Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

Brezan and Cheris turned their attention to a bannermoth that was having engine problems. Khiruev was disturbed, although not surprised, that she had difficulty following the details. The gnawing cold made it hard to concentrate. The birdform chirped at her, possibly thinking that tea, even if it wasn’t a sovereign remedy, would at least warm her. She smiled wanly at it and took a sip.

“I don’t claim to understand you,” Khiruev said to the birdform, “but considering the length of your service, I hope there’s something in this for you. And I’m sorry I’ve never learned your language.”

The birdform tapped encouragingly on the nearest wall. Cheris looked up briefly, then returned to running through drive harmonic diagnostics with Brezan. The birdform repeated the tapping, and Khiruev realized it was in the Kel drum code: You don’t have to die.

Khiruev blinked.

You can choose not to die.

She couldn’t remember why she had invoked Vrae Tala, except when she could. Her father crumpling into corpse-paper, the clanking bells, her mothers clutching each other afterward while she stood frozen trying not to see what was right in front of her. The cutting disappointment every time she survived a battle. She’d learned to hide it, but it never evaporated entirely.

“I am Kel,” Khiruev said painfully. “Even assuming all of this works, in order to free myself of Vrae Tala I would have to free myself of formation instinct. The clause is part of the whole.”

The birdform mulled this over. More tapping: My people have served without formation instinct. Is our service not service?

“It’s not for me to make that judgment,” Khiruev said.

Would your general deny you this?

You chose Vrae Tala, Brezan had said to her just days ago, trying to explain something as distant as smoke. Would the high general want her to give up what made her Kel?

It was barely possible that you could be Kel without formation instinct. Hard not to notice that Brezan was a crashhawk, after all. But this led inevitably to the question of whether it was desirable to be Kel in the first place.

“I will learn to choose,” Khiruev said, “if the high general desires it of me.”

The servitor’s chirr might have been a sigh. It gestured toward the tea with one of its gripping limbs. Obligingly, Khiruev took another sip. The warmth wouldn’t last long, but it didn’t have to.

SIX KEL SWARMS reached the Aerie and waited to banner.

Cheris and Brezan started arguing about what was going to become of the Kel afterward, especially once Cheris pointed out that a successful decapitation strike would leave Brezan the senior Kel officer.

“I’ll resign,” Brezan said.

“That will leave the Kel leaderless,” Cheris said. “Is that what you want to do?”

“I hate it when you open your mouth,” Brezan said. “The things you say never make the situation better.”

Khiruev took to playing card games with the servitors, on the grounds that no one expected her to function anymore. The servitors usually won. She appreciated that they didn’t throw the games to make her feel better.

Shuos Mikodez finished knitting his scarf. The first two people he offered it to were unable to hide their suspicion that it would come alive and strangle them. With modern fibers it was hard to tell.

Three hexarchs, Rahal, Andan, and Vidona, set out for Nirai Station Mavi 514-11. Nirai Faian was already there.

Thirty-eight days after Mikodez alerted Kel Tsoro of an imminent Hafn raid, Kel listening posts near four large moth construction yards reported Hafn moth formants incoming. Three of those construction yards exploded shortly afterward. Kel Command concluded that the construction yards had been the real targets, as two of them had been the only ones capable of building cindermoths. It dispatched four of its defense swarms to repulse the invaders. Disconcertingly, the listening posts lost sight of the formants.

Cheris and Brezan, upon receiving word of further Kel movements, held an emergency meeting and determined that this would be their best opportunity to strike. Khiruev was not present for the discussion. She had collapsed two days earlier, seventy-nine days after she invoked Vrae Tala, and had been removed to Medical.

VAUHAN ISTRADEZ REFLECTED that, on any other day, he could entertain himself by swinging by one of the Shuos academies and terrifying the everliving fuck out of innocent little cadets. Lucky for them that he didn’t share his second older brother’s predilection for stupid pranks, even if he was serving as his brother’s double. Besides, he had a more important job to do. Mikodez’s physical mannerisms weren’t the hard part. It was the fact that the man was a ferret. To say nothing of the endless hobbies. Istradez was hoping no one was going to force him to knit because he had a positive talent for dropping stitches.

Istradez was aboard the shadowmoth Eyes Unstabbed , typical cheery Shuos name. While there had been no way to conceal the destination from the crew, none of them knew his identity. The ruse wouldn’t stand up to serious scrutiny, but the odds were low that the commander would demand authentication, and as for the hexarchs, well, they wouldn’t have a chance to think about it. At least Mikodez’s notorious eccentricity would work in his favor if he did slip up.

At the moment he was in the bedroom with a tray, sticking toothpicks into honey cookies because it beat having to eat the damn things. He was considering throwing them out, even if it would be out of character, when the grid informed him that they were bound to contact Station Mavi 514-11 any moment now. He supposed he should put his shoes back on instead of padding around in his socks, even if no one could see them.

Sure enough, Istradez got a call from the moth commander. “Yes?” he said as he surreptitiously wriggled his left foot into the second shoe.

“Hexarch,” the commander said, “you asked to be informed when we made our approach to the station. Protocol requires us to unstealth and inform them of our arrival at the checkpoint radius.” She said that last with no particular emphasis. What she wanted to know was if they were here on an ordinary visit or if they were up to fox tricks.

“Do tell me,” he said lazily, “what do we see on scan?”

She forwarded him the readings, which weren’t much help. As a rule, it was hard to see much from inactive or minimally active mothdrives. They’d have to do this the hard way, then.

“All right,” Istradez said after stabbing the nearest honey cookie with another toothpick, “unstealth and I’ll put in a call, let them know we’re here. Would you like me to send you a cookie?” Anything to be rid of them.

“That’s very considerate of you,” the commander said tactfully, “but if those are what I think they are, I’ll never get the pine nuts out of my teeth.”

You and me both, Istradez thought sourly. “Your loss,” he said.

A brief pause, then: “Moth is no longer stealthed. We’re holding position so we don’t make them jumpy.”

A Shuos, make someone nervous? Never. Istradez called the station, asking to be connected to Hexarch Faian. She responded very promptly. “How late am I?” Istradez asked without any contrition. He had wanted to be late—preferably the last to arrive—although she didn’t need to know that. He was already entering a sequence of commands. Even if he missed the others, taking out Faian would be worth something.

“You’re the last one here, Mikodez,” Faian said, brows drawing low.

Splendid. He smiled his brother’s smile at her, even though Mikodez had said that wouldn’t work. “Well, I shan’t delay us any longer. See you soon?”