me welts, so Tim can kiss it and make it better." She kissed him on the cheek, then sauntered down off the stage.

"Well," Jason grunted. "I won't deny what Symone told you. I _am_ a telepath. And yes, that's why I'm willing to do what I'm going to do."

"That's how you knew about the slaves," Leamon mused.

Jason nodded, looking back at him. "I could hear the terror in their thoughts. It was so strong that it bled through my usual defenses against overhearing thoughts, and made me investigate. I know that some of you think I betrayed you by never telling you, but think about it. Anything you know, a _Faey_ will know if she gets close enough to you. Not telling you protected you as much as me.

"Anyway, that's all I really had to say. We need to start searching for a new place to settle in, but I didn't sleep all night, so we're going to start the airborne surveying tomorrow. What I'd like to do today is for those of us who have the most experience with the local terrain to get together and start discussing possible places to look. I know Temika for one's been just about all over, and quite a few of you are well traveled in this area. All of you need to get together and start throwing out spots. Tim and Steve can tell you generally what kind of terrain we're gonna need to hide the place, so they should sit in on it as well. Right now, I'm gonna go strangle Symone, then I'm going to bed."

That produced a few nervous chuckles.

"You. My house. _Now_," he said, pointing directly at Symone.

The meeting broke up at that point. They all stared at him, stared at him as if they'd only just seen him for the first time. Tim and Temika were staring at each other uncertainly, the sendings flying between them, but Jason wasn't really listening. He had no idea what kind of wild idea Symone had by telling them the truth, but the truth was out, the damage was done, and there was nothing that he could do about it. Right now all he could do was try to assess the damage, chastise Symone for blabbing, and focus on the tasks at hand.

First, he had to find a new place for the community.

Then, they had to move to that new place.

While they were doing that, he had to find a place for himself, someplace large, someplace where he could hold a great amount of equipment without the Faey detecting it.

Then, he had to figure out just how he was going to go about successfully driving House Trillane off Earth without getting himself killed.

It certainly wasn't going to be easy... but nothing worthwhile ever was.

He'd just have to wait and see.


Chapter 11

_Kaira, 33 Demaa, 4393, Orthodox Calendar_
_Sunday, 8 December 2007, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Chesapeake, Ohio (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector_

Luck had been with them.

It only took them four days to find a new location for the settlement, and that was what was once the capitol of West Virginia, Charleston. It was only about 50 miles east of Huntington, and the downtown area of the city was almost exactly what they needed. It was a deep valley with suitably steep hills on either side, a narrow valley compared to the wide valley in which Huntington sat, but wide enough for them to live in and set up farmland. The valley was long, and it had two outlets that could easily be defended. The sides of the valley were just steep enough to make moving large vehicles over them extremely difficult. There was a narrow plateau to the southeast of that main valley where the horses could be kept and more farmland could be set, though hiding that area wasn't going to be as easy as the valley.

The work helped Jason keep his mind off other things. He was utterly serious about leaving, and though every single person in the community tried to talk him out of it, except for Symone, he would not budge. None of them understood the crushing responsibility he felt for the lives of those poor people who had been taken, because he had been in a position to do something about them, but had decided to put his trust in the Imperium instead of depending on himself.

Not anymore.

Well, he supposed he should eventually call Jyslin and apologize. After all, she was just the messenger, and it was wrong to shoot the messenger over the message she conveyed. But he had been rightfully angry, and Jyslin's attitude, worrying more about him than the people on that ship, it rubbed him a bit raw.

The other thing was the revelation that Symone had dropped on everyone. They all knew now that he was a telepath, and after a few days for it to sink in, he'd seen the way it changed everyone's view of him. He had no idea what they were thinking, mainly because he wouldn't eavesdrop, but some of the community seemed nervous around him now. A few actively avoided him, a few only gave perfunctory greetings and then hurried off on imagined tasks, but most simply didn't engage him in conversation the way they used to. That hurt, more than he thought it would, but at least those who knew him longest and best seemed to not care about his secret. Clem, Leamon, Luke and Steve, Mary, most of the original community members, they'd been together too long for that to matter as much as others thought it should. They knew how devoted he was to the community and to his friends, and were willing to forgive him for his secrecy and accept him for what he was. He felt a little alienated now... but maybe that was for the best. He'd be leaving them soon. He needed to find a place to set up his base of operation, but that would have to wait.

He had other matters, more important at the moment.

After an extensive, 16 hour survey of the terrain and taking lots and lots of pictures, Jason, Tim, and Steve sat down and worked out how they were going to hide it. They realized that just one inverse phase emitter wasn't going to hide the area they intended to secure, so they would have to build two, one on either side of the planned settlement. Those had to go in first, because they were going to hide the hologram system they had in mind. Once the emitters were installed, then they had to build the holographic screen.

A day's research on CivNet produced a list of needs. They were going to need 24 separate projectors, each one separated by 550 yards, as well as six projectors arrayed in a roughly circular configuration to cover the plateau outside the valley. Those projectors were not cheap. They were C6,750 each, and that was a grand total of C162,000... _just_ for the projectors. They were going to need a computer to control the system, as well as cabling, mounts, shielding, and some cable housing. They also needed the components for a second emitter. Add all that in, and the hologram system was going to cost them C194,574. It would take about two weeks to install, as long as they had a team doing it. It wouldn't be hard at all, the money was the only issue.

Money. He swiveled in his chair and brought up CivNet, then visited the First Bank of Moridon. In his special, untraceable, completely anonymous account, he had C216,984.233. There had been three royalty payments since the last time he'd bought the cloaking equipment, payments received for the Imperium using his technological ideas for communicators on a water planet and to help control the population of a dangerous insect on another. _That_, he didn't mind seeing. He'd never hand over his railgun to the Imperium, but if they wanted to use his hypersonic ideas for things that helped people, he had no objections whatsoever.

Given the state of his bank account, right now he could just _barely_ afford to buy what was needed, after he paid Kumi her cut for transport and delivery... which would be her last. Her conscription was coming up, and besides, she was a Trillane. Even if she didn't know what was going on with the slavery, he would soon become a direct enemy to her house, and he knew that after that happened she would not help him anymore. In fact, he would bet that she would seek to cut off his royalty payments using those shadowy connections she had, the same ones that had arranged to channel his payments into the account he held now. He was more or less planning for that. After Kumi went to start her conscription, he would be alone, and would be forced to find other, more creative ways to fund his rebellion.

He already had a few ideas. Gold was a precious metal, even for the Faey, and there was quite a bit of it laying around, if one was patient enough to comb houses for jewelry that had been left behind. It was useless to the squatters, and as such was not taken when squatters pillaged houses for useful things. Another option was the direct, black-market sale of certain things over CivNet, like food, or certain "collectibles" of Terran curiosities that collectors would be interested in. It turned out that the "archaic mass driver weaponry" that humans had used before the subjugation were collector's pieces among gun collectors. A single pistol could go for upwards of C2,500 over the CivNet underground, depending on make, model, and rarity, and the military weapons, like assault weapons, could go for as much as C15,000. By selling off his guns, Jason could raise cash to buy the materials to make railguns. This would be tricky, because Jason had always just thrown everything he owned in with the collective community property. Even his house served an official community role, being the seat of the sensor system and a meeting place, as well as somewhere anyone could come to and voice a concern to Jason, who would pass that on to the council during meetings. Selling off his guns would force him to separate his possessions from community property.

But that time was coming, and coming soon. When he left, he had to take enough with him to support both himself and his mission, and that meant that there was going to have to be some sorting. Certain things, though, were going to stay with the community, no matter how useful they'd be to him. The replicator would stay, for example. They were going to need it, and besides, Jason would be securing assets in less legal ways once he got started. He fully intended to fully equip his "rebel base" at the expense of Trillane, by stealing what he needed from them. He had his panel, and if a certain idea worked out the way he hoped, he'd have complete and unfettered access to their entire system. Communications, troop movements, orders, logistical layouts, material placement... everything would be open and unlocked for him.

And the magic key that would open the bounty of the assets of Trillane laid within the small, supple, and dangerous hands of Eleri Trillane.

He remembered when she had put him into the Trillane encryption protocol. Eleri was a Countess, a very, very high ranking member of the house, and her mother was a _Duchess_. She answered _only_ to the head of the house, the Grand Duchess. Eleri knew any number of Trillane's secrets, and what was more important, _she had access to the highest levels of Trillane's computer network_.

That was a target worth the rather dangerous idea he had cooking in the back of his mind. Well, Kumi had been after him for quite a while to go to Dracora before her conscription. He was just going to have to cave in. He would go to Dracora, get into her house, and do whatever it took to secure access to Trillane's internal network and get access to their encryption protocols, which would let him decrypt their communications. But he had to do it without her knowing what he was up to, and he'd be doing it under the watchful, almost accusing eyes of Fure. He'd have to get past Fure, dupe Meya and Myra, and then steal what he needed from her without her knowledge.

If he had access to the Trillane network, he'd know when and where their forces were going to be, and that would let him strike for maximum damage with minimum risk. What to strike... that was the delicate issue.

There was much more going on here than just the Trillanes. Earth was the second largest food producing planet in the Imperium, and the flow of that food to the rest of the Imperium was something that was both the key to getting rid of Trillane and also the sword that could chop off his head. The objective here was not kicking the Faey off Earth. That wasn't going to happen, not now. The Imperium _depended_ on the food they produced on Earth, without it, people would literally starve. That food had to be disrupted _just enough_ to force the Empress to pull Trillane off Earth, but not so much that he brought her wrath down upon the planet.

That was the very tricky balancing act.

Jason leaned back and pondered just what they would have to do. The entire philosophy of any kind of resistance movement would be to bury themselves so deeply that not even Faey telepathy was going to find them. From that secure location, they would have to sally out and engage in stealth warfare, _guerilla_ warfare, striking at targets with speed and haste, then fading away before Trillane could organize an armed response. Because of the vulnerability of the strike team, it had to be limited only to those numbers that Jason could defend using talent... maybe four or five. And those other people couldn't be very far away from him. Casualties in these strikes had to be kept to a minimum, controlled attacks with specific objectives. Humans may be working for the Trillanes, but they were not the enemy. For that matter, the Faey weren't entirely the enemy either. He had no real malice towards the soldiers of Trillane, his enmity was placed more or less on the nobles themselves. Killing Trillane soldiers would bring him no pleasure, because he could be killing Faey like Symone. Not that he'd really get any pleasure out of killing nobles either. His vengeance was more or less focused on those who had been actively trading humans as slaves.

What they would need to do is _harass_ Trillane, not engage in _war_ with Trillane. But, he couldn't escalate his attacks to such a point that it caused the Empress to directly intervene.

He looked at his list of written objectives. The first objective was to gain access to the Trillane system, and that meant dealing with Kumi. After that access was achieved, the objective was to use that access to locate cargo transports, then to use that access to disable sensors that would allow armed groups to intercept them, capture them, and take the cargo without Trillane organizing a response. Any food on those dropships would then be offered directly to the Empress herself, _free_. Trillane was _paid_ for the food they produced. Jason hoped that by surrendering that food to the Empress, it would keep her out of what was entirely an internal matter for House Trillane, and assure her that the resistance wasn't trying to break away from the Imperium, it was only engaging in violent protest against the house that ruled its planet.

Jason would love to do just that, to break away from the Imperium, but that was one stark reality that was not going to change. The Imperium now depended on the food from Earth, and they would fight tooth and nail to keep possession of it. What he wanted to do was improve the standing of humanity _within_ the Imperium. If he could find a way to force Trillane off Earth, humanity would be in a position to bargain hard with the Empress over just who came to replace them, and wring some concessions out of her.

Not that it really mattered, he supposed. At most, he would be a minor irritation, he'd stir up some trouble, maybe do some damage, then he'd be captured. That was probably the reality of what was coming, but at least he could look back on it and say he _tried_. To him, that mattered.

The door opened, and Symone sidled into his room. _Hey cutie,_ she sent lightly. _When are you going to get out from behind that thing and come downstairs? Mika is cooking us some gumbo._

_When I find everything I'm looking for,_ he answered. _Buying the parts for the projector system is going to bankrupt me. Right now I'm exploring some other ways to make money._

_How so?_

He explained the two ideas he'd had so far. _There's plenty of old jewelry laying around, so that's an option. But the community is going to need the guns, so I'm not too keen on that idea._

_There's an easier way, you know._

_Oh? And just what that might be?_ he asked, turning to look at her.

_You'd make a killing in the porn industry._

She laughed when he threw his empty water bottle at her. _Actually, the jewelry idea's a good start, but you should look at other stuff. Lots of the girls in my unit were into old furniture and shit like that. There's lots of stuff laying around out here... you might be able to start up some kind of antiques trade. You might even be able to sell the jewelry as jewelry instead of gold._

_Hmm, that's actually a decent idea. I didn't look into that. Of course, moving it out of here would be a problem, but right now everything's just speculation._

_Why the worry about money?_

_What Kumi set up, she can take down. After I start making a nuisance of myself, she'll probably sabotage my income. How are they doing down there?_

_They've made two railguns,_ she answered. _They haven't tested them yet. Steve and Tim had to rewrap the coils around the ones that Luke and Leamon made, so that slowed them down._

_I showed them how to do it._

_Yeah, and you're dealing with tolerances in the fractions of _ketha_,_ she answered. _Given it's the first time they've ever done it, I'm surprised that Luke and Leamon managed it. They're mechanics, not technicians. Jason._

_Yeah?_

_When you go, me and Tim are going with you,_ she told him.

_You know what's going to happen._

_Yeah, and it's something that might eventually happen anyway,_ she told him. _Face it, hon. I'm a Faey, living in the human settlement. This is borrowed time for me. Eventually, they're gonna catch me, and then it's either prison or looking down the barrel of an MPAC. The only chance me and Tim have of living any kind of normal life is with you. I'd rather die fighting for a chance at that life than never have that chance at all._

There was little he could say to that, so he simply nodded and held out his hand to her. She took it, and that contact allowed him to see the grim understanding of what was coming, but also the hope that they just might succeed. She sat down on his lap and looked at his panel screen. _What's this shit?_

He reached over her and tapped a few keys on the holographic keyboard, showing her _Kumida_, CivNet's version of the old internet EBay. CivNet spanned 72 star systems, so _Kumida_, which meant _The shopping mall_ in English, was only one of the many trading sites. _Kumida_ was one of the larger ones, as well as one of the ones where less than legal goods could be found for sale, if one had the patience to look for them. _I was looking to see if I could pick up used models of the projectors we need, but they're hard to find. It seems that theatres snap them up whenever one's being sold. I'll probably have to buy new ones._

_You know, you could use _Kumida_ to sell stuff,_ she reasoned. _We just need to find a way to get it out._

_Actually, Kumi already thought that up for me,_ he told her.

_Oh yeah, the business idea. Think it'll work?_

_I think it will... I'm just worried about how Kumi will interfere with that setup when I stop being friendly. How well do you know Faey business?_

She laughed brightly. _Cutie, I know _shit_ about business. I'm a soldier. I'll probably be a soldier all my life, because I haven't been rated for any job that pays anything worth anything. Even if I was back outside, I'd be looking at a life as a factory worker or farmer if I left the service. At least in the service, I get free food and board, and more pay than I'd get stamping circuit boards in some factory on some uninhabitable planet that uses biodomes to sustain the populace._

Jason snorted. _Well, it was worth a shot. I want to ask your opinion on something._

_Shoot._

He used sending to convey his idea for stealing Trillane's protocols from Kumi. _What do you think?_

_I think it's not very feasible,_ she answered. _You have no idea where it is, and odds are, she's got security around what you're looking for. Last time I saw, you build things, you're not a highly trained computer expert. Hell, even you admit that Steve is better at the computer shit than you are. I don't think you could get what you're after by yourself without getting caught._

_I was hoping for a better assessment than that._

_You're about to move up into the big leagues, cutie. In the big leagues, you're just a newbie. But there might be a way to get what you're after._

_How?_

_Just do it the way the pros do it, hon. When a noble wants something stolen, she hires a Kimdori. When a noble wants someone followed or information gathered, she hires a Kimdori. If you want the way to access Trillane's security network from Kumi, you need to hire a Kimdori._

_I hadn't thought of that._

_Well, good thing I'm here then,_ she sent grandly. _And I just _happen_ to be on very friendly terms with a Kimdori. I'll give Thraama a call and hint that I might be interested in locating and hiring one of the more highly trained members of his clan. Thraama's a diplomat now, he would know how to do what we need, but he wouldn't do it himself. But, he would give us a name of someone who _will_._

_And just how much would it cost me?_

_I really couldn't tell you. Kimdori are weird. Sometimes they charge a million credits for a job, then turn around and charge someone else _one_ credit to do the _same_ job. With Kimdori, a lot of it depends on if she likes you or not. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that whoever Thraama suggests would demand a face to face meeting. No Kimdori will work for anyone unless they meet in person first. They call it _the interview_. That's when they set the price._

_So we'd have to go to New Columbus._

_We'd definitely have to leave the frontier. One thing you should contact Kumi about now, before we burn that bridge, is having one of her shady friends set you up some fake IDs, so you can move around outside. Yeah, your face is well known, but if you whip out an ID that says your name is Ralph Mason from Oregrown Oregon._

_Whatever. Anyway, if you show that ID with a different name and your projected thoughts match that ID, they'd let you go by._

_That's a good idea. It's just gonna cost money, and money's what I'm in short supply of at the moment._

_You should at least call Kumi and see if she can get you a general price range. Once you have that ID, you can sneak across the border and visit that business thing you were talking about, or meet with the Kimdori. It could even let you get the projectors and shit without having to go through Kumi. That's something I don't think we'd want her to know about._

_You're right. So, the fake ID is the first order of business. Then the projectors, then the business. Then, if I have the money, we contact your Kimdori friend. Exactly what does Thraama do, anyway? Just out of curiosity._

_He's a diplomat._

_He works for the Kimdori government?_

_The Kimdori don't have what you'd call a central government, cutie. They're a collection of clans, each its own independent entity. He represents his _clan_, not his government. But I haven't talked to him in months, there's really no telling what he's doing now,_ she sent with an audible chuckle.

_Sounds a bit wild._

_Yeah, he's a little wild,_ she agreed. _But that's what made him fun._

_Alright then, let's get this done. I'll call Kumi and find out how much fake IDs will cost me, then I'll go down and see how they're doing with the railguns. Me and Steve have to talk about the exomech too._

_What you're going to do with it?_

_Actually, if we're going to pull the power plant to use to power the projector system,_ he answered. _Right now, the exomech's more or less guaranteed to be dismantled. It' s too big to put in my skimmer, so we have to take it apart and move it in sections._

_You're keeping it?_

He nodded. _If I can't use it as an exomech, I can use its parts. Did you ever log any time in an exomech?_

_Afraid not, cutie. I've never so much as sat in the cockpit of one_

_Well, it was an idea. Go on downstairs, let me call Kumi._

_Sure. See ya in a bit._

Jason blew out his breath and immediately got right to it. He wanted to get this done, both so he could go get some of Temika's excellent cooking, and so he could check and see how Tim, Steve, Luke, and Leamon were doing assembling the railguns. He'd replicated the cases and demonstrated to Steve how one was built, who was now overseeing the other three when Jason wasn't down there. Jason had built two more in training Steve in the procedure, bringing their total up to four, but he hoped to get at least one built a day. They really weren't that hard to build, only wrapping the barrel required any precision. Those four could build one railgun a day in just a matter of hours. As the wrapper did that delicate task, the other three could assemble the other parts of the gun, then simply put it all together when the wrapper was done. Jason only had the materials on hand to build 30 railguns, and he wanted to build 28, leaving spare parts on hand for repairs.

He dialed Kumi's personal number after checking to see what time it was on Draconis, inwardly wondering how it was going to feel to talk to someone that he intended to betray. Well, not betray personally, anyway. Kumi was a good friend, but she _was_ a Trillane, and very soon now he would be directly opposing that noble house. He wondered again if she knew anything about the slaving, even as the window holding the video link on his panel flickered. Kumi appeared on the other side, wearing a frilly bra. Jason pondered idly that every time he called her, she was either wearing her workout halter or a bra. Didn't this girl ever stay dressed in her own room? "Eleri. Talk," she said, not even bothering to look at the monitor after answering, standing up and turning her back to the monitor, preparing to put on a white shirt of some kind. She had on a short white skirt of some sort... it looked eerily like a tennis outfit, but they didn't play tennis on Draconis. But the skirt was short and looked kind of sporty, giving it the illusion that it was. That, or he was just assigning his human customs to what he was seeing... there was no telling where she was about to go or what she was about to do.

"I was just wondering if you ever bothered to stay dressed in your room," Jason noted.

She looked back over her shoulder, then laughed. "Why do you say that?"

"Every time I call, you're either wearing your workout halter, or you're in your bra and panties. I think this is the first time in a while I've called when you're about to become dressed."

"Well, far be it for me to break tradition," she said with a smirk, tossing her shirt aside. She reached up and grabbed the clasp of her bra, where it connected at the base, between her breasts. "Want me to ditch this too? We gotta make sure you feel comfortable," she added with a wink.

"But that's not tradition," he countered. "Tradition is bra on."

"You're no fun," she said, sitting down at her desk. "Now, what's on your mind? Need something?"

"Sort of. Actually, it's more of an inquiry," he answered. "I'm seeing if you _can_ get me something. Something that's not entirely easy to get."

She looked at his face, then looked down and started typing on the keyboard under his field of view. Quickly, the call entered that secure, encrypted mode that made their communication private. "Sounds like it's the kind of thing we'll need this for," she told him. "What were you thinking about?"

"I was wondering how hard it would be for you to find someone to make fake identification that would fool most people," he asked.

She snorted. "Shit, babe, that's way easy, but it's not gonna fool anyone you meet face to face," she told him. "I've thought about that since the day we met, but it ain't gonna let you leave your preserve. The first time you flash that fake ID at a soldier, you're busted. Even a perfect ID ain't gonna get you past the first Faey you try to use it on."

"But you can do it," he prompted. "How much would it cost?"

"Two thousand's the going rate for a fake ID. Now, if you want an entire fake _persona_, complete with fake birth certificates, records, shit like that, that runs about ten thousand. You're a human though, so it'd probably be double that, since that means that they'll have to hack a non-central system to plant the fake data. That's more security to go through, so the price goes up. I'll have to ask around a bit. I know any number of people that can do it. I'll see how much they think it'd cost to pull it off. I'll shop for the best deal, as it were."

"I don't need anything that fancy, Kumi. I just need something that'll get me past anyone who stops me on the street, but it also has to be good enough to let me use that fake ID over CivNet."

"Well, that's not gonna work, babe," she warned. "The name on that card's not gonna match your thoughts. No ID is going to fool a Faey soldier." Her eyes widened. "Unless you _are_," she said, then she licked her lips. "Well, if you _are_, then I guess it'd work. Are you?"

"Let me worry about how I'm going to use it," he said carefully.

"I knew it! You _are_!" she said happily, clapping her hands together.

"Kumi."

"What?"

"Can you get the ID?"

"In an hour," she told him dismissively.

"Good. Do it."

She looked at him. "What hair got up your ass today, babe? You're usually not this cranky. What's wrong?"

He looked her right in the eye. "When you get the ID, I'm going to have you drop it off, just leave it at our meeting point and get back home fast."

"What?"

"You don't want to be here right now. I won't let you stay."

"What? Why the fuck not?"

"You should know," he scoffed. "I'm surprised that wasn't the first thing you started talking about."

"What are you talking about, babe?"

He pursed his lips. "They must have covered it up," he reasoned. They _had_ to have, if even Kumi didn't know... and she had very long ears. That answered one of his questions about calling Kumi. Maybe she didn't know about the slaving.

"Covered what up?" she asked.

"The fact that Trillane has been kidnapping humans and sel