Junction Pt. 04

He looked over, "Not part of this wilds."

Jace sighed, "The other side of this complex is Cordon Wilds. I am Commander Jace Rivers San Angels Marshal Service. I oversee law enforcement in both wilds. I am sure if I came from the other direction they would have claimed it was part of the Holly Wilds. I want to see your Sheriff, your town council, and your human population of miners."

Jace walked forward and one dwarf went to stop him and Jace picked him and held him off the ground with one hand. "I have identified myself. Let the powers that be in this hole know I am here and to stay out of my fucking way. He tossed the 80 kilos fat, short dwarf, gently over toward 2 of his buddies at the gate and walked past them.

One sent a comms message, "We got a Marshal Jace Rivers who just entered. He would not take no for an answer. Said he is a commander. We tried the town, he rejected it as unapproved, tried the other wilds and he is commander over them both and went inside."

The other Dwarf grumbled, "I will get our sheriff to deal with him and get him sent on his way. I have a message about a new commander being appointed out here but have not read it."

---

Jace walked in and used his GWPS system and the known map for this complex to take him straight to the Sheriff's office. They appeared to be waiting for him at the door. Jace looked at him, "I want to see your records."

The Sheriff shook his head, "We don't recognize your authority to be here."

Jace pulled up the Minister of Defense on his hollo display. "These sheriffs state they do not recognize the authority of the Marshal Service and thereby the authority of the Gold Dragon King. As the Director is out and he told me to take matters up with you directly, I am contacting you in this matter.

I am informing you that I am firing the dwarven sheriffs from service until new elections are held. US Marshals will be dispatched to oversee local law enforcement. I have 12 being sent to the Holly Wilds and have them being redirected to this location. I would also like to report that I am taking it a step further and arresting 2 of them for possessing illegal firearms for this City-State."

They both went to draw down and Jace had his Judge up and shot off the hands and destroyed the weapons from both of them, "Let us add attempted murder and resisting arrest to the charges, in front of the Minister of Defense even. I think there are more issues here that need to be investigated."

The Minister of Defense sighed and looked at the Sheriff, "You are doing yourself and your people a disservice. Take the two into custody, Jace. Your Sheriff's office is closed to dwarven personnel. US Marshals will man it until the next election in 30 days."

The Minister of Defense disconnected. Jace cuffed the two dwarves together and bagged the now destroyed guns. The other sheriff he disarmed. He went inside and went through their computers while putting the 2 into lockup.

The fired sheriff called the council, "This Marshal just fired us all. He has Marshals coming in to take over law enforcement and arrested my 2 deputies for illegal weapons and they both tried to shoot him. He blew their fucking hands off single-handedly with a damned Judge firearm and arrested them both for attempted murder and resisting arrest.

I should add he had the damned Minister of Defense on a holovid at the time who witnessed the attempt and his reaction. He ordered us all relieved and the Marshal is in our offices with his new prisoners."

The 3 members looked over and one spoke, "Let him know he is wanted to be seen by the council."

---

Jace downloaded their computers to his own server at home in their entirety. He shook his head at what he found. The former Sheriff walked in and he faced the Judge as Jace drew down on him, "What part of this office is closed to Dwarven personnel did you not get?"

He held up his hands, "The town council wants to see you."

Jace nodded, "Then they will have to come here. An invitation to the local Marshal headquarters is extended to the 3 of them. I have 2 prisoners to guard until the other marshals arrive. Any attempt to stop them will not be well received."

The Sheriff backed out and forwarded the message. One of the Council pulled us a search for Jace Rivers. Vrok Hammerfell sighed, "Fuck. He is an entitled individual who did all that shit up in the Avalon Wilds. They made him a Commander, his former commander is now the Director of the Marshal Service Director Cooper who oversaw this area before.

He was an Army General and an entitled individual. All for cleaning it up and getting the largest weapons caches recovered. Even more than the Army! Virtually single-handedly. Former Spec-ops. Likely how he could fire that gun single-handed. Cybernetics.

Then he saw the reference to the vid file, "Fuck me. He is a caster too. Took down a damned red dragon out that way. There is talk about a vid that was taken down. A news article that talks about him going to the astral plane for 12 hours and coming back 6 months later. Lost a leg in the attack. Got made entitled after that for finding a resource. More to that story I am very sure about that. We better go and talk with him."

The 3 of them got up with 12 armed guards each. They walked down to the Sheriff's office to see Jace standing outside. Jace sent his request to the switchboard. "Commander Jace Rivers, I need tents, medical, and humanitarian food support for 25,000 humans in the Holly Wilds Grasonville town. This message will be forwarded to the director as well. Hours not days."

The operator responded, "We have contacted local services nearest you to start deploying. They will let us know what remains and we will get the next closest deploying. Natural disaster?"

Jace sighed, "Cause unknown but they are all in bad shape. Still investigating."

Jace moved away from the wall and shook his head, "I am counting 27 illegal firearms within your guards. They are illegal in this City-State. They will be surrendered or taken by force.

One dwarf held up his hands and Jace looked at him and cut him off, "Tranok Firebrand, I don't have time for lies or bullshit. Surrender the weapons or I will take action."

Firebrand looked back, "You know they outnumber you?"

Jace smiled, "That is saying a can of worms outnumber me. You know this is being streamed to the Minister of Defense? Correct?"

He paused. Two dwarves pulled up RPG's, "Don't fire. If you do, your deaths will be your own doing."

They fired as he put the wall of force right behind the 3 entitled individuals. The resulting explosion killed or badly maimed all 36 guards as it hit the wall of force cylinder around them.

Jace threw 3 sets of handcuffs over to them, "Put them on, I have you for attempted murder, extortion, rape, conspiracy to commit murder, and fraud charges. That is just to start with once we get into racketeering and price-fixing. Your computer security, while off of the weave; Is still atrocious.

I am an entitled individual and can arrest you all. Your sheriff was nice enough to keep detailed records of his own involvement and yours. I uploaded the contents of his computer to another already. There will be an investigation and heads will roll."

They looked at each other and one spoke, "We do not recognize your authority over us."

Jace sighed, "Fralin Glowing Hammer, Smithtonics CEO."

Jace brought up the hollo Display with the Minister of Defense and he looked across, "Do you recognize mine? One of the first things he did when leaving the military was bring down the head of Phantom Corp. With much less information. He has his server sending data to us now. YEARS' worth of data!"

The dwarf suddenly found himself resigned to his fate. He carried no weapon. He tried to run to grab one and bounced off the force wall.

Jace called out, "I still have that force wall up to keep your little army from rising up to shoot any more illegal arms as they slowly die. Also to shield you from exploding ordinance, like the extra rounds of RPG shells that JUST went off. I would say your chances of becoming an entitled race just got a lot smaller. Cuffs now, or I will shoot you for resisting arrest."

The two put the cuffs on. The third tried banging on the force wall and Jace shot off his right knee and he fell backward. Jace went forward and handcuffed the unconscious dwarf.

Jace looked at the minister of Defense still on the holovid, "I suspect I may encounter their militia as well. Most of these weapons are from BoulDenver. Conspiracy against the King and Royal Family charges is likely to come. I will find out if they have been working to tunnel in that direction."

The Minister sighed, "I will inform the King. Take the gloves off if you have to."

Jace nodded, "Understood Minister."

Jace contacted the Military Base, "Put me in touch with the Base commander. Jace Rivers, Commander San Angels Marshal Service calling."

The operator put him through to the new Elven General. He looked at his blood-covered office and then at Jace Rivers, "This going to get me killed?"

Jace shook his head, "No contact the Minister of Defense when you get a chance. Our Dwarven members have stockpiles of illegal weapons out of BoulDenver. Now either you are not doing a good job on that border, or they have a tunnel under you.

Regardless I was required to inform you as that is a military matter. You have a spec ops unit or 2 you wish to send into the Dwarven complex to search out that possibility? I am authorizing a joint operation. I do mean a joint operation in the civilian sector where I will be advising your troops. The Minister of Defense just spoke with me and he said to take the gloves off.

They have their own militia here. No telling what other weapons we have. I had 7 BD model 974A RPG units just destroy themselves here when 2 were fired inside of a force wall. That weapon is only months old. Others exploded including extra ammo.

I leave it up to you to decide if you wish to search for this potential gap in your perimeter. I have their leadership and Sheriffs in custody and their bodyguards have all died now. 12 Marshals are arriving as we speak."

General Korvalias nodded, "I will look to support a recon of those tunnels to determine how bad of a problem we have."

Jace nodded, "Make sure one of them is a MASTRO unit. You will need the combined skills and you are talking tunnels for potential teleportation extraction if they start collapsing them on us." Jace ended comms.

Jace looked at Firebrand, "Your life is over, all 3 of you. Your families and your holding are the only things you are working to negotiate for now."

Jace pulled out a pad, "Get me names of all humans you have in your files. You have a 910 processor. No biomonitor with that 50ki vamp unit is a problem. Access the information. Access their local dwarven bank account records and put what is owed to each of them with account numbers.

Then get them all sent up and out of the mines into the Holly Wilds now. I can trace your comms. I do mean all of them. You conspired to price fix so you all use the same miners and pay them once instead of paying them separately 3 times. As you reported paying them 3 times, which is known as fraud."

He grumbled but did it. Jace transmitted the data and established an account for each of them in the Dragon's Central bank with 10DC's each. The Marshals arrived and took the 6 of them away including the fired sheriff, 8 stayed behind.

Jace looked over, "Our facility in the wilds. Book them and then take them straight to the Main Marshal's office. You 8, stand here with this pad. Get each miner to give you a name, pull it up. Get them to transfer their funds into the Dragon Central bank. They have all had new accounts generated for them."

Marshal Green looked at him, "How? Those accounts have to have DC's."

Jace nodded, "They each have 10 DC's put in there by me when I created the new accounts. This just merges them into one and it does not let the dwarves hold them hostage over their back pay and overpriced goods. Like standard food rations costing 10 times legal rates."

Marshal Green smiled, "Understood Commander. You going to keep doing things like this?"

Jace nodded, "I am. Ask them all about weapon caches and if they have seen any military types or dragons. Also, ask about tunnels heading south. Send them to the Sheriff's office if you get any hits."

Two Allion aircraft arrived and units stepped out in full tactical gear as humans started leaving. Jace nodded to them, "Command Jace Rivers. San Angels Marshal Service. I authorized your participation in this recon operation. Follow me and we will have another mission briefing."

The Elven commander looked over, "You have no authority over our units."

Jace waved them on, "You don't have a clue yet where to go and you will want my advice commander. I have been in your shoes. I am also going with you as I declared this a 'joint operation' and have authorization from the Minister of Defense to take the gloves off. That is why you are here. You are in charge of your units. I will advise."

He took them to the Sheriff's office. He looked across and removed his glasses and looked back across to them, "Mastro97A Zulu 1, last standing member. The only one to live through a 2-year tour in a Mastro unit and be human. My advice might save some lives."

The commander sighed, "Alright, I just..." Jace nodded, "Got confirmation to cooperate. I know. I can hijack your comms. Trained to do so. My other talents are classified."

The commander chuckled and sat back, "What are you recommending?"

Jace sighed, "You got a drone 740z tactical recon unit with you?"

He sighed, "760c, they upgraded a couple of months ago. You want to swarm the tunnels with drones to find the right tunnel first."

Jace nodded, "We know a general direction is south, but we have no level, depth, or how far east or west we need to go to find the tunnel we are looking for or tunnels. We also do not know if they have military units in place down there.

We start from here. Figure out where we need to go. They also have a militia. Save your resources if we encounter them. I will take them down. You are here for the tunnel, any military units, and weapon confiscation from those involved. I am still here to protect the civilian population."

There was a knock on the door. Jace went and opened it. "This one has a map of the lower tunnels. Said there were 6 mining tunneling rigs on level 8, 3 came into the area when he was working on level 7. Saw armored men step out of them a hundred or so. No reported dragons."

Jace took the map, "Keep the intel coming."

Jace walked over and they threw up the map, "Now we have a general direction Level 8 is nearly 350 meters down. 6 tunnels. They could move an army through there. Report back to your General. See about getting bombers to drop bombs along the outer border of the wilds just outside of our area.

The big bunker-busting ones. I would assume they wanted to embarrass the King as well. Go straight out from the base to the wilds and start there. Let him know we are looking for six collapses. We can bury on this end as well if needed."

The commander stepped out and contacted the General, "We have confirmation from some human miners of a force of 100 or more behind our lines. Jace is recommending a bomber pass in grid 001 south of our base. He is looking for 6 collapses. They had 6 tunnels on level 8, 350 meters down. They might be shallower at your end. He said if they wanted to embarrass the King they would run them right under the base."

The General sighed, "Deploying bombers and missile batteries to send off one set of rounds. Deploying assets to the front line but I am informing the Minister of Defense first."

---

The general contacted the Minister of Defense and he went straight to the throne room. He stopped between two nobles, "Your Majesty, This will not wait."

The King led the way into the war room and the Minster sealed it. He brought up aerial views of the southern border. "I ordered both encampments to the South to follow the same plan. Why one and not the other? Jace found our dwarves cooperating with BoulDenver and they have tunneled into the dwarven lands under our front lines. Jace requested one Mastro unit, we sent 2. He is joining them in dealing with the dwarven mine breach."

The Gold Dragon King fumed as he watched the bombers drop over fields where suggested and they immediately collapsed down almost 50 meters and extended to the edge of his bases. Both of them showed it.

The Gold Dragon King shook his head, "Follow them, Bomb all the way back into the wilds along those tunnels. Find the starting point. Abandon the bases. We will have to send in units to fill in the tunnels below the bases or expend the resources to go after them. Send in dragon military units. To search those tunnels. Those that can find trip mines and explosives."

Just as he said that explosives went off below the two bases causing massive collapses. The Gold Dragon King roared out and shook his head, "Keep up the bombardment!"

---

The commander walked back in, "They bombed, they set off explosives under the bases. They were shallow at that end. 50 meters. The Bombers are still flying, but they will need someplace to land. This will slow operations."

Jace sighed, "Avalon Wilds. They set up 3 landing fields there for their operations. If he is going to need extra runways, he has them already. The Military just needs to man them."

The commander passed it back to the General who passed it back to the Minister of Defense who could not help but chuckle, "Send support, fuel, munitions, and mechanic crews to the Avalon wilds via teleportation. We got 3 runways out there to restock our bombers because of the previous attack. We have not destroyed those airstrips. Came from Jace of course."

The King nodded, "Allows us to keep a steady stream of bombs being deployed. Deploy out the mage Corp. to deal with that. I want the dwarven tunnels sealed that they came in through. Let the Mastro units do their job."

---

Jace led them down. They encountered the militia. Jace got a wall in front of them and became visible. The rounds of RPG and machine-gun fire bounced back and exploded into their own numbers. The commander watched as Jace disappeared again.

He thought to himself, "Why the fuck does he need us here?"

Jace followed the map to level 7 and pointed. "Below us, we breach here. If you are willing to take my advice."

The Commander had them drilling to plant explosives. Jace watched the tunnels ahead and spotted the enemy forces. 4 fucking Mastro units. He set a wall and then sent a flaming tornado down the tunnel from behind them driving them into the wall. One group teleported behind them and the two units he had worked to cut them down while Jace roasted the rest of them. The commander looked over, "Alright, so we are here to watch his back."

His men chuckled at that. Jace had his bow up and shot 5 who were down in the skull, ending their lives. Then took their weapons and rigged them all to launch at the same time. 24 RPG launchers fired and collapsed that tunnel just as the Mastro units blew the hole into the lower level and found 3 dragons that just had the ceiling fall on them. Jace placed a force wall over them as they were unconscious below. He contacted the Minister of Defence directly, "Hold everyone. I got them pinned. Got 3 blue dragons trapped below us. The Mastro teams just dropped the ceiling on them. Orders on killing dragons? Sending vid data to you now."

The Minister called up and displayed the vid. The Gold Dragon King smiled and contacted BoulDenver, "I have 3 blue dragon hostages in the Dwarven tunnels under the Holly Wilds. You ready to talk reparations or do I have them kill them? Including your eldest son."