Raven Stratagem

by Yoon Ha Lee

Khiruev looked at him in frustration. She was serving someone walking around in a Kel’s body. She was complicit in the threat to that Kel’s people.

  “It’s not entirely bad that you’re so rattled,” Jedao said quietly. “It gives me hope for the Kel.” Khiruev startled. “But General, you can do better than this. Think it through. Suppose that some miracle is possible after all. We teleport across the hexarchate with a flotilla of just-add-water habitats and get the Mwennin out. What then?”

  Khiruev began pacing because she couldn’t think of anything else to do with her nervous energy. Jedao had left the door to the first inner room open, the way he usually did. As Khiruev passed the doorway, she spotted a polished rock with a bird engraving that had been left on a table. How odd, she thought, uncomfortably aware that she was prying. Other than the ubiquitous jeng-zai cards and the metal cup, it was the first indication Khiruev had had of Jedao’s personal effects.

  When she reached the wall, Khiruev pivoted on her heel—and stopped dead. She had been about to say something, but it went clean out of her head when she saw that Jedao had unholstered his gun. Jedao was looking abstractedly at the wall as he ran the gun’s muzzle along his jaw. Khiruev’s heart stuttered.

  “Sir,” Khiruev said unsteadily, “do you require a refresher course in firearms safety?”

  Jedao frowned at him. “What? Oh, sorry. Bad habit.”

  Khiruev refrained from mentioning what she’d do to any soldier of hers with such a ‘bad habit.’ To her relief, Jedao set the gun down on a table next to a jeng-zai deck. He shifted his weight, then settled there momentarily, tapping the table with an erratic rhythm.

  He’s not as unaffected as he would have me believe, Khiruev realized. She had rarely observed Jedao fidgeting before, even if Jedao’s face revealed only exasperation with the situation. It made Khiruev feel better, paradoxically.

  “Anyway,” Jedao said as he began meandering around the room, taking the jeng-zai deck with him and scattering cards on every available surface like a constellation of thwarted gambles, “think it through. Fine. We magically save the Mwennin. Tell me what the hexarchs’ next move is.”

  Khiruev paused by one of the cards. The Chained Tower. She couldn’t stop herself from looking for the Deuce of Gears, but had no luck spotting it. Jedao had, however, left the Ace of Gears peeking from beneath a face-down card.

  “Two of my parents came from the Khaigar community on Denozin 4,” Khiruev said slowly. “There are more Khaigars scattered throughout the system. Then there’s Commander Janaia. She’s a mix of things, but she’s always identified most strongly with the Moionna because of her favorite grandmother. Muris has Moionna in him, too, far back. Colonel Riozu’s four parents were part of a wave of immigration from Anxiao to Eng-Nang during a civil uprising. I could go on.” Brezan would have known more of this without having to look everyone up, but mentioning him in front of Jedao was a rotten idea. “There are a lot of people in the swarm, and a lot of peoples represented.”

  Jedao’s mouth curved into a not-smile. He was waiting for Khiruev to follow through the logic.

  “The Vidona will be able to obtain the personnel records through Kel Command,” Khiruev said, “assuming they don’t have them already. They could easily pick out the most expendable peoples and target them as well to put pressure on the swarm’s crew.” She wasn’t proud of how steady her voice was when she said ‘expendable.’ “It would touch off massive uprisings, but they might be desperate enough to try it anyway.”

  “Unfortunately,” Jedao said, “even if we show no sign of giving a damn about a people as obscure as the Mwennin, there’s no guarantee they won’t try what you described anyway. I’m hoping the Kel will argue against for the reason you mentioned, but I can’t say I have a lot of faith in Kel Command.”

  “Sir,” Khiruev said, “I ask again: what are your intentions toward the swarm? You must have had some form of long-term objective.”

  You must have known that something like this would happen eventually.

  “I have no reason to be fond of what the hexarchate has become,” Jedao said. “But people won’t fight their own government unless they think they have a way to win. We’re going to provide them with a way to win.”

  “My Vidona mother used to come home with bulletins about heretics who thought they could outfight the Kel and Shuos with some new secret weapon,” Khiruev said. “None of them ever succeeded.”

  “That’s exactly their problem,” Jedao said. “You think I haven’t put down my share of heretics at Kel Command’s orders? They always think it’s about the fucking tech. It’s not. It’s about people.”

  Khiruev studied Jedao’s face. “Exotic technology is already about belief systems, so you must be referring to something else.” They were discussing treason.

  She had spent a long career doing Kel Command’s will because she had chosen to be a Kel. Once she became Kel, she had very constricted choices. Nevertheless, she wondered if she should have contemplated treason earlier. She would never have done so if she hadn’t encountered Jedao. She knew herself that well, at least.

  Jedao made an abortive gesture. “General,” he said, “you may have noticed that math isn’t my strongest subject, so any plan of mine wouldn’t rely on it. I use grid assistance a lot when we’re in battle.”

  “I assumed you had some way of compensating,” Khiruev said without concealing her curiosity. Someone with the mathematical difficulties she suspected Jedao of having would never have been accepted as a Kel officer candidate. However, Jedao had come in sideways, through the Shuos, and it was hard to argue with his performance.

  “I have a form of dyscalculia,” Jedao said. He glanced away. “They didn’t even catch it until I was partway through Shuos Academy because I—I just worked harder. But it did mean that while my classmates were doing fancy calculations, I was busy figuring out how to trick them so those fancy calculations didn’t come into play. And anyway, I thought I was going into a career that wouldn’t require me to be fast with numbers, so for a while it didn’t matter.

  “But this is the thing about heretics. They’re typically fixated on the numbers, whether it’s manipulating atmospherics or spiking calendars so their new variety of gun will work when the Kel pop up. People are obsessed with guns”—his mouth compressed briefly—”but they’re missing the point. It’s about standing together against the hexarchs, not shooting them down. It’s possible. I learned propaganda from a master of the art.” His voice hitched on ‘art,’ settled. “You’ll see.”

  Khiruev considered this. “Was the hex—heptarchate very different in your day?”

  “Some things were bad,” Jedao said. “Some of the same things, even. But it wasn’t as all-around awful as it’s gotten.” The fractures in his eyes were unbearable. “Some of the things that got worse—they got worse because of me. I have to set it right.”

  There was no tactful way to ask when Jedao had figured this out. The Kel historians had skirted the issue, but it didn’t take much perspicacity to figure out that half the problems with Kel Command could be traced to the early hivemind’s fear of Jedao. That fear had not diminished over time. The undead general and the hivemind had circled each other like dancers for four centuries; they might continue circling for centuries yet.

  “I am done serving the hexarchs,” Jedao said. “Think what you will, but I couldn’t endure the black cradle any longer and I couldn’t keep butchering people for Kel Command. Maybe it’s too late to develop a conscience. Still, I’d be remiss if I didn’t stay on for one last round of cards.” His smile had a hard edge. “You haven’t had a choice, any of you. I’m no better than they are. But I needed a swarm, and here we are.”

  “Your plan—”

  “No. I can’t tell you details because I can’t tell anyone. I am asking for your trust. I have done nothing to earn it.”

  “You’ve won battles. A war is not beyond you.”

  “If there were a way to save the Mwennin, we�
�d be doing it right now,” Jedao said. “Doubt everything else if you want, but that one’s true.”

  Khiruev gave him a long look, remembering what Jedao had said about killing children, then nodded. “There’s one more thing you ought to hear, sir.”

  “I think I can guess.” Jedao quirked an eyebrow at her and leaned against the wall.

  At least he had a sense of humor about it. Khiruev triggered playback of the second message. It opened with Kel Command’s ashhawk-and-sword emblem. Hexarch Kel Tsoro appeared after the emblem faded out. She was wearing full formal.

  “Bulletin to all Kel personnel,” Tsoro said in a flat voice. “Owing to circumstances, Shuos Jedao’s commission with the Kel has been revoked effective immediately. His movements are to be reported to hexarchate authorities. Kel Command out.”

  There was something anticlimactic about the bulletin, as though it ought to burst into fire at the end.

  “There you have it,” Jedao said. He dragged a chair over, sat, and put his chin in his hands with his elbows on the chair’s back. “You’re free.”

  That wasn’t the response Khiruev had been expecting.

  Jedao’s smile almost warmed his face. “You showed me the other message first so you could sound me out, didn’t you? I should give you more credit for deviousness. You know, Kel Command seems to think that I can enchant people into doing whatever I want them to, as if I were some kind of super-Andan. They should have more faith in their own people.”

  “I am holding the swarm for you, sir,” Khiruev said, wondering if Jedao fully appreciated the gravity of the situation, “but they’re going to want a more definite understanding of their position shortly.”

  “You’re choosing this instead of redeeming yourself in the eyes of Kel Command. Surely it wouldn’t be hard for you to deliver them my hole-ridden corpse.”

  Khiruev grimaced. “I’m not the marksman you are.”

  “Missing the point. There are a lot more of you than there are of me. Unless you really think I’d try to massacre my way off a fucking cindermoth.”

  “It would mean betraying you, sir.”

  “Have you forgotten who I am, General?” Jedao’s smile widened. He picked up the gun, neatly emptied it of ammunition, tossed the gun into a far corner. Khiruev winced, thinking, Do the Shuos not teach firearms safety at all? “Make it easy for you,” Jedao said. “No resistance.”

  Yes, Khiruev thought bleakly, because I like to shoot helpless targets. Never mind that a four-hundred-year-old Shuos was anything but helpless. “Why are you so determined to have me turn on you?”

  “You’re a hard woman to figure out,” Jedao said, meaning the opposite. “This whole conversation. You apparently don’t want to be welcomed back by Kel Command. They’d be delighted to hear you’d dealt with me for keeps.”

  Khiruev glared at him.

  Jedao’s voice softened. “You could have your career back. That’s the problem, isn’t it? The moment they started piling on the commendations, you applied to be an instructor. The notation in your profile says that you had a temporary loss of nerve, but I don’t see that there’s anything temporary about it.”

  Khiruev said icily, “If you wish to accuse me of cowardice, you are well within—”

  She wasn’t arguing because she wanted to, except the part where she wanted to because she had a general who expected it of her.

  Jedao was speaking over her. “It can’t be that you hate the thought of composite work. This body isn’t wired for it, and it didn’t exist back when I was alive, so I have no idea what it feels like, but you’ve been composited plenty of times and you did fine. You could even be using composite work against the Hafn, given the odd way calendrical disturbances have been so localized, but I got in the way. No—it’s because you hate the thought of joining Kel Command, isn’t it? Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that you’re afraid.”

  “By this point,” Khiruev said, “it shouldn’t be any surprise to you that I harbor no great fondness for my superiors. But I am hardly unique among Kel in that regard, even high officers.”

  “I get the part where you’re determined to throw away your career once an ally, albeit a dangerous one, comes along. What I don’t get is why you became a hawk to begin with.”

  “I expected to die in service when I was young,” Khiruev said. “The hexarchate was in considerable turmoil then as now. I’ve heard you might know a thing or two about death-wishes yourself.”

  “In four hundred years,” Jedao said, “I’ve learned that some fates make death look like a stroll. I told you before that I want your life, not your death. It’s still true. But I need to know how it is that you’re defying orders direct from Kel Command.”

  “You’re right here,” Khiruev said, wondering how Jedao could have no idea, “and Kel Command is in a secret fortress far away.”

  “A touching rationalization, but it doesn’t work. If you were suffering formation break effects so badly when you were trying to assassinate me, you ought to be having some kind of reaction at the prospect of selling Kel Command out for someone who’s just been kicked out of the service.”

  “Who says I’m not reacting?” Khiruev said. Her knees felt watery. She selected a chair and sat.

  “You look terrible, at that,” Jedao said. “What’s it like, having formation instinct?”

  “It’s been sufficiently long that I don’t remember what it was like before I was injected,” Khiruev said. She wanted to close her eyes and await the inevitable bullet. By now she was old enough to realize that not all bullets were made of metal, or fired from guns. “Sir, I ought to warn you. I said I’d hold the swarm for you, and I will, but I’ll only be useful to you for so long.” Coming out and saying it was proving to be remarkably difficult. “The timer has already begun.”

  “Timer?” Jedao said sharply.

  He didn’t know after all. That was genuinely funny.

  “General, if there’s something I need to know, you’d better be the one to tell me. Now.”

  “Sir,” Khiruev said, “are you aware of the Vrae Tala clause?”

  “Never heard of it in my life.”

  “Then you don’t know about Lieutenant General Vrae Tala, either.”

  “I assume you’re winding around to some kind of point.”

  Khiruev smiled grimly. Her heartbeat felt sluggish, but this early it was only her imagination. “The general was assigned to the Fire Grasses campaign 281 years ago. Due to a breakdown in communications, she was left with orders for a full frontal assault on a heavily defended enemy stronghold, with the arrival of enemy reinforcements imminent, and none of her own support in sight due to logistical failures. You should take a look at the official account sometime. The Kel historians are unusually scathing.”

  “What, did Vrae Tala fail in the face of terrible odds? That’s not a new story in the history of warfare.”

  “Vrae Tala was a good general. I’ve looked at the account. She did her best with those orders. The real issue is that Kel Command would never have stuck her with them if they’d had current information about what was going on.”

  Jedao’s mouth pressed thin. “By ‘timer’ do you mean what I think you mean?”

  “It only applies to general officers,” Khiruev said, “and we don’t discuss it much, but yes. If I think my orders have put me in an untenable situation, I can suspend formation instinct to get the job done. There’s a price, of course. They wouldn’t have relinquished control that easily, or allowed the clause to be abused, so invoking the clause is invariably fatal. I have one hundred days. We have a saying: every general is a clock. Well.”

  “You ratfucking idiot,” Jedao said. “You had no call to—”

  “It was inevitable that Kel Command would hear you were still alive,” Khiruev said, squaring her shoulders. “At that point, they were obviously going to shred your commission into little pixels. But they weren’t going to denude the swarm of all its officers because that would get ridiculo
us, especially if they wanted the swarm to remain functional on short notice. They must have someone on the way to take over, but until that person gets here, I haven’t been discharged and I can give orders on your behalf. You’ll have to figure out what to do once I drop dead. Then again, you’re a fox. I imagine you’ll work something out.”

  For once Jedao was speechless.

  “You asked for my life, sir,” Khiruev said. “This is the best I can give you.”

  “This does beg the question of why you didn’t invoke this earlier. Your assassination attempt might have gone better.”

  Khiruev met his eyes. “I wasn’t willing to commit suicide for Kel Command,” she said. “Not even to stop you.”

  “I didn’t want this for you,” Jedao said after a moment.

  “I know,” Khiruev said. “That’s why I did it.”

  They lingered in silence for a while. Then Jedao dismissed Khiruev, looking troubled. Khiruev headed out. She noted in passing that Jedao must have palmed the mysterious polished rock while pacing earlier, but she didn’t think about it again until much later.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  BREZAN WASN’T SURE what he had expected from a silkmoth, but ‘dainty’ wasn’t it, even if the Andan went in for that sort of thing. Currently he was on a transport set to rendezvous with the silkmoth Beneath the Orchid. Kel Command had offered him an honor guard. At first he had thought they were joking. Then he argued them out of it. The composite he had dealt with had seemed baffled by his insistence, but damned if he was going to let a promotion they’d cooked up for a one-off special mission get to his head.

  “Almost there, sir,” the pilot’s voice said from the wall. “I’ll get you a good view of it.”

  “Thank you,” Brezan said automatically.

  The confounding thing about the silkmoth was that it didn’t share the wedge profile common to Kel warmoths, but it also didn’t resemble the other Andan moths he had seen, with their scrolled finials and etched flower motifs, close-up details no one had any practical use for. Instead, Beneath the Orchid looked like a stellate glory of silver-blue lace suspended in the void. He had to squint to reassure himself that the starfield wasn’t visible in the holes of the lace.