January 9, AD 2016
1330 hours local time
Crown Communications Center
First floor, Royal Residence
Chalcedon, Capital District
Imperial Federation of the Monavian Empire
Northwestern NovaCompetent political leaders tend to understand that it is difficult to practice statecraft without having access to adequate quantities of funding, personnel, facilities, equipment, and sheer luck. To truly attain
mastery of these resources, however, a leader of the state much acquire an intimate command of information, which is most precious and potent commodity to enter mankind’s comprehension. It was for this reason that the Crown regarded knowledge—not currency or technology or land—as having a value exceeding that of even the finest jewels. Indirect sources of information such as the Imperial Federation’s intelligence services and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Media Processing Center had considerable merits in terms of their ability to satisfy this need, but the bureaucratic complexity that existed in those places often hindered and delayed its fulfillment. The monarchy solved this problem by establishing the Crown Communications Center in 1952, though almost immediately thereafter the staff who worked there playfully dubbed it the “Triple C” and ensured that its nickname endured.
The duty of administering the Center fell upon a forty-five-year-old mother of two named Elena Honchar. Honchar’s position afforded her ample prestige and the facility she commanded had multiple shifts of staff on hand to keep it fully operational around the clock without fail. In spite of having these and other reasons to love her work, she simultaneously loathed the inconveniences that her position all too frequently entailed. The twelve-hour days she often put in left her with little time to manage her household or assist her children with their homework. The paychecks her husband earned as an orthopedic surgeon were handsome by any measure, but the number of patients he juggled every day often left him in a similar position. The end result was predictably depressing: the Honchars had enough money to maintain a comfortable existence but had nowhere near enough time to enjoy it.
Director Honchar did not expect anything out of the ordinary to occur on the ninth of January as she went about her duties that day. The sunny weather outside had melted a lot of slippery snow off of the sidewalks and defrosted the cars that her staff drove to work, so the entire complement present had a motive for feeling cheerier than they were the previous few days. The hours passed without anything notable occurring, the lunch break came and went, and by one-thirty that afternoon Honchar was ready to refill her thermos with water and arose from her seat at to make a quick jaunt outside. If nothing else, she now had an excuse to stretch her legs without having to awkwardly pace around the place.
“Mr. Demi,” Honchar called out to a nearby intern.
“Yes?”
“Check the fax machine.”
“Yes Director.”
Honchar returned less than two minutes later to find the intern reloading a printer nestled among dozens of other sleek, glitzy machines that lined the Center’s walls and counters. “Director, there’s a new fax for you in the hopper.”
“Bring it here,” she instructed.
The intern retrieved a single sheet of paper from the machine and placed it on Honchar’s desk. “It doesn’t look like much,” he commented, noting the message’s concision.
“I’ll just take a look and find out,” she replied as her sharp brown eyes began scrutinizing the page. The intern briefly paused before turning back towards his desk, only for Honchar’s voice to arrest his movement. “Mr. Demi, I’ll be taking this down the hall. You may resume what you were doing earlier.”
Honchar locked down her computer and departed for the antechamber leading into the queen’s office. The only security posted at the entrance to the antechamber consisted of a stocky, blue-eyed Royal Guardsman with dull brown hair and chiseled features. Like most senior administrators who had worked inside the palace for more than a few years, Honchar had grown accustomed to the sentinel’s stern comportment and hawkish glances, though his impeccable presentation never ceased to impress just about every visitor who passed by him. Honchar passed through the doorway without even having to pause in order to receive admission and strode across the antechamber’s gleaming marble floor to find a seat. Two of the walnut-framed bergères had already been claimed by members of the royal household staff who were waiting to be admitted, so she chose to settle into a vacant one that was located closest to the inner doors. The satin upholstery lining the antique chair was only somewhat more comfortable to sit on than her swivel chair, but then again, the antechamber was never intended to serve as a lounge in the first place.
The communications director only had to wait a couple of minutes for a number of officials to exit the office with one of the queen’s footmen in tow. The servant’s black woolen morning suit, matching waistcoat, and glossy black Oxfords certainly harmonized with the furnishings, which included an octet of ornately framed nineteenth-century paintings, a rococo-style chaise lounge, and a gilded brass chandelier that bathed the entire space in soft, yellow-hued light. Honchar rose out of her seat and handed the document to the footman so he could take it inside. “Please see to it that Her Imperial Majesty reads this as soon as she can,” Honchar explained. “I’m pretty sure it’s urgent.”
“Of course, Mrs. Honchar,” he replied demurely. “The august lady could use some excitement today anyway.”
1355 hours local time
Office of the Queen Coregent
First floor, Royal Residence
Chalcedon, Capital District
Imperial Federation of the Monavian Empire
Northwestern NovaMinister Carter’s office had been the only Monavian bastion of officialdom to take notice of the reformation of Monahtan before the transmission of Federov’s most recent communiqué. Over the next few hours the number of officials who had reasons to monitor the situation multiplied as the Queen Coregent planned out how to address the document which the footman had just deposited atop her desk. Her first act consisted of writing a secure message to the Minister of Defense, a task that took much longer than she first planned since she ended up tinkering with the wording a lot to describe the issue at hand as clearly as possible.
OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUÉ9 January 2016
To: Rt. Hon. Carl Blake, Minister of Defense
From: RR Crown Offices
Subject: Preparation for possible hostilitiesTwo days ago the Emperor of Monahtan announced that his subordinates successfully completed a comprehensive government reorganization in which the previous communist regime was abolished by popular referendum in favor of a newly-founded monarchy. The emperor’s declaration prompted Minister Carter to congratulate the new sovereign on our country’s behalf, a gesture that was duplicated by a number of other foreign states. Shortly after these events transpired, the Sharko Federation and the Bulgar Rouge issued ultimatums demanding that the new regime be dissolved and the old one restored. Both of the ultimatums explicitly state that failure to comply with their terms shall result in the commencement of hostilities for the purposes of coercing the Empire of Monahtan into submission.
The emperor’s Minister of International Affairs, Alik Federov, has since announced as of 1330 hours MIST that his government wishes for all countries expressing support for the reorganization to send representatives to discuss possible courses of action at Finestra, the Empire’s capital city. This request implies that the Emperor of Monahtan does not regard his country’s armed forces as having sufficient capabilities to thwart an aggressive encroachment on his sovereignty without the benefit of external assistance. Furthermore, the Crown believes that the Imperial Federation is likely to find itself at cross purposes with the governments of the Bulgar Rouge and the Sharko Federation as a result of having expressed support for the emperor.
In light of these events, the Crown hereby directs you to convene the MNDC today to determine appropriate preparations for entry into states of hostilities toward the Bulgar Rouge and the Sharko Federation and to arrange for the timely collection of intelligence data regarding the aforesaid entities. The Crown further directs that Marshal Bogdanov be furnished with instructions to ready Orbital Defense Command assets for combat within twenty-four hours.
The queen made several telephone calls to members of the Royal State Security Council as soon as she finished drafting her war preparation orders so that she could summon them to meet in her office the following morning. In the meantime, she had another official to contact before the afternoon wore on much longer.
1447 hours local time
Office of the Right Honorable Frank Carter
Fifth floor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Building
Chalcedon, Capital District
Imperial Federation of the Monavian Empire
Northwestern NovaA substantial majority of Minister Carter’s daily workload consisted of administrative and ceremonial duties, so he naturally enjoyed the assistance of other Ministry officials in fulfilling his duties as the Crown’s chief source of foreign policy recommendations. Carter’s principal subordinates included Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Augustus Borozan, who managed the Imperial Federation’s diplomatic exchange program, the Ministry Press Secretary Karl Golikov, and Ministry Chief of Legal Staff Laura Garmash. Carter’s most important source of assistance, however, was the Monavian Foreign Relations Council, a nine-member committee of the Empire’s most distinguished and capable foreign policy experts. In addition to analyzing the information that it received from subordinate levels of the Ministry’s chain of command, the Council functioned as a team of gatekeepers by filtering and condensing the dossiers, files, and reports that landed came its way.
An experienced civil servant named Robert D. Farrington chaired the MFRC, but the sagest member of the panel was Harold Brkovich, an elderly intellectual who held doctorates in political science and economics. His eighteen years of service on the Council made him its longest-serving member and endowed him with a certain grandfatherly air when speaking in front of collegiate interns. Brkovich was busy conversing with Carter in his office about the Monahtan situation when a telephone located on a corner of Carter’s desk emitted a shrill, high-pitched ring. Carter excused himself and spent a few minutes speaking with Her Imperial Majesty about the fax she had received and then resumed his conversation.
“Is everything all right, Minister?”
“I wish I could say it was. The communists opposing the Empire of Monahtan are refusing to soften their posture and they’re likely to declare war by the end of tomorrow.”
“That such a shame,” Brkovich commented. “I’m sorry it’s gotten so rotten over there.”
“It could be worse,” Carter conceded. “The countries hurling ultimatums at the new emperor have relatively weak military forces if Minister Federov is to be believed.”
“What did he say?”
“He sent a fax straight to the Royal Residence asking for the governments supporting Emperor Mikhail to send delegations to Finestra, the Monahtan Empire’s capital.”
“I suppose we’re sending one too?”
“Yes. Deputy Minister Borozan will lead the delegation and I plan on sending Garmash along to handle the legalese in case somebody wants to draw up a mutual defense pact.”
“Doesn’t this whole thing seem a bit…rushed?”
Carter sighed. “It’s moving along faster than I’d like and we don’t really know much about the people we’re supporting, but this sort of opportunity to establish a positive reputation abroad doesn’t come by often so we had better make the best of it.”
“I agree. When is our delegation moving out?”
“Tomorrow evening, if everything stays on schedule. The queen just informed me that she’ll select an ambassador to permanently represent our country’s interests before the evening is up. You remember how Ambassador Culler got his position.”
“Of course I do.” Brkovich chuckled. “Her Imperial Majesty invited him to her office around eight
P.M. and blew through the formalities so she could offer him the position right away. I heard he took only an hour or two to recruit a crack team to accompany him to Bielostrov and that they flew out the next morning.”
“Talk about efficiency!”
“Well, how fast do you think this appointment will take?”
“Heaven only knows, Doctor. Anyway, I had better get back to work before any of the service staff come by and wonder where their taxes are going,” the minister added mischievously.
“I understand. You always know how to contact me if there’s a problem.” Brkovich turned towards the doors and started leaving, only for Carter to make another request.
“One more thing, Dr. Brkovich.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Telephone the MPC and order them to dedicate one of their terminals to monitoring the situation around Monahtan. I want them ready to alert the Council if anything explodes over there since this entire firestorm is just getting hotter by the hour.”
“Of course.”
“Now, if you’ll excuse me for a few minutes, I need to formulate a response to Alik Federov’s announcement so he can breathe easily again.”
Brkovich shut the fancifully carved ebony doors behind him while his superior prepared another letter for his opposite number in Finestra.
Hon. Alik Federov
Minister of International Affairs
Capitol Complex, Finestra
Empire of Monahtan
January 9, 2016
Minister:
Two hours ago my office received a copy of your most recent public announcement about reactions to your country’s administrative reorganization. I am sorry to have read that foreign states maliciously threatened your government over what is by all rights an internal matter not affecting them and I am pleased to assure you that my superiors are working to determine an appropriate course of action.
The Crown acknowledges that there is a strong possibility of Monavian involvement in the hostilities which your country is preparing to wage. As a consequence of this development, Her Imperial Majesty the Queen Coregent plans to send a delegation to Finestra within the next day or so. The Crown has also notified the Ministry of Defense about the threats which your people face so that the Imperial Armed Forces can assume an appropriate strategic alert posture and draw up plans for supporting your defensive measures. It is likely that your office will receive correspondence from them in the near future.
Sincerely,
Frank Carter
Minister of Foreign Affairs
1953 hours local time
Office of the Queen
First floor, Royal Residence
Chalcedon, Capital District
Imperial Federation of the Monavian Empire
Northwestern NovaCarter’s predictions regarding the Queen Coregent’s method for selecting a new ambassador were strangely accurate that night. The process began in the Office of the Royal Chief of Staff, where one of the desk jockeys telephoned a career diplomat named Divna Jovovich and told her that she had been summoned to appear at the Royal Residence at eight o’clock that evening. The forty-one-year-old envoy had spent well over a third of her life in the Ministry and fluently spoke Russian and French, but none of her experience had ever included answering a surprise summons from the Crown. She spent most of her drive home contemplating what sort of outfit she should change into after dinner, though the daily rigmarole of yanking junk mail out of her mailbox and disposing of it briefly took her mind off fashion.
Jovovich realized that she did not have much time to cook, so she reheated a container of potatoes and egg rolls and polished off the remains of a salad she had made the previous night. She finished eating by seven-fifteen and rifled through her closet for several minutes before settling on a deep green sheath dress that fell to mid-calf at the bottom. Jovovich completed her costume with a choker of black pearls and tied her shoulder-length brown hair back into a neat bun to make it more presentable. She also left her handbag behind in favor of a black velvet duster that was just large enough to hold her wallet and keys so that she could reduce the time she spent waiting at the Residence’s security checkpoints.
The rush hour traffic that Jovovich had seen on the roads earlier that afternoon had already dissipated by the time she left her house for the government district, so she had little trouble reaching a park located just south of her destination just twenty-odd minutes later. The white granite drive she traversed on her way through the park was lined on both sides by gilded bronze statues of the Empire’s past rulers and the grounds just a few paces farther from the road were covered by groves of ancient oak and walnut trees which gave the fields a rustic charm which only the winter had been able to diminish. The envoy continued on, crossed the road separating the park from the Residence’s grounds, and stopped in front of a black wrought iron gate decorated with gilded ornaments. One of the men occupying the stout, neoclassical guardhouse spotted Jovovich’s car on one of the camera feeds and yanked a lever that controlled the outer gate so that she could pull up alongside the structure.
“Good evening, ma’am,” a sharply attired Special Federal Service officer greeted Jovovich from behind a four-inch-thick bulletproof window.
“Good evening. I’m Divna Jovovich from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I was asked by the Chief of Staff to come here at eight.”
“Please hand me your ID so I can run it past security.”
Jovovich complied and waited for the guard to run her name and photograph past the appointment records provided to him by the Residence’s main security office. The envoy glanced at her watch and saw that she had only about ten minutes left to make it inside, and the security check seemed to be suffering some kind of holdup. Jovovich nervously cast a forward glance at the massive inner gates that sat ahead of her and began to wonder if she had just driven up to the entrance to a gold depository. The ornately festooned steel doors and their control machinery were both housed inside a tall marble structure that resembled a small triumphal arch, complete with doubled ionic columns, bas-relief friezes, and a coffered ceiling. The entire guardhouse was constructed from solid granite layered around a ferroconcrete shell and the double set of hydraulically-retractable vehicle barriers inside the outer gate could stop a fully loaded tractor-trailer. In short, the entire entry setup was nothing less than a twenty-first century incarnation of a medieval barbican.
“You’re clear to enter,” the guard smiled, snapping Jovovich out of her momentary trance as he handed back her ID card.
“Thank you.”
“Just turn left when you reach the building and pull up by the curb. An officer will take care of your parking so you can simply go inside.”
Jovovich grinned.
SFS valet service? Yes please! She passed through the inner gates and a hundred yards of wooded lawns before reaching the stately neoclassical marble edifice where the Crown was domiciled and turned onto a section of the drive that ran parallel to the building. Pigeons hiding in shrubbery along the other side of the drive darted around to avoid a trio of approaching Special Federal Service officers in plainclothes as they moved along their patrol route, though the rustling they made failed to garner Jovovich’s notice. She handed her keys to one of the SFS officers standing at the curb and ascended a flight of stairs leading into the building. The pair of Royal Guardsmen flanking the doors at the landing was attired in charcoal gray dress uniforms which included a pair of black silk stripes on each trouser leg, high peaked caps from under which their eyes sized up visitors, and richly enameled belt buckles bearing the arms of the royal family. Light from the curbside lamps glinted off the fine gold aiguillettes that hung from their shoulders and the silvery sword bayonets affixed to their bolt-action rifles.
A footman stationed inside the doorway admitted Jovovich into the Residence’s west gallery and directed her to the queen’s antechamber, which was located just a few dozen paces away. She would have paused to admire the artwork in the gallery if she had only had a bit more time on her hands, but her meeting was only seven minutes away and her watch was not ticking any slower than it was earlier. The envoy proceeded to the antechamber and found another footman tending the office’s doors. The servant silently waved Jovovich in the moment she gave him her name and shut the door behind her. Upon entering the room, Jovovich found a quartet of silk-upholstered bergères arranged in front of the queen’s fancifully lacquered Empire-style ebony desk. The chair on the left and the two in the middle were already occupied when she entered, so she walked towards the right to claim the one that was still vacant.
“Miss Jovovich, it’s a pleasure to see you tonight,” Garmash greeted her. The towheaded, six-foot-one-inch Amazon with Nordic features occupied the seat located closest to Jovovich. The forty-two-year-old attorney stood half a head taller than Jovovich and would have towered over her had it not been for the ambassadorial candidate’s three-inch heels, though the difference was much less pronounced when both were seated.
“It is,” she replied tersely as Borozan arose from the seat on Garmash’s left to shake the envoy’s hand. Borozan was a handbreadth shorter and several years older than her, though that still made him a good half-decade younger than Carter, who somehow had yet to develop any gray hair in spite of the strain his job placed upon him. The unusual brightness of the lights did poor justice to Borozan’s chestnut hair and fair complexion by making the former look too dark and the latter appear sallow, but the English-cut midnight blue suit he wore seemed impervious to chromatic corruption.
“How did your work go today?” Garmash asked.
“Fine, I suppose. Nothing special happened most of the day and then I got a call asking me to come here tonight. You don’t happen to know what we’re all doing here, do you?”
“Her Imperial Majesty will fill you in herself,” Golikov answered. “We know what we’re here, but you’re the wild card of the bunch.” The slender, six-foot-tall, 165-pound man in his sixties who occupied the seat on the far left was attired more austerely than his companions since his black onyx cuff links lacked the ostentation of the monogrammed gold ones that Borozan was wearing and his jet black three-piece suit looked vaguely like the uniform of a bank president.
“How so?”
“We have a diplomatic mission in the works and the queen has nominated you to be a part of it,” Garmash explained.
“Don’t spoil the whole thing!” Golikov cut in. Appearances aside, his personality was anything but funereal.
“It doesn’t happen to have anything to do with any of the countries that recently began opening embassy space, does it?”
“No,” Borozan answered. “This matter involves a country with which we’ve had no past relations. It’s all fresh, virgin territory.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“Well, I could always use another adventure to liven things up.”
“You’re not getting too old for that yet?” Garmash teased.
“Bah! What silliness is that? Our ancestors didn’t accomplish anything by calling it quits the moment they reached some imaginary sell-by date.”
Garmash shook her head and turned back towards Jovovich. “Just think of it as a vacation.”
“A
working vacation with stakes attached,” Borozan corrected.
Golikov poised himself to interject another one of his comments, only to pause at the sound of footmen unbolting the doors to pull them open. The guests rose from their seats and turned around as the doors parted to admit the entry of an impeccably postured lady who stood taller than Borozan but shorter than Golikov. Her fairly-complexioned physique sported robust, lithely-proportioned arms conditioned by decades of playing tennis and her pale brown hair was carefully braided to frame the Slavic features of her oblong face. Despite being roughly Golikov’s age, the queen’s deep green eyes had lost none of the luminous fire they had when she and her husband Charles had been crowned King and Queen Coregent in 1981. Both the lines radiating from her eyes and the traces of gray that crept into her hair over the past several years offered evidence for estimating her age but the serenely welcoming smile she wore with her amethyst necklace and violet dress proved too distracting for anyone to bother.
Borozan reflexively bowed at the waist with a fluidness that came from being accustomed to royal audiences and the rest followed suit. “Good evening, Your Imperial Majesty.”
“Likewise, Minister. I trust I have not kept you and the others here waiting for long.”
“No. We had just enough time to welcome Miss Jovovich inside and let her settle in.”
“That’s good,” the sovereign observed, gesturing for the footmen outside to shut the doors. “Now we can get down to business,” she pronounced as she looked straight at the envoy. “Miss Jovovich, I invited you here to present you with a proposition that I want you to consider,” she began. “A faraway country called Monahtan reorganized its government earlier this week and has come under threat as a consequence of choosing to alter its destiny in a way that several other regimes dislike. You are here because we need someone to represent our government over there and you have a lot of qualifications that are germane to this assignment.” She paused to let her statement sink in before continuing. “You understand where I am going with this?”
Jovovich meekly nodded.
“Good.” The queen spent the next fifteen minutes delineating various aspects of the situation in Monahtan before moving on to describe how Jovovich was to negotiate an aid arrangement which would enable the new government there to survive the challenge it faced. Jovovich was to have the aid of several attachés and some runners from the Ministry. The jet carrying them to Finestra would contain both an SFS detail that would serve as their main security escort and squad of Royal Guardsmen who would perform ceremonial honor guard duties at their arrival and departure. Most importantly, Jovovich would be formally promoted and named Monavian Ambassador to Monahtan.
The envoy was exhilarated by the news but she also felt a bit incredulous. “There’s something I don’t understand. You want
me to lead the delegation but you’re having Minister Borozan come along as well. Shouldn’t
he be leading it since he outranks everyone else?”
“Your instincts are correct, Miss Jovovich. You’ll be receiving an ambassadorial rank but Minister Borozan will be the only official present with plenipotentiary authority to make binding agreements. This setup will serve as an insurance policy should any of our dealings with Minister Federov turn sour since we don’t know who else is negotiating with them and what sort of raw deal they might be forced to give us by other parties.”
“This sounds like a wonderful offer, but I don’t know if I can accept it right now. It’s just a lot to take in.”
“I realize that, but the offer is only on the table while you’re here. You can always step outside and think a bit, if you’d like, but the situation is time-sensitive and Minister Borozan had to spend quite a bit of time just to find somebody who was available and did not have another assignment pending.”
“Thank you. I’ll…think about it a bit and come back inside once I’ve made up my mind.” The envoy respectfully bowed and exited the office to mull over the queen’s offer. After waiting for a solid half-hour, the others heard a doorknob turn behind them and watched as Jovovich slowly walked back inside.
“I take it you reached a decision,” Borozan inquired as Jovovich retook her seat.
“Yes.” She paused to exhale and muster some finesse for her answer so that she could avoid sounding anxious. “Your Imperial Majesty, it deeply pleases me to accept your incredibly generous offer.”
“Congratulations, Madam Ambassador. I have a great measure of confidence that you will prove equal to the task.”
“Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty,” she bowed. “I do have another question though.”
“Yes?”
“When would we be leaving?”
“Tomorrow morning, before lunch. I had Borozan get your superiors to reassign your outstanding workload to your colleagues, so you need only worry about finding time to pack.”
Jovovich was justifiably nervous; after all, the entire scheme was simply coming together too easily to be believable. There simply had to be some sort of hidden pitfall involved. “This…ambassadorship…how long would it last?”
“It would only be temporary as we simply need someone with your skills to occupy the position until a more suitable permanent replacement can be selected. Of course, should you find yourself performing well at this job, we can always make your appointment permanent,” Borozan answered smilingly.
The conversation eventually wound down and Jovovich departed the way she came, albeit feeling excited—and more nervous—than she was when she arrived. Upon reaching home she changed and spent a few minute thinking about how best to pack her luggage before deciding she needed a snack and rummaging through her refrigerator. When she prepared to retire for the night some seventy minutes later, she felt an urge to snack again and pulled the refrigerator door open, only to halt and decide that she really didn’t need anything else in her stomach right before trying to sleep. She cast a final glance inside and shut the door.
Looks like I’m having leftovers again—for breakfast.
January 10, AD 2016
0800 hours local time
Office of the Queen
First floor, Royal Residence
Chalcedon, Capital District
Imperial Federation of the Monavian Empire
Northwestern NovaThe Crown typically received routine daily security briefings at eight o’clock each morning save on Sundays when the briefings were delivered at high noon. National Security Minister Owen Chambers generally fulfilled the duty of delivering these briefings without anyone else present to offer advice and counsel, but this was not the case on the day that Jovovich and her compatriots were scheduled to leave for Finestra. Instead the queen ordered the Royal State Security Council to meet in her private office at the hour when the briefing was set to take place so that she could solicit its advice and organize a more comprehensive strategy for combating the aggressive behavior that was being directed at the Empire of Monahtan. The six-member council consisted of Chambers, Blake, Professor Emeritus Nathan Scribner (the Crown’s economic security adviser), Colonel Aaron Perez (the Royal Military Adviser), Jennifer Varga (a constitutional lawyer who specialized in the legal formalities of national security actions) and Colonel Austin McKay, the chief of the MNIA’s Foreign Intelligence Analysis Department.
“Will His Imperial Majesty be coming?”
“No, Professor,” she answered. The king has his hands full discussing an armaments funding bill with the Senate’s appropriations committee and will be away conducting some military business which this council will hear about in the future. He asked me to hold off on disclosing anything else until he feels the right time has come, so I will not say anything else about that subject until then.”
“I assume he will still be furnished with a record of our meeting.”
“Of course,” the queen answered dryly. The council spent the next fifteen minutes covering its usual array of general topics and occasionally paused for questions. Once this process was complete, the queen finally broached the most important subject on the agenda. “What sort of intelligence have we gathered on the Bulgar Rouge and Sharko Federation?”
Perez answered first. “I spoke with General White about Your Imperial Majesty’s request this morning. He informed me that neither of the countries we began surveilling have any orbital weapon systems, so we need not worry about losing our eyes and ears in the area to anything floating around. We still don’t know if they have any ASAT missile systems—either in ground-based launchers or deployable via aircraft—but thus far it appears they haven’t begun tracking our satellites or started jamming them.”
“Why would they?” Blake asked rhetorically. “Unlike the emperor’s other foreign supporters, we’ve refrained from making public declarations and issuing counter-ultimatums. As far as the communists are concerned, we may as well not exist.”
“That may be true, Minister, but we cannot guarantee that we’ll be able to sustain our charade of silence indefinitely. We’ll have to come to the emperor’s aid as soon as his enemies start attacking him, so the moment we move to defend him is the moment his enemies start searching for us. Anyway, in answer to Your Imperial Majesty’s original question, it appears that both of the countries in question have relatively weak navies and air forces—not enough to mount an invasion of Monahtan, but certainly powerful enough to harass their commerce and leave their military with a bloody nose and broken teeth. I’m confident we can help them fend off any assault that they are likely to face anytime soon, but then again, we have no way of knowing if the communists have friends who are opposing the emperor as stealthily as we are supporting him.”
“Thank you, Colonel. Minister Blake?”
“I had a pleasant conversation with General White yesterday evening. I described the situation that you and Minister Carter explained to me and gave him orders to move some surveillance satellites over the countries known to be opposing Monahtan. In addition, he also ordered OSC and ODC to keep an eye on Monahtan so they could watch for possible attacks.”
“I appreciate that. Professor Scribner, I assume that you have an idea what all of this will cost?”
“Hardly anything. It’s a standard, low-intensity police action. I might cost a few hundred million thalers to send over a shipload of missiles to replace the amount they’re likely to fire off in the near future and possibly several billion thalers if we decide to dispatch a small flotilla and an air wing or two. Either way, there’s enough slush fund money on hand to cover the expenses.”
0950 hours local time
Government Terminal
Chalcedon International Airport
Chalcedon, Capital District
Imperial Federation of the Monavian Empire
Northwestern NovaBorozan instructed the other members of the Monavian delegation to meet him in the Ministry’s cafeteria at seven-thirty so that they could all enjoy some breakfast and travel to the airport together. In addition to bringing along Golikov, Jovovich, and Garmash, Borozan enlisted the aid of several attachés which arrived around the same time. “Madam Ambassador,” he began, referencing Jovovich, “Here are your new assistants.”
“Thank you, Minister,” a clearly flattered Jovovich answered. It would be a while before she was completely comfortable with the new honorifics by which the others addressed her.
“The lady standing farthest on your right is Olivia Berg, your scientific attaché,” Borozan began as he gestured towards a narrowly-proportioned sylph in her mid-thirties. The auburn-haired lady invitingly held out her hand and offered Jovovich an unassuming smile. “Our friend in uniform is Major Eric Fleming, your military attaché,” Borozan continued, referring to a middle-aged Royal Guardsman with sea green eyes, silvery-blond hair, and Germanic features. “The man standing next to him is your economic attaché, Brian Schmidt, and the woman on his right is Lisa Zotov, your political attaché.” Despite being a civilian, Schmidt was an immaculately preened coxcomb who matched Fleming’s attention to detail and charmed the women around him with his wisecracks. Zotov was a demure woman in her early thirties who liked to keep her wavy blond hair trimmed above her shoulders.
“Is this everyone?” Golikov inquired.
“Yes, this should be it,” Borozan answered. “Major Fleming, I assume our security detail is ready to pick us up.”
“Yes, Minister. I’ll lead the way out.”
The party immediately left for the airport and proceeded through the Government Terminal’s corridors with their SFS detachment in tow. The plane which they found docked at their gate was a supersonic commercial jet that had been purchased by the Imperial Army back in the mid-2000s and repainted to suit the standards of its new owners. The upper half of the fuselage had been painted white while the lower was a formal hue of crimson, the two halves being separated by a golden stripe. The tail and the upper faces of the craft’s streamlined delta wings bore the army’s roundel and the words
IMPERIAL FEDERATION OF THE MONAVIAN EMPIRE were spelled out in sharp black letters on both sides of the cabin’s roof.
An attendant greeted the delegation and showed them aboard at nine-forty, stowed away their baggage, and picked out seats. Soon thereafter, a motorcade of airport security vehicles drove up and stopped nearby so that an entire platoon of officers could form a protective cordon around the area. “What on Earth are
they up to?” Schmidt questioned. After waiting a few moments he saw a line of police cars appear with an armored truck bearing the Ministry of the Treasury’s seal. The truck’s drivers stopped and unloaded several heavy aluminum cases from the cargo compartment and carried them into the plane’s cargo hold, which was then sealed up under guard. Once this was accomplished the entire security contingent melted away as quickly as it appeared.
The delegation’s honor guard filed onto the jet ten minutes before takeoff and offered Jovovich their congratulations on her promotion as they settled into their seats. Soon thereafter the pilot ordered the flight crew to seal the cabin doors and pulled away from the onramp. “How long should it take for us to get there?” Jovovich asked.
Zotov smirked. “If it flew as fast as it did the last time I was on board we’ll be cruising to Finestra at more than twice the speed of sound.”
The pilot smoothly steered the craft to the end of the runway and aligned its sharply-pointed nose with a thin white line that he used to aim his takeoff trajectory, paused to glance at his instruments, and pulled the throttle lever back to send a stream of high octane fuel into its engines. It took a moment for the jet’s static inertia to dissipate so it could begin accelerating, but once it did, the speed at which it tore down the runway was high enough to push the passengers firmly back into their seats. The searing wave of exhaust that erupted from the engines generated a tremendous howl as the pale indigo flames producing them grew into long, plume-shaped tongues with yellowish edges. Moments later, the jet’s rear wheels parted company with the runway and its dart-shaped form peeled itself away from the earth in a steady heavenward climb, all the while the laying down a translucent contrail that followed the path of its ascent. The distinctive roar of the jet’s mighty engines gradually faded into the din as it rapidly cleared the airport’s boundaries and soared away into the pale blue void where it joined dozens of other aircraft whose occupants had no idea what their country’s leaders had set into motion.