“Sir!” Communications said. “Outgoing message from the Anemone Ward, in the clear and in all directions.”
Cheris said to Scan, “You first, but make it fast.”
“There’s a fight by the communications post,” Scan said. “Not definitive, but signatures are consistent with Kel small arms and possibly civilian weapons. No major structural damage to the post. Physical breaches sealed with metalfoam. Toxics in the spectral lines indicate the explosives were class four, but I’m not seeing more of those.”
“They want it intact, too,” Jedao said. “Hardly surprising.”
“Inform Colonel Ragath and the infiltrators,” Cheris said. It was vague, but something was better than nothing. Out of the corner of her eye she watched the colors change around her, red to brighter red, red to fox-yellow. “Communications, give us the message.”
Thanks to the exchanges between Jedao and the heretics’ leader, Cheris had expected plain text. The video took her by surprise: something was wrong with the hologram, and even interpolation had left tracks of snow and cinders in the colors.
“Andan Nidario to Kel Command.” The man had a warm, rich voice, but the entire right side of his face was a mass of bruises and burns. The act of speech must have been painful. “Hell, to anyone who’s listening.” He canted his head to listen to someone off-camera. “Shuos Jedao is loose and has battered down the Fortress’s shields. Send someone to deal with him, will you? I mean, he might be on our side, but he’s opened negotiations with the heretics, so I find myself unoptimistic. I’m appending our observations, but we’re not going to be able to hold the communications post for long.”
More commentary from the side, then: “Andan Lia would like to add that we don’t have confirmation that it’s Jedao. Frankly, he blew down the shields in hours, that’s enough evidence for me.
“When you get here, shoot that tin general Znev Stoghan first. He’s been with the heretics since the beginning.” The rattle of gunfire. “Oh hells, somebody cover the door, will you? Excuse me, I’d better pick up a gun and make myself useful before the painkillers wear off. Just do something with the information, that’s all I ask. Nidario out.”
“Dump the whole thing to Captain Ko,” Cheris said.
Hazan said, all black humor, “I’m glad we’re not responsible for spin control, sir. The Andan are usually more discreet, but I suppose he was desperate.” He showed no sign of discomfort at being in Nerevor’s chair: the right approach, even if it nettled her.
“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.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“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.”