d them until all of them are healed, then let them go at once, so they can stay together. But we're wasting time. I'm sorry to make you rush this, but one way or the other, your well-being depends on you giving me your answer quickly. So think about it a little bit, then give me your answer."

He put his chin on his hands and waited in silence, as he listened to her debate his offer. Fear was her main problem, fear of him lying, fear of being made to be a slave worker, fear of being separated from people who had protected her for the year she'd been out in the wilderness. But, his offer tempted her, and tempted her greatly, for she _hated_ how they were always fighting, hated living in a truck virtually all the time. She really didn't have many friends in the raiding gang, because she wasn't good for much more than cooking and driving a truck; she wasn't a very good fighter. Some thought she was dead weight. She thought about staying while the wounded healed, and if she didn't like it, she could leave with them... but then she realized that one of them was that guy that had tried to rape her once, she didn't want anything to do with him. She always stayed as far away from him as she could. He stopped listening about then, affording her privacy in his own mind if nothing else, watched as she paced back and forth in her cell, thinking things over.

She came up to the bars. "I'll do it. I mean, I'll stay. I accept, I mean," she said nervously.

"Good," Jason said, standing up. He motioned at Irwin who was down at the doorway leading out into the building, and the burly man threw him the key. "Welcome to Chesapeake. You need to come with me so we can catch up with the last of your friends, let them know you're not coming."

"I-do I have to?"

"It would be best to let them see you," he told her. "So they don't think I'm lying. You don't have to say anything to them if you don't want to." He looked to Irwin. "They at the bridge yet?"

Irwin shook his head. "Down by 3rd Street, getting' their supplies," he answered.

"Let's catch up to them," Jason said as he unlocked the cell door and tossed the key back to Irwin, who pocketed it. "That means you can come out, Danielle," he urged.

"Oh, stupid me," she said with a nervous laugh, scurrying out of the cell. "I'm sorry, I just don't know what to do."

"Don't worry, you'll have lots to do. It depends on what you're good at," he told her.

He gave her as much of a tour as he could given the path they were taking, and he explained the community rules to her along the way. "You mean each person doesn't have their own food?" she asked.

"Sure they do," he answered, "but we keep most of it in a community pool. People take what they need, mostly, but Ruth handles that. She's the town's food manager, after a fashion. She wasn't appointed or anything, it just kinda worked out that way. She keeps an eye on our food, makes sure people aren't being piggish, and she's the one that tells Temika what to try to trade for. Temika handles our trading with other squatter groups, also kinda an evolved position. We have a few of them, but we also have some official jobs. On top of handling food, Ruth is head of the 'sewing club,' four people good at sewing that keep tabs on our clothing supplies, and they also make our bulletproof armor. Clem is a gunsmith, so he's in charge of all our weapons. If you need a gun, he's the man you see. Luke is our head mechanic, and he's more or less responsible for all the cars and trucks we have. Zach's our town contractor, he handles things when we need something built, and me, Steve, and Tim are the guys that deal with the engineering and our Faey equipment, cause we're all trained in Faey technology. Regina, Clem, and Leamon are the town council, and I'm the mayor. Everyone else does whatever needs to be done. Some hunt, some work out on our farm, though there's not much more to do out there, some go out and try to scavenge stuff we can use, and some work on things around here."

"What do you do?"

Jason chuckled. "Too damn much," he answered. "Right now we're trying to get running water going to the town, but we've hit a wall on it. I also do a lot of work with Faey technology that we use to keep ourselves safe, and if it breaks down, it's me, Tim, or Steve that has to fix it. I'm also part of the security force we have, the people who are responsible for doing any fighting that's required. Unless we're heavily outnumbered, anyway. On top of all that, I'm also the town's mayor, though that really doesn't add much extra onto my plate. People here know what to do, so they do it. Thanks," Jason said as Symone passed by, handing him his railgun as she went. "I had to fix this, that explosion broke it," he grunted aloud. "Took me half the night. Where did your people get rocket launchers, for pete's sake?"

"I don't really remember," she shrugged. "Do you really have plasma guns?"

He nodded. "We didn't use them because we wanted to take as much equipment as we could, and keep the number of casualties to a minimum. Plasma weapons aren't really good for that. They tend to blow things up."

"Do they really? I've never seen one used before."

"Yeah, they do," he affirmed. "They're _really_ nasty weapons."

They caught up with the last group to go over at the bridge, five men who looked very unsettled and uncertain. Luke and Leamon were on hand with Tek-9s, and the nodded and stepped back when Jason arrived. "Tell your leader that the wounded will be released later, when they're well enough," he told him. "I have no idea when that'll be, but we'll take good care of them. Oh yeah, this one is staying with us," he said, pointing at Danielle. "She passed the screen. She was the _only one_ who passed the screen, and the community has voted to let her stay. She's accepted our invitation. Haven't you?"

She nodded, giving the five men fearful looks.

"So don't worry about her. Now, it's time for you to go. All I can really say is good luck."

"For what it's worth, thank you," one of the men said seriously.

"Don't thank me," he scoffed.

"You could have killed us," the man explained.

"You could have left us alone. Now go, time's wasting, and winter's on the way. You have no time to waste."

Without another word, the five men turned and marched up the bridge. Jason watched them go, then blew out his breath and looked down at Danielle. Well, at least they'd gotten something more out of this than just a lot of dead people and some additional goods.

"Luke, take her to Mary," Jason said, tapping Danielle on the shoulder.

"I'll take care of her, Mister Jason," Luke said with a nod as the five men disappeared from sight.

"You think they're gonna make it, Mayor?" Leamon asked.

Jason looked towards the bridge. "I think they will, Lacy," he replied. "It won't be easy, but something tells me that they're going to be alright. May God watch over them," he added.

"Amen," Luke said with a nod.

                                        * * *

_Kaira, 6 Miraa, 4393, Orthodox Calendar_
_Wednesday, 6 October 2007, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Chesapeake, Ohio (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector_

Sometimes, a good idea was an absolute _fucking curse_.

For three weeks, he had labored with the current project on his table, finding a way to get his skimmer back in the air without detection. That wasn't his problem, he felt he had a good solid start to the project. He had done extensive research on CivNet on several concepts and techniques that might be useful, from light refraction to masking technologies. The Faey already had a camouflage technique much like the trick he'd used against Jyslin, projecting a hologram to conceal what was behind it... or inside it, in this case. But that was just visibility, and it wasn't the top issue on his mind. Defeating both active and passive sensors was what mattered here, and also coming up with some way of concealing the skimmer's effect on space for when he wanted to move through space without detection. He had the basic groundwork for a couple of theories already, which he needed to research more to figure out if they were solid enough to actually attempt to try to develop.

The first idea was a kind of mirror concept. A field or shield or something that absolutely reflected everything away from what was inside, and reflected what was inside _back_. That would stop active sensors, and since the mirror field worked both ways, it would trap the energy signature that passive sensors picked up inside. He wasn't sure if it would work, and if it did, such things as being able to see through the field were issues. If it reflected _everything_, seeing through it with either eyes or sensors was a problem.

The next idea he had was a projected energy idea. His idea for this one was some kind of coating on the skimmer that absorbed energy on one side, then projected it outward from the other, following the energy's original path. The coating could also absorb some energy patterns from inside, which would mask the skimmer's energy signature from passive sensors. That hid the ship by causing what was behind it to be projected in front of it, and it would defeat both types of Faey sensors. The idea had some merits, such as the ability to see through it, but it would take one hell of a computer to detect energy forms colliding with the coating, or maybe a shield, calculate their trajectory and velocity, then project that signature from the proper point.

His third idea was similar to the second, but less dynamic. Some kind of shield or something that _bent_ energy around it without absorbing and re-emitting. That seemed easiest to implement, but so far, it looked like it would do little to hide the signature of the skimmer itself, since it was coming from _inside_.

The last idea was a field, shield, or coating that absolutely absorbed _everything_, in either direction. This approach would hide everything, that was for sure. This had some potential, but much like the mirror idea, he wasn't sure how they'd be able to see out of it. It also would leave a "hole" in a sensor image, since there would be _no_ return from that area. Far enough away that wasn't an issue, because energy refraction and diffusion around the edges of his skimmer would bent the energy to close over the hole, but it would be noticeable at close range.

None of these approaches did anything for the problem of hiding the skimmer's mass or the effects of its engines on space. That, he had realized quickly, would require a separate system, because nothing that dealt with energy was going to help in hiding the skimmer's _physical_ presence.

He had some idea, but it was just so hard to get anything done right now. Winter was right around the corner, and with it had come an absolute _flood_ of people coming down here and asking to join the community. Not just a few families here and there. _Hundreds_ of people, entire enclaves of individuals, from all around the region. One group of six had driven their herd of cows from _Tennessee_ to come to Chesapeake, to seek out acceptance into the community.

It had shocked him when they started coming. Just one here and there at first, but then more and more, until there were literally convoys of trucks, weighed down with everything that they owned, creeping along the pitted roads of Ohio and West Virginia and Kentucky, converging on Chesapeake. Clem wasn't all that surprised about it, though.

"It's comin' on winter, son," he'd said calmly as they stood on the top of the church steeple, by his emitter, watching a convoy of fifteen trucks rolling through Huntington. "Some of them probably wanted to come sooner, but they had crops out, and that means they couldn't leave. Then they had to can what they could and get everything ready to move. That, and I'm pretty sure that some of them wanted to make sure we could _really_ protect ourselves against a road gang. After we beat Dani's old group, it told them we really could make it."

It made for some major headaches. Poor Symone was run ragged, because she had to screen _everyone_ in _every_ group. But unlike the dreadful cooperation in the old gangs, there wasn't a single person in those bands of squatters that was deemed too much of a risk to join the community, though many of the individual and very small groups of scavengers that had showed up, probably seeking to get in to steal what they could then run, had been turned away. But those established squatters who had brought everything they owned with them and had much to lose, none of them failed the screen, and none were turned away. They had come seeking exactly what the community offered: peace, security, the chance to live with some semblance of dignity out in the wilderness, and the added benefits of living within a large community of like-minded individuals. The town was having meetings almost every night to vote on the acceptance of this or that new group of squatters into the community.

The power grid was strained by this sudden influx of people, which required Jason, Tim, and Steve to build a new generator and revamp their small power grid. But, on the other hand, they got new people who had experience, including a man named Mike Langstrom, who had worked for a power company in Virginia and was an industrial electrical engineer, unlike Steve's concentration in refinery power systems. Dealing with power generation and delivery was his old job, and the Chesapeake Power Company, he lightly called it, became his responsibility.

They also had trouble finding houses for all these new people. They had to expand the boundaries of the community twice, and they also had to fence in a large area near the farms for the influx of livestock that these people brought with them. Food storage became a problem too, causing them to go on another round of freezer scrounging, and requiring them to move their cold storage to a large restaurant and the adjacent stores on either side of it on Route 7, two blocks from Jason's house. The old pizza place had a walk-in freezer, which helped, but most of their perishables were still stored in freezers they scavenged and repaired.

The rest of their stuff also had to be moved, because there was just too much. It too was moved into old stores along Route 7, beside the food storage, because every squatter came with gear or spare equipment, and that stuff had to go somewhere.

Jason, faced with the large influx of people, was forced to give up his control of his block and block facing it. With that many people and the fact that they were moving their supplies and stored goods, there was no reason to keep the security zone around his house. That caused something of a row, because most everyone wanted to live in the houses around _him_, for some stupid reason. Well, maybe not so stupid. Since they still didn't have running water, that left everyone to access the huge tank that Jason, Luke, Tim, Zach, and Steve had built about a block from Jason's house, on an old empty lot. They'd never found a suitable tanker truck or trailer, so they just built their own. They installed a pipe to the river and Jason's spare water purification system into it, and that served as the community's source of clean water. The tank was _huge_, holding about twenty thousand gallons of water, and it hadn't even gone down to three quarters of its holding capacity since it filled up. Proximity to that tank meant that one didn't have to carry heavy buckets or containers of water as far, so the houses around it were sought-after prizes. He left them to settle how they were going to manage that, but he did put his foot down in one respect. He kept his claim on the houses to each side of him. One was given to Tim and Symone, and the other was given to Temika. That kept all the telepaths in a tight group, and besides, it was about time Tim and Symone got their own damn house.

Basically, how they divided up the houses led to a little grumbling, but nothing that caused a rift in the community. It was decided that those with the most seniority would get first pick at the houses on the two opened blocks. Clem's group, who had the most seniority, was given first opportunity. Clem himself decided he liked his own house, but Mary and Luke, still living with their father and Ruth, decided they wanted a house of their own, so they moved in beside Tim and Symone... Jason suspected Jenny had something to do with that, wanting to be near Symone. Since the rest of the original community all came at the same time, they had a lottery to decide who had first pick, at least those who felt like they wanted to move.

People kept coming, and kept coming, and kept coming. They'd gone from a community of about 30 to a burgeoning, actual town of nearly 300 people in just a few weeks. Single scavengers that had passed the screen, couples, trios, families, even entire enclaves of squatters had come. There were 20 children in the community now, ranging in ages from two months to 17, which gave Jenny actual playmates. It also caused the creation of a school, much to the children's intense displeasure, run by a kindly older fellow named William Connor, from a squatter enclave in Gallipolis, who had been a teacher before the subjugation.

There were some growing pains, to be sure. A few short tempers had let to a couple of altercations, but nothing outrageous. They also had trouble getting everyone settled down, and it was taking the newcomers time to get used to the way they did things. Some of them also had some issues with taking orders from the town council, but they kept their indignation to themselves. They were used to doing things _their_ way, and hadn't quite expected such a well-organized system to be in place when they arrived.

All the distractions made it hard for Jason to do anything. He'd managed to finish building his three extra railguns, and had corrected the problem that made his original get damaged by the explosion. That one hadn't had its flux cabling heavily secured inside the barrel, and the shock of the blast had dislodged it from its careful positioning, which had triggered a critical malfunction error. Now the cabling was secured with a clear synthetic coating that was as strong as steel, what he had used on his first new railgun, something that was not in the original. The three new railguns were tested and worked, and they too lacked the sonic-boom effect that had been present in his first weapon, at least at first. He _still_ hadn't figured out why that had stopped, and since his _new_ weapons lacked it as well, he figured that it had to have been some kind of flaw in the original weapon that he had corrected somehow. It still drove him a little batty sometimes, when he stopped to think about it, but he was too busy to dwell on that kind of trivial stuff for long. Not when he had so much to worry about that mattered.

There had been some changes made, to take the larger population into account. The city council was now five instead of three, with two newcomers, Paul Meredith and Julianne Winfield, added to the council to represent the outlook and perspective of those who had just arrived. Both had been leaders of fairly large enclaves of their own, and had experience with dealing with people. The "sheriff's office" had been expanded to include 12 people, which took the pressure of Irwin, Luke, and Symone. Now they had at least one "deputy" on active duty at all times and one person in the "control center", which was one of Jason's spare bedrooms, monitoring the sensors. The patroller rode around the community on a horse with one of the hunting plasma rifles in his hands or in the saddleskirt, just keeping an eye on things while the man or woman watching the sensors made sure nobody snuck up on the town from outside. They'd gotten an entire herd of horses with the Kinney family, when they came down from Athalia with their herd of 24 horses, most of which were broken for riding. To save their dwindling gas supplies, the policing patrols used horses to get around. They weren't using the airbike because most of them had no idea how to ride it; Symone and Irwin were training them one by one on how to ride the airbike, and they were also taking lessons on how to read the sensors that were now being operated from one of the new panels from Tim. Tim had more or less earned the job of combat controller, given how good a job he did reading the sensors and directing forces against Danielle's old road gang, but he was teaching others how to do it in case he wasn't there to do the job. The command center was still in Jason's house, because he wouldn't allow that panel to leave his home. So his house still served in some ways in an official capacity, and he still had people coming in and out of it. Luke now had a large complement of mechanics to help him with the vehicles, and Zach had several fellow handymen to help with building projects and house repairs. They'd also gotten quite a few plumbers, welders, electricians, people from various trade skills whose training was going to have a positive impact on the community as a whole.

There was quite a bit going on outside the community too. Jyslin's life had calmed down considerably, returning to the routine, though she had the feeling that the Secret Police was keeping a clandestine eye on her. She kept in touch with her Aunt Lorna in Washington, and had told him that she was already trying to get Lorna to get her unit transferred out of New Orleans. Not just her, but her entire unit. She admitted that getting an entire unit transferred wasn't easy, but Royal Command _was_ looking into realigning some of its Imperial forces, so she had hope that they'd get that transfer sometime soon. When Jason asked where she was going to go, she just gave him a mysterious smile and told him not to worry about that. He felt that she was going to try to get a transfer somewhere close to the preserve, which he actually _did not want_. If Jyslin was stationed close to the preserve, she might actually be called to fight against _him_ if his community and the Faey ever came to blows. The further away Jyslin was, the lesser the chance that she might be on the other side of the battlefield. Kumi's conscription was fast approaching, only three months now, and she was getting both more frenetic and more wild by the day. It was getting hard to catch her at home, because she was out living hard, partying, and squeezing every ounce of fun into life she could before she had to go do the required five years of military service. Her mother had already got her a cushy job as an "aide" to one of the house's top military commanders, which was on her home planet. She'd have two months of mandatory basic training, then be right back home, working for this woman named Admiral Lenne. The only real difference would be that she'd have a job and be expected to _work_, and that was what horrified Kumi more than anything else.

The true secret of Chesapeake continued to remain a secret, though people had certainly noticed this mysterious little clique that consisted of Symone, Tim, Jason, and Temika. Temika and Tim were trained in telepathy for at least four hours a day by Symone, often with Jason sitting in when he could to see if he couldn't learn a little more. Temika was a _very_ strong telepath, not as strong as Jason but certainly stronger than Symone and Tim, and much to Symone's surprise, she learned very fast. Temika was _very _happy to be a telepath, to have that power, so she threw herself into her lessons utterly. She'd learned rather quickly how to send, and had already learned the embarrassing lesson _never_ to try to send privately around Symone. Symone's unusual sensitivity to sending, allowing her to hear _any_ sending and not just public ones, was something that one had to keep in mind when she was around. Temika had sent privately to Tim about her suspicions that Jason and Symone were fooling around on the side, about how it was odd that she was so comfortable taking her clothes off around him and how she kept her armor in his room, which gave her an excuse to go in the one place that _nobody_ was allowed to go except Jason and her. Temika got a rather embarrassing education about certain aspects of Faey personality about then, because Symone was neither demure nor evasive about her relationship with Jason. Temika really didn't understand Faey very well, which was easy enough for someone without much exposure to them. They _did_ look almost exactly like humans, and there were a great number of similarities in behavior that often made people forget that Symone wasn't human. But she _wasn't_ human, and her racial culture was very different from the human one. That episode made Temika blush furiously every time she looked at Symone for nearly three days, and even blush a little when she looked at Jason. It wasn't common knowledge that Jason and Symone had slept together once, and it certainly wouldn't be understood very well that it was done with Tim's blessing. That was something that all three of them felt was a private matter, completely between themselves, and had nothing to do with the rest of the town. Temika was wise enough never to repeat what Symone had told her, because if many of the men in town thought that being Symone's good friend meant having sex with her, they'd be lining up outside their house.

They weren't dead after all, and Symone was _gorgeous_, just like most Faey. It was only understandable that many men had certain fantasies about her, fantasies that Symone actually found quite flattering.

Despite that one social blunder, Temika got along very well with the others in their very small and unique group. She sincerely liked Symone and was an eager student, she got along rather well with Tim, and she already had a good friendship with Jason.

Symone did do her best to continue Jason's education, teaching him the more advanced techniques of attack and defense, though she wasn't as good at it as Jyslin, and she utilized different techniques. Symone wasn't half as strong in the talent as Jason was, so she relied on techniques that would differ from what he or Jyslin would use, who could bring more raw power to bear in the situation. But Jason didn't complain, mainly because knowledge was knowledge, and her lessons still offered the value of understanding how others would do things.

_"Jason,"_ Regina called over the radio.

Jason blew out his breath and leaned back in his chair down in his basement workshop. It was about ten in the morning, and he'd skipped the daily training session Symone was giving for Tim and Temika to squeeze more time in with his research, but it looked like he was going to get interrupted yet again. He reached over and picked up the radio. "What is it, Reg?" he asked.

_"You need to come out here. Now."_

"Now what?" he asked irritably over the radio. "I'm trying to get some work done here, Reggie! Can't you handle it?"

_"Give me that! Is this how you use it? Good. JASON FOX, YOU GET YOUR ASS OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!!!!"_ a voice screamed over the radio, in Faey.

Jason almost had a heart attack. He _did_ fall backwards out of his chair. He knew that voice; it was Kumi! _Kumi_ was almost on top of him! How in the hell did she get that close without whoever was riding the panel seeing it? How did she find him in the first place? He ran up the stairs and slammed the door open almost in Symone's face. She was out in the hall upstairs with Tim and Temika behind her, a shocked and frightened look on her face. "No sending. _Nothing,_" he hissed under his breath, looking at all three as he totally closed his own mind, then he rushed through the living room and out onto his porch.

Kumi was there, with about twenty people around her, milling around her with a kind of wide-eyed wonder. She was sitting on an airbike, leaning her arms on the handle bars and talking with Regina, with five airbikes around her. Four of those people he recognized; Meya, Myra, Fure, and that really strange looking little red-skinned man whose name Jason could not recall, riding a half-sized airbike obviously meant for a child or someone his size. The fifth was another alien, an eerie looking kind of furry humanoid creature, something he'd never imagined could exist. It-she, it was a she-had _purple_ fur, with a short, boxy kind of muzzle on her face, sort of like a cat but not quite. She had oversized, round eyes that were the color of turquoise, and she had strange little whip-like things growing out of her head, in front of a pair of animalistic triangular ears that were poking through a thick poof of wild hair that was a slightly darker shade of purple than her fur. She also had small, diaphanous purple-tinted wings, chitinous wings like a dragonfly, though they looked too small to be anything other than decorative. That creature looked at him, and he had the weirdest sensation shiver up his spine.

"Kumi!" he gasped, staring at her from the porch. "What the _hell_ are you doing here? Are you nuts?"

"Am I nuts?" she asked, looking over Regina. "Bull _shit_ am I nuts."

"You coming here is _nuts_," he snapped. "You realize how much danger you just put us all in?"

"Oh _please_, give me some fuckin' credit, babe," she scoffed.

"I didn't know you spoke their language, Jayce," Regina said in surprise.

"Oh, he has lots of secrets," Kumi grated in perfect English.

He blew out his breath. "Why did you come here?" he demanded again.

"I was in the neighborhood," she replied flippantly.

"That's not an answer," Jason said darkly, coming down off the porch. "This was _stupid_, young lady. Thanks to you, now they're going to wonder what's so curious out here that you'd come drop by and visit. The best thing you can do right now is just ride off in the same direction you were going before you got here."

"They don't know I'm here, and even if they did, what the _fuck_ are they going to say? You forget who I am, babe. I'm a _Countess_. My mom's a _Duchess_. I can do anything I damn well please, and there's nobody on this _planet_ that can say a damn thing."

"Yeah, that's all fine and dandy for _you_, but after you're gone, who do you think's going to still be here? We _live_ here, girl. You're not the one they're going to start looking at after you're gone, _we are_."

"Why are we arguing about this? I just came about a thousand light years to come see you, babe. Care to show me a