y armor, how bad off is it?_

_Just those three holes, and one murdered paint job,_ he answered. _I have some carbidium and phase cloth, we should be able to patch it decently enough._

_Yeah, that'll do it. Part of what that Faey noble sent you?_

He nodded. _Let me get you some food and water. The doc told me to make sure you eat at least five times a day, and drink_ lots _of water._

_Yeah, sounds like he's got me on bio-accelerant,_ she noted.

_I think that's what he called it, but I'm not sure. That stuff,_ he said, pointing at a large vial on the nightstand between the two beds.

_That's it,_ she affirmed. _I'll eat and drink like crazy until I'm healed._ She moved her arm, and winced. _Ugh, this won't be fun. But it doesn't feel like it's too serious._

_Not life threatening, but it certainly looked nasty._

_Burns usually do, after they dissolve out the crap. It's not the first time I've been tagged by an MPAC._

_You've been shot before?_

_Yeah, an accident during basic training,_ she said, holding up her right arm. _Everything from here down isn't what I was born with,_ she explained, pointing just under her elbow. _They regrew it._

_I didn't know they can do that._

_Faey doctors can regrow almost anything,_ she answered. _It wasn't pretty, and it_ hurt_. I was in a flex-cast for a month._ She grinned at him. _You're really good at this now. Tim would never understand you, you go too fast._

_I actually prefer it to speaking,_ he shrugged. _It seems simpler, easier._

_You've been converted,_ she winked.

_If that's what you want to call it. Let me get you some food._

After feeding her a healthy meal, he left them to sleep out the rest of the night, though he didn't sleep well at all. He spent most of that time down in the basement, planning on moving his room back up to the master bedroom, then watching for any Faey dropships as he listened in on the traffic frequency for any hint that they were moving through the area. There were none, at least during the times that he was awake. He woke up from an unplanned nap and realized it was past sunrise, then wandered upstairs. He was greeted in the kitchen by Tim and Symone both, Tim sitting at the table with a bowl of oatmeal in front of him while Symone rooted through the refrigerator. Tim was in his boxer shorts, and Symone hadn't bothered putting on anything but a sling for her arm.

"That's not quite how I'd like you wandering around the house, Symone," he said evenly as he stepped past her. "It's not that it's not pretty, but I do have neighbors."

_I met one of them. Mary, wasn't it?_ she sent absently. _She seemed a bit surprised to see me._

"That's not a surprise," he noted as he sat at the table, which made Tim chuckle.

_I had a robe on, silly,_ she chided him. _You find me some clothes, and I'll be happy to put them on. But that robe wasn't mine, so I'm not going to risk getting it stained with food._

"That's good to hear. You feeling alright, Tim?" he asked.

"Yeah, just a little sore," he answered, clumsily trying to bring a spoon of oatmeal up with his left hand. "And this cast already itches. Symone said she told you what happened."

He nodded. "So... what do you think?"

"I think I'm scared as hell," he answered immediately, understanding what he meant.

"It's not as bad as you think. Actually, you might start to like it after you get a handle on it."

"Do you?" he asked.

Jason nodded immediately. "I actually prefer it over speaking, but there's more to it than that. Guess you get to be the teacher, Symone."

_I know... I don't think I'm going to be as good at it as Jyslin was,_ she sent.

_You'll be better at it than I would be,_ he told her. _I'll probably have to take lessons from you too. Jyslin didn't finish teaching me._

_I think she taught you well enough,_ she answered. _You can just wait until I get Tim up to that level, then you can sit in. By then, I might be good enough at teaching to not look stupid._

Tim chuckled. "You'd never look stupid, honey," he told her.

"You're just being sweet because I'm naked, Tim-Tim," she said audibly with a wink.

"You certainly don't have any trouble hearing," Jason noted.

"No, but _not _hearing is the trick," he grunted. "That's what got me caught. I got all disoriented in class because of all the voices, and got so confused that I made the instructor worried. She used sending to call for a nurse, and I told her I didn't need one. That did it. She was all over me in a heartbeat. After that other girl expressed in class, I guess they were told what to do if it happened again."

_Probably,_ Jason agreed with a nod. _Since both of you are awake, you need to understand how things are around here. First off, they do_ not _know I have talent. That's a secret._ He went on to tell them about the gangs in Huntington, Temika, his stuff and his defenses, and Clem and his family. _Now that you two are here, draining my food reserves, we'll have to either start gathering it, or I finally go with Temika to breach the border and buy some from the outside._

_That might not be a good idea,_ Symone warned. _They've been looking for you,_ hard_. You get picked up on any camera tied to MilNet, and they'll know exactly where you are. That'll bring a capture squad down on you in a matter of minutes._

_When did they start implementing face recognition?_ he asked in surprise.

_Since forever,_ she chided him. _Your best bet is to send that Temika woman after it. It's too dangerous for you to do it. Just give her money and a shopping list._

_Temika... might not be the best choice,_ he sent hesitantly. _She's got a temper._

_Something tells me you're not saying everything._

_I'm not. Why Temika's not a good choice is something you two don't really need to worry about,_ he send bluntly.

"Couldn't we just take someone up there and have them do it?" Tim asked.

"I think we need to start looking into being self-sufficient," Jason told him. "You ever do any hunting, Symone?"

"Not religiously, no," she answered. "But I do love to fish."

"That's a start. Clem said he'd teach me how to hunt, and Mary wants to help me put in a garden. I have the guns I took from the gangs to use to buy some food-"

"Do they have any more?" Symone asked with a wicked little smile.

"What?"

"Guns. They're obviously enemies, Jayce. When I heal up, I'll put on my armor and go over there and take anything we need."

"I'd rather not start a war, Symone," he told her sternly. "As long as they stay on that side of the river, as far as I'm concerned, they don't exist."

"That's not smart, Jayce," she said seriously. "You don't leave an enemy around to bite your ass when you're not looking. Want to make them go away? You and me put on our armor and make sure they can't do anything." She pulled frozen pancakes out of the freezer. "Besides, they have stuff we can use. This isn't civilization, cupcake. It's there for the taking."

"Then we'd be no better than they are," he said with an edge to his voice.

"Of course we are. We're cuter."

He gave her a dark look. "So, we go over there and take everything they own. Then what do we do about the people?"

"They can join us or take their chances," she shrugged.

"I won't trust any of them."

She tapped her forehead. "We can weed out the fakers, and with me here, you don't have to give yourself away."

"And what about the others?"

"Hey, they're on their own," she shrugged.

"Okay, we clear out downtown. Then the gangs on either side take it over, and we're back to square one."

"Then we take _them_ out," she said with a short sigh of exasperation. "You're not a military woman, Jayce."

"I should hope not."

She laughed. "Sorry, you know what I mean. Leaving them out there isn't smart, especially since they don't like you, they're armed, and you have to go to sleep sometime."

"They've tried, they failed, they haven't been back in almost a month. Everyone who's come over here got sent back naked. They're very much afraid of me."

"Well, are they that afraid of Clem?" she asked pointedly.

Jason fell silent, frowning at her.

_Think about it,_ she sent with a seriousness in her thoughts, sticking the frozen pancakes in the microwave. "I see you got power and water going," she remarked.

"It took a while," he told her. "Especially with the water. Just for this house, though."

"You should set up water for Clem," she told him. "And power."

"I don't have the material," he told her. "Besides, I don't do that kind of thing. Clem just happens to live close to me, that's all. I'm not protecting him, Symone, he just lives close to me because the gangs are afraid to come here."

She gave him a sly look as she retrieved her pancakes, then slid past his chair and sat down. "Think about it, Jayce," she said. "We clear out the gangs, and we seriously reduce the threat level. Maybe that would convince more people to come here."

_Why does that interest you, Symone?_ he sent curiously.

_Simple, Jayce. I probed Mary when she came over, so I have an idea of what's going on around here. I may just be a house soldier, but I do understand basic military tactics. We're living in a lawless area, so the only way to ensure our safety is to establish our_ own _law. You did that over here on this side of the river, but it's not enough. Those gangs over there_ will _take a shot at Clem, and I don't know about you, but I rather like Mary. She's a sweet girl. I see no reason why we should make them fend for themselves when we can do something to make sure that raid never happens in the first place. You can't afford to be reactive about this, Jason. We have to be_ pre-emptive_. And it goes beyond that. We have limited supplies and limited resources. To better ensure a decent long-term solution, it's only logical that we try to pool our resources with other people out here, people we can trust. Clem's a good start, because Mary thinks he's the water of Miri when it comes to those old ballistic weapons they use out here, and her husband can fix almost anything. Get a few more people to fill critical roles, like that doctor that treated me and Tim, and you can build a foundation that will attract people to come here, people who have things that we don't. That way we can all live in one place that's relatively safe and share our resources, making everyone's lives better._

Jason had to admit, much as he didn't want to, that she did have a point. The idea of trying to start a community of trustworthy people, helping each other make a better life for themselves out here in this lawless wilderness, had merit. Jason couldn't hunt, knew nothing about gardening, but he could invent things, and what he had here would provide real protection for anyone who lived here. If Clem was here to maintain their weapons, Luke here to fix things, and maybe get Doc Northwood and people who had livestock, and people who knew how to farm, and people who had things that they could use in a way that would help everyone, while they shared the responsibility of keeping the violent people away from their borders...

It wouldn't be easy, that was for sure. It wouldn't be that hard to evict the gangs, but defending their claimed territory from mobile gangs of thugs was an issue. And attracting trustworthy people and finding a way to get everyone down here and set up also would not be easy. It would take a _hell _of a lot of hard work, for one of the main keys of attracting and holding people would be the promise that living here would be in some way better than living where they were now. The promise of something as simple as power, or running water, might be enough to attract a great many people.

Power. Could he find some way to restore power to a large area? Probably. The PPG running his generator could easily power something much larger, since it wasn't even running at 2% maximum running his home generator. He could clamp that bad boy onto a _real _generator, something capable of powering several city blocks. Two of those huge generators in a hospital or other power-critical buildings could probably do it, but it would be safest to get three or four. He'd have to come up with some way to get a single PPG to power all of them, though.

Water. Now that wasn't going to be easy, no matter what he did. Supplying clean water would mean tapping into the current water system, which would mean that he'd have to design a system that pushed around 100,000 gallons of water a day, and deliver it clean through a water pipe system that had been neglected for three years. The easiest approach would be to try to utilize the city's water treatment plant and find some way to get it running. That would be doable if he could get power back to it, but he'd need some people who knew what they were doing to try to get the thing back online. To put out enough pure water, and have enough pressure in the pipes to move it, he'd have to use the current facility. There was nothing that he could easily design or build that could accomplish that task, not that wouldn't take at least a year to get up and running.

Water... that might not be a go. But power, power he could handle.

"What are you thinking about, Jayce?" Tim asked.

"I'm mulling over Symone's idea," he answered. "I have to admit, it's not a bad idea. I don't much like the idea of becoming the police around here, but I have to admit, just the possibility that we might attract just a few people who have what we lack and are willing to join the community makes it an idea worth thinking about."

"You just have to think like a general, Jayce," Symone winked at him.

"And you're what, a corporal?" he asked with a sly smile.

"I'm a general now," she said impudently. "_General_ Symone, thank you very much."

"Fine, let me go find a star to pin on you," he said, looking at her bare breasts deliberately.

Symone laughed. "It's six days 'til I'm up and running, Jayce, so that gives you six days to think it over. I just need you to patch my armor sometime in there, no matter what you decide. I don't want to go out in a situation with my ass hanging out the back of my armor."

"At least I'd love marching behind you," Tim grinned.

                                        * * *

Six days. Jason thought about it almost continuously while Symone rapidly healed, thanks to that compound he applied to her bandages that rapidly accelerated her healing process. She ate like a rabid wolf the entire time, putting a _huge _dent in his food reserves, so much so that Jason had to put himself and Tim on a rationing schedule to make sure they had enough food to last 'til the end of the month.

Symone certainly didn't just lay around. She spent almost every waking moment with Tim, starting to train him in the basics of his talent, which was how to close his mind, and how to open it to varying degrees to leave himself able to hear sending, or hear the thoughts of just one person in a group, and so forth. That took him three days to master to the point where Symone was satisfied, then she moved into the next stage of the training, the basics of sending.

While Symone and Tim did that, Jason attended to a few chores, the first of which was to patch her armor. The laminated yterium armor she had didn't like being patched with raw carbidium, but Jason more or less rammed the patch down its throat regardless of how it might feel about it. He had trouble getting the metals to anneal together, and spent almost a day melding the phase cloth he had with the synthetic phase barrier layer in the armor. Jason had the _organic_ version, but what was in the armor was the _inorganic_ version, which was actually much stronger than what he had, and they didn't like being fused. It took him two days to complete the repairs, which included buffing out the dings, painting the patches so they matched the surrounding armor, and putting some soft cloth padding inside to replace the gel backing that had been blasted away where the holes had been. He had no spare gel backing, so Symone would just have to make due with the cloth.

After he got that done, he went on a hunting trip with Clem and Luke, learning the basics of hunting. They didn't bag anything, but Clem and Luke were very skilled hunters, and they taught him quite a bit about the basics of hunting deer. Jason had other ideas about how to go about it, though, which basically revolved around firing on deer he spotted from the back of his airbike, but he had to learn how it was done the _normal_ way.

That gave him three days to consider the benefits and drawbacks of Symone's idea. The benefits were obvious: gaining access to resources and people with skills that would better his situation and the situation of those within the community as a whole. Securing a section of the wilderness and turning it into more than just a mad competition to survive, a place where people could live in safety and security, and help restore civilization to the wilds, and _dignity_ to the citizens.

The drawbacks were also obvious: lots and lots and _lots_ of work, on everyone's part. The knowledge that he would be taking on responsibility for others in addition to himself. The requirement to secure the territory, which meant that he might find himself in a position where he would have to fight... for _real_. There was a chance he might have to kill someone.

In a way, that scared him... but in a way, he'd accepted that the instant he decided to abandon the safety of living in Faey society. He didn't like the idea of killing, and he hoped it would never come to that, but he had left New Orleans with a determination to be free that went so far as to defending that by any means necessary, even if it meant killing. He'd always imagined that the first life he'd take would be a Faey, killing one of them when they finally tracked him down and tried to take him, but more likely was the prospect that the first blood he would shed would be human.

Was he willing to kill to protect himself, protect this place, protect the people who came here to seek out a better life? Was he ready to take that ultimate step? Was taking a life worth that?

He looked into his heart and found the answer, late that night as he stared up at the full moon, then saw the shimmering light that was the reflection of the sun off a Faey battle cruiser in orbit.

Yes.

He had been willing to die to be free. Now, he knew that he was willing to kill to keep the freedom he had won for himself.

But he saw much more, laying on his roof and staring up into the shimmering light that was the cruiser slowly traversing the heavens from horizon to horizon. He saw that no matter what they built here, it could be destroyed by that one Faey cruiser up there. They were utterly at the mercy of the Faey, and no matter how free he remained out here, he would forever enjoy the false sense of freedom a gerbil might feel inside a large cage. Spacious and the occupant wanting for nothing, but still trapped within boundaries that made that sense of freedom a lie.

But there was very little that could be done about that. He would be a single man challenging the might of an empire that spanned 72 star systems, armed with little more than the proverbial stick while they had plasma weaponry. The only equalizing factor he possessed was his own telepathic ability, which would not allow them to take him without a _real_ fight. If they wanted him, they had to come down here and battle him with _real_ weapons, putting _real_ lives on the line. So long as the Faey held the advantage of telepathy, they would retain control over Earth.

He heard Tim's voice down in the front yard, as he and Symone sat on the porch and chatted with Clem and Luke. Clem and his group didn't seem to mind Symone at all, part of her bubbly charm that just made everyone like her. Then again, her being out here probably told them everything they needed to know about where her loyalties were.

Tim. Tim was another telepath; Temika had the potential. There was that other girl too. There _were_ human telepaths on Earth.

For the first time, Jason understood just what that really meant. Oh, he knew what it meant to the Faey, but he had never seen it from the other side before.

Telepaths threatened Faey dominance over Earth.

Telepaths _threatened Faey dominance over Earth._

Telepathy was the only weapon against which the humans had absolutely no defense. Now that humans had reasonable access to Faey technology, now there was only that one advantage separating humans from the Faey.

Talent.

And that was _no_ advantage if a Faey came up against a human telepath who had sufficient training.

So, the playing field was technically even now. The only disparity came with numbers and training. There was all of _one_ trained human Telepath that Jason knew of on Earth... himself. The Faey vastly outnumbered him, had superior technology, nearly endless resources... and here he was pondering trying to start a rebellion against them.

Could it be done? Probably. It would, however, require three critical things to happen, though:

First, there had to be _many_ more telepaths. Jason could probably protect three or four people from telepathic attack if they were close to him, so that meant that it would be five people against the world. Any reasonable attempt to rebel would require them to field enough telepaths to make an operation successful.

Second, there had to be some way to establish a home base and have it be either unassailable or totally unable to be found. That wouldn't be easy considering the enemy could see everything from orbit, and he couldn't even power up his skimmer without it getting located, since they were now actively looking for it. He would need to equip that base with enough resources to carry out a campaign against the Faey, from vehicles and weaponry to food and other essential supplies, and find some way to prevent that line of supply from being disrupted.

Third, they had to come up with a plan that would succeed in freeing the human race _without_ having Earth break away from the Imperium. The Faey were now almost dependent on the food grown on Earth to feed their colonies, and any rebellion that threatened that food supply might cause the Faey to destroy the human race out of retaliation. That would be a very, very, _very_ tricky proposition. On the other hand, now that the other spacefaring races knew about Earth, they were probably going to _need_ the Faey's military protection, or they'd just replace one conquering race with another. The human race was now, for better or worse, bound to the Faey by ties that neither side could afford to have broken. What the human race could only hope for in that situation was to win the right to govern itself, but still deliver the food that the Imperium desperately needed and be subject to the Imperial crown. A subject principality, autonomous to a point yet still answering to another government.

Three nasty little problems, any of which was by itself a monkey wrench in the gears. But everything else hinged on the lack of telepaths.

If he could get the telepaths, he would need to find an untouchable base. If he could find the base and man it, they could rebel against the Faey. And if he rebelled, he would walk a razor's edge trying to balance the severity of the attacks against angering the Empress Dahnai. Be a thorn in the side of Trillane, but not so greatly disrupt things that Dahnai sent in Imperial troops to deal with him. Keep it against the humans and House Trillane, try to make them look so incompetent that Empress Dahnai would take Earth away from them, then try to convince her to give the humans a chance to do it themselves.

In the short term, the heavily outnumbered humans would need a edge, an aspect that made them exceptionally dangerous to the Faey who would be opposing them. The railgun he designed would help arm them, if he could mass produce it, and would be effective enough to put them on an even footing. But he had to plan for when Trillane brought their _real_ military equipment, the exomechs and the fighters and the hovertanks and the autonomic battle robots. They needed weapons against _those_, not against the small numbers of infantry holding the planet, who were outfitted in obsolete gear made for a war some century ago.

He had several ideas. Jason had researched those military machines-at least as much as he could find out in the public domain-and though they were formidable, they were not invincible. With some ingenuity and some experimentation, he could devise counters to them. But to do that, he needed _real_ equipment, he needed more information, and he needed the ability to move heavy equipment around without detection.

He already had his skimmer and his airbikes, and that was a start. The skimmer could be his means to the outside world. The skimmer was parked because he couldn't move it without detection... so he figured that was his first major objective. He had to find a way to be able to move the skimmer without the Faey picking it up.

He needed... a _cloaking device_.

Corny as it may sound, that was what he needed. But, since there were no Klingons around to show him how the ones from the old _Star Trek_ universe worked, he needed a way to figure out how to make one for himself, something that hid the skimmer from sensors, and even from the naked eye. If he gained the ability to move at will, undetected, it would open up the entire world to him, maybe even the entire universe. After all, that stargate was out there, just beyond the orbital track of the moon, and it _never closed_. Any ship could go through it, and that stargate went directly to Draconis Prime. Off of Earth, he could buy things they needed, using what money he had left, things Kumi wouldn't buy for him when she realized that he was actively opposing her noble house.

Houses. The nobles houses of the Faey didn't like each other. They were a feudal society, where each house looked after its own, then worried about Imperial concerns. If he could find another noble house that might help him overthrow the Faey, believing that they were going to get Earth, he might be able to trick one of them into helping him evict Trillane, then backstab them when he tried to get the Empress to give the human race the chance to run their own world.

God, this was insane. Even if he tried, the chance of him pulling it off was virtually infinitesimal. It would take wild luck, dedication, and an unswerving dedication to independence. It would take years, it would take patience, and it would take a willingness to sacrifice his life if need be to further the cause.

But what else was there? Life inside the gilded cage? He'd rather die free than live in this glass bottle.

Symone appeared in front of him, climbing up the ladder. Her wounds were almost completely healed, just a small sore in her shoulder now. They did leave very faint scars on her legs, and there was going to be a noticeable scar marring the blue skin of her shoulder, but it wasn't going to be disfiguring. It was too bad that healing compound wouldn't work on Tim, but they had no way to apply it to his broken bone short of injecting it directly in there... and they didn't have the equipment to do that. They certainly did in a Faey hospital, but not out here. They wouldn't do that anyway, they'd just use a bone fuser. Five minutes, bone mended, just like that. She sat down beside him, then flopped on her back as he was and looked up at the sky. _So, tomorrow you answer me,_ she sent.

_We're doing it,_ he replied without much enthusiasm, his distaste of it clearly in his sending. _But it will_ not _be a bloodbath. Do we understand one another?_

_We won't have to fire a shot, Jayce, trust me,_ she answered. _I don't like killing people when there's no need for it, you know me better than that. We just slip in, track them down, then capture them and strip them of their weapons. Remember, they're humans, totally defenseless against our talent. We don't even have to get within sight of them, just doink 'em and that's it. We have Clem or Tim or someone watch over the ones we catch until we have them all, then we lay down the law and let them go. We'll be done by dinner._

_I hope it's that easy,_ he sent with an audible sigh.

_Something else is bothering you, cutie. What's wrong?_

He got up on his elbows and looked at her. She saw the grim look on his face, and the playful smile faded away as she sat up as well. _Symone,_ he sent soberly, then he blew out his breath. _How far would you go to protect Tim?_

_That's a stupid question, hon,_ she answered. _My being here should answer that question. I faced that decision already, and I chose Tim._

_I know. You were willing to fight your own people to protect him. But the question is, Symone, would you fight your own people if they_ weren't _threatening him?_

_What do you mean? I don't understand, Jayce._

_You said it yourself, Symone. We need to be_ pre-emptive_. I guess I'm asking you just how pre-emptive you're willing to go._

_You just lost me._

_Okay, let me put it this way. If I found a way to take on House Trillane and drive them off Earth, would you help?_

She gave him a _very_ long look. _Jason, that's_ treason_!_ she gasped audibly.

_And what you did with Tim isn't?_ he asked. _And if you'll note, I didn't say rebel against the_ Imperium_. I said rebel against_ Trillane_. There's a difference._

_What kind of difference is that?_ she asked.

Jason explained his concept to her via sending, using images and feelings as much as he did using words. When he was done, she was quiet for a long time. _Shit,_ she sent absently. _Okay, cutie, I'll grant you that it_ could _work, but it depends on so many things to happen just absolutely perfectly that it's really infeasible. It_ could _work, but I_ could _grow hair on my chest and start cracking_ kobo _nuts with my pinkie._

Jason laughed audibly. _Point taken, but, you know, I-_

_I know how you feel. If I were a human, I'd probably feel the same way you do. You want things the way they were. But think about it, cutie, even what you're thinking of doing doesn't_ make _things the way they were. They won't ever be again. Besides, what you're talking about is virtual suicide, and let's not even talk about the kind of force you'd need. There are a million or so Trillane troop