Shadow of the Hegemon, the - Book 2 (Ender)

right," said Sayagi. "Courage even when you can't win."
    "What happened to 'discretion is the better part of valor'?"
    "A quotation from a cowardly character in Shakespeare," someone else pointed out.
    "Not contradictory anyway," said Sayagi. "Completely different circumstances. If there's a chance of victory later through withdrawal now, you keep your forces intact. But personally, as an individual, if you know that the price of doing right is terrible loss or suffering or even death, satyagraha means that you are all the more determined to do right, for fear that fear might make you unrighteous."
    "Oh, paradoxes within paradoxes."
    But Petra turned it from superficial philosophy to something else entirely. "I am trying," she said, "to achieve satyagraha."
    And in the silence that followed, she knew that some, at least, understood. She was alive right now because she had not achieved satyagraha, because she had not always done the right thing, but had done only what was necessary to survive. And she was preparing to change that. To do the right thing regardless of whether she lived through it or not. And for whatever reason-respect for her, uncomfortableness with the intensity of it, or serious contemplation-they remained silent until the meal ended and they spoke again of quotidian things.
    Now the war had been going for a month, and Achilles was giving them daily pep talks about how victory was imminent even as they wrestled privately with the growing problems of extricating the army. There had been some victories, and at two points the Indian Army was now in Thai territory-but that only lengthened the supply lines and put the army into mountainous country again, where their large numbers could not be brought to bear against the enemy, yet still had to be supplied. And these offensives had chewed through fuel and munitions. In a few days, they would have to choose between fueling tanks and fueling supply trucks. They were about to become a very hungry all-infantry army.
    As soon as Achilles left, Sayagi stood up. "It is time to write down our plan for withdrawal and submit it. We must declare victory and withdraw."
    There was no dissent. Even though the vids and the nets were full of stories of the great Indian victories, the advance into Thailand, these plans had to be written down, the orders drawn up, while there was still time and fuel enough to carry them out.
    So they spent that morning writing each component of the plan. Sayagi, as their de facto leader, assembled them into a single, fairly coherent set of documents. In the meantime, Petra browsed the net and worked on the project she had been assigned by Achilles, taking no part in what they were doing. They didn't need her for this, and it was her desk that was most closely monitored by Achilles. As long as she was being obedient, Achilles might not notice that the others were not.
    When they were almost done, she spoke up, even though she knew that Achilles would be notified quickly of what she said-that he might even be listening through that hearing aid in his ear. "Before you email it," she said, "post it."
    At first they probably thought she meant the internal posting, where they could all read it. But then they saw that, using her fingernail on a piece of rough tan toilet paper, she had scratched a net address and was now holding it out.
    It was Peter Wiggin's "Locke" forum.
    They looked at her like she was crazy. To post military plans in a public place?
    But then Sayagi began to nod. "They intercept all our emails," he said. "This is the only way it will get to Chapekar himself."
    "To make military secrets public," someone said. He did not need to finish. They knew the penalty.
    "Satyagraha," said Sayagi. He took the toilet paper with the address and sat down to go to that netsite. "I am the one doing this, and no one else," he said. "The rest of you warned me not to. There is no reason for more than one person to risk the consequences." Moments later, the data was flowing to Peter Wiggin's forum.
    Only then did he send it as email to the general command-which would be routed through Achilles' computer.
    "Sayagi," someone said. "Did you see what else is posted here? On this netsite?"
    Petra also moved to the Locke forum and discovered that the lead essay on Locke's site was headed, "Chinese treachery and the fall of India." The subhead said, "Will China, too, fall victim to a psychopath's twisted plans?"
    Even as they were reading Locke's essay