Raven Stratagem (The Machineries of Empire, #2)

KHIRUEV HAD TROUBLE not drifting out of focus during High General Brezan’s meeting, partly because, like everyone but Brezan, she knew what the swarm had gone through, but partly because of the creeping exhaustion. Barely past the first quarter of Vrae Tala and it was already this bad. How did anyone survive to the hundredth day? She felt better when she interacted with people. On the other hand, sitting in the conference room made it all too easy to succumb to the illusion that she was gradually becoming no more animate than the walls, the air, the dust that wheeled in the light.

She roused when Brezan gave orders regarding Cheris, mostly to the effect of ‘if you see Jedao wandering around having broken his parole, shoot him.’ Interestingly, Brezan had not revealed Cheris’s identity, perhaps because the story was too incredible for anyone to believe. Then Brezan dismissed everyone else, and looked at Khiruev fretfully. Brezan had never been able to conceal what he was thinking.

“General,” Brezan said, “I’d like to tour the moth, unless you consider it inadvisable at the moment.”

A tactful way of allowing her to beg off, not that Khiruev intended to take it. All she’d do if she retired to quarters was dream herself into an assemblage of bones and coils and unthinking curves. “I don’t see why you should delay, sir,” Khiruev said. “Are you sure you don’t want a proper escort?”

Brezan flinched, as she had known he would, but the forms had to be observed. “Do you think I’m in danger?” he said.

“Not from any of the Kel,” Khiruev said. Of course, it was questionable whether Cheris fell in that category anymore.

Brezan didn’t reply to that, although the fate of his Andan comrade had to weigh on his mind. “The command center first, then,” he said. He took two steps toward the door, then stopped. Without turning around to face Khiruev, he said, “Why?”

Surely Brezan knew he wouldn’t get results with such a vague query? One of the first things they taught officers was that recalcitrant common soldiers could tangle you up with loopholes if they became sufficiently motivated. Khiruev said, mostly honestly, “I don’t understand the question, sir.”

Brezan swung around, eyes narrowed, nostrils flared. Looking for a target. Since this was Brezan, he hadn’t yet worked out that everyone in the swarm was a target if he wanted them to be. “You can’t guess?” he said. “I understand formation instinct. I can’t understand how you let yourself become Cheris’s pawn after you were freed.”

“Sir,” Khiruev said, “it sounds to me like you’re asking how you let her do the same to you. You already know my story. But here you are, and for all you know, the other crashhawk has already escaped to do as she pleases.”

“If you’d shot her in the head when Kel Command dumped Jedao,” Brezan said, voice rising, “we wouldn’t be—” His mouth snapped shut.

“What exactly did you think would become of me when you were gone?” Khiruev said, tired. “I’m human, sir. People break. Sometimes it doesn’t take much. If it disappoints you, I’m sorry. You can take whatever disciplinary measures you see fit. But I had decided what mattered most to me.” She paused, piecing together the reasons as they had once existed; it was already difficult to remember. “I don’t care if Cheris never had a chance against the hexarchs. I wanted to die having seen that someone believed in a better world enough to fight for it.”

Brezan stared at her, his face unreadable, then said, “Let’s go, General.”

Khiruev fell in to Brezan’s side. In silence they walked through the cindermoth’s halls. Either Brezan had discovered his inner art critic or something else about the ink paintings bothered him. Since Khiruev hadn’t been asked to have an opinion on the topic, it was none of her affair. Say what you like about formation instinct, it was soothing to know that figuring out what to do was someone else’s problem. She’d only fucked up by getting herself promoted too high.

Commander Muris saluted Brezan practically before the doors opened to admit them. The grid would have informed him of their approach. Muris avoided looking at Khiruev. This was entirely sensible: for all he knew, Brezan was parading Khiruev around before executing her for high treason. Khiruev had no plausible defense against the charge.

Although the swarm was at a standstill, Brezan was able to observe Muris poring over reports on post-battle repairs and casualties, and the occasional call from the moth commanders. Doctrine and Engineering were busy taking apart the salvage they’d recovered from the Hafn in an attempt to figure out what those auxiliaries had been. The officers carried out their duties in hushed voices. Brezan stuck around for thirty-eight minutes, his expression growing increasingly remote. Then he nodded politely at Muris, thanked him for his work, and headed out.

They went through the major departments. Brezan lingered longest at Medical, although there had been few casualties on the Hierarchy of Feasts this past battle and one of the people in sickbay was there for a banal bacterial infection. Then Brezan stopped by the dueling hall, and Khiruev wondered if Brezan meant to challenge her. Brezan would win, no question. Khiruev was as good at the sport as she had to be, and no better, even when she’d been healthy. Brezan had some genuine enthusiasm for it. But no, Brezan seemed content to take a seat in the back, away from the other spectators, after waving away the salutes. Khiruev looked at him curiously. Brezan made an impatient gesture for her to sit by him. A few people were warming up, and only one pair was sparring, with more grit than skill.

“You’ve watched videos of Jedao dueling, General?” Brezan asked.

Khiruev was touched at how often Brezan addressed her by her rank, as if that could restore their professional relationship to what it had been. “Once or twice, sir,” Khiruev said. “I remember that he was good, but that’s about it. Why, do you intend to duel Jedao?” She assumed she was to use the cover identity until Brezan indicated otherwise.

“Jedao’s colleague was supposed to be dead mediocre at it,” Brezan said, meaning Cheris, “not that that’s enough reason to keep someone from a hobby. But Jedao’s another story.”

Khiruev sensed that she wasn’t supposed to respond to that, so she didn’t. Whatever Kel Command had done to Cheris, they surely regretted it now.

“I should have killed you already,” Brezan said abruptly.

“After a thorough interrogation, yes,” Khiruev said. “It’s not too late.” It was Brezan’s most persistent fault, his impetuosity. That, and the fact that if you put a goal in front of him, he focused on it to the exclusion of everything else. No strategic vision. Khiruev would have put Brezan in the category of a ‘use with caution’ Kel if he’d been a line officer: great on special missions for his ability to think unconventionally, useful in charge of a tactical group if carefully supervised, and for mercy’s sake don’t promote him any higher than that. Kel Command wasn’t wrong: the promotion, in this case, was key to this particular special mission. As long as Brezan leaned hard on Strategy if the Hafn showed up again, he should be all right.

“I don’t care if they execute me too,” Brezan said after a while, although they both knew that mere execution would be the merciful option. “What I did—I wanted to do what was right. It looked simple. How the fuck do you mess up ‘kill swarm-stealing mass-murderer’?” He was gazing abstractedly at the sizzle-and-flash of the calendrical swords. “I don’t know enough about swarm tactics to read stylistic differences. Does Jedao fight as he always did?”

“That’s complicated,” Khiruev said, “since his black cradle engagements were classified and we’ll never know exactly how they were handled, but I’d point out that everyone seems rattled. Sir, if you want more information, you know who you have to ask. You’re going to have to hope Jedao wants to tell you the truth. It’s clear that he can be a very good liar when he wants to be.”

“Yes,” Brezan said, “you’re right.” Nevertheless, he lingered another nine minutes, until two more of the duelists started a practice round. “Let’s go.”

Brezan stopped at a terminal in one of the lounges to verify that Cheris was, indeed, still in her quarters. “Not that Jedao couldn’t have done something tricky to the grid,” he said, “but if I really believed that, I wouldn’t have accepted the parole.”

“Let me enter first anyway,” Khiruev said. “Just in case.”

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