l adult age of twenty five, when she was required by Faey law to serve five years in the military. She'd always been a very strong telepath, and since she couldn't find any open slots in engineering school, she ended up in the Marines.

While she grew up, she had what she called a normal childhood. Her parents loved her, and since she was an only child, they may have spoiled her just a little bit. She grew up with many friends, and had always been popular in school because she was funny and she was smart. To Faey, smart kids were as popular in school as attractive humans were in human schools. Since most Faey were handsome or pretty, physical appearance wasn't as important to them as it was to humans. She'd expressed her telepathic powers at a very young age, a sign of her impressive power, and that was also a reason why she was so popular in school. Telepathic power was the basic measuring stick by which all Faey compared themselves to one another. While the other kids were only just starting to express, she had already gained a grasp of the basics.

Telepathy was amazing and formidable to Jason, but it was just _normal_ to Jyslin. They had courses in high school that taught telepathic skills like a human would have a math or chemistry class, classes that Jyslin took when she was still four years younger than most of the other people in the class. By the time all her friends were just starting Telepathy I, she had received her certificate proclaiming her to be a competent telepath. Telepathy was an innate power, but it didn't come with an innate ability to _use_ it. There were quite a few skills that a telepath had to learn, skills to protect their own minds and deal with the constant noise of background thoughts that the non-telepathic races gave off. They had to learn how to send their thoughts to others, or just _send_ as they called it, which was itself an art form more than a skill. They had to learn the basics of how to defend themselves against a telepathic attack, how to maintain a defense against unwanted intrusion while at the same time allowing others to be able to send to them, which was a delicate skill that took quite a bit of practice to learn. They also had to learn how to attack other minds. It seemed odd to Jason that they taught their children how to use their power as a weapon against other Faey, but then he realized that they could use those same attacking techniques against non-telepathic creatures, and they also were simply formally training them in something that they may be required to do later in life in case they ever found themselves in a fight with another Faey. Humans brawled. Faey battled on the mindscape of telepathic power.

She reached her age of majority on that frozen rock, and was conscripted for her mandatory five years of military service. She'd tried to get into engineering, since she had the grades and had made the scores on the test for it, but that was a non-combat position, and all the slots were bought by nobles and the few rich commoners for their children. Given that she was such a strong telepath, that made her high on the list for the Marines. They engaged in ship to ship combat, and those close quarters gave the telepathic Faey a major advantage. They were also usually the first armed force to hit the ground, just like the American Marines had been. First in, last out, that was their motto. They needed powerful telepaths who could find and try to mentally dominate the initial opposition, opposition who probably had anti-telepathy measures in place to try to dampen that advantage if they were expecting the Faey.

Of course, she wouldn't tell him what those measures were, and since he'd never found anything like that on CivNet-and he'd looked-it was something he was best off simply dropping.

She'd went through boot camp on homeworld, where it was _warm_, and had been a trooper for two years. She'd been posted on ships for six months, had occupied a disputed planet called Elvar III, one of the two systems that the Faey and the Skaa were fighting over. She'd only seen one battle, and it was little more than a skirmish between her squad and five Skaa guerillas. She'd had _real_ armor then, and though the Skaa's Neutron weaponry was formidable, the Adamantium alloy armor she'd had had protected her from a hit on her left shoulder. Adamantium was one of the strongest metal alloys known, and it was dreadfully expensive. As a front-line unit, she'd been issued that armor, and it saved her from having her entire left arm and shoulder surgically replaced with bionics.

That was one of the few places where he could not fault the Imperium. When it came to protecting its soldiers, they did _not_ play.

After a year rotating on and off Elvar III, she was reassigned to Terra. And here she was. "I was up in New York for a while, but it was too damned cold," she told him as the waiter set their food down before them. She ordered Cajun shrimp, a Copeland's specialty, and he had blackened steak. Faey had this thing for seafood, he'd noticed from their television. They'd gotten a table out on the patio, his favorite place to sit, and they sat there in view of the pedestrians on the sidewalk and the occupants of the cars. This bothered him a little bit, but when she found out he loved sitting on the patio, she wouldn't sit anywhere else. "The squad got reassigned here to New Orleans about two months ago, thank the gods," she sighed. "If I had to go through one more winter slogging through snow, I was going to scream."

"I hate heat," he grunted. "I grew up where it's usually cold."

"Oh? Tell me about it," she said as she took her first bite.

He knew he shouldn't tell her anything, but she had told him about her, and he felt it only fair to reciprocate. He was born on an airplane somewhere over the Atlantic ocean twenty two years ago, en route from Boston to Ramstein Air Force Base, in Germany. In a way, he'd been born between nations, and his mother always joked that he was one of a very few citizens of the world instead of a nation. His father was a fighter pilot in the Air Force, and his mother was a music teacher. He was a true military brat, spending the first two years in Germany, then moving for a year in Korea, then a year in Alaska, then they moved to Japan when he was five. They were there for four years, the longest they'd ever stayed in one place, and that was where his father had fallen in love with martial arts. In four short years, his father became a black belt in four different martial arts. He didn't see his father much for those four years, but his mother just smiled and told him that he was doing something he loved to do.

Jason had been there long enough to speak fairly decent Japanese, but it had been so long since he'd used it, he felt he'd probably forgotten it by now. He could still remember the _kanji_ and the two phonetic writing systems, _hiragana _and _katakana_, though. Strange, sometimes, how memory worked.

His father was a bit disappointed when they left Japan, going back to America. In a way, though, it was probably necessary, for their only son could barely speak English. He'd grown up speaking French to his mother and whatever the local language was for everyone else, speaking a mixture of English and French only with his father. He'd caught on quickly enough, but getting rid of his accent took nearly three years. They were stationed in Washington state for two years, then went back to Alaska for another year.

It was in Alaska, just a couple of weeks after he turned twelve, when his mother was killed in an auto accident. His father resigned from the Air Force soon afterward and moved them back to the ancestral home, in a little town northwest of Portland, Maine, called Durham. He started a flight instructor's school using his Cessna, earned a black belt and the credentials to open his own martial arts school, and Jason had to get used to living in one place. It wasn't that bad, actually. He made friends in school, stayed in one school for more than a couple of years, and everyone spoke the same language. He started getting interested in electronics about then, but he was determined to get into the Air Force Academy and be a fighter pilot, just like his father, so he buckled down in school and started bringing his grades up to the point where they'd consider him. He started playing soccer and football, and found out that he was rather good at sports, thanks to all the martial arts instruction that his father gave him.

Then his father got sick, and eventually died. Jason was sixteen at the time, and he had no aunts or uncles-both his parents were only children-and all four of his grandparents had already passed away. Instead of going into a foster family and selling the house, he won his emancipation in court by proving he was mature enough to live on his own. The inheritance he got wasn't that much, but it was enough to pay for him to get through high school without having to work, but it wasn't enough to get him through college. Luckily for him, though, the University of Michigan offered him a scholarship to play football, which he got because a scout had come to watch a game he played in, but was actually there to scout the quarterback of the opposing team.

It hadn't been easy, but Jason sold the house and moved to Michigan. The money he got from the house was enough to let him buy a car and support him as he went through college without having to work. He elected for a double major of electronics engineering and computer science, since the scholarship would pay for five years of college and he was more than willing to take summer classes. He did like to play football, but he didn't apply himself in football as much as he could have, and as a result ended up as a third-string safety and a special teams cover player. He was there for the education, not the football.

"That drove my coaches crazy," he admitted to her as he picked at his salad. Jason always ate his salad last, as for him it was the dessert. "They knew I was better than I played, but since I was always so involved with my classes, I just didn't have the time to develop my skills. Coach Dawson always told me that if I'd give him three months, he could make me a starter. He even told me that I might even be good enough to play in the NFL, but I just wasn't interested."

"It wasn't right for you to hold back on your team like that," she said critically.

"I never held back," he said bluntly. "I just didn't have as much experience as they did. Coach Dawson said that it was raw physical ability that let me play on their level. If I'd have had the time to learn the nuances of the game, I could have been a starter."

"Did you want to be?"

"Not really," he admitted. "I was there to learn, not to play."

"Well, what happened after that?"

"Nothing," he said grimly. "Your ships arrived just when I started my senior year. That put me in limbo for nearly a year as they tested everyone. After I was tested, I was sent to Boston, and after one semester, they moved me down here."

"And here we are," she said carefully, obviously seeking to avoid an argument. "Where is your car at?" she asked curiously.

"Still in Michigan," he growled. "They wouldn't let me bring it."

"Why not?"

"I have no idea. I just know that if it hasn't been towed away, it's still sitting in the student parking lot of the dorm up in Michigan."

"Did they pay you for it?"

He gave her a flat look. "You seem to fail to grasp the situation for humans. When they shipped me to Boston, I had one suitcase full of clothes. That's all. They made me leave everything else behind. Photo albums of my family, personal heirlooms, all my things, I couldn't bring any of it. Only clothes."

She frowned. "That's not right," she declared. "They shouldn't have done that."

"There are all sorts of things that they shouldn't do, but they did," he told her. "A friend of mine in Maine told me that a squad of Faey troopers came to her house, and while one of them asked her questions, the rest ransacked it. They took everything of value, even the silverware. Then they told her if she said anything, they'd come back and burn out her brain and make her a vegetable."

"Now that's _wrong_," she said hotly. "Where was this? Durham?"

"What does it matter?" he asked.

"Humans have _rights_, Jason," she said with surprising vehemence. "You're citizens of the Imperium, and that means even though you're subject to its rules, it also means that you enjoy its protections. There are rules against soldiers doing that. Not even a noble can barge into a person's house and take everything."

"That doesn't seem to stop them," he said mildly. "That kind of thing happens all the time."

"This is why the Marines are here," she said hotly. "To put a stop to that kind of bullshit."

"You need the Marines to keep the nobles in line?" he asked.

"Nobles do what they want, so long as they stay within the law," she answered. "The Marines are here to make sure they're doing the Empress' will. We also make sure they obey her laws. I think that the Marines up in Maine aren't doing their jobs very well. We'll just have to see about that," she said in a nasty tone.

"What can you do?" he scoffed.

"My aunt is the general in command of all Marines in North America," she answered. "How do you think my squad got transferred to New Orleans? I asked Aunt Lorna for a transfer. I'll tell her about this, and she'll put her foot down on some necks."

"Don't cause trouble for my friend," he warned.

"You don't even have to tell me her name," she said. "Aunt Lorna will get to the bottom of it. And since your friend never said a word, then she's perfectly safe."

"Heh," he snorted. "So even among Faey, it's not what you know, it's who you know."

"Probably even more so," she agreed. "The Imperial military is really the only place a commoner can get any real power, because the nobles control everything else. By law, nobles can't hold high command positions in the Imperial arm of the military, so most of them don't even bother enlisting there. It prevents nasty betrayals if a noble goes rogue, so they can't have people in positions in the Royal arm of the military to disrupt things. They have their own private armies and navies, and that's where they usually end up doing their commanding. But the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines are commanded by commoners. That's how my aunt came to be a General."

"Couldn't she pull strings to get you into engineering?"

She shrugged. "She's been trying," she answered. "But I want a _Royal Navy_ position, not a position in some noble's fleet. So the competition's a little tougher. If I was alright with getting any engineering position, I probably would have found one by now."

"Oh."

"You'd like my Aunt Lorna. She's an old warhorse, but she's funny," she smiled. "She's up in the command center in Washington, but she said she might come down to see me next month. I'll have to introduce you."

He said nothing to that. If he had his way, they wouldn't be seeing each other again after tonight.

"Well, I'm done, and so are you, so let's go ahead and head over to the theater," she prompted, looking up to find the waiter, then raising her hand and snapping her fingers imperiously.

He would have preferred avoiding what was coming, but there was no hope of that. So he simply got into the limo with her, and it started towards downtown.

"Don't worry too much about what to do at the theater," she told him. "All you have to do is be polite. That's all. You don't have to act any special way or anything, but there are a few things you have to understand before we go in there," she told him seriously.

"As in?"

"First, remember that among my people, _I_ am the dominant gender," she winked. "That means that, if you think in human terms, I'm supposed to do all those things that men do. I'll hold the door open for you, I'll help you get seated, I'll lead you if we dance, and so on. When we walk, it's customary for the man to put his hand on the woman's forearm or elbow. Instead of you offering your arm, I'll be the one offering mine," she smiled. "There aren't any real rules about how men act, but it's considered good manners for a man to defer if a woman starts to speak. But I don't think you're worried about how cultured they think you are," she said with a chuckle, then she turned serious. "But the one thing you can't do is argue with me in public, alright? If you don't like what I ask or suggest, you're free to let me know, but don't be combative. I'm going to be very careful to try to avoid any situations like that, Jason, I promise, but if you start getting offended or don't like what I'm saying, don't get bitchy."

"Well, there goes my evening," he said mockingly.

She laughed. "I know, it's just ruined," she agreed with an outrageous smile. "When we get there, we'll have to cross the lobby to get to the auditorium, and there's going to be Faey there talking. Faey love to gossip and chitchat, so they always get there very early so they have lots of time for it before the function begins. I might have to stop once or twice and greet people, since it's considered good manners to do so if you're invited. If we do, you're not going to understand what's going on very well, because you're not going to hear the telepathic side of the conversations. Sometimes Faey just stop talking and send in the middle of a sentence, or one person is talking while the other is sending, so you only get half of he conversation. Most often, Faey will speak in the presence of humans, but not all of them will. Some Faey hold humans in contempt, as I'm sure you've noticed."

He nodded without a word.

"Well then, that's all you need to know," she told him, reaching out and putting her hand on his forearm, then patting it. "We'll suffer through the opera, then go somewhere and get a drink before we go home."

"Remember, I have classes tomorrow," he reminded her. "We can't stay out too late."

"Jason, believe me when I say I want to get through the opera and nightcap as quickly as possible," she said with a slight, dangerous little smile.

He wasn't sure he liked that or not.

They reached the Saenger Theater a few minutes later. The original Saenger had burned down two years ago, during a riot that erupted when the Faey first arrived, so the Faey had rebuilt it into their idea of a theater. It was still the same size, but it was a black building with no sharp corners, only rounded ones. There were a set of doors in the side facing Canal Street, as people passed in front of it on their way to other places. There were no Faey standing outside, but then again, it was too hot to stand around outside. The limo pulled up, and Jyslin got out, then reached in and helped him out with a smile. He got out and closed the door, and she led him in through glass doors that opened of their own volition. The lobby within was very large, and it was done in soft earth colors. The carpet was a soft maroon red with little white diamonds intersecting in geometric patterns through it, and the walls were paneled in what looked cedar or redwood, some reddish hued wood that gave the walls a warm glow, with no decorations or artwork hanging upon them. The ceiling was covered with thousands of pieces of stained glass that had very faint lights behind them, making them glow with a riot of color that was quite pretty. There were three huge crystal chandeliers hanging from that ceiling, each radiating light from hundreds of small lights shaped like candles, refracting and reflecting off the crystal shards hanging among them. The doors to the auditorium were on the far wall, and unlike a movie theater, there was no concession stand. There was only a small booth to give information, and humans dressed in red uniforms milled about.

It was nice, very nice.

Scattered through the lobby were about a hundred Faey, all dressed in elegant formal wear. Women wore gowns of every color imaginable, some plain, some almost gaudy, and all of them had their hair done up elaborately. Jyslin looked positively plain compared to most of them. Some were dripping with jewels from their fingers and throats and ears, and as he got a closer look, he saw that the Faey seemed to have no concept of the idea of a high neckline. Every single dress exposed cleavage to some degree, and a few of them were so deep that more blue-skinned breast was revealed than concealed. Jyslin's gown was rather modest compared to most. The men all wore simple robes of various colors, each of them a similar style, making all the men look strangely similar. Some men had jewelry and some didn't, some wore strange flat-topped hats that flared out towards the top and some didn't, but almost all of them wore simple sashes around the waist. There were blue ones, red ones, and gold ones, and they had to have some kind of meaning that Jason couldn't quite fathom.

There weren't only Faey in that lobby. There were a sparse scattering of humans, men in tuxedos, women in tasteful gowns, and a few wearing clothes that were nice, but weren't utterly formal. He wondered what they were doing here, at least he had a good excuse to be here. Something told him that these were the ones who had managed to buy their way into affluence with the Faey regime, the rich and powerful, or those who worked with the nobles as liaisons, helping them understand the nuances of human culture and behavior so as to better keep control.

The sell-outs.

His headache flared back into life rather quickly, and he put a finger to his temple and rubbed it as they descended into what he considered to be a pit of vipers. These weren't Faey like Symone, and Jyslin. These were true enemies, he could just feel it.

They got about halfway across the lobby when Jyslin stopped and detoured to a group of five Faey. Three were women, two were men, and all of them were rather young. He recognized the three women. One was Maya, and the other two women were in Jyslin's squad. All three wore very simple, unadorned gowns of soft colors, cream, a soft brown, and subdued blue, and all three were quite low cut. One of those two he didn't know was quite familiar to him; she was one of the two whose armor he had destroyed, and who had followed him around naked for the remainder of the day.

"Jason, you know Maya," Jyslin introduced as she reached them. "This is Zora, and this is Sheleese. This handsome fellow here is Vell, Maya's husband, and this is Oren, Zora's husband."

"You looked better naked," Jason told Sheleese bluntly.

She laughed heartily. "I thought you'd recognize me, though I figured I might have to pull down my bodice to remind you who I was," she winked.

"Sheleese told us all about that," the Faey man, Vell, told him with a chuckle and an extended hand. "I've heard a great deal about you, Jason. I think we really need to talk sometime," he said with a smile.

"Talk?" Jason asked defensively.

"That's all he does," Maya said with a teasing smile at her husband. "Talk talk talk talk talk. My husband dabbles quite a bit in philosophy," she told Jason.

"I didn't think they'd let you bring your husbands here," Jason said in a little surprise.

"Why not?" the other man, Oren, challenged.

"Well, this isn't exactly friendly territory for Faey."

"Of course it is," he said boldly.

He didn't miss Jyslin's warning look at Oren to back off, and the man cleared his throat. Jason was about to excuse himself to go to the restroom, but he felt one of them brush up against his mind, finding the false front of repetitive thought that he kept there to prevent them from looking into his mind. Nonplussed, he felt that touch start reaching around the edges of his false thought, trying to find a way through. He'd already had a headache, and that alien force on his mind only made it worse, turning it into a pounding that he could see behind his eyes. "If whoever's doing that doesn't stop right now, I'm going to punch all five of you in the nose," he said in a growling tone, putting the palm of his hand to his temple.

"Vell!" Maya said reproachfully, slapping him on the shoulder. And she wasn't gentle.

"I must say, that's quite impressive," Vell said, unphased by his wife's admonition or Jason's rather graphic threat. "It's the strongest defense I've ever seen in a human. I just had to see if you'd learned how to anchor it to keep someone from worming through the edges."

"Vell, I told you not to do that!" Maya said in exasperation. "I specifically told you that Jason doesn't like it when we do that!"

"You expected me to obey you?" he asked with a cheeky smile.

She gave him a _very_ ugly look. "We'll talk about this when we get home," she said in an icy manner.

He grew rather contrite very quickly, and gave Jason an apologetic smile. Then he winked. _I'm sorry if I hurt you, but don't read anything into what I said to my wife. I just like to tease her._

He was surprised that he had heard that inside his mind, for Faey supposedly couldn't send to humans in the manner in which he had just sent. They had to get a foothold inside a human's mind to pass telepathic messages to them, and Vell did not have such a connection to him. Oddly, though, his headache eased somewhat.

"Good Azra," Sheleese said quickly. "Jason, your nose is bleeding!"

Jason put a finger to his upper lip, and felt sticky warmth there. "Huh," he mused. "Where is the restroom? I should clean up."

"Just over there," Jyslin pointed to one of the side walls.

"I had the same problem when I first came here," Oren told him. "It's something in the air that was making my nose bleed."

"I'll be right back," he told Jyslin, looking around at them. They all didn't look too concerned, but Vell was giving him a surprised, somewhat speculative look.

Jason decided right then and there that he wasn't quite so sure about this Vell person.

"I'll wait right here for you," she replied, putting a lingering hand on his shoulder.

The nosebleed only lasted a moment or two, and had more or less stopped by the time he got to the bathroom. His headache had eased considerably, though. It was odd... maybe he'd had some kind of sinus pressure or something, and the nosebleed had eased that pressure. He'd had sinus problems for a couple of weeks after he came down here, and just as Oren mentioned, he _did_ have nosebleeds during that time. Maybe the heat was starting to get to him, making his sinuses flare up again. Or it might have been coming out from the heat into the air conditioning of the theater. That could have done it.

After cleaning up and using the restroom, he went back out to find Jyslin. He hoped she'd just take him to their seats. He moved towards where they were quickly, but someone boldly stepped into his way. It was a Faey woman, regally tall, even taller than Jyslin. She wore an elaborate gown of dazzling white and silver, with a frilled ruff along a very deep neckline that showcased an impressively full bosom and clung to her narrow waist and curved hips appealingly. She had a sharp, attractive face with large green eyes, and her blonde hair was done up in an elaborate weave of locks that ringed her head before spilling down her back in a swaying tail. Around her neck was a web of small diamonds that fell in a triangle down to the edge of her cleavage, the small jewel at the point of that triangle nestled snugly between the top swells of her breasts.

"You are the human who gave the Marines all that trouble," she announced in an arrogant manner that made him immediately dislike her. "Perhaps they should have taught you your place more effectively."

Without even thinking about what he was doing, he drew himself up to his full height and glared down at the woman. She was tall, but she was nowhere near his height, and he used that size and his larger frame to physically intimidate the slender woman. "Perhaps your mother should have turned you over her knee more often when you were a child," he returned.

What came next was not a brushing, was not a touch, but was more like a lance of power that sought to tear through his defenses and penetrate him to the very core of his mind, to lay bare his every thought and memory, to take from him anything and everything that she pleased, to lay bare his darkest memories, his deepest desires, his greatest fears, to know the utter truth of him. He reacted quickly to this attack, understanding that he could not directly stand up to her impressive mental power. So instead of resisting her, he simply withdrew completely from himself, from his own mind, effortlessly descending into an unthinking state that left his mind little but an empty shell. The trick here, he'd learned, was that the Faey had to have _something_ to grab on to in order to find the rest of his mind. He let her in, then simply withdrew everything away from her, forcing her to wander around in an empty mist that hid his mind from her power. She found out quickly that she could put herself as deeply into his mind as she pleased, but there was absolutely nothing there for her to see, nothing for her to touch, and no way she could latch onto his mind and force him to obey her. His mind was an empty void, and the edges of that void pulled away from her every time she tried to get past it and get herself into his mind.

It wouldn't last long, and he knew it. She was pushing deeper and deeper, starting to push away his deception, starting to reach towards the deepest, most private of his thoughts and memories. He reacted out of pure desperation, realizing that if he could feel her, if he could sense her presence in his mind, maybe he could do something about it. He locked in on that sense of her and _pushed_, and he pushed with absolutely every fiber of his being. He pushed away from the center of his being, driving her before him, forcing the sense of her away from the core of him. He felt her rock back on her heels-mentally, at least-and push back, but he had too much momentum. She lost more and more ground, until she was again forced out to the edges of his mind.

Once he was certain that she was suitably ejected from the recesses of his mind, he put something out there for her to see. It was an image of her, wearing nothing but leather knee-length boots, being sexually gratified by a jackass.

She instantly flushed, and her expression turned dark as an outraged snarl marred her attractive fac