Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

“What have you done with her?” Brezan said before he could stop himself.

Cheris raised an eyebrow at him. “Jedao would have killed her, but she’s not dead. That’s all you’re getting.”

Brezan believed her, but who knew what condition Tseya was in. “You put a hell of a lot of effort into being a convincing Jedao,” Brezan said, remembering how this had all began. Maybe it was better to keep her talking. She might let something drop.

“Believe it or not, it’s a side-effect of something Kel Command did to me. Anyway, let’s try again. Why did you try to kill me?”

Oddly, she didn’t seem to be taking the assassination attempt personally. She was digging for his motivations. Why? Why did it matter? She could have killed him without any trouble. Come to that, she could have done that the first time around, too. He liked the implications less and less.

Cheris was watching him patiently.

“You hijacked my general’s swarm,” Brezan said, “whoever you were claiming to be. What the fuck was I supposed to do? Let you swan off with all those moths?”

Cheris tapped the top of the chair. “And what was the swarm going to be used for?”

“You know the answer to that question. Why are we even having this conversation?”

“Are all generals this bad at giving straight answers?” Cheris said tartly. “It’s not even a hard question.”

“We had orders to fight the Hafn,” Brezan said, quelling the urge to lunge at Cheris even though he had a good idea how that would end. “Which we would have managed just fine without your intervention.”

“Mostly true,” Cheris said, “but there’s an exception. That exception would have gotten the lot of you killed. Never mind that. You must have followed the swarm’s movements to be able to board the command moth. I can only imagine you were watching its actions, too. This has undoubtedly told you all about how I’ve been randomly shooting up moths, or crashing them into cities, or filling them with poison gas.”

“The sarcasm is much appreciated,” Brezan retorted. “I’m aware of how much success you’ve enjoyed.” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know how much of that success was ascribable to someone who had, until recently, been an infantry captain. “I’m also aware that you’ve been fighting the Hafn just as tamely as though Kel Command had you on a leash. But I refuse to believe you’re doing this for the benefit of the hexarchate.”

“Yes, I imagine the hexarchate’s benefit is very important to you,” Cheris said, quite dryly. Her hands flexed.

Brezan wasn’t thinking about her hands but her tone of voice. What the fuck had she picked up on? He didn’t need her figuring out that he entertained dangerously heretical attitudes toward his government.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she added, although he hadn’t said a word. His heart shuddered. “You care about the swarm; well and good. You will find that I have taken care of the Kel better than Kel Command would have.”

“This is why you sent that tactical group out to fight in a suicide formation,” Brezan said, even though provoking Cheris was a bad idea.

“That was Commander Gherion,” Cheris said.

Brezan bit back an oath. He had liked Gherion, and not just because Gherion appreciated his roast stuffed pheasant, that one time Brezan had invited him over for dinner.

“He served well,” Cheris said with no discernible irony. “Someone had to fight, Brezan. There’s no way around it. Gherion chose how to carry out his mission. Kiora’s Stab was his choice, and it did as he intended. Tell me again, then. Why did you try to kill me?”

Brezan glared at her. Too bad she was good at looking imperturbable. That must come with having the upper hand. “I am Kel,” he said through his teeth. He remembered the smug ashhawks, the smoke-coil wings, the hot regard of those golden eyes. “I have my orders.”

Cheris laughed soundlessly. “We’re crashhawks. If you’re following orders, it’s because you want to. So it comes back to the question I keep asking you, and you keep dodging. Why did you try to kill me?”

He couldn’t even make a fist. He had run out of facile answers. “I don’t know,” he said, hating how ragged his voice sounded. When Cheris didn’t respond, he said, more loudly, “I don’t know, all right? Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“I used to follow Kel Command, just as you did,” Cheris said. “But there’s a better way. I couldn’t see it until Jedao showed me.” When Brezan gaped at her, she added, “Jedao was evil, but that doesn’t mean he was automatically wrong.” She rose and began unlocking the restraints. “Here’s what will happen. I’m going to give you run of the swarm, and you can talk to your comrades. I’m certain they’ve worried about your fate. Ask them how the swarm has been run and how you’ve been treated. Formation instinct will ensure that they answer you honestly.” The last of the restraints snicked loose. “Then come back and tell me, to my face, why you want to kill me. Since you’ll be in command of the swarm, I doubt I’ll pose any threat to you.”

Brezan scarcely dared to move, even though tensing his muscles surreptitiously told him he was free in truth. “They have no idea who you are, do they?”

“I thought you’d figure that out, too,” Cheris said matter-of-factly. “Confine me wherever you like. I have some things to work out in my head. After all, if you had intended to kill me, you’d have managed it already.”

Brezan opened his mouth, considered the fact that he’d allowed her to keep talking while he was completely unrestrained, then shut it. “Give me your word that you’ll stay confined to quarters until I come back,” Brezan said.

Kel Command was going to enjoy nailing pieces of him to some undecorated wall once they figured out what he’d been up to. They knew he could interpret his orders liberally, but he had crossed the line of what he could justify to them.

“You have my word,” Cheris said. She rested her hand over the hilt of the calendrical sword she wasn’t wearing, a formality the Kel had not used in over a generation. “You may want to start with your general. She’s probably resting.”

“Give me access to the mothgrid,” Brezan said.

“Of course,” Cheris said. She muttered a passphrase in an unfamiliar language—in his hearing, but he doubted she had any more use for it.

Brezan blinked as the mothgrid started talking to his augment again. It only took a moment to check the master map and to convince the terminal to cough up the current duty roster. “If this is part of some Shuos gambit after all,” Brezan said, “I’ll send you back to Kel Command in pieces.”

She didn’t look impressed by the threat. Considering what she had already pulled off, however doomed, that was fair.

Brezan got up. His muscles protested, but he hadn’t been tied up all that long. He glanced back at Cheris, who had relocated to a couch and had called up—was that some dueling drama? With dancers? Better not to ask.

Although he half-expected to be jumped by heretic Kel when he stepped out, the hallway taunted him with its emptiness. That, and the same smug painted ashhawks.

At this point, Brezan had two choices. He could pay General Khiruev a call, as Cheris had suggested, or he could go after Tseya, assuming the grid wasn’t lying to him about her location. Tseya wouldn’t approve of him talking to Cheris, but she might know what the situation called for. On the other hand, Brezan couldn’t help but feel that he owed it to himself to find out if Cheris’s contentions held any truth.

The hell with it. Best to investigate while he had the opportunity. He walked down the hall, not very far, and paused before the general’s door. “Request to see General Khiruev,” he said.