Forging Zero (36 page)

“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.

Then he
saw him.  It was impossible to miss the Dhasha’s iridescent rainbow scales
silhouetted against the obsidian behind him.  The beast rode in an elevator,
descending one of the nearer buildings.  He was scanning the formation as the
machine bore him down the side of the Prime Commander’s tower, his sharkish mouth
open.  Even from this distance, Joe could see the multiple rows of triangular
black teeth, the egg-shaped crystalline green eyes focusing on them without
pupils.

He was
only a hundred feet from the bottom.  Joe’s heart began to pound.  He wished
the elevator would quit.  He wished the building caved in.  He wished the power
would go out…  Anything to keep it from reaching the plaza and releasing its
cargo upon the recruits again. 

His
prayers went unanswered.  As Lord Knaaren stepped off the elevator, a deep,
resonant horn echoed across the plaza, vibrating in Joe’s spine.  Knaaren
strutted toward them deliberately, trailing a handful of the twenty-eight
children he had taken the week before.  Joe could not tell if Elf was amongst
them without turning his head to look.

Instead
of stopping at each battalion as he had the last time, Knaaren stalked directly
to Sixth Battalion.  Commander Tril stepped out to meet him. 

“Where
are your standards?”
Knaaren demanded. 
“Every
battalion has standards except yours.”

“I
was never notified our standards were ready, Ko-Knaaren,”
Tril replied.

“So
you are unprepared.”

“I
was busy securing battle dress and
otwa
cartridges for my recruits.”

“So
you’re incompetent.  That should have been done beforehand.”

“I
was working with Peacemakers until the last inspection, Ko-Knaaren.  I’m still
catching up.”

The Dhasha
snorted, and Joe felt the blast of rotting breath all the way from where he
stood. 
“So be it.  The traitor’s battalion does not need standards.”

“I’ll
find them as soon as we’re done here.”

“You
don’t need them.  Your battalion is a disgrace.  They’ll be stored for the day
you deserve to carry them.” 

All
around Joe, the Ooreiki of Sixth Battalion stiffened.  He could feel their
anger like heat waves emanating from them, but none of them moved to object.

Tril
bowed his head quickly. 
“As you wish, Commander.”
 

“You
will refer to me as Your Lordship, you stupid
vaghi
.”

“My
apologies, your lordship,”
Tril said immediately. 
“I’d forgotten you used a different ranking system.”
Joe had never seen
an Ooreiki so subservient. 

The
Dhasha, meanwhile, appeared to be enjoying making the Secondary Commander
grovel. 
“You forgot?  You ignorant Takki.  Dhasha spit on Congressional
titles.  Perhaps I should just take you back to groom me tonight so you don’t
forget again, eh, Tril?”

“I
apologize, your lordship,”
Tril repeated. 
“It
will not happen again.”

“See
that it doesn’t.  And see that your Humans learn the proper way to march. 
Their efforts are disgraceful.”

“Of
course, your lordship.”

Lord
Knaaren grunted and moved away, circling Sixth Battalion slowly, eying its
recruits.  Joe caught Elf staring at him from the knot of humans following the
Dhasha commander.  His eyes were red and puffy from crying, his face pale as
death.  Joe watched him until they moved out of sight, guilt scoring his chest.

“I
want that one,”
Knaaren said, stopping.

Commander
Tril stepped forward.

Battlemaster
Nebil caught Tril by the arm and stopped him. 
“No, furg,”
he hissed
under his breath, glancing to make sure Knaaren hadn’t seen. 
“You’ll only
make it worse.”

Tril’s
sudah were fluttering as he violently ripped his arm out of Nebil’s grip.  He
stalked toward the Dhasha, who was slowly walking along the ranks, eying the
rest of Sixth Battalion, his new slave walking behind him with the rest. 
Knaaren gave a startled snort when Tril stepped in front of him.

“I’m
going to have to ask you do not take any more of my recruits, Ko-Knaaren.  We
are down twenty-nine as it is.”

Knaaren
jerked to stare at him, emerald eyes cold. 
“You dare tell me what to do,
Ooreiki?”

Tril
stood tall despite the way the Dhasha’s rainbow lips were peeling away from his
teeth. 
“It is a request, your lordship.  Nothing more.”

“Then
I deny your request.”
  Knaaren began choosing
recruits from the ranks at random.  He didn’t stop until he reached
twenty-nine.  Bearing huge, sharklike black teeth, the Dhasha paused in front
of a rigid Tril and said,
“Now you’re down another twenty-nine.  If you
haven’t improved them in a week, I will take twenty-nine more.”

“The
battalion can’t function in the—”

“It
will function or it will perish,”
Lord Knaaren
retorted.

Tril’s
body was as stiff with rage. 
“Your lordship, the combined force exercises
have minimum troop requirements for each battalion.  You would put us below the
standard if you take any more.”

Knaaren
sprang at Tril, but landed short, his thousands of pounds of muscle making the
ground shudder and spraying the front row of recruits with a shower of gravel. 
Commander Tril stumbled backwards, his sudah rippling in his neck.

“Then
if I take any more,”
Knaaren growled, his slick
ebony teeth brushing Tril’s neck,
“I’ll have to start with you, Ooreiki worm.”

“I’m
sorry, milord.  So sorry…”
  Tril fell backwards to
the ground, cringing and babbling in terror.

Knaaren
snorted and turned on the children behind him, Tril’s groveling already
forgotten. 
“Take the whimpering Humans back to my quarters.  They’re making
it hard to think.”

Bet
that’s not very difficult, you asshole,
Joe
thought.

Finished
with Sixth Battalion, Knaaren moved to the front of the regiment and faced
them.  A Takki turned up the volume on the translator hanging from the Dhasha’s
thick neck.

“You
all know why you’re here,”
the translator boomed
across the plaza. 
“One of your battalion commanders is a traitor to
Congress.  We are here to give him the punishment he deserves.”

“You
are here to give him a fair trial, Knaaren,”
Commander Lagrah said.  Joe felt every Ooreiki in the plaza stiffen.  Beside
him, Battlemaster Nebil sucked in his breath and turned to watch their Ooreiki
Prime Commander.

Knaaren
twitched to stare at Lagrah. 
“Do you wish to join him, Commander?  Perhaps
you’ll share a cell on Levren.  I hear a vkala is always welcome there.”
 

 “Such
is why the Dhasha are rarely elected to the Tribunal.”
  The new voice came from above them. 
“You have absolutely no
tact.”
  Lord Knaaren looked up, digging his talons into the plaza beneath
him.  Representative Na’leen sat enthroned on a huge haauk
floating
twenty feet off the ground, six Huouyt attendants clustered about him.

“Come
down here and speak to me like that, you spineless Takki coward,”
Lord Knaaren snapped up at Na’leen.

Instantly,
the pilot lowered the skimmer to the ground and Na’leen disembarked, striding
up to Knaaren and stopping directly under his huge jaws. 
“I said, your kind
are too stupid to serve on the Tribunal.  You have the thought processes of an
Ooreiki niish that just crawled from its membrane.  It would please me greatly
to see you declawed and trained as beasts of burden.”

Knaaren
tensed, and for a moment, Joe thought he would eat Na’leen.  Finally, he said,
“You’re
filled with empty threats.  The trial proceeds at my direction.”

Representative
Na’leen peered up into the Dhasha’s eyes, his electric-blue gaze cold. 
“If
I had threatened you, furg, you would be dead now.”
  He ignored the
Dhasha’s teeth as if they did not exist to him. 
“I won’t waste words trying
to make a Dhasha see reason.  I came to watch and advise.  You
will
heed
me, or Congress will have to find a use for your scales, once they tear them
off your back.”

The
Dhasha took a step toward the Representative, forcing him backwards with his
massive, scaly chest.  Immediately, two bus-sized Jreet materialized and jammed
their glassy daggers into the Dhasha’s chest, under the scales.  Knaaren backed
up, teeth clacking together in a laugh as deep violet blood began to leak from
around the Jreet spearheads.  The Jreet, in turn, yanked their spears free and
vanished again. 

Representative
Na’leen continued as if nothing had happened. 
“I did not come here to
humiliate you, Knaaren.”
  He lifted a flat, paddle-shaped limb languidly,
his cloth-of-gold cape shimmering about his shoulders.
  “I came to observe
your pathetic attempt at justice.”

“He’ll
get a fair trial,”
the Dhasha said
.

Na’leen
bowed, surprisingly elegant for a being that most resembled a squid. 
“Then
I leave it in your capable claws.”
  He moved in his awkward three-legged
shuffle back to the skimmer and settled into the scoop-shaped throne in its
center.

Knaaren
turned his back to the Huouyt abruptly.  In an angry snarl, he snapped,
“Bring
out the prisoner!”

Four
black-clad Ooreiki emerged from the far end of the plaza, leading an Ooreiki
dressed entirely in white.  Joe realized, horrified, that Kihgl was missing his
arms.  Where the flowing brown tentacles had once been, two wiggling stubs
remained.  They looked like the tail of a lizard regrowing itself.

They
tortured him
.  It left a tightness in Joe’s chest
as he watched.  As much as Kihgl had scared him over the course of the last few
weeks, he had still saved him at the Choosing and protected him from the Peacemaker. 
He had let Joe into his confidence.  He had even tried to give him
Battlemaster.

I’d
be dead if it weren’t for him,
Joe thought, taking
in the gashes that were still raw to the fact that one half of Kihgl’s face was
limp and drooping.
 

The
tension in the air as Kihgl approached increased a thousandfold, and the sudah
of every Ooreiki in the plaza was fluttering.

Kihgl’s
escort came to a halt in front of the Dhasha, then backed off several paces,
leaving Kihgl standing alone before the predator. 

“Cut
yourself, Commander?”
Kihgl asked, looking at the
purple fluid leaking from the wounds the Jreet had given him.

The
Dhasha stiffened, and for a second, Joe thought he would eat him. 
“Battalion
commanders, approach,”
Knaaren snapped.

Tril
left Sixth Battalion to stand with the other eight, facing Kihgl in a grim
line.  The Dhasha towered behind them, resplendent and gleaming.  A young,
dark-skinned Ooreiki with an eight-pointed star on his dark blue uniform
stepped in front of them.  Unlike a Prime Commander, however, each point of the
young Ooreiki’s star had a tiny circle balancing upon it, each a different
color.  Several of the battlemasters stared at the symbol, their sticky eyes
hard.

The
strange Ooreiki unrolled a shimmering scroll and raised it in front of him as
he spoke. 
“Secondary Commander Kihgl of the Three Hundred and Twenty-Fifth
Ooreiki Ground Force,”
the new Ooreiki read,
“you are charged with
treason, conspiracy, sedition, and espionage.  Myself and attending members of
the Peace Force found forbidden volumes and artifacts hidden in your quarters. 
Further questioning revealed you have a vast knowledge of the Trith
conspiracy.  We have examined archives from your previous duty stations and found
numerous occasions where your loyalties are questionable in your speech and
actions.  On these grounds, we have found reasonable evidence to implicate you
for the charges previously stated.  What is your defense?”
  The Peacemaker
rolled up the silky parchment and waited.

Joe
held his breath with the others, willing Kihgl to say something that would
spare him.

Kihgl’s
sudah remained utterly still. 
“I have no defense.”