Forging Zero (62 page)

Joe eyed the knife.  “No.”

Sasha gripped the weapon more
tightly, looking both angry and exhilarated that he had not obeyed her.  “You
have to.  I’m your battlemaster.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“You did too.  You disobeyed me
today in front of Battlemaster Nebil.”

“And I’m paying the price for that
right now.”  Joe turned his back to her and went back to cleaning the walls.

“I’ll tell the battlemaster you
wouldn’t do pushups,” she said lamely.

Joe
sighed deeply.  “I might if I didn’t think you’d try and stab me as soon as I
got on the floor.”  Her flinch made him realize that she had planned to do just
that.  He grimaced.  “Just go find someone else to screw with, all right,
Sasha?  I’m too tired for your gutless furgsoot right now.”  Joe went back to
cleaning the walls.

For a
long time, Sasha said nothing.  Then, “You’re such an asher.” 

“Yup.” 
He was not even listening.

“I gave
you back your knife and asked for your help, but I was just a girl and you were
a big, bad, fourteen-year-old boy who could kick anybody’s butt on the ship.  I
thought we were gonna starve ‘cause I only had one boy in my team and you
didn’t care.”

Joe
flushed and turned back to her.  “If I’d thought you were in trouble, I
would’ve helped.”

“But
not just if I ask, right?” Sasha demanded, eyes glittering.  “You’re gonna wait
until you can be the hero.  That’s what you think you are.  A hero.”

Joe felt himself clench the rag. 
“That’s where you’re wrong.”  He tugged up the front of his shirt to show her
his scars.  “Would a hero have these?  Would he have let a Dhasha take him as a
slave
, Sasha?  No.  A hero would’ve fought them.  He would’ve died
before picking dead skin from under that monster’s scales.  Sasha, if I wanted
to be a hero, I wouldn’t have spent two weeks looking at the floor and hoping
they didn’t kill me.”

Sasha’s
eyes flickered across the puckered scars crisscrossing his chest, then looked
away.

Joe
dropped his shirt.  “Bad things are happening to all of us.  I didn’t deserve
to go to Knaaren and you didn’t deserve to be ignored when you were most
scared.  But believe me, stealing from people and threatening them with knives
isn’t gonna solve things.”

Sasha
would not meet his eyes.

“I’m
here if you need a friend,” Joe said.  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

Her
head came up suddenly, eyes bright.  She almost looked…hopeful.  And
desperate.  She opened her mouth, and for a split second, Joe thought she’d say
yes.  Then her face darkened.  “Just stay away from me,” Sasha said.  “Or I’ll
cut off your burning dick like you deserve.”  She spun and left him alone
again.

Watching
her go, Joe felt something tugging on his soul.

He was
almost done by the time his groundteam found him.  Joe felt a swelling of
gratitude as every one of them grabbed a rag to help him.  When they were
finished, Maggie brought Joe his helmet.  Joe stared at it, uncomprehending.

“So we
can
talk,”
Maggie insisted, pointing at Libby.  The others had already
put theirs on.

“Oh…” 
Joe took a moment to fasten the straps over his ears, then cleared his throat. 
“Can you hear me?”

“Loud
and clear.”
  Joe recognized Libby’s voice and
turned to her, startled.  She was smiling, but her lips weren’t moving.

“Nebil
got her one that reads her
mind
,”
Maggie
said, obviously in awe. 
“Isn’t that cool, Joe?”

Joe
felt another stab of gratitude to his battlemaster.  “So these things are
accepting all frequencies, now?” he asked tentatively.

“Yeah,”
Scott replied. 
“After the first couple of hunts, they
activated all ground leaders’ helmets, then a couple of hunts after that, they
did everybody’s.  It’s a lot better when everybody can tell everybody else
what’s going on.”

“Gets
frustrating, though,”
Libby said. 
“Not
everyone knows when to shut up.  The frequency gets pretty blocked up with
stupid soot.  Sometimes you just wanna strangle some of them.”

Joe
felt himself smile.  “So are you guys looking forward to the hunt tomorrow?”

“
Tril’s
gonna blow up again
,
” Libby replied, grimacing. 
“He always
does.”

“He
gave sixty recruits the Fourth Degree last time,”
Maggie said. 
“They accidentally let a squad from Second Battalion sneak
into the deep den they were guarding.  If it wasn’t for Libby, we would’ve lost
our flag, but he punished her, too.”

“He
did?”  Joe glanced at Libby.  “And you saved the flag?”

Libby
shrugged, but Joe saw the anger in her face. 
“Saw group go down hole near
edge of clearing.  Didn’t hear for time, so figured they moving in on den. 
Took groundteam, went to closest one, hid in far tunnel.  Showed up minutes
later, deep den.  Kept pinned.  Reinforcements arrived.”

“She
talks like that because it’s hard for her to concentrate when she’s angry,”
Maggie explained. 
“You can’t use a headcom good if you’re
angry.  If you can’t understand her, tell her to slow down and think harder.”

“Thanks,
Maggie,”
Libby said. 
“Remind me you said that next
time you get your tongue cut out.”

“See?”
Maggie said. 
“That sounds a lot better.”

Across
the room, Libby made a disgusted noise, but Joe was disquieted.  Tentatively, he
said,
“Libby, who did that to you?”

The
tone in the room immediately became sullen.

Libby’s
face twisted. 
“Nobody, Joe.  Don’t worry about it.”

“Was it
Second Battalion?”

“Who
cares?  It’s over with.  My legs healed and I can walk as good as new.  A few
years from now, I’ll go buy myself another tongue.  Soot happens.”

“Not to
my groundteam,” Joe said.  “Not soot like that.”  He wondered if something else
had happened to her that day, something her assailant had cut out her tongue to
keep secret.  He felt a ball of disgust and rage building in the pit of his
gut. 
Someday, I’ll find the bastard and kill him.

Libby
snorted. 
“We’re going to war, Joe.  Get over it.”
  At that, she lifted
the helmet off her head and left the room.

“She
say anything about it to you guys?” Joe asked, once she was gone.

“No,”
Maggie admitted.

“I
wonder why she won’t tell us,” Joe said, frowning after her.

Elf
suddenly threw his headcom on the bed and followed Libby out.

“Elf!”
Joe called.  Elf ignored him.

“He hasn’t
said more than four words to anyone since Battlemaster Nebil brought him back
from Knaaren,” Scott said, sounding irritated.  “He came back a little crazy,
Joe.  A couple times, I caught him hiding in a corner, saying something about a
ship over and over.”

“He
talks about ships in his dreams, too,” Monk said.  “Did Knaaren put you on a
ship, Joe?”

“No,”
Joe said, frowning.  “I barely left the tower.”

“Well,
something
happened,” Scott said.  “He’s been acting really funny.  I caught him hiding
scum soup in the pockets of his vest three times now.  Just shoving it in
there, covering everything else in the pockets.  Said he was saving it for
later.”

“Maybe
he’s not getting enough to eat,” Maggie suggested.

Joe remembered the nine women
Knaaren had brought over from Earth and wondered if Elf had seen them come off
the ship.  Maybe Knaaren had even tried putting Elf in with them.  Anything
could have happened in those days before Joe and Elf switched places.

Joe mulled over that as he and the
others finished the bathing chambers in silence.

Back in the barracks, Joe paused
before undressing for bed.  Sasha was gone, and she had taken several of the
other groundteams with her.  Joe just hoped she got caught before Nebil came to
lock up.

“We’ve got to get her to stop
doing that,” Joe said.  “It’s only going to make things worse.”

“I hate her,” Monk muttered. 
“Let’s just hope someone catches her and screws her brains out so you can lead
the platoon tomorrow.”

“Hey!” Joe snapped, disgusted with
Monk.  “She’s your battlemaster!  Show a little more respect.”

“Why?” Monk asked, obviously
puzzled.  “You don’t.”  The others were looking at him, clearly wondering the
same thing.

“She’s just a kid,” Joe said. 
“She doesn’t deserve anything like that.”

“Yeah
she does,” Monk said.  “She’s asking for it every time she goes out at night. 

“She
just needs a few years to grow up,” Joe said.

“She
needs to die,” Monk said.  “That would help her.”

Joe
sighed.  There was no arguing with a six-year-old.  He tugged off his shirt and
climbed into bed.  He caught Libby staring at his scars again before he hid
them with the blanket.  He cleared his throat.  “Don’t worry about it, right?”
he said softly. 

Libby’s
brown eyes flickered up from his chest.  She was scowling.

“Who
cares?”  Joe gave her a weak smile.  “Soot happens.” 

The
corner of Libby’s mouth twitched.  She nodded.

#

“Look, it’s the Elf.”

“Don’t call me Elf.”

“Why not?  Don’t like it?  Too
bad, because you look like you just stepped out of a mushroom.  Where’s your
fairy dust, Elf?  Still don’t have it?  Guess we’ll have to take your Fruit
Roll-Up, instead.”  Greg reached forward and yanked the paper bag out of Eric’s
hand.  He peeked inside.  “Another peanut-butter sandwich?  Doesn’t your mom
love you, Elf?”

“She does!” Eric cried, jumping
for the bag.  The other boys hooted and Greg lifted it out of reach.

“Then what’s with the
peanut-butter and bananas?  You an elephant or something?”

“Elephants eat hay,” Eric said. 
“Not peanut-butter.”

“Oh, that’s right.  Your mom works
at the
zoo
, cleaning up animal crap.  Guess she would know what to feed
you, huh?  What you figure he is, guys?  A monkey?  Monkeys eat bananas,
right?  Act like a monkey, Elf, and I’ll give you the rest of your lunch back.”

Eric bit his lip, peering up at
Greg.  The older boy had freckles, but did not have the happy face Eric
normally associated with freckles.  From the first day he met Greg Riley,
freckles would always be tainted in his mind, combined with cold blue eyes and
a cruel sneer.

“You won’t eat lunch today unless
you do it,” Greg warned.

Eric ignored him, turning away.

“Fine,” Greg said.  He threw the
paper bag on the ground and stomped on it.

“Leave him alone, you little dickweed.” 
It was a girl’s voice, someone a lot older.  Eric looked up.  She towered over
both him and Greg, looking like she could drop-kick either one of them without
even an effort.  Eric stared up at her in awe.

“We were just having fun,” Greg
muttered, looking up at the girl.  “Later, Elf.”

“
My name’s Eric!
” he
screamed after them.  They laughed and kept walking.  Limbs trembling, Eric
bent and picked up his paper bag.  It was damp where the banana had smashed on
the inside.  The sandwich was no better off.  It had a big footprint in the
center, where Greg’s shoe had flattened it.

“You know, if you didn’t let it
bother you, they’d stop.”

Eric glanced up at the girl behind
him.  She was watching him with a mixture of pity and concern.  He sniffed and
stuffed his squished lunch back inside the bag.

“I think Elf is a cool name.  You
ever thought about having a nickname?”

Eric stared at her.  “That’s what
the bullies call me.”

“So?  In the stories, elves have
magical powers.  If you were a real elf, you could work a spell to give Greg a
third leg.”

“I’d put it right on his face,
where his nose would be.”

The girl smiled and ruffled his
hair.  “There you go.  Think about that every time he calls you Elf.  See, he’s
actually giving you a compliment.  He thinks you could have magic.”

Eric felt his eyes widen.  When
she wasn’t working, his mom read him stories about magic towers and knights who
rescued pretty princesses and dragons and witches and good wizards and
enchanted kingdoms.  He felt himself grow stronger, almost like he could lift
twice as much as he could before.  He glanced down at the mashed remains of his
lunch and smiled anyway. 
Elf.  I could be an elf.  Like in Mom’s stories.

Someday,
when he was older, maybe he would see dragons.