Conservation of Shadows - By Yoon Ha Lee Page 0,93

Rahal: The lenses are to maintain formation and head through the indicated channel”—he passed over the waypoint coordinates from his computer station—“to the choke locus. You are to pass the locus, then circle back toward it. Don’t call us under any circumstances, we’ll call you. And stick to the given formation and don’t try any fancy modulations.”

It was unlikely that the Rahal would try, but it was worth saying. The Rahal were going to be most convincing as a fake Kel swarm if they stayed in one formation because there wasn’t time to teach them to get the modulation to look right. The formation that Jedao had chosen for them was Senner’s Lash, partly because its visible effects were very short-range. When the Rahal failed to produce the force-lash, it wouldn’t look suspicious because the Lanterners wouldn’t expect to see anything from a distance.

“Also,” Jedao said, still addressing the Rahal. “The instant you see something, anything on scan, you’re to banner the Deuce of Gears.”

The Deuce was his personal emblem, and it connoted “cog in the machine.” Everyone had expected him to register some form of fox when he made brigadier general, but he had preferred a show of humility. The Deuce would let the Lanterners know who they were facing. It might not be entirely sporting for the Rahal to transmit it, but since they were under his command, he didn’t feel too bad about it.

“The Rahal acknowledge,” Communications said. Jedao’s subdisplay showed them moving off. They would soon pass through the calendrical null, and at that point they would become harder to find on scan.

Commander Menowen was drumming her fingers on the arm of her chair, her first sign of nervousness. “They have no defenses,” she said, almost to herself.

It mattered that this mattered to her. “We won’t let the Lanterners reach them,” Jedao said. “If only because I would prefer to spend my career not having the Rahal mad at me.”

Her sideways glance was only slightly irritated. “Where are we going, sir?”

“Cut the mothdrives,” Jedao said. He sent the coordinates to Menowen, Communications, and Navigation. “We’re heading there by invariant drive only.” This would probably prevent long-range scan from seeing them. “Transmit orders to all moths. I want acknowledgments from the moth commanders.”

“There” referred to some battledrift, all sharp edges and ash-scarred fragments and wrecked silverglass shards, near the mouth of what Jedao had designated the Yellow Passage. He expected the Lanterners to take it toward the choke. Its calendrical gradient started in the Lanterners’ favor, then zeroed out as it neared the null.

Depending on the Lanterners’ invariant drives, it would take them two to three hours (high calendar) to cross the null region and reach the choke. This was, due to the periodic shifts, still faster than going around the null, because the detours would be through space hostile to their exotics for the next six hours.

Reports had put the Lanterners at anywhere from sixty to one hundred twenty combat moths. The key was going to be splitting them up to fight a few at a time.

Jedao’s moth commanders acknowledged less quickly than he would have liked, gold lights coming on one by one.

“Formation?” Menowen prompted him.

There weren’t a lot of choices when you had eleven moths. Jedao brought up a formation, which was putting it kindly because it didn’t belong to Lexicon Primary for tactical groups, or even Lexicon Secondary, which contained all the obsolete formations and parade effects. He wanted the moths in a concave configuration so they could focus lateral fire on the first hostiles to emerge from the Yellow Passage.

“That’s the idea,” Jedao said, “but we’re using the battledrift as cover. Some big chunks of dead stuff floating out there, we might as well blend in and snipe the hell out of the Lanterners with the invariant weapons.” At least they had a good supply of missiles and ammunition, as Najhera had attempted to fight solely with exotic effects.

The Kel didn’t like the word “snipe,” but they were just going to have to deal. “Transmit orders,” Jedao said.

The acknowledgments lit up again, about as fast as they had earlier.

The Fortune Comes in Fours switched into invariant mode as they crossed into the null. The lights became less white-gold and more rust-gold, giving everything a corroded appearance. The hum of the moth’s systems changed to a deeper, grittier whisper. The moth’s acceleration became noticeable, mostly in the form of pain. Jedao wished he had thought to take an extra dose of painkillers, but