Chapter 7: Employment Fair
Michael was distracted as he waited for the Queen. He had noticed that the last couple of weeks that Lisa had been ill in the morning, and now she was seeing the Admiral. He was afraid that her ordeal with Kellogg a few weeks ago had caused some medical problems. He also suspected that she was holding out on him. But he didn’t even want to begin thinking along those lines yet. He wanted to see more evidence before he asked her if something was going on.
“Mike,” Mylea said seeing the distracted look on her boss’ face. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Wilson said adjusting his uniform, “just thinking.”
Mylea noticed the tension in Michael. She had seen it building over the last few days. There seemed to be more since the news of Ebio news broke. She and Michael had discussed the ramifications of the divestment of the company’s assets on the evacuation; but they both had more or less come to the conclusion, that it might work in their favor. As the company owned lock stock and barrel several inhabitable worlds with no native population. All of them ready for colonization. She didn’t think it was that though, she was certain it had something to do with Lisa. But what she didn’t know. Maybe it was Lisa’s doctor’s appointment today. She had known Lisa ever since she had come to Trena. She wished she was as healthy as her friend was. She hadn’t seen the woman sick in the time she had been on Trena.
The first indication that they queen was approaching was the quiet assumption by the protective detail of their pre departure posts around the car port. Two more agents took a post outside the main door to the Queen’s residence. The car gently pulled to a stop in front of the door. The war wagon, an armored all terrain hover craft took up a position behind the limo. Then the Queen left the residence, Wilson stepped up beside her as did Mylea and they entered the limo. They had decided not use the command vehicles for this trip.
“You with us Mike,” The Queen asked sensing he was distracted.
That broke him out of his distraction, “Yes.”
“You seem distracted,” The Queen commented.
“Sorta,” Mike said, “Worried about Lisa. She’s been sick the last couple of days and she’s seeing Admiral Klond this morning.”
“Oh,” Mylea replied, “I hope it’s nothing serious.”
“She’s usually doesn’t get the sniffles,” Mike commented, “I wish I was as healthy as she usually is.”
“Michael would you rather go to the field hospital than go with us?” the Queen asked.
“No,” he said after a moment, “If it was something serious she would have asked me to go with her. It’s something minor.”
“Are you sure,” The Queen asked. She had never seen any married couple as close as the Wilsons were, except maybe lifemated thonians.
“Yes,” Michael answered.
A few minutes later they pulled into Trenaport’s Royal Convention Center. The convention center was the newest building in Trenaport. The Queen had cut the ribbon for it six months before. It was a combination indoor sports arena, convention center, and theater. Trena was a great convention center. For the same reason it was a great shipping world. It was literally at the hub of several star lanes. Its temperate climate, and interstellar class beaches, casinos, hotels and restaurants made it a great place to hold a convention, take a vacation, or hold your interstellar conference.
“It’s a beautiful building,” Mylea said as the building’s sculptured glass look took her breath away. It looked like some giant artist had taken a hunk of glass then using a torch had carved an octagon out of it cutting intricate detail in all the walls. The translucent material acted as a prism as it caught the sun’s light and projected rainbows across the city. Inside the Prism as it was called there was a large three million square foot arena. That could be sub divided into smaller facilities to hold meetings for as few as 20 people. Some of the meeting rooms were permanent and never changed their configuration. Others could be configured to hold several thousand people. On the points of the octagon were turrets. Each turret held a specialty restaurant. There was a nautical theme on the one that looked onto the harbor. There was a space theme on the south turret that looked at the space port. There were a couple of sports bars, and kids hang outs. It had been costly to build, but the Crown had put up fully half the funds needed to build the center. The people of Trena, and private enterprise put up the rest. Already it was a tourist attraction that people came from all parts of the galaxy to see. Now it would be destroyed. If not right away before a few years were out there would be a collection of shattered glass where a magnificent building once stood. A tear crept slowly down Mylea’s face as she realized the magnitude of the loss of this building.
“It looks like there’s a good turn out.” Wilson said seeing a long line snaking out of the building around the outside.
“Good.” The Queen said and gently squeezed Mylea’s shoulder as she saw the woman’s quiet tears. Sometimes it was more than she could deal with thinking about the destruction that would soon befall her beloved world.
They pulled up before the entrance to one of the midsize meeting halls. A ribbon had been stretched across it. A sign above it said, “Evacuee Employment Fair!” Beside the entrance was a list showing who was represented at the fair. Some of the biggest and smallest names in the galaxy were posted on that list. Lockheed Space Craft, SpaceBus. General Construction, Bradley and Smoot accounting, Jones and Company Deep Space Construction were the big names. Some lesser known firms, such as Babbitt Career Center, Small Stuff Electronics. The Queen was impressed. Not only were the who’s, who of Interstellar industry and commerce were present, but even the lesser known’s were present. As she stepped out of the Limo ruffles and flourishes erupted from the loud speakers. As she approached the minister of labor, the music died away.
“Good Morning majesty,” The Minister a minor lord from contra party said softly. “Welcome to the employment fair.”
“You have quite a collection of names on that wall.” The Queen commented.
“Our people have always been known as some of the most experienced and best trained people in this part of the galaxy, highness.” the minister said, “With our liberal emigration policy, and wide variety of services and goods we provide we have always been a magnet for people who were the best in their fields or who wanted to start over.”
“I know under any other circumstances we would never have anything like this. At least not for off world employment recruiters.” The Queen replied.
They took their seats on a small raised platform with a podium on it. As they did security got the limo out of the way and allowed the crowd to get closer to the stage. It was an unnerving proposition for the security unit. They didn’t feel comfortable with this crowd. Although the number of death threats spiked after the announcement, they had gone down to what the palace security staff considered normal. But this had the potential to bring the kooks out of the wood work. There were extra security people walking the crowd. None of them looked like palace security. Even then they missed it.
Kellogg didn’t.
Kellogg had his hands around a broom sweeping up some last minute waste near the platform. He had gotten himself on the convention center staff as a spot laborer. He and ten of his people were scattered throughout that the crowd. Three of his people were a news team. A couple of his people were along the police lines. The rest were posing as employment candidates. Their objective was to spot trouble and to make it go away without the cops taking a serious interest. As he pushed his broom he watched the crowd. At first there was nothing. As the Queen spoke there was less movement in the waiting crowd, and surprisingly the crowd was quiet.
“Although my staff is working night and day to find a new home world for us to migrate to; not every one of our fellow citizens is cut out to be pioneers who must build an infrastructure to survive. And truthfully some of our fellow citizens’ skills are not geared toward that type of work. Because of
this...”
The impact of the Brothers were about to be felt. The Brothers of the College of Cardinals consisted of several young zealots who had been indoctrinated in the way of the book. Once assured of their piety and belief in God they were turned into a weapon of terror for the Theocracy. They had arrived on Trena at the request of the Bishop of Trena to be used in operations against the Trena Evacuation Command. Their objective was to cause complete and utter chaos during the evacuation. Blow up bridges, government facilities, and to take out as many people as possible when they committed suicide. The Theocracy was determined to make the heathen nonbelievers of Trena meet their maker. Now one of the chosen as they considered themselves was taking the opening shot of the Theocracy’s offensive on Trena.
Kellogg was watching the crowd he had already been given a copy of the sovereign’s speech, so he wasn’t interested at all in what she had to say today. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to hear what she said or needed to hear what she would say, it was much more important that he watch the crowd for anyone who wanted to snuff that message out. One woman kept fiddling with her clothes. She kept inching forward towards the podium. But what got his attention was that most everyone had opened their jackets, or had removed them all together. This one hadn’t. She also seemed to be making an effort to keep it closed. Kellogg started to wander over. He locked eyes with Jonas, one of his people, and nodded. Jonas started to walk toward the person Kellogg indicated. They began stalking the woman. They didn’t want to do anything that would precipitate what she might be trying to do, and more importantly they wanted to make sure that they didn’t pick on an innocent.
She got to the police line. Everyone was watching the Queen including the police. For their part the Queen’s protective detail was watching the crowd, but it was a big crowd and the sheer number of people made it nearly impossible to keep the whole crowd under surveillance the way it needed to be. She opened her jacket and Kellogg saw what was in it.
“Bomb! Everyone Down! Down! Bomb!” With that Kellogg’s partner grabbed the woman’s arms and pinned them back, while Kellogg removed the trigger from her hand.
The crowd went berserk running away from the struggle on the police line. Wilson only heard bomb before he was knocked to the ground and covered by his security detail. He had a glimpse of the Queen being tackled also and the last thing he saw before the last body collapsed on him was Mylea squatting in a three point stance her service revolver out.
What no one knew was that there was a second bomb in the crowd carried by a second suicide bomber. He was in the back of the crowd. He was to be the secondary bomb designed to get the first responders responding to the incident. He was never intended to be the initial bomb. It was hoped that the first bomb would take out the Queen and the second one would cause the ultimate in the confusion and chaos. For all the modern technology, the old combination of fuel, nitrogen based fertilizer, and latex still made an efficient explosive. The bomb had been impregnated with ball bearings and broken glass. It was a big bomb for a suicide bomb, fifty pounds of explosives. When it went off it killed everyone within fifty feet of it. The building had been designed as a disaster shelter. The blast hit the floor to ceiling sound baffle, and force absorbers. The baffles were designed to accept some of the blast pressure and channel some of it away from the walls and columns so the building wouldn’t collapse. What no one could understand later was why the first bomb didn’t go off either. The second bomb still caused tremendous amounts of carnage. It rained bodies and parts of bodies for a full minute after the bomb went off.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 68
