Forging Zero (5 page)

Harry’s
emaciated corpse slumped to one side, oozing purple slime down its Sesame
Street T-shirt, half his head missing.  Joe stared at the body, beginning to
hyperventilate. 
They’re going to kill us all,
he realized.  The other twelve
kids in the center of the room began to scream.  The aliens quieted them
ruthlessly, slamming several of them into the glossy black floor to shut them
up.  One sat up bleeding from his ear, blinking desperately.

Tril
waited for silence, then spoke to his companions, the translator once again
switched off.  An alien had to hold a freckled kid in place in front of him while
he screamed and writhed to get away as they made their exchange.

“Stop
it!”  Joe lunged forward to help the kid.

Before
he had taken three steps, an Ooreiki grabbed him and yanked him back.

“Don’t!”
Joe said, “Don’t do it!”

Tril
ignored him and turned back to the freckled kid.  Like he’d done with Harry, he
said,
“The battalion leaders have made their decision.  Twice I requested a
place for this one, and—”

“Please
don’t shoot him!” Joe cried.  “He’s just a—” The alien holding him wrapped a
tentacle around his throat and tightened it, silencing him.

Tril
cast Joe a dark look. 
“—and twice I was denied.  No Congressional soldier
would take him into his fold.  Thus, he has no place in the Army.”

Joe
kicked his aggressor and struggled free.  “Don—”

The
little boy’s scream ended in a wet
burp.

“You
son of a bitch!” Joe screamed at Tril.  “You evil son of a bitch!”  Three
aliens converged on Joe and dragged him to the ground, their stinging tentacles
biting into his skin, leaving bloody welts in their path as he struggled
against them.

The
third child, an extremely small toddler, was claimed before Tril could shoot
her.  Joe looked up to see Kihgl pushing her into his group.    The tentacle
Joe had shot off ended in a dark brown stain on one side of his head, making
him appear lopsided.

Joe
couldn’t watch the rest.  He closed his eyes and slumped his head against the
floor, waiting for it to end.

The
next two children were claimed by another scarred alien, though this one was
paler than Kihgl.  Upon seeing his pale face, Joe had an instant of recognition
that left him cold.

Smoke
wafted from the burning street.  Joe stared at a black boot, his head and
stomach on fire, the night exploding in bright, beautiful colors all around
them.  Sam was gone…escaped with the others.  The alien stared down at him
through its sleek black helmet with the cold fury of a wasp.  “How old do you
think it is?”

“Sixteen,
is my onboard’s guess, Commander Lagrah,” one of the glossy, black-suited
aliens said.  “Maybe fourteen, with growth irregularities.”

There
was cruel purpose in the alien’s pale brown eyes as he said, “I’m sorry, Gokli. 
What did you say his age was?”

There
was a long pause.  “Twelve, sir.”

Lagrah. 
His name is Lagrah.

Then
the aliens holding Joe wrenched him to his feet, shattering the memory.  When
he looked up and saw Commander Tril standing in front of him, all Joe could
hear was his own frantic heartbeat thudding in his ears.  Tril was looking at
him, his sticky brown face a picture of satisfaction.

“Go to
Hell,” Joe said.

Tril
made a guttural rapping in the base of his neck—an alien laugh.  Languidly, his
big, gummy eyes on Joe, Tril made an alien garble at its companions.

Scanning
their squashed, indifferent faces, Joe knew he was going to die.

Tril
asked again, looking back on his fellows where they stood with their selected
groups.  None of them moved.  Joe could feel the gunman’s satisfaction as he
snaked a tentacle to the small black device around his neck and switched it on.

Tril
waited until the room had fallen silent, until every eye single was on him. 
“The
battalion leaders have made their decision.  Twice I requested a place for this
one, and twice I was denied.  No Congressional soldier will take him into his
fold.  Thus, he has no place in the Army.”

Joe
lifted his head and stared at a point on the wall across the room as Commander
Tril raised his gun, determined not to let them see his fear.  He knew that
begging was worthless.  They could have left all of the sickly kids back on
Earth, but instead they brought them aboard to use as a warning to the others. 

The
sickly kids…and the kids who’d pissed them off.

Joe
felt his bowels churning and he absurdly hoped he didn’t shit himself in front
of all the little kids.  Most of the kids had shit themselves.  Even then,
little Harry Simpson had a brown stain running down his twitching, skeletal
leg.

In the
silence that followed, Commander Kihgl made a guttural noise that sounded like
more laughter. 

Get
on with it, you assholes,
Joe thought, his fists
clenching despite his guards’ tight grips cutting off the circulation in his
forearms. What were they trying to do?  Make him cry?   

The
pale, scarred alien called Kihgl spoke again.  Tril turned to face him, an
unmistakable look of irritation on his wrinkled, orange-brown face.  His weapon
never wavered from where its muzzle aimed between Joe’s eyes.

Joe
stared at it.  Odd, how it looked like the tip of the gun was rippling like a
desert mirage.  It reminded him of swirling water, like the meandering stream
that ran through his friend’s back yard.

Joe’s
eyes snapped back to the aliens as a flurry of brutal alien words erupted
between Tril and Kihgl.  Several other aliens joined in, all team ‘captains,’
most of whom seemed to side with Tril.  Joe realized the alien he’d disfigured
was bargaining for his life. 

He was
surprised, knowing that alien, of any of them, had the most reason to kill
him.  Joe allowed himself an instant of hope, but it quickly faded as he
realized that the other battalion commanders were winning the argument.  Joe
looked at the floor, wondering how long they would drag it on.

An
authoritative tone rose above the fray and the argument stopped with an
unmistakable note of finality.  Joe recognized the speaker and he suddenly felt
his blood coagulate in his veins.  Lagrah.  The one he had humiliated.  The one
who had taken him, alone, back to the ship in Sam’s place.  The one who had
intended to kill him as an example to the others.

Commander
Tril put his weapon away, shoved Joe at Kihgl, and stalked from the room.  Joe
stared at Lagrah, utterly dumbfounded.

He
took my side?

Joe
could still feel the alien’s malice towards him for what he had done back in
the alley, every ounce of which Joe had earned.  And yet, for some reason, the
alien he had humiliated on the streets of San Diego had saved him on the ship. 

Confused,
Joe allowed Kihgl to push him into his group. 

Lagrah
moved to the front of the room to address them all. 
“I am Prime Commander
Lagrah of the Ooreiki Ground Force.  Humans, you are standing here today
because an Ooreiki commander saw something redeemable in you, something he
could transform into a soldier.  From this point on, you are all recruits in
the Congressional Army.  Look at the Ooreiki around you.  These are the
commanders and battlemasters that will be guiding you through your next three
turns of service.  Battalion commanders, step forward.”

Kihgl
stepped forward and faced Joe’s battalion.

“Do
you accept these recruits?”

Joe
felt Kihgl’s eyes flicker towards him before, in unison, they said,
“In the
name of Congress, we do.”

“Then
you may take them to your pods and begin their training.  We will break away in
nine hundred tics.  Dismissed.”

The
cavern erupted in barked orders as the Ooreiki took control of their new
battalions.  Kids screamed and ran in all directions, and black-clad Ooreiki
grabbed them and hurled them viciously back into the terrified mass, herding
them toward the exit like terrified cattle.

Then
Joe realized what Lagrah had said. 
We will break away in nine hundred tics.
  They were leaving Earth.  The sharp sting of adrenaline began to
trace Joe’s veins.

I’ve
gotta get off this ship.

The
thought kept pounding his brain as he stayed well in the center of the group
while they were funneled awkwardly into a sleek black hall bathed in the eerie
red glow.  Every passing second felt like a knife in his chest.

I
gotta get off
now.

The
aliens spread out around the perimeter of the group, herding them like squat,
brown, tentacled sheepdogs. They took it for granted that everyone would
cooperate, spreading themselves thin over hundreds of kids.  Seeing that, Joe
drifted to the back, his panicked mind listening for the sound of the ship’s
engines. 

When he
saw his chance, he bolted.

The
Ooreiki watching his section of kids gave a startled grunt of surprise, his
see-through eyelids flicking startledly across his big, gummy eyeballs as he
twisted to try and catch Joe.  Joe, blessed with bones, was faster.

Joe
quickly outdistanced his startled guard and barreled down the tube-shaped hallway,
gaining more courage as the shock anklet failed to activate.  Maybe he was out
of range.  The hall out of the domed cavern ended with suspicious abruptness
and Joe slowed, scanning the surface for any indication of a door to the
outside.  Nothing.  He kept going, choosing a smaller side-corridor.  Nothing
but gleaming black walls, no sign of a way out.  Joe was anxiously turning a
corner into another section of the ship when the anklet activated.

Joe
cried out and tumbled to the floor, his momentum carrying him crashing into the
wall.  The aliens didn’t end the brutal agony after a couple seconds this time,
but instead let it continue for what seemed like excruciating hours.  To his
shame, he heard himself bawling like a baby.  Somewhere along the line, he peed
himself again.

Joe was
curled in fetal a ball when Kihgl found him.

“I
save your life and you act like a spoiled Takki.”
 
Kihgl kicked him. 
“I should’ve let you die, furg.”

“Kill
me, then,” Joe moaned in a mixture of hatred and misery.

“Get
up.”

“Screw
you.”

A
stinging tentacle wrapped around Joe’s arm and brutally tore him from the
floor.  With his other arm, Kihgl grabbed him by the skull and forced his head
down until they were eye-to-eye. 
“You were supposed to die for what you did
on Earth.  You humiliated the Prime Commander himself.  Robbed us of an entire
battalion.  Don’t make me regret saving your sooty life, asher.  I can make you
wish we’d sold you to the Dhasha.”

Joe
swallowed hard and Kihgl released him.

“Stop
running,”
Kihgl commanded.
  “We’re three days
out from Earth.  You do it again and I’ll toss you into space.”

Where
they had once shown a bit of kindness, even compassion, Kihgl’s sticky brown
eyes were now hard with fury. 

Cringing
there, stared down by the only ally he had in this alien place, Joe realized he
had made a mistake.

He
wanted to apologize, but it was far too late.  Kihgl shoved Joe and a few
others inside a small room with triple-tiered shelves and left them there, the
unnatural black doors oozing shut behind them.   In the silence that followed,
the kids clustered around Joe, waiting to see what he would do.  The hazy red
glow highlighted their faces, leaving their eyes looking huge and frightened.

“Where’d
you run to?” a boy asked.  “I thought we’re on a ship.  How you gonna get off a
ship?”

Smartass.
 
“I’ll find a way out eventually,”
Joe muttered.

 “Are
you sick, too?” a freckled little girl asked, tugging on his T-shirt.  “Why’d
they make you stand out there with those sick kids they shot?”  Like it was
completely natural to shoot the sick kids because they were sick.

His gut twisting, Joe ignored
her. 

“That alien stuck a gun in your
face,” a little boy insisted.  “Were you scared?”

“I don’t get scared,” Joe
muttered, hoping it would shut them up.  Even then, though, his bowels were
still twisting with residual fear.  He knew how close he had come to dying. 
Tril’s sticky brown eyes had wanted death.  He wondered how many more seconds
it would have taken for him to blow his head off.  One?  Two?  He got goosebumps
thinking about it.  And then Kihgl…

The cool resentment in his gaze
still made Joe’s throat hurt with regret.  The one seemingly decent being on
the ship and Joe had humiliated him just as thoroughly as he’d humiliated
Lagrah.  And Kihgl had just finished making it clear to Joe that he was going
to make Joe pay for his transgressions with pain.