Forging Zero (56 page)

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 gone 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.”

“Libby.” 
Joe glanced at the other two.  “Scott.  Maggie.  Hope you enjoyed it out there
tonight.”

“We
did,” Libby said.  Standing tall, she almost matched Joe in height.  He had the
uncanny feeling that she was going to keep growing.

“Good,”
Joe said.  “Next time, warn me before you leave.”

“Why?”
she snapped.  “So you can make us do pushups?”

“So
Monk and I can go with you.”

“Oh.” 
Libby blinked at him.

“You’re
coming with us?!” Maggie shrieked.  “Joe, it was so
cool.
  We saw three
guys from Third walking around, so Libby had us hide and we all—”

“Tell
me later,” Joe interrupted.  “Scott, Maggie, go to bed.  I want to talk with
Libby for a few minutes.”

Maggie’s
face lost its exuberance and quickly turned into a worried frown.  “She’s not
in trouble, is she?”

“No,”
Joe assured her.  “Get upstairs.  We’ll be in soon.”

Scott
gave Joe a searching look, then sighed.  “Come on, Mag.  We got a hunt
tomorrow.”  At that, he turned and led her up the stairs to the barracks.

After
they were gone, Libby braced herself, her face grim.

“Libby—” 
Joe began.

“We’re
not gonna stop,” Libby blurted.  “Nebil
told
us to, Joe.  He said we
need to stand up for ourselves.  You don’t let bullies
walk
on you,
Joe.  You fight
back
.  And you kick their asses while you do it, so they
stop picking on you.”

“—do
you want to be battlemaster?” Joe finished.

Libby
jerked.  “What?”

“You
heard me,” Joe said.  “Do you want it?  If you do, it’s yours.  Sasha’s right. 
You’re better at this than I am.”

“No…” 
Libby took a step backwards, like he was trying to give her the plague.  “Joe,
I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to make you mad.”  She looked panicked.

“I’m
not angry,” Joe assured her.  “I’m a little frustrated and a lot tired, but I’m
not angry.  Come on, Libby.  You saw how I screwed up the other day in that
tunnel.  If it wasn’t for me, we would’ve kept that flag.”

“But
now you’ve got that little translator for the PPU,” Libby said quickly.  “That
won’t happen again.”

Joe
took a deep breath.  “I lost it.”

“What?”

He let
his breath out in a huge sigh of frustration.  “It wasn’t in my gear this
morning.  Lagrah saw it earlier.  I think he took it, or maybe a Takki when it
was switching out my clothes.”

He saw
her face flicker with disappointment.  “But you already know most of the
symbols, right?  You know how to position the map.  That’s enough to get us out
of there next time we’ve got the flag.”

“I’ll
talk with Nebil about getting you Battlemaster,” Joe said.  “Monk’s right.  You
deserve it more than I do.”

Libby
grabbed his arm.  “That’s
furgsoot.
  Every recruit out there knows who
you are.  You almost got us out of there with a
flag.
  All of us look up
to you.  You’re a hero.”

Joe
snorted.  “A hero that starts crying like a little baby when he has to crawl
through a hole.”  Joe yanked his arm away, narrowing his eyes at her.  “If you
don’t want to be battlemaster, that’s fine,” he said softly.  “Just stop burning
patronizing me.”  At that, he stormed back up the stairs, outraged that she
would try to manipulate him like that.

Joe
felt Libby hang back on the stairs, watching him go. 

When
the battlemaster woke them the next morning, Libby was gone.

CHAPTER
26: 
The Punishment for Failure

“Where
in the Jreet hells is your groundmate, Zero?!” Nebil demanded. 

“I
don’t know.”  Joe blinked at the looks of horror Maggie and Scott were giving
him. 
They think I hurt her,
he realized, stunned.
 
“Guys, I
didn’t—”

Battlemaster
Nebil ripped his head back to face him.  “Do you know the penalty for
desertion?!”

“She
didn’t desert,” Joe said quickly. 
She’d never desert.  This is her life.

“Then
where is she?!”

“I
don’t know.”

“A battlemaster
is responsible for an entire platoon and everyone in it.  If you can’t manage
your recruits, Zero, I’ll hand it over to someone who can.”

“I saw
her run off toward the east side of the city,” Sasha offered.  “She’d just had
a fight with Zero and she was all alone.”

Joe
narrowed his eyes at Sasha, but said nothing.

“Find
her,” Nebil barked.  “You have an hour while we get ready for the hunt.  I want
her back here before Tril finds out she’s missing, you understand?”