Ninefox Gambit

by Yoon Ha Lee

The first time they encountered civilians – at least, Niaad assumed from their ornate coats and spangly jewelry that they were civilians – he was astonished by how decisively Isaure killed them, three quick bursts, red holes. He had barely gotten a look at their faces.

  “They would have been screamers,” Isaure said, although Niaad hadn’t opened his mouth. “I can’t stand screamers.”

  Most of the civilians got no chance to scream.

  They went in and out of rooms as though they were burrowing beetles, occasionally cutting passages through walls with equipment that Isaure was not supposed to have. Niaad hadn’t thought it was possible to get any more lost, but he didn’t want to distract Isaure by asking where they were. He became fascinated by the objects people kept in their homes. Musical instruments that could have doubled as Vidona torture implements, especially the ones with the hungry wires. Floating globes that imitated pleasing weather patterns on green or purple planets. A collection of cat toys, but thankfully no trace of the cat itself. Isaure would probably classify a cat as a screamer.

  Isaure kept consulting the field scanner, drilling holes, and muttering about angles of fire. Niaad was amazed no one heard the drill. It was quiet, but he could hear the whir as clearly as though it were biting into the lobes of his brain.

  “There they are,” Isaure said. “They’ve been taking down walls, you can’t mistake the signs.” Her patient voice suggested that she didn’t care whether Niaad understood the situation. “It’s where I thought it would be.”

  She pulled away from the latest hole. “All right. There’s a machine down that passage. We need to light it up so our people know something’s there. If we run like hell we can make it.” She had kept the cracked bit of tile; she drew with it now. At least she was no longer diagramming with dead people’s fluids.

  “They’ll see us coming, sir.”

  “They’ll see you coming,” Isaure said. “I’ll provide covering fire. I just want you to lob as many of the grenades as you can at that machine, get some explosions going.”

  “We could pick off a few of them first, sir –”

  “Soldier,” Isaure said crushingly, “did I give you permission to think? Charge straight in, throw grenades, get the hell out. I’ve given you instructions. Acknowledge.”

  “Acknowledged, sir,” Niaad said, despite a sincere desire to tell her to fuck a jackhammer.

  “Go,” Isaure said, gesturing with her scorch rifle.

  Niaad was already having trouble with his peripheral vision. He kept having to swing his head from side to side to check his surroundings. It wasn’t until Isaure shook his shoulder that he realized his hearing was half-gone, too. The stress effects wouldn’t have set in so early in a properly tuned Kel.

  “There’s the gauntlet,” Isaure said. “Sloppy guards, no one’s facing our way. Their misfortune, our gain. Get in, lob the grenades, get out. I’ll cover you. Simple.”

  “Yes, sir,” he whispered. Stupid plan, but he had to obey.

  “Good man. We’ll make a Kel of you yet. Go!”

  Niaad shuffled at first because he couldn’t get his legs to cooperate. The noise alerted them. He primed one grenade and threw poorly, well short of the machine. It was hard not to be hypnotized by its red glow and wires and strange gears.

  The heretics’ guards may have been careless, but they weren’t fools. One of them kicked the grenade down the corridor. The others swung up their rifles.

  Niaad was too terrified to move.

  Which, he realized in a slow crystal moment, was what Corporal Isaure had counted on. She fired four times in rapid succession, cool and precise: once to scorch out his knee, pitching him forward and closer to the machine, and three more to trigger the grenades.

  Whether he was close enough for the grenades to do any damage to the mystery machine was a question Kel Niaad never found out the answer to.

  Kel Isaure was already sprinting away from the explosion. She had gotten what she wanted. Now it was time to rejoin the Kel and show them what they needed to do.

  SERVITOR 244666 HADN’T intended to get caught. Of course, people rarely did. But it would have gotten away with its illicit snooping if it hadn’t been for a flickering glitch in the cindermoth’s variable layout, consequence of a moment’s power fluctuation. It had been coming out of Cheris’s quarters after having planted the bug. As luck would have it, another servitor, 819825, spotted it through the moment’s window between the brevet general’s quarters and the high halls that were, ordinarily, a right turn and a few minutes away.

  It wasn’t that servitors were precisely forbidden to enter humans’ quarters. The maintenance work and routine chores that were their responsibility necessitated it, although they made a point of knocking as a matter of courtesy. Some of the humans would shoo them off if it was an inconvenient moment, but in general they didn’t think much of it, an attitude the servitors themselves had encouraged during the scant centuries of their sentience.

  The servitors themselves, however, had their own rules to govern how they went about their duties. It was always fair to enter if duty required it, or, in rare cases like Cheris’s, if they were invited to socialize. It was not, according to servitor consensus, fair to drop bugs into the brevet general’s quarters for around-the-clock monitoring even if you were the lead servitor assigned to keep tabs on her whenever she was in the moth’s public areas.

  At present, 244666 folded up its limbs, hinges neat and precise, and stared patiently at 819825, who had volunteered to serve as its guard or companion, take your pick. They were both shut up in one of the service corridors, dark except when they flashed prickly comments at each other, for remedial meditation. You could hear a lot here, especially with a servitor’s senses, although they were circumspect in how they used their scan capabilities. At the moment what they got was the occasional exchange between the humans below them, including a Kel joke or two; footsteps, superstitious one-two-three-four knockings on the walls, the whoosh of air circulating, the quiet whisking of other servitors hovering through the passages.

  819825 had reported 244666 to the other servitors, and they had summoned it to explain itself. 244666 had shown up; it didn’t have many places to hide, and besides, it might have some philosophical differences with its fellows, but it didn’t want to defy the most important rules of servitor society.

  819825, who had always had the most annoying prim streak, had explained to 244666 in exacting detail that the foundation of servitor society was courtesy, and that this differentiated them from the humans who ran their world, and that if they started deviating from it in small matters it would only be a matter of time before they slid into deviating from it in larger ones. Besides, the brevet general had been unfailingly polite to them. She deserved better consideration. It was the kind of lecture you expected to outgrow after your first few neural flowerings.

  244666 thought to itself that this was all very well, but they mostly had the word of distant servitors as to Cheris’s character, and besides, no one with half a sentience could think that Shuos Jedao’s involvement boded well. It would have felt much easier knowing what went on in Cheris’s quarters at all times. Still, it hadn’t had a chance to activate the bug, its fellows had removed the thing anyway, and moreover it was impossible to eavesdrop on Jedao’s half of any conversation, something that they had had abundant opportunity to verify. It had to concede defeat. In the meantime, 244666 could have endured its confinement, however temporary, in true solitude, and instead 819825 had chosen to accompany it when it didn’t have to. It resolved to repay the kindness when they were done with this.

  CHERIS’S WORLD WAS very large. It contained the full crews of the Kel swarm, the infantry and infiltrators who were facing off against the heretics, the Fortress and its six wards. She thought in the on-off language of guns instead of words. Everything coalesced into numbers and coordinates, angles and intersecting lines.

  “Sir, Tactical Three’s firepower is now down to seventy-four p
ercent,” Communications said. “Commander Rai Mogen is asking if they should alter formation.”

  Cheris rubbed her temples. She had identified heretical formation keys through rapid modulation at the beginning of the engagement. Fast, but not fast enough; Commander Kel Tavathe’s bannermoth Spiders and Scars had taken serious damage to its life support systems. Still, they now had access to a small repertoire of defensive effects.

  “Tactical Three, heretical formation 8,” Cheris said hoarsely. A conservative response, but she couldn’t afford to lose more guns. “Let me know if there are any more breakdowns.”

  A certain percentage of the Kel reacted poorly to using heretical formations. None of the commanders had broken down, but Commander Kel Hapo Nar had had to relieve his executive officer during the second hour of the engagement. As time passed, other Kel proved vulnerable as well.

  “You should take a break soon,” Jedao said, but she ignored him.

  “Commander Rai Mogen acknowledges,” Communications said. “Formation shift underway.”

  They had been whittling down the Fortress’s guns for the past 17.3 hours. When the heretics opened fire on the Kel infantry, there was no longer any point to pretense. Cheris had recalled Kel Koroe’s bannermoth Unenclosed by Fear. The two cindermoths had kept up a barrage from a distance – it wasn’t as though the Fortress could evade – and the bannermoths offered supporting fire. Cheris had endeavored not to damage the Fortress’s integral structure, although it was tempting to blast random holes in the thing. Kel Command could always take it out of her pay for the next millennium.

  Cheris had sent a report to Kel Command explaining that the Fortress’s shields had been defeated and that additional information on the Fortress’s capabilities and personnel would be appreciated. With any luck, they would respond soon. One of the things she and Jedao agreed on was that Kel Command was shooting itself in the foot by giving them so little information from the outset, although she hoped that Jedao’s theory that they were the victims of some unrelated power play was incorrect.

  Cheris’s world was also very small. It had narrowed to her terminal with its glitterspin of displays. Everything announced itself in colors, numbers, diagrams. At some point, she had been aware that certain numbers represented people, and other numbers represented guns, and still others represented Kel moths. Now she was only aware of interlocking hierarchies and the imperative to trade some numbers for others.

  Fire became numbers became lines. She tapped out an order, knowing only the necessity of perfection. Another order, then another. Numbers changed, drifted, folded out of sight. Too low. She frowned, trying to concentrate. It was getting harder and harder to think.

  “General.” It wasn’t Jedao, but another man, his voice deeper, gruffer. Cheris couldn’t remember his name. She could barely find her own. “Sir, you ought to rest. The combat drugs aren’t meant to handle that kind of mental exertion.”

  He wasn’t part of the terminal that was her world. She didn’t have to listen – unless he was a number? How could she have lost track of a number? Her heart raced.

  “Cheris.” This time it was Jedao. He spoke very clearly. “That’s Commander Kel Hazan. He can oversee the swarm. He got on shift 1.8 hours ago, and Weapons and Navigation have been feeding your responses into the grid so it can learn from them. They can handle things while you rest.”

  She had to find her way out of the numbers. When she did speak to Hazan, she wasn’t sure she was intelligible, but he gave no sign that anything was wrong. Then she headed to her quarters.

  Cheris took a shower even though she would rather have collapsed asleep the instant she was through the door. She had hoped the sonics’ cloying hum would wake her up. No such luck.

  “Stop trying to stay awake,” Jedao said.

  She was so tired, and she had no idea what, if anything, she had done right. In mathematics you had peer review, definite proofs and answers, but war was nothing but uncertainty multiplied by uncertainty.

  “Sleep,” Jedao said, exasperated.

  Cheris gave up trying to resist and fell asleep as soon as she lay down.

  When she woke, there was a tray with scallion pancakes, rice, and cooling tea. “A pair of servitors came in with that twenty-seven minutes ago,” Jedao said, “but I thought you needed the rest more. I would have thanked them if they had been able to hear me.”

  He let her eat in peace, then said, “We’re going to prepare propaganda drops.”

  “What?” Cheris said. Planning sessions with Jedao were never dull. “Do you think the heretics will fall for something that obvious?”

  “You’d be surprised at what people will read out of curiosity,” Jedao said. “Although we won’t ask them to read much. We’re going to modify some game templates and send them down. The thing is, I’ll need your colonel’s help. He’ll know more about the Liozh heresy than I do, and since he’s a Kel, he’ll know the most about the bloodthirsty bits.”

  A servitor requested entry, although it could have just come in. “Come in,” Cheris said. It bore more tea. “Thank you,” she said. “I don’t think I’m in danger of dehydrating here in the command moth, but I appreciate it.”

  The servitor made a skeptical sound, but flashed a series of satisfied green-gold lights and left.

  “Anyway,” Jedao said, “I know what happened in outline, but not the details. We want the details.”

  Cheris thought of the things she did and didn’t remember from her history lessons, and grimaced. “Wouldn’t you be able to find this in the archives?”

  “When’s the last time you dug through primary sources? The problem with the Liozh rebellion is that half that stuff’s classified, and the other problem is that you have to know how to sift through it. Which is where Ragath’s background as a historian will come in handy.”

  “He’s very busy,” Cheris said. It was bad enough that she had to put up with Jedao. The least she could do for her infantry commander was shield him from the fox’s direct interference.

  “All he has to do is give us pointers to the best examples of the Liozh getting shot into sieves,” Jedao said. “Just leave him a message and he’ll respond when he has the time. I doubt it’ll take him that long.”

  Cheris thought of her instructors dismissing Kel actions against the Liozh as unworthy of study, victories too easily won. “I’m still not sure –”

  “Did you play many games in academy? Sports?”

  “Dueling mostly,” Cheris said. Here it came, the ubiquitous Shuos obsession with games.

  Jedao snorted. “You’re thinking something uncharitable about foxes. Tell you what, then. We’re going to make a game.”

  “I should get back to the command center, is what I should be doing.” She eyed the clock and the shift schedule. Technically she wasn’t due back for another five hours and forty-one minutes, but she didn’t want to admit it.

  “If they needed you, they’d have sent for you,” Jedao said. “You could use more sleep, but you’re unlikely to see sense about that.”

  Cheris finally realized what he had said. “I have people dying down there and you want me to play another fucking Shuos game?”

  “I said invent a game. We won’t have time to play it.”

  “Why?” Cheris said.

  “We’re going to invent a game about the Fortress.”

  He wasn’t going to let it go. “If you want a battle simulation, wouldn’t it be better to use one of the ones already in the grid?”

  “But that would only tell me what the simulator thinks of the situation. And the level of abstraction is too low – we’ll get back to that. I want to know how you understand the situation, Cheris.”

  “What, you don’t have a plan? I thought you always had a plan.”

  “Humor me.”

  She had misgivings, but – “Where do we start?”

  Maddeningly, he responded as she had thought he would. “Where do you think we should start?”

  Cheris th
ought for a moment. Under other circumstances, and with the help of some beer, it would have been tempting to devise a taxonomy that could handle dueling, jeng-zai, and truth-or-dare. But Jedao would have a specific purpose in mind, and he wouldn’t have given her an impossible task. “If the point is a specific game, I’ll start by modifying an existing game.” A mathematical solution: reduce a problem to a previously solved problem.

  Jedao didn’t say anything, so Cheris assumed she was being left to thrash around for his edification. She went to the terminal and pulled up fires-and-towers. Using it as a basis, she set up an asymmetrical two-player board game to be played with grid assistance. There was no point making the bookkeeping more annoying than necessary.

  She lost time on legible visual representations. It wouldn’t do for the player to confuse infantry and infiltrators, for instance. Assigning legal moves and point values was worse. How was she supposed to know the heretics’ strength? Was she supposed to ensure that both sides were evenly matched? She opened her mouth to ask, then thought better of it. And she omitted the shields, since they had been cracked and weren’t relevant anymore.

  Cheris was confronted with the difficulty of coding a grid opponent so she could test the values. Normally she would have asked a servitor for help, but she suspected Jedao would intervene. The attack values on some of the guns felt too high to be realistic, but you probably couldn’t tell by eyeballing the numbers. If only she had more time –

  She straightened and barked a laugh. If Jedao meant to distract her from her duty, he was succeeding. She longed for a call from the command center, even if it implied a new disaster.

  It was peculiar that Jedao seemed determined to teach her. Wouldn’t it have been more efficient to trigger her formation instinct so she could convey his orders without any of this back and forth?

  Her mind was wandering again. She had barely addressed combat resolution. It was tempting to squander time on pseudorandom generators and probability distributions because at least she understood those, but it was more important to pick something inoffensive and run with it.