Ninefox Gambit

CHERIS WAS IN the command center of the fangmoth One Card Too Lucky, listening to the latest report on the Lanterners’ position as she kept an eye on her swarm’s formation pivots on the terminal. Gized had said this would be a straightforward engagement. Naturally, this had jinxed the whole operation. At least, Cheris didn’t like what the report implied about her options.

“All right,” she said to her moth commander, “I’ve got this.” She would have to approach this cautiously, in case Kel Command disappointed her. “Communications, get me Kel Command. If nothing else, High General Kel Anien owes me an embarrassing sum because she keeps trying to draw to an inner Crowned Door in jeng-zai. The least she can do is take my calls.”

“Do you play games just to blackmail people?” Kel Gized demanded. She was sitting close by, running through logistical tables for the hundredth time.

“If I wanted to blackmail people, I would actually exert some effort,” Cheris said lightly.

Gized had that expression that meant she wished she could roll her eyes at a superior officer.

They didn’t get High General Anien, but High General Garit, who was much better at jeng-zai than Anien but couldn’t win board games, which everyone but Garit thought was very funny. “All right, Jedao,” Garit said in exasperation, “what’s the emergency?”

“I wouldn’t call it an emergency, sir,” Cheris said, “more like an issue of protocol.” Make the query casual. “No, really. I just got reliable intel that the Lanterners have filled their defensive outposts with children and hospital cases along with skeleton crews to operate the nasty weapons. Honestly, I thought I knew the regs backwards and forwards and something new turns up. They’re broadcasting from their brand-new orphanages in the clear in all directions. Anyway, what do you want me to do about it?”

She had played fox-and-hunters with Garit, and endless rounds of jeng-zai. They had gone on a hunting trip together back when she was a major general, dismaying because shooting gray tigers was too easy and she had no use for the tigers’ deaths, stupid pointless waste, but it was the sort of thing Garit went in for, and it would have been impolitic to turn him down. Most of all, she knew Garit’s three children, one of whom she had introduced to handguns and who was in Kel Academy right now. There was a right way and a lot of wrong ways to handle the situation. She willed Garit to choose the right way.

When Garit answered, she knew immediately that he had picked one of the wrong ways. “There’s no tactical difficulty, though?”

Cheris froze inside. “Not in the slightest,” she said, keeping her tone relaxed. “But everyone will see the slaughter” – unsubtle word choice, that was the point – “and I thought there might be information operations fallout.”

“Heptarch Khiaz has been working on this propaganda campaign,” Garit said.

Khiaz. It was impossible to escape the fucking woman.

“You should see some of her latest pieces, really brilliant. I have no idea how she does it. But then, I daresay that’s why I’m not a Shuos.” He laughed. “Go ahead and shoot your way through, Jedao. There’s no difficulty with Kel protocol or public opinion considerations.”

She had always wanted children. She had always known it was a terrible idea, given her goal; had only allowed herself the most glancing affairs. But she hadn’t expected the universe to explain to her in such detail why she had been right to avoid forming attachments.

If she defied Garit’s orders, however casually phrased, he would relieve her of command. And then Garit would tell her moth commander to carry out the order. The commander was a good Kel. He would carry out the order. And Colonel Gized was also a good Kel. She would back the order.

Afterward, Cheris could never remember what she said to High General Kel Garit, or anything up until the point where they reached the perimeter and she ordered the swarm to open fire on the first outpost: an interval of two days and sixteen hours. A perfect black cutout in her memory.

She did remember, however, that Gized never even blinked when the shooting began. It was hard not to hate her after that.

Of course, Cheris didn’t blink either. She was too well-trained for that.