did. That he _did not know_, and it was something he thanked God above he'd stumbled upon.

If he couldn't find a way around that, he'd have to stay within the atmosphere, inside the gravity well of the planet, where he was presented the same problem... finding some way to defeat both passive and active Faey sensors. Active, he had a system for, but he would prefer a single system to handle it all, because the power generation in his skimmer wasn't endless. Power consumption would be an issue for any system he put into the skimmer, because it only had so much power generation ability.

He was almost afraid to start it. That was going to be a massive headache, and the most complicated thing he had ever tried to invent. He was afraid to start it because he knew that once he did, he would relentlessly pursue his goal until he achieved it. That was something he thought to try over the winter, when the cold would limit his outdoor activity. The fact that he had no idea where to start probably factored in there somewhere too. With everything else, he had generally built on someone else's idea-well, maybe not so much with the inverse phase emitter-but this would come completely from him.

It had to be done, but the idea of it was very, very intimidating.

But that was three railguns away, so he had time to ponder how that was going to get started. He deftly installed the sight/rangefinder laser to the barrel of the weapon, just below the muzzle, then quickly annealed on the front sight before running the twisted pair of dataline fiber and microconduit back to the back of the weapon. The microprocessor for the weapon was just behind the loading chamber just under the display, and the PPG was only about six inches away from that, located in the base of the stock. Neither had been installed yet, though he planned to install both once he finished installing the laser. The processor had to be in first because the round feed system went in underneath it, and it was too tightly packed to try to install it after that was in place.

He installed the processor and hooked up the datalines from the laser and the barrel cabling, then started assembling the round feed system outside; it would be installed as a unit. The door upstairs opened, and footsteps started down, quickly. That didn't concern him, because Tim and Symone did live in his house, and besides, he left his doors unlocked. Anyone was welcome in his house at any time so long as he was home. Since he was the mayor, there were times when people wanted to talk to him about this or that, and he had an open door policy. He glanced up to see Regina coming down the stairs with someone else, almost running, a tall, willowy young man named James Harold. "Hey Reg, what's wrong?" he called in concern as he finished half of the loading frame, then reached for the plasma magnet that would draw the next round into the chamber.

"Jason, we have a problem," she told him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Well, Mayor Jason, I was hunting up on that ridge north of 52 about up to Ironton, and I saw a large group of people," James told him. "They were coming up the road there in trucks. They were all armed to the teeth, and moving this way. It's a road gang, Mayor. I think I've seen a couple of them before, they hit Huntington about four months ago. I had a dirt bike Luke got working for me up on the ridge, so I jumped on and rode like hell."

"Why didn't you call ahead on the radio?" he asked.

"My batteries musta died, Mayor. Sorry, I should've checked them."

Jason stood up. "Call everyone in right now," he ordered.

The call went out quickly after Regina and James left the basement, and Symone rushed into his room just a minute after the word was spread that attackers were approaching. Jason was already working on getting his breastplate ready to put on, his emotions mixed. It had finally come. Jason now had to fight to protect himself, protect his freedom, and protect those who depended upon him for protection. He might have to kill someone today; actually, he was almost positive of it. That worried him some, but more for how it would make him feel _afterward _instead of how he felt now. He had already accepted the fact that taking this course of action would eventually require him to kill. Well, that day was here. "I saw Jimmy coming in, I lifted it off him," she said quickly as she started pulling off her clothes. She kept her armor in his room, mainly because she felt it safer to keep the expensive equipment in a central location and keep the people who came into his house away from the armor. His room was absolutely inviolate unless he was in it, and everyone knew it. _How we gonna play this?_

_Not sure, depends on what they do,_ he answered as he threw her her codpiece after she got her shirt off. _They'll either come from the north on the bridge road, from the west off old 52, or they'll split into two groups and try to pincer us. We'll have to fight, there's no way around that. There are too many to try to take down with talent._

_Radio, _she ordered, and Jason tossed her his handheld after she got her boots off. "Everyone make sure you're wearing your armored clothes!" she barked into it. "Temika, get your happy ass to Jason's house right now!"

_"Ah'm almost tah the front door, sugah,"_ she answered.

_Me and you could just go meet them and take them out, you know,_ she told him.

_No, I want them to come in,_ he said. _They won't be that much of a danger, and this is a good opportunity to see how well we can protect ourselves from an assault. Besides, if they're raiders, then that means they're either carrying everything they have with them, or at the very least, everything they've managed to steal from others. I'm not turning my back on the chance to capture that much stuff._

_Now you're thinking like a general, _she grinned, working on getting her jeans off.

_I wonder why we didn't hear about these guys coming in from the people up in Ironton,_ Jason fretted.

_They might have slipped by, or they might have taken the Ironton group by surprise,_ Symone replied grimly, whisking off her panties and quickly stepping into her codpiece.

_Let's hope not, they're good people up in Ironton._

Temika rushed into his room as Jason was attaching one of his thigh guards, and Symone was just getting her codpiece into position. "Ah always wondered how you got that on," she said.

"Right now, quickly," Symone said with uncharacteristic seriousness, reaching for the front section of her breastplate. "Hand me that piece right there, would you Mika?" she asked, pointing at the back.

"Sho', sugah," she said, picking it up and handing it to her. "What did you need me for?"

"Recon," Symone told her. "Go up and keep an eye on them and see what they do. Don't attack them, we want them to come in. Where we set up depends on what they do."

"Gonna take their stuff?" Temika asked, and Jason nodded. "Good, about time they got theirs," she chuckled.

_Tim, get up here!_ Jason sent loudly. _You're gonna ride the panel and watch the sensors for us!_

_Aww, I want to help you guys! _he answered.

_You've got a broken arm, you dipstick, _Jason growled at him. _And you'll be much more help tracking them and manning the panel to activate traps more than you will out there gimping around with a broken arm. Now get up here._

_You'd _better_ get your ass up here, baby,_ Symone sent with a _very_ threatening undertone. _No way is my man fighting anything more than a chair-chafed butt with a broken arm._

_Alright, alright, I'm coming, _he sighed.

"You tell him, sugah," Temika chuckled as she handed Symone the stomacher of her armor, then she looked at them with shock, blinking several times. "Wait a minute," she said.

Symone laughed. "I see it woke up," she grinned. "Welcome to the new world, Mika."

Jason chuckled, but Temika just gave an excited squeal, jumping up and down like a little girl. "Ah can't wait!" she said breathlessly. "What do Ah do now?"

"Right now you get your ass on your hoverbike and keep an eye on them," Jason told her. "Then, after it's all over, we'll explain what happens next. Just make sure you keep well clear of other people until all this is over. If you can't already hear them thinking, you'll start very quickly, and that's the part that's scary. And trust me, right now you do _not_ want to be distracted. Just stay a couple thousand feet up until it's safe to come down."

"You got it, sugah," Temika said, her wild hair bouncing as she nodded vigorously, then she turned and ran from the room to perform her task.

_She jiggles a lot when she gets excited, _Symone sent slyly to Jason.

"Ah heard that!" Temika shouted from the stairs.

_You were supposed to,_ Symone sent impishly. _Oh yeah, here's your "welcome to our world" present,_ she added, then she sent an image, a memory, of Jason naked.

_Woo! Go you sexy beast!_ Tim sent with an outrageous glint of amusement.

Jason flushed, then fixed Symone with a withering glare. _Hey, maybe that now she can see the merchandise, she might be interested in sampling it,_ she told him with an unashamed grin, but she sent _openly_, which meant that both Tim and Temika had heard it.

_You are on the list, Symone,_ Jason sent to her darkly. _And it's not the good one._

Despite that good news, they still had a job to do. Jason and Symone came down into his yard, where the entire community was gathered, except for Jenny, Temika, Tim, Mary, and Doc Northwood. All of them but Temika were in Jason's house. Tim would be their remote operator, Jenny would stay in his house because it was safest, Mary had been excused from most violent action because Jenny needed her mother, and Northwood would remain there until his medical skills would be needed, when Mary would escort him to where he needed to go.

"Okay, Tim now has the ball," Jason called over the radio. That meant that they were all now under his direction, for he was the one that could see everyone and everything in the vicinity with the sensors.

_"Okay people, I have all of you on sensors. Mika's just taking off-"_ Jason looked up and saw her rise up from her house on her airbike, angling out over the river so she could get altitude and observe the incoming raiders without them seeing her-_"and I just picked up a fast mover at the edge of sensor range. Looks like a scout on a dirt bike."_

"Here," Ruth said to Regina, who was loading a Tek-9 clip, handing out what looked like riot gear helmets, part of the equipment they'd absorbed from the east end gang. "Take this, honey. Here you go," she continued to say, taking helmets out of a large box that Luke was carrying behind her.

Luke gave one to Mary, who was standing beside him on the porch, and Jason got a look at it before she put it on. They'd sewn phase cloth into the inner lining, which draped down over the shoulders, protecting the neck. It even had buttons on it so it could be buttoned up under the chin, leaving only the face and hands exposed and vulnerable. The outer shell also had armor cloth taped to it, which was painted black to conceal the fact. The visors had also been covered in armored cloth, painted black, with only a wide strip over the eyes gone to give the wearer the ability to see. That setup would sacrifice a little peripheral vision of the wearer in exchange for more protection.

"Nice, Ruthie," Jason said in appreciation as Mary held it up to him when she saw him looking at it.

"We figured it might come to this hon, so we prepared."

"Clever girl. Irwin, take the other airbike," Jason called, pointing at the burly young man, then he put his helmet on. He tuned his internal radio to the same RF frequency that they were using, then had the armor's onboard processor emulate RF transmission. "Check one two three," he called, pressing his finger to the transmit button on the side of his helmet. He could set the armor to transmit anything he said, but the frequency he was using was a one-way deal, where nobody else could talk if he was talking, so that wasn't smart. "Is this transmitting?"

_"I got yah, sugah,"_ Temika called.

_"You're loud and clear,"_ Tim answered.

_"I hear you loud and clear,"_ Leamon replied.

"Okay, everyone get your earpieces in and make sure that you're wearing your armored clothes. We don't want any gunshot wounds. Let's give Doc nothing to do today. And everyone thank Ruthie and the sewing club for those damn clever helmets after this is over."

_"Amen,"_ someone called over the radio.

"Right now we're waiting to see what they do. We're going to move and meet them at the roadblocks when we see which way they come. If they split up, we'll divide up accordingly and hold them at the blocks. Just everyone remember that that armor you're wearing doesn't make you invincible. If you get hit, it _will_ hurt. It might even break some bones, and if you get shot in the right place, it'll kill you armor or no armor. So just treat this like the guns those guys are carrying can kill you, because they _can_."

They waited outside his house for almost a half an hour, because the incoming column of raiders stopped. Their scout had gotten within about a half mile, then he pulled back. Temika, who had an eye on them from high above, reported over the radio that they seemed to be arguing about something. But then they all got their guns out, and a large contingent of men on dirt bikes were dispatched from the main host coming down old 52, while the caravan of trucks continued on new 52. They were going to split up and hit them from the west and north.

_Tim, you find anything on the radio frequencies yet?_ Jason sent.

_I'm still looking,_ he answered. _They've gotta be using radios to coordinate, they're moving too good. Wait a minute. Found it!_ There was a pause. _They know we know they're coming, but they're attacking anyway,_ he relayed. _They do _not_ have our radio frequency. They do know about Symone-shit, they have a bazooka. They're going to try to hit Symone with a bazooka. Their leader just reminded them that knocking Symone out of the fight was the key, so they have to find her and single her out._

_Well, I'll have to make sure they can see me then, _Symone sent with an amused tone.

_"Okay, they're splitting up,"_ Tim called aloud over the radio. _"We've got a group of dirt bikes coming in on old 52, and the main force just picked up speed along 52. Looks like they're going to try to hit us from both sides at the same time."_

"Symone, take Luke and four other people and hold the west roadblock," Jason ordered over the radio. "Everyone else with me to the north. Irwin, hang around just out of sight, then hit them when I call you in. Mika, drift down and be ready to support Symone if she needs you. Try not to blow up any vehicles people, we want to capture as much as we can. That means no plasma if you can help it," he barked.

_"Ah got my Tek-9 and Ol' Betsy,"_ Temika called assuredly.

_"I need to come in for a gun,"_ Irwin reported. _"All I have is the plasma rifle and a nine mil pistol."_

"Doc, grab something suitable out of the armory and pass it to Irwin when he comes in," Jason commanded as he ran towards the north roadblock with his group of defenders. "Tim, get the traps up when Doc gets back in. The traps will be hot people, so you know the danger zone."

_"Shit! Jason, there's a Faey dropship about ten miles south of us!"_ Temika shouted over the radio. _"It ain't movin' this way though, it's just hanging in the air, way up there. Ah can jus' barely see it."_

Jason cursed. "There's nothing we can do about that, we have more pressing issues at the moment," he replied. "Tim, ETA?"

_"Bikes will hit the west roadblock in about two minutes."_

_"They'll slow down, they'll want to hit both sides at the same time,"_ Symone called.

"Don't count on it, the bikes might be a diversion to pull us off the north roadblock," Jason grunted as he reached the roadblock. It consisted of a zig-zag of about 20 cars arrayed on the road in behind a bridge, that would allow vehicle through if it moved very slowly, but would stop any attempt to rush through quickly or try to ram through. The creek would force any vehicle to come through that roadblock, mainly because they had junk cars lined up along the creek's near bank, stretching all the way to the woods on either side of the road. It was an impenetrable barrier for any vehicle, no matter how off-road capable it was, and absolutely forced any vehicle to come through the roadblock. Jason rushed to the end of the roadblock and pulled a car with flat tires out to cover the entrance, forming a solid barrier, and the defenders all got behind the second row of cars. That put two layers of steel between them and the incoming opposition, very effective cover. The west end roadblock wasn't quite that effective, mainly just cars lined up in a similar manner between two buildings, but they had trashed cars and junk piled too high for a vehicle to get through along every street in or out of their enclave, forcing any vehicle to come that way. That was their wall, with its two gates open to ground approach. Luke had been _very_ busy since they'd arrived.

_"The bikes are speeding up. Looks like Jason wins the raffle,"_ Tim called with a chuckle. _"Get ready Symone, they're about a half mile out."_

_"I can hear them," _she called.

Instead of rushing to the attack, however, the bikes quickly broke up and started rushing around the outer fringes of Chesapeake. Jason heard a few distant gunshots, probably taking a shot at the riders as they rode around and came into view. _"I think the bikes are doing a fast scout,"_ Tim said as he studied them from Jason's house. _"They're looking for a way in."_

_"Or testing the defenses, or both," _Symone added.

For almost ten minutes, they all heard those dirt bikes rampaging around the area outside the perimeter of the enclave, then they all pulled back. _"Okay, I have ground movement now,"_ Tim called. _"We got about fifty men milling around the vehicles, and about five trucks are moving forward."_ They were all quiet while Tim watched, and Jason amplified the audio on his armor, to better hear the trucks as they approached. _"They just sent out a group of about twenty men on foot, moving due south from the main group. The bikers are with them. Looks like they're moving towards the west end of the wall. The rest are starting to form up around the ten trucks that advanced. Okay, they're leaving most of their trucks behind, they're leaving most of their trucks behind. They got men guarding them, but they're leaving them behind."_

"Irwin, Temika, there's what you're doing," Jason barked. "Take those trucks, but try not to blow anything up. Wait for them to engage with us, then hit them."

_"You got it, sugah,"_ Temika replied.

_"Roger, I'll swing out way east and circle back so they don't see me coming,"_ Irwin acknowledged.

_"Irwin sugah, tune yo' bike radio tah local one, so we can set this up without clogging this channel."_

_"Local one, roger."_

"Tim, can you get a count of who went where?" Jason called.

_"I got twenty people on foot and ten dirt bikes coming through the woods. Five trucks are moving towards your position surrounded by, um, ten guys on foot. I can't count the people in the trucks."_

Jason quickly added it up. "Clem, take six people and go reinforce Symone, she'll need more people than she's got."

"You'll be undermanned, son," Clem warned.

"We've got open space and they can't flank us. Symone's going to be dealing with people on bikes and on foot that have cover. She needs the manpower. Now get your asses over there before they get to her."

"I get it, son. You three, you, you, you, come on," Clem called, pointing quickly in succession.

They waited in tense silence for several moments, but Jason breathed a sigh of relief when Symone called that Clem had reached her, and she'd redeployed her people to deal with a dual threat. Symone was the better choice for the west roadblock because she had actual battlefield experience, and would be better suited for handling a more complicated situation.

_"The force moving towards the west side of town stopped. I think they're waiting for the trucks to get into position,"_ Tim reported.

_"I can hear their bikes,"_ Symone said.

"Try to capture those bikes," Jason reminded her. "Remember, no plasma fire if you can help it. They'll blow up stuff we can use, and I don't feel like cleaning up the bodies with a wetvac."

_"I got one of those archaic pistol thingies, Jason, and Luke showed me how to use it. I don't much plan on shooting anyway. I'm just gonna run out there and cause hell and let my unit do the shooting."_

"Be careful woman," Jason ordered. "You get hit with that bazooka, and you're gonna feel it."

_"Pfft,"_ she snorted. _"In _this_ armor? They'll be lucky if they make me stagger back."_

"No stupid stunts," Jason ordered flatly, then he heard the faint rumble of a large diesel engine. "The trucks are closing in," Jason shouted to the people around and behind him, then went back to the radio. "Trucks are advancing," Jason called.

_"There's a group of men breaking away from the trucks,"_ Tim called. _"Ten of them, running into the woods."_

"They're going to try to flank us," Regina warned.

"Jesus, how many men do they have?" Jason growled, going to radio. "Tim, if that group passes us by and goes for the enclave, you're going to have company. We're out of people to deal with them-" he stopped, looking behind him. He had nine men and women behind him, more than enough to deal with that group of men. It just meant that he was going to have to hold the trucks himself. "Shit," he growled. "Reg, we can't let them into the enclave. Pull back to Route 7 and wait to see what they do."

"But you'll be _alone_ here, Jason," she protested.

"I have this," he said, slapping his breastplate meaningfully. "And if it comes to it, I can blow up their trucks if I have to. I'll be alright. Trust me, nobody's getting past me."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, go ahead," he ordered, going hot with his railgun, then putting a hand to his helmet. "I'm sending Reg and the others at the north roadblock to head off those men, Tim," Jason called. "I can probably hold off the trucks myself."

_"You can easily, Jayce,"_ Symone told him assuredly. _"Just run out there and attack the trucks right now. They can't possibly hurt you, and you can scare the shit out of them,"_ she added with a chuckle.

"No," Jason said, leaning down behind the car as the first truck started creeping around the distant curve. "I'll let them get much closer. Let's let them all commit before we start."

_"Where am I goin', Tim?"_ Regina demanded over the radio.

_"They're coming right towards Route 7, they just crossed the creek. They're going to come out right behind the old Save-a-Lot if they don't turn."_

Jason activated the strength augmentation system, felt the armor moving with him, moving _for_ him, as he ducked down more behind the car and increased the magnification on his visor until the lead truck was clearly visible to him. It was a military Deuce, and it had a snowplow or some kind of bladed plow attached to the front. A roadblock buster, something a mobile raiding gang would need to assault fortified positions. Jason brought up his railgun and increased magnification again, until the driver was clearly visible to him through the cracked windshield. A blinking red arrow at the bottom of his field of vision warned him his weapon's targeting crosshair was below his field of vision, so he angled the railgun up until the red crosshair appeared in his visor, wobbling a great deal because of the distance of the target-nearly 420 _shakra_-and the magnification he was using on the visor.

_"Here they come!"_ Tim shouted over the radio, and almost at the same time, the Deuce's engine roared loudly in Jason's ears, and it surged forward. _"Reg, the group you're on is turning to flank Jayce!"_

_"We'll get 'em!"_ she called as distant gunfire reached his ears, augmented by his armor's microphones. There was the loud reports of hunting rifles mixed in with the staccato reports of automatic weapons firing, and it quickly got very steady. Symone's group had opened up on the men assaulting the west roadblock.

Jason lined up the driver in his sights, then he realized that if he missed and hit the truck, he'd cripple it, and they _needed_ that truck. Symone had said that he'd be virtually untouchable in his armor... if that was the case, he could just rush the truck and stop it without doing it any damage. That might work. Jason shouldered his railgun and activated the antigrav system, and set it so he'd skim along the ground. That was "travel mode" for the armor, allowing him to hover just over the ground and move at a surprisingly fast speed... somewhere around 100 miles an hour if he remembered right. It was almost like roller skating, though his direction and speed were controlled by how he shifted his weight. He put his hands on the car in front of him and swung over it, then surged forward on a cushion of distorted space, quickly picking up some impressive speed. He was going almost 50 miles an hour before he cleared the bridge. The passenger in the Deuce swung out the window on his side and pointed an AK-47 at him. Jason almost flinched when he saw the flare from its muzzle, heard the sharp sound of it firing, but felt nothing but a slight _tink-tink-tink_ as the rounds struck his armor and were thoroughly rebuffed. He silently blew out his breath and leaned fully forward, hurtling at the Deuce in a grotesque game of chicken, three tons of steel against him and his 260 pounds of flesh, bone, blood, weapon, and armor.

Well before he got in danger of being rammed, Jason jumped, soaring high into the air. He landed lightly on the hood of the Deuce, and found himself staring at two very shocked men, both wearing old army BDU uniforms. "Good morning," Jason said casually, sliding to the edge of the hood on the driver's side. The driver slammed on the brakes, but Jason just grabbed hold of the side of the doorframe. As the truck's brakes chattered, trying to bring the huge vehicle to a stop, Jason slid off the hood and onto the footrail of the truck. He reached into the cab and grabbed the driver by the shirt, then bodily yanked him out of the cab through the open window. The truck veered off the road, almost tipping over, at least until Jason grabbed hold of the wheel and righted it as the guy in the passenger side realized what happened. Instead of sliding over within reach of Jason, he fired his AK-47 directly at him. Jason felt them hit the armor, even saw a spark as a round ricocheted directly off the visor, but it was like he was being pelted with marshmallows for all the good it did the fellow to shoot at him. Jason opened the door and slid in just enough to jam his foot on the brake, which made the Deuce bounce to a halt just before the engine stalled, and brought the vehicle to a stop.

Men were boiling out of the other trucks, nearly twenty of them, after the trucks screeched to a halt. They realized what was going on when the man who had shot at him ran back towards them screaming, and screaming "Faey! Faey!" They thought he was Symone, probably because of the armor. Geeze, didn't the guy have eyes? How could he possible mistake him for a _woman_? Sheesh. Jason slid off the truck and came around it, seeing them all shoot at him, but all their rounds simply bounced off his gleaming black armor like they were nothing. He charged right into the middle of them and simply started smacking them around, swatting any head, gun, or conveniently available body part that was within reach.

That was about when he understood the elegant simplicity of Symone's plan. With him right in the middle of them, sending men flying with swings of his strength-augmented arms, totally invulnerable to their weapons, he sent the attacking force into complete chaos and disarray. His targets were still the trucks, so he smacked enough people out of his way to reach the second one, which was now stopped, and it was clear to the driver that he meant to reach in and pull him out. The man reacted to that by piling out the passenger side door with his passenger... which served Jason's purpose just fine. It got them out of the truck and caused the vehicle to become a roadblock for the trucks behind it.

He smashed a man in the head, sending him reeling to the ground, then turned just in time to see someone running up from behind with a rocket launcher of some kind already on his shoulder. Jason felt a moment of panic and dove behind the cover of the truck, unshouldering his railgun. He went hot and blew out his breath, then swung around with it already up to his shoulder. He didn't bother aiming, but pulled up short and dove back the other way when he saw that missile launcher fire. The rocket sizzled by the side of the truck, missing him and the truck, but it sailed over the bridge and impacted one of the cars in the roadblock on the far side. The explosion was violent and loud, sending flaming pieces of car flying all over the general vicinity and sending a boiling ball of fire and black smoke into the sky.

"You maniac!" Jason shouted in surprise as he glanced a look out, and saw that he had no more of those damned things. Totally forgetting about the railgun in his hand, Jason streaked out from behind the truck like a black blur, then impacted the man with the empty rocket tube with such force that he bounced off and went flying, sailing nearly 30 feet before he hit the ground behind the second truck. He slammed the barrel of the railgun into the face of the man that was beside the first one, then he screamed right towards the third truck to rip the driver out from behind the wheel. He raced out between the second and third trucks, and glanced to his left just in time to see _another_ man with a rocket launcher. And he was already firing it!

He had no chance to dodge. It hit him in the side and detonated, washing angry fire over his visor and feeling the concussion rattle his bones a little. But the explosion and the heat could not penetrate his armor. It did, however, send him flying about ten feet, and he landed on his shoulders and back on the soft grass as smoke wafted up from his armor. He shook his head to clear t