Chapter 10

There are few things as disconcerting to a national intelligence agency as having a horde of foreign intelligence agents descend upon the country. Usually it is a sign that something very bad is about to happen. If it isn’t bad, then something of game changing significance is occurring.

For Mr. Nayar, the fact that the Empress of the Jade Empire intended to make her international debut in Inra was one of those exceptional circumstances where a game changing event was about to occur in his backyard. After informing the Prime Minister of the pending visit, he rushed back to his office knowing that a lot of people of interest were about to descend on Inra. There were going to be a lot of new faces at the embassy parties over the next few weeks. Each person would have a rather bland sounding job title, Envoy for the Appreciation of Mice, or some such, but they’d all be spooks.

Pulling into the parking lot of his office building, he was wondering who would be the first to show up. He didn’t have to wonder long. There was a limousine waiting at the curb. As soon as he stepped out of his car, two men were approaching him.

He muttered darkly to himself, “I should have known that General Hang and Prince Tsang would be the first to discover something was going on. I bet that Mr. Conway from Amra will be here on the next plane.”

Smiling, he approached the two men with a hand extended. He said, “General Hang and Prince Tsang, what a surprise.”

General Hang asked, “So have you met the Empress yet?”

“No. I was informed of her existence about three hours ago.”

“That’s odd. We were informed that she was making her international debut here about eight hours ago.”

That tripped him up. How could they find out about a state visit before the country hosting the visit was even informed that there would be a visit? They had to have a source inside the Jade Empire.

Mr. Nayar said, “Lord Flavia only informed me that the Empress was coming three hours ago. How did you find out about it already?”

“A reporter told me. Who is Lord Flavia?”

“One of the Black Lords of the Jade Empire. What reporter told you about the visit?”

Prince Tsang said, “There are Black Lords?”

General Hang answered, “Sandy Dancing.”

“I find it rather disturbing that the most irritating reporter in the world knew about this visit before we did.”

General Hang said, “She does have some interesting names in her Rolodex.”

“Interesting,” Mr. Nayar said.

Prince Tsang said, “Who are the Black Lords?”

“That appears to be the ruling body of the Jade Empire. It is made up of retired Jade Warriors. There are now Red Lords, as well. They are the overseers for countries under the flag of the Jade Empire.”

“Interesting,” General Hang and Prince Tsang said at the same time.

“I have an appointment with Lord Flavia in three hours. Perhaps you might want to tag along.”

“I would like that very much,” General Hang said.

“That would be most excellent. I feel like we are way behind on our intelligence.”

“I think we all are,” Mr. Nayar said.

Empress Jana was buried up to her neck in reports about the war on Eastland. The IFN coalition army was doing exactly what they had predicted it would do. The main division had turned and was now headed slowly to where a Jade division was waiting for it. The secondary division was quickly catching up to the main division. By the time it reached the Jade division, it would be a battle of two to one.

It was a great plan from the coalition’s perspective. The only problem with that plan was that the Jade Empire didn’t play the game that way. The result would be a massacre of the brigades that they had left to retain control of occupied territory. Brigade versus division was generally a very lopsided battle.

Empress Jana tossed the document off to the side. It was depressing to think about how many of the enemy would die over the next few weeks. So far, they had inflicted almost six hundred thousand deaths in this war. There would be another fifty or sixty thousand in the next few months.

Once again, she was struck by the stupidity of this war. The idea of the world declaring war just for the purpose of capturing a criminal was proof enough that politicians had become blind to what it meant to be at war. Maybe the next year would wake them up. She doubted it, but it was now her job to explain to the world that the IFN had done something extremely stupid.

Hearth Millie, one of the Hearths burned during an engagement with the coalition forces, came over to where Empress Jana was staring blankly at the maps spread across the table. She was wearing the black armor of a Black Lord. There hadn’t been a real need for her to retire, her burns weren’t crippling. It was just that after the pain of injury, and it had been extremely painful, that she was unwilling to return to a war zone and risk an injury of the same type.

She now served as Steward to the Empress. That role had been the subject of great debate with Empress Jana arguing against it. In fact, the whole relationship between the Lords and Jade Force had been the subject of great debate. According to the contract, Jade Force existed so that the Jade Empire could defend itself and project force when necessary. It was not to coddle or protect the Lords. All Lords are Jade Warriors. It was assumed and expected that the Lords would have the ability to protect themselves against personal attacks.

The Emperor or Empress was a different matter. As always had been the practice within Jade Force, the Jade Warrior dealing with outsiders was protected by Swords and Shields. It allowed the Jade Warrior to focus on the task at hand rather than security. The Emperor or Empress was assumed to be at work full time and thus required a full time retinue of Swords and Shields. With all of the travel required of a head of state, that retinue have to include Carts and Hearths. The Swords, Shields, Carts, and Hearths were to come from the ranks of Lords rather than Jade Force.

The retinue was a huge problem. There just weren’t enough people to go around. Jade Force was staggering under a severe shortage of Jade Warriors and Jade Lords. The Jade Empire was at war with the world, although the more accurate way of stating it was that the world was at war with the Jade Empire.

Del Moray, Ismal, New Franc, Barmud, San Trop, Niella, and Walford had twenty Jade Warriors each working inside them. There were five Jade Warriors in Friga. That consumed a hundred and forty-five Jade Warriors who weren’t available to fight at the front. Another hundred or so Jade Warriors were left in the Jade Citadel providing security and daily operations of a citadel. When one factored into the equation those who were injured or had retired to become Lords, almost fifteen percent of the Jade Warriors were completely unavailable for fighting.

The ranks of Jade Lords was pretty thin considering that they were supposed to be running the Jade Empire which already spanned nine countries. A retinue of twelve Jade Lords made quite a dent in those available to actually run the empire. It was also the distribution of Lords among the various cadres. Most of the injured were from the Swords and Shields. A couple of Carts had been shot up while delivering supplies to the front line. A number of Hearths, including Millie, had been hurt in a minor attack on an encampment.

“Empress.”

Breaking out of her mental fugue, Empress Jana asked, “What’s up?”

“Your new armor is ready.”

“I guess I ought to start wearing it from now on. I still think it makes me look like a green beetle in misery.”

“They did lighten the green so that it wasn’t quite so dark. It’s not that bad now. You’ll look like a turtle in misery.”

“You aren’t the one wearing it,” Empress Jana said.

“The black armor isn’t much better,” Lord Millie said. “The black armor is a killer in the sun.”

“I bet,” Empress Jana said. “So where is this turtle costume I’m supposed to wear?”

“In your dorm room.”

“That’s fine. I’ll change into it and come back here.”

“You need to go to the confab room. Pen Hopo has the contracts for Chen and Khung ready for you to read over.”

“Things are just getting better and better,” Empress Jana said grumpily.

It wasn’t that she was in a bad mood. There were just too many things coming at her so quickly. With things accelerating at the front, time tables had to be moved up. They’d be accepting the surrender of Chen and Khung almost six months earlier than anticipated. Before they could publicly accept their surrender, there was the matter of establishing the identify of the Jade Empire in the international community. That meant going through the debut in Inra of the rulers of the Jade Empire and that was only a week from now.

“It will get easier once we’ve gotten a handle on everything,” Lord Millie said.

“I’m a Sword, not a Pen.”

“You have majority of the qualifications to be a Pen.”

“I only studied international law as a fall back plan in case I ever got too injured to fight. I don’t really like it,” Empress Jana said.

She had taken up law like a lot of the other Swords concerned about what they would do if seriously injured. Being a Pen had the potential of being the least active of the cadres. Even paralyzed and bed ridden, a person could still read and review contracts. Many of them felt the alternative was to just lie there staring at the ceiling. For people used to being so active that was a fate worse than death.

“Well, now you need it.”

“Next time that I’m making retirement plans, remind me that I don’t want to be a Pen.”

Empress Jana headed off to her dorm room to change her armor. Upon entering her room, she looked at the armor left there for her to wear. Construction wise, the new armor was identical to her existing armor with the exception of the color of the leather. The color was a little better than the dark green that had been tried initially.

She slowly undressed. Changing out of the tan armor was a lot harder than she thought it would be. She knew it was only temporary. In a year, maybe two, she would be putting it back on and returning to her life as a Sword in Jade Force. She wondered if stepping down as Empress would be just as hard of a transition.

Changed, she stepped into the hallway outside her dorm room. She did a quick flip, a somersault, and a roll to help adjust to the new armor. It was stiff and needed to be broken in. Shield Pua watched her.

“I see you’re wearing your new armor.”

“Yes. I’ve still got to break it in.”

“I don’t have any pressing duties at the moment. I’ll be glad to train with you if that would help.”

“That would help a lot. Besides, I could use the break.”

The two women walked through the dorm building.

“So what’s it like being an Empress?”

“A lot of work.”

“There’s a lot of work to go around for everyone. I just came from the front. In two days, I’ll be going to Barmud to provide security for our Hearths there.”

“Why did you leave the front? Were you injured?”

“I wasn’t injured. It’s very wearing to be on guard full time for months at a time, so we go to the front for a month and then take on a lighter duty for a month.”

“There are enough of you at the front that it doesn’t require you to be on duty full time.”

Shield Pua looked at her.

“Sorry. It’s easy to forget how paranoid our Shields are.”

“That’s okay. You probably weren’t aware that we hot cot near the guard posts.”

“What’s that mean?”

“We trade off bunks near the guard posts so that we’re only seconds away from responding to a threat. The only time we leave the vicinity of a guard post is to eat. Sometimes we need to decompress a little so one or two of us might hang out in the confab room.”

“I wasn’t aware of that. Usually by the time I got to the confab room or bed, I was too tired to notice who was there and who wasn’t.”

“We all do, what we do, and how we do it.”

“That’s true. So are you looking forward to Barmud?”

“I’m supposed to pull orphan duty, but I’ve heard some horror stories about some of the orphanages. I hope that it’ll be a nice change, but I still remember...”

“We all do,” Empress Jana said flatly.

Once they reached outside the building, she said, “Here is fine.”

Shield Pua asked, “Swords or hand to hand.”

Empress Jana glanced at the ratings on the Shield’s armor. They were nearly the same in hand to hand. She had a higher rating in sword than the Shield had.

“We’re the same in hand to hand. So how about that?”

“I could use a little instruction with the sword.”

“The sword it shall be, then.”

The two women pulled their swords and went at it without pause. The action was fast and furious for about two seconds and then they stopped. Empress Jana explained how she scored the hit and what the counter should have been. They discussed it and went through the same sequence several times until Shield Pua had it down right.