.”

  Joe found a dozen more children that were too small to be bullies, but big enough to help him. He took them to the center of the room and got up on one of the tables. Nebil immediately noticed and started moving toward him at a run. Joe ignored him and shouted to the room, “Listen up, guys! The next shithead to take food from anyone gets his ass kicked.”

  Then Battlemaster Nebil had a stinging tentacle around his throat and was dragging him off the table. “What in the Jreet hells do you think you’re doing, boy?!” Nebil demanded, shoving Joe away from the table.

  “I’m stopping the bullies,” Joe snapped. “Something you should be doing, anyway.” Already, adrenaline was making his knees shake, and a good portion of him was screaming at him to bolt before Nebil could crush more bones, but he met Nebil’s gaze stare-for-stare and refused to back down.

  Battlemaster Nebil blinked his pale, sticky eyes up at him in obvious confusion. He glanced at the kids moving between tables, then back up at Joe, still looking stunned. “Say that again?” the alien asked.

  “The bullies,” Joe repeated. “They’re taking kids’ food and I’m going to stop them.”

  The Ooreiki stared at him so long that Joe began to think he might have somehow fried his tentacle brain. Then, in a gruff grunt, the Ooreiki muttered, “Let them take care of themselves, Zero.”

  Joe fisted his hands and glared down at Nebil stubbornly. “Some of them can’t,” he insisted.

  “They’ve got to learn.”

  “They can’t learn if they starve to death first,” Joe retorted. He gestured at the roomful of kids. “You really think a five year old is going to be able to stand up to a gang of middle-schoolers?”

  Battlemaster Nebil gave him a long look, his sticky, slitted pupils fixed on Joe’s face. Then he warily turned and glanced in the direction Joe had pointed, his sticky eyes scanning the cafeteria with acute intelligence. He gave the bullies a long look before his gaze finally returned to settle on Joe. To Joe’s surprise, Nebil twisted and barked something to the other battlemasters in the room. Immediately, all the Ooreiki that had taken up stations along the wall began walking from the room, leaving just Nebil to guard the kids in the cafeteria. The scarred, pale-skinned battlemaster leveled a long, calculating stare on Joe, then turned and followed the other Ooreiki from the room.

  Joe felt a moment of triumph—until he realized the big kids hadn’t listened to him. They were still out wandering, stealing food wherever they saw a weakness. The littler ones cowered, saying no
thing, allowing themselves to be bullied.

  Joe spotted a boy across the room taking bowls from a group of little kids just sitting down to eat. He walked over to him, yanked the bowls out of his hands, and shoved him to the ground so hard the kid started to cry.

  Something about the bully having the audacity to cry after taking food from hungry little kids made Joe snap. He grabbed him by the white T-shirt, dragged him to one side of the room, and slammed him against the wall. Into the boy’s face, Joe shouted, “Do you think you’re better than them? Is that why you take their food, you piece of shit?!”

  The whole cafeteria went silent again.

  The boy’s blue eyes opened to wide circles of terror. “I won’t do it again, Zero. Please.” His fingers were half the size of Joe’s where they feebly tried to loosen Joe’s hold on his throat. Joe smelled fresh pee.

  Realizing that, Joe felt sudden, overwhelming self-disgust. He pushed the kid away from him and turned away, wiping his palms on his pants. He felt dirty. Like he’d just helped his father dig up the septic tank and had accidentally fallen in.

  He was halfway to his own table, shrinking under the accusation he saw in the hundreds of round, childlike faces around him, when Libby’s voice made him turn back. She had hopped onto a table and was telling the kids how the new bully patrol was going to work. “From now on, anytime you see someone taking food, let us know. The bully patrol will come stop it. We’ve got twelve kids on the patrol so far, including Zero. Anyone else wanna join us?”

  Three dozen hands went up.

  Joe stared at Libby. Was she really eight? Up on the table, in front of all the kids, she seemed like she was five times that.

  “From now on,” Libby intoned, “You’re all members of Zero’s patrol. Any time you see someone stealing, shout, and the rest of the bully patrol will come help you.”

  “How are we supposed to eat if we can’t take food?” a big kid asked.

  “Share,” Joe said, despite himself.

  Libby glanced at him and jumped down from the table. Reluctantly, Joe took her spot. He peered over the sea of little faces and tried not to remember he had just made a sixth-grader piss himself. “If you’re nice to your other group members, maybe they’ll share,” Joe said. “It’s what you all learned in kindergarten.”