Forging Zero (60 page)

Tril,
seeing that he was going nowhere, straightened.  “I cannot give you the
recruit, my Lord.  We are already well below acceptable battalion numbers. 
Second Battalion has a full fifty-eight recruits more than we do.  Almost an
entire platoon.  I cannot afford to lose any more.  Whatever punishment the
recruit receives, I must request that it is non-lethal and does not remove him
from his duties.”

The
Dhasha swung around to stare at Joe.  “What if I trade?”

“Excuse
me?”

“A
trade,” the Dhasha said.  “This one behind me for that one of yours.  They’re
both large, fleshy.  Either one would make a fine soldier.  This way, your
recruit receives his just punishment and my slave can replace what you lost.”

For the
first time, Tril looked at Joe.  Immediately, his sudah gave an angry quiver. 
“That recruit was more of a problem than this one.”

Joe
felt like he had been stabbed.  He was more of a problem than a rapist and a
murderer?  The injustice of it made him want to hurt something, but he kept his
cool and his head down.

“This
one is reformed,” Knaaren said.  “Look at him.  He has no more rebellion left
in him.”

“And if
you’re wrong, the Sixth will be weighed down with a useless recruit.  I want
something else.  Something to make it worth my while.”

Knaaren
moved toward the Tertiary Commander until he was staring down at him.  “Don’t
you dare to presume to tell me what to do, Commander.”  Orange saliva had begun
to dribble from between his teeth.  “Your battalion is just a mongrel mishmash
of Kihgl’s leftovers.  It will never be battle-ready.  You’re lucky I haven’t
decommissioned it yet.”

Tril
straightened.  “We have the highest attacker success rate of any of the
Battalions, and our overall score is second only to Second Battalion.”

Knaaren
laughed.  “You’re proud of your pathetic, molting Takki, aren’t you?  You don’t
even have your own standards!”

“That
is your fault, my lord.”

Joe
glanced up, stunned. 
When did he grow a set of balls?

The
Dhasha opened his mouth slightly and stared down at Tril for long moments. 
Then he said, “It’s your fault, for not deserving them.  Your battalion has the
highest rate of rebellion and insubordination than any of the others.  You
yourself are new to the job.  I wouldn’t put a single Takki down on you and
yours surviving a real battle.” 

“Time
will prove you wrong, my lord.”

Knaaren
paused, the only sound that of the whoosh of air entering his gigantic lungs…and
the dribble of saliva on the plaza between his feet.  After a long
consideration, he said, “Very well.  Your standards for the Human.”

“That
still leaves me one recruit short, my lord.”

“Your
standards
and
my slave for the Human.”

Joe’s
heart caught in his chest and he found he couldn’t breathe in the tense silence
that followed.

In that
eternity, Tril met Joe’s eyes, a look of disgust on his face.  After weeks with
the Takki, Joe reflexively dropped his gaze.

Lord
Knaaren made an angry guttural barking sound and regurgitated bits of slimy
meat in a wave over his innermost row of teeth.  “I’m done bargaining.”  He
turned to walk back to his tower.

“You
can have him,” Tril said suddenly.  “For the standards and the slave.”

Knaaren
turned back, rainbow lips peeled back.  “Then do it.  Renounce your claim to
him.  Make it official.”

“That’s
hardly necessary…” Tril began.

“I
don’t want the Training Committee suggesting I stole one of your recruits.  I
want him to be mine.  Not just a Congressional slave serving me, but
mine
. 
I don’t want to give him up to the next Dhasha commander that’s posted here.”

All
over the plaza, Ooreiki sudah were fluttering madly, and some of the
Battlemasters looked outright furious.

Stammering,
Tril said, “It’s against policy to turn a slave over for personal—”

“Don’t
preach to me about policy.  Either do it or you won’t see your standards at
all.  I’ll destroy them myself.” 

From
his place at the head of Second Battalion, Commander Lagrah moved forward. 
“Commander Tril, I will give you my own standards before seeing you dishonor—”

“Silence!”
Knaaren snapped, whirling.  “Get back in formation, Lagrah, or I will crush
your
oorei
like I did Kihgl’s.”

Lagrah’s
droopy face scrunched in an alien smile.  “Then I’d enjoy haunting you along
with him.  Enjoying the ghost sickness, Knaaren?  You look ill.  Haven’t been
getting enough sleep?”

Knaaren’s
entire body stiffened and he did not respond.

Lagrah
turned back to Tril.  “Commander, you don’t need your standards to be an
honorable opponent on the battlefield.”

Tril
stood rigidly, sudah flapping like hummingbird wings.  “Be it known to everyone
gathered here that, as guardian of this recruit—”

Lagrah
made a disgusted sound and left, taking his battalion with him.

“Continue!”
Knaaren snapped.

“As
guardian of this recruit, I have decided he is no longer any use to the Army. 
I hereby renounce Congress’s claim on him.”  In front of the gathered
battalion, the Mexican kid was crying.

“Good!” 
The Dhasha moved toward the Mexican kid.  “Human, I find you unaffiliated with
Congress, unprotected by its laws.  I hereby claim you as my personal slave. 
Serve me, or die.”

The
Mexican kid wet himself.  Joe could not dredge up the compassion to feel sorry
for him.  Not after what he knew Knaaren had planned for him.  Joe knew the kid
would probably think Knaaren was giving him some sort of reward.  He wished he
could stop him, do something, but none of Joe’s options ended in anything other
than his death—and Knaaren doing what he wanted anyway.

“Follow.” 
Lord Knaaren turned, leading the way back to his lair.

“What
about my standards?” Tril demanded.

The
Dhasha turned back, exposing row upon row of glistening black teeth.  “You have
my slave.  Be happy with that.”

The
Takki took the notepad from Joe and shoved him towards the battalion.

“But—”

“If it
upsets you, go complain to the Training Committee that I didn’t give you your
standards in exchange for expelling one of your own.  Perhaps next time you
will be quicker to accept my offer.”  At that, he left, the terrified Mexican
kid trailing after him.

Joe
stood in the Dhasha’s wake for several minutes, unmoving.  Then Sasha’s voice
echoed across the plaza like a shot.

“Get in
formation, Zero!  You’ll have time to look stupid later.”

Sasha
stood amidst a sea of bare arms, though she herself kept her sleeves down.  She
and Libby were the only two that had.  

“Now,
Zero!”

Joe
somehow made his feet move, though he still couldn’t believe what had
happened.  He kept his eyes straight ahead as he fell into line, unwilling to
let his groundmates see how the Takki had broken him.

Other
formations were breaking up around them, but Tril stood there staring at
Knaaren’s rising elevator with the silence of the dead.  When he turned, his
sudah were fluttering with fury.  “Battlemaster Nebil,” Tril said, his voice
cold, “be sure that your newest recruit gets a good workout today.”  Joe
actually saw hatred in Tril’s eyes.  “Look at him,” Tril sneered.  “He’s been
spending too much time with Takki.  You will have to break him back into our
routine, work his slave-laziness out of him.  Don’t bother letting him change. 
He can run in those robes.  If he can’t keep up, he doesn’t eat.  I don’t need
weak recruits.”

“Kkee,
Commander,” Nebil said.  He sounded stiff.  “I’ll make sure he keeps up.”

Tril gave
Joe a cold look.  “You can start now.”

CHAPTER
28: 
Finding the Flag

Commander
Tril used the next seven hours to make Nebil parade Joe around in Takki robes,
making sure everyone in the city knew he had just come from peeling rotten skin
out from under the Dhasha’s scales.  When he finally got bored and handed the
platoon back to Nebil, Joe’s robes were sweat-soaked and his knees and wrists
were bloody from continuous tripping. 

Upon
regaining command, Nebil immediately dismissed them with, “Everybody but Zero,
get the hell out of here. 
Move
!”  Filled with shame, Joe stayed where
he was, staring at his feet.  Joe felt his groundmates give him unhappy glances
as they and the other recruits dispersed for the barracks at a run. 

When
Nebil approached him, Joe’s body was quivering with humiliation.  He couldn’t
meet his battlemaster’s eyes.  He couldn’t even hold the ‘retain’ position. 
His fingers were curled into fists and his arms shaking at his sides.

“I see
you survived,” Nebil said softly.

Joe
couldn’t speak.  He turned his head away to stare at the crushed gravel of the plaza.

“If it
makes you feel better,” Nebil said, “if I had any doubts before that Kihgl was
right in saving you, they’re gone now.”

Joe’s
brow furrowed and he turned to look, despite himself.

Nebil
was regarding him with something akin to respect.  “No one comes out of a
Dhasha’s service alive, Zero.  The ancestors must love you, you wily Jreet
bastard.”

Dressed
in the robes of Takki, bleeding and doused in weeks of fear-soured sweat, Joe
could only drop his eyes again.

“Go
sleep,” Nebil said, nodding at the barracks.  “I’ll make sure the cooks give
you double rations tomorrow.”

Joe nodded
silently at Nebil’s kindness and turned to go.

Nebil
grabbed his arm, pulling him up short.  “I can’t make you battlemaster again,”
he warned.

Joe stared
at his feet.  He hadn’t expected anything else.

“But I
can give you squad leader.”  Nebil told him.  “You lucky sonofabitch.”

Giving
another wordless nod, Joe waited for Nebil to release him, then followed
silently after his groundteam.  He ascended the six flights of stairs and
stepped inside Sixth Battalion’s barracks room with a wave of old familiarity.

Gathered
just inside the door, his groundteam was waiting for him.

Maggie
reached him first, and threw her arms around him, despite the fact he stank and
was drenched in sweat.  Monk also hugged him, but the other three stayed back,
waiting for the younger girls to finish. 

“Hey
guys,” Joe said.  It was all he could do to keep his voice from cracking.  His
eyes caught on the youngest boy.  “Hey Elf,” he added, quieter than he meant to. 
Elf lowered his gaze and looked away.  Around him, everyone fell into an
uncomfortable silence.  The youngest kids began to fidget.  Elf wouldn’t meet
his eyes.

“Was it
bad?” Scott finally asked. 

“Yeah.” 
Joe choked, feeling tears threaten.  He looked away.  “But it’s over.  How’s it
been for you guys?”

But
Scott wasn’t finished.  “You’re so scarred up I didn’t recognize you until
Maggie pointed you out.  What’d they
do
to you?”

“I
can’t tell you anything Elf hasn’t already told you.”

“He
doesn’t talk about it,” Maggie said, giving Elf an accusing look.  “He doesn’t
want to talk about anything.”

Silently,
Elf turned and went back to bed without even glancing back.

“He
doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to,” Joe said, watching him.  Elf’s body was
worse off than his own, the Takki’s claw-marks covering every inch of skin,
leaving puckered pink valleys everywhere except on his hands.  Elf picked up
his boots and began cleaning them, and did not look up again.

Joe
turned to Libby, since she was the only one who wasn’t staring at him like he
was some sort of ghost.  Clearing his throat, he tried again, “So what happened
while I was gone?”

Too
late, he remembered the lifeless lump of flesh on the ground beside her feet. 
He bit his lip as she merely shook her head.

“She
can only talk on the headcom,” Maggie said.

“I’ll
help you pay for surgery,” Joe said.  “As soon as we get out of here.”

“Me,
too!” Maggie said.

“And
me,” Scott said.

“How
much will it cost?” Monk asked.

“Does
it matter?!” Maggie cried.

“Yes,”
Monk retorted.

As they
were arguing, Joe peeled off his sweat-soaked layers of purple robes and threw
them into a soggy pile in the corner of the room.  Briefly, he wondered if
somewhere in his gear the Congies had given him a lighter.  The robes, just
like everything else about the Takki, deserved to burn.

“Does
anyone know where I can get some matches?” Joe asked.

It was
then that Joe realized that the barracks had fallen into a deathly silence.  When
he turned, everyone was staring at his scars with mixed looks of horror and
pity.  Joe swallowed and quickly shrugged into a black Congie shirt.  “It’s
nothing,” he said.  “Don’t worry about it.”