“Have you given thought to your emblem?” Jedao asked out of nowhere.
“My what?” She saw what he meant. As a brevet general she wasn’t entitled to one, but it would disappoint the swarm not to have one as an identifier. Jedao’s Deuce of Gears, while technically available, was a bad idea for obvious reasons.
“You’re having a thought,” Jedao said.
“They won’t like it,” Cheris said.
“They don’t have to. They’re not in charge.” Another moment, then: “I see. It’s appropriate.”
“How do you do that?” she demanded.
“Well, my guess could be wrong. But you think with your face, Cheris. Dangerous habit. I don’t have a better suggestion, so we’ll go with that. Six more minutes. You’d better be ready. Do you want them to see the shadow or not?”
“Yes,” she said. “They ought to know who they’re following.”
“Do you have the lights figured out?”
Adjusting the lights was easy, a matter of angles. It was the talking part that concerned her.
“Reorient displays,” Cheris told the grid, and gave the parameters. “I want to be able to see everyone I’m talking to.”
The displays arranged themselves according to rank and, when the time came, lit up simultaneously. Two cindermoth commanders, thirteen bannermoth commanders, an infantry colonel, an intelligence captain, and seven boxmoth commanders made for a crowd. She could see why Kel Command preferred to deal with composites.
They were saluting her. Cheris bit back the urge to apologize for the irregularity. “At ease,” she said. “Brevet General Kel Cheris for the duration of this campaign by order of Kel Command. I am being advised by General Shuos Jedao.”
She couldn’t see the shadow behind her, but she could tell they were watching it. She tried to see all their faces at once and figure out who was stiff and who seemed receptive to this development, but it was too much.
“Our mission is to retake the Fortress of Scattered Needles from the heretics,” Cheris went on.
“I knew it!” The speaker was Kel Nerevor, commander of the cindermoth Unspoken Law, a lean, middling-dark woman with white streaks in her hair and a laughing mouth. “Everyone’s been talking about it. It will be a great honor to retake the Fortress for the hexarchate.”
The other cindermoth commander, dour-looking Commander Kel Paizan, shook his head. “Commander,” he said, “have some respect.”
“You should have shut her down yourself,” Jedao murmured.
Cheris was irritated not because he was wrong but because he was right and she knew it. “We’ll be going straight in,” she said. “I’ll transmit the intelligence we have, but it’s scant.”
“Subdisplay 17,” Jedao said, but this time Cheris was ahead of him. The subdisplay showed the head of the intelligence team, Captain-analyst Shuos Ko. Ko had a beard, which made him stand out. Kel men preferred to be clean-shaven.
“General,” Ko said, inclining his head. He had a bland, pleasant voice. Cheris wasn’t fooled. She had met servitors who exuded more personality, but that was probably the point. “We have some additional information that we can provide at your discretion. I think you’ll be interested in some of the traffic analysis that came out of the Fortress in the two days before it ceased communications with the hexarchate. It confirms that the rot was carefully orchestrated.”
“Thank you, I’d like to see that,” Cheris said.
Nerevor jumped in again. “What moth will you be bannering?” she asked. Her eyes gleamed.
Cheris had originally thought to banner the Sincere Greeting, as Commander Paizan was senior, but she changed her mind. She wanted to keep an eye on Nerevor, even if it violated custom. Besides, she knew the question was a trap.
“Good thought,” Jedao said as she spoke, “but control your face better. You keep being too easy to read.”
“I’ll be bannering the Unspoken Law,” Cheris said. Interesting: Paizan had cause to be affronted, but the wry set of his mouth told her that he knew exactly what she was doing, and wasn’t going to object. And, before Nerevor could speak again, “We’ll be using the null emblem.” She watched Nerevor’s face. Her smile twisted at the commander’s momentary look of revulsion.
“Thought so,” Jedao said.
Null emblem. A featureless black banner. It was used only by generals in disgrace. Even newly promoted generals were permitted to use the default sword-and-feather emblem until they had a chance to register something.
At least this had knocked Nerevor off her stride. The other dubious advantage was that the heretics wouldn’t know who to expect when they saw the emblem.
“The Shuos team and I will board the Unspoken Law in two hours,” Cheris said. “Make the necessary arrangements.”
“Sir.”
Moments later, all the faces had blinked out and Cheris’s knees felt rubbery.
“Don’t rest yet,” Jedao said, not entirely humorously. “I assume you were watching people’s reactions. Give me your assessment.”
Mercifully, the subdisplays had been clearly labeled. Ordinarily she was all right at remembering names, but the stress had caused them to fly out of her head. “Nine seemed sympathetic, but she’s junior,” she said.
“That was Commander Kel Irio. Get used to remembering their names, not the numbers.”
“I know,” Cheris said doggedly. “Just let me get my thoughts together. I’m worried about Four. I mean Vidona Diaiya. She paid close attention to me when Commander Nerevor was speaking. Commander Kel Agath was completely unreadable, which is bad. And I gave up trying to keep track of the boxmoth commanders. But the big problem is going to be Commander Nerevor.”
“That’s my fault,” Jedao said, to her surprise. “I’ve fucked up your body language, so on top of issues with brevet rank, formation instinct isn’t telling her to recognize you as a Kel.”
“I never thought of that,” Cheris said. This wouldn’t have been an issue for him during his lifetime, presumably, since formation instinct had been invented some decades after his execution.
“It’s happened to my anchors before. You haven’t mentioned the Shuos captain.”
She bit her lip and tried to remember. “He slipped my mind, and he shouldn’t have.”
“Well, he’s professionally trained to fade into the background.”
“He was right there.”
“He also had the advantage of needing to focus on one person, rather than twenty-odd—”
“Twenty-four.”
“I stand corrected.”
“Was there anything about him I should have noticed?” Cheris asked. She pulled up the recording and scrubbed through it, but didn’t see anything obvious.
“Nothing useful. He’s hiding something, but that’s a given. Still, as they say, it’s good policy to keep one eye on a Shuos.”
The other half of that saying was that the Shuos inevitably had more eyes than you did, but she didn’t bring that up.
“Colonel Ragath looked politely bored,” Cheris said, “but I don’t think that’s unexpected. He’s waiting to see if we can even get the infantry onto the Fortress. Until then, he’ll be taking a nap.”
“Quite right. And I don’t think you need to worry about the boxmoth commanders. Don’t misunderstand me. Transport is important, but what the boxmoth commanders want out of you is reasonable schedules. We’re going to make sure that isn’t an issue.
“Anyway, bannering Unspoken Law was the right move. Nerevor may be eager to fight, but she’s going to see how far she can push you. I can’t wait to see what exchanges you two have at high table.”
Cheris couldn’t help but feel repelled by the situation.