Shuos Ko

Captain-analyst **Shuos Ko** was the head of the Shuos analyst team assigned to the null swarm. He appears in Ninefox Gambit.

## Appearance and Personality

Ko is laconic, blandly polite, and able to blend into the background. Unusually for one serving in the Kel military, he wears a beard. He describes analyst work as a tedious, eye-destroying triage of reports, maps, and clock times notable mainly for its lack of daylight.

## History

Ko was born on a planet. He lived most of his post-Academy life on stations, which he felt was not the same.

He served at his present position for eight years before being assigned to the swarm retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles. After receiving his orders, Ko analyzed the metastasization of the heresy on the Fortress and concluded that it could only have spread so fast by means of a conspiracy, though General Shuos Jedao doubted that the hexarchate would have allowed one. The Rahal, however, responded to Ko's queries with a threat to counterinvestigate.

Brevet General Kel Cheris met Ko at the black cradle facility with the rest of the Shuos team. He introduced her to Shuos Veldiadar, Shuos Mrai Dhun, Shuos Teng, and Shuos Liis, and they accompanied her on the ferry to the cindermoth *Unspoken Law*. Upon being greeted by Commander Kel Nerevor, who somewhat rudely addressed him as "Captain Shuos" instead of using his personal name, he seemed not to notice the slight. Later, Cheris ordered the Shuos team and Cryptology, under Captain-analyst Nirai Damiod, to cooperate in their work.

Ko took Cheris seriously when she chastised the swarm after the debacle with Vidona Diaiya's fungal canister.

During the assault on the Fortress's shields, Scan was ordered to copy Ko on all results of the bombardment for analysis by the Shuos team. Ko reported that the three-lit-dots triangle figure appearing on the shield was a new symbol for high alert in Shuos security suites, indicating that the operator's knowledge of Shuos security was up to date within the past five years. After the shields were breached, Ko advised Cheris that Kel Command might now be willing to give them its list of qualified shield operators, especially since they'd be erasing state secrets from the swarm's personnel anyway. He added compliments to Jedao before signing off. Andan Nidario's plea for Kel Command's help was also sent to Ko for analysis.

While working on a dummy cryptosystem Cheris had requested, Ko reported a partial personnel dump acquired by one of the Shuos infiltrators which identified Liozh Zai as a clerk, agreeing with Jedao's deduction that all the Fortress's shield operators had similar cover identities. He also mentioned that Zai was using Liozh gold-and-white garb as a calendrical focus, remarking that its significance in the Fortress's atmospherics would have required time and groundwork, and reported, on Damiod's behalf, a possible exploit in the station's encryptions.

After preparing the dummy cipher, believable but able to be cracked within a few days by the heretics, Ko took Cheris's orders to insert a fake message into a communications tap on the Fortress, suggesting for Gerenag Abrana's benefit that "Jedao" was colluding with Zai. He also noted that her one-time use of the tap for a message making it no longer necessary was "very Shuos."

Several days later, Ko was killed by the carrion bomb which hit the *Unspoken Law* and destroyed much of the swarm. Cheris saw his remains afterwards as a pillar of carrion glass "spindled into dark, imperturbable strands."

## References

1. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 7
2. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 8
3. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 7
4. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 7
5. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 9
6. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 10
7. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 11
8. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 14
9. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 19
10. ↑ Ninefox Gambit, Chapter 24