er job was to distract, and she certainly managed to absolutely dominate their attention the instant she came out the door. After all, the last thing those two expected to see was a naked Faey women trudging out the front door of the dorm. She spotted them quickly and crossed the street, pulling the dog collar off her neck as she came out onto the grass lawn of the park. She reached them and started chattering at them quickly, talking fast, spinning quite the tale about how her squad lost a bet with Jason, and she ended up in a dog collar as a result. She asked them for some clothes or a ride back to her barracks, and they agreed. She let them go first, towards the car, and she lightly placed two tiny devices on the backs of their armor that had been hidden in the palms of her hands. She gave him a thumbs-up as they took her to his car, then got in it with them and was hurried away.

Mission accomplished.

He reached into his pocket and pressed a little red button on his remote, put it back in his pocket, then went to school.

Those two Marines discovered later, after dropping Symone off at her barracks, that whenever they drove towards the campus, they had sudden fits of terrible itching all over their entire bodies. The closer they got to the campus, the worse it became. Zora and Mil couldn't understand what was happening, but when they realized that retreating made the insane itching ease, they both realized that somehow, some way, Jason had gotten them. Circling the campus proved that it was the campus that was at the center of this strange effect, and the itching started when they got within about a human mile of it. It started off very mild, almost kind of nice, like little feathers ghosting over their bodies, but it was all over their entire bodies, and it got worse and worse the closer they approached the campus.

They parked the hovercar about at the edge of this effect and looked at each other. "He got us!" Zora said, then she laughed. "How did he do it? What did he do?"

"I don't know-hey!" Min said. "That regular was the only one who got close to us! Do you think she was in on it?"

"It's possible, but how could she do anything? She was naked, and wasn't carrying anything."

"Unless she distracted us while Jason somehow did something," Min grunted. "Myri said that you can't sense him at all, that he can sneak up on just about anyone. Did you see him?"

"No, did you?"

"No."

They looked at each other, then burst into laughter. "Should we go pay a little visit to that regular?" Min asked.

"Nah, she was just a part of the game," Zora replied. "Besides, after being Jason's pet for a couple of days, I think she suffered enough, don't you?"

                                        * * *

Jason enjoyed his Monday in peace, but Tuesday morning, at four a.m. sharp, he was awakened by a knock on the door. He blearily opened it-he got up at five every morning, so this was a little early for him-and found himself staring at a tall, regal-looking Faey with _green_ hair. Emerald green. He had never seen that color hair on a Faey before. Despite it being green, she wore it in the short, comb-over style that many Marines favored, and it was strangely pretty with her blue skin. She was narrow-faced, almost foxlike in appearance, with large eyes, a long nose, and a narrow, sharp face that looked predatory. She was rather handsome, and it was apparent that she was older than the other Faey who had tasted defeat at his hands in the days past. Instead of armor, she wore a dark blue uniform of sorts, with sleek dark blue pants with a red sash, and a sharply pressed blue jacket that had silver buttons along its front. She had little silver triangles on her lapels, a little starburst design insignia pinned to her left epaulet, and a gold woven rope that was attached to her right, running under her arm.

"I am Lieutenant Lana," she announced as if that meant everything in the world. "And these are yours."

She held out his two little sub-sonic induction devices, which had used extreme high-frequency sound to irritate the skin of the two Faey from yesterday. Their armor conducted the subsonic waves, acting like amplifiers, and they were set to get stronger and stronger the closer they came to his remote.

"Thanks. They took me hours to build. I don't want to lose them," he said with a roguish smile as he accepted the two button-sized devices, painted the same hue of black as a Marine's armor. "How long did it take them to find them?"

"Seven hours," she answered honestly. "We had to use a scanner to find them. They were very devious."

"Thank you," he said with a nod. "So, you're number six," he said as he turned and walked from the door, leaving it open. "At least you're civil enough to come and introduce yourself. 'Hello, I'm Lieutenant Lana, and I'll be your opposition this morning'," he said in a voice that a waiter might use to introduce himself.

She chuckled. "I'm not here as the opponent. I'm here as the mediator," she told him. "I'm here to put an end to this little war, Jason. Before I leave, we'll have an agreement."

"What makes you think I'm going to quit?" he asked. "I'm _winning_."

"Because I have direct orders from my battalion commander to end it," she told him with steady eyes. "We all thought it was funny for the first few days, but it's starting to foment discord between the Corps and the Army regulars, as their little visit to you on Saturday probably proves to you."

He nodded.

"I'm here to head things off before they get ugly. For you and Jyslin, and also for the Army and the Corps. So, before I leave here, we'll have an agreement on the table, and one both sides will agree to honor. There's no way you'll get out of the date, so be prepared to stipulate that condition right now. But, given how badly you thrashed my Marines, I'm sure you can drag some conditions out of me that will suit you and make them very annoyed," she winked.

"Why help me like that? Aren't you supposed to be on _their_ side?"

"Because I believe you deserve it," she said. "After all, you've stymied my squad for six days now, and that's no mean feat. My unit is _good_. Very good. But they've met their match in you so far. You _are_ winning, Jason, and because of that, you should get the lion's share in the peace agreement. You will have to concede the main point, but everything else is up for negotiation, and the current conditions favor a strong lean towards your interests."

"Well, I appreciate the praise."

"It's more than that," she said, pointing at the subsonic inducers he set on the desk. "Those little devices were _devious_, Jason, and it's something I've never seen before. I had a tech scan them yesterday, and she thinks that they have some potential uses in military or civilian applications. She was impressed by the complexity of them, and she didn't believe me when I told her that a second-semester tech student built them."

He wasn't quite happy about that. He didn't build those inducers to be used in _war_. They were built as a prank to best a pair of Marines, that's all.

"Don't worry, I had their design patented," she told him. "In _your_ name. You invented them, after all. I also submitted the design to the Ministry of Technology."

"What does that mean?"

"That means that if the Imperium uses the idea, you get paid for it," she answered. "And the submission will get you _noticed_, Jason. You need that. The inducers are just one of three things I've never seen before. I've never seen that chemical you sprayed one Sheleese and Ilia that destroyed their armor without hurting them. I've also never seen anyone use a plasma magnet the way you did, with a magnetic field density sensor on it to control its magnetic force to make the hovercar hang in midair the way it did. Those are brilliant inventions, Jason. Just _brilliant_, and it makes it even more impressive when you realize that they're coming from a second-year tech student with absolutely no background knowledge of Faey technology. To us, it's like a primitive caveman stumbling on a pile of tools and material and using them to build a PPG. If you can attract the attention of the Ministry, there's a good chance you can get into either black ops or research. That's where anyone in school wants to end up."

He gave her a long, steady look. "Why are you helping me?"

"Because I believe in helping people discover their potential," she answered. "It's my duty as an officer. I think you have what it takes to be in research, and I'll do what I can to get you there."

He was quiet a long moment, not sure what to say.

"Alright, so let's agree right here and now that there's no way you can avoid going out with Jyslin. That's an absolute."

"That's an admission of defeat," Jason told her. "That's what all of this is about."

"You're going to lose this eventually, Jason," she told him. "You'd lose tomorrow, I guarantee it. After you get out of school, Jyslin is planning to arrest you and throw you in a cell full of hand-picked cellmates, and keep you there until you admit defeat or she has to let you go in the morning. Then she was going to arrest you again that afternoon, and again, and again, until you gave up."

Jason's eyes hardened. "I thought she was better than that," he growled.

"They're not criminals," she told him with a grin. "She was going to put you in a cell with a pack of _giruzi_." Giruzi were massive canines that were indigenous to one of the worlds the Faey owned, which looked like black-pelted dogs who were five feet tall at the shoulder. Their eyes glowed red from some kind of bioluminescent reaction, and they had the capability to administer powerful electric shocks. They had bio-electro organs much akin to the shock glands of an electric eel, but they were much more powerful. A giruzi could unleash a blast of what looked like lightning nearly a hundred feet through open air. Giruzi used them to hunt prey, one of the most effective hunting evolutionary developments he'd ever seen. He'd seen them a few times, because sometimes the Marines used them for crowd control, having trained them to use their shocks to stun instead of kill. Humans might not be too motivated to disperse when faced with a few Faey in armor, but they scattered when a couple of giruzi were brought in to motivate them to be somewhere else.

Jason frowned, then he chuckled ruefully. "That's clever, but it would have backfired. I'm not afraid of giruzi."

"You would be if there's someone giving them orders to scare you," she told him with a wink. "Wouldn't you prefer losing with dignity, or with an animal that weighs twice what you do chewing your clothes off?"

"It'll be on her when my grades go down because I can't study," he shrugged.

"I know, and that's the other reason why I've been ordered to put an end to this," she said earnestly. "It's going to do you permanent harm if we let this go on any longer. This academy is too demanding for you to be distracted for an extended period of time like this."

"I am _not_ going out with Jyslin," he said adamantly.

"You will," she said sternly. "What we're here to negotiate is what happens during the date," she smiled. "And the possibility of dates taking place after the first."

He shouted, he argued, he even _threatened_, but Lana was absolutely unflappable. She talked him down from his highly confrontational stance, got him to talk. She met his posturing with calm logic, talking him down, talking him down, being utterly reasonable at all times.

She made him see two glaring facts. First, Jyslin was _not_ going to stop until she won. She would be an eternal thorn in his side. And second, that an escalation of the war was going to do real harm to him, and possibly both of them. Where Jyslin and the other Marines failed, Lana succeeded by making him see reason, and that reasoning was that he should try to get what he could out of a bad situation.

So, they sat down in the common room and hammered out an agreement. Jason would go out on _one_ date with Jyslin. That date would entail exactly one dinner at Copeland's (Jyslin pays), going to the opera (Jyslin pays), and a nightcap visit to a small bar or restaurant of Jason's choosing after the opera (Jyslin pays). After that, Jason had the option to have her take him home, or he could decide to stay out with her and do whatever they pleased. That was it. During this date, Jason had to behave in a courteous manner and not cause trouble, and Jyslin would be required to treat him with respect and not grind the fact that she was getting her date in his nose.

After the date, it was agreed upon that no matter what, Jyslin would not attempt to force him to do anything he did not want to the way she had before. She could annoy him, harass him, harangue him all she wanted, but she had to do it _herself_. She couldn't bring the squad in on it, and she was absolutely forbidden from interfering with his schoolwork. Lana made that abundantly clear to him, and it hit him as rather important. She'd said that some of his little tricks had attracted attention, and now she comes in and admits that someone higher up ordered her to put a stop to it.

He wondered how high up that order came from.

"Are we agreed, then?" Lana asked in a reasonable tone, extending her hand across the table in the common room, which was filled with two couches and three large tables were students could sit and study, or watch the large flat-panel plasma screen TV hanging on the wall.

"I'm not too happy about this, but if it'll get Jyslin off my back, I'll agree to it," he said after a moment.

"Then I think we have a deal," she said. He took her delicate hand and shook it after a moment, sealing the bargain.

It was the first time that a date had been negotiated at the conference table. It was also the first date ever officially condoned and ordered to take place by the Imperial Marine Corps.

And it would take place on Friday.


Chapter 3

_Raista, 16 Shiaa, 4392, Orthodox Calendar;_
_Wednesday, 21 May 2007, Native regional reckoning_
_New Orleans, Gamia Province, American sector_

Symone was absolutely outrageous.

That was the entire problem he had with her, because she was just so damn _likable_.

It was both a part of her quirky charm and the manner in which she defused any kind of possible retaliation against Tim for him going out with a Faey. She was so bubbly and energetic, and when she was in public, she acted like an absolute airhead. She gave Tim vapid, adoring stares, and she actually debased herself a little bit by acting with a kind of effervescent silliness when she was around him which made everyone comfortable with her, whether they liked Faey or not. She was riotously funny, charmingly silly, deceptively vapid, and cunningly adorable.

She was absolutely impossible not to like.

The students reacted to her presence surprisingly well, Jason had to admit. She made it very clear from the outset that she was dating Tim-her big and hunky stud, as she called him-and the way she fawned all over him defused any kind of animosity that humans might have for her. She acted like a lovestruck ditz, and the students considered her to be harmless. In private, though, she showed both him and Tim that she was a very smart young lady, and that her affection for Tim was quite sincere.

In the face of Symone, his personal intent to not socialize with Faey was sorely put to the test.

She was just so _fun_. Tim managed to drag him with them after school on Monday night to go down to the quarter for some drinks, and it was just a matter of minutes before Symone had managed to insinuate herself right into their friendship. She was a fearless woman with a wicked sense of humor, and she was very funny when she got drunk. She'd shocked Patty O's at first, since it was the first time they'd ever seen a Faey out of armor, and one that had come in to drink, no less, but Symone had the entire piano bar eating out of her hand after about half an hour. She bantered with the waitress, she made jokes with the other patrons, and after they'd called Jason up to have him play the piano, she jumped up on the stage and sang for the spectators. Symone had a lovely voice, and she was surprisingly familiar with human songs.

By nine o'clock, curfew, she was roaring drunk, hanging on both of them as they caught a streetcar back to the dorm, and Jason had to keep reminding himself that she was a Faey, because she was a very funny drunk.

Last night, instead of going out and getting drunk, Tim brought her along as they studied in the common room. She showed no signs of her indisposition the night before, spending the time reading an old human romance novel. Jason was a bit surprised she could read English. After they got ready for their calculus test, she convinced them to bring in a DVD player and show her favorite human movie on the big TV in the common room, _Braveheart_.

"That movie's like ten years old," Tim told her in surprise. "How did you find out about it?"

"I saw a commercial with that lead actor, a clip from the movie, and I had to check it out. Men in skirts always get my attention," she winked.

"It's called a kilt or a plaid, not a skirt," Jason told her absently.

"So that's where the name you students gave the lab building came from."

"Yah," Tim told her.

"That Mal Gobson is cute."

"Mel Gibson."

"Whatever. Who cares about him now that I got my Tim-Tim?" she said, leaning over the table and giving him a passionate kiss.

"Tim-Tim?" Jason asked mildly, giving him a sly smile.

His expression was a bit pained. "So she has a pet name for me."

"Riiight," he drawled, glancing up from his panel.

"Don't make me come over there," he said with an evil smile.

"Bring a spatula," Jason remarked absently. "You'll need it to peel yourself off the floor."

"Talk Faey," Symone objected. "I'm not that good with English, and you need the practice, Tim. What is a _spatula_?"

Tim explained it to her, which made her laugh. "I remember that fight you had with my squad, Jason. You're teaching Tim how to do that?"

"Well, he might be able to do that in a couple of years," Jason told her. "He just started learning."

"Where did you learn it?"

"Well, when I was a kid, my father was stationed in Japan," he answered. "When he was there, he got totally fascinated with martial arts. Unarmed combat," he explained. "He used it to keep in shape, because pilots have to be in very good shape to handle the physical stresses of being a fighter pilot."

"My sister is in the pilot program," she nodded. "Her letters say she was shocked at how much they have to work out.

"What does she fly?" Tim asked.

"She flies exomechs," she answered him. "Those machines that looked like robots. Pilots have to fly exomechs for a year or so before they get rated for flying fighters."

"I've never seen one," Tim told her.

With a few keystrokes on his panel's holographic keyboard, he brought up a good picture of one, then turned the panel around so he could see it. "Exomech," Jason told him. Exomechs were large robotic fighting vehicles, about twelve feet tall, that moved just like a human or a Faey. He'd read about them on CivNet. They didn't really use them here because they didn't really need to, but he was sure they had some garrisoned somewhere on the planet, or in the starship that was parked in orbit over the planet to provide assistance, in case of some catastrophic accident or major insurrection. The information he'd gotten on them was surprisingly detailed. Faey had yet to develop a technology that allowed machines to interface with their telepathic powers, so all their devices were manually controlled. An exomech would certainly test a pilot's ability to handle multiple controls simultaneously. The arms were controlled with braces that attached to the pilot's arms, and the legs and the exomech's ability to walk or run were controlled braces that attached to the feet, and a pair of pedals on the floor. A combination of foot shifts and pushing the pedals, translated by the onboard computer, would give the exomech an utterly humanoid manner of moving. They were armed with very powerful weapons called MPACs, Metaphased Plasma Auto Cannons, a much more powerful version of the plasma rifles and pistols the Faey employed, which were housed in the forearms of the units. Exomechs were battlefield weapons, the ultimate expression of the powered personal combat armor Faey soldiers wore into combat, but unlike that powered armor, exomechs were equipped with spatial drives that allowed them to fly. The Faey's personal powered armor had magnetic induction units that let it ride on a planet's magnetic field. That allowed them to skim along the surface of the ground with extreme speed, and reach an altitude of nearly thirty meters.

"Holy shit," Tim breathed, staring at the picture.

"You keep thinking that what you see the Faey using here is all they have," Jason told him seriously. "What they use here is hundred year old surplus junk that they probably had to dust off."

Symone nodded. "Sure enough. The only current tech they let us use around here are our weapons, well, and the hovercars. They're pretty standard just about anywhere in the Imperium. They converted all our hot plasma and ion guns to metaphased twenty years ago."

"Why don't they give you the good stuff?"

"They don't need to," Symone told him honestly. "Our hundred-year old armor can stop the most powerful archaic powder gun you have. You can't organize because you have no defense against our telepathy, so that old armor is all we need." She snorted. "My House is cheap anyway," she complained. "We still have Polymerized Camonite armor when the Imperials have Neutronium. Trillane worries more about its purse than it does its defense," she said, then she made a face. "Why are we sitting here talking about this shit? Let's watch the movie!"

It was hard to say no to Symone, over just about anything. So, their studying turned into an extended screening of _Braveheart_, along with nearly the entire second and third floors of the dorm. Symone's bubbly, infectious nature had taken hold of everyone watching the movie, and got them all into it much more than they would have been had they been watching it alone. She had the entire room cheering during the battle scenes.

But she wasn't a friend. And Jason had to keep telling himself that about every ten minutes.

He caught her again in the morning, as she opened his door without knocking as he sat on his bed and prepared for the coming day with his thirty minutes of meditation, which preceded his morning workout. It didn't go very well, for he had another one of those annoying headaches that he'd been suffering from for the last couple of months. They were never too severe, a dull, aching throb inside his head that tended to come and go over the course of about an hour. He'd woke up with it, and it was just starting to ease. But it wasn't enough to prevent him from meditating; in fact, it was something of an exercise to ignore the pain and continue with his meditation despite it.

"Hello? Jason, are you in here-oh," she said in surprise, putting a hand to her chest when she saw him sitting on the bed.

"What?" he asked, his eyes opening and regarding her. She was wearing one of Tim's football jersey shirts, which hung down to her thighs. "You slept here last night?"

"I'm trying to get Tim to move in with me."

"You move fast."

"I know it's only been a few days, but I think I love him," she admitted, scratching her backside absently. "When he let me join our minds, what I found inside him was beautiful. I'm not letting him get away from me. He's too good a catch."

"I can't argue there."

"What were you doing?" she asked. "I couldn't even sense you in here. It was like you turned off your brain."

"Meditating," he answered. "A mental exercise that helps sharpen the mind."

"It was creepy," she told him. "I usually get a sense of _something_ from you, even if I can't hear your thoughts. But it was like your brain wasn't there."

"I know. I've learned that meditation keeps Faey from finding me with their power. I've had occasion to hide from them here lately."

"Heh," she mused. "How do you do that, anyway? Hide your thoughts from me. I've never come across a human that can do that. It made me almost itch to try to probe you several times when you had me in that collar, but you said no using my talent, and I wasn't going to cheat."

"It's a mental exercise," he answered. "A false front that hides my thoughts. I've had a lot of practice perfecting it," he growled. "Faey seem to go nuts that they can't hear my thoughts, and they always probe me. I've even learned what it feels like when they're doing it."

"You can feel it?" she asked in surprise.

He nodded.

"Damn," she grunted. "I didn't think that was possible."

"What do you mean?"

"You shouldn't be able to feel us using our talent. No other humans do."

"They probably don't have the same training I do," he answered. "Part of what I learned from my father involves knowing your own mind. Since what Faey do is _alien_, something not part of my mind, I can sense it when they do it to me."

"Huh. Well, wonders never cease," she said. "What time is it?"

"Around five thirty."

"Fuck," she grunted sourly. "I have to be at the barracks by six. I need to get dressed and get my ass over there before I get busted."

"You're not supposed to be here?"

"They don't care where I am as long as I show up for duty on time," she told him. "I've got the campus in my duty rotation today, so I'll try to show up for lunch with you guys. But we're not friends," she said with a sly smile and a wink. "I'm going to be there to see Tim. If you're there, well, I'll just have to be nice to you. Semantics, you know. Sophistry. I don't want to ruin your hypocrisy."

Jason chuckled ruefully. "Bitch," he accused.

She winked again. "The bitchiest of all bitches," she said shamelessly. "Call me the Bitch Queen. And be sure to bow. The Bitch Queen gets bitchy when she doesn't get the respect she's due."

"Work. Go," he commanded.

"Yes, Master," she said breathlessly. She twirled towards the door, then pulled up her shirt to expose her bare buttocks, then slapped herself a couple of times on that rather attractive posterior in taunting reply to his command, then hurried out the door.

He peeked out of the room and saw her getting ready to go up the stairs. "Someday you're going to come into my room and manage to get out without showing me your ass," he called to her, loud enough to wake up a few people on his floor.

"Consider yourself lucky," she shouted in reply. "I don't show my ass to just any guy, you know!"

Several bleary heads poked out of opening doors as Jason chuckled. "What the hell are you shouting for at five thirty in the _fucking_ morning?" the girl who lived in the room beside him asked crossly. Her name was Betty, and he didn't really like her all that much. She was a primadonna.

"Symone," he said, and that was all the explanation he needed.

She looked towards the stairwell at the end of the hall, then laughed. "Oh. Nevermind, then," she said, then closed her door.

Oh, yes, the whole dorm was familiar with Symone. In a way, she was the dorm mascot now.

The calculus test was surprisingly difficult, but he was pretty sure he managed to pass it with a high mark. There was a little excitement in the lab, when a PPG suffered a fatal breakdown and ejected its core, which caused the PPG's case to overheat and catch fire. Ailan had to douse the fire with an extinguisher, showing a calm reaction to an event that caused some of the students to scream and back away.

After lab was over, Ailan called him down to the table before he could leave. "I got a message from the Ministry, and they sent me the design specs for an ultrasonic device that they say you built," he said.

"She really did it," Jason said in surprise.

"What?"

"Lana, she said she took scans of something I built to piss off the Marines and sent it to the Ministry of Technology. I didn't think anything of it."

"Can I see this device you built?" he asked. "Exactly how does it work?"

"It's nothing but a supersonic emitter," he told him, digging into his pack, for they were still inside it. "I read about the metal the Faey use in their armor and found out it has an acoustic signature, so I built an emitter that used the armor as a speaker. I hooked it to a proximity sensor so the sound got stronger they closer they got to me." He handed the tiny device to Ailan.

Ailan was quiet a moment, turning the little black disc over in his supple, long-fingered hand, then he laughed. "It would feel like ants crawling all over them," he realized, then he grinned. "That's devious!"

"Lana thought so," Jason chuckled.

"May I keep this for a few days?"

"Sure," he agreed.

"I think I need to find more challenging projects for you, if you can build something this small," he said with a sly smile.

"The first thing the professor I had in Boston taught us was how to burn circuits in laminar board in Control Systems I," he answered, referring to the classes that taught moleculartronic theory and application. "She started with boardwork and worked up. Tim's in your class, and from what he told me, you seem to start with major components and work down."

"She taught you boardwork right off?" he asked in surprise.

He nodded. "She had a class of people who were in engineering before the subjugation," he explained. "Since we all had experience with electronic circuitry, she started us off on moleculartronic circuitry. She taught us so much that I tested out of Control II. It worked pretty well, actually. We all learned about trinary a lot faster since we started with how it operated on the board."

Moleculartronic technology was the technology they used for their computers and other sophisticated devices. It used polarity-phased plasma as a power source, like electricity, and behaved remarkably like electronics did. Moleculartronic circuits were built on boards of laminated titanium, and the alignment of the molecular structure of the board was what channeled plasma flow to the components which were annealed to it. Moleculartronic components were circuits built of silicon, germanium, titanium, and certain alloys of light metals and 