Forging Zero

by Sara King

A rush of brown fluid spilled out over the rips in Kihgl’s white clothing and out onto the plaza to soak into the crushed black diamond. Kihgl’s lower half started to thrash and Joe could hear his former secondary commander screaming inside the Dhasha’s jaws. Knaaren stepped on Kihgl’s feet and jerked back, separating the upper half of Kihgl’s body from his legs and groin, then snapped his head forward and swallowed.

  “You petty, stupid beast!” the high-ranking Peacemaker screamed. “He was not to be killed!”

  Lord Knaaren leapt at the nearest blue-clad officer and swallowed him whole. The survivors ran to hide behind Representative Na’leen’s skimmer and Knaaren tore into the Huouyt on the ship, knocking two of its passengers to the ground. Even as the Huouyt cried out and changed colors like startled squid, he ate them. Then Representative Na’leen’s haauk took to the air, pulling the Representative well out of range of the Dhasha’s frenzy, while, simultaneously, three enormous ruby-scaled Jreet materialized in front of Knaaren, the plaza resounding with their rumbling shee-whomp battlecry.

  Knaaren’s rainbow plates were tight against his body now, however, and only one of the Jreet spears made it into his chest. One shattered with the force behind the Jreet’s attack and another made a tortured, metallic sound as the scale deflected it. As the third slid against the grain and sank into his flesh, Knaaren let out a roar that made the gravel tremble and threw himself at the Jreet responsible. The other two Jreet disappeared as Knaaren slammed their companion to the ground, ripping it into long red shreds as if its body were made of lettuce.

  Higher up, a dozen more haauk appeared, crawling with Huouyt. They did not land, but fired hundreds of plasma shots that harmlessly bounced off Knaaren’s scales and into the spectators, dripping from his body like oil. Knaaren sneered at them, pieces of the Sentinel still clinging to his teeth. Then he went back to Kihgl’s body and began to feast, ripping and tearing at the Ooreiki’s torso with black razor claws.

  The two larger Jreet used the opportunity to attack again. In an instant, they had both wrapped their long bodies around him, cinching down his arms and legs, drawing the Dhasha to the ground in a stranglehold. As Knaaren struggled vainly, one of the Jreet used its muscular red arms to pry up one of the scales guarding the Dhasha’s back, preparing to stab it with the poisonous appendage in its chest.

  “Leave him!” Na’leen snapped.

  Immediately, the two massive Jreet vanished. Moments later, Knaaren was on his feet again. “Cowards!” he screamed, spinning and raking his talons at air. “Come fight me, cowards!”

  All of it had happened in a matter of seconds. A dozen Huouyt and Ooreiki Peacemakers lay scattered in bloody pieces, their corpses mingled with the crimson strips of an enormous Jreet. Several children in Third Battalion lay dead or dying, body parts disintegrating under the blue goo coating them. When the two larger Jreet did not reappear, the Dhasha spun back to Kihgl’s body in a rage, tearing the corpse to unidentifiable strips before he ate it, ignoring Na’leen’s angry shouts.

  Then everything went silent. A glowing yellow ball had slipped out of Kihgl’s corpse and was rolling over the ground, tinkling across the rough black gravel. Around it, a luxurious golden fog was spreading, expanding with the pulse of a slow heartbeat.

  Several Ooreiki rushed to retrieve the ball, but Knaaren swatted it out of their reach. The tiny sphere went tinkling across the plaza and stopped against a recruit’s boot, the amber fog still pulsing around it. The startled child flinched, but managed to hold his composure until Knaaren stalked across the plaza to retrieve it, at which time the recruit had to jump out of the way to keep from losing a foot.

  “Don’t do it, furg,” Representative Na’leen warned.

  Knaaren lifted the small yellow ball in his mouth, the golden cloud spreading between the rows of black razors lining his jaws, caressing them. Knaaren’s rigid, toadlike tongue stretched out and licked at the amber fog, spreading it around like tendrils of disturbed smoke. Then he squeezed his mouth shut.

  Sparkles of gold cascaded from the Dhasha’s jaws and the nearby Ooreiki gave a collective gasp. Several battlemasters stumbled out of formation in horror, eyes riveted to the glittering remnants of the oorei. The golden cloud spread over the fallen pieces, then slowly dissipated into nothing.

  …like dust in the wind, Joe thought, his gut twisting in horror.

  Still hovering above the plaza, Representative Na’leen’s voice was calm. “That’s on your head, you ignorant savage.” At that, he wheeled his haauk around and flew away, his retinue of Jreet and Huouyt warriors following on a dozen ships behind him.

  The Ooreiki closest to the shattered oorei pooled its lower body to the ground and began a deep, heart-rending cry that built as more voices joined it. They surrounded the scattered shards of Kihgl’s oorei, pushing the Dhasha out of the way as they raised their sorrow in song.

  Knaaren backed up, glaring at them. “You are jenfurglings, to mourn over a traitor.”

  The Ooreiki ignored him, their mournful voices rising in a growing tide.

  Lord Knaaren snorted. “I cannot bear these wretches’ howling.” At that, he turned and departed, trailing his escort of Takki.

  And it wasn’t just the Ooreiki in the courtyard, Joe realized. The entire city was taking up the heart-rending wail. It was reverberating from every hollow cave, every skyscraper, bouncing off every wall, every crevice, a mournful sound that reached to the very soul. The kids stood in formation for another twenty minutes, but none of the Ooreiki made any motions to excuse them. They had gathered in a circle around the pieces of Kihgl’s oorei and were ignoring them completely, their collective song loud enough to make the diamond jitter at their feet.

  Once the Ooreiki screaming had lasted more than an hour, one of the recruits from the other battalions muttered he was hungry. His battalion disintegrated as its members went to go have lunch. Another battalion followed, and another, until Joe’s and the Second Battalion were the last two remaining. Only the constant training of the past few days kept Joe and the others in place. After endless hours of Nebil’s drills and Tril’s attempts to trick them, one thing stood out in their minds more than anything else—they hadn’t been dismissed yet.

  After a while, Sasha made a disgusted noise and started to move, but Libby stopped her. “They didn’t dismiss us,” Libby said.

  “They’re just standing there howling,” Sasha said. “Besides, I’m battlemaster. I’ll dismiss us for them.” She gave Libby a condescending look and started to leave the formation.

  “Stay,” Joe commanded.

  Sasha jerked, frowning at him like he’d just grown antennae. “What did you say to me, recruit?”

  “Stay,” Joe repeated, “Or I’ll make you stay.”

  “We’ll make you stay,” Scott said.

  “Yeah,” Monk said. “We’ll make you stay.”

  Sasha scowled at Monk, who was quickly becoming the smallest member of the battalion, and for a moment, Joe thought she would try to dismiss the battalion anyway. Then her gaze passed from Monk to Libby, to Maggie, to Scott, all of whom were staring her down with the obvious intent of pounding her freak jaw into oblivion.

  Nervously, she turned back to Joe. She looked him up and down with a disdainful sneer and Joe watched her reach that split-second decision where she judged whether or not her five-five frame could win in a fistfight.

  Sniffing loudly with disdain, Sasha returned to her place as recruit battlemaster. For the next hour, she sighed, rolled her eyes, and fidgeted as the Ooreiki song went on. Joe glared at the back of her head as she stood in front of them, pouting. That spoiled brat doesn’t deserve to be battlemaster, he thought bitterly, watching her scuff at the diamond dust. All around them, all activity in the entire city had come to an utter standstill. All haauks had landed, their colorful passengers all facing the courtyard and its pitiful group of black-clad mourners.

  Across the plaza, Second Battalion also remained where it was.

  The Oore
iki did not stop wailing. Instead, their despondent cry continued to grow until the very air trembled and all of Alishai was ringing with the sound. The noise was so powerful it made Joe’s knees and lungs shake. It was so unavoidably strong it felt to Joe like they were inside a violin or a set of bagpipes, and that the sound was seeping into every single molecule, of everything from his flesh and blood to the stone at his feet. Joe had to clench his fists together in front of him to keep from feeling his finger-bones vibrating against each other. The sound penetrated everything, right down to his marrow.

  But still it continued.

  Other cities took up the cry. Like the odd scraping sounds in the forest, the echoes of the other cities were a distant, softer tone that bounced against the ferlii and seemed to come from everywhere at once. It felt like it was going to rattle him apart.

  “That sound’s driving me crazy,” Sasha said. “You guys are really stupid to make us stay here. Her angular face was strained, her hands clenched into fists at her side.

  “My fingers are going numb,” Scott said behind Joe.

  “I’m hungry,” Maggie whimpered.

  And still the Ooreiki howled. On and on, until Joe thought he was going to lose his mind.

  Then it stopped.

  All at once, like a conductor had dropped his wand, every single Ooreiki on the planet stopped screaming. The echoing silence was enormous, filling his ears until they hummed. Then, like nothing had ever happened, the Congies all turned away from the shattered pieces of the oorei to face their recruits.

  Sixth and Second Battalions got to sleep that night. The others did not.

  CHAPTER 18: Christmas Songs

  “Any of you know any Christmas songs?” Joe asked into an otherwise sullen silence. He had gotten all of his chores done and he was bored, looking for something to do. From what he could guess, it was sometime around Christmas, though he couldn’t be sure. The Congies measured time differently, and had never given them a conversion of turns to years—they just expected the kids to pick it up as they went.

  “I do!” Monk cried, “I know lots. Jingle Bells, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Dashing Through the Snow—”

  “That’s Jingle Bells,” Scott said.

  “No it’s not.”

  “Yes it is.”

  “No it’s not. Joe, is it Jingle Bells?”

  “I don’t know,” Joe admitted. “Not big on Christmas.”

  “So why do you wanna sing Christmas songs?” Scott asked.

  “I think it’s around Christmastime.”

  “That was last week,” Libby said.

  “Well soot. I mean damn. I mean crap. Burn. Mag, just close your ears, okay?”

  “We missed Christmas?” Maggie asked in a tiny voice. Her eyes were wide, and her lip had started trembling.

  Wincing, Joe said, “Maybe. It was close to Christmas when we left.”

  “It was last week,” Libby said again.

  “Well, Hell,” Joe muttered, giving Libby an irritated look. She hadn’t been wrong yet, but couldn’t she just fudge it for once? “We can make our own Christmas.”

  “When are we gonna get our presents?” Maggie asked, with instant excitement.

  “Aliens don’t believe in Christmas,” Monk said. “Mom says they’re all heathens and Mr. Allen says they’re all going to Hell. Why would they give us presents if they’re all going to Hell?”

  “Santa could bring us presents,” Maggie retorted. “I don’t want alien presents anyway. I want them from Santa. When is Santa going to bring us presents, Joe?”

  Monk frowned. “There is no—”

  “We don’t have to have presents to have a good Christmas,” Joe interrupted. He shot Monk a pointed look and pulled the top of his collar shut to retain warmth. The sun was on its dark cycle again, and they were all wearing heavy, heat-retaining jackets because the barracks weren’t heated.

  “How can you have Christmas without presents?” Maggie asked, perplexed.

  “Christmas isn’t about presents, it’s about getting out of school,” Scott said.

  “It is not!” Monk cried. “Christmas is about making sure you give everyone a good gift so the Lord doesn’t think you’re stingy and send you to Hell.”

  Libby rolled her eyes and stayed out of the conversation. She was using Joe’s Swiss Army knife to cut holes in her gear. Joe had already tried to stop her, but she had ignored him.

  Joe rubbed the acne that was itching on his back, then sighed. “Let’s hear Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I don’t know anything else.”

  Monk joyfully broke out into Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and he and Maggie joined in. It took a little bit longer for Scott, but soon enough half their barracks room was singing. Libby looked up with a frown and watched them over her gear, but didn’t join.

  Once they finished Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Joe started Deck the Halls and even more kids got into it, some of them learning the lines as they went. For the first time in months, Joe saw an entire roomful of kids grinning and laughing. He heard more of Sixth Battalion start up all around him, their voices reverberating off the honeycombed black walls and glassy ebony tunnels.

  Joe thought Sixth Battalion was singing awfully loud when he realized that it wasn’t just them. The level above them was singing, too. He actually stopped and listened, stunned, as kids on the other barracks levels took up the song.

  They finished Deck the Halls, and Monk started singing Frosty the Snowman. This time, the sound was incredible. It echoed against the glassy walls, threatening to shatter them.

  “You hear that?” Libby whispered after the last verse was over.

  But by that time, the battalion below them had started singing The Twelve Days of Christmas. All around them, the stone was vibrating with thousands of voices. Joe went to the locked barracks door and quickly punched in the code he’d seen Nebil use to open it. After glancing both ways for battlemasters, Joe stepped onto the balcony. Libby followed him outside to listen. Standing still on the circular highways surrounding the other buildings, brightly-garbed Ooreiki civilians had stopped their daily activities and were staring at the barracks. Some had even boarded haauk and approached, their brown eyes alight with curiosity.

  Once Deck the Halls was over, someone started Old MacDonald Had a Farm. Then it was Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Joe was dumbstruck. Eight thousand voices vibrating in the caves sounded like thunder. They stuck to kids’ songs for a while, then someone started Oh Say Can You See and they went through a litany of patriotic songs loud enough to make the walls shake. They did every song Joe knew, and more he didn’t. More Ooreiki gathered to watch, some even walking to the base of the barracks and climbing the stairs to get closer, but the songs continued.

  “You Humans have voices to make the ancestors cry,” a translator said beside him, bringing on a full-body wash of goosebumps. Joe’s heart stuttered like he’d been dipped in a bucket of icewater, the songs forgotten. He ducked, bracing himself for a blow.

  “Battlemaster Nebil,” he began quickly, “we were just—”

  A brightly-garbed civilian stood behind him, his haauk sitting on the deck a few feet away. His skin was so dark it was nearly black, which, Joe had learned from observing his captors, indicated youth.

  Scott and Libby, who had followed Joe to the door, backed away from the young Ooreiki nervously. Battlemaster Nebil had made it clear that any recruit caught talking to a civilian would be exercised until he could no longer feel his feet, and Joe had the door wide open when it was supposed to be locked.

  “You look much different than I imagined,” the Ooreiki said, stepping closer to Joe, his huge pupils dilating in curiosity. “The images they sent back showed so little detail. Your eyes are actually different colors.” He seemed to find that fascinating, glancing from Joe to Scott and back. “Is that natural or altered?”

  “We’re not allowed to talk to you,” Libby said, grabbing Joe’s arm. “Come on, Joe. Let’s go back before Nebil sees the door.
”

  But Joe was staring at the Ooreiki in front of him with equal fascination. The alien wore long, graceful swaths of bright red cloth glittering with waves of colorful stones. As he watched, the cloth changed color, shifting from a deep scarlet to a bright orange, then yellow. Thousands of Dhasha scales the size of Joe’s thumbnail gleamed like jewels in spiral patterns radiating outward from the Ooreiki’s abdomen. Pebble-sized gems of all colors hung in silver tassels from his arms. Silver caps laced with the same Celtic-type knots as Kihgl’s armband encased the tips of the Ooreiki’s tentacles on the right hand, leaving only the left still functioning. Joe could not stop staring.

  In the background, the children had switched to Mary Had a Little Lamb.

  “What is the significance of their song?” the Ooreiki asked. He was taller than most of the Ooreiki Joe had seen, almost five and a half feet.

  Joe hesitated, not sure he wanted to risk Nebil’s wrath for talking to the civilian. And, at the same time, he was dying to talk to him. Maybe he knew things, knew ways to get them home…

  “Come on, Joe. You’re gonna get in trouble!” Libby had stepped back within the confines of the barracks, leaving him alone with the civilian.

  The bright-clad Ooreiki looked from Joe to Libby and back. “Your name is Choe?”

  “Kkee,” Joe said reluctantly. “Joe Dobbs. Who are you?”

  “Choe.” The Ooreiki youngster’s eyes began to gleam with excitement. “Yuil.” He stepped closer and glanced inside the barracks. “Ghosts,” he said in astonishment, “They make you live like the Jreet. Where is your art?”

  “I don’t think the battlemasters care about art,” Joe said. Around them, the last children’s song was dying down and the barracks once more descended into silence.

  “Every Ooreiki cares about art. We did not evolve out of the darkness of the lower canopy not to appreciate beauty.” Yuil flourished his metal-tipped fingers toward the ferlii trees ringing the edge of the city. “It’s an abomination that Congress makes us give up so many young ones for the Draft. To wear black all day—” Yuil’s sudah began to tremble. “It’s unnatural.”