Yoon Lee - Ninefox Gambit

“I killed that man,” Jedao said, not amused, but without regret either. “However, we can only rescue the loyalists if we have troops on site, so the fact that he’s helping my credibility with the heretics is useful.”

“You expected something like this to happen,” Cheris said slowly. Why was she surprised?

“I believe in planning ahead. The loyalists have no way of knowing I’m here on Kel Command’s orders and there’s no way to let them know. When I announced my arrival, it wasn’t just to intimidate the heretics. It was to provoke the loyalists into revealing information, which would persuade the heretics in turn. And it forced your swarm to adjust to the fact that they’re being led by a madman and traitor.”

“That’s a lot of objectives.”

“It’s only three, and the last one is marginal. You want to accomplish as many different things on as many different levels as you can with each move. Efficiencies add up fast.”

“Call from Medical,” Communications said. “Commander Nerevor has been prepared, sir.”

“Load her onto Hopper 1 with the others and send her on her way,” Cheris said, hating herself. In a just world she would feel sick, but instead it was as though she stood outside herself, in a world turned to iron and crystal and cryptic facets.

“It’s done,” Navigation said after an agonizing eight minutes. “Hopper 1 launched.”

“Launch the rest,” Cheris said.

More waiting. Cheris’s guts churned. She was starting to think she would see the color red in afterimage flashes, as she walked out of the command center – if she ever did – and even in the hallways of her dreams.

No; she had to be honest with herself. What she would see over and over was Nerevor’s face as she volunteered to do exactly what Jedao wanted her to do, what Cheris had let her do.

“Fortress retrieving Hopper 1 with servitor teams, sir,” Scan said. Her voice wavered. “More fire in the Fortress, source uncertain, but no serious damage to the hoppers.”

“Instruct Colonel Ragath that loyalists are to be returned to the heretics unless they turn on him,” Cheris said. “He’s to send urgent status reports only.”

“The colonel acknowledges,” Communications said after a pause that was longer than Cheris liked.

“Nerevor will suffer very little,” Jedao said then, “although I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming she’s safe. In fledge-null she will only know that her duty is to endure until a Kel officer gives her instructions, and only an unscrupulous Kel will be able to damage her mind. I judge it unlikely that the heretics have Kel among them. Your people do loyalty well.”

Cheris put pieces of a puzzle together in her head. The pieces didn’t match up. When he had first been anchored to her, he had asked about formation instinct almost as if he had no idea. Subvocally, she said, “For someone who affects not to know much about formation instinct, you’re awfully familiar with its workings.”

The last of the hoppers was starting the return trip. Cheris wished she was on one of them, away from the cindermoth and the ninefox’s dreadful shadow. Her shadow. Strange how she could distinguish its eyes so easily from every other amber light around her, even if they were the same color.

“Think about it, Cheris. I learned to judge soldiers’ morale and loyalty when the Kel were individuals. Why would it be hard for me to figure out the standardized version?”

Then the game with the luckstone, Jedao taunting her to shoot herself, his show of penitence –

“That’s right,” Jedao said. “I knew exactly when you’d break. I needed to make a point and it was the fastest way.”

Cheris kept hold of her temper, remembering how she had lost Kel Nerevor. “If you were lying about that all this time, why reveal it now?”

Was it a new game? And here she had thought she was done being a web piece. At the moment she could have happily incinerated Shuos Academy.

“Because I know you’re worried about her.”

She stiffened. “I doubt you ever cared about your soldiers,” she said.

His voice was rough. “People say that about me, yes. I won’t argue.”

“Commander Hazan,” Cheris said abruptly. “I’m going to rest. Alert me immediately if there are new developments.”

“Of course, sir,” Hazan said.

Cheris knew perfectly well that she couldn’t escape Jedao in her quarters. She had a better idea.

“IT’S NO USE,” a man was saying. “Look.”

Nerevor was staring straight ahead at a gray wall, in a room of gray sodden shadows. Restraints of cold metal held her fast, and the shift they had given her was too thin. Her shoulder hurt, and something about her jaw felt wrong, but it was only pain. She was Kel. She would survive as long as it was given her to survive.

“Your name.” It was the man again, impersonal.

He was not Kel. She did not have to answer.

This time a woman spoke. “We already know who she is.”

“That’s not the point. The point is getting her to respond.”

“In that case, scare up a uniform and try again.”

“She’d know the difference,” the man said. “There’s a baseline body language that’s imprinted on cadets along with formation instinct, subtle stuff. A good Shuos infiltrator could fake it. An Andan could enthrall their way around it. We’re just stuck. She’d break all the bones in her body to please a Kel officer, but we’re short of those. Jedao was making sure we were getting nothing but a warm body with the commander’s face attached, and he can undoubtedly restore her, but we can’t. At least the DNA matches records. Cold bastard.”

Nerevor wasn’t sure what Shuos Jedao had to do with the situation, but she made a note of the mention in case it became useful later.

“He said nothing about wanting her back,” the woman said. “Probably got all he wanted out of her or he wouldn’t have dumped her on us.”

“Don’t get ideas.” The man’s voice was still impersonal. “We can get the technicians on the problem and see if they can work her out of fledge-null. There’s a small chance useful information’s buried behind those glassy eyes. We can hold her as long as it takes.”

The woman had been thinking about something else. “Doesn’t a high officer have to authorize fledge-null in the first place? Who the hell did the Immolation Fox subvert up there?”

“Subvert or bribe or coerce,” the man said. “We don’t know which.”

“I’m surprised you wanted to talk in front of her. You’re normally obsessed with discretion.”

“I wanted to see if there’d be a reaction. Depending on where in the calendrical zones he wiped her, the fledge-state might have chinks. A problem for the technicians, as I said.” The man tapped on the door. “Anything you want to say, fledge?”

Nerevor didn’t like being called “fledge” by this stranger, but it didn’t matter. He was not Kel. She did not have to answer.

After they were gone, she listened for gunfire, footsteps. If the Kel meant for her to die here, then she would die here. But she could not help but comfort herself with the idea that her people would come for her if she was brave enough, if she endured enough, if she proved herself worthy of the Kel name.

Fortress of Scattered Needles, Analysis

Priority:Urgent

From:: Vahenz afrir dai Noum

To:Heptarch Liozh Zai

Calendrical Minutiae:Year of the Fatted Cow, Month of the Partridge, Day of the Hedgehog, I need to program some macros, and fuck the hour.