Forging Zero (37 page)

“You
admit your guilt?”
Knaaren demanded.

Kihgl
continued to stare at the fluid dripping from Knaaren’s chest.  It was already
starting to slow, now, becoming only a small trickle.  Kihgl seemed to take a
breath, steadying himself, before returning his gaze to the line of battalion commanders. 
“This trial has only two outcomes for me, and I fear them both more than
death itself.  Do what you will.”

The
line of Ooreiki stared at him in silence.  When it was obvious none of the
other commanders were going to question him, the Peacemaker insisted,
“The
ship’s records indicate you questioned Congress’s motives in making you train
these recruits.”

Kihgl
remained motionless, sudah as though dead. 
“In the beginning, I didn’t
believe they were worth my time.  I wanted to get back to my old regiment on
Lakarat, not waste my skills trying to train Humans that would in all
likelihood end up in a Dhasha’s pens.  Ooreiki are Congress’s grounders.  No
other species has even come close to matching our success in the tunnels. 
Humans are so weak—I thought they should’ve been assigned to the Space Force or
the Sky Force.  I didn’t understand how the bureaucrats on Koliinaat could be
stupid enough to put them in biosuits.”

On his haauk
,
Representative Na’leen made an amused snort.

“So
you believed Congress was wasting your time?”
Tril
demanded pointedly.

Kihgl
turned to face Tril directly. 
“Kkee.”

“Proof
of his guilt,”
Knaaren said.

“Please,”
Na’leen snorted from his haauk
.
 
“It’s a common
sentiment.  If you’d ever sat through a Regency meeting over mineral rights,
you would understand.”

“Explain
to me why you ran,”
Lord Knaaren said, ignoring
the Huouyt. 
“If you are innocent, why did you flee?”

“I
was afraid.”

Joe
blinked.  Kihgl had actually tried to run? 

“You
are a secondary commander of the Congressional Army.  You fought my kind on
Ubashin and survived.  If you were innocent, you had nothing to be afraid of.”

“I
am not innocent.”

The
Dhasha stiffened, its talons digging into the gravel. 
“If you’re not
innocent, why are we wasting our time trying you?”

“I
don’t know.”

Lord
Knaaren’s thick muscles tightened under his metallic rainbow scales.  The rest
of the formation was silent as they stared at Kihgl. 
“Do you have anything
to say in your defense?”
Knaaren snapped.

“No,”
Kihgl replied.

The
Dhasha growled, deep in its chest. 
“Commanders, your verdict.”

For a
long moment, none of them spoke.  Then, softly, Commander Lagrah said,
“Kill
him.”

Kihgl’s
sudah gave the briefest of flutters, then went still.

No,
Joe thought. 
Please don’t kill him.
  Guilt was settling
over his shoulders like a moldy jacket.  This was his fault.  Kihgl had gone
crazy over that stupid tattoo…

Joe
glared at the other Commanders, feeling angry that Kihgl’s own friends would
betray him.  Lagrah, in particular.  Once, Joe had thought the ancient,
drooping-skinned Ooreiki was one of the good ones, one of the ones that saved
children who were slated to die.  Now, he simply looked old.  The pale, sagging
skin that had once made Joe think of power and wisdom now looked washed out and
used up.  The black scars crisscrossing were no longer impressive.  They made
Joe hate him because they made him look like Kihgl. 
They’re nothing alike,
he thought angrily, looking from Kihgl’s still form to Commander Lagrah.  Each
was motionless, staring at each other, saying nothing more.

A thin
stream of neon-orange saliva began to drip from between the parallel rows of
the Dhasha’s black teeth. 
“I hear no other opinions,”
he said.

“Neither
do I.”
  As Kihgl said it, his body relaxed.  He
almost sounded relieved.

The
Peacemaker stepped forward with his silken paper and two of his companions
grabbed Kihgl by the white uniform he wore, forcing him to face the herald. 
“Kihgl,
we have determined you to be a traitor to the Congress…”
 

The
interesting part over, the Dhasha made a satisfied grunt and began to walk back
to the elevator.
 

“…You
are hereby stripped of all rank in the Congressional Army and shall be shipped
to Levren for further questioning.  Afterward, you shall receive Jreet poison
through the chest until you are dead.  Three days later, your oorei will be
extracted and shipped to Poen for burial.” 

The
Peacemaker lowered his silken scroll. 
“Do you have any last words for the
assembly before you meet your fate?”

“Kkee,”
Commander Kihgl said.  He was facing the Dhasha, who was walking
away. 
“I’m looking forward to the day someone puts you animals in your
place.”

Lord
Knaaren turned back, mild curiosity in his gemlike eyes.  When he saw Kihgl
staring at him, he let out an angry snarl and padded back. 
“What did you
say?”

“Careful,
Lord Knaaren,”
the Peacemaker said. 
“This one
belongs to us now.”

The
Dhasha made a disgusted sound and swatted at Kihgl lightly—shredding one of the
new limbs growing from Kihgl’s side.  Then he turned and began to walk away
again.

Kihgl
ignored his dangling limb like it didn’t matter to him. 
“You’re
abominations.  Congress should’ve never let you crawl off that sootwad you call
a planet.”

What
are you doing?
Joe’s mind screamed. 
Shut up,
you dumbass.

Lord
Knaaren spun around on his haunches and launched himself at Kihgl, who stared
him down.  Lord Knaaren’s basketball-sized emerald eyes were glinting like cold
gems.

“Take
him back to holding!”
the Peacemaker snapped. 
“Lord
Knaaren, he is a Peace Force prisoner now.  Killing him does us no good until
we learn his secrets.”

Lord
Knaaren was ignoring the Peacemaker, his emerald eyes locked on Kihgl’s.  He
was utterly motionless, like a cobra about to strike.

As the
other Peacemakers reached to take Kihgl away, Kihgl said,
“You’re just
helpless niish.”

“Silence
that prisoner!”
the Peacemaker screamed.  His
companions cuffed Kihgl and dragged his head backward until Joe could see a
vibrating ball in his throat.

“Release
him.”
  Lord Knaaren’s voice was crisp.  Cold.

The two
Peacemakers glanced at their leader, then reluctantly let Kihgl go.

“What
did you mean by that, traitor?”
Knaaren snarled. 
“Who
are helpless?”

No,
don’t say it,
Joe pleaded.

“The
Dhasha,”
Kihgl replied.

Lord
Knaaren stared at him for long moments, his emerald eyes glinting.  Finally, he
said,
“Are you calling me weak?”

Kihgl gave
the Dhasha lord an amused look. 
“Without your Takki, you are nothing.  Someday,
they will grow tired of serving you and you’ll all die, starving and rotting in
your own filth.  Until then, you should be returned to the pitiful rock you
came from and used to pull plows.”

Lord
Knaaren let out a roar and lunged forward.  In an instant, he bit down on
Kihgl’s torso.

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.