Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

“They’re reliable enough to satisfy me,” Jedao said.

She could take the hint. Khiruev considered the scan readings, then paged through the accompanying analysis. “I’m impressed they detected this at all, even with state-of-the-art noise cancellation.” She highlighted the relevant portions of the paper.

Jedao looked politely blank. “I can’t read most of that notation.” He jabbed at an example.

Khiruev had been afraid of that. “It shows up in that paper you were looking at,” she said. “See?” She highlighted it in gold. As a point of fact, the treatise looked more difficult by orders of magnitude.

Jedao grimaced. “That wasn’t me. The servitors were having a side-argument about some theorem. I thought it meant they would be too distracted to pay attention to the ambush I was so cleverly setting in the game, so I let them have at it. No such luck, oh well.”

The mothform blinked in blue and purple this time, with a suspiciously smug flash of red.

“It could be some stray new astronomical phenomenon,” Khiruev said, “but the researcher seemed to think it might be a side-effect of the Hafn tearing around our space.”

“I hope it’s a scan glitch,” Jedao said, “but multiple reports from independent observers? We’re not going to get so lucky. Anyway, I’m going to pass that on to Scan and Doctrine and see what they make of it. This wasn’t what I wanted to talk to you about, however. Tell me, General, what do you know about Devenay Ragath?”

Devenay—suddenly Khiruev was concerned. “You don’t mean Colonel Kel Ragath?” she said. “I had heard that he was assigned to your campaign at the Fortress of Scattered Needles.”

“That’s correct,” Jedao said, “but I didn’t ask you what I know. I’m hoping you can tell me what’s in your brain.”

“He has training as a historian and he’s very well-regarded,” Khiruev said, “although I have never had the honor of working with him myself.”

“Hmm,” was all Jedao said to that. “Well, listen to this.”

It seemed to be a day for listening to things. In response to Jedao’s gesture, a video blazed up, displacing a summary of casualties in Tactical Group Four. The man in the video was definitely Ragath, with his long jaw, narrow eyes, and cynical slash of a mouth, but he wasn’t in uniform. Instead, he wore a dark brown jacket over a taupe shirt. Khiruev’s disquiet increased.

“This message is addressed to General Cheris,” Ragath said, “by a communications channel I trust she will find satisfactory.”

Khiruev was jolted into studying Jedao anew. That body had never belonged to Jedao to begin with. It had belonged to a Kel woman, who had probably never imagined that she’d end up hosting a traitor’s ghost.

The message was still playing. Jedao had trained his regard on Khiruev’s face, his expression coolly considering. Khiruev made herself go blank and returned her attention to the message.

“If the fox general has taught you anything,” Ragath was saying, “you’re wondering how I survived and where the trap is in this. I regret to say I owe the former to a couple of chance fuck-ups. I was supposed to be on the Badger’s Stripes when the bomb hit the swarm, but thanks to a riot on the Fortress I was delayed getting to my shuttle.”

Khiruev paused the message without Jedao’s permission. Jedao’s eyebrows rose. “Sir,” Khiruev said, “he must be a deserter.” She didn’t say crashhawk . “I don’t understand how—”

“Keep listening,” Jedao said, and unpaused playback.

“I left the Fortress at the earliest opportunity,” Ragath said. “It so happens that Kel Command frequently neglects to issue orders to the dead, something I imagine we both found handy. At this point, you’re wondering what I have to offer you. I wasn’t sure of that myself, once I learned that you’d survived. But if you’re doing what I think you’re doing, some of this information will help you. I will attempt to report in again if I find anything else you should know, but I don’t expect to live long. Devenay Ragath out.”

“He appended an exhaustive strategic overview of the local marches and their surrounds,” Jedao said. Maybe this was the source of Jedao’s mysterious intelligence network. “I have a feeling that’s not what’s on your mind, though.”

Khiruev decided that this was an invitation to broach the subject. “Sir, Ragath appears to be under the impression that you’re Brevet General Cheris.” Was that why Ragath had broken formation? Loyalty to a dead woman?

“His mistake,” Jedao said, “but I plan to use it. If you know anything about Kel Cheris”—the offhanded way he said her name was chilling—“then you know she was an expendable infantry captain. I regretted it when the bomb killed her, but it gave me the opportunity to escape the black cradle. I was in there for a very long time, General. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”

“She can’t have been as expendable as all that if she earned the colonel’s trust,” Khiruev said. “I’ve seen the list of Ragath’s decorations. He wouldn’t have done this lightly.”

“Was it trust, or the presumption of a shared grudge? Don’t answer that.”

“What exactly is it that Ragath thinks you’re up to?”

Jedao eased himself back against one of the pillows on the couch and motioned Khiruev to sit, which she did. It amazed her every time she came in here that these rooms, which she had inhabited so recently, had completely changed character with Jedao in them. The servitors were almost done clearing the game. Jedao grabbed a token stamped with a hexagon and flipped it in the air, catching it neatly.

“I imagine Ragath thinks I’m going to conquer the galaxy and make it into a place where your superiors don’t randomly bomb an entire swarm just to off one person,” Jedao said. He tapped the token against the edge of the table. “I wish I could say this was a low bar for reform. However, our regime’s history argues otherwise. Given his background, Ragath has to be aware of that.”

He flipped the game token a few more times, then set it down with a click. “We’re going to start offering people some choices.” The humor in his smile had an edge. “Our location is no one’s secret, partly because it’s hard to pretend cows are chickens, but partly because I want us to be seen.”

Khiruev didn’t remark on this. It was the kind of thing Shuos liked to do, but no field commander lasted long without doing similar. As much as the Kel hated admitting it.

“We are shortly going to send out a transmission in the clear in all directions,” Jedao went on. “I don’t plan on going on at length. People’s nerves are already shot and I imagine their attention spans aren’t doing much better. Yes, I can see that you doubt that I’m capable of brevity, but I can manage it when I put my mind to it.”

Khiruev didn’t trust herself to respond to that.

Jedao drummed his fingers on the couch’s arm, then examined his glove. “I plan on sending an account of our engagements to date, highlighting in particular what happened at the Fortress of Spinshot Coins. We could have had the Hafn swarm there, General. It’s only thanks to hexarchate interference that we haven’t blasted the Hafn into little glowing pieces. Even now, we’re being treated as though we instigated the fireworks.” His eyes hardened. “I want it to be excruciatingly clear that we could be dealing with the invasion a lot more effectively if not for the hexarchs.”

“Sir,” Khiruev said, “the Hafn aren’t stupid. What you’re proposing—if you send out a message in the clear , you’ll make it obvious that the hexarchate is easy meat. Is this your intent?”