Revenant Gun

by Yoon Ha Lee

  Jedao thought to look up at Kujen. Kujen was smiling at whatever he saw in Jedao’s face. For once a soft light almost made the beautiful eyes human.

  Of course he cares, Jedao thought, kicking himself for not realizing something so elementary. Kujen must have become a moth engineer for a reason. He was proud of the moth he had designed. And it made sense that Kujen didn’t want to interfere with his technicians. It wasn’t that the technicians mattered in themselves. It was the work they enabled him to do.

  “You still haven’t named it, have you?” Kujen said.

  “Kujen, I couldn’t,” Jedao said. “It’s your design.”

  This was the right response. “I built it for you,” Kujen said wryly. “I can rattle off all the specifications and draw the blueprints with my teeth. I could even drive it somewhere if Navigation went into cardiac arrest, but that’s it. This moth was made to fight. That’s your domain.”

  “Your mysterious assistant doesn’t want to name it?”

  “Aside from the fact that my mysterious assistant comes up with the worst names ever, he refused to do anything of the sort.”

  “What’s his name, anyway?”

  Kujen startled. “He’ll tell you someday, maybe.” But Kujen sounded doubtful. “Since we’re on the topic of names, you should come up with something for the moth.”

  Jedao couldn’t demur. That might offend Kujen. But he might be able to get information out of this—“Revenant,” he said.

  Kujen grinned at him. “Feeling self-conscious, are we? Revenant it is.”

  So much for that.

  Dhanneth was studying the moth with great interest.

  “Walk me through the specs again,” Jedao said. “I’m not even sure I know what questions to ask.”

  “Some officers have a strong technical background,” Kujen said, “but it’s true that that wasn’t your particular specialty.” He looked like he was about to add something, then called up a diagram instead. Columns of text listed all the moth’s armaments. “I tried to label it clearly, but let me know if I got it wrong. I read all the analyses of Candle Arc I could find and most of them mentioned that you used superior invariant resources against the Lanterners, so I directed our research accordingly. Considering the fractured nature of the calendar at this time, it’s just as well.”

  “I expected you to start with the mothdrive,” Jedao said, grateful that the diagram told him how many railguns there were. The number impressed him.

  Kujen shook his head in amusement. “Force of habit. I always assume that Kel want to know about things that smash things before anything else. Here we go.”

  Another diagram came up, including a graph with a bright silver curve and fainter ones in shades of gold and blue and red. “The silver is the shearmoth. Kel cindermoth, Kel bannermoth, Andan silkmoth just for hilarity, and that red is the last reliable data I have on Shuos shadowmoths.”

  “Shadowmoths?”

  “Stealth vessels. Traditionally, with a shadowmoth it’s the first surprise attack you have to worry about. Once dropped, recharging stealth used to take ages. But the technology could have improved in the past nine years, so don’t make too many assumptions.”

  “Good to know,” Jedao said. “I wish I remembered more of this.”

  Kujen didn’t answer that directly. “Pay attention to that highlighted zone in the associated acceleration curve. You can outrun anything out there except the Taurags in their native calendrical terrain, but the power drain has implications for your biggest weapon.”

  The shear cannon. It caused ripples in spacetime, displacing objects caught in the area of effect. Not precise enough to yank moths into the path of fire, but good enough to disrupt Kel formations, which depended on precise geometries. Jedao almost looked forward to trying it out.

  “The shear cannon is a prototype, correct?” Jedao said.

  Kujen’s nostrils flared. “It has been thoroughly tested,” he said, in a voice so mild that Jedao recognized it as dangerous.

  They spent the next two hours going over the specifications in detail, including simulator time. Jedao was getting better at using his augment to transmit commands to the local grid, even if it disoriented him when it tapped directly into his kinesthetic sense to provide him with a map or diagram. He wondered if he’d ever get used to it.

  “All right,” Kujen said finally. “My assistant needs me. Have the major escort you back to your quarters. Remember, if you get truly fucked up, call for me and I’ll sort it out.”

  Jedao hoped he would never get used to having a hexarch show him this much consideration. “Good luck with whatever you’re doing,” Jedao said, and nodded at Dhanneth, indicating that he should lead.

  Dhanneth plunged directly toward a blank section of wall. Nirai technicians scattered to either side, some muttering what sounded like curses in various low languages. Jedao followed Dhanneth, not slowing even when it looked like they were going to crash into it like a pair of idiots. Sure enough, they passed through. It was like being engulfed by a mouth of uncomfortable ridged teeth, then being spit out again. He asked his augment how to repeat the trick and received a tutorial file.

  They emerged in a different hallway, or maybe the previous one had changed garb for the occasion. This time the walls were hung with tapestries. Jedao was willing to wager that someone had woven and embroidered them by hand, down to the thousands of faceted seed beads and couched golden threads.

  “You’ve got to tell me,” Jedao said, “how does variable layout work?”

  “It’s based on some results in gate mechanics,” Dhanneth said. “Over my head, sir. The hexarch might be willing to discuss it with you sometime. From a practical standpoint, as long as we’re in communication with the station or moth’s grid and—sir!”

  Jedao had stopped after the first sentence and knelt to inspect the floor. It wasn’t as solid as it seemed, especially the more he stood still. The carpet decomposed into silvery cobwebs the longer he looked, and the air smelled suddenly of dust, decaying leaves, corroded metal. Beneath the carpet, the floor was composed of gears rotating with an unceasing heartless click-tick-tock. Beyond the ticking, he heard a sudden faint singing in a voice at once too high and too deep to be human. He was tempted to reach down and—

  Dhanneth had backtracked for Jedao. “Don’t do that, sir,” Dhanneth said. “The station doesn’t seem to like you. If this happens again, report it to the hexarch. He’ll be able to fix any fault in your augment or the grid’s programming. It’d be troublesome if the station cocooned you.” He said that last with a touch of malice.

  “Cocoon?” Jedao said, straightening.

  “You didn’t think the Nirai emblem was a moth for no reason, did you?”

  “I have no idea what I thought.”

  They resumed walking. Unfortunately, this gave Jedao time to think. His conversations went better when he just opened his mouth and talked. Not that he liked the things that came out of his mouth.

  Kujen had given him a prototype for his command moth, fine. If Jedao had once been a general, he had been a moth commander before that. But he couldn’t help wondering what had happened to the swarm’s rightful general, and wishing they were here to offer advice, if nothing else.

  “It’s no secret that the Kel despise me,” Jedao remarked to Dhanneth when they reached the door. It came after a long curve in the hallway and past an astonishing fall of silver-blue light.

  Dhanneth halted and faced him. His mouth twisted. “It’s their duty to obey you, sir.”

  Jedao stared at the door and its polished black surface. His reflection formed a ghost-blur. He couldn’t discern his eyes or the damnable gloves, just the barren fact of his silhouette. “You heard the things I said.”

  “I imagine you had practical reasons for saying them,” Dhanneth said. “To use this swarm as a fighting force, you’re going to have to get the officers behind you. And the flip side of hierarchy is that we respect strength. While formation instinct is all ve
ry well, it doesn’t cover all the loopholes. One of the first things they teach officers is that subordinates can make things miserable for superiors they don’t respect.”

  A warning. Dhanneth might not like him, but his advice was worth taking to heart. “I’ll bet,” Jedao said, and dismissed Dhanneth.

  It hurt him that cold-blooded murderer appeared to be a valid subset of strong as far as the Kel were concerned. He couldn’t explain why. Weren’t the Kel already about shooting people? Except he could have sworn that there had been something in there about honor, too.

  Bad enough that he was a mass murderer. And bad enough that a hexarch didn’t have any problems appointing him general in spite of it, but no one expected moral sense from someone that far up the food chain. No: the worst thing was that some of the Kel considered his ruthlessness a qualification, not an incentive to mutiny.

  There has to be something better than this, Jedao thought. Even for Kujen, who didn’t care, and the Kel, who couldn’t disobey. But how could he get through to them?

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Eight years ago

  BREZAN WOKE TO the sound of singing. The nice thing about sleeping with Andan-certified courtesans was that they all sang well. He tried not to think about how this one had long, rippling hair that reminded him of his former lover Tseya, although she didn’t resemble Tseya otherwise: short and plump rather than tall and slender, and with a fondness for the color purple. Tseya had always dressed, very properly, in Andan blue-and-silver or variations thereof. Also unlike Tseya, this courtesan, whose name was Irimi, liked tea rituals. Brezan endured her endless fussing over the positioning of teacups because the sex was fantastic.

  “Damnation,” Brezan said after consulting his internal chronometer. “You could have woken me earlier. I’ve got that arbitration meeting about the strikes, don’t I?” A number of the doctors, who’d received training from the Medical branch of the Vidona, had gone on strike in Tauvit. He wanted to resolve that before it could fester. Tauvit wasn’t the only place where it was going on. Unsurprisingly, the Vidona and their supporters were among the most recalcitrant when it came to the new order.

  Irimi left off singing and said, “You looked tired. Besides, your bodyguard left instructions to let you get rest for anything short of a crisis.”

  Ah, yes. “Why,” Brezan said, keeping the sarcasm from his voice, “no worlds have blown up in the past day?”

  “Not that I’ve heard of,” Irimi said placidly. Also unlike Tseya, she liked jewelry, a lot of it. This pale morning her outfit, such as it was, involved draperies of lavender lace interspersed with tiny, irregularly faceted amethyst beads. Brezan thought regretfully that he shouldn’t be thinking about how entertaining it would be to watch her undress. Irimi could draw out the act of disrobing beyond anything sensible.

  After Brezan emerged from the shower and got dressed, Irimi had tea and breakfast waiting for him. He could have managed for himself. It seemed sometimes that no one was ever going to let him cook his own meals again. But Irimi doubled as security—Emio had vetted her, as she did anyone Brezan took to bed—and she insisted on tasting everything before he did. He had explained to her the ridiculousness of this procedure. Hell, Irimi had agreed that, given modern toxins, having a taster was pointless. But she said there was no harm in it either, and in certain matters she was a traditionalist.

  The tea today came from a world Brezan had never heard of, and he couldn’t pronounce its name, either. It had odd, subtle floral notes. Brezan’s taste in tea ran to robust flavors, but he didn’t mind expanding his palate. Besides, it kept Irimi happy. (He compensated by treating himself to hard liquors in the evening.) Breakfast was a sort of crepe with a nutty filling topped with vanilla cream. Privately, he thought the cream’s sweetness overwhelmed the delicacy of the tea, but he wouldn’t have dreamed of criticizing the pairing. Irimi could be touchy about that sort of thing.

  Naturally, mid-meal Emio stuck her head in the room without knocking. “Hate to interrupt,” she said, “but you need to take this call. Supersedes even the strike business.”

  Irimi drew herself up to her full height, which wasn’t very, and stared at Emio. “Do the Shuos have no manners?”

  “Not in my line of work,” Emio said. Brezan had never quite been able to figure out how Emio and Irimi related to each other, a confusing combination of obligatory faction rivalry and camaraderie. Shuos-Andan feuding had been going on for centuries; no reason why it should stop now. “You probably want to take this one from your office. Unless your relationship with General Khiruev is much closer than I thought it was.”

  Brezan made a face at her. He wouldn’t have tolerated snide jokes about hawkfucking from anyone else. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” He pulled on his socks and shoes, even though no one else was going to see them, and followed Emio out.

  Governor Lozhoi had set Brezan up in a hastily emptied wing of one of her administration buildings. Brezan had made sure to send her a thank-you note in the nicest calligraphy he could produce. He needed her cooperation and he knew it. Her support hadn’t smoothed all the problems in setting up a base of operations on Krauwer 5, but it had helped. They were down to student demonstrations and workers’ protests only every other week, as Emio liked to say. After all, this latest business with the doctors wasn’t Lozhoi’s fault.

  Brezan’s so-called residence used to be two adjoining guest rooms. After getting used to variable layout while serving on Kel warmoths, it was still disconcerting to take stairs and walk down hallways to get to the office. There was a lift, but it was still on the list for repairs after a saboteur had jinxed the damn thing.

  For a governor, Lozhoi had remarkably good taste in decor. Brezan was used to Kel ostentation and had told her so during his first week here. Lozhoi had looked at him thoughtfully, then said, “Well, it’s true that it’s useful to impress people with glitter once in a while, but sometimes asceticism has its uses too.” As far as he could tell, she meant it. He’d seen her office, which was modestly outfitted, the only indulgence a carved wooden good-luck charm on the wall.

  Lozhoi had not, however, stinted on Brezan’s own office. High-quality furniture, well-made without being ostentatious; good lighting from a profusion of candlevines. The view wasn’t great, but she hadn’t had to explain to Brezan that this was for security reasons. After the time someone had thrown a homemade incendiary at him during one of his outings, he’d been twitchy around windows.

  The guards greeted him with sober nods. He would never get used to the way they stiffened to attention whenever they saw him. It’s just me, he wanted to say. I’m no one special. Except he’d chosen otherwise, and they’d never see him as just another Kel officer.

  Emio preceded Brezan into the office and did a quick sweep. “Looks fine,” she said. Brezan knew perfectly well that she wasn’t so much worried about his safety as her professional reputation, but he appreciated her attentiveness all the same.

  His desk was already piled with selected correspondence, paper correspondence, from concerned citizens who believed in the old-fashioned methods of petitioning officials. He had to recycle a terrifying quantity of letters every day, although he kept the nicer specimens of calligraphy just to look at. He’d have to go through the pile later. In the meantime, he logged into the secured terminal and said, “I’m told I have a call?”

  “Connecting,” the grid said blandly.

  Moments later, it imaged the face of General Kel Khiruev. She was, at present, Brezan’s senior general, a hilarious and not entirely comfortable turn of events. Brezan had once served as one of Khiruev’s staffers. He hadn’t intentionally wound up as her head of state cum superior officer.

  The intervening years had treated Khiruev as well as could be expected, considering that she’d aged rapidly during the Hafn invasion two years ago. The dueling scars on her face stood out more lividly than ever against her brown skin, and she hadn’t done anything about her shock of white hair. Then again, Khiruev
had never been particularly vain of her appearance.

  “High General,” Khiruev said, not without humor.

  “Don’t you start,” Brezan said. He had to avoid the temptation to treat her as though she would shatter. For a while there, formation instinct had made her brittle. But Cheris’s calendar had changed that, he hoped for the better. The Kel in his government, which people had started calling the Compact, could choose to obey or disobey. It made all the difference. “What’s going on now?”

  “I wanted to update you on the Vonner Salient,” Khiruev said.

  Brezan closed his eyes. His augment coopted his proprioception to show him a map, completely unnecessarily. He knew about the Vonner Salient; had been reading briefings about it for the past several months. One of the systems in the Salient was a rich source of materials necessary to nurture growing voidmoths. One of his generals had been contesting the Salient, and losing. General Inesser—now Protector-General Inesser—wasn’t stupid. She wanted those resources for her own realm, which styled itself the Protectorate.

  The Vonner Salient wasn’t the only place where such a conflict was playing out. Both the Compact and the Protectorate were in a race to build more warmoths to defend themselves. Brezan had fewer Kel, because most of them had found Inesser’s traditionalism more attractive. His main advantage was that the Compact’s less stringently regulated economy had already overtaken the Protectorate’s in terms of production capacity even despite the hiccups in trade routes due to mothdrive malfunctions. Brezan had relaxed the regulations on the advice of the historian-soldier Devenay Ragath, who’d made a study of the economies of neighboring realms.