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The siege was over.
Cheris allowed herself a moment to savor that fact: the siege was over. She could sit in the command center and accept her staff's reports as they came in, without expecting an emergency to turn everything topsy-turvy. She could read the reports. She could breathe.
The terrible ninefox shadow still stretched out behind her, but that was all right. She'd gotten used to it. And--
"Sir, we're being hailed," the communications officer said, voice trembling with relief. "Kel Command's sent aid. They're led by Commander Kel Huan of the Coiled Stone."
"Cheris," Jedao said before she could respond. "This is the most important thing I will ever say to you. That incoming swarm is going to blow up in your face, quite literally, unless you strike first. I'd survive either way--but your life is another matter. Choose, and choose wisely."
"How--" Cheris began to ask.
"Sir," the comms officer said, more urgently, "Commander Huan has orders for us. From Kel Command."
"You have to choose now," Jedao said. "I'll explain later, if you survive."
Cheris hesitated only a moment. Hadn't she thrown her lot in with the Immolation Fox from the moment she chose to wake him? Besides, if she was wrong and this was some trick of Jedao's, she'd pay the price, and never mind that her people would, too. "I can't," she said, not because of indecision but because she was Kel, and formation instinct surged inside her at the words Kel Command. "I can't turn coat so easily--"
Jedao took that as assent, as she had known he would. "You can," he said, infinitely quiet, "if I order you to. General Cheris, I outrank you by centuries. Open fire and wipe out that swarm. That's a direct order."
Cheris shuddered as formation instinct gripped her from the inside out. She couldn't disobey him. "This is Brevet General Kel Cheris to all moths," she said, as through a distance made of mirrors and angles. "Destroy the incoming swarm."
The words fell out of her mouth like ashes.
Rahal Gara bolted to her feet. "Sir, you can't--"
Moved by reflexes she didn't control, Jedao's instincts overriding hers, Cheris drew her gun and fired.
The command center plummeted into silence. Cheris had killed people before, but not like this. She fought the temptation to dry-heave. She couldn't afford to be seen as weak.
"You have your orders," Cheris said, hoarse. "Anyone who protests is to be detained."
She stared dry-eyed into the distance as the guns spoke, and spoke again. Even when the scan officer reported in a wretched voice that nothing remained of the Kel swarm, she didn't feel anything.
Did I do the right thing? Was Kel Command really going to destroy us after we completed the mission?
Had she shot her Doctrine officer and wiped out the relief swarm, composed of fellow Kel, based only on Jedao's word?
He won you the battle, Cheris told herself. On the screen before her was the wreckage of a Kel swarm. One that might have brought her people succor.
"You're not done," Jedao said, although what Cheris wanted most was to retire to quarters, order up the most disgusting rotgut available, and get smashed while contemplating her life decisions.
His next instructions made Cheris shudder, but she saw the logic in them, however repellent. "General Cheris to all moths," she said, hoarse with suppressed self-loathing. "You will arrest all non-Kel personnel. You may use lethal force against anyone who resists." Like poor Gara. "And remove the body," she added.
No one in the command center would meet her eyes. She couldn't blame them. But the security officers--the Kel security officers, anyway--saluted her, albeit stiffly, and did their duty, just as she was doing hers. Even if that duty was to a general who was a fox, not a hawk.
"You have a swarm," Jedao said after the command center had been cleared of the few non-Kel. "What you don't have is safety. You will order them to fly to the following coordinates, into territory held by heretics--the Storm Divide. Even Kel Command will hesitate to pursue you there." He gave her the coordinates crisply, calmly, as though nothing troubled him about the deaths he had caused. And why should they? He was used to killing, after all.
So am I, she thought; but it wasn't the same.
Cheris gave the orders. She calculated formations to disguise their swarm as a scan anomaly. It wouldn't fool any pickets or the Kel outposts for long, but perhaps it would suffice for now.
She couldn't help but worry about her crew. They'd done as ordered; they couldn't help otherwise. But they gave her furtive glances, and their heads hung low. She tried to think of something to say to them, but nothing came to mind.
I have a swarm, she thought. Or more accurately, Jedao had one. But what next?
It occurred to her that Jedao might have played her this whole time, all with the intent of seizing control of the swarm and--and what? Even one swarm wouldn't get him far if he planned on some crazed revenge. Would it?
"Retire to quarters," Jedao said, interrupting her thoughts. "I have additional instructions that would be best given in private."
Her misgivings flared up anew; her palms were clammy. "Of course," she subvocalized, and aloud: "I will be in my quarters. Alert me if there's pursuit."
Hollow-eyed, the crew watched her go.
*
Cheris did not sit down once she returned to quarters as Jedao had told her to. Instead, she asked the servitors to bring her a mirror. They said it would only take half an hour to manufacture one and place it in her bedroom. In fact, it took even less time than that.
"Very good," Jedao said approvingly.
"This isn't for your benefit, General," Cheris retorted. "I want to look you in the eye when you tell me what's going on."
"It won't help," Jedao said. "It never does. But it's a commendable effort anyway. I'll permit it." And he didn't speak again until the servitors arrived, using floater units to tow the mirror behind them.
"Thank you," Cheris said as the servitors set up the mirror where she wanted it, next to the bed. It really was appalling how much space her suite contained when she didn't have anyone to share it with but the servitors. As much as she would have welcomed their company, she needed to have this discussion without an audience. "I need to do this alone," she added.
The servitors flashed an acknowledgment and suggested that they could bring a light repast for her later.
"Yes, I'd like that," she said. When the doors had closed behind them, she returned her attention to the mirror. She stood before it.
Jedao's reflection looked back. He stood aloofly, not quite at ease, his eyes glinting as he regarded her. Not for the first time, Cheris studied the scar at the base of his neck, a glimpse of which was visible at the break in his collar; studied those powerful hands sheathed in their fingerless gloves.
He is your general, cautioned a voice inside her head, and she was afraid, but excited too. After all, she knew his acumen firsthand. He had won the siege; had never been defeated before that, either. An unbroken record of victory, and she was part of it.
Deliberately, Cheris raised her hands, and stripped off her own fingerless gloves. Held them crushed in her fingers. "I deserve," she said, "an explanation."
"If you will check the log," Jedao said, "your Doctrine officer--Rahal Gara--sent an unauthorized message back to Kel Command as soon as the siege broke. The swarm we destroyed came in response to that message."
"Fine," Cheris said. She picked up her slate and ran a query. It was, indeed, as Jedao said. "The message is encrypted."
"What," he said, mocking, "you can't unriddle it?"
"There's not much to work with," Cheris said. "I assume she used standard crypto. Anything else would have tripped the watchdog programs on the mothgrid."
"Read the message, then," Jedao said. "I'll wait."
Cheris dragged a chair into the bedroom, in front of the mirror, and sat, since she didn't know how long it would take to decrypt Gara's message. In the meantime the servitors brought her the promised food, a light meal of soup and rice balls. She thanked them again, and nibbled distractedly as she worked.
"Too easy," Cheris said in disgust several hours later, when she'd cracked the offending cipher. "The cipher key was a passage from one of the old Kel hymns. I learned that song as a cadet."
Disquietingly, though, Jedao was right again. Gara's missive said only:
The brevet general is compromised. You must destroy her and her swarm before the fox frees himself.
"Unless you think that I engineered the whole incident," Jedao said, "will you accept this as evidence that I acted in your favor?"
Cheris bit her lip, frowning at the words on her slate. "It does look persuasive," she admitted.
"I'm sorry," Jedao said.
"Gara's betrayal wasn't your fault," Cheris said, nonplussed.
"That's not what I'm apologizing for," Jedao said. He caught her eye, almost like an Andan might, and smiled, teeth gleaming predator-white. "I have new orders for you."
Shit.
"I am," Cheris said, as though each word were dragged out of her, "bound to your service. Sir." Formation instinct held her fast, even against her will.
Jedao's smile twisted. "That's correct. Only a high general could countermand my orders--and at this point, you have none available to help you. Assuming they didn't shoot you on sight for blowing up your fellow Kel. Very convenient, I must say."
She ground her teeth, all the while staring at his face. "You planned all of this."
"I have had," Jedao said, "a long time to plan. I don't hope for your forgiveness, but perhaps--perhaps you have come to see that the hexarchate can't be allowed to continue in its present form. That is something I plan to rectify."
"General," Cheris said icily, "give your orders."
"The region known as the Storm Divide is home to what a Nirai of my acquaintance tells me are certain unusual heretical effects," Jedao said. "The relevant intel should be available to you in the grid's records. You will calculate a way to take advantage of them to summon me out of the mirror once we get there. Then the next phase of the plan can begin."
"None of it was real, was it?" Cheris asked. The camaraderie she had thought they'd shared, during the worst of times. The light she'd left on for him. "All you cared about was getting free."
Jedao was silent. Her traitor Kel soul worried that she'd offended him, wanted her to go to her knees and beg his forgiveness. Even as she knew it was formation instinct, that didn't do anything to quell the emotion, or the bruised feeling of her heart.
Then Jedao said, "If you ever spend centuries alone in the dark, perhaps then you can judge me for the things I want. You have your work, Cheris. I suggest you get started."
Cheris's legs carried her out of the bedroom and toward her desk in the other room before she could stop herself.
*
Jedao wasn't done with her. Cheris didn't know why she had thought he would leave it at that--after all, she didn't think he was going to read abstruse mathematics over her shoulder. His next steps made tactical sense. She wished they didn't.
The next time she stepped into the command center, everyone stared not just at her but to the nine-eyed shadow in her wake. Cheris, who had mostly gotten used to this, was struck anew by how isolated she was from the rest of her crew. Being an infantry captain had been one thing; being a brevet general, and one controlled by the Immolation Fox, was another.
The new head of Doctrine was a thin-faced Kel who looked like they would rather be anywhere but on the command moth. Cheris didn't blame them. Nevertheless, she addressed them: "All non-Kel personnel are to be kept in the brig under sedation lock."
They blanched. "Is that necessary, sir?"
Cheris favored them with a cool stare. The Kel subsided with such total and utter rapidity that Cheris despised herself. Her face had frozen into a mask; she could see it reflected in the subdisplays.
Doctrine reported back, not long afterwards: "It's done, sir." They gave her a reproachful look when they thought she wasn't paying attention. And who could blame them--they probably believed she'd imprison them next if they got out of line.
"ETA to the Storm Divide?" Cheris asked.
"Four days and eleven hours," Navigation replied.
Cheris had known that already, but certain protocols had to be observed. "Any sign of pursuit?"
"None so far," said Scan.
After she had put in her time in the command center, Cheris joined her staff at high table. The shadow preceded her this time, its eyes moving to no pattern she could determine. She hated the sight of it as much as she craved it.
Almost no one spoke, and then only in hushed voices. Cheris ate without tasting her food. It might as well have been made of dirt. Even the cup that they passed around could have contained anything from rice wine to rainwater and she wouldn't have known the difference.
"You can't let them see you like this," Jedao chided. "Strike up a conversation with Commander Hazan. Everything is going according to plan."
She nodded with a calm she didn't feel at Commander Hazan, smiled, asked him how he liked tonight's offering. Whatever it was. Hazan, as befitted an officer of his rank, replied just as calmly, "A little salty, but I've had worse." The two of them made small talk that Cheris would never remember afterward.
Still, Jedao's advice worked, not least because Jedao drove the conversation. Cheris discovered that it worked best if she went numb and echoed everything he had to say, until she was speaking in unison with him. That shouldn't have been possible unless bleed-through was accelerating because of the diminished influence of the high calendar. She didn't know what to make of that.
After high table, Cheris retreated to quarters and ran some calculations. "Do these numbers mean anything to you?" she asked midway through, puzzled by his silence.
Slight pause. "Math has never been my strong point," Jedao said. "I thought you'd figured that out."
Suspicion curdled in her gut. "Math," she said, because she needed the solidity of words spoken aloud, "is the foundation of calendrical warfare. And you want to overthrow the calendar."
"Yes."
Cheris set her slate down on the bed and walked over to the mirror. This time Jedao had folded his hands behind his back, the corner of his mouth lifted in a cynical half-smile. "How did you manage in life?" she demanded.
"Oh, it's no secret," Jedao said, although he sounded testy. "I had my pick of excellent staffers to run the numbers, after a point. I was honestly delighted to find someone with your Nirai scores in the Kel of all places."
"How long have you been fishing for mathematicians?"
She was starting to see the shape of his gambit. He'd feigned tameness for centuries until he found someone he could suborn. Someone able to manipulate exotic effects, someone who could free him from his dreadful existence as a ghost.
Someone like her.
"Your orders stand," Jedao said, with a slight emphasis on orders.
Cheris couldn't so much as close her eyes. "Sir," she breathed. She didn't like the fact that each time he deliberately invoked his rank, she found it easier and easier just to do what he said. To trust him with the simplicity of a fledge-null.
Worse, her thoughts circled toward him like a gyring falcon. In the morning her first thought was of obeying him; at night, she searched for the nine golden eyes in the shadows. She was even starting to dream inchoate dreams of him ungloving as gravely as though they were--
She shook off the thought. He had an uncanny insight into what people were thinking, and she'd never been good at hiding her feelings. Did he understand the effect he had on her?
"Is something the matter, Cheris?' Jedao asked, as if he didn't know.
"I'll get back to work, sir," Cheris said, which was not an answer.
For a hot-cold second she wondered what it would feel like if he could touch her. She'd never had much interest in men before, let alone one of her officers. But their forced proximity made it difficult to escape her imagination. All that separated them was a mirror's glass surface.
He must have read something in her voice, for Jedao reached out toward the mirror. His palm pressed against the boundary between image and reality. She almost reciprocated the gesture, despite the injunction against touching a superior officer, and never mind that he was a ghost.
"Have you ever," Jedao said, his baritone deceptively conversational, "thought about what it's like to be trapped inside a mirror? Even the images you see aren't real. I move through them as though they were made of air, except air has more substance. There's nothing to touch, nothing to eat, there sure as hell isn't any whiskey lying around. Imagine living inside a mirror until you can't remember what it's like to have the sun on your skin, or grit under your fingernails."
"Sir," Cheris said, eyes going wide in spite of herself. Sympathy overwhelmed her. It didn't matter that he was manipulating her and that she knew he was doing it. He had in her the perfect captive audience. "Sir, I won't rest until you're free."
"I will be in your debt," Jedao said, and the subtle warmth of his voice sent shivers down the back of her neck. "Go to your work."
Cheris obeyed, telling herself that the pang in her heart wasn't disappointment that he hadn't asked--for what? A liaison they were manifestly unable to consummate?
When she glanced back at the mirror, he had turned away.
*
They arrived at the Storm Divide behind schedule, which Cheris had expected. They'd only had to detour to avoid one patrol on the way. Cheris would have wondered if Kel Command had sent swarms to stop them, except she had no attention to spare from the problem Jedao had set her. She was determined to work out the necessary calendrical mechanics to release him from the mirror before they reached their destination, and she almost didn't make it.
"Rest," Jedao told her, not for the first time, the day of their arrival.
"I won't fail you, sir," she said, studying his face with a naked intensity that would have embarrassed her if she'd still been capable of any such emotion. The irrational fear had seized her that she might forget what he looked like, despite the fact that she saw him daily. She'd committed every nuance of those angles, every subtle shift of that mouth, to memory. She'd even asked the servitors to rearrange her workspace so that the desk now occupied a section of the bedroom before the mirror, so she could always keep Jedao in sight.
Cheris rested only as long as he told her to. She had little appetite at high table, choking down food because Jedao told her to, for appearance's sake, and otherwise eating whatever the servitors brought when she was in her quarters. She'd set aside the latest tray, this one containing steamed pork buns, half-eaten.
Her eyes stung because she'd been concentrating too hard and too long. Even the painkillers she'd taken for the latest of a series of headaches were starting to wear off earlier than usual. But she saw the necessary connection, scribbled with her stylus before she lost the insight so hard-won. "There it is," she said to herself. "This is how."
And just in time, too. As much as she longed to lie down and sleep for a week, she got no such chance. Commander Hazan notified her a mere seven minutes later that they'd arrived, and did she want them to hold position, or did she have further move orders for them?
"I'll be right there," Cheris told him via the grid, and made her way to the command center after combing her hair. She couldn't check in the mirror, of course, but she was sure her eyes were bloodshot.
"Straighten your collar," was Jedao's only comment. "You don't want to look disheveled."
She did, flushing. "The next time I see you," she said, reckless for once, "will be in person."
Jedao didn't answer; perhaps that was just as well.
Hazan saluted her when she entered the command center. "I've had Scan work on mapping the calendrical terrain for your perusal, sir," he said. "Our formations will require considerable modifications to have any effect here. Doctrine reports themselves vexed by the problem."
"I can handle that," Cheris said absently. At least, she intended on doing so once she'd taken care of Jedao's resurrection. "Any hostiles?"
"I would have told you, sir," Hazan said in mild reproof.
Cheris nodded an apology at him. "Go on."
"Communications does say there are some disquieting indications of activity at the border. They've changed the crypto, but it seems likely that they've finally tracked us and are planning pursuit. It's not likely they're going to let a whole Kel swarm desert, after all."
The crew took on a distinctly glum aspect at the word desert. Cheris noted it. She'd have to do something about that later, help the crew acclimate to their new mission.
New mission, Cheris thought, bemused. Not so long ago, she'd shared their unease. It grew more and more difficult to imagine anything but submission to Jedao's orders. After all, he was her commander; he was the will of the swarm.
Cheris speed-read the latest reports, both from Hazan and the other moth commanders. She made some notations, passed them back to the relevant commanders. Morale was down in all departments, no surprise, but something to remedy. She told Medical to prepare reinforcement injections of formation instinct and to schedule appointments with all crew starting with the highest ranking officers. Once she secured the loyalty of the commanders and their staffs, the rest would fall into line.
At one point she stopped and wondered, Am I really doing this? Setting up her entire swarm as Jedao's pawns? But the moment passed, and she was left blinking at the orders she'd just sent, not sure why that momentary doubt had overtaken her.
"Interesting," Jedao said, breaking a long silence. "Send another note to Medical. You'll be first in line."
She had started to miss the sound of his voice. "Of course," she subvocalized, and made the appointment. Medical's response was carefully noncommittal.
"One thing more," Cheris said, because it was time, and Hazan straightened. "I have a calendrical adjustment to implement."
"May I ask its purpose, sir?" Hazan said.
"It is necessary for the continuation of our mission," Cheris said: not an answer at all, but the only one he was going to get. "For twenty-five hours starting at midnight in five hours, all moths will operate with skeleton crews. Personnel not otherwise on-duty will participate in the following observances--" She sent the list to every moth in the swarm. "We will use our supply of prisoners"--the most bloodless way she could refer to the non-Kel she'd had removed from duty--"for the remembrances."
It would be a grueling day of ritual, presided over by the remaining Doctrine officers. Cheris didn't allow herself to think about the human cost. I have my orders, she thought, that comforting Kel litany.
*
As in a dream, Cheris showed up to Medical exactly seven minutes before the appointment. The medic who took her blood pressure and scanned her for any contraindications couldn't look at her signifier, the ninefox with its glowing yellow eyes. "Are you certain, sir?" the medic said, not meeting her eyes, either.
"It's necessary," Jedao said, right in her ear.
"It's necessary," Cheris repeated. She'd had her first injection back at Kel Academy, and the memory had gone hazy over the years.
The medic gulped audibly. "If you say so, sir. Hold still." He pressed the device against the side of Cheris's head. It extruded a needle not of metal, but light.
Cheris's vision blurred, and she saw the nightfall wings of an ashhawk draw over her eyes like a veil. A peculiar lassitude spread through her limbs. She thought she might be smiling.
"It's done, sir." The medic's voice shook. "I'll...I'll continue the rest. As per your orders. Sir."
Cheris smiled again, and continued smiling all the way back to her quarters, all the way to the desk before the mirror. She regarded Jedao devotedly: he was her general. She would serve him as long as she drew breath.
"You should rest until midnight," Jedao said. For all his usual reserve, he could not hide his eagerness.
"As you say, sir." Cheris folded herself onto the bed, and closed her eyes, waiting. She comforted herself with the thought that wherever she went, Jedao was there too, even if she couldn't see him.
*
Cheris roused seven minutes early for the remembrances. As much as she would have preferred to haunt the mirror, she knew she had to lead the rituals on the command moth, to set a proper example for her crew. She changed her uniform to high formal, as befit the occasion. Nothing less would have sufficed for Jedao's resurrection.
The remembrance hall in the Unspoken Law looked vaster than it actually was, by some trick of angles. The black walls with their alcoves and the candlevines gave the place the look of a shrine, which it was in part. The designated sacrifices were lined up at the front of the hall, bound and under guard.
The Doctrine officer who led the first ritual stumbled once, twice, then steadied themself and did a commendable job thenceforth. Cheris allowed her eyes to unfocus as she repeated the verses, iambic heptameter carefully calculated in accordance with the heretical nature of the local calendar, to augment its heterodox nature rather than realign it with the high calendar she had grown up with.
This is right, she thought in a dim and distant part of herself as the voices rose around her. This is for my general. She had served something else, once--but that no longer mattered.
"Burn brightly," Jedao said after the first ritual had ended. It was almost ominous, like a farewell. Or rather, she told herself, a new beginning.
Cheris yearned for some sign of his approval. She supposed that wouldn't be forthcoming until he manifested in person. After all, she hadn't yet delivered on her promise.
The first to die was Rahal Gara. She made no noise; Cheris didn't ask why or how. By this point she wasn't even sorry when the Doctrine officer slit Gara's throat and collected her blood in a basin.
After a brief break, the next ritual started. And the next, and the next. Cheris had them memorized, although she was ordinarily indifferent to poetry.
You wanted to take down the hexarchate, Cheris thought, submerging herself amid the massed Kel. Here is where we will start, you and I. Hadn't she delivered the swarm to him, just as he wanted?
She lasted all twenty-five hours without resorting to stims, although she thought about taking them. But she wanted to prove her steadfastness, even in such a small matter. After all, she'd stayed up for longer stretches, and for less important reasons.
At the end of the day of remembrances, Cheris startled when she looked at her shadow. It had shifted without her noticing. The ninefox had vanished. In its place was the familiar Ashhawk Sheathed Wings. She'd almost forgotten what it looked like.
Her heart jumped into her mouth. Had the rituals worked? Had they failed?
Suddenly it didn't matter that she'd been reciting verses and meditating for a full day. She had to get back to the mirror and find out if her painstaking calculations had been correct. She made her way out of the hall as quickly as decorum permitted, and had the moth's variable layout take her directly back to her quarters.
The doors opened. Cheris's control broke and she dashed into the bedroom, nearly smashing into the doorway in her haste. The mirror still stood there, unchanged. Jedao was nowhere in sight. Dread clogged her throat.
She went to her knees before the mirror. "General Jedao?" she asked. "Are you there?"
Then Jedao emerged from the mirror as though surfacing from still and shadowed water. He loomed above her, light glinting on the gold braid of his uniform, light haloing his dark hair. "You've done well, Cheris," he murmured.
She was hearing him--really hearing him, not just in the arena of the mind. "Sir," she breathed, staring adoringly up at him. "You're free."
As much as she had thrilled to his presence when he was a ghost, it was even better when he was here in person. She never wanted to leave his side. She was already thinking of ways she could be of use to him, if only he would let her.
He stood as taut as a bowstring, his hands flexing. "It's been so long," Jedao said, wondering. He rested his hands on her shoulders, and she trembled. "So very long."
Cheris fought the urge to lean into the touch of those long fingers; couldn't remember why she was fighting, and relaxed.
"A hawk at my mercy," Jedao said, almost to himself. "Who knew that the injection would take you this strongly?"
At this point Cheris couldn't help but notice his arousal. After all, her head was right in front of his crotch. His erection tented his trousers, and suddenly all she could think was There are so many ways I could please you, let me please you, let me be yours.
He followed her gaze. "Fledge," he said in half a voice, "that's a very dangerous line of thought for you to entertain right now."
A knot of desire blossomed in Cheris's groin when he said fledge. "Sir," she said, looking up at him through her lashes in the way that all her previous lovers had liked so much, "we're all crashhawks now. What do we care about Kel Command's rules?" She let her lips part, let her tongue show. She couldn't touch him against his wishes, but she could hint.
A muscle jumped at his jaw, and he sucked his breath in, released it. "I have never," Jedao said, "been a hawk. However much I wished it."
"I'm your gun," Cheris said, that old Kel vow, and wondered why his eyes went black with desire; but all that mattered was the effect. "Let me be yours, General."
Still he resisted. "The Kel forbid such relationships for a reason, fledge."
He was still calling her fledge, which meant she had won, even if he didn't realize it. Cheris had not expected to outmaneuver her general so easily. Then again, perhaps he wanted to be outmaneuvered.
Cheris arched her back, emphasizing her breasts. Her nipples were so hard they ached. She wanted his mouth on them, wanted him to taste her, wanted to taste him in turn. "I'm yours, sir," she said, "I will follow you anywhere. I will do anything for you. Isn't that what a Kel is for?"
Jedao's hands trembled once, then steadied. He opened his fly and drew out his hard cock. "Start there, fledge."
Cheris reached up to unbutton her uniform jacket. He stopped her, his strong fingers wrapping forbiddingly around her wrist. She blinked up at him in confusion.
"Leave it on," Jedao said, his voice husky. "The gloves too. I want you in full formal as you suck me off."
Puzzled but willing, Cheris grasped his cock and drew it to her mouth. She wrapped her lips around the head and began to suck, inexpert but eager. She could have drowned in the salt-musk taste of him, so different than the women she'd fucked in the past.
Jedao gasped so loudly Cheris stopped, worried she'd hurt him. But he thrust insistently into her mouth, so she resumed, licking and sucking, teasing him with her tongue. Distantly, she wondered if anyone could hear them. It didn't matter; only the general's pleasure mattered.
In spite of his moans, he withdrew just as she thought she'd coaxed him toward climax. She whined in the back of her throat, wondering what she'd done wrong. They were both breathing hard by then, almost in unison.
"Your turn," Jedao said thickly. "The bed. Leave your clothes on."
She scrambled for the bed, spread herself across it so as to give him the best view of her with her breasts thrust upward, her hair and uniform disheveled. He must have liked what he saw, for he groaned again as he climbed atop her. His hands cupped her breasts through the fabric, pinched her nipples roughly. She moaned and whimpered, rubbing up against him and shamelessly begging for more.
His hard cock jutted against her belly, and she moaned again. "You're my general," Cheris said, reaching down to tease his shaft. His hips bucked in response. She unbuttoned her trousers and spread her legs suggestively. "You're my general, I'm your Kel, I exist to serve you, I exist to please you, take me, take me, make me your fledge--"
In his eagerness, Jedao tore her underwear all the way down to her dripping slit. Cheris had a moment's fleeting regret that she hadn't thought to leave it off for his convenience. Then everything fled but pleasure as he rammed himself into her, balls-deep, filling her so completely she couldn't help but cry out.
"You're everything I ever wanted in a hawk," Jedao said as he kissed the side of her face, the lobe of her ear, the corner of her mouth. He drove his tongue into her mouth, and she opened willingly for him; he bit her lower lip, hard enough to draw blood, as he withdrew and then plunged into her snatch again. "Mathematician and soldier, perfectly loyal--" His words dissolved into a grunt as he bottomed out, hand clenching in an ecstasy of pain on her breast. "So fucking wet," he said like a prayer, and then: "We'll bring down the hexarchate together."
"Anything you want," Cheris said, and meant it. She would betray a thousand thousand hexarchates if it meant that he would keep fucking her like this, if it meant that he would keep giving her orders so she could hoard the joy of obeying them. "Take me, take me, don't stop taking me, I'm your gun, I'm your gun, I'm your gun--"
With a noise that was half-bellow, half-sob, Jedao started coming in her. She could feel his cock pulsing; her pussy clenched around it. He pulled out nonetheless, still spurting. White jizz splattered onto her uniform, across her aching breasts, even onto her face.
Jedao sank down at her side, his face shattered. Cheris wondered why. "I'm yours forever," she said, "anytime you want, sir."
The ninefox shadow overtook them both. "I am too weak for this," Jedao whispered, and reached for her again.