Jade War

Kehn battened his torso with Steel; the durbh blade he’d caught in his hand cut sharp into suddenly unprotected skin. Dropping it, he Channeled first, fast and quick, a nonlethal jab to the heart, just enough to shock. Grabbing a fistful of the man’s shirt, he let out a bellow as he shoved, then yanked forward hard, whiplashing his opponent’s face into a head butt that connected with an audible crack. The Horn dug his shoulder into the limp man’s chest and heaved, sending him over the ship’s railing and tumbling into the white-capped water far below.

Kehn turned around. His Fists, Juen and Iyn, and two Fingers, Lott and Dudo, had leapt to board the ship right behind him, leaving one Finger, Ton, behind to man the motorboat. Iyn was stalking after the second guard as he tried to stumble away from her with a broken leg. As she drew her moon blade, Kehn ordered, “Leave him alive for now.” It occurred to him that he shouldn’t have thrown the other one into the sea; now the man’s jade, even if it was not much, was at the bottom of the ocean. At least it was no longer being worn and used disgracefully by a hired half bone cur.

He strode down the deck of the ship between fifteen-meter-tall walls of red, orange, and blue shipping containers uniformly stacked like his nephew’s building blocks. The three-hundred-meter-long cargo vessel was too large for him to be able to Perceive everyone aboard, but he knew his Fists and Fingers would split up to sweep the ship; they would find and kill any additional barukan guards and round up the crew. Kehn wrapped his hand in the hem of his shirt, putting pressure on it to stop the bleeding as he headed toward the bridge.

Twenty minutes later, the captain and his officers were gathered together in the ship’s dining room. The captain was a man of about forty with a curly orange beard and sideburns—Captain Bamivu eya Kijdiva, according to his nameplate—an Ygutanian, like several of his officers. The crew, which had been rounded up and placed in the mess hall, was mostly Uwiwan. Though Kijdiva acted admirably calm, sweat stood out on his brow and Kehn could Perceive his heart beating much faster than normal. He obviously didn’t know anything about Green Bones and thought his ship had been attacked by pirates who might steal his cargo or harm his crew.

“Don’t worry, no one will be hurt,” Kehn said. Either the man did not understand or was not put at ease by the assurance. “You speak any other languages?” Kehn asked. “Uwiwan? Espenian?”

The captain spoke passable Espenian, which was fortunate as Lott also had a decent grasp on the language, having studied it during his years at the Academy. That seemed to be popular these days; with more foreigners and foreign businesses in Janloon, it was useful even for Fingers to know another language besides Kekonese. Kehn asked Lott to translate. “Tell him we want to see the ship’s registration and freight manifest.”

After some back and forth, the requested documents were brought over from the bridge. The MV Amaric Pride, owned and operated by an Ygutanian company but registered in the Uwiwa Islands, had left Tialuhiya two days ago, bound for the northern port city of Bursvik in Ygutan. Normally, ships bound for Ygutan went south around Shotar and through the Origas Gulf, but the waters near Oortoko were currently a war zone full of Shotarian, Espenian, and Ygutanian warships.

Kehn frowned as he flipped through the manifest. The ship was carrying nearly twenty thousand tons of cargo—apparel, consumer goods, canned fruit. There was no way to search it all. The captain asked a question, and Lott said, “He wants to know if we killed those men, the four guards.”

Juen and the others had encountered two other barukan as they took over the ship. “Those men worked for a smuggler in the Uwiwa Islands,” Kehn said to the captain, not answering his question. “Do you know what they were guarding?”

The captain swallowed. “I didn’t ask questions,” he said, through Lott. “I was paid for their passage. It’s typical for us to have four to ten paying passengers aboard. I don’t know what’s in the boxes; I never see any of it. I just move it.”