“No,” Jedao said. “There’s a better way to use the winnowers.”
The doors opened to admit Kujen. “Then, before you proceed,” he said, “I should like to hear what it is.”
I have you,Jedao thought. Even his baiting Kujen by defying his plan served a purpose. He knew Kujen was taking the situation seriously because Kujen had shown up in the Nirai hexarch’s full ceremonial dress: three robes, outer and middle and inner, one black and two in pearly shades of gray. A sash of paler gray, sewn with the Nirai voidmoth emblem in pearls, was draped across his chest, and matching earrings dangled from the sides of his head.
Jedao rose to greet him. “Nirai-zho,” he said. He bent in the full obeisance despite the faint twinge in his knees.
“I await your explanation,” Kujen said.
It’s almost over. Jedao rose without waiting for Kujen’s permission and crossed the distance that separated them in two swift strides. Knelt again. “You want to know that I can do what I promised? Then watch.”
Kujen smiled coolly at him. “Very well.”
Wordlessly, Dhanneth ceded Kujen his seat.
Jedao returned to his own seat. “Tactical One,” he said, “the Revenant will be going in first. You’ll want Formation Nightingale’s Descent, with the following modifications.” In his peripheral vision he saw Kujen’s eyes narrow. But Tactical One’s formation posed no threat to Kujen—not by itself. “Modulate into Nightingale’s Descent on my mark.” He waited for the seconds to tick past. “Mark.” His display lit up as the moths began the modulation.
“Terebeg 4 has launched missiles at us,” Scan said.
“That’s an impressive number,” Jedao said. “Weapons, status of shear cannon.”
“Fully charged, sir.”
“Colonel Muyyed reports that her hoppers are on standby,” Communications said. “She’s awaiting landing windows.”
“Navigation,” Jedao said, “accelerate us toward the capital as fast as we can endure, and aim the cannon down their throats.”
“Not bad,” Kujen murmured, too softly for the others to hear. “So that’s why you were investigating weather modeling.”
Jedao’s heart clenched at the reminder of Kujen’s surveillance. “You did mention the possibility of using the shear cannon in atmosphere.”
“So I did.”
“Two minutes until contact with the leading edge of missiles,” Weapons said.
“Fire,” Jedao said.
He nearly passed out at the roar that spiked through his head. For a moment he saw double: two of Kujen, the matrices that represented his swarm moths multiplying in kaleidoscope frenzy. I can’t afford this, he thought, biting down on his tongue. The nauseating ichorous taste of blood distracted him enough to keep him awake.
The roar and the pain receded. The gravity attack did its job disarraying the missiles enough for Tactical One’s antimissile defenses to knock them out before it dissipated. Tactical One had survived the first wave.
“There’s a vortex in the atmosphere,” Scan said with a note of awe in his voice.
They could see some of it on visuals: a great seething whorl of clouds and wind, its center deceptively still, a lucid violet eye. Jedao tried to imagine what it looked like to the people groundside. What was it like to be swallowed by a storm? But he couldn’t envision it.
“Take us in through the storm’s eye while we have the chance and hover above the capital,” Jedao said. If he understood the weather models correctly, the storm would tend to dissipate rapidly, especially since the surrounding conditions were inimical—something about atmospheric shear. “General Jedao to Colonel Muyyed. You’d better land your hoppers while you can. Weapons, take out the planetary missile defense installations. Help the colonel throw some old-fashioned panic the citizens’ way.”
“Four of General Inesser’s swarms incoming,” Scan said.
“It’s time,” Kujen said warningly.
Jedao’s peripheral vision was full of moths, Kujen’s shadow with its fluttering wings, hinting at nebulae and smoke and glass shards threaded through with molten wire. Jedao couldn’t count on distracting Kujen, who would be alert to any such treachery. No; he would have to follow through in order to buy the infantry time.
“Tactical One,” Jedao said, “advance toward the capital, and prepare to fire the shear cannon again.” The cannon wouldn’t just trigger another hurricane, that close, but cause possible earthquakes. Kujen wouldn’t care about the infantry down below, much less the capital’s population, because as far as he was concerned they existed to be sacrificed with the rest of the swarm. But Jedao was running out of time, and options.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHERIS HAD ACCEPTED Protector-General Inesser’s hospitality, such as it was, with as much patience as she could muster. She needed to coordinate with Inesser’s troops. While she could have obtained the necessary passcodes from servitors, it was better if she could secure an alliance in truth.
At least she’d had some idea of what to expect from Inesser. Jedao had met Inesser years ago, when Inesser was a lieutenant general; had worked with her in crushing yet another heretic uprising. So many, over the years, so many memories crowding in on all sides. Sometimes she was surprised not to be smothered by all the ghosts of those that Jedao had killed.
Of course, these days she was responsible for her own share of deaths.
They had exchanged few words. Inesser was disarmingly forthright: “I don’t trust you,” she said, “and I will never trust you. But neither can I afford to pass up allies at this juncture.” And she had patched Cheris in to her command and control.
Now—
“You took long enough,” 1491625 remarked over their private channel. It had had the needlemoth ready to go from the moment she showed up in the docking bay. “Where to?”
“Wait a moment,” Cheris said. Her eye had fallen on a precarious stack of dull green crates. Are those what I think they are?
“At a time like this?”
Cheris flagged down a sour-looking Kel soldier who was hastily repinning her hair after it had come undone. “Excuse me,” Cheris said. “I’m on a special mission with the protector-general’s authorization. That’s variable-coefficient lubricant, isn’t it?”
The soldier’s sour expression changed to an understated form of panic. “I swear we’ll get it out of the bay and into storage, there just hasn’t been time—”
She wasn’t interested in the soldier’s excuses. “Load it onto my needlemoth. As much of it as you can fit into my cargo hold. Empty out everything else. And give me the codes so I can program its coefficient of flow. Now!”
The soldier responded automatically to the note of authority in Cheris’s voice, to say nothing of being given a concrete order of limited scope. “As you say, sir.” She raised her voice to summon other soldiers, plus servitors, to carry out the task.
So it was that Cheris and 1491625 made off with as much variable-coefficient lubricant as they could haul. From its yellow-orange-pink glimmers, 1491625 was dying to ask what she planned on doing with the stuff, but it had the sense not to distract her during their mission. She gave it their initial goal. They received a hasty clearance to launch and whipped out of the docking bay with stealth already engaged.
“I don’t care if we’re stealthed,” 1491625 said, “I hate flying through all those missiles.”