Paladin 2: Chapter 9

Jace found he was enjoying the party in spite of himself. He truly hadn't expected to. Parties, finery, and fancy drinks were alright for other people, he supposed. But, on the whole, he'd rather be home with his family any day of the week. The appetizers being passed around the banquet hall were nice enough, but they were nothing compared to the ones his wife would have made.

Nevertheless, it was good to see old friends again. He was a farmer. Most of his oldest friends were, too. Farmers didn't get to leave their farms behind all that often, so over the decades many of them had sort of lost track of each other. This award celebration was turning into a chance to remake all those old connections and revisit old friends.

"I'm just surprised you came at all! Most days, I'd have expected we'd need to drag you away from your homestead to get you into the city," said the man who'd been bending Jace's ear for the last fifteen minutes.

This was the part he didn't like so much: the politics. Chief Counselor Harris had been chatting away for a bit now. It made sense. Jace was one of the guests of honor, so it wasn’t strange the man responsible for putting this thing together would want a word or two. It had turned into more than a few words, though! Jace looked longingly at a little cluster of four of his friends chatting with each other, not far away.

Then he turned back to Harris. "Well, sir. Most days, I suppose that's true. But this seemed like a special occasion, so I figured I'd make a special exception."

Harris laughed, and clapped him on the back. "That's the spirit! Sorry to take so much of your time. I know you want to chat with the other honorees. I just wanted to take a few moments to give you my congratulations myself, before all of this kicks off. It's an exciting day. An exciting time. Did you know that Percival is almost self-sufficient for foodstuffs, now?"

As a matter of fact, Jace did know that. Since he was in part responsible, he'd been rather proud of the fact.

"I imagine we'll get there soon enough," Jace told him. "In the meantime, how are negotiations going with the mining consortiums?"

Harris scowled. He grumbled under his breath. "About as well as can be expected."

While the elected council technically ruled the planet of Percival, this was the Fringe. Money had rules all of its own, out there. The mining consortiums had a lot of money, which left them able to make up their own rules far more than most folks enjoyed. The political and economic battles between the planet's elected officials and the mining company magnates had been going on for decades. For as long as Jace could remember, really. That made the topic an easy way to change the conversation, to turn it in a different direction—and to make Harris uncomfortable, all in one fell swoop. Jace considered the move a master stroke.

Sure enough, Harris quickly found reasons to be elsewhere. "Well, Jace. I have other attendees to meet with. And I'm sure you want to get back to your friends. Do enjoy the ceremony."

Harris turned to leave. As soon as he did, Jace allowed himself a small smile. Death and taxes might be inevitable, but they were no more consistent than a politician's desire to weasel out of a difficult conversation.

A hand draped itself over his shoulder. "And how did you manage to get rid of Councilman Harris? And so blasted easily?"

Jace turned toward the speaker, reaching out a hand for a shake. Now, his smile turned real, and broad. "Jonas! So good to see you. I was worried you wouldn't make it out!"

"And miss the free food?" Jonas patted his abundant belly. "You know me."

"That I do, my friend." Jace hadn't seen the man for years, but being together with him again brought back all kinds of memories. They'd been young men on Percival together, after all. A good deal of those memories were full of mischief. A fair number of them involved women, too. Of course, that was back in the days before he had met his wife. Both of them had been a pair of hell-raisers together.

"So, what have you been up to?" Jace asked. "What's new?"

Jonas gave a rumbling chuckle. "We're farmers, Haven. Not much changes for us out here. I suppose if we were living on a wetter world, things might shift a little bit from one season to another, but on Percival?”

“Fair point," Jace replied.

Before either of them could say anything more, an alarm klaxon sounded. Red and white flashing lights began blinking on and off along the ceiling and above the elevators. Jace's eyebrows shot up. Whatever was going on, he had a hunch it wasn't good news.

Jace turned to Jonas and raised his voice to be heard over the klaxon. "Maybe we should go have another chat with Harris and find out what that's all about."

"Sounds like a plan," Jonas replied, his brow wrinkled together worriedly. "What are you thinking?"

Jace shook his head. "I'm not thinking anything in particular. Not yet, anyway."

The two set off toward Harris. The councilman had been congratulating another of the honorees a short distance away, but as soon as the alarms sounded, Harris had walked off, moving toward a comm panel mounted on the wall. As Jace approached, he saw Harris stabbing the communicator's buttons in a way that made it exceptionally clear he wasn't getting anywhere.

"Is this part of the celebration, or should we be worried?" Jace asked as he came up behind Harris.

The councilman turned, frustration clear on his face. "I wish I could tell you, but whatever is going wrong, I can't seem to get through to our security forces."

The klaxon stopped abruptly. The lights continued flashing, however. Jonas mimed, taking his hands off of his ears. "Phew. The loud noise was getting annoying. What does the alarm mean?"

"The alarm itself could have gone off for any number of reasons," Harris replied. Then he pointed at the flashing lights. "Those are different, though. The red flashing lights simply indicate there's some sort of an emergency. It's to alert everyone in the building something is wrong. The white ones are more specific. Those are the ones that bother me most right now."

"And the white flashing lights mean..." Jace asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"They mean the shield is up," Harris hissed. "I can't think of any reason why our security forces would have activated the force field."

Jace thought that spoke to a stunning lack of imagination on the part of the councilman. He could think of dozens of reasons why the shield might have been activated. None of them were good. Without more information, though, it was hard to say for sure. He'd only spoken with Tristan a few times, but the head of security had seemed like a level-headed man. He wouldn't have allowed the shield to be activated unless there was a genuine crisis.

The Government Center's dome-like force field was one of the prides of the planet. They had first installed the thing about thirty years prior after a particularly nasty pirate attack. The raiders had used space-based weapons fired from a starship in orbit to devastate large swaths of the city. It was terrifying to live through. Nowhere had been safe. There was no place in the city that people could escape the devastation.

After that, the Council opted to add a shield when they rebuilt. The planet could only afford one such device, because a shield capable of withstanding starship fire was frighteningly expensive. They had installed it into the new Government Center when it was constructed. Later, when they'd outgrown the old Center and built a new one, they had installed an upgraded version. The current shield was powered by an internal fusion plant. Even if the building was cut off for days, it could withstand whatever fire a small armed starship could throw their way. It wouldn’t stop a proper military attack, but against random pirates, it was more than effective.

But the entire point of placing the shield in this building was to allow the city to evacuate there before it was activated. If they were under attack, protocol said to hold off on activating the shield until the absolute last moment so that as many people as possible could flee to the protected area.

The Government Center was a fortress. But that didn't do the people of the city any good if they couldn't get into it.

Whatever was going on, Jace had a feeling it wasn't what it looked like. "I have a feeling we should get ourselves someplace less visible."

"Why? What do you think is happening?" Harris replied.

Jace opened his mouth to reply, not sure what he was going to say. All he had were suspicions, not facts, after all. But before he could say anything, one of the elevators dinged.

They all glanced over as the lift's doors snapped open. Jace half expected Tristan or some of his people to spill out and let them know what was happening. He was stunned to instead see strangers in powered armor rushing forward, assault rifles in hand.

One of the attackers fired his rifle into the air, stitching a string of scorch marks across the ceiling where the blaster bolts impacted. That got the attention of anyone in the room who hadn’t already noticed the intrusion. People screamed and backed away from the attackers as quickly as they could.

Jace looked left and right. He wanted to find some way out of this room. Kira was somewhere in the building, and he had a good idea what she was going to do when she found out there was trouble. If nothing else, Kira was as consistent in her own way as death or taxes, too.

But there was nowhere to go. These men, whoever they were, were well trained. They flowed swiftly from the elevators and swept out across the banquet hall, cutting off any possible avenues of escape.

There were two building security officers standing guard in the room. Those men weren't even given a chance to surrender. The attackers simply cut them down with quick shots from their rifles. That set off more screaming, of course. The crowd was in a full panic, now.

The last thing Jace wanted to do was get himself singled out by these people. Better to stay with the crowd. Best to be as unnoticed as possible as the attackers moved forward. Jace allowed himself to be swept up in the ball of guests coalescing on one side of the room.

Harris was still beside him, and leaned over to whisper in Jace's ear. "Who could these people be?"

Jace gave him a deadpan stare. He was the head of the council. Wasn't he supposed to know the answer to that question?

That would be cruel to say it, though, even if it was accurate.

"I'm sure I don't know. We should probably try to remain calm and quiet until help arrives." Jace replied.

Harris nodded, accepting the wisdom of the statement.

Once they had all been herded into the corner of the banquet hall furthest from the elevators, another man strode forward from the lift. Unlike the others, this man wasn't dressed in powered armor. He wore a business suit, instead. Jace sized the man up, guessing he was in charge of whatever this was.

He looked perhaps forty, but with rejuvenation treatments, it wasn't always possible to tell how old somebody was. He could be that age, or much older. He was thin, but in a lean, athletic way that spoke of someone who worked out. The man had a well-manicured beard and mustache and carefully trimmed hair. Jace didn't recognize the make of the suit, but from the fabric, he could tell it was expensive. Whoever this man was, he had money, and therefore probably power.

"My name is Mr. Dain." the suited man said. "As you can see, my associates and I are in complete control of this building. Your lives are in our hands. If you do as we ask, none of you will be hurt, and all of you will be able to go home to your families with an exciting story to tell."

Then Dain pointed at the two dead security guards. "Fail to follow our instructions exactly, and you will end up like these men. Do we have an understanding?"

No one said a word in reply, which Dain seemed to take as acquiescence. He nodded his head sharply. "Excellent! I felt sure we could come to an easy agreement on this."

Some understanding! Jace gave his head the tiniest shake. Whoever these people were, they were extremely well funded, and for now at least, they held all the cards. Jace just hoped that Kara was having a better day than he was. If there was anything that these men hadn't prepared for, hadn't included in their plans, it would be her.