“Don’t worry,” Cheris said, “the odds of us flying into random shrapnel by accident are pretty low.”
1491625 flashed red in irritation. “By the way, if we’re going to do something, it had better be soon. Look—that spearhead tactical group is making straight for Terebeg 4. Their Tactical One, presumably.”
“Then we’ll intercept them,” Cheris said, more calmly than she felt.
“I need your help with the formation analysis,” 1491625 said not long afterward. “The timing will be tight—”
Cheris had been studying the tactical group’s formation modulations for this very purpose. “Yes,” she said, hunched over her slate analyzing shield gaps. “Here you go.”
“Hold on,” 1491625 said unnecessarily once the butchermoth had fired the gravity cannon into Terebeg 4’s atmosphere. “They’ve whipped up quite a storm.”
Cheris could see it on the scan suite, painted in exaggerated colors: the artificially generated areas of low pressure, the menacing swirl of unstable air masses. “We can’t let them do that again,” she said, “not so close to the planet’s surface. If we can take the gravity cannon out of the equation, Inesser will have a chance to seize the upper hand.”
At least Jedao still hadn’t triggered the threshold winnowers. Either she was right and he hesitated to commit a second massacre, or he hadn’t yet seen a good opportunity. She tried not to dwell on the second possibility. I hope you were right, Hemiola. Perhaps Jedao had lied to Hemiola—but whatever was going on, she would have to adapt to circumstances.
“Take us in right up in the command moth’s face,” Cheris said. “I have an idea based on something Jedao did a very long time ago, which I hope he doesn’t remember.” In the meantime, she began programming the hold to expel its contents once she gave the command, which required overriding some of the safety protocols. She didn’t like running on so little margin—they’d gotten rid of things like extra suits and ecoscrubbers and so on—but face it, if she failed here none of that would matter.
“If you insist,” 1491625 said.
Despite the general tumult of the artificial hurricane, the fact that they were sticking close to the command moth’s flight path worked in their favor, as Jedao’s Tactical One rather naturally chose to fly through the eye of the storm. 1491625 darted past the shields, then maneuvered them adroitly until they were flying just ahead of the command moth. Their scan suite began squawking with possible collision alerts, which neither Cheris nor 1491625 bothered to silence.
“Being in the path of the gravity cannon when it—”
“I know,” Cheris said, more emphatically than she’d intended. “Prepare to get us the hell out of here when I dump our cargo.” She hit the command.
The needlemoth opened up its cargo hold and released all the crates of variable-coefficient lubricant. It started out in liquid form. But upon impact, Cheris had programmed the lubricant to harden to a goopy cement. She hoped that the Jedao commanding the Revenant didn’t remember pulling this trick many lifetimes ago—
The lubricant clung messily to the gravity cannon’s aperture, gumming it up. Cheris braced for a shot that never came. “It worked,” she said with relief.
Except now Jedao’s swarm was alerted to their presence. “Hang on,” 1491625 said, flashing a grim dark red. “We’re about to have worse trouble than a little turbulence.”
The Revenant and the other lead bannermoths saturated the area with scattergun fire. Ordinarily scatterguns were used to clear a large number of targets with low shielding. Cheris and 1491625 might only control one needlemoth, but the volume of fire posed a problem.
1491625 did its best to dodge the incoming projectiles, which brightened the tactical display like a monsoon of fire. Cheris’s own background was in infantry, but she also had Jedao’s memories of service in the space forces. She could appreciate bravura piloting skills when she saw them.
Unfortunately, their luck ran out. One moment, nothing; the next, the alarms screamed. “Engine hit,” 1491625 said at its reddest. “This is not a good angle of descent. I’ll try to land us near friendly troops, but...”
Cheris bit back her retort; she preferred not to distract 1491625 when both their lives depended on its piloting skills. Instead, she kept an eye on scan. Complicating 1491625’s job was the fact that Jedao’s boxmoths had already landed troops in the city, and the bannermoths were busy laying down fire to clear the drop zones of hostiles. To keep apprised of the situation on the ground, she patched herself in to Inesser’s ground forces via her augment and felt the familiar disorientation as a map wrote itself in her mind by hijacking her proprioception.
Inesser had been as good as her word. Cheris had full access to the Protectorate’s reconnaissance and status reports, including the locations where Jedao’s troops had landed. She frowned as she studied the movements of Jedao’s infantry. Was he doing what she thought he was doing with those unorthodox formations...?
“Oh no,” Cheris breathed. “You miscalculated.” And he was going to need her help to fix the formations if they were to have the intended effect, except he didn’t realize it. She had to intervene.
Meanwhile, 1491625 was swearing to itself in strident reds and oranges and probably even the infrared, although she couldn’t see it. Its grippers moved more subtly than her eyes could follow as it attempted to ameliorate the needlemoth’s plummeting descent.
Time to make a call. “Ajewen Cheris to Brigadier General Kel Raika,” she said, hoping that Raika would answer. “This is an emergency.”
“Four minutes and fifty seconds to impact,” 1491625 said mirthlessly. “I hope that meat body of yours is tough enough to survive this, Cheris.”
Seconds ticked past. The violet sky outside was aswirl with debris and wisps of obscuring cloud. Beneath them, Terebeg 4’s capital glimmered with the telltale signs of exotic shielding, hazed where Jedao’s forces had breached it. The city’s designers had laid it out in the shape of a nautilus shell, and in less desperate circumstances the mathematics of the pattern would have pleased Cheris.
At last Raika answered. “I was warned by the protector-general that you might be involved, Cheris,” Raika said. Her voice was so exaggeratedly pleasant that Cheris could tell she was suppressing impatience. “I assume I have you to thank for the redoubled orbital bombardment.”
“Yes,” Cheris said, “but that’s not what I’m calling about. Estimate that I’m going to crash at”—she passed on the coordinates that 1491625 provided her. “I hope to join up with your ground units. I’m going to need you to reorganize these units”—she rattled off the list—“into some unorthodox formations in support of the primary objective.”
Raika’s brief silence spoke volumes. “I have my orders,” she said, in that particular tone that was Kel for I wish I could tell you to fuck off but this is my lot.
“Cheris,” 1491625 flashed, “we’re about to crash!”
“Thank you,” Cheris said automatically, whether to Raika or 1491625 she wasn’t sure, and regretted it as they hurtled into the ground.
The needlemoth’s screaming alerts abruptly shut off as the world exploded around her.
“IT’S CHERIS,” KUJEN snapped when the payload of cement or whatever-it-was appeared out of nowhere and clogged up the shear cannon. “No one else would have used that snakefucking trick with the lubricant. I didn’t think anyone even remembered that incident.”
Jedao had no idea what incident Kujen was referring to, but he had the presence of mind to order a barrage of scattergun fire. Thank you, he wished Cheris for saving him from having to devastate the city with the shear cannon, even if he had no choice but to try to shoot her presumably stealthed moth down. He also, of necessity, called Engineering and asked for an estimate of how long until they could get the shear cannon cleaned up. Engineering replied that they had servitors on the problem, but applying solvent while flitting through the atmosphere was a nontrivial proposition.