Ninefox Gambit

CHERIS HAD NAPPED briefly before the assault was set in motion. In her dreams, she had a set of jeng-zai cards, a pile of fire tokens, and a red, red ribbon that kept unfurling into messy clots every time she set it down. Now that she was awake, she couldn’t stop seeing ribbons in her mind’s eye every time a number slipped out of the desired parameter space.

The first reports were confused, and Cheris wished impotently that she could be on the Fortress herself.

Communications said, above the clamor of alarms, “Urgent message from Captain Miyaud via Colonel Ragath, sir.”

“I’ll hear it,” Cheris said, grateful for the prospect of information. She knew her gratitude wouldn’t last.

The recording was hard to understand, but someone had thoughtfully captioned it for them, complete with a typo. “Colonel,” the captain said in a bubbling voice, “amputation gun. Heretics fired it twice, different angles.”

Colonel Ragath had interrupted with a note and a diagram: “Two cones, intersecting arcs of effect. The guns appeared to be emplaced in geometry corresponding to heretical formation 3. I suspect the geometry was necessary for the amputation effect.”

The captain: “Can’t take my arms twice. Wormfuckers. They’re coming our way. Invariant guns now.” Automatic fire, long bursts. “Oh, bother—” Silence.

“The reserves will be butchered if they go in head-on,” Jedao said. “If we—”

“Urgent message from one of the Shuos on the Fortress, requesting direct contact with the general,” Communications said. “Subject: anomalous effects on the servitor spies.”

Jedao was still talking. “– on the other hand, if we’re willing to lose chambers 3-142 to 3-181 down through the Fountain Block, we can—”

“Put me through to the Shuos,” Cheris said. She could see the chambers Jedao was discussing on her terminal. She rotated the view and considered the structural assays, thought about the demolitions he was proposing.

“Shuos Imnai to General Kel Cheris.” A woman’s voice, rapid but courteous. “I’m sorry to request contact, but I’m experiencing pervasive servitor malfunctions and I thought it might be relevant.” A databurst followed.

Cheris picked her way through the diagnostics. The gist was that Imnai’s servitors had also been affected by the amputation gun. Almost as if they, too, had lost limbs. The question was, how close was Shuos Imnai to the fire zone? Cheris needed to make sure Imnai didn’t die before she got the necessary information from the woman.

“Cheris.”

Jedao wanted her attention, but she had to find out more about the servitors. If she understood the implications correctly, this might win them their next major engagement.

“Commander Hazan,” Cheris said. “General Jedao believes we may obtain relief for our soldiers by blowing out the chambers through this section—” She sent the proposed plan over. “This will be a risky operation, and the hoppers will need to have additional medics on standby, but it might interrupt the amputation guns’ path of fire. Preliminary data suggest that they are of the branching rather than straight-fire type. Make the necessary arrangements and get back to me.”

“Sir,” Hazan said, but there was a hint of disapproval in his voice.

“Communications,” Cheris said, “get me Shuos Imnai. Top priority.”

“Attempting contact, sir,” Communications said after an anxious glance toward Hazan.

“Kel Cheris,” Jedao said. He had never called her that before. His voice was glacially soft, reasonable. “This is not a priority.”

So this was how he sounded when he was furious.

“Shuos Imnai,” Cheris said, “this is General Kel Cheris. Is your location secure?”

“General,” Imnai said, “I’m fine for the moment. The heretics are – it’s a slaughter. They won’t search shops and residences while they’re amusing themselves shooting mutilated torsos. Sir.”

“Your databurst suggests that the servitors were disabled around the same time the Kel were,” Cheris said. “Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir. I got Servitor 10 to enter the zone of fire and confirm that it’s a gun effect, not a field effect.”

She had already known that the effect fired discretely. “You may not have this information, Shuos Imnai, but try to think. Which Kel company did Servitor 10 approach?”

“Captain Kel Jurio,” Imnai said after a moment’s thought. “But I can’t vouch that everyone was correctly positioned.”

“Was Jurio’s company using modified formations that you were aware of?”

“I wouldn’t know for sure, sir – oh. If you read between the lines, 10’s report suggests that they were moving into some kind of defensive square with a diagonal front” – this was enough for Cheris to identify the formation – “but they judged it wrong. The amputation gun found a vector in and reamed its way through the ranks.”

Location. Imnai was close to the proposed demolitions work. “Shuos Imnai,” Cheris said, “the following chambers will be unsafe shortly.” She gave the list. “Remove yourself to the ward’s interior and continue your work.”

“Yes, sir.”

“General Cheris out.”

Hazan was consulting with Colonel Ragath, Medical, and Navigation. Cheris saw no reason to interrupt him. Instead, she brought up a formation model. “Servitors,” she said. “Could it be?”

“General,” Jedao said, wintry, “your soldiers are dying.”

For once she wasn’t tempted to shout at him. “One of the risks of a probe is casualties.”

“General, they’re defenseless. You’re wasting time while they’re being massacred.”

“I’m trying to figure something out,” Cheris said. “You’re getting in my way. Do you have some contribution to make? Because I’m not the one who’s wasting time here.”

This time his voice was a gun-crack. “Your commander’s plan will necessitate the sacrifice of a company to hold the high corridor. I recommend that you—”

She was shaking. When Jedao said “recommend,” it came with the force of an order. She clenched her hands.

She was only a brevet general, but she had conviction on her side. Even if it meant defying Jedao. She straightened, prepared for the next lash of that familiar voice. “I’ll discuss details with the commander when he has them,” she said harshly. If Jedao didn’t like it, too bad. It was his turn to defer to her.

Brief silence, then savagely correct courtesy. “You know the numbers, General. I await your convenience.”

The grid didn’t want to add servitors to the simulated formation she had input. It was un-Kel. She was using one of the earlier heretic formations they had identified. Cheris cloned the necessary levels of the simulator – Doctrine wasn’t going to thank her for messing up their sandbox – and yanked out baseline assumptions and their associated implications.

“So that’s where you’re going,” Jedao said, right in her ear.

Commander Hazan interrupted her to present her with the plan. Cheris stared at the schematics for a few seconds before she could convince her brain to switch tasks. “General,” she said to Jedao, not exactly a peace offering, “I would welcome your input.”

Jedao said scathing things about the Nirai team’s choice of demolition targets, which Cheris passed on undiluted. But Hazan’s basic plan was sound, and a mediocre plan implemented quickly was better than an excellent plan two hours too late.

“Implement now,” Cheris said.

“Sir.” Hazan bent over his terminal and began parceling out orders. He probably wanted to question her priorities, too, but he wasn’t going to do it in front of everyone. Jedao didn’t need to worry about that.

Cheris returned to the formation simulator, seeding an appalling number of values based on intuition. Her cleaver-work with the code convinced the simulator to regard servitors as quasi-human for the purpose of generating formation effects.

The Kel used servitors on the battlefield for reconnaissance and the occasional spot of flyby shooting, but the reason for the servitors’ reduced status wasn’t only hexarchate regulations. It was because servitors generated negligible formation effects under the high calendar, and the Kel defined themselves by their formations. Formation effects were also of limited use against servitors, but this wasn’t exactly useful if you didn’t expect to be fighting other Kel.

The heretics had designed a calendar where these axioms weren’t true. If servitors weren’t formation-neutral on the Fortress, this cut both ways. Servitors could demonstrably be harmed by formation effects, so they might be able to generate exotic effects themselves as part of a Kel formation.

She changed one parameter, two, more. Adjusted the spacing of the defensive square until she had a rough reenactment of the incident Shuos Imnai had described: a servitor unwittingly spoiling a formation and allowing the amputation gun’s influence to mutilate everyone, including itself.

“I see it now,” Jedao said.

It was all the apology she was going to get from him. “We can do this,” Cheris said. “And I’ve got a better use for those propaganda drops.”

“I thought you might,” he said, “although I would have come up with something different.”

His approval should have worried her, but all she felt was hellfire triumph. The heretics had decimated her soldiers. It was time to hammer them dead in return.