Lakota oyate.

A Lakota nation, but not only a nation of Lakota. It is the time of the White Buffalo, the return seen, if seen unclearly, by the Paiute holy man Wovoka, the fulfillment of prophecy.

She blinks to clear the thought, and finds Manny looking at her oddly. The General has resumed his briefing, something about forming small parties and communications problems. “Koda?” Her cousin’s voice is very soft. “You with us?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks.”

His face is a question. Tacoma, across the table, is watching her intently. “I’m fine,” she repeats. “Later.”

Without warning, the door opens. Kirsten stands framed in the opening, Asimov alert beside her. Her face is white with the rage that flares in her eyes, colder than the wailing heart of a blizzard. She says nothing. Sound dies in the room as all eyes at the table turn toward her.

After an awkward moment, Hart breaks the silence. “Dr. King, are you looking for someone? My secretary can direct you, if you’ll excuse us?”

Still Kirsten says nothing. Koda can feel the anger as it comes off her in waves, almost palpable in its strength. And with it there is a power she has not felt in the other woman before, something similar to the force she has sensed in Maggie. For a moment she is absurdly relieved that Kirsten is not holding a weapon. There is an authority in her that Koda has never seen before, not even in the moment when she stalked up to Hart and struck him across the face after the bombing of Minot.

Ithanchan winan. The thought comes unbidden. This woman is a chief.

Koda starts to push her chair back and rise to her feet, but Tacoma is there before her. Straight as a birch tree, he snaps to attention and salutes the woman in the doorway. Eyes on Kirsten, he stands motionless.

Manny follows by a heartbeat, then Allen. “Madame Secretary,” the Colonel says pointedly.

The Marine and the Corporal are on their feet, then, together with the civilians. Koda’s heart rises and lodges somewhere in her throat. Finally Hart does what he must. He moves away from the wall and salutes. “At your service, Ma’am.”

Kirsten holds them all with her eyes for a moment longer. Then she gives a brief wave of her hand. “At ease.”

Hart pulls out his own chair at the head of the table for her, and Kirsten makes her way toward the front of the room. Asi paces with the dignity of a wolf beside her, for once ignoring his new friends. Koda’s memory flashes on her first meeting with the big dog in the snowy clearing, his formal pose atop the log suddenly connecting with an image older by thousands of years, the jackal-god stretched out on a mastaba bench before the shrine of Pharaoh. Anubis the Watcher. Guardian of the King.

Quietly Kirsten takes her seat, Asimov still standing at her side. “Thank you, General Hart,” she says. “Please begin the briefing.”

Koda watches as Tacoma struggles manfully not to grin, gives up and coughs, turning his face away from the defeated General. The sparkle in his eyes is contagious, though, and it spreads up and down the table like February sun on new-melted springwater. The General is visibly relieved when he is able, finally, to order the lights off and run the video again. As it plays a second time, Koda memorizes the terrain; shapes of hills, angles of the moon, bare trees lining a rise against the sky, the course of a freshening stream, contours of barren fields where the dark earth begins to break through the blanket of snow.

When it is over, the Colonel reviews the information that cannot be gotten onto film, and Kirsten listens without comment. When Maggie falls silent, she says, “General, is it your estimation that this base is the only regional defense installation still operable in this area?”

“Ma’am, it is.” He gestures back toward the map. “If Ellsworth goes under, the droids will not only have access to all our remaining armaments but will be able to overcome any resistance the surviving civilian population can offer. So far they have no air power, possibly because other installation commanders have disabled their planes; possibly because some, like Colonel Allen and her squadron, were in the air at the time of the mutiny; possibly because some aircraft were destroyed in the fighting. Possibly, too, because they have no human pilots, and none of the military droids, that I’m aware of, are programmed to fly. We can’t allow those assets to fall into their hands. Nor can we abandon our remaining civilian population.”

“I agree.” Kirsten glances down the table at volunteers that are suddenly hers, her gaze lingering on Koda for an infinitesimal fraction of a second before moving on. Again there is that small, phantom pain in her heart, coupled with a sense of finality. It is not just the world that has changed, she realizes. It is my world, and the change is forever.

“Colonel.”

“Ma’am.”

“Organize your scout parties. Put me on one of them.”

All hell breaks loose. Koda finds herself wanting to shout with the rest, but clamps her teeth shut on words she knows will be useless.

“Dr. King—“

”Madame Secretary—“

“Ma’am, beg your pardon, but you can’t go. You’re too valuable to risk.” Hart wins out above the clamor. “You’re the only one who has any hope at all of shutting these godammed—I beg your pardon, Ma’am—these droids down. I can’t allow—that is, you can’t put yourself in danger.”

“It’s not for you to allow or not, General.” Koda speaks softly but firmly. “Dr. King fought her way—alone—from Washington all the way to Minot to get the shut-down code for the droids. She infiltrated the Base there and successfully passed herself off as a droid.” She hesitates for a moment, weighing her words, but there is no further virtue in diplomacy. “But for the destruction of Minot, her mission would have succeeded, and we would not presently be facing a second attack.”

For the first time since entering the room, Kirsten smiles, a slight lift of the corners of her mouth. It takes Koda between one breath and the next and almost stops her heart. She can count on one hand—maybe one finger—the times she has seen that expression on the other woman’s face.

”Not quite alone.” Gently Kirsten ruffles Asi’s ears. “Can you understand droid-to-droid transmissions, General?” When he does not answer, she says, “I can. We can’t afford for me not to go.”

There is a an uncomfortable silence. “I am going,” Kirsten repeats. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Oh, ma’am, you certainly do,” Manny says on an outrush of breath that is not quite laughter. “No offense, but God missed the target when you weren’t born a Lakota.”

*

A blast of static comes across Dakota’s earpiece. “…Tshunka…20…come back?”

She taps the earpiece, wincing as it lets off another, louder, blast of static. “Tacoma, is that you?”

“Han…your 20? GPS…fucked …can’t…you.”

Koda looks down at her own unit, frowning as snow and wavery lines cross through the normally steady display. She cocks a look to Manny, who shakes his head.

“Maybe the metalheads are screwing with the signal?” he asks.

“Doubtful,” Kirsten responds. “They might have advanced technologies, but even they need to rely on the GPS to fix a firm position. Most likely, the problem is with the satellites themselves. With no one around to monitor them, their orbits are starting to decay. Pretty soon these units will make attractive paperweights for all the good they’ll be.”

“Cheery thought,” Manny mutters half under his breath.

Another blast of static makes its way into Dakota’s brain. “…Tshunka…20….”

“Keep your pants on, thiblo. We’re working on it.”

Slipping the communications piece from her ear, Koda looks around, trying to manually triangulate their position by known landmarks. Darkness, and the fact that they’ve traveled several miles in that dark, most of them on foot---actually by snowshoe (and trying to teach Kirsten, a city girl at heart with an aversion to snow and anything associated with it, how to snowshoe is a story in and of itself), makes this a difficult task at best.

“Tell him that we’re halfway between the big rock and the tree that looks like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, two steps off the nearest cow path.”

Feeling her jaw drop, Koda slowly turns her head until Kirsten’s stone, black streaked, face is perfectly in her sites.

Manny, just as shocked, voices what Koda cannot. “Did…did you just crack a joke? Ma’am?”

Green eyes blaze from blackface, and Manny gulps. Hard.

“Didn’t think so, Ma’am.”

Koda clamps her jaw shut and settles for shaking her head. She scans the area ahead and, once she has their position firmly in her mind, slips the communications piece back in her ear and, through the static, relays that position in Lakota to her brother.

Satisfied with her response, Tacoma cuts communication and the world around Dakota falls back into blessed quiet. In the silence, she notices Kirsten staring blankly into the distance, her expression intent. Closing the distance between them, Dakota stops just outside the other woman’s body-space and waits patiently.

Sensing Dakota’s presence, Kirsten blinks, draws back into herself, and gives the tall woman a questioning look.

“Hear anything?”

“Garbled,” Kirsten replies, slipping the bud from her ear. “They’re definitely headed this way, though.” She looks around, then back at Koda. “It would make sense, if they’ve got humans with them, to take a main road, even if it hasn’t been plowed. Are there any of those near here?”

“About ten paces directly ahead. A main highway.”

“That close, huh?”

Koda grins, a flash of pure white against the black greasepaint on her face. “We’ll be long gone before they get within sniffing distance.”