by Yoon Ha Lee
Janaia wouldn’t meet Khiruev’s eyes. “What if they can do it again, sir?” The edge of panic in her voice was unmistakable.
Khiruev barely escaped hissing an oath through her teeth. Everyone was thinking it, and the question of how to avoid another such hit was important, but that was no reason to speak your fear out loud. Janaia should know better. Even a common soldier should know better. Of all the fucking times for the cindermoth’s commander to have a fucking breakdown.
“Pull yourself together, Commander,” Khiruev said. If Janaia could be calmed quickly—
“Sir,” she said, her voice rising in pitch, “they’re coming after us again, none of us are safe—”
No luck. Khiruev’s fault for misgauging her: always proper, always the perfect Kel, of course she’d be the most vulnerable to a breakdown. “Commander Janaia,” Khiruev said, willing Janaia to meet her eyes even though she needed to be watching the scan and tactical readouts, “you are relieved of duty. Colonel Muris, you have command for the duration.”
For a suspended second, Khiruev was afraid that Janaia would freeze and that she’d have to have someone escort her out of the command center. Then Janaia rose, saluted, and walked out, her face white.
Khiruev couldn’t expend more attention on her, although she would have to reevaluate her fitness as an officer if they survived this. They had served together a long time. She had not realized how much she had come to rely on Janaia. While Muris took Janaia’s place, Khiruev assessed Tactical Two’s position.
“Sir,” Scan said, interrupting her attempt to figure out just what Gherion was hoping to accomplish with Black Lens, “you should review the crashhawks’ formants. Look at the comparisons—”
Khiruev didn’t have to be prompted twice. She had learned to read scan under one of Kel Academy’s most notoriously exacting (not to say boring) instructors, and she had a reasonable knowledge of common shapes a Kel military mothdrive formant might take. The crashhawks’ formants had changed. They looked eerily like Hafn drives on scan.
“Does Tactical Five have visuals?” she asked curtly.
Tactical Five obliged. A collation of videos arrived half a minute later. The group leader’s scan officer had tagged the most telling items, captured by a bannermoth that had sent out drones for a closer look.
One video frame was especially clear. The bannermoth Tempest Countdown should have been black painted with gold, from its name along the spine to the fire-and-bird motifs of the Kel. Instead, great swathes of the visible wing surfaces had gone green with a luster as of poisoned pearls. More worryingly, translucent veins had grown over the green area. The video showed them pulsing. Khiruev remembered the boy sewn up with birds and flowers, the endless procession of red spiders crawling through the crystalline veins that connected him to his casket. She couldn’t tell if red anything crawled through the infected moth’s veins. At least she hadn’t wasted time on Override Aerie Primary trying to slave the rogues’ mothgrids to that of the Hierarchy of Feasts. She had a fair idea it wouldn’t have worked.
Khiruev ordered the swarm into a formation from Lexicon Secondary. The modulation was as rough as she’d thought it would be, but she kept her face impassive. The Kel ordinarily tried to avoid having hostile units materialize inside a formation.
Updates blinked at her, demanding her attention. What interested her most was a report from Tactical Four’s Commander Gehmet and the accompanying list of units destroyed. Dragonfly Thunder. Three Gears Spinning. Song of Blackened Stones. Stag’s Blood.
She tapped out more orders, managing swarm geometry with more grid assistance than usual. Ordinarily Khiruev relied on Janaia to fill in the blanks, but she didn’t work with Muris like this often. She wanted to leave some margin for error.
“Sir, you’ll want to see this,” Doctrine said into one of the rare lulls. The loudness of her voice was like a hammer. “We think we’ve isolated the Hafn configuration.”
Equations, animated diagrams. The Hafn didn’t factor their configurations the way the Kel did their formations. But Khiruev could now see the traitor’s lance (as Doctrine had labeled it) where it had been hidden in the spike. She had to assume they’d do it again if they could.
Hafn Swarm One was now in range of the Kel’s longest-range weapons. As Khiruev had predicted, they had only struck at Minang Tower in passing. The Kel veered off to avoid being pinned between the two enemy swarms. Tactical Five was having a certain degree of success against the crashhawks and had taken out six of fourteen. Khiruev caught herself wondering what had become of the crew on those moths and made herself stop. They could figure that out after the battle.
Tactical Two under Commander Gherion had lost two moths, Pillar of Breaking Skulls and Storm Chasm. Khiruev frowned. Was Gherion doing what she thought? She lost precious seconds backtracking through the combat reports. There it was. Sacrifices, not losses.
She had authorized Gherion to do what he thought necessary. The formation Gherion was using, Kiora’s Stab, was both flexible and volatile. Gherion had already used the hellstabs it generated to destroy five Hafn moths, but in the process he was burning up his bannermoths. There was some chance the whole formation would destabilize and they’d all evaporate partway through.
Either the Hafn recognized Kiora’s Stab or had developed rapid respect for it. They were working very hard to keep Tactical Two from the targets Khiruev had tagged for Gherion. Encouragingly, they hadn’t—yet—used the traitor’s lance on Tactical Two.
Khiruev had just issued orders for the swarm to change front as it pirouetted to meet Hafn Swarm One when the command center fell silent. She glanced over and saw Jedao standing in front of the closing entrance. Jedao wasn’t smiling. No one was.
Khiruev rose and saluted, not too fast. “Sir,” she said, more coldly than she’d intended, although not half as much as she felt. “Your orders.”
I am not angry, she thought. I am not angry. If she repeated it enough times in her head it might even become true.
“You’ve done well, General,” Jedao said. He returned the salute. Only then did Khiruev notice that his eyes were bloodshot. Jedao took his seat. “You don’t have to worry about more moths going rogue,” he added without explaining how he knew this. “They were almost certainly saving that attack for a different target, but you made them panic and they blew it early.”
Commander Muris had been speaking quietly with Communications about a gap: three bannermoths in Tactical Six had drifted out of alignment while evading missiles exploiting a shield breach. Muris broke off and looked at Jedao. Jedao raised an eyebrow at Khiruev, who said in an undertone, “Commander Janaia is indisposed, sir.” Jedao indicated to Muris that he should carry on.
“Commander Gherion has forced Hafn Swarm Two to take the defensive,” Khiruev said, “but Tactical Two will probably burn up before they reach their assigned targets. Without a counter to the disruption attack, we are unable to follow up without risking significant losses—and those losses are unlikely to bring us much chance of success.”
“There’s another way,” Jedao said. “That’s not a criticism. You had no way of knowing. Communications, get me the moth commanders, will you?” Communications signaled that the line was open. “Jedao to all units. I can tell you exactly what Hafn Swarm Two is up to. You saw them jump in. They’re frantic to jump those auxiliaries back out before we obliterate them. What they’re protecting is very bad news for the hexarchate. It will allow them to establish a base of operations within our borders.
“The Hafn jump requires them to be in a certain configuration. It’s the trigger, if you will. The jump then takes a certain amount of time to take effect. They’re feinting their way around it right now. But look at this—”
A paper showed up on one of Khiruev’s displays. It had been forwarded to Doctrine as well. The diagram was a marvel of clarity, but the accompanying equations might as well have been written in seafoam. Khiruev was barely able to guess at Hafn integer keys by correlat
ing them with what she remembered from the briefing Kel Command had given her a lifetime ago. She met Jedao’s eyes, wondering where the hell he had picked up a team of pet Nirai. But now was not the time to ask.
Jedao wasn’t looking at her anyway. He continued addressing the swarm. “It is possible, with good timing, to spike the jump. I require sixteen bannermoths for the operation, as the scoutmoths’ drives are insufficiently powerful. When I say ‘spike,’ I mean that the jump translates the Hafn moths into a signal, which then travels through a space only loosely connected to ours.”
The scan anomalies. Khiruev remembered.
“It is possible to corrupt the signal so that it cannot be reconstituted. We have a good idea of the limits of Hafn error correction.” Almost casually, Jedao flicked his terminal. The relevant section of the paper highlighted itself.
“I require sixteen bannermoths”—Jedao’s voice flexed—”but I will not order you to take on the task unless it becomes unavoidable. I am asking for volunteers.” He did smile then, but his eyes were bleak. “Because if this works, nobody ever comes back out. Not the sixteen moths, not the Hafn either. You have twelve minutes to decide and to evacuate as many nonessential personnel as possible. After that, I will ask General Khiruev to pick by lottery.”
Khiruev resorted to messaging Jedao privately, reflecting that if this were a training simulation, she’d be docked an entire mark. We are Kel, sir, she said. Use us as Kel.
Jedao messaged back as though they were two cadets at the back of a classroom. You are people first. You deserve a chance to choose.
Khiruev didn’t know how any army could run on that principle, or how, for that matter, the hexarchate’s oldest soldier had come up with such an incomprehensible idea.
Twenty-three seconds elapsed. Muris was doing an extraordinarily efficient job of handling swarm maneuvers. The Hafn swarms had joined up with each other. Two more of Gherion’s moths were burning up.
“You have never had any reason to trust me,” Jedao went on as though he had never paused. “You don’t trust me now. That’s as it should be. But the one promise I can make you is that I know how to win battles. It’s all I can do for the hexarchate now. And this is a battle that has to be fought. Because the Hafn aren’t just here to claim territory. They’re here to destroy worlds; they’re here to steal our service. We’re in position to keep them from the things they want. Choose however you will, but choose quickly.”
Khiruev had already selected sixteen bannermoths by lottery.
Communications had two calls for Jedao. Then five. Eleven by the time the twelve minutes was up.
Khiruev struck off the last eleven from her list and passed the rest over to Jedao.
Jedao had already prepared move orders. In fact, Khiruev didn’t recognize the formation he called for, and Khiruev was certain it wasn’t because her memory was failing her. She knew better than to ask. Jedao caught her expression and took pity. The paper Jedao passed over contained yet more advanced mathematics.
I don’t have time to check the derivations, Khiruev thought, irritated at herself. She confirmed that Doctrine had a copy as well and asked her for a quick check if one was possible.
The Hafn wavered when they spotted the nonstandard formation. Whatever they were in the middle of doing, however, they were resolved to finish it. Light like ice and iron sprang up in a great crisscross web around the auxiliaries. A detachment headed Tactical Two off.
Gherion had been listening to Jedao’s address. When the sixteen designated bannermoths sprinted for the web, Tactical Two flared up in a pillar that sliced through part of it to facilitate their passage. This had the unexpected effect of shifting the web laterally just as the sixteen moths plunged in, and just as the web brightened.
“It’s the damnedest thing, sir,” Scan said after stabbing the displays. “I’ve got the web on visual and all those moths, frozen like statues, but all the formants are gone. Like they’re ghosts.”
“Opposite of what you get with a ghost,” Jedao said, very softly. “But yes.”
Nothing remained of Tactical Two except a scattering of red-bronze light, rapidly diminishing.
“Hafn Swarm Two is abandoning Swarm One,” Khiruev said, watching the two separate from each other. Curious: Swarm One’s movements had become conservative, sluggish. Two was fleeing outright.
“Yes, I see it,” Jedao said. “Communications, get me Commander Daharit. I’m detaching Tactical Six to deal with Swarm One. I don’t think they’re going to give you any trouble. See if you can capture anything intact for analysis. Everyone else, condense to Tide of Dragons. We’re going to make sure Swarm Two doesn’t get away.”
As it turned out, Swarm Two didn’t prove to be any trouble, either. It wasn’t until the main swarm joined up with Tactical Six that Khiruev had a chance to talk to Jedao. She didn’t request a meeting; she didn’t have to. Jedao had summoned her to his quarters. A jeng-zai deck rested on the table.
“You have a whole list of things to say,” Jedao said. “Go ahead and say them.”
“The swarm deserved your full attention during the engagement, sir,” Khiruev said.
“The swarm had my full attention,” Jedao said. “I was in the middle of a project with implications for the campaign entire.” He sat down and shoved some cards aside with his toe. Two of them fluttered to the floor. Then he put his feet up on the table.
“You put the swarm at risk.”
“Are you saying you’re not capable?”
“I’m saying you’re the better general.”
Jedao’s eyelids lowered fractionally. Khiruev couldn’t tell whether he was angry or not. “This isn’t your fault,” Jedao said, “but you’re not even near the field of battle.”
Khiruev refrained from clenching her hands. “I don’t expect you to tell me everything, but my usefulness to you is becoming severely limited.” When Jedao continued to regard her coolly, Khiruev added, “I don’t know what you intend to do about Commander Janaia.”
“I reviewed the transcript,” Jedao said. “I agree with your assessment. She broke down precisely because she’s such a good Kel. It didn’t happen to you because, sorry, you’re not quite so rigidly Kel yourself.”
“I know,” Khiruev said. Janaia believed strongly in the importance of loyalty and formation instinct. Her horror at the thought of becoming a crashhawk had been palpable. “But she’s still brittle, and that’s a problem.”
Jedao tapped his knee. “I had better talk to her when we get a bit more breathing space, but we’re going to have to retain Muris as commander for the time being. I’ll have Janaia report to Medical for assessment and counseling.”
Khiruev didn’t mention that Jedao could have dealt with Janaia directly if he’d only been in the command center at the time. “Who provided the mathematics?” she said. “The formations and the analysis of the Hafn translation method?”
“I was in here,” Jedao said, “because I would prefer not to reveal that to you.”
Khiruev weighed the merits of pressing for an answer and decided it wouldn’t do any good. “You asked for volunteers,” she said.
“Yes, we were both there for that part.”
“You originally took control of the swarm by coercion,” Khiruev said. “We were both there for that part, too. Why does it matter now that we should choose our service?”
“Would it be such an evil thing to learn, General?” Jedao asked.
Khiruev looked at the cards on the floor, then at Jedao’s unruffled face. “If you didn’t want us to be Kel, sir, why—?”
“You’re already putting your trust in the least trustworthy general in Kel history,” Jedao said. “It won’t kill you to follow me a little longer to see where this is all going.”
“I am yours, sir,” Khiruev said, and wondered why Jedao’s eyes turned sad.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
BREZAN WAS FEEDING the birds with Tseya, at her insistence, while Beneath the Orchid approached the Kel
swarm. Tseya kept referring to it as the Deuce of Gears swarm. This was correct, but Brezan felt that sometimes reality needed a kick in the teeth, even if it was only in your head, and called it the Swanknot swarm to himself. They were no longer receiving active updates from Andan sources, as that might reveal their presence. Their own scan, however, told them that Jedao and the Hafn were dancing around each other. Brezan and Tseya wanted to stay close, but not too close, in case something combusted.
One of the three birds made an alarming rattling sound and tilted its head almost all the way sideways to peer at Brezan when he failed to dispense another treat. Brezan was of the opinion that necks, no matter how long and slender and graceful, shouldn’t be allowed to corkscrew like that. “Seriously, we should be monitoring the situation ourselves,” he said to Tseya. He tried not to think about how much the bird’s beak resembled a spear.
Tseya was dangling her bare feet in a tiny creek, apparently unconcerned that her toes might get nibbled off. Today she wore her hair in braids, which tumbled down over her crocheted silk shawl. “They made me read up on a few Kel battles when I was in academy,” Tseya said placidly. “Some of them go on longer than our most interminable dinner parties. The two swarms haven’t even bannered at each other yet. I’d say there’s no sense getting wound up, except as far as I can tell, you’re always wound up.”
Brezan glowered at her. The bird was looking sadly at him instead of picking on the more accommodating target, having clearly been trained to harass innocent Kel. He fished another treat out from the container and held it out gingerly. With great delicacy, the bird plucked the morsel from his grasp and swallowed it.
“I think you’re more scared of a tame crane than you are of Jedao,” Tseya added. “Isn’t that backwards?”
Brezan glanced at her sidelong but saw only honest inquiry in her expression. “Better the enemy you know?” he said. “Although I hadn’t realized just how much Kel Academy had left out about him.”