Yoon Lee - Ninefox Gambit

Cheris didn’t dare glance back at Kel Nerevor, but a muscle was working in Kel Paizan’s jaw. Colonel Kel Ragath looked amused, of all things.

“Say something,” Jedao said. “Don’t let up.”

“You are thinking,” Cheris said, “that this can’t possibly work. But the fact is that out of all the great and terrible weapons in the Kel Arsenal, Kel Command saw fit to send us a single man. If you cannot trust in Kel Command, you are not fit to be Kel.”

It was a gamble saying this to officers who had, in some cases, served longer than she had been alive, but the argument felt right. It was a Kel argument, an appeal to authority.

They looked at her in silence.

“Acknowledge,” Cheris said.

“Sir,” they said in one voice.

She wondered what Shuos Jedao could have achieved in life with the Kel united behind him. His soldiers had loved him; the histories were mercilessly clear on this point.

“We will continue our approach to the Fortress of Scattered Needles along a favorable gradient,” Cheris went on. “Because of the changing calendrical terrain, we will be forced to use nonstandard formations. I have transmitted the orders giving the coordinates and the preliminary formation keys. In the meantime, I expect everyone’s reports on the recent engagement in two hours. That’s all.”

It was a relief when the salutes were replaced by the colorful chatter of status graphs.

Commander Nerevor’s eyes were deeply troubled. “The – fingers, General,” she said. “What are your orders?”

“Just dispose of them,” Cheris said. She felt ill about the gloves herself, but she had needed the symbol. Besides, if she ever recovered from her present disgrace, she could always acquire a new pair of gloves.

The hush around her spoke something of fear. If that had been her intent, why was her stomach knotted up?

CHERIS WAS IN the command center when Commander Nerevor alerted her that they were an hour out from the shields. “Look, sir,” she said, gesturing at her scan readouts.

The scan didn’t show them the Fortress proper, as it couldn’t penetrate the shields. The grid showed a simulation of the Fortress’s position, a whorled mass of curves and lines like ink spun solid. The adjacent display showed the facing hemisphere, with subdisplays to pick out key features in the hexagon-pentagon facets.

As Cheris watched, flickers of pallid glowing shapes lit the shields: feathers, leaves, the fractured hearts of river rocks, bullets, stormclouds. She might have stood there forever, entranced by the unexpected beauty of the patterndrift.

“The unvanquishable Fortress,” Nerevor said in a colorless voice. “Your orders, sir.”

“Deployments as follows,” Cheris said. She checked each one, not for the first time, before sending it to Communications. This would be one hell of a time to discover that she’d transposed two digits. Jedao had looked over them as well, but she was determined to make sure.

They had put together the tactical groups based on their best estimates of who would work well together. Already the losses hurt, small though they were. Starvation Hound was gone, and the damaged Auspicious Glass had to be used carefully. There was no help for it. The numbers wouldn’t repair themselves.

Tactical One was led by Unspoken Law . Tactical Two was led by Sincere Greeting under Kel Paizan, and Tactical Three was led by the senior bannermoth commander, Kel Rai Mogen with Red Stitch . The six remaining boxmoths were distributed two to a group. Since they couldn’t predict the breach’s location, they had to be prepared to secure a landing point with infantry. Just as importantly, the Shuos infiltrators were on standby; once they were injected, they could begin gathering local intelligence.

The moths repositioned themselves as indicated. Fire coverage wasn’t going to be an issue until – if – the breach was made. There was no particular reaction from the shields.

Cheris said, “In 8.26 minutes” – ten of the heretics’ minutes, at the start of their hour –”switch formations: Six Towers Six Banners, and open fire according to the given firing pattern.” She sent it to Communications. “I don’t care what you see out there, adhere to this exactly. Scan, copy Captain Ko on everything. I want the Shuos team’s analysis.”

There was the slightest flicker of leafwrack and searush foam in the shields when the Kel moths eased into position. Six Towers Six Banners was nominally a defensive formation, although it was relegated to Lexicon Secondary because of its weakness. The Kel occasionally trotted it out when they wanted something visually impressive for parade flybys.

“Open fire,” Cheris said, since the commanders would want confirmation. The acknowledgment indicators lit up bright gold on her terminal.

The targets had been randomized. The shields flared up in hot-cold colors, bright but fading quickly.

“I didn’t expect that one to draw a response,” Jedao said. “Just let the Shuos map the chaff for a baseline. Switch in 8.26 minutes, as we discussed.”

Cheris gave the next set of orders. This one wasn’t technically a formation. Her palms felt damp. How long would the Kel stand for this? Be steadfast, she reminded herself, and heard Jedao’s voice in her head. She was almost used to it already. How could her officers be strong if she faltered?

“Sir,” Nerevor said, “this would be the pivot framework of a grand formation if we had exactly seventy-nine more moths to fill the rest up –”

The grand formation Nerevor was referring to was Glory of Roses. “New firing pattern,” Cheris said. “On my mark.” She consulted the terminal’s clock. The moths took up their positions, absurd long triangles on the display. “Mark.” Gold lights again.

This time fire blazed up in a definite pattern, lines and swirls of light outlining the familiar shape of the Andan kniferose. The colors were wrong, no help for that, and this wasn’t going to work either, the shields were – wait.

“Replay first six seconds of shield response,” Cheris said. “One-tenth speed.”

There it was. A fractional delay, as the operator pieced together the pattern. Then the shields glimmered with a tempest of roses falling, petals pierced by curving thorns. Interspersed with the roses was a curious figure, three dots arranged in a triangle, each oriented so the apex pointed toward the Fortress’s primary pole, and each lit up balefire-red. No holes in the shield, however.

“The pictures mean something?” Nerevor said.

“Not an Andan,” Jedao said, “but a definite reaction. The operator identified the grand formation and reacted to it, so they have some background in space tactics. Of course, that could be anyone who watches the right dramas –”

“Sir,” the Communications officer said, “it’s Captain Shuos Ko. Says he has something for you.”

“I’ll hear him,” Cheris said.

It was too much to hope that Ko ever looked less than imperturbable. “General,” he said. “How familiar are you with Shuos security suites?”

“I’m not,” Cheris said.

“Oh, this will be interesting,” Jedao said. “I bet they look completely different now.”

“Five years ago, the standard interface was overhauled in accordance with new Rahal guidelines, something to do with calendrical adjustments,” Ko said. “The old symbol for high alert was a red chevron. It’s now the triangle of dots with all three lit up. Whoever is working the shields has recent security experience.”

“Good man,” Jedao said. “I wouldn’t have known that.”

“Thank you,” Cheris said to Ko. “Anything else?”

“That’s all, sir.” His face winked out.