Forging Zero

by Sara King

  “Come,” Yuil insisted, gently wrapping her metal-encased fingers around his arm. “I’ll show you.”

  “They just leave it open for anybody to walk into?” Joe asked in disbelief. Even if Kophat was a training planet, he doubted Congress would leave a weapons stash completely unguarded.

  Yuil tapped the little golden band she now wore on a finger, right above the metal casings that looked like Celtic knots. Another akarit.

  “Something you learn in yeeri academy is that akarit aren’t just good for privacy.” Yuil leaned close conspiratorially. “Congress has no creativity. All government buildings open with codes related to what they are used for. It only took my friend and me eighteen tics to figure out that the code was the initials of Kophat’s Prime Overseer. The akarit kept the lock from alerting Peacemakers of our attempts.”

  Joe felt a cold tingle tracing up his back. If Congressional security was so lax that an Ooreiki teenager could break into it, what was keeping rebels from storming the compound and using the weapons against Congress?

  Then again, Yuil might not be any teenager. Even on Earth, there were geeks who could crash half a country with a click of their mouse. Like Sam. Who was to say Yuil wasn’t some sort of Wunderkind who had discovered a glitch in the system?

  “Someday you gotta show me how to do that,” Joe said. Though, if it was anything close to as complicated as some of the stuff Sam had shown him, back on Earth, he knew it was out of his league.

  But Yuil just nodded. “Follow me.”

  Yuil led him along the branch highways, hopping down and changing ferlii when it pleased her. Every once in a while, Joe caught a glimpse of the ground through the branches and his muscles threatened to seize up at the dizziness that followed.

  Eventually, they came to a nondescript door set into the side of a ferlii. Joe stared at it, stunned by its simple appearance. This held a weapons-storage facility that could destroy Congress?

  Yuil stepped close to the door’s control pad and Joe glanced both ways, nervous.

  Amazingly, as soon as Yuil entered the code, the door dripped open. No sirens, no alarms, no bombs going off. Just a gaping hole in the side of the ferlii and a row of red lights leading them inside.

  Joe stared, his mouth ajar. If this was how easy it was to break into top-secret government installations, maybe he did still have a hope of getting back home. Excited, he followed Yuil inside and was only a little worried when the door shut again behind them.

  “So what do you think?” Yuil asked inside, her eyes almost completely black from her widened pupils.

  “It’s really cool,” Joe said. His voice echoed down the empty corridor. He peered down it nervously. “You sure nobody’s here?”

  “There’s never anybody here,” Yuil said. “Congress has got a tenth of its army hovering around Kophat. They don’t need to guard it.”

  “I don’t know…” Joe began.

  “Don’t worry. We’re safe.” Yuil motioned at the corridor. “Where do you want to go first?”

  “What do you mean?” Joe asked.

  “They’ve got rooms filled with bombs, rooms of guns, rooms of tanks, artillery… There’s even an ekhta in here. The top of the ferlii folds over so it can deploy.”

  “Ek-ta?”

  “Planet-killer. Target a species giving you a problem and boom. Problem eliminated.”

  Joe bit his lip, glancing at the rows of doors. The place was making him nervous. He couldn’t believe Congress would just leave a stash of weapons and never come back to check on it. “I think I should be getting back.”

  Yuil gave him a sharp look. “Why?”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea to be here,” Joe said. “I mean, who in their right mind would just leave all these weapons here and not guard them?”

  “Congress,” Yuil said matter-of-factly. “The politicians grow old and stupid. The whole Regency is too cocky. Kophat is in the Old Territory, so they automatically assume that nothing can touch them here. Come on.” Yuil pulled Joe further down the corridor. “I’ll show you the guns.”

  Joe followed her a little ways, then paused again, glancing at the floor. Below him, the surface was darker than that around it. He touched it and his hand came back slick with light brown fluid. He quickly wiped it on his leg, wondering if it had leaked from a canister of poison. “What’s that?”

  Yuil frowned down at the splotch. “Nothing. A leak.”

  “What kind of leak?” Joe asked. The corridor was beginning to remind him of the Takki tunnels. A few yards away from the smudge on the floor, an Ooreiki military flashlight lay forgotten against one wall. Joe rubbed at the goosebumps in his arms, eying it. “Look, I really think we should leave. Back home, we’d get in real deep soot for sneaking into a place like this. Like we wouldn’t see the light of day for fifty years, that kind of stuff. I can only imagine what the Peacemakers would do to us.”

  “Peacemakers wouldn’t care,” Yuil said, waving off his concern and continuing down the corridor. “We’re just kids.”

  Still, something about the place was setting Joe’s nerves on end, and refused to follow. “I’d just like to go home, okay? I’ve got stuff I need to study for the next hunt.”

  Looking extremely irritated, Yuil complied. By the time they had gotten back to the haauk, however, she had cheered. She even let him drive.

  Joe pulled the haauk up through the scarlet ferlii branches and hovered above the house-sized clusters of crimson spores, uncertain. “How do we get home from here?”

  “The city is due west,” Yuil said, pointing to a dial on the haauk’s controls. “It’s nine ferlii-lengths out. See those cuts in the canopy on either side? The highways converge on Alishai. Just follow them back.”

  Joe followed her instructions and eventually they arrived at the barracks.

  “Thanks, Yuil,” Joe said. He was flushed with adrenaline—on the way there, Yuil had showed him how to do a roll, and how the gravity of the haauk kept their feet on the floor even if they were hovering upside-down.

  “Next time I will show you how to activate your commanders’ haauks,” Yuil said, a huge Ooreiki smile bunching the skin of her face. “It’s a lot like opening doors.”

  Joe watched her fly away, though something was nagging at him. He was sure Yuil had been lying about something. His gut was telling him that the government compound had been too easy for them to access. Further, he just simply could not believe they would leave it unguarded all the time. From what she told him, an ekhta only a few minutes from Alishai was basically the same thing as leaving a nuclear bomb unguarded in the middle of Washington DC. Debating this, he turned to go back inside.

  He ran into Libby, blocking the entryway. She had been standing behind him, her arms crossed. She wore only her underwear. She just scowled at him.

  “Hi,” Joe said, acutely uncomfortable. Behind her, the door was unlocked. Libby must have opened it herself.

  “They said enemies of Congress might try to buy our loyalty.”

  Joe felt suddenly cold. “Nobody’s tried to buy me.”

  Her flat stare told him he wasn’t fooling anybody. “Where’d you get that candy, Joe?”

  Joe swallowed hard. “Good night, Lib.”

  CHAPTER 25: Getting Ready for War

  “How did you get that rash, Zero?”

  Joe blinked, unsure what Battlemaster Nebil was talking about. All morning, he had been preoccupied with the fact that the little silver lesson pad—the pad he had planned on using during the hunt tomorrow—was gone. He realized Nebil was looking at the mark on his neck from Lagrah’s tentacle. He lifted a hand to cover it reflexively.

  “I had a problem with an Ooreiki, sir.”

  “Commander Tril?”

  “No, sir.” Joe tensed, dreading the battlemaster’s next question.

  “Who?”

  Joe grimaced. “Lagrah, sir.”

  Battlemaster Nebil grunted, then turned away from him to survey the rest of the recruits.
He raised his voice and shouted, “The hunt’s tomorrow, and I’ll be damned if Tril’s gonna starve you again. Everyone get your canteens and fill them with food at the chow hall. I don’t care if you all die in the first tic, Fourth Platoon will eat.”

  Battlemaster Nebil guarded the end of the food line as the entire battalion filled their canteens with the green goop, scowling at any other Ooreiki who dared to give his recruits a second glance. Then he made them give double servings for that morning’s meal and sat them down in the center of the chow hall as if they owned the place, even though they were using Fifth Battalion’s time-slot.

  As Fifth Battalion crowded into the tables that were left, Nebil took a bowl for himself and acquired his own serving of pond scum. He then sat down at the table with his platoon and wordlessly began to scoop the food into his mouth. It was one of the first times Joe had ever seen an Ooreiki eat, and it was not a pleasant sight. The alien’s face distorted and stretched until it surrounded its tentacle like a balloon and sucked the pond scum free. Then he repeated the process.

  Everyone else in the chow hall stared with him, their eyes wide with fascination. Even Fifth Battalion was riveted with Nebil’s performance. For several minutes, no one said anything, listening to the odd sucking sounds the Ooreiki made as he ate.

  Finally, Battlemaster Nebil shoved his half-eaten bowl aside and stood. “You’re right, Zero. The food here tastes like Takki ashes. You guys get the flag tomorrow and I’ll find you some real food.”

  Every kid in the cafeteria sat up.

  “Another thing,” Nebil said, lowering his voice so that only his platoon could hear, “About these ashsouls with the other battalions. I’ve had three recruits kidnapped and beaten in the past two days. Until we wring the soot out of Second on a hunt, it’s gonna get worse. I don’t want any of you walking around the city alone. Everybody travels with partners. I’m instigating the Rule of Three. Whenever you’re three yards away from the rest of the Battalion, I want there to be three of you. I don’t want any of you soot-eating furgs getting caught alone again. If you are, I’ll make you regret it.”

  He paused, waiting for the recruits to shout their acknowledgement.

  “Also. Whoever beat the soot out of that Second Battalion punk yesterday…” The battlemaster scanned their faces, stopping twice on Joe. “Keep up the good work. Show those ashy furgs we mean business. Every time you are out there and you catch one of ‘em alone, I want you to burning destroy him. Get me? Put as many of those janja pellets out of commission as you can. Let’s see how well Lagrah can hunt with half his force at medical. Now finish up and meet me in the plaza in eighteen tics.” Then, giving his half-eaten bowl to Maggie, Nebil left.

  Joe immediately glanced at Libby. “Was it you?”

  Libby shrugged.

  “Who’d you beat up, Libby?”

  She shrugged again.

  “Make sure the rest of us are there next time, okay?”

  A slow grin spread over her face. “How about tonight, after the hunt?”

  Joe snorted. “We’re not going looking for a fight.”

  “They’re doing it to us,” Monk said, coolly logical. “You heard Nebil. They’re not gonna stop unless we make them stop.”

  Joe grabbed her by the arm. “Listen to me. It’s not a game, Monk,” Joe said. “One of these days, someone’s gonna get killed, and there’s no fixing that. We should ignore them. Eventually, they’ll get tired of harassing us.”

  “No they won’t,” Libby said. “You’re wrong. The rest of the regiment is trying to bully us. What do you do with a bully? You wipe his nose in the dirt and make him run back home.”

  “They aren’t gonna run home,” Joe said, frustrated. “They’re gonna run back to their battalion to get more people. Believe me, it’s not gonna be much fun when things get going. People will get hurt.”

  To his frustration, Scott shrugged and said, “We either get hurt here or we get hurt on some other planet, fighting aliens we never heard of. I’m with them. We might as well have a little fun before they send us off to war. My Grandad was in a war. I stayed up one night listening to him tell my dad about all the bad stuff he seen. If I’m gonna die, I’d rather die here than—”

  “Nobody’s going to die!” Joe said, standing. He slammed his palms on the table, making everyone in the cafeteria jump. “You four better not try to do anything against the other battalions. That’s an order from your battlemaster. You understand?!”

  Libby grimaced and bent her head until she was staring directly into her soup. Scott and Maggie looked chastised, but Monk simply looked away.

  “Monk…” Joe warned.

  “Fine!” she said. “I’ll stay with you and I won’t have any fun!”

  “You won’t get hurt, either.”

  Monk pouted.

  “If I was battlemaster, I’d let you all go ambush them,” Sasha said loudly.

  Joe turned to scowl at her. “It’s not a burning vote, Sasha.”

  “If I’d been in charge, we wouldn’t have lost the flag.”

  “You never would have had the flag,” Joe said. “Sherri, see she does a hundred pushups before she goes to bed tonight. I’ll be running my sleeves laps.” Or trying to. Hobbling around the base of the barracks with his guts jostling against his spine and ribcage didn’t involve much running.

  “I wouldn’t have chickened out in the middle of some tunnel,” Sasha continued.

  Joe gripped the table with anger. “Two hundred pushups.”

  She lifted her head and sneered. “Don’t worry. When I get battlemaster, I won’t make you run like you deserve.”

  “Three hundred.”

  “I’ll only make you a grounder and put Libby in charge of your team. She’s better than you, you know.”

  “Four hundred,” Joe snapped. “Do you want any more?”

  Sasha gave him a smug look. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not doing them anyway.”

  Joe narrowed his eyes. “Yes. You are.”

  And she did. Though he had to stay up much of the night to see her finish, Joe convinced Nebil to leave the barracks door open while he counted out every single pushup down on the plaza, pushing her back down when she tried to stand up. Sasha had cried herself dry by the time she stumbled back into the barracks.

  When Joe reached his bed, he realized his groundteam was gone. Or mostly gone. Monk lay under the blanket, awake and watching him.

  “Where are the others?” Joe demanded.

  “Libby took them out to hunt other battalions while you were busy with Sasha.”

  Joe felt a rush of fury. “Where’d they go?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t go.”

  Joe took a slow, deep breath. “Get out of bed.”

  Monk gave him a wary glance. “Why?”

  “We’re going after them.”

  “I’m tired and we’ve got our hunt tomorrow.”

  “You should’ve thought about that before you didn’t come get me while the others were sneaking out.”

  “I said I wouldn’t go,” Monk retorted. “I didn’t say I’d rat on them.”

  “Get dressed,” Joe growled. “Now.”

  “But I’ve still got a few hours of sleep,” Monk whined.

  “Not anymore.”

  “We’ve got a hunt tomorrow,” Monk complained. “Against Second Battalion! We won’t do any good if we’re all tired.”

  “We’re not gonna do much good if half our platoon is dead, either,” Joe retorted.

  “They won’t die,” Monk snorted. “Libby’s leading them.” As if that solved everything.

  “Get out of bed now!” Joe roared, waking up the other half of the platoon.

  “You sound like Battlemaster Nebil,” Monk muttered, getting out of bed.

  “Good!” Joe said. “You charheads need a little more discipline in your lives.”

  “Well, soot,” Monk said, getting her clothes on, “If I knew you were gonna be such an asher about it, I would’ve gon
e with them.”

  Joe ignored that. “Meet me outside.”

  At the door, Monk motioned at the other beds. “Look at that, Joe. Half of them are empty. You’re the only Nazi who’s keeping his groundteam from having some fun. You should just leave them alone.”

  “No,” Joe said, shaking with rage and fear. He worried about Maggie. Most of the other kids in the regiment were muscular, fully-grown freaks, some as big as Joe. Maggie was petite, small, her bones delicate. And she was only five. “They disobeyed my orders. They’re gonna wish they hadn’t.”

  “You sound just like Sasha,” Monk muttered.

  Joe felt something twist painfully inside of him. He had to look away to keep from screaming at her. Softly, he said, “Just show me where they went.”

  “You know, Sasha was right about something,” Monk said, descending the stairs.

  “I don’t want to hear it, Monk.”

  “Libby’s a better leader than you.”

  Coming from one of his own, that sentence hurt more than anything else. Tired, near-delirious from lack of sleep, Joe paused on the stairs. “Why?”

  “Because she took them out tonight.”

  Joe opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. “Let’s go back,” he finally said. “Let them lose sleep if they want to. I’ll talk to them later.”

  Monk made a disgusted noise and went back inside. Joe almost followed her, but then sat down on the stairs to wait. Somewhere along the line, he fell asleep, because he woke to the sound of laughter.

  It was Maggie.

  “…tied him up like that,” she was saying.

  “Wish we could tell Joe about it,” Scott complained.

  “Joe will find out tomorrow when they try to find out who did it,” Libby replied.

  “Joe will find out right now,” Joe said, standing from the shadows. “Nice night for a walk, huh, guys?”

  All three of them stopped dead in their tracks, several steps down from him. It was Libby who regained her composure first. “Hey.”