Forging Zero

by Sara King

  “I know,” Joe said. “Our clothes got mixed up because you—”

  “You took it from him and he didn’t want to give it to you. You used brute force. You stole that vest, Zero.”

  Joe pressed his lips together, scowling down at the battlemaster. He was a foot taller than the Ooreiki, but the alien was a mass of muscle that could easily break every bone in his body. He waited.

  “You shame me. You do not steal from other Congies. A squad leader gives everything he has to keep his grounders alive. He never takes from his own troops. Never.” Nebil broke into another string of Congie curses. Then, “Chins will deal with you later. Say the Groundteam Prayer.”

  Joe did, to the best of his ability.

  “No good! Again!”

  Joe did.

  “Do it again! That sounded like Takki ashes! You are wrong!”

  “I don’t know what I’m—” Joe began.

  Nebil hit him. “You do what I tell you! Say the Prayer. Again!”

  Joe tried. Nebil told him he was wrong. He tried again. And got it wrong. Again. And again. Finally, the battlemaster recited it for him and made him repeat it six more times before he was satisfied.

  Then Nebil shoved him out the door, vestless, rifleless, to march at the head of the platoon. He only tired of humiliating Joe when one kid started snickering at him as they went through rifle drills, Joe holding empty air. Nebil tore the rifle out of the snickering kid’s hands and threw it to Joe, then proceeded to hound the snickering kid, shouting in Congie they didn’t understand. The kid ended up wetting himself and running off to change through a hail of Congie curses. Then Nebil moved on to another unfortunate soul. Everyone got a taste of his wrath.

  Their two food breaks were treasured moments, a full half-hour of peace where all they had to do was eat in silence. Then Battlemaster Nebil herded them back out to practice marching. They marched with gear, without gear, with rifles, without rifles, and one unfortunate boy got to march without boots when he complained that they were too heavy for him.

  Not even the youngest kids were spared Nebil’s attention. Maggie tripped and Nebil stood her up and shouted in her face until she was bawling. Maggie looked to Joe, who continued to stare straight ahead, knowing that Nebil was waiting for him to show a lack of discipline so he could punish his whole groundteam. Though it hurt to ignore her, Joe knew she needed to understand he couldn’t always come to her rescue when she was in trouble.

  In the end, Maggie stopped crying and started shouting back.

  Nebil cuffed her, shoved her rifle back into her hands, and stalked away. Maggie scowled after him so long that Joe thought she would drop her rifle again. But she got back into formation and didn’t look at Joe the rest of the day.

  Later, Joe wished he could talk to Maggie, make it up to her, but between Sasha using his every spare minute to make him do pushups in front of everyone and the complete monopoly Battlemaster Nebil had on their time during waking hours, Joe didn’t find the opportunity until that night, when Nebil left them sitting on the floor of the barracks cleaning their rifles before bed.

  “What happened to Elf?” Monk asked once they were alone. It was the first time any of them had mentioned Elf’s disappearance since Knaaren had taken him. “Where’d those lizards take him?”

  No one wanted to answer her.

  “Knaaren ate him,” Libby finally said.

  Monk’s fingers whitened on her rifle. “He did not. Don’t lie.”

  “I’m not lying,” Libby said, continuing to clean her rifle without looking up.

  “You’re stupid. He didn’t eat Elf,” Monk said. “They can’t because he’s a soldier now.” Like it was the Holy Grail or something. “Right, Joe?”

  Before Joe could respond, Maggie said, “Joe doesn’t know everything, you burning ashsoul.” The last two words were perfect Congie, proof that Nebil had been teaching her something.

  “Maggie!” Joe cried, glancing at the door. “Stop cussing!” The Ooreiki, he knew, considered ‘ashsoul’ to be an extreme insult, one of the worst verbal invectives someone could say to another.

  “I don’t have to,” Maggie said. “The Ooreiki cuss all the time. I’ve got a gun. I’m a Congie now. Congies can cuss when they want to.”

  “Not in my groundteam.”

  “So make me stop, asher.” Again, perfect Congie.

  Libby, who was seated beside Maggie, swatted her in the back of the head.

  Without warning, Maggie threw her rifle down and lunged at Libby, taking the bigger girl down with her tiny fingers gouging her eyes. Joe and Scott had to drag them apart to break them up.

  “Let go of me!” Maggie cried, struggling in Joe’s grip. “Let go! Let go, let go, let go, let go!”

  “Mag, calm down! Calm—” Maggie kicked his thigh in a move that bumped his nuts just hard enough to hurt and ran from the barracks as he recovered, jumping over startled recruits still cleaning their weapons.

  Worried Nebil might catch her in his rounds before lockup, Joe got up and ran after her. He caught her on the long, switchback stair to the ground.

  “Maggie, stop!” he shouted, grabbing her around the waist. “You know what they do to kids that run off?!” She kicked him again in his knee for the trouble.

  He twisted her around. “Mag, I’m sorry I didn’t help you. I couldn’t. We gotta be big kids now. We’re soldiers. We can’t cry anymore. We gotta dig in and get this over with, do what they tell us to do. You were doing great today…I was so proud of you.”

  Maggie wouldn’t look up. “Sasha says I’m stupid because I can’t hold my rifle.”

  Joe felt his irritation rise, remembering it. “I know.” Sasha had also made Joe do pushups for taking the vest even after Nebil had forgotten about it.

  “You should tell Nebil she’s mean to us.”

  “I think he already knows,” Joe said. “He doesn’t care.”

  Maggie kicked at the stairs.

  “Mag, I’m sorry I couldn’t help you today,” Joe said softly, squeezing her shoulder. “I won’t always be there to help you. You gotta grow up and do things on your own.”

  “It was heavy,” Maggie muttered, thumping her boot against the carved black stone.

  “What?”

  “The gun,” she whined. “It was heavy. My arms hurt. And I tripped.”

  “I know,” Joe said. “That wasn’t your fault. You’re small now, but you’re getting bigger. Soon you’ll be as big as the rest of us, and it won’t be so hard for you.”

  She looked up at him, her tearful gray eyes seeking. “Is Elf really gonna get eaten?”

  Joe opened his mouth to lie. Seeing her plaintive stare, however, his words died on his lips. “I don’t know,” he said honestly.

  “I miss my guppies.” Maggie’s voice cracked, her eyes filling up with tears. She had the face and body of a teenager, but her mind…

  Her mind was still a child’s.

  Joe hugged her. “I know you do, Mag.”

  “I can’t remember what I named them,” Maggie whispered. “All I remember is their spots. It’s even getting hard to remember Mommy and Daddy.”

  Joe felt at a loss. He’d thought he was the only one. “I remember you called one of them Jabber.”

  Maggie’s breath caught. “Can you help me remember the rest, Joe?”

  “I can try,” Joe said. Oh yeah? part of him demanded. How, you dumbshit? You don’t know anything about her. She’s gonna grow up an alien because she’s not gonna remember Earth.

  “You can tell me stories,” Maggie said, taking his hand. “About Jabber and my parents.”

  “Okay. Sure, I can do that.” Oh, man, Joe, you idiot. You couldn’t tell a story to save your ass.

  By the time they returned to the barracks, the others were already done inspecting their weapons and had turned out the lights. The day had been so exhausting that not even their own groundteam had waited up for them. Joe and Maggie finished with their rifles, folded their clothes, and Joe
, hoping she had forgotten his offer, went to bed. Before he fell asleep, however, Maggie jerked on his sleeve and demanded her story.

  Blushing, Joe made up a halting tale about a fish named Jabber and how her parents would feed him one pinch of food morning and night. It was hesitant at first, but as he talked, the words grew easier.

  “But Jabber was getting lonely,” Joe said, getting into it. “So he went out looking for other guppies.”

  “How did he get out of his bowl?” Maggie asked, fascinated.

  “He put on a drysuit,” Joe said. “You know, like a wetsuit, but one for fish.”

  Maggie listened, enraptured, as he put in all the details about Earth he could, trying to fix it in her mind so she didn’t forget her home.

  When he finished, he realized the entire barracks was sitting up in bed, listening to his tale. Softly, a little girl on the next bed over said, “Can you tell me a story tomorrow night? About my cat?”

  “And my pet snake!” a boy cried, jumping up. “His name was Jax. Can you tell me about Jax?”

  Joe scanned the hungry faces, feeling good for the first time in weeks. “Yeah.” He grinned back at them self-consciously. “I can do that.”

  #

  “Feed them as much as you want, Maggie. They deserve a treat.”

  Maggie gave the little cylinder of fish food a dubious glance. Her parents had been acting strange today. Maybe it had been Grammy and Pops showing up. They’d brought Maggie a lot of presents but didn’t have any for Mommy and Daddy, so maybe they were mad she got to open everything and they didn’t get any.

  “Go ahead, Mag.” Daddy smiled down at her, holding Mommy’s hand. Their eyes were wet but Mommy and Daddy had gotten al-her-jic to the new sweater Grammy had given her and that’s why they were crying.

  “You feed them, Daddy,” Maggie said, offering up the canister to her father. “Jabber likes you to do it.”

  “You should do it,” Daddy said, making no move to take the fish food from her. “You need to, baby.”

  “As much as you want,” Mommy added.

  Maggie stared up at them, then down at the multi-colored flakes. She considered dumping the whole canister into the tank, then dutifully reached inside and drew out one pinch. This she sprinkled atop the water.

  She giggled as Jabber raced the others to the top and sucked in three flakes before any of the others had one.

  “You sure that’s all you want to give them?” Mommy asked. “You can give them as much as you want, honey.”

  “But you said it would make them get sick,” Maggie accused.

  “Once in a while is okay, honey.”

  Maggie considered the surface of the water, which had been picked clean of food, and quickly put in another pinch. Then, feeling naughty, she twisted the cap back onto the canister and set it by the tank. She gave her parents an anxious glance to see if this had been some sort of test that she’d failed, but their faces held no disapproval. Her mother was being al-her-jic again.

  “I don’t have to wear Grammy’s sweater,” Maggie said, glancing down at the little yellow duck on the front. “I won’t wear it if it makes you cry.”

  Mommy wiped her eyes. “No, baby. You’re fine. Keep Grammy’s sweater. She made it for you.”

  “But I don’t like to see you cry, Mommy,” Maggie said. “I’d rather you were happy.”

  Her mother ran from the room, leaving Maggie alone with Daddy. Maggie stared after her, feeling something wrench inside of her, but before she could start to cry herself, her father knelt in front of her and pulled her into a big hug.

  “You’ve gotta be a strong little girl for Daddy, okay Mag? Grammy and Pops are going to take you on a trip for a while. You like to go on trips, right?”

  “Do I get to see birds?” Maggie asked.

  “You’ll see all sorts of birds,” Daddy told her. “Crows, blackbirds, seagulls—”

  Maggie pushed her father at arm’s-length so she could see his face. “If I’m really good, can we catch a little baby seagull so I can have it as a pet? I’d rather have a seagull than a parakeet.”

  Her father looked at the floor. “I’m sorry we never got you a parakeet, Mag. You like birds so much more than fish. We just thought—” He broke off and when he looked up at her, this time he was being al-her-jic. “Maybe Grammy will stop so you can get a seagull. You’ve got to ask her, though.”

  Maggie’s heart soared. “Thank you, Daddy! I’ll get you a seagull, too! It’ll be the littlest, littlest seagull I ever saw and I’ll give it to you so our seagulls can be friends.”

  “I’d love to have a seagull with you, Mag.” Somehow, however, her father’s smile didn’t seem very happy. He hugged her again. “I love you, Mag.”

  “I love you too, Daddy.”

  CHAPTER 17: Kihgl’s Fall

  The morning of Kihgl’s trial, Battlemaster Nebil did not knock over lockers to wake them up. He used a pocket-sized device that broadcasted his voice like a bullhorn.

  “Get your gear! Get your gear you useless Takki dogs! Ceremonial otwa and full regalia! Get dressed, furgs! Faster! Faster! Move your bony Human asses faster!”

  Joe scrambled to get his stuff on, but before he could finish, Nebil stopped them and made them take everything off again and start over.

  “Today is the trial!” Nebil shouted. “You will look good when Kihgl gets burned. Now do it again! Faster! Faster! You soot-eating furglings, move faster!” All the while, he walked down the halls, shoving the alien bullhorn into people’s faces and screaming at them if they weren’t moving fast enough.

  All of their ears were ringing by the time they finally got themselves meeting Nebil’s standards. Then he had them spend an hour cleaning the otwa they had been drilling with the last week. Once they were pristine, he had them form up by groundteam on the black roadway below the barracks and marched them to the plaza, cursing at them all the way. There, they met up with the nine other platoons from Sixth Battalion and got into formation.

  We look better, Joe thought with a bit of pride. Everyone was in step, and there was barely any jaggedness to their lines. That, and the painful process of taking off and putting on their gear had paid off—they almost looked professional. He even could see the other members of Sixth Battalion stand up straighter upon seeing the improvement.

  Then he saw the other battalions marching up, every member adult-sized and utterly rigid in spine and step. As they took their places on either side of Sixth Battalion, Joe’s heart sank. Whereas he had been proud of Sixth Battalion’s straighter rows and crisper uniforms, the other battalions marched with enough force to shake the ground, their formations were confident and tight, and they carried dozens of streaming black banners bearing the symbol of Congress—eight small blue circles surrounding a large silver sphere—and the blocky squiggles of Congie writing.

  Once again, they were going to look weak and unprepared. Joe saw Battlemaster Nebil eye the black banners and curse. Even Linin looked unnerved. He and the other Ooreiki of Sixth Battalion conferred momentarily, then Tril stalked over to the tertiary commander leading Fifth Battalion and spoke with him with increasing intensity, loud enough to be heard over the commands of the battalions still arranging themselves in the plaza.

  Tril returned to Sixth Battalion with his sudah fluttering harder than Joe had ever seen before. Sharply, he shouted in Congie, “Battlemasters, are your platoons in order?”

  “They are, Commander!” the battlemasters returned in unison, their voices booming over the plaza with an intensity that made Joe stare.

  “Good. Retain them.”

  “Retain!” Nebil shouted at them.

  That, Joe had learned, meant to stand with his heels together, his toes pointed at a forty-five degree angle, his arms held tightly down in front of him, one hand grasping the butt of his rifle and the other grasping the barrel. Sixth Battalion managed to do it quickly enough, though the sound of their boots slamming the ground were not as loud as the battalions on eithe
r side.

  “Check arms!”

  Joe quickly popped the rifle back, opening up the fist-sized bulbous chamber. Inside were a cluster of blue pellets inside a tight membrane resembling a sac of fish eggs. He snapped his rifle shut and winced at the way the snaps from Sixth Battalion’s guns echoed unevenly, spread out between a ten-second interval. In the other battalions, the snaps roared as one, a crisp and even sound that left his hair standing on end.

  Joe felt a rush of shame as they stood there, bannerless, feeling the other battalions’ disdain like a hot poison in his chest.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Sixth Battalion’s battlemasters seemed to share his anger. All of their sudah were fluttering hotly as they stood beside their platoons.

  Down the ranks, First Battalion’s commander called out a question and they responded by lifting their rifles to their shoulders and, aiming over the heads of the recruit in front of them, fired into the sky. The “Kkee Diinrok!” that blasted across the plaza from nine hundred mouths made Joe flinch. He knew Sixth Battalion didn’t sound that good.

  Down the lines, each battalion fired their rifles in time, the echoing burp signaling they were ready. When it came time for Sixth Battalion’s turn, Commander Tril lifted his voice over the plaza. “Is Sixth Battalion ready to serve?”

  They lifted their rifles and fired on queue and shouted a ragged “Kkee Diinrok!” that was garbled from everyone starting at different times. Then a kid brought his weapon up and fired late, probably thinking that being late was better than not firing at all, and the sound of his gun cut off Tril’s ceremonial reply. Joe was close enough to Fifth Battalion to hear several of them snicker.

  “The Sixth is ready to serve!” Tril repeated, sudah whipping in his neck as he scowled at the child who had fired out of turn. Joe knew the poor kid would probably get run into the ground for his mistake. “We shall hear the accused.” The rest of the regiment repeated the drill, then the entire plaza fell silent as everyone waited. Out of the corner of his eye, Joe saw bright-clad Ooreiki civilians watching from balconies like curious children.