Astonishing: Jedao sounded sincere. “I hope the boy’s death was quick, sir,” Khiruev said.
“Someday I would like to live in a world where people can aspire to something better than caskets and being sewn up with birds and quick deaths.”
“If you want to fight for that, the swarm is yours.”
“I’d say that I’ll try not to abuse the privilege,” Jedao said, “but we’re past that point.”
Khiruev stood with him after that, wondering when she had started to see Jedao as a human being and not a death sentence.
CHAPTER SIX
TWENTY-TWO DAYS LATER, after the third flock of Hafn outriders, everyone figured out that they weren’t just geese, as Jedao insisted on calling them. They were expendable geese. The Hafn had scattered them strategically in the region surrounding the Fortress of Spinshot Coins, specifically screening the approaches where the high calendar’s terrain gradient was strongest. The numbers were staggering. Jedao ordered more of them retrieved. There were more caskets, which came in different flavors. The children in each set had their own sewn-up symbionts, everything from vines to mosses, scorpions to pale salamanders. No one knew what the variation symbolized.
The most troubling aspect, beyond the caskets’ contents, was the matter of logistics. Engineering was banging their heads against the problem of the outriders’ propulsion systems. As far as anyone could tell, they only possessed invariant drives, suitable solely for in-system maneuvering. This implied that they had been launched from some sort of carrier. Yet as far as the Kel could determine, the Hafn swarm didn’t possess nearly the capacity for this many geese—and who knew how many more in reserve—unless they had developed a form of variable layout an order of magnitude better than what the hexarchate employed.
Khiruev recommended leaving most of the flocks intact. “Kel Command would want them cleared,” she said to Jedao as they reviewed the scoutmoths’ latest updates from the command center, “but you are in the enviable position of not having to care what Kel Command wants.”
“Well, that’s not true,” Jedao said, “since Kel Command understandably wants my head on a pointy stick. But yes. How would you like to fuck up the Hafn, General?”
There were only a few reasons why a man who always won his battles would be soliciting Khiruev’s input. Given that Jedao was a Shuos, Khiruev could guess which one applied. After all, she was already a game piece in a contest whose stakes she saw but dimly, through a veil of gunsmoke and fractures.
“Detach a single tactical group,” Khiruev said. “Commander Gherion of Stormlash Glory with Two.” Gherion was good at autonomous action, and Jedao’s nod suggested that he approved the choice. “Set them loose to shoot up some geese—” She plotted locations: a listening post, a Nirai research facility, a habitat with a significant Andan presence. “So far the evidence is that the Hafn especially dislike planets, but we don’t know when that will change.” Naturally, there were no systems near enough the Fortress’s nexus to use as bait.
Jedao passed on the orders unaltered to Commander Gherion. Khiruev could tell that Commander Janaia didn’t like this development, but she had no pretext for an objection, and in these matters she was a very proper Kel. Gherion, for his part, was torn between enthusiasm at getting into action sooner rather than later, and the conviction that Jedao was sending him off to die. But he acknowledged his orders promptly.
“Six remaining tactical groups for maximum flexibility in grand formations, is that it?” Jedao said. “What else do you see?”
Khiruev felt like a cadet all over again, disconcerting at the age of seventy-two, and reminded herself that Jedao had to have been a cadet himself at some point in his existence. “The outrider concentrations nearer the Fortress are spaced inconveniently for some of the larger grand formations,” Khiruev said, “most notably the ones that invoke area effects. But it would be a small matter to clear the flocks at need.”
“If that’s what you recommend—”
“What I recommend, sir, is travel formation River Snake.” Janaia was giving Khiruev an irritated look. She ignored Janaia. River Snake had negligible combat effects, and moth commanders naturally hated it. It was best for getting efficiently from one place to another in situations like this: a glorified column.
“River Snake it is,” Jedao said, and gave the very movement orders that Khiruev had suggested on the map. “I don’t care how good Hafn manufacturing capacity is, if you can call it that. They can’t have an infinite supply of geese, whatever their method of transporting them here, or we’d be neck-deep in them.”
Khiruev had reservations about the reliability of intuition when it came to people so alien that they made scouts out of child-bird-insect-flower composites. The thought must have shown on her face. Jedao raised an eyebrow, but didn’t comment.
The long hours of their circuitous approach to the Fortress passed by like trickling water. Jedao occasionally asked for Khiruev’s opinions and implemented them directly as orders. The Kel in the command center had noticed what was going on. They sneaked glances at Khiruev with the same deadened anxiety that they had formerly reserved for Jedao. They knew, even if they hadn’t guessed the true story behind the assassination attempt, that Khiruev could not offer them any protection from the traitor.
The Hafn were expecting to fight Khiruev, so they would fight Khiruev. Right up until the point when Jedao intervened. Too much to hope that Hafn intelligence was inept, after all.
When Jedao didn’t require her presence, Khiruev distracted herself by organizing her boxes of gadgets. Surprisingly, Jedao hadn’t ordered the lot vaporized. On the other hand, Khiruev was hung up on whether gears should be sorted by radius or number of teeth instead of manufacturing more assassination drones, so maybe Jedao was on to something.
Khiruev had given up sorting and was reading the rambling memoirs of a courtesan when the advance scouts made scan contact with the main Hafn swarm. The courtesan’s escapades evaporated out of her head on the way to the command center. Red lights everywhere, low voices. Jedao was already seated, posture perfect, looking damnably relaxed.
After taking her place next to Jedao, Khiruev saw that they would reach combat distance in about four hours if everyone continued moving along the projected trajectories, which was unlikely.
“All right, General,” Jedao said, very clearly. “For your purposes, I’m not here. Deal with the Hafn.”
Khiruev shivered, but an order was an order.
“Communications,” she said. “Message for Commandant Mazeret of the Fortress of Spinshot Coins. Inform her that we’re about to engage the Hafn swarm and that she may see some fireworks.” She hesitated over how much detail to give her, then left it at that. Best not to risk fouling up Jedao’s plans. Still, no reason not to take advantage of the Fortress’s defenses if they could convince the Hafn to get within range during the encounter.
“Fortress acknowledges,” Communications said after a while. And after that: “Commander Gherion reports that Tactical Two is in formation to minimize scan shadow and is headed for the rendezvous point as ordered.”
Not that anyone was positive that Hafn scan worked like the hexarchate’s, but the precaution couldn’t hurt. Khiruev adjusted the scale on the tactical display, then rotated it while she considered the available geometries. Jedao watched, his face tranquil.
“Order for the swarm,” Khiruev said. “All units assume formation Thunder of Horses.” She tapped out the pivot assignments. “Tactical Three and Four, you’ll be tripping the nearby outriders.” She had almost said ‘geese.’ “Destroy them at your discretion.” No sense chancing that these outriders had defenses the earlier ones hadn’t employed.