Forging Zero (47 page)

Maggie
stopped sobbing and nodded vigorously.

Sighing,
Joe pulled her tear-stained jacket out of her clutches and gently tugged the
sleeves loose.  “Now watch how I do this, okay?  You don’t just roll them up. 
You’ve gotta fold them and smooth out the wrinkles.  And up here near the top
of the arm, you gotta pinch the sleeve shut as you roll it so it’s not baggy on
your arm.”

Maggie’s
face contorted with concentration as she watched him work.  Joe felt like he
was a horrible person, giving an hour of nightly running to a five-year old,
but he reminded himself that she didn’t have the
body
of a five-year-old
anymore.  She could have been fourteen or fifteen, back on Earth.  In fact,
some of the twelve-year-olds had been giggling under the covers at night, and
Joe had a pretty good idea they weren’t discussing the Bible.

That
reminded Joe of the way his own body had changed, and how some of the oldest
girls caught his eye at the most awkward moments.  It was becoming
embarrassing—mentally, he knew they were all still kids, but physically, he
really, really needed a girlfriend.

“There
you go,” Joe said, handing the jacket back to Maggie.  “Try that on.  If the
arms are too tight I can loosen them for you.”

“They’re
perfect,
Joe!” Maggie squealed and danced on the bed, showing her new
jacket off to all the other recruits in delight.  “Thank you Joe!  I
love
them!”

“You’re
not gonna love them when you’re running tomorrow night,” Libby said dryly.

Maggie
stuck out her tongue and turned to let Scott inspect them, giggling like a little
girl.

She
is a little girl,
Joe reminded himself again. 
She
just looks older.

When he
finally got Maggie calmed down enough to sleep, he couldn’t stop thinking about
the way Libby’s leg was touching his where she slept beside him.  Off in a far
corner of the barracks room, he heard two of the older kids murmuring as they
fumbled under the blankets.  Joe felt a hard-on coming on—he hadn’t had a
chance to get off since the last time he’d stolen a peek at his father’s
Playboy collection back on Earth—and he was painfully aware of how his balls
were beginning to ache.  He quickly tried to think of something else.

Libby,
however, wasn’t helping matters.  She was sprawled out right beside him and her
childish body had grown athletic and leggy, her lithe form as perfect as a
model’s.  Even her face, which was always serious while she was awake, was soft
and delicate as she slept, her exquisite features only a few inches away.

Like he
usually did when he couldn’t sleep, Joe rolled onto his back and began to wonder
what it would be like to get laid.  The thought stuck in his brain and, added
to his body’s hyped-up energy level from his run, he found himself wide awake
for several hours.

Desperate
for some rest, he moved as far as he could toward the edge of the bed, but he
could still feel where his leg had brushed Libby’s.  It had been as smooth as
silk, so feminine it sent shivers through his body.  For the first time since
getting abducted, he realized that he was sleeping next to three almost-naked
girls.  He got rock-hard despite himself, and spent the next hour wondering if
there was a safe place to jack off without the other kids seeing him.

The
sounds of the other couple making out eventually ended and the entire room fell
silent.  Still Joe waited, listening.  He was only going to get an hour or two
of sleep, at most.  Finally unable to stand it any longer, he got up, snuck to
the far wall, and began to beat his meat into a chamber pot.

When
Monk spoke beside him, he almost pissed himself.  He scrambled to put
everything away before turning to face her.

“Joe?”
Monk asked again.

“Yeah,”
Joe said, his face blushing so hard it felt like it would explode.  “What is
it?”  He backed away from her, feeling like he was going to die.

“You
okay?” she asked, moving closer.  She was still only a few inches taller than
she had been when they first met, but her body was developing in ways that he
hadn’t noticed until now.  She was so close she was almost brushing against his
thigh.  He jerked away and closed his eyes.

She’s
still a kid,
Joe thought. 
She’s a
kid. 
Suddenly very disgusted with himself, he cleared his throat.  “I’m fine, Monk. 
Go back to bed.”  His balls were aching bad, now.  He needed some relief, even
if it meant half the barracks watching him jack off.

“Are
you sure?” Monk insisted.  “Why are you still awake?  Aren’t you tired?”

“Damn
it, Monk, I’m fine,” Joe growled.  “Please, leave me alone.”

“What
are you doing over here?” Monk asked, glancing at the chamber pot.  “Is
something wrong with you?  I saw you trying to pee.”

“I’m
not trying to—”  Joe cut off abruptly, realizing that his sarcasm would be lost
on her.  “Look, Monk, just go back to bed.”

“I
don’t like Libby,” Monk said.  “Do I have to sleep next to her?”

“Yes,”
Joe said.  “Just go, okay?”

“The battlemaster
says we’re gonna be doing the fighting game again tomorrow.  We get to wear
black this time, though.”

Joe
leaned against the wall in despair.  “I know, Monk.  Please, go.”

In the
darkness, Monk made a face.  “Libby’s being mean.  She keeps saying Elf is
dead.  That’s why I don’t want to sleep with her.” 

Joe
looked up sharply.  “Elf is alive.”  Then it hit him.  The dead-eyed human
climbing down the staircase outside the Dhasha’s tower…  It had been
Elf.

“What?”
Monk said.  “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Joe
swallowed hard.  He was remembering Elf’s skin, all those scars…  Only his
hands had been unaffected.  He had been completely unrecognizable, like those
pictures of guys mauled by bears.  Quite abruptly, Joe’s hard-on was gone.

“Monk,
promise me something.”

“What?”
she asked, instantly wary.

“If you
get picked by Knaaren, kill yourself as quickly as you can.”

She
wrinkled her nose at him.  “You’re weird, Joe.”

Joe
sighed and moved away from the wall.  “Yeah, I know.  Let’s get to bed.”

He had
no problem falling asleep, though his dreams were filled with nightmares of
perfect, unscarred hands dragging him down a tunnel towards something horrible waiting
to rip him apart.

#

“You
publicly disobeyed me, Battlemaster.”

“So I
did.”  Nebil sounded amused.  “On a full night’s sleep, too.  Fancy that.”  He
had arrived
after
breakfast with the commanders—who had taken to
shunning Tril to the point that Tril now ate alone in his room—still eating a
spore-cake from the chow hall.

Tril
tried to ignore the boredom in Nebil’s voice, but knowing a
battlemaster
was
enjoying the morning revelry at breakfast with his peers, taking a spot that
rightfully belonged to
Tril
, made his fists clamp down on his desk in
fury.  He took a moment to size the other Ooreiki up.  Nebil had seen over four
hundred turns.  His skin was shamefully loose for a battlemaster.  Any other
Ooreiki would have taken his last four-rank penalty and begun climbing the
ladder again, but Nebil had stubbornly refused to leave battlemaster after his
command had cut him down from Prime.  Repeatedly.

“How
long have you been a battlemaster, Nebil?”

The
question seemed to catch the older Ooreiki off guard.  He gave Tril a long,
analyzing look, then said, “In all?”

Tril
nodded.

“Eighty-five
turns.”

Longer
than Tril had been alive.

Trying
not to look surprised, Tril carefully pried another black growth from his new
ferlii
plant with the grooming tool.  One thing about ship air—at least it didn’t
contain the spores that caused
ferlii
to try and grow on other
ferlii.
 
In the wild, draak would scrape them off and eat them, but here in the
barracks, Tril had to do it by hand.

“How
long were you a Prime?”

“Forty-three.” 
He said it immediately, without hesitation.

“Don’t
you want to regain the ranks you lost, Nebil?”  That he’d lost…three times,
now.  That still boggled Tril’s mind.  Promoted to Prime…only to bungle it to
ashes and get kicked back to battlemaster.  The
wriit
had to be some
sort of jenfurgling.

“No.”

Tril
frowned at him.  “Then why re-enlist?  Why not resign?  Why stay forever trapped
in a pathetic rank like battlemaster?”

Battlemaster
Nebil laughed.  “What do you want, Tril?”

Tril
eyed Nebil a moment before putting down the grooming tool.  “Why do you let
Zero keep his sleeves?”  Nebil stiffened and Tril held up an arm.  “I’m not
telling you to get rid of them—you wouldn’t listen to me anyway.  I just want
to know why.”

“Zero
is a recruit battlemaster,” Nebil said.  “It helps his platoon to identify him
quickly.”

“If his
recruits can identify him, Lagrah’s recruits can identify him.”  Tril retorted.

Nebil’s
face stretched in an evil smile.  “Exactly.”

#

Sixth
Battalion was dressed in black, clutching guns loaded with the poisonous blue
solution as Commander Linin discussed the plan of the day.  Linin had noticed
Joe’s rolled sleeves but, as Nebil had done, he ignored them, acting as if they
didn’t exist. 

“Listen
up!” Linin shouted.  “Commander Tril’s got a slug up his ass to go challenge
the other battalions, so today’s our first real hunt.  We’re up against Lagrah
and Second Battalion, so unless you all learn how to unclog your sudah in the
next couple tics, we’re all gonna look like wriggling white
niish
out
there today.  Lagrah spent fifty turns in Planetary Ops before he started
training recruits.  He’s almost got more experience at this soot than Nebil. 
With me so far?”

The
kids on the skimmer gave Linin wide-eyed looks that were more terror than
understanding.  Joe could sympathize.  As the attackers, it was horrifying to
know that, if they didn’t retrieve the flag, they would all have to get hit
with the goop by the end or they would get punished with Tril’s little black
box.  Everyone on the skimmer was nervous, their grips on their rifles tight as
they waited for Linin to offload them from the haauk.

Commander
Linin made a frog-like grunt into the silence.  “Commander Tril says you Takki
get an hour of free time for every squad leader you take down, three hours for
every Battlemaster.  If he wants to pamper you pussies, that’s fine.  I’m not
gonna question that Takki ashsoul, but I am gonna add something of my own.  For
every recruit that dies within the first nine tics, the entire company will run
for eighteen tics.”

Which,
Joe was pretty sure, would negate any battlemaster or squad leader kills they
gained.  “So what do we get if we capture the flag?” he asked.

Linin
snorted.  “You get the pride of knowing you’re the first Human company in the
history of Congress to successfully infiltrate an enemy battalion’s tunnels,
you worthless Jreet bastard.”  Linin croaked out an Ooreiki laugh.  “Anyway,
you wriggling Takki sooters aren’t gonna get the flag.  Tril’s pitted us
against Lagrah, so unless you all learn to grow hahkta in the next couple
hunts, we’re all gonna be writhing around in our own shit until they decide to
pull us from the regiment.  Just try to stay alive past the first nine tics,
then we can talk about burning flags.”  He turned to open the gate at their
feet.

“Wait,”
Joe said, holding up the Planetary Positioning Unit.  “Can you show us how
these work?”

Linin
frowned at the unit, then at Joe.  “You’re not gonna learn the PPU until your
second year.”

“We
could use it now,” Joe said.

Commander
Linin snorted.  “A good fifty percent of you weren’t even literate when you
were drafted, and you ashpile Humans take extreme repetition to learn even the
most basic tasks.”  He gave Joe and his sleeves a pointed look.  “Dressing
yourselves, for instance.”

“I can
read,” Joe said, desperate, now.  He could
feel
the tunnels down there,
under the ship, and his heart wouldn’t stop hammering at the thought of getting
lost in them.

Linin
snorted.  “They say you sooty furglings wrote in
lines
.”  He shook his turd-shaped
head, making the hahkta slap against the sides of his face.  “They’re sending
specialized linguists to deal with you furglings next turn.  Until then, I
don’t have enough time to teach you slugs to read.”  He wrenched open the gate
to the haauk.  “Figure it out yourselves.”  In the tunnel underneath, Joe could
see movement in the shadows.

“They’re
waiting for us!” Joe shouted into his headcom.  To Linin, he said, “We need
another tunnel.”