Raven Stratagem

CHAPTER NINETEEN

KHIRUEV RECEIVED COMMANDER Janaia’s request after the third time the Hafn refused battle. They were eight days out from Minang System with its wolf tower. Khiruev was painfully aware that she had turned up her terminal’s displays brighter than anyone else in the command center. Everything around her looked as though someone had painted it over with shadows.

Irritatingly, Jedao was playing jeng-zai against the mothgrid again. Khiruev, who could see the score, wished he would lose just once. Jedao appeared to be absorbed contemplating his hand.

Janaia prodded her terminal for the twelfth time in as many minutes, then muttered under her breath. She wasn’t the only one frustrated with the Hafn’s continued flight. The Kel wanted battle.

“They’d better make a stand somewhere, sir,” Janaia said, her annoyance at the situation overcoming her desire to speak to Jedao and Khiruev as little as possible. “Do you suppose the master clock in the tower will be a sufficiently inviting target?”

“They’ve certainly arrowed straight toward it,” Jedao said. “Aside from the Rahal billing us for any damage to it, the calendrical destabilization if the Hafn wrecked it wouldn’t do us any favors. Even if their objective is elsewhere, they might bomb it in passing.”

Khiruev was scrutinizing a map. It didn’t take much military acumen to determine that something was amiss, but she couldn’t undermine Jedao in front of the crew. After being driven away from the Fortress of Spinshot Coins, the Hafn swarm might have been forgiven for withdrawing toward the border. Instead, they had persistently zigzagged farther into the hexarchate.

Khiruev could only think of two compelling reasons for this behavior. One, this swarm was a decoy for a second invasion force, in which case Jedao was leaving the Fortress open to a second attack. True, the Hafn ability to turn phantom terrain against hexarchate forces was no longer a secret, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t prepared other tricks. The other explanation, which she kept returning to although she wished she could scrub it out of her brain, was that Jedao wasn’t just herding the Hafn, he was colluding with them. Hafn movements were too convenient, considering the plans that Jedao had already confessed to.

As the Hafn neared the Kel military outpost at Tercel 81-7178, Khiruev waited tensely for any indication that they were slowing or circling around. Nothing.

Afterward, Khiruev went to contemplate her shelves of disassembled machines. She picked up the watch Jedao had admired, trying not to think about the gnawing sensation inside her, as though her bones were shuddering apart. When she was around other people she could set it aside, but here it nagged at her. She put on music, a plaintive zither piece. That didn’t help either.

When Commander Janaia requested to see her, Khiruev was grateful for the distraction, even if it was likely bad news. The wording of her request was both correct and unrevealing. Khiruev put the broken watch back on the shelf, then indicated that Janaia should see her in twelve minutes.

Janaia came by almost exactly on time, unusual for her. It filled Khiruev with foreboding. Khiruev had set the door to admit Janaia automatically. “At ease,” Khiruev said, emerging to greet her.

There were faint lines around Janaia’s eyes. “Permission to speak freely, sir,” she said.

“Granted,” Khiruev said. “You may sit, if you like.” She nodded toward a chair.

After a significant look at the chairs, Janaia sat. “I’m surprised the fox let you keep your gadgets.”

“Perhaps,” Khiruev said, “he thought I could use the reminder of my failure.”

“So it was you after all.”

The music box. Kel Lyu and Kel Meriki, sprawled dead. Khiruev had essentially pointed the needler at them herself. She’d written notifications to their families that she’d never be permitted to send. The one time she’d brought it up with Jedao, Jedao had quashed the idea on the grounds that it would get those families in trouble with hexarchate authorities. Which Khiruev had known, but she couldn’t stop wishing otherwise. “I didn’t think it was any secret,” she said.

“It’s done,” Janaia said, unsentimental. “But that isn’t what I came to talk to you about. It’s the twenty-fifth day, sir.”

The twenty-fifth day since Khiruev had invoked Vrae Tala. “That’s something you’ll have to take up with Jedao,” Khiruev said.

“You’re good at jeng-zai,” Janaia said, “but I know a bluff when I see one. I could have gone straight to him. But I thought I’d find out what’s going through your head first.”

“Why don’t you come right out and say it, Commander.” Inside the gloves her hands had gone clammy.

“Jedao had no idea about the Vrae Tala clause, isn’t that right?” Janaia said. “I thought at first that he had coerced you into it. But this last high table, there was no quarter-candle by your seat. I may be no friend of the fox’s, but he respects Kel custom. He always passes the cup at high table, he wears the notorious gloves, I daresay he knows our regulations better than we do. Except, of course, the ones that came into existence after we made a hash of executing him.”

“It was a command decision,” Khiruev said humorously, “and one a bit late to rescind. Do you wish to lodge an official complaint?” Who was Janaia going to go over her head to?

Janaia slammed her hand down on the chair’s arm. “Sir, I’ve served with you for fourteen years,” she said, her voice utterly level. “I’m Kel, you’re Kel, I’ll even follow you into a fox’s jaws. But I will serve you better if you help me understand what the hell we’re doing.” Funny how Khiruev had made the same argument to Jedao himself. “What is it that’s so important that you’re killing yourself for it?”

Khiruev opened her mouth.

“If you’re about to make a suicide joke, don’t. Sir.”

“Jedao thinks he can take on the hexarchs and win,” Khiruev said.

“Well, yes,” she said impatiently, “that kind of delusion is what landed him in the black cradle in the first place. But, I mean, he’s crazy. What’s your excuse?”

Khiruev peeled back her right glove just far enough to expose the skin of her wrist, so Janaia would understand the seriousness of her intent. The Kel only ungloved for suicide missions and lovers, as the saying went. Khiruev hoped Jedao’s plan wasn’t suicide, but in a sense, it didn’t matter. She was committed.

Janaia’s mouth compressed.

Satisfied that she understood, Khiruev settled the glove back in place. “Commander,” she said, “I trust you remember Raggard’s Basket.”

Kel Command had assigned Khiruev to deal with heresy at Raggard’s Basket. The orders had changed en route. The Rahal had been making a calendrical adjustment, and they had desired a fast resolution to the matter. In response to Rahal pressure, Kel Command authorized the use of fungal canisters.

Khiruev looked for a better way, but she couldn’t get around the punishing timetable. Since she could offer no viable alternative, she ordered the launch of the canisters. The resulting fungal blooms destroyed anything of human value in the world’s ecosphere. It was estimated that decontamination would take upward of a century. Khiruev had a vivid memory of the first spores coming to fruit when they encountered one of the indigenous sea snakes, fungus sprouting in spongy tendrils from beneath scales until they cracked purple-red, fungus clouding the amber eyes, fungus spilling out of the agonized mouths in bloated masses. Her chief of staff caught her watching the video over and over and made her stop.

“Yes,” Janaia said. “I remember Raggard’s Basket. I also remember that we had our orders.”

“I would like to think that it’s possible to construct a society where our orders don’t involve slaughtering our own people,” Khiruev said. The heretics hadn’t been the only ones on that planet.

“That’s always hard,” Janaia said. Her face did not change. “But I leave the philosophical considerations to you. My job is to fight where you point me. Tell me, do you think Jedao really has a chance, even if he isn’t going to backstab us all afterward? Even at Candle Arc he was only outnumbered eight to one. The odds are infinitely worse here.”

“Let me put it this way,” Khiruev said. “For four hundred years he’s convinced Kel Command not to kill him, despite a million good reasons. Kel Command isn’t known for being slow on the draw. And then he escaped. He may not win, but I am not seeing a better opportunity.” Khiruev met her eyes. “My disloyalty to Kel Command must be a terrible disappointment to you.”

Khiruev shouldn’t have put it to Janaia so directly, but Janaia only shrugged. “I must admit,” Janaia said, “this strikes me as a singularly bad time for an insurrection.”

“This is the hexarchate, Commander. There’s never a good time.”

“It’s going to be blood all the way down, one way or another. And you won’t be around to see the end of it.”

“Someone has to decide to throw the dice,” Khiruev said.

Janaia nodded curtly. “At least tell Jedao about the candles,” she said.

She cared about the oddest things. “Why is this so important to you?”

“Fourteen years. Tell him. Let him do the right thing by you.”

Fourteen years and Khiruev was wondering if she’d ever understood Janaia. “I’ll take it under consideration,” she said. “Dismissed.”

After Janaia had left, Khiruev returned to contemplating the watch. She opened up the back and stared at the unmoving parts. She was cold again, but she could get used to a little cold. It was only temporary, after all.

THERE WAS NO such thing as a routine battle, something Khiruev had figured out as a lieutenant decades ago. Even so, certain rituals made the chaos manageable. More accurately, they gave you the comforting illusion that the plan would have any relationship to reality when reality decided to stab you in the eye.

Khiruev had made sure to get to the command center as the swarm approached Minang System’s inhabited worlds. The swarm alternated between two defensive formations as they traveled, in case the Hafn proved capable of coming about more suddenly than they had in the past. The Hafn swarm was going just fast enough that the Kel had to go full-tilt to keep up, which couldn’t be an accident. But abandoning the chase wasn’t an option, either.

For the most part, Khiruev occupied herself reading increasingly confusing scan summaries and rereading staff analyses of Hafn movements. As Chief of Staff Stsan said in private, they amounted to carefully phrased variations of ‘fucked if we know what they’re about.’ It was too early to tell if the Hafn would make a stand at Minang, attack the wolf tower in passing, keep spearing into the Concerto March, or pull something completely new. Among other things, they hadn’t left any more geese lying around. Maybe they were running low.

What worried Khiruev more than the Hafn was the fact that Jedao hadn’t deigned to make an appearance. She couldn’t tell Jedao what to do, but Jedao’s apparent lack of interest was making the crew jittery. Janaia had glanced twice in the direction of Jedao’s empty seat before catching herself.

Khiruev didn’t have a pretext for sending Jedao a message asking him what the hell he thought he was doing, although she sent a restrained note anyway. It wasn’t against any regulation for Jedao to be off playing cards or polishing guns or taking a nap when they weren’t in combat. Anyway, it was an open question as to whether Kel regulations had meaning to an ex-officer in a rogue swarm. Note aside, it would be best if Khiruev acted like nothing out of the ordinary was going on, not that ‘ordinary’ meant much either, these days.

“Sir,” Janaia said when they were four hours out from the tower. Her executive officer glanced at her, then looked away, troubled. Even Muris was affected by the situation, it appeared.

“Yes, Commander?” Khiruev said.

“Where do you suppose all the geese are anyway?”

It was patently not what she wanted to ask. “Your guess is as good as mine,” she said.

“I would feel better if the Hafn stuck to a routine.”

“The next time they consult me about their battle plans, I’ll pass that along.”

Your general had better know what he’s about, Janaia’s look said.

Khiruev smiled thinly at her, then returned to scrutinizing the scan readouts.

Three hours and five minutes out, Communications said, “Request from Minang Tower to speak to General Jedao, sir.”

“Forward it to the general,” Khiruev said. She checked the headers and was interested that a wolf tower was addressing Jedao by the rank he no longer held. Even if Jedao didn’t want to be in the command center, he might wish to deal with the call.

Six minutes passed. Communications looked up, expression distinctly unhappy.

“Let me guess,” Khiruev said, “the general hasn’t responded and the tower is repeating its request.”

“That’s it exactly, sir.”

While it was hardly outside the realm of possibility that Jedao had some way of hijacking a channel so he could talk to people without there being a record of it in the mothgrid, Khiruev doubted that the tower was playing any such games with them. “Forward the new request,” Khiruev said grimly, appending a second note asking for Jedao’s guidance. She began putting together alternate formation orders for the swarm, just in case.

Janaia had achieved the perfectly serene smile that meant she had weapons-grade reservations about their survival.

You and me both, Khiruev thought. Strategy had come up with three separate plans, to say nothing of contingency variations, for the defense of Minang System during the pursuit. Jedao had not approved any of them. Khiruev thought the second one might do in a pinch.

After another twenty-three minutes, the next transmission from Minang Tower wasn’t a request, dashing Khiruev’s hopes that Jedao was discreetly handling the matter. It came not long after Scan reported that the Hafn were changing course. If the Hafn kept on more or less in that direction, they would swing past Cobweb System, which had two settled worlds. And the Cobweb worlds weren’t the only ones out that way. The possibilities multiplied appallingly with each hour the Hafn weren’t stopped.

“Do we have any indication of”—she didn’t say ‘legitimate’—“Kel reinforcements in the area?” Khiruev said. Kel Command had to be working on the problem, although she had some idea of the logistical difficulties. After all, this very swarm had had to be scrambled for defense after General Chrenka’s assassination, and the Kel were often stretched thin.

“I can’t definitely identify any swarm formants,” Scan said.

Communications added, “Local defenses have been scrambled, judging by system traffic, but I have seen no indication of a swarm presence.”

“The message, then,” Khiruev said. “Forward it.”

Jedao’s reply came back almost immediately, text-only: Deal with it. Then, a set of coordinates: Prepare a welcoming party for the enemy here.

With what, the threshold winnowers that Jedao had so cleverly had them discard? Notably, Jedao had given a place but not a time. The fact of the Kel swarm’s presence wasn’t a secret, and hanging around to launch missiles would hurt. They carried some mines for situations where you could force an enemy through an approach, but the Hafn had been merrily ignoring calendrical gradients this whole time, so that didn’t work either.

“Communications,” she said. “General Khiruev to warmoth commanders. I want to know how many bombs we can place for remote detonation at the following location.” She gave the coordinates, and ran some calculations in consultation with a map of the system. “Head for this location.” Second set of coordinates, and a set of waypoints. Then: “General Khiruev out.” To Communications: “All right. While the commanders are dealing with that, let’s hear the tower’s message.”

The message opened with the hexarchate’s wheel insignia, then the gray Rahal wolf with its bronze eyes. The woman in the video looked like a standard-issue Rahal magistrate, from her immaculate upswept hair to the severe gray shirt with its bronze brooch. The bent stylus in her left hand was not, however, standard-issue, nor were the snapped pieces of two more on the desk before her. A knife’s braid-wrapped hilt was just visible at the edge of the video.

“This is High Magistrate Rahal Zaniin of Minang Tower,” the woman said. She had a slight melodic accent, not unattractive. Unsurprisingly, Khiruev couldn’t place it. “There’s a whole bunch of formulaic stuff for addressing traitors that I memorized back when I was in academy, but why don’t we forget about that so I can get to the point.”

Zaniin broke her stylus, scowled at it for a moment, then flung it aside. “I assume I’m addressing General Shuos Jedao and his swarm. I can only guess at your motivations, which are probably five parts head-game to one part let’s-use-the-Kel-as-punching-bags. It would be helpful if you’d agree to talk while there’s time, but since you’re not amenable, you get the soliloquy edition.

“One of the things they made me learn before they installed me in this overgrown clock was reading scan formants. It’s quite unambiguous. The Hafn are going there”—she stabbed with her finger, and the video was momentarily replaced by a map showing Cobweb System—“and you’re apparently determined to be here.” Another stab, this time showing Minang Tower represented by the standard wolf-and-bell icon.

“The tower and its associated stations have a population of approximately 86,000. Cobweb 4 is a fully inhabited planet, with about four billion people living there. Cobweb 3 is more like a glorified moon, but still, I don’t imagine the Hafn can be relied upon to leave it alone.” She appended more detailed statistics.

“As I said,” she resumed, “I don’t know what you’re looking to get out of this. But if you’re trying to preserve Minang Tower for some reason of calendrical warfare”—Zaniin’s voice was almost steady—“just ask your Kel. Some of them must be able to back me up. Master clocks are fucking expensive to build and calibrate, and dealing with clock desynchronization on your end wouldn’t be any fun either, I get that. But you can work around one clock. Our destruction won’t set you back much, even if the Hafn leap back here. Those people in Cobweb—there’s no other way to save them. Run the numbers, Jedao. Please.”

Khiruev thought this was the end of the message, but after a few moments the high magistrate went on. “It’s not hard to guess that you have nasty plans for the people who stuck you in a dark jar for four centuries,” Zaniin said. “Judging from the propaganda, you either think the whole system is rotten or you’re doing a bang-up job of faking it to make new friends. I kind of hope it’s the former.”

She picked up the knife, unsheathed it, and stabbed her table. “Because you know what? It is a shitty system. We have a whole faction devoted to torturing people so the rest of us can pretend we’re not involved. Too bad every other system of government out there is even worse. You know, they say at Candle Arc you kept Doctrine from rendering a Lanterner as an on-the-spot emergency remembrance. Of course, four hundred years and one big massacre later, I have to wonder if you remember it yourself.”

Her eyes flicked sideways, and she frowned. “The Hafn are still heading for Cobweb. Who knows, maybe they’ll change their minds. But you’re the only thing between the invaders and a lot of people who had nothing to do with all the things that happened to you during your unpleasant unlife.

“I’m going to have to turn myself in for having this conversation. In the meantime, if you have some working alternative for the world we’re stuck in, by all means show it to us without spelling it in corpses. High Magistrate Zaniin out.”

Into the uneasy quiet, Communications said, “Minang Tower has forwarded us scan relay data from the listening posts in the region, sir.”

Four billion people and change.

Khiruev recovered the information she had sought earlier all too easily. The Sundered Spheres swarm under Major General Kel Jui had been brought up from the Rosetta March. Kel Command had pulled General Inesser off High Glass; they must be desperate. High Glass was one of the most dangerous borders, and Inesser was not only the hexarchate’s senior general, she was also widely considered one of the most formidable. Whoever was taking her place at High Glass had better be good.

Khiruev called Strategy. “Colonel Riozu,” she said, “double-check me on this.”

After several minutes, the lieutenant colonel sent back an annotated map that matched the one in Khiruev’s head. There was no way for Sundered Spheres to rescue Cobweb. They were simply too far away.

Khiruev tapped in a message to Jedao. Request clarification of orders, sir.

Jedao’s response took longer this time. Do you want to win? Don’t interrupt me again. I will be there when I can.

Yes, Khiruev thought, but what are we winning? No matter. She’d led swarms before she met Jedao. She could do it again.

“Approaching designated waypoint in thirty-eight minutes,” Navigation said in a colorless voice.

Communications had collated the warmoth commanders’ inventory of bombs and passed that over to Khiruev’s terminal. Khiruev had another terse discussion with Riozu. “General Khiruev to all moths,” she said, and instructed them to leave a frightening number of their bombs at the location that Jedao had indicated earlier, to be detonated at Khiruev’s command. “All moths assume grand formation Knives Are Our Walls. Commander, refuse the primary pivot until we see what’s coming at us.”

Janaia inhaled sharply—she would have preferred to stay in a two- or three-formation shield modulation sequence—but gave the necessary orders.

“Minang Tower again, sir,” Communications said. “They’re forwarding updated scan reports.”

“I’m impressed they’re still talking to us,” Khiruev remarked.

“Talking at us is more like it,” Janaia said.

Weapons reported that the bombs had been deployed. Meanwhile, Scan was unequivocal. The Hafn had turned around and were headed back toward Minang.

All right. The Hafn had been trying to lead the Kel away from Minang, specifically from the ambush that Jedao was, in his turn, setting for someone. Did this have something to do with the scan anomalies that Jedao had been receiving reports of? And if so, why did Jedao feel the need to be so coy about it?

“They’re not going to run into those bombs,” Janaia said. “Or run full-tilt at us, if it comes to that.”

Khiruev smiled at her. “No one’s asking them to.” She asked Navigation for the Hafn’s projected arrival time. Navigation answered. More waiting. Minang Tower continued to send scan updates.

“Hafn swarm increasing acceleration,” Scan said, and reported the new estimated time of arrival.

Forty-nine minutes before the Hafn came within dire cannon range, the cacophony began. Scan cried, “Second enemy swarm incoming!”

If ‘incoming’ was the right word. The formants sizzled out of nowhere, sharp as lightning, over eighty of them. Jedao’s prediction hadn’t been exactly correct, but it was close enough—

Khiruev gave the order to detonate the bombs, and to reorient the swarm for the engagement. The explosions showed up as a flower-chain of pallid spheres on the tactical display. They finally had the battle they had wanted.

And Jedao, who had somehow known to engineer this, was still nowhere in sight.