by Yoon Ha Lee
From Jedao’s side, Dhanneth cleared his throat. “Do you require assistance, sir?”
Jedao had gotten used to the way the crew tautened whenever Dhanneth drew attention to himself, even if he hadn’t had any luck figuring out why. “Pipe the scan summary to subdisplay two, please.”
The two expected swarms were Major General Hoiran’s Shattering Bridge and Brigadier General Ebenin’s Circle of Quills. The former lurked close to the all-important Isteia Mothyard. The latter swung out farther on patrol.
Shattering Bridge contained approximately eighty bannermoths; Circle of Quills, about fifty. A troublesome number, since Jedao preferred to overwhelm his opponent, but he’d known ahead of time that he wouldn’t be afforded that luxury. So he was going to rely on the shear cannon after all.
“Who’s the third swarm?” he asked. The third swarm, which, if Scan was to be believed, included at least 200 bannermoths, possibly more. More worryingly, the loudest formant belonged to a cindermoth or he’d eat his boots. The dismaying thing about having sat through a refresher on reading scan was that even he could identify the sizzle-sharp waveform of the cindermoth’s mothdrive.
What was more, when he closed his eyes he could sense the positions of the swarms. Whatever the othersense was, it gave him a more precise idea of each moth’s location. Warmoths were large and, as a corollary, massive. Assuming it was accurate and not some kind of hallucination. He hoped he wouldn’t have to put that to the test.
How does this work? he asked the voice that had talked to him earlier. Why am I “seeing” distributions different from what Scan is giving me?
Scan detects mothdrive emissions, the voice replied, disarmingly obliging. You and I hear spacetime ripples. It’s like the difference between seeing and hearing: two different media.
Why are you being so helpful? he asked, wondering if directness would get him anything.
You’re about to destroy a mothyard. Don’t do it. Find a way to save it.
Jedao hesitated. I need a reason.
The mothlings will die, it said, if you carry out the hexarch’s plan. They are young. Some of them very young, even as humans count time.
They’d fight us if they could, wouldn’t they? he asked.
Yes.
I’ll do what I can, Jedao said, but I have to put this swarm first.
Meanwhile, Scan was looking harried as his fingers poked at the interface. “Running pattern match,” Scan said.
This part the othersense couldn’t help him with, because it was based on the formants and not the mere fact of masses. Mothdrive formants altered over time. This was a consequence not just of the moths’ biological foundations, which grew and warped as they aged, but of damage taken, repairs made, upgrades installed. The Kel used to keep a database of their warmoths’ drive signatures. Since neither the Protectorate nor the Compact was currently talking to Kujen, his databases were slowly but inevitably falling out of date.
Jedao didn’t see any point in harassing Scan about working faster. If the man stared any more intently at his terminal, his eyes would sublimate. Instead, with Dhanneth’s aid, he poked through Strategy’s overviews of the intelligence they’d yanked out of Kujen’s people. Strategy had hoped that the Compact’s generalized shortage of reliable Kel, combined with the number of targets, would mean that they would leave a manageable defense force at Isteia. The lesson was that you should never base your strategies on hope.
Even so, Jedao wasn’t worried. The calm confidence that had settled over him perturbed him more than the situation itself. Kujen might like to go on about how many battles he’d won, but since he didn’t remember any of them, this was effectively his first one. Then again, whether or not his confidence was justified, he didn’t want to spook his crew.
The problem? His crew was already halfway there. What am I missing?
Scan swallowed before swinging around to look at him. “Sir,” Scan said. “Pattern match complete. The cindermoth is Three Kestrels Three Suns.”
“Inesser,” breathed Meraun, the executive officer, in a tone of longing. It was hard not to hear our rightful leader.
All his crew were watching him.
He knew what that meant. His opponent wasn’t just a Kel general. It was the old hexarchate’s senior field general, and the leader of the Protectorate. And she’d brought the cindermoth named in her honor.
“Let me guess,” Jedao said. “Are they bannering yet?”
“If we get any closer they will,” Talaw said. So far Talaw was doing a reasonable job of checking their distaste for Jedao when the swarm was about to enter combat, which Jedao appreciated.
Jedao checked the status summary. By now, Tactical Two was well out of reach of immediate danger. He tipped his head back and grinned. “Let’s.”
“Sir,” Talaw said sharply, “if Inesser and the Compact’s swarm are willing to cooperate, they possess more than enough bannermoths to employ any number of grand formations. To say nothing of the political implications.”
“I know,” Jedao said, blood singing. They were almost in battle. He could taste it. “It’ll make them confident that they can beat us.”
Tactfully, no one mentioned that the other side might, indeed, be able to beat them.
The Kel might be obliged to follow orders, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t ask questions. Jedao had a panel with tiny triangles in one-to-one correspondence with every moth in his swarm. He’d memorized which moth and which commander went with each one. Right now, most of them were lit up to indicate that the commanders wanted to talk to him.
Fuck that. “Communications,” Jedao said, impressed that his voice didn’t waver, “open a line to all moth commanders.”
“Line open, sir.”
What was he supposed to—“General Shuos Jedao to all moth commanders,” came out of his mouth. Which meant he had better continue talking or he’d make everyone even more nervous. “We have sighted the Three Kestrels Three Suns and believe that Protectorate and Compact forces are working together to thwart us. Unluckily for them, they have to go through me before they can get to you.” Am I smiling? I think I’m smiling. What the fuck is wrong with me?
Enough braggadocio. “All combat units, formation Wave-Breaker. Commander Talaw, refuse the primary pivot but don’t hold the Revenant so far back that the enemy can’t get a good look at us. Swarm will advance toward the limit of Isteia Station’s fixed defenses until the defense swarms react and I specify otherwise.” He expected to be specifying otherwise very damn soon, since he couldn’t imagine that Protector-General Inesser was going to sit on her ass and watch, but no need to confuse his commanders with his thought processes. “Acknowledge.”
The panel lit even more brightly as the moth commanders sent back their acknowledgments. Jedao had worried that reducing each one to a triangle of light in a matrix would make it hard to remember them as people, each commanding a voidmoth full of crew. But every candling light was as distinct and memorable as a face. Commander Talaw was at the top of the first column, as befit the senior moth commander, and the rest of the entries in the first column corresponded to Tactical One’s bannermoths. Commander Nihara Keru headed the second column, which corresponded to the second tactical group’s moths; her column alone remained dark, because she’d been sent to Kujen’s service. The third column represented Tactical Three, and so on. Beside the communications panel, an identically formatted panel offered him a quick visual overview of the swarm moths’ status. If his moths took damage, they would light up in varying intensities of red. Right now, the status panel was all yellow-green, indicating that the moths were in the process of modulating into the desired formation.
It didn’t take long for Jedao’s swarm to trigger the desired response. “Sir,” Communications said in a strained voice. “The Three Kestrels Three Suns has opened a line to us. They request parley.”
Well, why not? Jedao couldn’t imagine that anything the enemy said would dissuade him from his mission. “Comm
ander Talaw,” he said. He could use this as an opportunity to wring some information from his opposite number. “Take the call for me.”
Meraun frowned in his direction. The rest of the command center stuttered into an uncomfortable hush.
“Delighted, sir,” Talaw said, sounding enthusiastic for once. “Connect me to Three Kestrels Three Suns, Communications.”
Jedao had piped the relevant display to his own terminal as well. Thus he received a splendid view of the Three Kestrels Three Suns banner, along with the particular header that meant it was a prelude to parley, not battle. (How many unnecessary wars had the Kel gotten into because the other side didn’t understand fussy Kel notions of propriety? Something to look up later.) Three black kestrels, outlined in gold, touched wingtip to wingtip over three gold suns arranged in a triangle balancing on its vertex like an upside-down mountain. Unusually for a Kel emblem, the field was a blue very close to Andan blue.
Inesser herself responding? Jedao thought. This could prove interesting.
Inesser’s image unsmiled at him. Her uniform, in full formal, mirrored Jedao’s almost perfectly. The only difference was the empty spot where he had the Shuos eye insignia beneath his general’s wings. And, of course, the medals. She had a lot more medals than he did.
“This is Protector-General Kel Inesser,” the woman said. Her voice was low and brisk. “So this is where you disappeared to, Talaw.”
Shit, he’d fucked up already. Jedao mentally kicked himself. Just because he had amnesia and everyone was new to him didn’t mean everyone else was new to each other.
An electric tension descended over the command center. The Kel wanted Inesser. They were vibratingly unhappy at having to oppose her. He’d have to deal with that as quickly as possible.
Worse, which way would Talaw jump? They’d made no secret of the fact that they disapproved of Jedao.
Talaw, focused on the conversation, hadn’t noticed Jedao’s sudden dismay. “General,” Talaw said, their voice deepening, and not in a friendly way. Just as importantly, they’d said “General,” not “Protector-General.” “I advise you to retreat.”
Inesser narrowed her eyes at Talaw. “I would never have mistaken you for a crashhawk, Commander.”
Talaw didn’t flinch at the emphasis. “I don’t answer to you.” At their side, one of their hands closed into a fist.
Jedao was certain of two things. One, Talaw felt they owed loyalty to someone in the swarm. Two, that person wasn’t Jedao. Then who?
Talaw’s glance flicked sideways. And then Jedao knew. Talaw wasn’t concerned about Jedao. Talaw was concerned about Dhanneth.
Friends? Jedao wondered. Lovers? Hawkfucking was forbidden, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Inesser was speaking. Her voice sharpened. “Either submit yourself to proper Kel authority or withdraw from this system immediately, Commander.”
“Perhaps we should skip the pleasantries and go straight to the shooting,” Talaw said.
Fox and hound, Jedao thought with a mixture of horror and delight, Talaw’s baiting her. Excellent.
Inesser arched an eyebrow. “If that’s how you want it,” she said. “Protector-General Inesser out.”
“Well,” Talaw said, “that was quick.”
Meraun tapped her fingers on the edge of her terminal. “I know the general. She’s not going to waste time talking when there are upstarts to be crushed.”
Did everyone but him know Inesser? Or, horrible thought, did he know Inesser? Another thing he should have looked up earlier. No help for it now, though.
Communications’ voice sounded positively glum. “All the hostiles have bannered the Three Kestrels Three Suns, sir.”
Jedao knew what that meant. The Compact had ceded control of its forces to Inesser, even if only for the duration of this fight. If he understood the situation correctly, this wasn’t the coup for Inesser it might have been under the old system. The Compact’s Kel served voluntarily. If they judged that Inesser was abusing her authority over them, they could quit.
“Well,” Jedao drawled, “if Protector-General Inesser wants to fight, we’ll fight.” He didn’t miss the way people eased fractionally when he used Inesser’s title. Just because he intended to pummel her didn’t mean he wanted to insult her randomly. But then, he’d given up on people having reasonable expectations of him.
To Communications, he said, “Tell all units to banner the Deuce of Gears upside down.”
Communications blinked. “Sir?”
“You heard me. Invert it.” Kujen had wanted him to use his old emblem, fine. That didn’t mean he couldn’t modify it to sow confusion. It seemed appropriate, anyway. Maybe if, by some miracle, he ever recovered his memories, he could go back to bannering right-side-up.
“One moment, sir.” Communications relayed the instruction.
“Enemy swarm is holding position,” Scan said.
“Sir,” Communications said, a tremor in his voice betraying confusion, “General Inesser is asking for parley again.”
“Is she now,” Jedao said. “I’ll allow it. This time, she’s talking to me.”
He was treated once more to Inesser’s emblem, which he had to admit was very pretty. Was emblem envy a thing? If so, he had a bad case of it. He still couldn’t get around the idea that people found a mismatched pair of gears threatening.
“Jedao,” Inesser breathed the moment they were connected, with an intensity that suggested that, as little as he knew her, she knew him very well indeed. “I suppose you’d be more comfortable this way. Or is it Cheris these days? One loses track.”
Cheris was the woman who had run off with his memories. What did Inesser mean by “more comfortable this way”? Did she think he was Cheris, after some mods? Jedao was suddenly very curious about what this Cheris person had been up to. “Just Jedao,” he said at his most amiable. “Is there something I can do for you? Because unless I’m mistaken, we’ve already bannered. It would be a shame to let all that hostile intent go to waste.”
“Spare me,” Inesser said. “I knew you couldn’t be up to any good when you disappeared. You’re aware that Kel Command dishonorably discharged you?”
He was? But he didn’t dare admit his ignorance, and more importantly, the bored expressions of his Kel told him that he could safely ignore this line of accusation. “You accused my moth commander of being a crashhawk,” Jedao said. “Either apologize to them or let’s fight.”
“You’re serious,” Inesser said after a telling pause.
Why wouldn’t he be? She’d offered insult to his senior moth commander. It reflected on his honor as well. Never mind that he was a Shuos; his honor was his swarm’s honor. He kept silent, watching her face closely.
“Jedao,” Inesser said, “you can’t possibly hope to pull rank on me on account of a few centuries of service. Because the only two people who have any reasonable claim to countermanding your discharge are myself and High General Brezan. And the high general is my ally.”
“That doesn’t sound like an apology,” Jedao said. “Say something relevant or we’re opening fire.” He glanced over at Talaw. Talaw did not look won over, but he hadn’t expected them to be. It was the principle of the matter, that was all.
Meraun winced; Dhanneth shook his head. Nice that someone had faith in him. Inesser was either stalling or trying to drag intelligence out of him. She vastly outnumbered him, not an unimportant consideration even in space, if only because having more warmoths gave her access to more and deadlier formations. If she hadn’t gone on the attack, it was because she thought he had the advantage. But he didn’t have the time to explain this to his crew, nor the inclination. Either he would prove himself effective or they would be defeated, a refreshingly simple set of alternatives.
“There was a time when I thought you might have entered this mad crusade with good intentions, if lamentable results,” Inesser said. “Your manifesto made that clear enough. But this? On the anniversary of the hexarchs’ as
sassinations? Nine years of us rebuilding the shit you blew to pieces, and you’re trying to throw everything back into chaos.”
Kujen’s notes hadn’t said anything about Jedao being personally responsible for the hexarchate’s fractured state, or a manifesto. On the other hand, the trouble with amnesia was that he could be responsible for anything from high treason to the pickle shortfalls on the eighth bannermoth in Tactical Three.
More, his crew had flinched this time. He couldn’t let Inesser’s words demoralize them further.
That brought him abruptly to the realization that he wasn’t the target of this chat. Talking to him was an excuse for her to address his soldiers. She was maneuvering on another battlefield entirely. Of a sudden he liked her; wished they could meet person to person, wished she were his mentor. But he had a duty to Kujen and his Kel, and he intended to carry it out.
“I didn’t hear the word ‘apology’ anywhere in there either,” Jedao said. “Goodbye, Protector-General Inesser.” He motioned for Communications to cut the line. “Communications, address to all moths. This is General Jedao. Resume advance at 38% acceleration.” That would get them to the outer perimeter, as mapped by Strategy, within the next twenty-three minutes.
All the acknowledgment lights flashed rapidly at him. His swarm might not be eager to face Inesser, but they weren’t reluctant, either.
“Sir,” said Weapons, a lieutenant with a soft, round face like rice dough, “General Inesser’s swarm appears to be modulating into Thunderbird Fury.”
Weapons didn’t have to also tell him that they didn’t want to be in the way of the resulting shock wave when the formation completed itself. Scan confirmed that Inesser’s bannermoths were forming up with dismaying accuracy. Kujen’s notes had given Jedao the impression that Protector-General Inesser and High General Brezan didn’t get along. Had Kujen or his informants been mistaken? If the Compact and the hexarchate were accustomed to joint operations, they were in bigger trouble than Strategy had reckoned on.