Ninefox Gambit (The Machineries of Empire, #1)

by Yoon Ha Lee

The thing is, Jedao isn’t just a traitor, even if people’s brains short out around that fact. He’s also a Shuos. The two aren’t equivalent, despite the Shuos jokes. He was a Shuos assassin before he switched tracks, and there’s circumstantial evidence he did some analyst work as well. Anyway, his career with the Kel was unobjectionable. He kept that up for almost twenty years. As if he were under deep cover. All the way up to Hellspin Fortress. Hellspin Fortress wasn’t a Kel assault. The Kel wave banners at you before they join battle. You can always see them coming. Setting up a deathtrap for not one but two armies – that’s not a psychotic break. That’s a plan with a twenty-year setup. A Shuos plan, to be precise. Ambushes, computer systems going haywire, contradictory orders, weapons failing. To say nothing of the infamous threshold winnowers. Too much fancy shooting with his staff, but it worked. No wonder the Nirai have made no progress. They’ve been trying to cure Jedao, but he was never mad to begin with. I’ll go you one better. He’s exactly where he wants to be. He’s immortal and he has all the time in the world to carry out his plot, whatever it is. I don’t know why he slaughtered his way into the black cradle. But I will bet you my last sweet bean pastry that even the incomprehensible slaughter served some purpose. And we’re the next step in his plan. Zai, we’ve got to stop him. We’ve got to destroy him because I don’t care how many Kel swarms we have incoming, he...