 creature, just given different names for different regions.

_Sidhe_. Now that word sounded familiar. It sounded like _sehii_, which in Faey, meant _lost_.

The most interesting part of what he read was the interaction between the Faerie Folk and the humans. The Faerie Folk weren't really written as dark or ominous beings, though there were several stories concerning _Banne Sidhe_, or evil Sidhe, which curiously was the origin of the word _banshee_. They could be fearsome, but only when angered or riled. So long as one didn't anger a Faerie Folk, they were kind, gentle, and helpful. They were attributed in many stories as bringers of happiness, bestowers of special gifts on human newborns like beauty or luck or intelligence, and many of the stories he read through attributed the Faerie Folk with peaceful, harmonious co-existence with the humans who bordered the entrances to Arcadia, their magical homeland.

But what caught Jason's eye more than anything else was one aspect of the stories that demonstrated the Faerie Folk as _teachers_. They taught the humans arts such as herbology, medicine, and smithing various kinds of metals. Now that seemed... strange. It would certainly be in the realm of a more advanced Faey to teach people things like this, but the question was _why_ they would bother.

Jason closed the book he was reading and drummed his fingers on the cover, lost in thought. There wasn't any definitive proof in these books, but what was there didn't disprove it either. From what he'd read, a Faey expedition could step into the shoes of the Faerie Folk and not disrupt the stories. Tall, elegant, handsome well dressed beings showing up and teaching humans things they didn't know, beings who knew magic, which could just be technology far beyond the imagination of the humans who looked on, then going back to their own magical realm, a place that humans couldn't comprehend.

Was it true? Were the Faerie Folk actually a Faey expedition, and had they interbred with the humans and left, leaving behind progeny that would become the alpha ancestors of the current telepathic humans? There was nothing here to prove it, but the circumstantial evidence was only strengthened by the fact that it was a _rational_ conclusion, going on the information he'd read in these books.

"What is it, Jack?" Rann asked using Jason's alias, looking very, very pleased with himself. "What did you find?"

"I couldn't find anything that jumped out, but I'll admit, I found nothing that disproves it either. And what's in here _would_ fit with the theory. It's not enough, though."

"Not enough for what, laddy?" the older librarian whose name Jason didn't know asked as she approached them. "Might ye explain what exactly ye be researchin'? I may be able ta' help."

"We're researching a, theory," Songa told her. "There's a theory floating about back home that the Faey have visited Terra before, hundreds of your years ago. We're researching old myths and legends looking for any support of this theory. What my human friend meant was that what we read here still supports the idea of the theory, but there's no proof one way or the other. It just hints that it _might_ be true, it doesn't give us any solid evidence that it is or isn't true."

"What we've pieced together actually fits in with the folklore we've read here," Rann expanded. "It fits into the parameters of your folklore, but it's not _proof_ that there was an actual visitation. So it's a tease."

"Och. So, ye're ponderin' that maybe Arcadia is Draconis, and the Faerie and the Sidhe were actually Faey?"

"Well, it's possible. We're not going to _just_ look at British myths, though. There are similar stories from several other cultures we want to investigate as well."

"Well, pardon an old woman's obvious observation, but I'd be thinkin' that maybe the name is enough," she stated. "The Faerie Folk and the word _Faey_ are pretty bloody similar."

"That's why we came here first," Rann told her smoothly. "Because of that very observation. Oh dear, what time is it?"

"Comin' on eleven," she answered after looking at her watch.

"Alright."

"An' the other side of that obvious observation is if ye'd never been here before, just how did ye know where we were?"

"Believe me, if the Faey knew of Terra earlier, we'd have been here," Meya told her. "The Imperium's been dealing with a food shortage for nearly a hundred years. If they'd have known about Terra sooner, they'd have rushed here to secure the planet, if only so we didn't have to depend on importing food from other empires. Being forced to trade for basic necessities is _never_ good, because an enemy can cripple you by attacking those supply lines."

"Ah. That makes sense," she nodded. "Well, maybe the ship that visited here never made it back home. Maybe they got lost, or had some kind of accident and landed here, fixed their ship, then took off again tryin' to make it back ta' Draconis, but they never did."

Rann's eyes lit up. "My dear, that's an astute postulation," he said admirably. "They didn't develop stargates until six hundred years ago, and in that era we used hyperspace as a means of interstellar travel, and you can't send communications through hyperspace. Back then communications were basically handled by messenger ships that traveled between systems, relaying messages through the Imperium. A lone ship that wandered off course and landed here _would_ have no way to report their findings unless the ship itself returned to Imperial space and reported in person. So, that's another mark in the possible column."

"No amount of circumstantial evidence is going to convince anyone, though. We need hard proof," Jason said.

"Proof, ye say? I think ye might want ta' think of visiting some museums. Look at old artifacts, ye ken, look for anything that yon Faey might recognize. Jewelry, things like that."

"Well, we have come across one thing. The picture, please, Jack?" Rann said as he reached into his pocket and produced his medical insignia. Jason opened his panel and displayed the picture he took of the window. "See this? This looks just like this part of the window in your chapel. This is something that existed back when your chapel was built. If that window is a perfect recreation of the original, well, it makes me wonder."

"That? Well, dearie, that's something that we've seen before," she stated evenly. She slid over one of the books on the table, one they hadn't opened yet, flipped through it, then turned it around and showed them a reproduction of a carving showing four elfin figures standing at the edge of a misty forest, gathered around a human man pounding a piece of metal with a hammer on an anvil, and all four of them had that symbol emblazoned on their garments. But on them, the triangle was pointing up instead of down, the way Rann usually wore it. "There it is."

"My," Rann whispered, but it wasn't Rann that got Jason's attention. It was Songa. Her eyes were wide, and she snapped up the book and flipped it back a few pages, to another picture, showing two Faerie Folk on horseback, one adult, one obviously young. The adult wore a tabard of sorts, upon which was an unusual design looking like two ocean waves in a circular background with a single star above and between the two crests of the waves.

"Trelle's garland!" she gasped in Faey. "Rann! Rann, look at this!"

"Demir's sword!" he said when he looked at the insignia, then he laughed. "I win!"

"What?" Jason and Meya asked in unison.

"JasJack, Jack, this is the house crest of _Karinne_!"

"Are you sure?" he asked in English.

"Of course I'm sure!" she snapped in reply, in English. "I studied classical literature, I know all the house crests! This is Karinne! If we wanted hard evidence, _here it is_!"

"I dinna' ken."

"Honey, this is the symbol of one of the Faey noble houses," Rann told her with a big grin. "A house that was destroyed over a thousand years ago. This is just way too much _circumstantial_ evidence to be circumstantial. A Faerie Folk shown in an old drawing wearing the standard of a Faey noble house? That's corroboration."

Jason felt like someone hit him in the chest with a shovel. Rann was _right_. He was right! This was evidence that even a skeptical Jason could not ignore. This was proof that the Faerie Folk really were the Faey, and that they had come to Earth a long, long time ago. It just seemed impossible that this old wood carving picture, reproduced for the book, would have _two_ Faey-origin symbols for the Faerie Folk and have it just be a case of coincidence. One, Jason could write off as a coincidence, but not two, and not a symbol quite that complex. A triangle in a circle, yeah, that could be a coincidence, but not two waves in a circle under a star.

So, Jason could not deny it. The human telepaths on Earth were descended _from the Faey_. And Jason was a direct blood relative of Maeda Karinne.

It was just too _fucking_ unbelievable, but sometimes, life just threw you one hell of a curve ball.

Jason leaned back in his chair, heavily, and then gave a sigh that would do anyone proud. He looked at Rann's smug grin, then snorted. "Shut up," he grated.

_Cousin,_ Rann sent audaciously.

_Ass,_ Jason responded.

"Are ye well?" the woman asked.

"The gentleman just had a rather nasty shock," Rann told her with an outrageous grin. "These two symbols here _strongly_ suggest that the Faey _did_ visit Terra in the past, my dear. I'll put money on the table that the Faerie Folk of your legends was an expedition of Faey. Our visit was lost in your official history, but it didn't vanish from your _folklore_."

"Huh. Well, that's definitely interestin'," she said, clucking her tongue.

"May we take pictures of this book for our research, madam?" Rann asked. "It's going to knock some caps off back home."

"Aye, go ahead, just please dinna' take it from the library," she nodded.

Rann took several pictures of the book's illustrations, including several more drawings of other Faerie Folk in other activities; an image of them dancing, an image of several smaller ones and three obviously human children sitting before a taller one, who was holding some kind of cane or staff and pointing it towards the heavens, another image of two Faerie Folk standing on either side of a peasant in a knee-length garment who was using a hoe on a row of crops, and a final image of another Karinne-crested Faerie Folk, a tall, regal looking female, handing a small circular object to a robed man that looked like a friar or monk. The pictures were very provocative, and created even more questions. Were these Faey that had come here _stranded_ here? Why did they have children? Did those children come with them, were they born on the ship as it traveled the galaxy, or were they born here? The smaller Faerie Folk in the illustrations were obviously Faey, and also obviously children. Did those Faey that taught humans also teach the human children, as was suggested in that one image? And how did Jason come to have a Karinne ancestor?

_Well, this certainly dates the event, Songa sent. The Karinnes were destroyed about thirteen hundred of your years ago. That would place this visit around, what, the year 700?_

_About that, Jason answered, staring at the images on his panel monitor, putting them all side by side in a tiled array. Unbelievable. Just unbelievable. If I remember right, that was just before the start of the dark ages._

_Well, the question has been answered, Jason. What now? Songa asked._

What now, indeed? Though he had a virtual whirlwind of questions rolling around in his head, he had to stop and think about that. Miaari made so sure to set him out on this path, but now that he reached the end of it, now that he had the answer... how did this information fit in? How did knowing that the human telepaths were descended from the Faey help him push Trillane off Earth and restore a modicum of dignity and freedom to the human race? Miaari told him that it was the most important question to answer, but she hadn't told him what he had to do with this information.

Still, though, it was almost unbelievable. To think that he had a Faey ancestor, that he wasn't entirely _human_. It was a strange thought, and made him ponder the basic aspects of his own life... but only for a moment. Though he may have a Faey ancestor, he was still _human_. He had nothing but human ancestors since the introduction of this Faey into his line, and he was born and raised as a human. It might make him question the direction of his life, but it couldn't change the fact that he was still exactly who he was, despite coming into this knowledge.

So. Now that he knew, what was he supposed to do? Well, first thing, he supposed, would be to tell Miaari that he had the answer to her question. Maybe she was waiting for him to find out, and she would point him in the right direction. Getting in touch with Miaari required first contacting Kiaari, who had been out for nearly two weeks, and had only called back to the mountain once in that time outside of returning with her elder to help him. She'd been gathering information about Trillane's counters to their attacks, shadowing the Black Ops people, trying to find out how much they knew about what was going on. He called the contact number he had for her, but his panel flashed a message he'd never seen before: [Communication Timeout. Unable to negotiate with host. Perform Diagnostic of Transceiver Module? (press selection) [Yes] [No] ].

Jason blinked and checked the other systems, and they showed that the panel was actively connected to CivNet. The phone function was part of CivNet, so long as the panel had access to CivNet, nothing should stop the call. He had the panel check its transceiver array, and it reported after a few seconds that the unit was functioning normally, and had active contact with CivNet. He tried to call again, but received the same message.

Okay, now it was past weird, and delving into the realm of unsettling. Nothing should be stopping the panel from making a phone call. It had connection to CivNet, that was proved quickly enough when he accessed INN. The ability to call other panels or vidlinks was a basic function. Just _that_ part of CivNet wouldn't just crash. There was no reason he couldn't make an outgoing call.

Unless... something was _stopping_ it.

Quickly, Jason reached into his pocket and turned on the cell phone there, which _immediately_ began to ring. "Hello?" he called.

_"Jason!_" Kiaari all but screamed at him. _"That Black Ops bitch found the relay for your panel's tightbeam and she's tracking you with it! Burn your panel's memory, but keep the panel running! As long as they see the panel not moving, they'll come straight to it first, and that'll give you time to get the hell out of there!"_

"Shit!" Jason gasped, almost knocking the table over as he jumped to his feet. Quickly he performed the burn program that Kiaari had put in his panel in case of this kind of emergency, which completely erased the panel's onboard memory, even going so far as to reformat the molecular structure of the memory crystal to totally eradicate all memory within. All that was left was the onboard RAM-style memory which kept the panel running, and kept it active, allowing Myleena Merrane to zero right in on it. He set the panel so it would automatically turn itself off in five minutes; he figured if they didn't get away in five minutes, there was no reason to run in the first place.

"Ja" Rann began, but Jason's sending cut him off.

_They found us using my panel!_ he sent quickly, his fear and worry and chagrin bleeding through his thought. Stupid stupid stupid! He should have known that they'd eventually figure out how his panel worked! _Meya, we have to get out of this town _now_,_ he sent, grabbing the pistol in his pocket and producing it, turning it on and allowing it to charge up.

_"Jason!"_ Kiaari's voice called from the phone in his other hand, thin and reedy. He put the phone to his ear and answered her. _"Listen carefully!"_ she called. _"There's two units en route to you now, but from what I'm hearing, they are _not_ cooperating. Trillane is sending a unit to kill you, but there's an Imperial dropship coming down too. The Duchess and that Merrane woman are fighting over an open radio frequency over what's going to happen. Listen carefully,"_ she said with intensity. _"They will come straight to where that panel is, and that'll buy you time, but you cannot stay in that town. They'll tear it apart looking for you when they find your panel! The closest dropship is the Trillane dropship, and it's about seven minutes away. You have seven minutes to get out of there before the Trillane dropship reaches the town. Seven minutes. Now hang up this phone and run!"_

_We have to get out of here in seven minutes! Jason sent frantically. Meya!_

_Follow me! she barked mentally as she extended the MPACs on the forearms of her armor._

Raw panic was something that was new to Jason, but he found that he could think, he could react. It was almost like the fear of playing college football in front of 100,000 fans, knowing that everyone was watching him, but he found himself able to work through the fear and do what had to be done. They ran to the nearest car, a small Astria, and Meya picked the lock the old fashioned way, by breaking the back window, reaching in to unlock it, and then piling in behind the wheel. _In!_ she barked, and the others scrambled to pile into the car as she used her augmented strength to rip the plastic off the steering column. Jason all but dove into the passenger's seat on the left side, and by the time Rann and Songa got into the back, Meya had the car started. Jason gave her a surprised look, but she just winked at him and handed him her helmet, put the car into gear, and squealed the tires as they tore out of there.

Their prepwork paid off. Jason and Meya had studied the town's map, so they knew exactly where they were, and exactly where to go to reach the motorway that would lead them out of town. Songa swept the last pieces of broken glass out of the windowframe to hide their break-in as Meya careened around a corner and onto the street that would lead them out of town. _Jason, what's going on?_ Rann asked.

"No sending!" Jason snapped. "Holes in the world, people! They can't see our minds! Block out!"

"What happened?" he asked aloud.

"Kiaari said they found my panel's tightbeam relay, and they used it to find me," he answered. "Thank _God_ it happened out here and not when I was home, or they'd be all over the mountain!"

"Who is Kiaari?"

"Kate," Jason answered tightly in reply as a very large troop carrier dropship appeared in the sky ahead and above them. They were all very, very quiet as the dropship went over their head, and then descended to land in Dumfries. "She told me to leave my panel running, so they come right to it. That'll give us time to get far away from here."

"Where are we going?"

"As far as we can until they realize I'm not in Dumfries and call a curfew," he answered. "Where can we get to in half an hour, Meya?"

"Galway," she answered. "We're going straight to Galway and finding a house to hide in that has a basement so their sensor pods don't pick up my armor. Galway's a good sized town, we should be able to hide there long enough. It shouldn't be"

The world exploded. There was a blistering light, and a sound so loud that it scattered all thought. There was nothing but a confused blur of swirling light. He had no idea what happened. He had no idea where he was. He had no idea even _who_ he was, for long moments. He only became dimly aware that the car wasn't moving anymore after who knew how much time, when he felt something eerily warm against his arm. He blinked and looked down, and saw that the warmth against his arm was a bloody, mangled mass of red with shreds and tatters of blue clinging to the edge of it.

It was a severed Faey hand.

The car was overturned and burning. He became dimly aware of that fact, and the fact that they were all tangled up on the roof. Someone was badly injured, badly enough to lose a hand. He rose up and looked around, and in an eerie disassociation, he saw nothing but blood everywhere. He didn't react to it, nor did he react the open, glassy, vacant eyes of Rann that stared blankly, unblinkingly, or the piece of smoldering metal that had driven completely through his chest. He saw the mangled, spurting arm of Songa, saw it spill out ghastly amounts of blood, but she did not move, did not react. Meya lay partially atop him, blood seeping from a vacant eye socket and a savage laceration that ran down the right side of her face. She too was unconscious. He tried to move Meya to get up, but found that his right arm wouldn't work. He looked down, and rather clinically realized that it wouldn't work because it wasn't there. It was missing from the elbow down, and the rest of the arm was severely burned, so much so that it had cauterized the wound.

Someone pulled on him. Hands grabbed him by the leg and pulled him out of the burning car, and he saw unemotionally, like a dream, that other motorists had stopped and were trying to get the people out of the car. Strong hands pulled him clear, but he couldn't focus on their strange, dissonant faces, or understand what they said. They pulled him clear and laid him down, and he turned his head to see them pull the armored Meya out of the car, and then Songa. Someone pressed on her torn arm to stop the bleeding as others tried to get Rann clear of the burning car.

Then they stopped. There were strange sounds, shouting. People were running. Then there was strange sounds, strange streaks of reddish light.

But then there were others there. Armor. Black armor. Armored legs moved into his field of view, took over attending to the others that were in the car, grabbing them and pulling them behind the burning shell, but he couldn't quite make the connection. Hands grabbed him and pulled him around the car as well. Dimly, he came to realize that the streaks of light were MPAC shots. There was firing. Someone was shooting at the car. One of those pairs of armored legs stopped in front of him, then squatted down.

It was a face he'd seen before, and even in his dazed state, he could attach a name to that face.

Myleena Merrane.

_I'd almost think this was a trick, but Kimdori don't bleed, her words seemed to resonate in his brain. I don't understand why you feel like a Kimdori, but I guess we'll have time to talk about it later._

_Commander, the Trillane forces are trying to flank us!_

_Get that dropship down here! she ordered, looking away from him. And for Trelle's sake, return fire! I warned them! If they killed him with that stunt, I'm gonna have the Duchess' head stuffed and mounted on my wall! She looked back down at him, putting a bare hand on his head. No defense at all? You must be stunned. Well, babes, Trillane fired on your getaway car from a corvette in low geosynchronous orbit. It's a miracle you're not all dead, they missed the car, but your car got caught up in the shockwave, and we gave the corvette something else to think about before it had a chance to hit you again. The two women are gonna make it, but I don't know about the male. They're trying to resuscitate him now. We'll have to see. I suspected you had that runaway Trillane noble down here, but I didn't realize you had other Faey helping you. Well, we'll sort them out once we get out of here. Not sure what'll happen to them, though. It's a House crime, what you were doing, but there's really no Imperial law covering it. I guess Grand Duchess Trillane can demand the Empress to hand you and the others over, but she won't get too far. She picked up her helmet and set it on her head. Now if you'll excuse me, your friends in Trillane are trying to kill us. I have to keep us alive long enough for the dropship to get here and get us the hell out. She caught a rifle someone threw to her. Keep the wounded out of the line of fire! A Squad, cover those flankers, B Squad keep on the main line! Mava, they only have one mindstriker, track her down and kick her ass before she breaks someone! Dulaan, keep up the defense 'til Mava singles her out and drops her! her words rattled in his brain, but then his vision blurred and dimmed, and he spiraled down into dark oblivion._


Chapter 17

_Vesta, 30 Miraa, 4395 Orthodox Calendar_
_Monday, 12 October, Native Regional Reckoning_
_Dracora Medical Annex (Faey Medical Service sovereign territory), Dracora, Draconis_

It was like waking up from a nightmare, and realizing that the nightmare was reality.

The first thing he was aware of was a twinging pain in his right arm. It was dull and throbbing, and it was the first indicator that something was terribly, terribly wrong. He was in a place with cool, sweet air filling his nose, with warm sheets tucking him into a comfortable bed, and an odd rushing sound that was rhythmic and strangely soothing, like waves crashing on a beach.

It was not his bed. This was not home.

Before opening his eyes, he went over the last thing he remembered. They were in... a library. Yes, a library. He remembered it, with its dark, old bookshelves and the antique table. Rann was there, and Songa. And Meya, wearing her armor. They were researching through old books, while waiting for their noon appointment with Seamus MacGregor.

A revelation. Jason and the other human telepaths were descended from the Faey; the Faey were actually the Faerie Folk from Scottish folklore. He remembered that, the shock of it, quite clearly. It confirmed Rann's theory that Jason was descended from the Karinne bloodline, because of the disease that affected him.

Then... what happened next? He couldn't remember. He made a phone call, and then... nothing. Here he was, wherever here was. He supposed that maybe opening his eyes and looking around might help with that.

He was in a hospital room, but it wasn't like any hospital room he'd ever seen before. It was a large, warmly decorated room with soft red tiles on the floor, corded cloth fiber covering the walls, the color of wheat, with paintings hanging on the walls. One was a strange nebular swirl, the other was a painting of a blue-skinned woman wearing an archaic, flowing robe with one sleeve longer than the other, kneeling down and holding her arms out to a blue-skinned toddler, about to embrace the child. There was a padded chair sitting by his bed, and a table in the corner, by an open window that showed a blue sky. The wall behind him was the only indication that he was in a hospital, for a glance up showed a wall of panel monitors and indicators, and wires came out of that wall and over him, over his bed.

Distantly, he realized that this wasn't the infirmary in the mountain. This was a _Faey_ hospital.

He'd been captured.

He tried to sit up, but he felt weak, unable to command his muscles. He tried to push on the bed with his hands, but he couldn't. One of his hands was resting on his chest, refusing his commands to move, but his right arm was held straight on the side of the bed, secured to a metal frame, and his arm from the elbow down was covered in some kind of plascrete sheath. The arm above that sheath was swathed in bandages, and he had bandages across his chest that he could see as well, under his resting left hand. That was where most of the pain he was feeling was coming from, from that arm. Had he broken his arm? What happened? What had gone so terribly wrong?

Well, it was over. That was clear enough. Something had happened, something he couldn't remember, but it had ended with his capture. He was a prisoner of the Faey now. Clearly he hadn't gone down without a fight, so now they were putting him back together. He guessed Trillane wanted him healthy and whole before they marched him in front of a firing squad.

What had happened, though? Did Rann and Songa make it alright? They were doctors; they didn't really know that much about fighting. Meya had probably been the biggest hitter in whatever fight they'd had. She was wearing her armor, and she was highly trained and a very strong telepath. She would give any attackers fits.

It was maddening, not knowing. What _had_ happened? Were the others alright? Did Jyslin know he was a prisoner, or did she think he was dead? Or did she even know? He had to get in touch with her, he had to tell her he was alive.

He had to get out of this damn bed... but he couldn't move. It was like he was paralyzed.

Well his body wasn't working, but his mind was clear enough. He reached out the way Jyslin had taught him and assensed the area around him. He sensed _hundreds_ of guarded minds, Faey minds, and sweeping out more he found _thousands_ more. Thousands and thousands. There were other minds out there too, unguarded ones, but they were mostly Makati.

He wasn't on Earth!

Oh _shit_! They'd taken him off Earth! He was on a Faey-controlled planet!

That was going to make getting back home just a _bit_ more difficult.

The door opened, and a young woman entered wearing a red longcoat over a red jumpsuit of sorts. She had white-blond hair done up in a topknot, and she had light gray eyes, almost like Jyslin's. She had a handpanel in her hands, and was looking at it as she came through the door. She looked at him, and then gave him a bright smile. "I see you're awake," she said in perfect English. "I would ask you how you feel, but you can't talk at the moment, honey. We have you on a paralytic agent right now that vastly reduces your ability to move. Opening your eyes and maybe tilting your head a little is going to be all you're capable of for a while yet. So, if you're worried about not being able to move, that's why."

She came over and sat on a stool by the bed that he hadn't seen from his vantage point. "Now, I've been warned about you, honey. They told me that you have talent, but I'm not so sure I believe that. So, I'm going to put my hand over yours and establish enough of a connection with you so I can hear you. If you have any questions, just think them, alright?"

She put her hand over his. He felt her touch distinctly, and felt her mind hovering at the edges of his consciousness... but it did not try to breach his border of self. It instead touched on the edge of his self, putting a mental hand on the wal