ing to be a major boost. She was a first-order telepath, far more skilled and better trained than Symone, and would be able to train the human telepaths much better.

"I think I'll leave you to figure that out," she chuckled. "I'll go make the rounds and tell everyone that it's really alright that Jyslin's here. I think if it comes from me, it's all but undeniable."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

Jason returned to the little clinic that the two doctors had set up in the mansion just in time to see them finish up with Jyslin. The compound they had lathered onto her ankle had set to become a flexible cast of sorts, which would support her ankle while still allowing it to move. "Ah, Jason," Rann said. "We needed to talk to you."

"Is everything okay?"

"Jyslin is fine," Songa assured him as she held her hand out to Jyslin. She took it, and the doctor helped her off the table and to her feet. Jyslin tested the bandage around her bare foot by walking gingerly around.

"It doesn't hurt at all," she announced, turning around to face Jason.

"Just don't push it, and I want you back down here tomorrow morning so I can see how you're progressing," Songa told her, then she looked back to Jason. "And I want _you_ here tomorrow morning as well."

"Me? What for?"

"We want to give everyone here an examination," she answered. "We need to make sure everyone is healthy and there's no hidden illnesses. With your permission, we'd like to draw up a schedule to get everyone in town examined within the next few days. And since we've heard that you're always quite busy, we wanted to get you first."

"I'm not sure how well that's going to go over," Jason grunted. "I haven't even explained what's going on to everyone yet. I was going to do that today, with a town meeting. I guess you can tell people that yourself during the meeting, when you introduce yourself. We'll see what kind of reaction you get."

"That's fine," Rann said.

Meya appeared in the doorway across the room. "Rann, Songa, Yohne is ready for one of you to relieve her," she announced.

"I'll go, love," Songa said. "You need to finish setting up the equipment. You're so much better at it than I am."

"I noticed that earlier," Jason said.

"I minored in plasmonics repair," he said modestly. "I thought it might save me some money on maintenance when I opened my practice if I could maintain my own equipment."

"Smart."

"It has proved to be handy," he agreed. "Songa minored in medieval literature."

"Oh, rub it in some more, why don't you," she said to her husband with a teasing smile, then she scurried from the room.

Jason chuckled, as Meya came over to them. "So, you're Jyslin," Meya said, looking at her. "It's nice to finally meet the legend in person."

Jyslin laughed. "Why do I get the feeling that Jason was ripping on me while we were separated?"

"Nah," she snorted.

"Did you want to see me, Jayce?" Luke asked as he rushed into the room behind Meya. He stopped dead and looked at her in surprise, then took a step to the side, but he kept glancing at her. "Begging your pardon," he said. "Am I interrupting something?"

"You're good, Luke," Jason said. "I want you to call everyone for a meeting, let's make it in two hours. Obviously, we have _lots_ to talk about," he said, glancing at Meya. "I need you to make sure everyone knows about it."

"Where are we holding it?"

"The old house chamber in the capitol," he answered.

"I'll take care of it, Jayce," Luke told him, then he left.

"That's one handsome man," Meya remarked after he went, and she made sure to watch his every step.

"I wouldn't go there right now, Meya," Jason told her. "Luke's had some pretty bad things happen lately. Give him some time and some space, so he can work through it."

"A pity," she sighed.

                                        * * *

The assemblage in the house chamber two hours later was nervous and wary, with everyone chattering at everyone else while they waited. They all kept looking at the Faey that had appeared since last night, giving hard looks at Jyslin, Meya, and Rann, and rumors of what was going on had been flying since last night. Jason knew that he had to put things out as quickly as he could after hearing about some of what was going on, and besides, he knew that this was going to need some explanation anyway. He climbed up the dais and into the series of desks and platforms where the old speaker of the state house and the secretaries had sat, picked up the old, dusty gavel, and banged it loudly on the desk before him to get everyone's attention.

"Everyone settle down," he called, and waited for it to quiet down. "Now, I think it's fairly obvious why we're here. Last night, we picked up a few, guests."

"They're Faey, not guests!" someone shouted in the back.

"Not all Faey are the enemy," Jason shot back. "Is that how you think of Symone? As the enemy?" He took a breath, and continued. "One of them, I'm sure, most of you have heard of. Her name is Jyslin, and she was my girlfriend back in the world, before I came here. To make things short and sweet, she decided to leave her life on the outside and join me here. That makes her an outlaw to the Faey, so I don't think anyone here can say that she's not here for the long haul. She's just like Symone, guys, she has nowhere else to go now. I'm also pretty sure that Kate's come around to most of you by now to explain a few things. In case you missed her, let me explain it. Kate is _not_ my girlfriend. She's someone who's here to help us push Trillane off Earth. Think of her as an agent, or an spy. She's been living in my house and we've been using the live-in excuse so we can do some planning and such without anyone wondering why me and her are alone all the time, and so I can cover for her when she's not here. I'm sure most of you have noticed that she's not been around much the last couple of months. All those times I was telling you she was sick, or asleep, or off doing something, she's actually been out in the world gathering intelligence for us for when we start hitting Trillane, so we know when, where, and how to hit them without putting ourselves in too much danger.

"If you don't believe me, then just talk to Kate after this meeting, and she'll tell you so," he called bluntly. "As some of you might have pieced together, I'm very serious about this," he said. "I went out and got us a spy. She's already been invaluable to us in bringing in some information, and it's thanks to her that we now know where we're going to set up our permanent base. _She_ found it for us.

"But I'm getting off topic here," he admitted. "Just so you all know, me and Jyslin are now engaged. I just wanted to explain to everyone here why Jyslin is suddenly living with me, and assure you I'm not two-timing Kate."

There was a low rumble through the people as they whispered to each other about it, but Jason banged the gavel again. "The other Faey are only here temporarily," he called. "One of them, the girl most of you have heard me call Kumi, was nearly killed by the same people we're going to be fighting against. Kumi is a Trillane noble, but don't hold that against her. She's a good friend, and she's been there for us when we needed help. She was injured because she was helping us," he stated bluntly, and paused to let that sink in. "She was looking into things from inside Trillane for me, trying to find out who was doing the human slaving. Believe me, she was majorly pissed when she heard about it, and she was trying to find out who it was and put a stop to it. We're not exactly sure what happened, but she must have got too close, and they tried to kill her. I brought her here because we wouldn't _be_ here if it wasn't for Kumi. She's the one that helped us buy the projectors, the supplies, almost everything we have. If not for Kumi, we _all_ would have died in Chesapeake," he called commandingly, boring that point home. "We owe her, and we owe her a _lot_. And I won't ever turn my back on someone who has helped us as much as she has when she's the one that needs help. Right now she's a hunted woman, and the assassins that whoever tried to kill her hired are still trying to find her. This is about the only place in the Imperium where those assassins can't reach her and finish the job, and that's why she's here. She needed a place to hide while she recovers from her wounds, and my door is always open to her.

"Just so everyone knows, I've already laid down the law to the Faey concerning their telepathy. They're going to obey the same rules that we do, and the biggest one is they are _never_ allowed to eavesdrop on the thoughts of anyone else here. If you think one of them has been invading your privacy, you come straight to me and tell me, and we'll get to the bottom of it. I've already told them that if they break that rule, even once, I'll throw them out without even giving the one who brought them here a chance to come pick them up. Does everyone understand that?"

There was a general rumble of acknowledgment from the group.

"Now, on to the final matter. When Kumi is fully recovered, she'll be taking the servants and guards that came here with her and leaving, _except_ for two of them. Two of the doctors that came with her heard that Doc Northwood passed, God rest his soul, and they've volunteered to stay with us to serve as doctors. I know some of you aren't too comfortable with this idea. I'm not really much comfortable with it either. To tell the truth, I had to be sold on it. After all, this isn't their fight, and they're Faey. But I've come to discover that these two doctors are pretty stubborn," he said, looking right at Rann, who flushed and chuckled nervously. "And I had to face a certain ugly truth. With what's coming, we're going to _need_ a competent doctor, and since Faey medical technology is way better than ours, it will just help that much more that we have Faey doctors who were trained in Faey medical technology.

"I know that it seems odd that I'd take in two strangers, and two Faey at that, but they'll have to pass the same tests that everyone else did," he told them honestly. "Later today, Symone's going to take them out and screen them, just like she did everyone else. If she says they're okay, then I'm going to let them stay. If she doesn't say they're okay, they'll stay only as long as Kumi's here, then they'll go."

"But that's not how we do things!" someone shouted.

"You're right, this isn't how we did things in Chesapeake," Jason said calmly. "But this isn't Chesapeake. We're not a community of squatters anymore, we're a band of _resistance fighters. _Remember that. Almost everyone in this room joined my rebellion. Did you think it was going to be the same as Chesapeake, with us voting on what we were doing by majority? I'm sorry to break it to you, but no. The rebellion is going to be a military operation, and that means that we're going to have to _be_ a military. We're going to be out there _fighting_,_ _people, and we can't conduct a war by vote. And since it's my rebellion, that more or less makes me the commanding officer. Does anyone have a problem with that?" he called in a strong voice.

There was silence.

"Good. Things are going to be somewhat different now. Since you've joined the resistance, that means that now you're going to have to trust me to make some decisions without a group consensus, make decisions that I think are for the best, and the doctors are going to be one of those decisions. We're going to need them, and if I'm satisfied we can trust them, then they're in. It's that simple." Rann motioned to him. "Oh yeah, Doctor Rann, the male Faey right there," he said, pointing, "is one of the two doctors that's going to stay. He's come here with his wife, the other doctor, Songa. That's right, they're husband and wife," he called pointedly. "So, think about that if you're wondering if we can trust them. They've both come here to set up a practice.

"Anyway, Doctors Rann and Songa have asked me to set up a schedule so they can examine everyone in town," he called. "They want to make sure we're all in good health, you know, just a general checkup kind of... shit," he grunted, which elicited a few chuckles. "I'm not going to _make_ anyone show up for these checkups. If you have issues with the docs, then don't show up. But I am _asking_ that everyone try to get a checkup. These two have put their necks on the line to come out here and serve us as doctors, so we may as well make use of the services they're offering.

"Alright then, does anyone have any issues or questions that doesn't involve bashing the Faey that are here?" Jason asked.

"Are you sure we can trust them?" someone called.

"Kumi, I trust with my life," Jason answered. "I trust the Faey that came with her because someone I trust even more than Kumi gave me her solemn word that none of the Faey that leave here will _ever_ reveal who we are, where we are, or what we're going to do. I can't offer any hard proof or anything, guys. All I can say is _trust me_. After all, it's my neck I'm putting on the line just as much as yours, and I wouldn't be risking that neck unless I was pretty sure of it. Anything else?"

"If we're going to be a military, who's gonna be giving orders? The Faey?"

"I'll decide who's going to be in charge of what after we're all better trained, and I can see who's best at doing the leading," he said. "Just so you know now, Jyslin _will_ be training us in some things," he told them. "She was a Marine, and she has experience with combat training. She's going to be teaching us some of what she knows so we don't look like the Three Stooges when we go on our first raid," he remarked, which caused a few laughs. "We haven't talked about her fighting out there with us yet, cause I'm sure that's going to be a fight," he said, looking at her. "I'm not too thrilled with the idea of having my wife out there being shot at, but Jys isn't the kind of woman to just sit at home base. I'm pretty sure we're going to have a spectacular fight about it," he said, looking at her.

"You're right about that, love," she answered loudly, which caused a great deal of chuckling.

"Anyway, any other questions?"

"How long are they gonna be here? The ones that are gonna leave?"

"We're not sure yet," Rann called in perfect English before Jason could reply. "Lady Kumi's injuries were severe. The Lady was nearly blown in half by the MPAC round that struck her in the back, and it was a miracle she survived the attack. It took us nearly two days in surgery to put her back together," he said grimly, then he took a deep breath and exhaled. "She'll be here for quite a few days, that's for sure, but as of yet we have no definite idea of how long that will be."

"Are we going to expand the power grid any further?"

Jason was a bit taken aback someone would ask a question that didn't involve the Faey, so he had to think about that a second. "Right now, not really," he said. "When the resistance fighters leave, there's only gonna be, what, like twenty people left here? The grid we're leaving behind should be more than enough for you."

"You're not gonna just abandon us when you go, are you?" someone called.

"Hell no," Jason stated immediately. "We'll make sure you guys are gonna be okay, and we'll drop in from time to time to make sure you're doing alright. Besides, we might have to make use of some of this town for storage and whatnot, so we're never gonna completely withdraw. We'll do our best to keep our war out of your hair, but since you already know what we're gonna be into before we start it, then everyone who stays here after we leave has to accept that. You're going to be living in a town that the rebellion might use as a storage cache from time to time, and you're going to have ties to the resistance. If any of you have any problems with that, well, you know where the town line is. I'm sorry to sound so heartless about it, but that's the way it is."

"How are things gonna work for those of us who stay?"

"The mayor and a city council you've already elected are going to run things," he answered. "Once we leave, you'll be looking after your own affairs, but we'll be there to lend a hand if you need it. We won't let the services we put in here break, and we won't let you go hungry. But we'll also do our best to keep our distance so we don't interfere too much. Anything else?"

It was relatively quiet.

"Alright then. We're basically done here. Thanks for coming, and everyone have a good day."

Everyone began to file out, talking with one another over what they'd learned, and what was now the first real impact on them that they were about to go to war. Jason had basically enacted what was to them to be martial law, usurping the old rules of Chesapeake, but from the sound of their chatter, it seemed to Jason that they were neither totally surprised nor overly worried. There was some nervous talk about the Faey, but Jason was pretty sure that that would blow over once they got to know Jyslin and the doctors. They accepted Symone because they knew Symone was one of them, and he felt that they'd feel the same way about the three new Faey once they realized that they were serious about being here.

"I think that went fairly well," Meya remarked as Jason came down to where she, Jyslin, and Rann were standing.

"I hope so," Jason said. "I hate doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Getting up there and bossing people around," he said with a slight grimace.

Tom Jackson approached them quietly. "I just wanted to introduce myself, ma'am," he said to Jyslin. "I'm Tom Jackson."

"Well, it's nice to meet you," Jyslin said, shaking his offered hand.

"Tom's our resident expert on civil engineering," Jason told her. "He worked in the Army Corps of Engineers before the subjugation."

"I'm no expert," he scoffed. "Is your ankle going to be alright, ma'am?"

"According to the doctors, it's going to be fine," she said with a disarming smile.

Tom wandered off, but he started something of a trend. More and more people came up and introduced themselves to Jyslin, and she accepted their greetings with her usual light manner, shaking hands, remarking on her foot, even chatting a little with a few people about Jason. But others, he noticed, had stood up and walked straight out after the meeting ended.

He'd been right. There was going to be some friction.

But that was something he was fairly sure would work itself out. After people got to know Jyslin and the doctors, they'd lose much of their hostility. It was the fact that they were unknown and they were Faey that was the issue, and that was something that could be fixed with time. Jyslin and the doctors would be on good behavior during that time, he was pretty sure... or at least the doctors would be. One of the townsfolk might get educated as to how willful Jyslin could be if he approached her the wrong way.

But, in a way, Jason felt like they were getting close to the beginning now. Soon they would be starting the renovation of Cheyenne Mountain, Jason would have a dropship or two for the build team to convert for stealth, and the basic framework of his future army was starting to take shape. Much as he hated to admit it, the addition of Rann and Songa filled a huge hole, and the unexpected arrival of Jyslin did give them someone who had experience in Faey tactics, and also someone who could train the human telepaths _much_ better than Symone could.

And then there was the ideas. In the last few days, Jason had had a few ideas for how to go about attacking Trillane's cargo transport capability, ideas that were stock in trade for Jason; ideas that were rather simple in approach, utilized a minimum in supplies, yet operated in unorthodox ways. Their main disadvantage was size, that there would be so few of them. Well, Jason had had a few ideas about how his handful of people could maximize the damage they could do.

After all, they didn't have to actually _be there_ to deal out damage. They could, say, just leave something behind that would do the damage for them.

Mines.

One rebel with a gun could bring down one Stick. One rebel seeding an area with a high density of overhead traffic with mines could close down a shipping route. And the mines that Jason had in mind weren't mines in the conventional sense. He already knew how he could design them so they would lay dormant until activated by the passing of a vehicle using gravimetric propulsion, and then it would activate, attach itself to that engine-carrying device, and then detonate. It, like some of his other inventions, had already been thought of first by someone in the Imperium, but the idea had either fallen into disuse or was deemed technologically obsolete. His rail gun was based on a design he'd found in the Ministry of Technology, for example, just modified in a way that no one had ever bothered to try.

The mine didn't have to explode, though. A variant of that idea was to create "hacker mines," mines that would attach to Sticks, connect to its onboard computer, and then try to take it over. Once it gained control, it could crash the Stick by hijacking its controls. TEL programming wasn't really Jason's forte, however. Steve had been much better at it than him, so he wasn't sure how well he could write a program that would try to do that.

And if he didn't feel like killing the crew of the Stick, he could fall back on something he'd already used, outfitting a mine with a hypersonic device that would virtually incapacitate the Stick's crew, using the Stick's fuselage as a speaker to conduct the sound.

The Pigeon was his other idea. Just as the mines would attack from below, the Pigeon would attack from above. It would be a very small device, basically a flying gun, that would be lurking at extreme altitudes. It would be armed with a weapon that the Faey considered to be obsolete, something he could buy in bulk on CivNet... ion cannons.

Ion cannons weren't used anymore because Neutronium armor made them basically useless as damaging weapons, but ion cannons had a unique aspect that made them dangerous to the Faey's plasma-based technology... the ion burst the cannons used as a projectile could interfere with plasma magnets and plasma conduits that weren't properly shielded. "Properly shielded" basically covered any and all military-application vehicle and equipment, part and parcel with their armor scheme, but Sticks were _not_ shielded in the manner necessary to defend them against the ionization effect of an ion cannon. A single blast from an ion cannon wouldn't so much as scorch the fuselage of a Stick, but the ion storm would disrupt plasma flow in its power systems, which included its engines... and make it basically drop like a rock. He could buy ion cannons cheaply, fit them with cheap drive units that would basically just make them hold their altitude, and then program to fire at anything with a gravimetric signature beneath them. He figured it'd take the Faey about half an hour to find the cannon and destroy it once it started shooting, but in that time it could easily bring down five or six Sticks. And him replacing a C500 gun was a lot cheaper and easier than them replacing a C75,000 Stick.

That idea would also work for the mines, if he could find a way to make a device about the size of his fist generate enough of an ion storm to affect a Stick's power system.

The ion cannons were Jason's first choice for those people who would be out there killing Sticks, since they didn't have to dish out enough damage to force it down if they used an ion cannon. All they had to do was hit the Stick, and the ion storm would do the work for them.

They weren't the best of ideas, but he was sure that with a little time, he'd find a way to make either one of those ideas or some idea that hadn't come to him yet work. One thing was for sure, though; in this war, he was going to have to be very, very creative if he wanted even a snowball's chance in hell of pulling it off. He was going to have to think outside the box, think in ways the Faey either didn't, wouldn't, or couldn't, pull out the really weird shit and hit them with things they'd never seen before, keep them constantly off guard. If he could stay one step ahead of Trillane as they scrambled to defend their Stick fleet, then he had a good chance of pulling it off.

Damaging Trillane's ability to move food was his best hope of winning, but he couldn't go overboard and cripple the export ability of Earth, or the Empress would intervene. So, to counter that, he figured that it would be best to limit his actions to one continent, North America. If they could take an entire continent out of the production cycle (which was admittedly a nearly impossible goal to attain), then the food would still be getting to the Imperium, but Trillane would be losing money hand over fist as they struggled to replace the equipment and foodstocks that Jason's rebellion either captured or destroyed, so much money that the farming industry on the other continents wouldn't recoup the losses. Those tactics, coupled with selective raids and strikes on military or strategic facilities to further damage Trillane, would give him an effective bargaining chip to use when it came time to bring the Empress into the equation and demand Trillane's ejection from Earth.

But that was in the future. For right now, he had some peace to hammer out among some of his people because of the arrival of the Faey in Charleston. That wasn't going to be all that hard, but it was going to bite into his already crammed schedule. He didn't have the time to babysit people right now, not when he had all these people to train in piloting, and they had more work to do around Charleston before they could go, and all the plans he had to make concerning Cheyenne Mountain and their upcoming war.

He just needed a few more hours in a day, he supposed. Like, maybe, twenty.


Chapter 14

_Kaista, 28 Romaa, 4394 Orthodox Calendar_
_Wednesday, 1 April 2008, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Charleston, West Virginia (Native designation), Orala Nature Preserve, American Sector_

Slowly, hazily, Jason opened his eyes. The scene that greeted him was the black armored plates of Jyslin's boots, not ten inches from his nose. Those boots slid on the grass, turning the toes outward, and then the base of her knees came into the edge of his vision as she squatted down, putting a black gauntleted hand on the ground between those feet. Jason could barely fathom why he was looking at her from that angle, for his mind swam in a sea of cloudy confusion, and it pounded in pain in rhythm with the beating of his heart.

"Sloppy," she said aloud. "I'd send, but that would just make that headache I'm sure you're feeling feel like it would make your head explode."

Jason clawed some manner of comprehension back into his brain, and remembered what had happened, what was going on. Quite simply put, he had been thoroughly spanked.

He sat up, putting a hand to his head, then groaned aloud. "I never thought it could be that bad."

"I could have put you into psychotropic shock," she told him bluntly. "Just remember, you asked for it."

"I did at that," he said with a nod, then winced.

There was no way she was going to be able to train him in telepathic combat if she went easy on him, and he knew it. The Faey that would oppose them certainly wouldn't be holding anything back, and so he had to be ready to take them on at their fullest, to engage Faey who had years of experience and training in their telepathic gifts and defend himself from any telepathic assault. Granted, Jyslin would not be his normal kind of opponent. She was young by Faey standards, but she was exceptionally powerful in her talent, and had many years of experience reinforcing that raw ability. But if he could learn to at least protect himself from Jyslin, then handling a run-of-the-mill Trillane soldier would be child's play.

At least she looked _stunning_ in her new armor. It was a ZPS special, just like his, the same model and with the same phoenix design emblazoned on the chest. That design was now the unofficial symbol of the resistance. It had just come in yesterday, and she'd been breaking it in today. She had everything on but the helmet, letting her long, long red hair undulate in the gentle, cool breeze of the West Virginia spring. If his head wasn't about to melt, he'd find her to be quite lovely that way.

Telepathic combat was something he had never quite expected. He'd been taught the barest of the basics before and had had a general understanding of it, but that was in no way any kind of suitable preparation for crossing mental swords with Jyslin. The fight between them had only lasted a couple of seconds, but in the mindscape, those couple of seconds were an eternity of her basically beating him around the interior of his own skull at her whim. She had ripped through his defenses like they were nothing, and in a kind of grim lesson, had seized utter control of every aspect of his mind, turning him into nothing more than a puppet. Had he not been so comfortable with her and loved her, he'd have been infuriated with what she did, for she had laid bare the darkest, most secret parts of himself, put her fingers into every recessed nook of his mind just to show him what an enemy _could_ do. It was a terrifying experience, and showed him that telepathic combat was _not_ for the weak.

She handed him a small piece of rag, and he looked at it blankly. "Your nose is bleeding," she told him tersely. He put two fingers to his lip and felt the warm stickiness, then took the rag with a nod and wiped it away.

"Is that common?"

"Yes," she said. "So is bleeding from the ears. But you don't seem to be doing that right now," she said, looking to the side of his head. "In extreme cases, you'll suffer from _sangei_," she said, using a word that he couldn't immediately comprehend. He had to think about it a moment, and then drudged up one of those words buried deep in a Faey dictionary, a word that Jyslin would know, but not many other Faey would, given her extreme vocabulary. _Sangei_ was a condition where one would literally sweat blood from ruptured capillaries in the pores, caused by the ruptured vessels that tended to happen during telepathic combat. Though it was telepathic in nature, mental combat placed extreme stresses on the cardiovascular sys