ling them into slavery," he told her, rather coldly.

"_What_?" she gasped. "Neme's garland! You've gotta be kidding!"

"I'm dead serious," he stated flatly. "I saw it personally."

She sat back heavily in her chair. "Shit... well, shit. Shit," she droned, looking at nothing in particular. "Holy fuck, if the Imperials find out about it, we're screwed. Slaving is _way_ illegal. Our house could lose its charter if it's true." 
 
"They already know," Jason answered. "The first thing I did was get in touch with my Marine friend. But, they wouldn't believe me," he said, a bit spitefully.

"But someone still ordered mouths closed, or I'd have heard about it," Kumi reasoned, leaning forward on her elbows and looking into the monitor at him. "Did they attack _you_? The slavers? Are all your people alright?"

"We're all fine, and thanks for asking," he said with sincere gratitude. "But because of this, I'm moving the community. Too many people know it's here, and it's nothing but a big target. We've already got our new site selected and we're gathering up the materials we need to hide ourselves."

"Yeah, that's not a bad idea," she agreed. "But they wouldn't target your community because you're there. Nobody knows you live in it but me, and I haven't told anyone."

"Really? If nobody knows I'm here, how did that food shipment get dropped fifty _shakra_ from our outer wall?"

She was about to say something, but her jaw clicked shut, and she furrowed her brow.

"That's right. Whoever that was that hired you to bring you to me knows _exactly_ where I am."

"But she'd never..." she said, then she blinked.

"And just who is _she_?" Jason asked pointedly.

"I, I can't say," she said.

"Kumi."

"I _really_ can't tell you, babe," she said seriously.

"Kumi, you're one step from being whipped."

She laughed nervously. "All right, all right, but if you ever tell anyone I said, I'll beat you. She was an agent from the Imperial Bureau of Science. The Bureau contacted me directly and told me that they knew I was helping you, and they wanted to meet you. They paid me a lot of money, but also hinted that me _not _helping wouldn't be very healthy... and you don't take those kinds of innuendos lightly, not when they come from Imperial agents. That's why she could make your criminal record disappear. All she had to do was send a call to the Bureau of Justice, and your criminal record would just vanish like smoke."

"She was _Imperial_?" Jason said in surprise.

"Yeah, she was Imperial," Kumi nodded. "So, this means that Imperial Intelligence knows where you are, but they're not telling anyone. Not even the Marines looking for you," she mused. "And I'll bet my panties that they're actively interfering with Trillane and the Marines looking for you. They don't _want_ you to be found."

"Okay, that explains a hell of a lot," Jason grunted. So _that_ was where that exomech came from! No wonder they didn't mind dropping a million credit piece of military equipment into his community... they could definitely afford it! And the test was to see if Jason could puzzle out military technology!

And that certainly presented a new set of problems. If the Imperium knew where he was and was protecting him from capture, he had to vanish from _them_ before he could start working in earnest to kick Trillane off Earth... or would he? Would the Imperium interfere in what would be a purely local matter? After all, his entire plan hinged on getting rid of Trillane _without_ drawing the wrath of the Empress. If, as it looked, the Imperium wasn't going to interfere... well, that left open some interesting possibilities. But that was only speculation. The fact of the matter was that the Imperium was actively courting him, and one of those things they were doing to court him was to actively disrupt the attempts of others within the Imperium to find him. It looked to him like there were factions within the Imperium, each with its own agenda. And there were ways to exploit that fractious organization.

The biggest question he had to find the answer to was, what would the Imperium do when they found out he was engaged in warfare against Trillane? Would they intercede to protect him, or spearhead the operation to capture him? Or would they simply stay out of it?

For that, he had no answer but to wait and see.

"Babe, I'm going to nose around a little," she told him. "If someone in Trillane is involved in illegal slaving, I want to know who. I'm not above breaking the occasional law, but I don't pull shit that can get our house's charter yanked. You don't _do_ that. You just don't do that," she said grimly.

"You be careful," he warned. "They buried this in a hole, and if you start digging, they may shoot you and bury you with it."

"Miaari will help. Remember the purple winged thing that was with me that one time I visited?"

"The Kimdori?"

She grinned. "Oh yeah, I forgot you got a Faey there. Yeah, she's a Kimdori. She's also my best friend, and Kimdori have ways of finding things out. I'll ask her to look into it, and she'll find out what I want to know. It'll never be traced back to me. When I find out who's gambling with our entire noble house, I think I might start taking some steps," she said in an ominous manner.

"Be careful, young lady," Jason said sternly, though privately, he was thrilled at what he just heard. Kumi wasn't part of the slaving, and what was more, she was outraged at it... but not for the reason he may have hoped. She wasn't outraged at the enslaving of humankind, she was outraged that a renegade member of her house was jeopardizing its standing in the Imperium. But he'd take that outrage, if for no other reason than that it meant that he could trust her in this matter.

"I will. I'll have that ID set up and shipped out as fast as I can. I think I'll just have it dropped, I won't come visit. Just have someone at our usual place watching for it."

"Can do. Call me when you have news, okay?"

"You bet, babe. I'll call back in two hours, my time, and give you the info about the ID."

"I'll be here."

"Good. Later."

"Be careful, Kumi."

"Always," she winked, then she cut the connection.

Jason leaned back in his chair, then leaned forward with his chin on his laced fingers before him. Kumi wasn't going to like what he had planned for Trillane, but he was relieved that she wasn't a part of it. He believed her reaction to his news, and the fact that Trillane covered it up helped reinforce his faith that she wasn't involved. He wasn't quite sure why it was being hushed up on the Imperial side, but they had to have a reason. Maybe they wanted it kept quiet to find those involved, or they were watching a suspect... or who knows, maybe whoever was behind it had paid off certain people in the Imperial government to forget it happened. Given the corruption prevalent in the Faey system, both at Imperial and house level, that was certainly possible. In the Faey system, much as the old American system just before the subjugation, money could indeed buy just about anything.

He sighed and got up, then went downstairs to where the others were working. They were building railguns, and though they'd already built two, but from the sound of it, they weren't doing all that well. When he came down, he saw Leamon and Luke watching as Steve wrapped a barrel, as he explained to them that the coils had to be _exact_, that their precise placement along the barrel was what created the weapon's power. Just one coil wrapped incorrectly would render the gun unusable, if it didn't blow up in the user's hands first. Introducing a wobble into a projectile traveling faster than 10,000 miles an hour was not good. "Hey guys," Jason called as he came off the last step. "Just checking in. How's it going?"

"Slow but sure," Steve replied, pointing behind him. "We're ready to test those two. I'm just showing Lacy and Luke how to wrap the barrels."

"Good. Want me to test those?"

"Up to you," Steve shrugged. Jason picked one up and activated it, but the backglass remained black. He flipped it over and saw that it had no PPG installed. He picked up one from the work table and inserted it with quick, practiced hands, then tried to turn the weapon on again. The backglass lit up, and it started the diagnostic test that Jason had written, so Jason was intimately familiar with every character that scrolled across that tiny screen. The weapon reported all functions normal, then went into its normal operating mode, that being in safety mode. Jason loaded a magazine into the weapon and disengaged both safeties, which caused the weapon to make a high-pitched whine as the coils charged, and the backglass display to turn red, warning him that the weapon was hot and capable of firing.

"Everything's working the way it should," he noted.

"Yeah, we did all that, we just haven't _fired_ it," Tim told him. "We kinda wanted either you or Symone to do that."

"Why us?"

"Armor," he said, which caused the other three to nod meaningfully. "If we fucked it up and it blows up, we want someone with armor on to be the one holding it."

Jason laughed. "I'd be offended if that wasn't a reasonable precaution," he said with a grin. "Let me go put it on, then we'll test them."

It didn't take Jason long to put his armor on, because he'd had enough practice at it. He was back down in the basement in fifteen minutes, holding his helmet in one hand as the other held the handrail as he came down the steps. "Okay, I'm ready," he called, coming down to where he could see them. "Come on outside, we'll go down to the river. That's the safest place to test it." He pointed to a cabinet by the replicator. "Bring a bunch of full magazines. Testing it doesn't mean we shoot it once. We'll stress test it while we're at it."

"Man, that armor is so fuckin' sweet," Leamon chuckled. "I'd love a suit of it."

"Yeah, I like it myself," he said, touching the phoenix enameled on the chest of his armor. "It cost me enough, though. I'd originally planned on buying a suit of it for everyone who worked security, but now I won't have the money. Buying the projectors to hide the new settlement is going to bankrupt me."

"Were we going to pull the power plant out of the exomech for that?" Steve asked.

"Well, that's something we need to talk about," he said as Luke filled a small backpack with magazines, and Steve picked up the two railguns that they were going to test. Jason continued to talk as they all started up the stairs. "If we can't get it to power up, it's best if we just pull the plant and disassemble it. As it is, it's too large to move, and when we leave, we can't leave it behind. So it has to go, either under its own power or in pieces."

"Even if we can get it to power up, we can't take it out of the box," Steve reminded him. "It's not shielded."

"I know. We'd either have to invest a month into converting it to stealth or take it apart, but even that lends its own problems. Taking something like that apart isn't going to be easy, and transporting it is going to take up valuable cargo space. But we can't just leave it behind either," he grunted as they stepped out into a refreshingly brisk early winter afternoon. The sun was shining, and the air was cold... that was probably Jason's favorite weather. "That glorified paperweight is a pain in our asses no matter what we do."

"Even if we could get it going, nobody can run it," Leamon said.

"Oh, I can _run_ it," Jason said. "But I couldn't pilot it in combat. Just driving it isn't all that hard, from the looks of the manuals. It's rather simple, actually. It's when you get into all its other systems that it gets complicated."

"So it's not like a plane, where you have all that training?" Luke asked.

Jason shook his head. "No, just making it walk is pretty simple, it's done with the foot pedals if you're using the arms, or a control stick if you're not. The machine walks itself, you just tell it what direction to go in and how fast to go. Just like my armor, it has an antigrav system that lets it travel at high speed. It kinda skates over the ground on a cushion of antigravity, but the manual I read doesn't recommend using the antigrav during combat, because of weapon recoil turning the machine."

"You think you could learn how to fight using it?" Steve asked.

"With _lots_ of practice, maybe," he answered with a chuckle. "And I wouldn't be very good at it. Faey exomech pilots train for a year before they're even allowed to use one in combat."

They stopped near the riverbank, and Jason immediately took the railgun he'd loaded earlier from Tim and disengaged the safety. "Okay guys, now's the test," he said as he set the railgun on the butt of its stock and leaned it against his leg, then put his helmet on. The new railguns included smartgun links in them, because that was a part of the weapon's design, and Steve followed that design faithfully. The smartgun link came active when he took up the weapon and grabbed hold of the grip, causing the pads in the weapon and in his gauntlet to link up and start communicating with each other. All the familiar data he was used to with the smartgun came up on his visor, complete with the crosshair that appeared whenever he was looking in the general direction of where the weapon was pointing, when the weapon's aim was within his field of vision. "The smartgun's working," he noted as he shouldered the weapon, bringing it into a firing position. "I suggest you guys back up a little," he warned as he took aim at the water near the opposite shore. "If it blows up, you don't want to be right beside me."

They all quickly backed off, moving nearly fifteen feet back, and Jason wasted no time giving the weapon a real test. He pulled the trigger.

There was the familiar _BEE-yah!_ sound of the weapon, and the blue corkscrew of smoke that emanated from the barrel and traveled in a straight line over the river announced to the four behind him that the weapon did indeed work as intended. This weapon, just like his own, did not create a sonic boom... and he'd be damned if he _still_ didn't know what had caused that.

"Well, looks good," Jason said as the four behind gave out whoops and gave each other high-fives. Jason held down the trigger, which caused the weapon to fire automatically, as fast as it could chamber the next round. The reloading system in the weapon wasn't fast, set to coincide with the charging of the coils, which produced a shot about every half second. He systematically emptied the clip, firing until it was empty, both to test the weapon's reload system and to test the ammo counter.

"I thought it fired faster than that," Luke noted.

"Nope," Jason told him as he lowered the weapon and changed clips with practiced ease. "The weapon can only fire as fast as it can charge the coils, and this is as fast as it gets."

"Could you make it faster?" Luke asked.

Jason paused before shouldering the weapon again, glancing back at them. "Yeah, I guess I could," he answered. "If I used higher-grade coil and a stronger power system, yeah, I could cut down the recharge time. But that kinda stuff gets expensive, and this thing started as something of a science experiment. I built it out of cheap, easy-to-get materials. It would also make the gun bigger and heavier," he added.

"Well, actually, Jayce, I was looking at your design, and I think you could make it faster just by tweaking its operating system," Steven ventured as Jason began firing again, quickly emptying another clip. "The way you have it set now, it totally lets the flux cabling discharge before starting a charging cycle. All you really would have to do is rewrite your charging sequence to have it begin charging the capacitors in _sequence _instead of charging them all at once after a shot, after so many milliseconds of discharge, and you could send a charging pulse to the caps while the weapon's still firing. The charging units would recharge in cascade, in the same order the caps fire when they pulse the coils and create the magnetic catapult. Not only would it be faster, it also wouldn't create a power drain on the PPG during a charging sequence. You'd have to update the reloading system," he said quickly. "It's designed to operate at the same speed as the charging sequence, but you can make that faster too just be rewriting your code. The hardware you have in there and your design for reloading can actually operate _much_ faster than it's currently designed to operate."

Jason looked back at him. "Damn, Steve, I never really thought of that," he said. "Then again, I've never really looked at these things since I built the first one. After I got it to work, I figured it was good enough. I never really meant to _do_ anything with them," he said. "But hell, if you think you can make it faster, go for it. You're better at coding than me."

Steve immediately held up a stick. "I kinda already did," he said slyly. "I just wanted your permission before loading it into a gun. It's _your_ design."

Jason laughed. "How much faster you think it is?"

"My simulation showed it firing four rounds a second," he answered. "That's double its original speed. It's not as fast as a machine gun, more like an old Browning Automatic Rifle from World War II, but faster is better when it comes to guns."

"Well, give me the stick, let's test it," he said, holding out his hand.

Steve gave him the memory stick, and Jason quickly inserted it into the weapon in his hands and caused it to load the operating system from it. The weapon's processor rebooted using the new control system, and Jason saw absolutely nothing different except an operating system version of 1.1 instead of 1.0. Steve hadn't changed anything else that he could see. Jason loaded a new magazine into the weapon and shouldered it as the weapon charged the firing capacitors and went hot, and pulled the trigger.

The weapon operated perfectly, and Steve had indeed doubled its firing rate, _only_ by reworking how the weapon handled recharging for another shot. The weapon's reloading system worked flawlessly at the higher speed, causing the weapon to fire a round every .25 seconds. The weapon's report melded together with multiple shots, giving it a _BEE-BEE-BEE_ sound when it fired multiple shots.

"Nice. Now update the other gun, so we can test that one," Jason said.

Jason tested both weapons extensively and found them to work as designed, then, after a talk with Steve and Tim that got nowhere concerning the exomech, he went back inside, took off his helmet, and sat down at his desk in his room, in front of his panel. Kumi should call back any time about the ID, and he wanted to be close to the panel. He sat a while and pondered the exomech. He'd love to be able to use it in his future plans for resisting Trillane, but the simple fact of the matter was that there was no way he could think to do it. It would take them at least a month of intense work to refit
 the unit for stealth, and they needed that month to prepare for the move. Even if he could take it out of the box, all he could do is drive it around. It was useless to him as a battlefield weapon, because nobody knew how to _pilot_ it. The best he could do would be to move it from one place to another.

But knowing where it came from now introduced an entirely new dimension into the equation. The _Imperium_ had given him that exomech. It wasn't a corporation, it wasn't some rich noble, it was the Imperium. They'd given it to him broken to see if he could fix it, a test to see if he was worth their time.

And that was the other mystery. Why an _exomech_? They could have easily given him some other piece of technology to repair, something not quite so big or dangerous as an exomech. Why that? Why a piece of military hardware, that was fully armed?

Jason put his chin in his armored hand and looked at his panel's screen, pondering it. _Use it wisely_, the note had said. Why would he use an exomech out here? And why would they _want_ him to use one? If he did, the sensors would pick it up, and they'd be all over him so fast it wouldn't be funny... and with more than just a dropship. They'd see that exomech on their sensors, and they'd send a heavy force down here to capture it, capture the entire community, and then start tearing into everyone's mind to find out how they'd gotten their hands on it. Use it wisely? There _was_ no way to use it, outside of spare parts for other projects. And even that wasn't much of a help, given that he had no idea if any of its systems outside of the power plant even _worked_. They'd given it to him broken.

Use it wisely... yeah, right. The only way he could use it would be as spare parts.

His panel beeped at an incoming call, and he answered it immediately. "Hey," he said, as Kumi's picture appeared.

"Hey babe. It's all done. I got it on the way. No charge," she said with a wink.

"Good. When and where?"

"It's going to be delivered in about half an hour, at the spot. One of the twins is bringing it."

"She gonna get in without being seen?"

"_Please_," Kumi snorted. "She's coming in a Dragonfly." A Dragonfly was a Faey fighter, which was small, highly maneuverable, and extremely fast. "She should be through the stargate by now and on the way there. You should start out for the spot." She looked him up and down. "Why the armor, babe?"

"I was testing something that could have blown up," he said, rapping his knuckles on the breastplate of his armor. "This was a precaution."

"Smart."

"Thanks. I didn't know the twins could fly."

"Of course they can," Kumi said with a hint of edge to her voice. "It's part of the job. Now get moving, I don't want her to have to wait."

"I'll start out now," he said with a nod.

"Coolies. Catch you later, babe."

"Good luck, Kumi," he said.

She nodded, winked, then cut the connection.

Jason decided that going in his armor wasn't what he wanted to do, so he started changing out of it. He probably should have thought to lock the door, because Temika barged in on him just as he'd taken off the last of it. She stood in the doorway and gawked at him, her dark face darkening even further as a furious blush flushed through her skin. He gave her a steady look, not moving for a moment, then turned his back to her calmly. "In or out," he said mildly. She was embarrassed, he could tell that without telepathy, and though he was a bit embarrassed himself, he figured that not showing it would make her feel just a little more comfortable. He also wasn't going to make it worse by diving behind some piece of furniture like a teenager. "Pick a direction."

"Ah'm _so_ sorry, Jayce," she said aloud, still standing in the doorway.

He stepped into his underwear and pulled them up. "If you were sorry, you'd have closed the door," he said pointedly.

"Wha'? Oh, shit, sorry," she said, quickly closing the door behind her. _Ah didn't mean tah... Ah didn't think you'd be _naked_, Jayce,_ she quickly explained through sending.

_It's alright. Just do me a favor and knock, or send, if my door's closed. I usually only close it for a reason. What did you want?_

_Well, just to see what y'all wanted for dinner,_ she answered. _And find out when you wanted tah go over the border. You still wanna do that, right?_

_We'll have to do that next week sometime,_ he told her as he continued to dress. _We won't need it for a while. We might not need it at all. When I leave, I'd rather prefer that the community is self-sufficient. They shouldn't depend on me._

_Oh, yeah. About that. Jayce, Ah, Ah honestly dunno what Ah want tah do. Ah'd love to pay those blueskin bitches back fo' what they did tah me, but Ah'm not sho' if Ah should leave the community. They need my tradin', and Ah can't trade no mo' if Ah go with you. But, on the othah hand, Ah know fo' a fact that y'all are gonna need telepaths, an' Ah'm like one of the only foah you got._

_It's up to you,_ he told her, understanding how hard it was for her to say that. Whenever Temika was under stress, or angry, she reverted to a heavy Southern dialect. Sometimes, Jason had a hard time understanding what she was saying or sending. _Yes, I could use you, but so can the community. But I will say that you shouldn't come with me unless you fully appreciate the fact that it's more or less suicidal. I don't hold much hope of us accomplishing anything more than pissing Trillane off and getting captured or killed, but damn it all, I can't sit here and do nothing. Even if it's hopeless, I have to _try_. Do you understand, Mika?_

_Yeah, Ah understand, Jayce,_ she sent seriously. _Ah'll think about it. Ah don't suppose theah's much hurry fo' me tah make a decision yet._

_Nope. Take your time. I won't be leaving for a while, so you have plenty of time to think it over. Now, I have to go meet someone,_ he told her as he sat down to put on his shoes. _I'll be gone about an hour or so._

_Who?_

_One of Kumi's bodyguards. She's bringing me a fake ID I can use when I leave the preserve._

_Oh, okay then. Want me to come?_

_No, I should be alright. If it's who I think it is, I'll be perfectly safe. Kumi would only send Meya or Myra, and either of them are alright. They like me._

_They the twins you were talking about?_

He nodded. _Do me a favor and go to Regina and ask her to start organizing an exploration team. We have to go to Charleston and start surveying, find the power plant and substations, take a look at getting the water going, that kind of thing. It needs to be a good-sized group, and heavily armed, because odds are good that the place is inhabited by squatters. Tell her that Symone has to go. They might need her and her armor._

_Ah can do that. You going?_

_If they'll let me,_ he sent, then he grunted aloud. _Some people may not want to go if I go._

_Yeah, Ah noticed. Some folks are afraid of you now, cause they know._

_I guess it was unavoidable,_ he sent with an audible sigh. _I'm just glad Symone didn't go nuts and expose you and Tim. At least you can keep going on like before._

_Ah dunno if Ah like seein' how they treat us,_ she sent, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and looking towards the window. _That's one thing Ah have to think about if Ah stay. If they find out Ah'm a telepath, they might not want me to stay. Ah don't understand why they don't act like that around Symone._

_Because Symone is Symone, and because they _knew_ that Symone has talent. Them finding out that I do is like a personal betrayal, a secret that I've been hiding. No doubt whenever they're around Symone, they're careful about what they think or at least are actively aware that she can hear their thoughts, but around me they were completely unguarded. The fact that I never listened unless I thought it was very important doesn't mean anything to them... as far as they're concerned, I've been listening to their every thought all these months, and now they think I know all of their darkest secrets._

_Yeah. Ah'll go talk to Reggy._

_Good. Is my airbike in the garage?_

_Yeah._

_Alright then, I'll be back in an hour._

_Make sure y'all are careful,_ she told him, coming over and taking his railgun from its mount on the wall, then handing it to him. _Real careful. No matter how much you like her, remember, she _is_ a blueskin._

"I will," he said aloud, taking it.

                                        * * *

Jason sat on his airbike on the edge of the clearing that was the overgrown parking lot that had abutted a swimming area in Beech Fork Lake, leaning over the handle bars and watching as a sleek craft descended gracefully towards the ground. It was a Dragonfly, one of the four fighter model types that the Faey used. The Dragonfly was the smallest of the four fighters, but it was also the most agile and the fastest. It relied less on armor and more on agility, making it a fast, evasive target to try to hit. Its design was tailored to that philosophy, for the fighter didn't have much of a profile. It had a slightly long nose before a sleek fuselage that was barely wider than the nose of the craft, with four backswept wings that were stubby and tipped with weaponry. Two wings were jutting out perfectly horizontal, while the second set of wings were extending out from a downward angle from mounts just under the upper set of wings. This fighter was painted dark blue, and its engines made a thrumming sound as it descended gently into the clearing. The landing skids extended when it was about twenty feet off the ground, and they touched lightly down on the grass-choked sand, settling as the weight of the ship came down upon them.

Jason got off his airbike and started out into the clearing as the canopy opened. It didn't raise like an old American fighter's canopy would, instead it lifted just a bit and slid forward, sliding on tracks. An armored Faey stood up from the cockpit of the fighter, and it was armor that Jason recognized as belonging to the twins. When the figure took off the helmet, he saw that it was Meya. That was only smart, Jason figured, because Meya was more level-headed than Myra. They may look alike, but they had very different personalities. She reached down and picked up a small case, jumped down from the cockpit, landing lightly in front of him, then started walking towards him. "Mistress Kumi will be upset," she called out.

"Why is that?"

"You're not wearing your armor," she said with a slight smile. "I suggest that you never show up at a meeting with her without it. She has, plans, for you."

"Yeah, I know," Jason chuckled.

"Yours," she said as he reached her, offering the small case to him.

"Thanks, Meya," he said, taking it from her. "Tell Kumi that I appreciate it. I'm not sure why she didn't charge me for this, though, that's not like her."

"Oh, she was paid," Meya smiled.

"I paid her," a voice called out from behind.

Jason whirled to look, hand going for the railgun slung over his shoulder, but something soft and silky brushed over his arm. He turned again just in time to see charcoal colored fur, then tried to turn to keep up with it as that silky fur slithered along his side and stomach. Hands gripped him by the shoulder, and he found himself staring face to face with a curious dog-like creature, just a shade shorter than him, with features perfectly blended between canine and humanoid to give the face character. That face was decidedl