Raven Stratagem

by Yoon Ha Lee

  The hell with it. Best to investigate while he had the opportunity. He walked down the hall, not very far, and paused before the general’s door. “Request to see General Khiruev,” he said.

  A long pause followed. Brezan was about to repeat the request when the door slid open. He entered, and only then realized that he’d forgotten to mention his new rank.

  “Brezan,” Khiruev said, and then, when her gaze was drawn to the wings-and-flame, “sir.” She had been rearranging the endless collection of gadgets on her shelves. Now she faced Brezan properly and saluted.

  Brezan noticed neither the gadgets nor the salute. The white streak in Khiruev’s hair had widened, and she looked thin and wan. Brezan bit down a snarl.

  Khiruev’s mouth twisted. “If you’re here,” she said, “then Kel Command sent you somehow, and Jedao is gone.” She tried to reach for her sidearm, but her arm locked up, and her hand began to shake.

  She’s trying to kill me for ‘Jedao’? Brezan thought incredulously. “Stand down, s—General,” he said. Khiruev froze. Brezan didn’t order her to hand the gun over, which was almost certainly a mistake, but he didn’t want to strip her dignity away entirely. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “Please be more specific, sir,” Khiruev said icily.

  Well, if she was going to be that way about it—“You look like you’re being poisoned,” Brezan said. “What’s going on?”

  “I invoked the Vrae Tala clause on Jedao’s behalf when Kel Command revoked his commission,” Khiruev said.

  “He made you do what?” Brezan demanded. So that was why Khiruev looked ill: because she was. Because she was dying.

  “No one made me do anything, sir,” Khiruev said. “I did it voluntarily. Shoot me for it if you like. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

  The stabbing despair in Khiruev’s eyes hurt Brezan. “I’m asking the wrong questions,” he said. “Why did you do it voluntarily?”

  Silence.

  Great. Brezan was going to have to pull rank on the woman who, by all rights, should have been his commanding officer. “Answer the question, General.”

  Khiruev inhaled sharply, then nodded. “Because he was worth serving,” she said. “Because the first thing I tried to do was assassinate him with an improvised device—”

  Brezan hid his surprise.

  “—and I botched the job. I killed Lyu and Meriki.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brezan said. It didn’t seem quite real. Lyu with his slight gambling problem, Meriki with her crowd of children.

  Khiruev went on as though Brezan hadn’t spoken. “General Jedao took me aside afterward. He knew I was the culprit. Then he chewed me out for killing the wrong targets, warned me not to fuck up again, and asked for my service. I gave it to him.

  “I know what the history lessons say. I know what he did. But in his time in charge of the swarm, he acted more honorably toward the Kel than Kel Command usually does.” Khiruev looked away, then back. Her resistance was unraveling. “I assume you’ve dealt with him. You would hardly be here otherwise. Go ahead and end it, sir.” Her voice softened. “For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re making it out alive.”

  It hit Brezan, then, that Khiruev wanted to die. He was tempted to ask if it was a side-effect of Vrae Tala—there had always been the rumors—but he couldn’t bring himself to do it, especially when he suspected he wouldn’t like the answer. Instead, Brezan said, “What if I told you that we’d been tricked? That you weren’t following Shuos Jedao after all?”

  Khiruev fell silent. Then: “You were the one who pointed out that former Captain Cheris didn’t possess those marksmanship skills. Unless she got lucky on short notice. If that’s where you’re going with this line of argument.”

  “I don’t know a hell of a lot about how Jedao was resurrected whenever Kel Command wanted to field him,” Brezan said. “Do you?”

  “I never had access to that information, sir.”

  He could tell that Khiruev was skeptical. “I didn’t come here alone,” he said, which got no reaction. Khiruev would expect as much. “I was backup for an Andan agent.” Her eyes did flicker then. “The Andan couldn’t so much as slow Cheris down.”

  “It couldn’t just be Jedao going crazy, or going crazier possessing Cheris?”

  “I wasn’t on the moth for the ride,” Brezan said, thinking of how lucid Cheris had sounded. They did say the Shuos trained the knack of resisting enthrallment into some of their operatives, but Tseya hadn’t thought that would be an obstacle. “You tell me. This person you’ve been serving. Was their behavior crazy?”

  “Well,” Khiruev said at her driest, “in our existence, honorable behavior is crazy. But I take your point, sir. Anyway, it doesn’t matter.”

  That took Brezan by surprise. “I don’t follow.”

  Khiruev’s mouth crimped. “Are they dead?”

  “No,” Brezan said, and was disturbingly gratified to see a little of the light return to Khiruev’s eyes. “She had me. She’s in her quarters on parole. But she persuaded me that I should judge her actions by the state of the swarm.”

  “That’s an interesting move,” Khiruev said, “considering that I have no choice but to follow you. Are you sure she can be trusted?”

  There it was, formation instinct taking hold, the switch of loyalty. I didn’t want this for either of us, Brezan wanted to say, although he knew better than to say it. “Maybe she was hoping I would judge her the way you did,” he said.

  “You were set free and not killed, sir,” Khiruev said, as if Brezan needed the reminder. “I’m seeing a pattern.”

  “I’ve barely looked around the Hierarchy of Feasts,” Brezan said. “I’d prefer to do it in your company, to reduce the disruption.”

  “You have only to give the order, sir.”

  Brezan reminded himself not to pick a fight over behavior Khiruev couldn’t help. “Has Cheris given you any indication as to her final objective?”

  “I only know that we were to fight the Hafn, which I imagine you’d figured out, and that perhaps there was a greater game,” Khiruev said. “I never received specifics beyond that.”

  “Even if you don’t have specifics,” Brezan said, “anything, anything at all—” He didn’t understand when he had started hoping Cheris-as-fox had a plan. “She couldn’t have possibly intended to go to war with the hexarchs with a single swarm, even one of this size.”

  “She did say once that I wasn’t looking at the right battlefield,” Khiruev said, “but that could have been misdirection.”

  “Do you think she was bluffing?”

  “No,” Khiruev said without any hesitation. “I don’t think she was.”

  Brezan thought for a moment. “To start with, I want to see the staff and department heads, and Commander Janaia.”

  “Sir, you ought to be aware that the commander has been removed from duty. Muris is the acting commander. Should I reinstate Janaia?”

  Just when he thought he was getting a handle on the situation. “What happened?”

  “She had a breakdown,” Khiruev said, without elaborating.

  “I’ll have to review that later,” Brezan said grimly. The status of the swarm had to come first. “Commander Muris, then.”

  “As you wish, sir. I’ll set it up.”

  Khiruev could no doubt tell how unprepared Brezan was for this turn of events, but she didn’t comment on it. Which she wouldn’t, because that would be insubordinate behavior. Brezan watched in helpless fury as Khiruev sent out the summons, not even sure who he was furious at. Himself, maybe.

  They headed to the conference room early on the grounds that it would be best to be the first ones there. Brezan had to keep from flinching at Khiruev’s tread, not because he heard anything wrong, but because he kept expecting to. Khiruev cleared her throat when Brezan automatically took his old seat at the side of the table. Brezan colored and decided to remain standing, while Khiruev slowly sank into a chair next to the head of the table.

&n
bsp; First to arrive was Commander Muris. He didn’t even pause before offering his salute, and proceeded to the seat across from Khiruev’s at Brezan’s nod. Then came most of the staff officers. Last of all was Medical, who looked at Brezan with open skepticism.

  When everyone was seated, Brezan said, “I recognize that this is a damnably bizarre situation, but what I need from you is very simple. I want honest assessments of how the swarm has been handled since Jedao’s takeover.” He didn’t explain his presence or why the fuck he wanted the information. At least General Khiruev’s visible compliance lent him legitimacy. “We’ll go clockwise around the table, starting with the commander. I have already heard General Khiruev’s report privately.”

  “Sir,” Muris said. He launched into his report. His crisp way of speaking hadn’t changed, and Brezan had to admire his sangfroid. Brezan took notes, even though the meeting was being recorded, because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on what Muris was saying.

  It was impossible to escape the buzzing sense of unhappiness coming from the officers gathered here. But they would do as he ordered because the moment they walked in and saw him, they lost the ability to resist. Khiruev had tried, but hadn’t been able to stand up to a direct order. In the middle of Muris’s summation of the first engagement with the Hafn, Brezan had the idle thought that it would be horrifyingly easy to get used to people looking at you with that intent devotion, which had to be something specific to high generals, and maybe also to generals who had four hundred unnatural years of seniority. He sure as hell didn’t remember anything quite like it during his regular career.

  Kel Cheris had had that power over the swarm, and she had surrendered it as part of a rhetorical gambit. Who was she really, and what was her game?

  He was going to have to return to her if he wanted to find out, that much was clear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  KHIRUEV HAD TROUBLE not drifting out of focus during High General Brezan’s meeting, partly because, like everyone but Brezan, she knew what the swarm had gone through, but partly because of the creeping exhaustion. Barely past the first quarter of Vrae Tala and it was already this bad. How did anyone survive to the hundredth day? She felt better when she interacted with people. On the other hand, sitting in the conference room made it all too easy to succumb to the illusion that she was gradually becoming no more animate than the walls, the air, the dust that wheeled in the light.

  She roused when Brezan gave orders regarding Cheris, mostly to the effect of ‘if you see Jedao wandering around having broken his parole, shoot him.’ Interestingly, Brezan had not revealed Cheris’s identity, perhaps because the story was too incredible for anyone to believe. Then Brezan dismissed everyone else, and looked at Khiruev fretfully. Brezan had never been able to conceal what he was thinking.

  “General,” Brezan said, “I’d like to tour the moth, unless you consider it inadvisable at the moment.”

  A tactful way of allowing her to beg off, not that Khiruev intended to take it. All she’d do if she retired to quarters was dream herself into an assemblage of bones and coils and unthinking curves. “I don’t see why you should delay, sir,” Khiruev said. “Are you sure you don’t want a proper escort?”

  Brezan flinched, as she had known he would, but the forms had to be observed. “Do you think I’m in danger?” he said.

  “Not from any of the Kel,” Khiruev said. Of course, it was questionable whether Cheris fell in that category anymore.

  Brezan didn’t reply to that, although the fate of his Andan comrade had to weigh on his mind. “The command center first, then,” he said. He took two steps toward the door, then stopped. Without turning around to face Khiruev, he said, “Why?”

  Surely Brezan knew he wouldn’t get results with such a vague query? One of the first things they taught officers was that recalcitrant common soldiers could tangle you up with loopholes if they became sufficiently motivated. Khiruev said, mostly honestly, “I don’t understand the question, sir.”

  Brezan swung around, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. Looking for a target. Since this was Brezan, he hadn’t yet worked out that everyone in the swarm was a target if he wanted them to be. “You can’t guess?” he said. “I understand formation instinct. I can’t understand how you let yourself become Cheris’s pawn after you were freed.”

  “Sir,” Khiruev said, “it sounds to me like you’re asking how you let her do the same to you. You already know my story. But here you are, and for all you know, the other crashhawk has already escaped to do as she pleases.”

  “If you’d shot her in the head when Kel Command dumped Jedao,” Brezan said, voice rising, “we wouldn’t be—” His mouth snapped shut.

  “What exactly did you think would become of me when you were gone?” Khiruev said, tired. “I’m human, sir. People break. Sometimes it doesn’t take much. If it disappoints you, I’m sorry. You can take whatever disciplinary measures you see fit. But I had decided what mattered most to me.” She paused, piecing together the reasons as they had once existed; it was already difficult to remember. “I don’t care if Cheris never had a chance against the hexarchs. I wanted to die having seen that someone believed in a better world enough to fight for it.”

  Brezan stared at her, his face unreadable, then said, “Let’s go, General.”

  Khiruev fell in to Brezan’s side. In silence they walked through the cindermoth’s halls. Either Brezan had discovered his inner art critic or something else about the ink paintings bothered him. Since Khiruev hadn’t been asked to have an opinion on the topic, it was none of her affair. Say what you like about formation instinct, it was soothing to know that figuring out what to do was someone else’s problem. She’d only fucked up by getting herself promoted too high.

  Commander Muris saluted Brezan practically before the doors opened to admit them. The grid would have informed him of their approach. Muris avoided looking at Khiruev. This was entirely sensible: for all he knew, Brezan was parading Khiruev around before executing her for high treason. Khiruev had no plausible defense against the charge.

  Although the swarm was at a standstill, Brezan was able to observe Muris poring over reports on post-battle repairs and casualties, and the occasional call from the moth commanders. Doctrine and Engineering were busy taking apart the salvage they’d recovered from the Hafn in an attempt to figure out what those auxiliaries had been. The officers carried out their duties in hushed voices. Brezan stuck around for thirty-eight minutes, his expression growing increasingly remote. Then he nodded politely at Muris, thanked him for his work, and headed out.

  They went through the major departments. Brezan lingered longest at Medical, although there had been few casualties on the Hierarchy of Feasts this past battle and one of the people in sickbay was there for a banal bacterial infection. Then Brezan stopped by the dueling hall, and Khiruev wondered if Brezan meant to challenge her. Brezan would win, no question. Khiruev was as good at the sport as she had to be, and no better, even when she’d been healthy. Brezan had some genuine enthusiasm for it. But no, Brezan seemed content to take a seat in the back, away from the other spectators, after waving away the salutes. Khiruev looked at him curiously. Brezan made an impatient gesture for her to sit by him. A few people were warming up, and only one pair was sparring, with more grit than skill.

  “You’ve watched videos of Jedao dueling, General?” Brezan asked.

  Khiruev was touched at how often Brezan addressed her by her rank, as if that could restore their professional relationship to what it had been. “Once or twice, sir,” Khiruev said. “I remember that he was good, but that’s about it. Why, do you intend to duel Jedao?” She assumed she was to use the cover identity until Brezan indicated otherwise.

  “Jedao’s colleague was supposed to be dead mediocre at it,” Brezan said, meaning Cheris, “not that that’s enough reason to keep someone from a hobby. But Jedao’s another story.”

  Khiruev sensed that she wasn’t supposed to respond to
that, so she didn’t. Whatever Kel Command had done to Cheris, they surely regretted it now.

  “I should have killed you already,” Brezan said abruptly.

  “After a thorough interrogation, yes,” Khiruev said. “It’s not too late.” It was Brezan’s most persistent fault, his impetuosity. That, and the fact that if you put a goal in front of him, he focused on it to the exclusion of everything else. No strategic vision. Khiruev would have put Brezan in the category of a ‘use with caution’ Kel if he’d been a line officer: great on special missions for his ability to think unconventionally, useful in charge of a tactical group if carefully supervised, and for mercy’s sake don’t promote him any higher than that. Kel Command wasn’t wrong: the promotion, in this case, was key to this particular special mission. As long as Brezan leaned hard on Strategy if the Hafn showed up again, he should be all right.

  “I don’t care if they execute me too,” Brezan said after a while, although they both knew that mere execution would be the merciful option. “What I did—I wanted to do what was right. It looked simple. How the fuck do you mess up ‘kill swarm-stealing mass-murderer’?” He was gazing abstractedly at the sizzle-and-flash of the calendrical swords. “I don’t know enough about swarm tactics to read stylistic differences. Does Jedao fight as he always did?”

  “That’s complicated,” Khiruev said, “since his black cradle engagements were classified and we’ll never know exactly how they were handled, but I’d point out that everyone seems rattled. Sir, if you want more information, you know who you have to ask. You’re going to have to hope Jedao wants to tell you the truth. It’s clear that he can be a very good liar when he wants to be.”

  “Yes,” Brezan said, “you’re right.” Nevertheless, he lingered another nine minutes, until two more of the duelists started a practice round. “Let’s go.”