LUSK PALACE GUARDS DEFEND AXMINSTER COMPOUND FROM ATTACK
1 September 2873
AXMINSTER— In another in the rolling wave of attacks against institutions across Hutori, the Lusk Palace in Axminster, a sprawling garden compound, was the site of a push-cart bombing and subsequent gun battle today between R.U.G., a group linked to the Ultranationalists, and the Lusk Palace Guard. The area of Axminster where the palace is located has no streets, so an assailant posing as a push-cart vendor entered the Atrium Maximum, the public square within the palace and, retreating, remotely detonated his push cart, ripping a hole in a block of offices, mostly of the Lutheran Church of Central Macon and killing at least twenty, as well as obliterating a closed tobacco shop at street level. Eyewitness accounts are confused on what happened next, but within the hour up to a dozen gunmen had taken up defensive positions within the damaged building, known as the Adrian II Office Building, shooting at terrified passers-by and wounding seven. Palace Guard, the paramilitary and private security arm of Lusk, were rushed to the area from their barracks on the other side of the compound. The Palace Guard suffered one death, a Harland Russell of Woodhurst. The R.U.G. fighters were told to surrender, but committed suicide rather than be captured. Details are still emerging. In a statement rushed to the press, Benedict II, who just minutes before the bombing had left the Adrian II Office Building, said, while visibly flushed, that he was "personally offended by the invasion of my family's residence. The Atrium Maximum is open to the public at all times to facilitate community life and local commerce, but the RUG has made that impossible for the foreseeable future. While rebuilding is going on at Adrian II, the Atrium will be temporarily closed. As hereditary Lord Mayor of Axminster, I also have ordered increased police presence across the city to guard against further attacks from RUG. I vow revenge against the perpetrators of this attack. We will exact an eye for an eye and a life for a life."
Axminster police are conducting a metropolis-wide manhunt for anyone connected to the perpetrators. In potentially related news, two Ultranationalist party functionaries in Axminster have been assassinated by unknown forces, widely assumed to be a revenge killing by the Axminster Corporation, the private intelligence network of the Lusk family, or by Lusk partisans. The bodies of the Ultranationalists were strung up on Leopold Avenue, a main thoroughfare in the city. Adrian, Earl of Axminster, following the police report of the assassination, which Axminster police chief John Wallis, Bt. OSS described as "horrific," condemned the violence, saying that "we must not allow violence to blind ourselves." Benedict II has not released a counter-statement rebuking his son, but palace sources report that he is "livid" that his son would defy him openly.
The killings, both by RUG and Lusk, have left Axminster in an extremely tense mood. Although the city reliably votes for Lusk, most citizens are far from Lusk loyalists, voting instead out of civic pride. Piet Fabian, an Axminster factory worker who voted for the CLP in the last election, said that he was "appalled. This is why I didn't vote for Lusk in the last election. Uncle Ben [Prince Benedict II] seems like a nice guy but really he is just as bad as the rest of them. The violence is crazy. People are afraid to go out." Another citizen, Bartholomew Dunn, a retiree who didn't vote in the last election, said that "Lusk never did stuff like this when they were in power. I understand Uncle Ben's feelings, but this has done little to reassure us."