Forging Zero (61 page)

“The
Dhasha
did that?” Maggie whispered.

“Nah,
it was Takki,” Joe managed.  “Knaaren couldn’t touch us without killing us, so
he had his lizards do it for him.”

“Didn’t
they give you nanos?” Monk demanded.

Joe
grimaced wryly.  “Knaaren doesn’t like the way nanos taste.”

Scott
was the first one to speak.  “We’ll make sure you don’t go back.”

Joe
felt embarrassed and grateful at the same time.  He just nodded.

“You
look like a tiger danced on your back,” Maggie said.

“With
its claws out,” Monk added.  “Tigers have retractable claws.”

“Shut
up, Monk, they do not.”

“Do
too
!”

Libby
elbowed Scott, who cleared his throat.

“Joe,
things got real bad while you were gone.  Tril put Sasha back in charge. 
Knaaren’s acting really weird—he ate another Ooreiki a few days ago.  That got
all the Congies mad and the battlemasters are being ashers to everybody.”

“Tell
him about the boys,” Monk said.

Scott
stared at his feet, looking embarrassed.  “At night, some of the boys from
other battalions are getting together looking for girls.  The youngest kids are
acting really weird.”  Scott let out his breath between his teeth.  “It’s
scary, Joe.”

“The
drugs made their bodies too big and their brains too small,” Monk explained. 
“You saw Escobar.  He’s five and a half and he just now realized he had a
cock.  They’re usually the ones running around at night, and if they catch you
out there, you’re in trouble.”

Maggie
nodded, looking genuinely frightened.

Joe was
sad at how fast they were being forced to grow up.  “Then nobody’s leaving the
barracks after lights-out.  Any idea who’s leading them?”

“Sure,”
Monk said, then she went on to describe Bailey perfectly, right down to the
cleft in his chin.  Toward the end, Joe noticed that Libby was watching Monk
with a slight frown.

“I’ll
deal with it,” Joe said.  “Until then, get some sleep.”  He led the way toward
the huge, circular bed. 

Libby
caught his arm as he moved toward the bed.  Joe looked up—disconcerted by the
fact that they were almost eye-to-eye.  Libby hugged him.  When she pulled
back, her gaze promised they would talk later.  Then, ignorant to his sudden,
rock-hard boner, she slid into bed with the others.

When
Joe turned toward the bathing chamber, Maggie called out, “I thought you were
going to bed, Joe!”

“I need
a bath,” Joe said, which was the truth.  He spent the next twenty seconds
jacking off in the relative privacy behind the door.  He couldn’t actually
shut
the door because Battlemaster Nebil had promised horrible consequences to
anyone who got caught inside with it closed.  Then he spent a good half an hour
getting clean, rubbing the accumulated grime from his skin until the alcohol
burned and his eyes were watering.

When he
finally returned, his skin was red and stinging and he smelled like a medical
sterilizing pad, but at least he felt clean.  As he approached the groundteam’s
bed, he saw that everyone was already asleep.  He breathed a sigh of relief and
stripped off his shirt.

“Nice,”
a voice said behind him.

Joe
flinched and turned.  Sasha sat on one end of her groundteam’s bed, holding
something silver in her hands.  She was grinning at him, her smile full of
contempt.

“Congratulations
on getting battlemaster again,” Joe said stiffly.

“Couldn’t
have done it without you.”  She held up the lesson pad that Nebil had given him.

Instantly,
Joe felt a flash of rage, realizing why he hadn’t been able to find it.  “
You
took it?”

“It’s
mine now.”  She tucked it under a leg.  “
I’m
battlemaster. 
I’m
the one who needs it.”

Joe
took several steps toward her.  He meant to quietly tell her what he thought of
her so he wouldn’t wake the rest of the recruits, but Sasha immediately reached
for something hidden between the folds of her blanket.  Joe froze, watching
her.

Sasha
gave pause, hand on whatever it was between her blankets.  When he did not move
any closer, she gave another nasty grin and pulled out the knife Congress had
issued her.  “Afraid I’ll add another scar to that pretty collection of yours,
Zero?”

“That’s
what you were gonna do, wasn’t it?”  Joe stayed back, wary.  “Why are you
sleeping with that thing?  Nebil’s got the door locked.  Second can’t get in
here.”

Sasha
snorted.  “It’s not them I’m worried about.  It’s the ones already in here.”

“You
mean Sixth?”  Joe was baffled.  “Nobody’s gonna—”

“Mario
did,” Sasha spat.  “He grabbed Katie out of her bed and raped her in the
showers while everyone else was asleep.”

Joe
felt a reflexive rise in his gorge.  “It won’t happen while I’m here.”

Sasha’s
smile was malicious.  “I saw how hard you got when Libby hugged you.  Does she
know you want to screw her brains out?  Maybe I should tell her.”

Joe’s
face darkened.  “I’d never do that.” 
Bitch.
  “Ever.”

Sasha
gave a careless shrug.  “Maybe.  But you can’t control your cock and I’m gonna
get you neutered.”

She’s
just a child,
Joe thought. 
She doesn’t know
what she’s saying.
  He turned his back on her.

“I
could plant this blade right between your shoulder-blades,” Sasha said.  “Right
in your spine.  Not even the Congies could help you, then.”

“You do
that,” Joe said, walking back to his own bed.  “Commander Tril would probably
give you a medal.”  Without another word, he crawled in under the blankets with
his groundmates, as far from Sasha as he could get.

Sleep
came slowly.  His body was still on constant, Takki-inspired alert.  After
Tril’s exhibition on the plaza, it took him hours to wind down, hours of
staring at the ceiling and jerking at the slightest noise around him. 

Most of
the noises came from Elf.  Even in sleep, his groundmate’s scarred brow pinched
in a frown.  His body twitched continuously and small, tiny sounds escaped his
lips.

He
was with Knaaren a lot longer than I was,
Joe
realized, feeling a stab of pity for his friend. 
But he won’t go back. 
He’s got his whole life to heal.

#

As the next few weeks went by, Joe
gradually eased back into the life of a recruit.  He even found himself opening
his mouth to give his platoon a command, only to shut it again when he realized
Sasha was back in charge.  He felt at a loss, marching in formation after he
had led it from outside.  Watching Sasha give bad commands was even worse.  The
hunts especially.  Sure, she sometimes came up with new and interesting ways to
baffle the enemy, but only because someone whispered it into her ear.  And
usually
that
came from Libby or Joe, both of whom were on Sasha’s
permanent shit-list and had to run their ideas through Maggie or Scott before
Sasha would take them seriously.

Joe, frustrated, usually did
something that Sasha could punish him for, so he spent all of his free time at
work with chores Sasha had assigned him.

It was the same this afternoon. 
When the rest of the platoon was enjoying a half-day from a successful
inspection with Lord Knaaren, Sasha had ordered Joe and Libby to rearrange the
barracks until they were spotless, every item in its place, every fold crisp,
every blanket perfectly aligned.  Libby was at work near Sasha’s locker and Joe
was on the other side of the room, neatening a group of rifles, when Libby made
a strangled sound and held up a deep den flag.

Joe frowned at her, his first
thought that, should an Ooreiki come in and see it, they would be accused of
trying to cheat in the hunts.  Then, when he drew closer, he realized it
belonged to Second Battalion.  He hadn’t seen a flag like that since losing one
in the tunnels.

“Where did you get that?” Joe
asked.

Libby’s face was a thunderstorm as
she pointed to Sasha’s locker.

“Where’d she get it?” Joe asked. 
“We haven’t had our hands on a flag since—”  A tiny frown came over his face as
he moved forward to inspect the flag.  The little tear it had undertaken from
Sasha and Maggie tugging on it was still visible in the fabric, along with a
thick coating of tunnel dust.

Libby
nodded at his look, her lips compressed in fury.

“Now
wait a minute,” Joe said, taking the flag from Libby and holding it up.  “We
don’t know how she got this.”

Yes
we do.  She stole it.  Just like she stole my reader.

Apparently,
Libby thought the same thing, because she threw down her cleaning rag and
stormed out of the room.  Joe hesitated, staring down at the material in his
hands.

Everything
would have been different if she hadn’t taken it.
 
Hot rage began to make his intestines burn.  What kind of person would steal
something that would mean a reward for everyone if they had kept it safe? 
Something that would actually get an entire platoon into trouble if they didn’t
have it? 

A
psychopath bitch, that’s who.
  Joe’s fingers
fisted in the flag and he went to find Libby before she killed her.

That
night, as the platoon was getting together for storytime, Joe and his
groundteam approached Sasha’s bed and tossed the flag down in front of her. 

“How
could you be so burning stupid?”

Sasha’s
eyes lit up with anger.  “You can’t call your battlemaster stupid.”

“You’re
not my battlemaster.” 

Sasha
drew her knife and held it between them.

In one
effortless motion, Libby disarmed her and threw her to the floor, twisting the
knife backwards by the blade like she was about to throw it.

“Libby,
no!” Joe shouted.

Libby
made a disgusted snort and slung the knife across the room.  Sasha was crying
on the floor, holding her wrist.  No one moved to help her.

“No
one’s gonna help you ever again, you bitch,” Monk said.

And it
was true.

Everyone in the platoon watched
coldly as Sasha picked herself up, her expression changing from fear to anger. 
Thankfully, she didn’t waste her breath trying to make them all do pushups. 
She simply gave them an acerbic glare and returned to her groundteam.

Joe watched her hobble away. 
She’s
never going to have anyone’s respect after this,
Joe thought.  Her groundteam, upon Sasha’s return, turned away and found other
places to sleep, leaving her utterly alone. 

Joe
tore his eyes from the lonely figure on the bed. 
Not that she ever did.

#

The next day, Battlemaster Nebil
took them through a bout of training that left everyone gasping for air,
hacking up chunks of red ferlii spores that had lodged in their lungs.  Their
next offensive against Second Battalion was tomorrow, and Commander Tril had
ordered his battlemasters to step up their training to prepare.  It felt
ludicrous to Joe, since it only left them weak and tired when the actual hunt
dawned, but he dared not risk Tril’s wrath a second time by mentioning it.

After Nebil had dismissed them,
Sasha gave the groundteams tasks to finish before they could return to the chow
hall for the evening meal.  Joe’s groundteam bore the responsibility of wiping
down the entire barracks room before they could go to eat.  While the others
began cleaning around the beds, Joe began wiping down the bathing chamber.  It
was the most unpleasant part, since the alcohol fumes were suffocating and the
air made his eyes burn.

Sasha’s
voice from the entrance surprised him.  “Be sure you get that corner behind the
door.  All sorts of…” she hesitated, looking at his crotch, “…
disgusting
stuff winds up back there.” 

Joe
clenched the rag in a fist, eyes glued to the knife in her hand.  The familiar
rush of adrenaline began etching his veins.

Seeing
his nervousness, Sasha grinned at him.  “I sent the rest of them to chow.  So
we could talk.”

Joe had
a pretty good idea what her idea of ‘talk’ was going to entail, and he
surreptitiously began wrapping the rag around his fist, in case he needed to
grab the knife.

Sasha
stopped two yards away from him, but didn’t get any closer.  “Did it feel good
to tell everybody about the flag, Zero?”

Joe waited.  Even with a knife he
doubted she could overpower him.  Still, he wanted to avoid getting stabbed if
he could help it.  Getting stabbed hurt.

“You think you’re so great,” Sasha
said.  “Bigger than me, stronger than me…you took battlemaster from me and then
you thought it was funny watching me do all those pushups.  Well, I’m the battlemaster
now.  Start doing pushups.”