Raven Stratagem

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

KHIRUEV RESISTED THE urge to stare at the door to the command center. Jedao’s continued absence during an engagement was a problem, but Khiruev freezing up would be a worse one. Besides, Jedao’s instructions to Khiruev, while requiring a great deal of faith, were unambiguous.

Hafn Swarm One (as the tactical display now tagged it) was still headed for them from Cobweb. They would be curving toward Minang Tower on the way. Hafn Swarm Two was still in disarray after the bombs that had taken out part of their lower left flank (relative to the swarm’s orientation and axis of motion), but she couldn’t count on that state of affairs to last.

For its part, Minang had the standard defenses for a wolf tower. The good news was that they were solidly in hexarchate territory, with friendly terrain. The irritating Hafn ability to use their native exotics in the hexarchate did not deny Minang the use of high calendar defenses. The bad news was that those defenses had never been meant for extended activation. No one had expected an invader to penetrate so deeply into hexarchate space, even in a border march.

“Shall we engage, General?” Janaia said.

“All units banner the Deuce of Gears,” Khiruev said, keeping her voice unemotional. “Activate the primary pivot and close, but carefully.” She specified the parameters. Like most shield formations, Knives Are Our Walls offered only short-lived protection, but it beat letting the Hafn pummel them at will. “Scan, what is going on out there?”

“Estimated thirty Hafn moths dead or disabled out of eighty-two,” Scan said. “I’m distinguishing four types of mothdrives, two of them unfamiliar.” The familiar ones belonged to the Lilacs and the Magnolias. “Guessing they’re support vessels of some type, given their placement well back of the combat moths.”

Weapons, usually reticent, spoke up abruptly. “Sir, more are coming. Look at the way they’re regrouping to clear the area.”

Khiruev concurred. Hafn Swarm Two wasn’t gathering into the familiar dish-and-funnel configuration. Rather, its warmoths were forming a half-shell around a cluster of slower-moving moths.

The Hierarchy of Feasts reached the formation’s pivot, and the formation’s shield effect activated. It didn’t show in human-normal visuals, which had made Khiruev anxious when she was younger, but the scan overlay showed that nothing was wrong. The Hafn could apparently detect the shield as well. After an initial barrage of missiles, like a stutter of wayward stars, they held their fire.

“Sir!” Scan cried. “Here they come.”

More Hafn juddered into existence near Hafn Swarm Two. One group had the misfortune to arrive practically on top of a moth that had been damaged earlier. It went out in a horrible sudden sizzle, torching two other moths near it.

There were 105 warmoths in the Kel swarm. Over 150 Hafn had joined the battle, and that wasn’t even counting the 71 from Hafn Swarm One that were dashing back toward them and which would be able to hit them with known exotics in twenty-four minutes at current accelerations.

The command center was everywhere awash with light, red and gold, gold and red. Sometimes Khiruev thought that the Kel had an institutionalized horror of dying in the dark, with not even a candle for your pyre.

Deal with it, Jedao had said. This meant, if you regarded the whole situation as a particularly lethal training exercise, that he believed Khiruev had both the knowledge and resources necessary to prevail. Ordinarily Khiruev didn’t believe in applying this kind of meta-analysis to real life, but Jedao had a known tendency to think of everything in terms of games.

Khiruev had no idea what Jedao was so busy with. However, she did know what to do about the Hafn. Swarm One had done their damnedest to lead the Kel away from Swarm Two’s arrival point, and she didn’t think it was a feint. They had only turned back when it became clear the Kel weren’t falling for it. Swarm Two couldn’t just be reinforcements. It contained something vital to the Hafn. Khiruev had no intention of obliging them.

They had only another six minutes of shield protection left. Khiruev had set up new waypoints and handed them over to Janaia and Navigation. “Communications,” she said, “get me Commander Gherion.” Tactical Group Two.

Gherion responded immediately. “Sir,” he said, unable to hide his worry.

I don’t know what the fox is up to, either, Khiruev thought. There was no point offering an explanation she didn’t have; it wasn’t her place. “Commander,” she said, “I’m detaching Tactical Two. I’ve tagged the moths Hafn Swarm Two appears to be guarding. Your job is to put pressure on them, including shooting them to cinders if you can get through. I believe the tagged units are auxiliaries, but your approach will undoubtedly bring you under heavy fire. Take whatever measures you deem necessary and don’t concern yourself with the rest of our swarm until I recall you.”

Gherion saluted. “Naturally, sir.”

“Go to it,” Khiruev said, coldly aware that if there were any ugly surprises out there, Tactical Two would run into them first. But someone always had to go in first.

“Sir,” Weapons said, “shields going down in three minutes.” Indeed, the shields’ decay was manifesting as a lace of silver-blue light, like fractures in a hollow ellipsoid containing the swarm.

The Hafn had not been idle. Scan was reporting a storm of incoming kinetics, which blistered the shields at the points of impact. Slugs of dead metal hammered themselves into hot coins, ricocheted. Hafn Swarm Two’s configuration had, if anything, flattened. Khiruev wasn’t sure what that meant, nor did Doctrine have anything for her.

Khiruev said, “All tactical groups”—Gherion would know this excluded him—“reform into Mountains Never Whisper. Time the modulation to allow Tactical Two to pass through.”

Tactical Two was breaking formation. The rest of the Kel moths were maneuvering to reposition themselves in compensation. Judging from the pyramidal leading element, Khiruev guessed that Gherion was going to use Winter’s Eyes to punch his way into the enemy.

“Our turn,” Khiruev said.

“Over or under, sir?” Janaia asked.

A trap either way, but she couldn’t go in head-on. She’d run the calculations. That Hafn rupture attack would spit them if they did it that way.

“Under,” Khiruev said. More waypoints. Janaia suggested an adjustment. She accepted it.

Hafn Swarm Two reacted with dismaying alacrity when they saw the cindermoth angling itself down in relation to the plane of their own movement. The Hafn moths performed a beautiful maneuver, splitting diagonally to either side in two lattices, each headed by a projecting spike. If you drew rays from the two spikes, they would intersect at a point just ahead of the Hierarchy of Feasts.

“Cancel!” Khiruev said. “Wheel the swarm—” She didn’t have time to work out exact coordinates. Instead, she traced out the curve on tactical. Janaia translated this into the necessary evasive maneuver. The moth commanders’ acknowledgment lights flickered on the panel. “Doctrine,” she added, “hurry up and stab some equations until they tell us what that thing does.”

Doctrine had a harried look. “Yes, sir,” she said without looking up from her terminal.

Tactical Two had peeled away safely. Khiruev wished them well, but she had more immediate concerns.

Hafn Swarm One was practically breathing down Minang Tower’s neck. Scan confirmed that the tower had ignited its shields. The issue was not the shields’ fuel source but the fact that they would decay rapidly under any sustained barrage. A small note on one of Khiruev’s subdisplays informed her that Minang Tower was continuing to forward its scan observations, not that it had a whole lot to add about the current situation. The tower’s magistrate had not called for assistance, but this was consistent with her earlier behavior. Khiruev appreciated that she wasn’t making a distraction of herself in the middle of a battle. Khiruev didn’t think Minang was in serious danger anyway. Hafn One was going to swipe at them in passing, a last attempt to draw the Kel away from Hafn Two, then give it up and move in for real.

The Kel were partway through the wheel when Khiruev had the sudden rattling intuition that she’d done exactly as the Hafn general desired. She was just as convinced that she didn’t want to stay where the spikes were pointed. That was the proper way to pin an opponent anyway, with equally terrible options.

Later, when she reviewed the combat logs, she figured out that she hadn’t realized that the trap had snapped shut until nine seconds afterward.

“Formation break,” Scan said sharply, while Communications reported the same alert from the commanders of Tactical Three and Tactical Five.

Khiruev knew that from the sudden disintegration of the formation’s protection. Doctrine was saying something after the fact. Moot point.

“Following units are not responding to orders—” Communications, with the list. Khiruev checked it for numbers. Fourteen bannermoths were now lit up on the tactical display, marked with the crashhawk glyph. She’d never seen so many of them at once, even in a training exercise.

It would have been one thing if the Hafn attack had knocked those moths out and the interface had glitched the representation. But those moths had rolled and were now flying directly toward the Hierarchy of Feasts. Moreover, the crashhawks had organized themselves into what resembled a Hafn configuration, not a Kel formation.

“All moths,” Khiruev said, forwarding the list Communications had handed her. “The following units are to be regarded as hostiles. Tactical Five, prioritize their destruction.” They were now down to a skeleton formation. Any more losses and she’d have to step down to a formation with a smaller number of keys. “Other units assist as opportunity permits.”

Tactical Five interposed itself between the crashhawks and the command moth, and opened fire.

Considering how bad it was to have fourteen Kel commanders go rogue on you (irony aside), Khiruev felt dreadfully calm. It wasn’t fair. She was dying anyway. It was one thing for her to be unperturbed, but she should at least have some reaction on the swarm’s behalf.

Khiruev’s attention was caught by Janaia’s hands clenching and unclenching, by the rigid way she held her head. Khiruev would not have expected it of her. Usually Janaia was hard to rattle. “Commander,” Khiruev said quietly, and when she didn’t respond, “Commander.”

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 correlating 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.