Revenant Gun

by Yoon Ha Lee

  After an impossible pause, the enemy bannered back, not from the swarms he couldn’t see, but from the Fortress. A murmur of discontent went around the command center. Jedao didn’t take offense; applauded Inesser’s pragmatism, rather. He admired the Three Kestrels Three Suns—another pop-up subdisplay—before dismissing that one too.

  Time to set the trap. “Continue shield modulation sequence until I say otherwise,” Jedao said. “We’re heading straight for Terebeg 4.” He’d drawn their trajectory on the tactical map. “They’ve already seen us coming, so why draw out the suspense?”

  He would try to do this with as few casualties as possible. He wasn’t, however, under any illusions that he’d be able to pull it off without killing anyone.

  “Entering the asteroid field in twelve minutes, sir,” Navigation said after a while.

  Jedao wasn’t worried about crashing into overgrown space rocks. The asteroids were too widely dispersed for that, unless all the moth pilots had collectively gotten really drunk without telling him. Even a swarm the size of his didn’t require that much space. Rather, he worried about more pickets lurking in the scan shadows of said space rocks, or stealthed attack forces.

  The pickets didn’t materialize. That didn’t surprise him either. Their purpose fulfilled, they would have withdrawn to offer support to one of the primary defense swarms. It did mean that Inesser didn’t control so many moths that she could afford to throw some away to slow him down, especially this early in the battle. That, or she was feeling paranoid.

  In spite of knowing better, Jedao was faintly disappointed not to see overgrown space rocks hurtling by on the viewscreen like in the video games he remembered playing with Ruo. He reminded himself not to be frivolous. They’d spot hostiles soon enough, and he’d be too busy to tempt the universe with snide thoughts about astronomy.

  “Eight swarms launching!” Scan said, her voice shaking only slightly. She rattled off their initial vectors. Jedao’s tactical display updated with masses of moving gold triangles. Swarms One, Two, Three, Four, and Five had flowered outward from behind Terebeg 4, while Swarms Six, Seven, and Eight emerged from the Fortress of Pearled Hopes. The Fortress unleashed a barrage of missiles for good measure.

  “Antimissile defenses engaged,” Weapons said.

  “Winnowers One through Four, launch,” Jedao said. “Tactical Two and Tactical Three, formation Swanweave.” This would afford the winnowers some additional protection. It was all very well that Kujen’s new and improved design operated remotely, but they wouldn’t do him a whit of good if the enemy blew them up first. The longer the winnowers remained operational, the longer he could use them as a threat to lever the enemy into doing what he wanted them to.

  “Sir,” Talaw said in a remarkably calm voice, “there are enough of General Inesser’s swarms to engage us from multiple vectors simultaneously.”

  “I had noticed that, yes,” Jedao said. For the moment, the winnowers were causing Protectorate forces to keep their distance. He imagined that any stealthed forces were holding back out of a fear of engaging some sort of dead man’s switch. He thought well of Inesser for refusing to waste her soldiers’ lives taking the winnowers down head-on. Sooner or later, however, her missiles would get through, and he’d lose his leverage.

  The first exchange of missiles sparked in the distance. He couldn’t see them on visuals, but the scan subdisplay told him what was going on clearly enough. Swanweave was holding, at least for the moment.

  “Swarms One through Six closing on us,” Scan said. This time she had better control of her voice. It wasn’t that she had grown calmer. She’d stopped expecting to survive.

  I will get us through this, Jedao promised her silently, although he knew better than to say it aloud.

  “Swarm Two has come in range of the shear cannon,” Weapons said.

  “Hold that thought,” Jedao said. “General Jedao to Commander Nihara Keru.”

  She responded promptly. “Listening, sir.”

  “In a moment I’m going to set off the threshold winnowers,” Jedao said. He ignored the way his crew stiffened. Sorry, it’s better this way. “They are going to be pointed not toward the enemy but at Tactical Groups Two through Six, which I’m detaching, and which you are going to be in charge of.”

  Nihara paled. “I am Kel, sir,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “Oh, stop that,” Jedao snapped, although it wasn’t fair to blame her for drawing the obvious conclusion. “What you’re going to do is hold position just out of winnower range. Don’t fuck this up, because I like you”—Dhanneth stirred slightly at that, oh fox and hound, was he saying anything right today?—“and I would hate to have to recite your name at the next pyre ceremony.”

  “All right,” Nihara said, quirking an eyebrow at him, “I’m still listening.”

  “I’m going to swan off with Tactical One doing hair-raising things. Don’t worry about me. We’ll be fine.” That was as close as he could come to saying Trust me. “You’re going to take the rest of the swarm and continue to hold position just out of winnower range. If Inesser’s swarms start to close in on you, start moving into range.”

  “I see,” Nihara said after a moment. “You’re going to bluff them into thinking you’re going to spike their calendar by, forgive my bluntness, feeding your own swarm to the winnowers.”

  “Precisely.” At the same time, he messaged to Kujen, Trust me. It will be easier to secure the swarm’s cooperation if they think they have an out. A dangerous game, but he just needed to buy enough time—

  “I don’t understand you sometimes,” Nihara said, “but orders are orders.”

  “Splendid.”

  “Commander Nihara Keru out.”

  The hostility in the command center was now tinged with bafflement. Don’t get too comfortable, Jedao thought. The difficult part is yet to come. He wondered where Hemiola was hiding, and hoped that the fact that everyone was occupied with the battle meant that it was safe. Unfortunately, he couldn’t check on Hemiola without drawing attention to its presence on the Revenant.

  After telling Tactical Groups Two through Six to stay behind under Nihara’s command, Jedao turned to Talaw and Tactical One. “When we activate those winnowers,” he said, “we’re going to sprint straight for Terebeg 4 and into the atmosphere. Get ready for some turbulence.”

  “That’s going to get rough,” Talaw said. “We can endure short stints of atmospheric flight, but we’re not designed for fancy aerial stunts.”

  “It’ll keep Engineering from getting bored,” Jedao said, thinking it was just as well that he didn’t plan on surviving this battle, because Engineering was going to join the long line of people ready to parade his head on a stick afterward. “Still, I take your point.” He messaged Engineering and told them to prepare for a jaunt in the atmosphere.

  Meanwhile, Inesser’s eight swarms had understood the bluff. They decelerated until they were maintaining position relative to the winnowers—and to the detached swarm under Nihara. Somewhere in a bunker, Inesser would be having a frantic conversation about how to disarm the winnowers before Jedao ordered mass suicide.

  The frantic conversation didn’t last long, if so. Within two minutes, Communications said, “General Inesser is broadcasting a bulletin to our people, General Jedao. Do you—?”

  “No,” Jedao said with regret. Under better circumstances he wouldn’t have minded lingering to listen to whatever her speech was. He bet she gave better speeches than he did. “She’ll be trying to convince Commander Nihara to defect to her. I have faith in the commander’s steadfastness.”

  Communications subsided.

  Now the essential part. “Communications, did you ever dig up additional maps?”

  “Sir.” Communications forwarded them to his terminal.

  Jedao glanced them over. “They like those underground bunkers, don’t they?” He spent several minutes marking up targets according to the formation patterns that Hemiola had shown him. “Get me Co
lonel Muyyed.”

  Muyyed didn’t waste any time answering. “General Jedao.” Her eyes shone.

  “Yes,” Jedao said gravely, “I have something for you and the infantry.” He passed the maps to her. “Take the following locations with your companies. Drop zones are at your discretion. We’ll do what we can to provide fire support from topside, but I can’t make guarantees. This depends on you.” In more ways than you know.

  Muyyed examined the maps. “If the intel is correct, everyone’s holed up in the bunkers. I don’t anticipate much person-to-person resistance if we can touch ground. It’s getting groundside through the artillery that will be the hard part.”

  “Leave that to me, Colonel.”

  “In that case, we’re ready, sir.”

  So trusting. “I’ll let you know when you can begin the drops,” Jedao said. “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “Sir,” Weapons said, “Winnower Three is damaged. Railgun projectile got through.”

  “Then I’d better stop wasting time,” Jedao said. He leaned back and tapped the arm of his chair. “Tactical One. We are going to be diving into Terebeg 4 and heading straight for the capital. General Inesser isn’t the only one who can use a planet for cover.” She might also be reluctant to fire on her own seat of power; that remained to be seen. If he rattled her too much, she might do it anyway.

  “The capital’s antimissile defenses are active,” Scan said. “They also have exotic shielding.”

  “If you’re going to turn the winnowers on them, now’s the time,” Weapons added.

  “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.”

  “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.”