is sleeve. Myleena, he had to respect. She seemed to understand how his mind worked, and was good at guessing what he was going to do. So, to get around her, he was forced to enroll the nurses and doctors into his scheme. Myleena was blocking any kind of tools or technological equipment from getting to him, so he had to go through his caregivers, convincing them to help him. This, they did willingly, almost gleefully.

The other lifeline to the outside world was Songa. Songa had already come before the Medical Review Board for her involvement, and they had dismissed all charges against her, reinstated her license, and had even given her a commendation and a promotion. To them, she had only been doing what a doctor was _supposed_ to do, and that was render aid to those in need. They gave her a glowing commendation for her bravery and her dedication to the ideals of the _shaishain_, promoted her directly to the rank of Lieutenant Commander, and gave her a paid sabbatical so she could recover from her injuries, and also recover from the death of her husband, with full pay and full benefits. That pronouncement made her a free woman, absolutely untouchable by the Trillanes and the Imperial government, and if they even _tried_ to go after her, they would face the wrath of the Medical Service. That was one organization _nobody_ crossed, because anyone who angered the Medical Service quickly became a reviled and hated figure in the eyes of the Imperium's common citizens, who treated the Medical Service like earthbound angels.

This meant that Songa could come and go from the hospital as she pleased. She was still wearing a flexcast, but she wasn't on any kind of medical restriction regarding her movements. Songa was the one that smuggled in the civilian clothes for him and Meya, while the other doctors in the wing had come up to bat for him big time by procuring a dedicated panel for him, not connected to CivNet, where he could do his necessary TEL programming in secrecy, a microtronic toolkit, and some stick memory crystals he was going to need. After withdrawing some money from his bank account, he had it put on a certified card, a kind of pure cash item that anyone could use but was not hard currency, and had it smuggled in. They got him everything he needed to get out of the hospital, and he had plenty of time to get it all together and ready, even though it was a bit hard to type using only one hand.

Once he had everything he needed to get out of the hospital, he turned to the task of how to get to that warehouse, but that in itself wasn't hard at all. He simply asked for his possessions back. The doctors complied, and they returned his clothes and his other possessions, which included a black crystal key that looked like a hovercar or dropship key. That little baby would start _any_ vehicle, and it was their key to freedom. Once he had that back, he kept it on his person at all times.

He had everything he needed, so he built what he needed to build, did his programming, and then told Meya about the plan. They were the only ones that had to actually escape; Songa, being a free woman, could simply walk out the door. And to her credit, she told them that she wanted to go with them. Rann had died to help Jason, and she intended to stay with him and see things through to the end. She was _still_ a Legion doctor, and she had duties to see to back on Earth.

Then came the day. They took him down to the lab, and while he was watching, they removed the flexcast. What was underneath was a pink, healthy looking right hand and arm, complete with skin. "And there we go," Doctor Eril mused as he took the two halves of the cast away. "Make a fist please."

Jason complied, balling his fist, but he felt the weakness in his hand then. Just holding his fist closed required active effort. He opened his hand and flexed his fingers in a repeating cascade, testing his manual dexterity. That, at least, felt normal. He had full and complete control of his motor skills, and though his hand tingled a little and felt a bit weak, it was indeed completely restored.

"Very good," he announced, grabbing Jason's new hand and probing it with his fingers. "Yes, everything looks in order, and we're already sure you have complete motor control. I'll schedule you for a biotine treatment right after your next appointment."

"Biotine?"

"It's a muscular therapy to strengthen the new muscles. After all, they've never been used. I doubt you could hold on to anything with it. Here, take my hand," he said, putting his smaller hand in Jason's palm. Jason clasped his hand, then Eril pulled away. Jason tried to keep his grip on Eril's hand, but it slid out of his fingers easily. Jason's hand was weaker than a newborn baby's, since at least a newborn could practice flexing the hand in the womb. "See? You have no muscular power at all. The biotine treatment will partially restore some of your hand's strength. Coupled with additional biotine treatments and some physical therapy, your hand should be completely recovered in about a week. Right now, I'm going to take you down to the radiation lab," he announced. "The skin on that hand has no protection against light radiation. We're going to put it under a special lamp that will urge it to produce melanin without doing any damage to it."

"So you're taking me to a tanning salon?"

"More or less," he winked. "Odd to see melanin that color. Our melanin is blue, that's why we have blue skin."

"I've always wondered why you have blue skin."

"That's why," he said as he urged Jason to stand and follow him. "Our sun produces light and other radiation in a slightly different pattern than yours, which caused us to produce a blue color-based melanin instead of the dark-based melanin in Terrans, to protect against it. Your pigment still protects you from our sun, and our pigment protects us from your sun, but that tiny little evolutionary difference between Faey and Terrans is all the reason why we're blue and you're beige." They walked down a hallway towards a pair of double doors.

"I did kind of notice that your sun seems, well, more _yellow_ than ours. I thought it was because your air isn't polluted."

"It is, just slightly," he nodded. "That tiny color variation makes us blue. If humans had evolved here, _you'd_ be blue."

"That's an unpleasant thought."

"Only to you," he chuckled.

The biotine treatment was _not_ pleasant. They drove a multitude of tiny needles into his arm and hand and surged jolts of power through his atrophied muscles, causing them to violently flex, as they washed the muscle cells in some kind of special chemical that caused them to rapidly divide and reinforce. It was a two hour procedure that was a test of endurance and dealing with constant, nagging pain. But, Jason couldn't deny the effectiveness of the treatment. Instead of barely having the strength to hold a closed fist, Jason could grip small objects, and he retained all the manual dexterity he'd had before losing his hand. He could easily type at the same speed, and he knew he could play the piano easily.

When he returned to his room, he found it quite full. Songa and Meya were there, as well as Myleena Merrane and two skirt-clad Faey officers, both looking rather young, wearing black Class A uniforms with thigh-length miniskirts instead of trousers. The taller of the two had long blue hair, and the shorter of them had pink-red hair done in a spiky pixie style. Jason saw that Songa too had had her flexcast removed, and she was running her fingers up and down the back of her new hand absently. "It looks nice," Myleena said in greeting as she looked at his right arm.

"It feels weird," he noted, grabbing his right wrist in his left hand and rubbing it. "What do you want, Myleena?"

"Here," she said, handing him a handpanel. He took it, and saw that it was some kind of exam or test. "You need to finish that sometime today and send it in. In five days, you'll be on your way to Makan, as soon as the Medical Service releases you."

"What is this?"

"The Makan Academy entrance examination," she told him evenly. "They wanted to get an idea of your current educational background before they tailor a schedule for you."

He gave the panel one look, then tossed it absently on the bed.

"Hey, it's your boredom, babe," she told him. "If you don't do that, they'll just stick you where you left off at Tulane. And I think you've gone a bit beyond that. But if you wanna be bored, hey, who am I to argue?" she asked, throwing her hands up.

"I already told you what's going to happen, Myleena."

"And I told you what's _really_ going to happen," she countered. "You _will_ be on that transport."

"I'm so glad you think so."

"We'll find out, won't we?" she challenged. "Don't think that I'm not ready for any little surprises you have set up, babe. I have every door out of this place covered. You won't get ten steps before you have nine Marines on you. _Real_ Marines, Jason. Marines fresh from seeing real action, on Terra."

Jason looked at her. _Hard_. The timbre of her voice, she wanted to stress that.

Nine Marines... Jyslin's squad?

Holy _shit_! Myleena was telling him that Jyslin's squad had been rotated back to Draconis, and they were part of the armed detail surrounding the hospital! She _really was_ going to help him, if only by turning a blind eye and letting him go!

"I've beaten them before," he said flippantly.

"Not this time you won't," she grunted. "But I don't have any more time. I'll see you tomorrow, and I'm sure we'll fight about that exam."

"Probably," he agreed.

Myleena escorted her two aides out, and Jason immediately went to the window and looked down. There were Marine troop transports down there, but they'd been there for a while. He reached out with his mind and searched around down there, looking for one Marine in particular that he knew, and who would know him.

_I see you, Jason,_ Maya sent to him with light amusement. _I can see that you were specifically looking for me. Well, you found me. You're getting good at that, aren't you?_

Jason had to resist the urge to give out an audible cry. _Maya! Maya, what are you doing here?_

_Guarding you, silly,_ she answered. _We were brought back to Draconis after Jyslin went AWOL, to get us out of there in case anyone else in the squad had any silly ideas. They just deployed us here this morning._

_Wow, small world!_

_Not so small. General Lorna Shaddale put us here. Personally. Under the table, of course,_ she told him directly. _And she handed down direct orders to us that the role of our squad is now to be your personal bodyguards, to protect you against any Trillane attempts on your life. Somehow, she got word that you married Jyslin, Jason. You're a Shaddale now, and Lorna's decided that she has to watch out for you. We have _direct orders_ from the General Staff to protect you. We are your personal Marine detachment. When you leave for Makan, we go with you. We'd be up there right now, but the medical annex is sovereign territory, and we're not allowed inside. The squad will be your personal guards, because we have a personal stake in your welfare. You're the husband of one of us, and we'll always be there to protect you._

_You say that like you think it's going to happen,_ he sent dryly. _What they want me to do and what I'm going to do are two different things._

_Of course they are. That's why, when you go wherever you go, you'll have nine armed escorts. Our orders are to _protect you_, Jason, no matter where you go, no matter what you do. You lead, we follow. If that takes us back to Earth and in the front lines of a war against Trillane soldiers, so be it. We have our orders, and by Trelle, we're sticking to them._

_Lorna's gonna get in trouble._

_Oh, please, Jason,_ she sent scathingly. _Clearly you don't understand the Marines. A Marine general is better at politics than half the noble houses put together. We know where the order came from, but nobody else will ever track it back to General Shaddale._

_Well, that's good to know, but still, I don't like it too much. Jys's family is already in really hot water because of me. I don't want to muck things up for them any more than I have already._

_That's just it, Jason. You are _family_. They'll put their hands in boiling oil to help you, because you are family. And you're _our_ family too. I told you that before you left New Orleans. You are part of the squad because you're Jyslin's husband, and we'll be there for you. Yana has a lock on you now, Jason. She's probably the most powerful telepath on Draconis, and she won't lose you. Wherever you go, we'll be nearby. Remember that._

_Hi, Jason,_ came a shy sending, but a sending almost _rippling_ with the containment of an awesome power. Maya wasn't kidding! This woman was _incredibly_ powerful! _I'm Yana. Are you feeling okay?_

_Hi, Yana. I'm fine. They took the flexcast off this morning. They regrew my arm just the way it was before I lost it. It looks like I'll have a full recovery._

_That's good to hear._

_Have they been treating you well?_ Maya asked.

_The doctors, yes, but the Imperial woman who basically has custody of me has been something of a bitch,_ he answered.

_Want us to drag her into some alley somewhere and beat the shit out of her?_ another Marine called. From the sound of the mental voice, Jason identified her as Bryn, one of the twins in the squad. Clearly, all the Marines were linked together so they could all hear a private sending between Jason and Maya.

_No, I'll deal with her in my own way._

_Odds are, Jason's way will be worse than what we could think up,_ another voice added impishly. That was Sheleese.

_Probably,_ a new voice intoned. That was Ilia, Sheleese's best friend.

_How has Jyslin been, Jason?_ Zora asked. Jason knew that voice very well, for Zora had been the one who had helped him get his pilot's license.

_Happy, at least until I was caught,_ he answered. _I was too._

_That girl risked everything to come to you, hon. I'm glad it was worth it._

_She's worth everything,_ he sent impulsively.

_Now you sound like Maya,_ Lyn teased.

_I can't help it if I found my soulmate and you haven't,_ Maya shot back.

_Girls, give it a rest,_ Myri barked._ We're here, Jason, and we'll always be here. Maya may not have told you, but we have direct orders to protect you, but _not_ to interfere with you. Wherever you go, whatever you do, we'll be there to protect you, even if it means firing on our own people. Do you understand that?_

_I understand,_ he sent gravely.

_I'm glad you do. Yana has a lock on you, so we will _always_ know exactly where you are. Do you understand?_

_I do._

_Good. I'm going to make them cut this short, love. There are Imperial mindbenders crawling all over this place, and what we're doing now isn't entirely risk free. Those damn mindbenders are just as well trained as we are, and they have people that can snatch private sending right out of the air._

Jason immediately thought of Symone and her uncanny ability to do just that. _Yeah,_ he sent in understanding. _So we can't do really do this._

_Exactly. But as long as you know that we're here and we're here for _you_, I'm content to let you stay up there. The Medical Service will keep you nice and safe until you're discharged, and then it's our job to take over._

Jason stepped back from the window, then looked at Meya with a huge grin.

"What?" she asked.

_Jyslin's _squad_ is down there, Meya!_ he sent privately to her and Songa. _Lorna sent them personally! They're going to help get us out of here! All we have to do is get out of this hospital, and we're set!_

_Timely,_ Meya sent, but she was grinning.

_A godsend. Next time I see that old warhorse, I'm gonna kiss her dead on the lips. With the squad backing us up, we can get there no problem._

_Sounds like we just need you to recover and we're set._

_Just about._

                                        * * *

Myleena Merrane was a bitch.

But Myleena Merrane was _brilliant_.

Just for amusement, Jason looked through the exam on the handpanel while Songa and Meya played a Faey card game called Queen's Swords. It was filled with standard engineering questions, something he would have expected to see.

But there was much more to it than that.

It took him a while to figure it out. He answered some of the questions, writing them on the side of the panel's screen, until he looked at the letters and realized that, if he converted those letters into their English equivalents of A, B, C, D, E, F, and G, they spelled out the words _a bad cab faced bead, a bed gabbed a decade, a bad cab faced bead, a bed gabbed a decade._ That pattern continued through the _entire_ test, those same letters in that same sequence... given someone answered the questions correctly.

Unless someone spoke English, they'd never understand that message. And the vast majority of people on Draconis could not speak English.

A bad cab faces bead. A bad cab, that clearly was a reference to a vehicle. A bead, well, looking out of his window a while showed him the bead. It was a huge silver globe in a grassy park near the ocean, visible from his window.

Clever, clever little bitch. There was a car waiting down there, if he could get to it.

A bed gabbed a decade. Well, that didn't make much sense, but it did make him check out his hospital bed. He didn't find anything weird, at least until he reached underneath and found a crumpled piece of spiral paper. He unfolded and found a note, written in English:

_Jason:_
_I can't help in the way you want without getting in a shitload of trouble, but I'll do what I can. I basically own the hospital's security, so tell me when you want to go, and I'll make sure it's turned off. If you can get out of the hospital, I'm pretty sure you can get to the skimmer I'll have parked for you. Once you get to it, all I can really say is be very, very careful. I can't hack planetary security, so you better not do anything to make them notice you. Go to ULC 4676-88476. That's my aunt Uri's summer house, and she's not using it right now. You can hide there until I arrange to get you off the planet. It really won't be easy getting you back to Earth, but we engineers live for the tough problems, ya know. Be safe, be careful, oh, and watch out for Aunt Uri's vulpar. She's not comfortable around strangers and she might bite you if you scare her._
_Myleena_

Myleena Merrane just earned herself a big kiss dead on the lips.

He had no doubt about one thing, and that was that the skimmer she was going to leave there would get him to that warehouse.

Things were looking so optimistic, Jason became literally bubbly. He went to his next biotine treatment in a talkative mood, flirting with the doctors, asking the nurse about _bacha_, a sport they played here on Draconis. The treatment didn't even seem to hurt as much this time, and after it was done they had him work his arm, moving things, holding things, exercises of manual dexterity. Those did annoy him a bit, so he had one of their panels access CivNet and generate a holographic piano keyboard, which he quickly programmed to play, and showed them just how agile his right hand was. He played several pieces, and again was lost in the simple joys of music.

He tested the strength of his arm, and found that it was fully recovered. It was three days 'til he was supposed to go to Makan, Songa's hand was fully restored, he had everything he needed ready, more help than he had expected to be there was in place, and the appointed time was midnight that night.

So, it was time to go. After a quick call to Myleena where he said one word to her, "tonight," they started the plan.

Getting out was a simple operation. After lights out, Songa left and went to where they were going to meet. When she got there, she sent back to them only two words; _it's here_.

Meya snuck into his room, and they quickly cast off their hospital jumpsuits and put on the clothes they'd smuggled in. Meya had on black pants and a leather-looking jacket, and Jason had his jeans from his old clothes (which had survived well enough) and a black shirt with a short sleeve on the right and an elbow-length sleeve on the left. Once they were clothed, Jason put his gear in a pack Songa snuck in, then they waited. The red light on his door blinked, then went out, telling him that Myleena had done her part and had disabled the security. It opened when he pressed the button. They slipped out of his room and stole a gurney. One of the night nurses saw them grab it and push it back towards his room, but when Jason put a finger to his lips and winked, the girl just gave him a shy smile and nodded enthusiastically.

Once they got it in his room, they got to work. Meya uploaded the stick holding the modified programming as Jason tore into the unit and made the necessary hardware modifications, cross-rigging the four antigrav pods and then blowing the arrestor unit. He gave Meya a thumbs up, and they both ran to the window with annealers. They quickly cut the entire window out of its frame and laid it aside, moved the bed, table, and chairs out of the way, then Meya jumped on the gurney and tied her foot to the rail as Jason tied a cord around his waist, threw it to Meya, who then tied it to the rail as well.

_You know this is nuts, _Meya sent casually as she got a firm grip on the railing.

_It won't be boring,_ he answered. _Ready?_

_As I'll ever be._

Pushing it like a bobsled, Jason charged the gurney towards the window. He felt a sudden surge of fear when the gaping hole in the wall got closer and closer, but he focused on the window ledge like a long jumper watching the line. He reached the edge, leapt up onto the windowsill, then hurled himself and the gurney out the window, nearly 200 feet over the ground below. He felt a moment of panic when he saw the ground under him, then he sailed up over the gurney and landed with his chest and stomach on the gurney, but his legs dangling over the back. Meya grabbed him by the arm and dragged him onto the gurney, which rocked alarmingly back and forth as the antigrav fought high winds to keep the gurney level, even as it continued on in the direction that Jason had pushed it, slowly losing altitude as it soared over the small army of soldiers below, entrenched around the hospital to prevent him from escaping. Meya and Jason pushed forward on the gurney, and the weight on the front end caused it to descend faster, as Jason had programmed it. Tilting it left or right made it turn in that direction, and the two of them clumsily tried to aim it at the park off to the south, but they didn't do very well. Neither of them had done it before, and the high winds buffeted the gurney and made it extremely difficult to control.

_This is crazy!_ Meya sent, fear tainting her sending as the gurney nearly flipped over.

_Think of it as another good story to tell your grandchildren!_ he answered as he leaned far to the right along with Meya to stop the gurney from flipping over.

_Don't I have enough by now?_ she pleaded as they tried to turn the gurney so they didn't ram into a building.

_Obviously not, or we wouldn't be here!_ he answered as he literally had to slide over and kick the building with his foot to stop the gurney. For a hair-raising second the gurney spun out from the shock, turning three complete circles until it stabilized.

_Hey, this was _your_ idea, you maniac!_

_That's why you love me!_ he challenged as they finally drifted away from the building, then were nearly knocked over when they passed its corner and were slammed by a crosswind. _I give you great stories!_

She laughed helplessly as they got the gurney back under control, and pushed it well down to make it descend quickly. They were well past the soldiers around the hospital, and now they had to get down onto the ground quickly, before they fell off the gurney and got killed. The ground approached faster and faster, and the gurney picked up way more speed then Jason had expected. The buildings were whizzing by, and he realized he'd made no way to let them slow it down!

_Meya! We have a problem!_

_We need to slow this thing down!_

_That's the problem!_

She whipped her head around and gave him an _ugly_ look. _You mean we have no brakes?_ she demanded hotly.

_I thought we would fallen off long before speed became an issue!_

_Oh, that's a _lovely_ fucking thought!_ she raged as they got to within twenty feet of the ground, but they were moving at least a hundred miles an hour. Then they were fifteen feet, then ten, then the gurney stabilized at its usual three feet over the ground, ground that blurred by at a dizzying rate, but now that they weren't descending anymore, the gurney was starting to slow down. _Oh, _shit_!_ she sent in near terror as they came out from between two buildings along a grassy park between them, and found themselves staring at a masonry wall.

_Bail out! Jump the wall!_

They untied themselves in a frenzy as the wall charged at them, then they both jumped up and away from the gurney an instant before it reached the wall, which struck it and exploded into a cascading shower of hot, smoking metal fragments, fragments that were only moving a little faster than them. Jason fixed his eyes on one dark metal piece of twisted metal tumbling through the air, passing him lazily, leaving a tendril of smoke behind it. The two of them sailed over the wall, and found themselves flying at nearly fifty miles an hour over a still reflecting pool!

The impact was bone-jarring. Water broke their fall... almost. Meya literally bounced off the surface of the water, giving out a breathless cry, then struck it again, plowing a furrow into it. Jason hit the water and saw nothing but stars, and then the night sky melted like boiling butter in a frying pan. He tried to gasp, but took in a mouthful of water, and had a moment of panic when he realized he couldn't breathe. He thrashed for a moment to try to figure out which direction was up, but then his knees hit the bottom of the pool.

And he realized that it couldn't be more than two feet deep.

He breached the surface and took in a ragged breath, then choked and coughed out a copious amount of water. Meya choked and gagged not far from him, on her hands and knees in the water, then she looked at him and flopped back on her rear to sit in the pool. Jason crawled over to her and sat down himself, gave her a weak smile, then for no reason, they both broke into a bout of uncontrollable laughter.

_Oh, by the Trinity, if I live through this, I'm gonna kill you, boy,_ Meya sent half-heartedly, then she splashed water at him.

_Get in line, woman. You alright?_

_I don't think anything's broken,_ she answered. _Where are we?_

_That little water pool a few blocks from the globe. We got further than I thought. Alive, anyway._

_Oh, you _better _tell me you're joking._

_I am. Maybe._

She reared up, put her hands on his shoulders, gave him an evil smile, and then dunked him. _Bastard._

_I know. Can I breathe now?_

_Maybe._

They waded out and ran for the globe, and thanks to Miaari's touch, he knew where he was and how to get there. They went around an office building used by the Medical Service, then ducked behind a large ornate sign as a hovercar descended near them, dropping down to land by the front door. Two uniformed Medical officers departed the car and walked into the building, and the car lifted back up and into the night sky. They darted across the front of the building, slid up to the corner, then Meya quickly stuck her head out to look. She nodded to him, and they turned the corner and raced along the side of the building, past it, and into the park holding the globe.

Parked on a landing pad near the globe was a sleek black airskimmer. It was a Thrynne model, probably a PV-9 or a PV-10. Songa was standing in the hatchway, scanning the night with her eyes, looking for them.

_Looks like a winner to me,_ Meya sent.

_At least Myleena left us something nice. We can run for our lives in style._

_Boy, I'm gonna kick your ass when this is over with,_ she grated. _You're enjoying this, aren't you?_

_A little bit,_ he admitted.

_Well, push off._

_Yes, mommy. Can we go now?_

Despite the urgency of their situation, she found the time to punch him in the arm.

_You're no fun anymore._

_I never was. That's Myra._

_Pft._

Songa kissed Meya on the cheek, then hugged Jason when they reached them. _I'm so glad you're alright!_ she sent. _Why are you wet?_

_Because _someone_ forgot to put brakes on the gurney,_ Meya sent darkly, giving Jason a narrow-eyed glare.

_Hey, we got down. What more do you expect?_

_To be dry!_ she answered immediately, which made Songa burst into laughter.

_Yes, mother. Let's get going. Shotgun?_

_You know it,_ she sent as Songa closed the hatch, jumping into the co-pilot's chair. Jason squished into the pilot's seat and found the key already in the skimmer and a series of musical notes scribbled on a piece of paper taped to the dash panel. "Thank you Myleena," Jason chuckled as he read the notes, converted the letters into Faey, then typed that into the holographic keyboard. The computer recognized the control code and brought the main computer online.

"What was that?"

"The control code, written in musical notes," he answered.

"Clever."

"Myleena's a clever girl," Jason said with sincere admiration as the engines whined into life, and the skimmer was ready to take off.

"What about traffic control?" Songa asked.

_As long as we stay under twenty shakra, they'll never see us,_ he sent in reply. _We just hug the ground and creep our way to our destination. We'll look just like a hovercar_.

With a light touch, Jason picked the skimmer up off the ground and then started them towards their destination. "No pursuit. I don't think they even know we're gone yet," Meya noted as she looked out the side window.

"Myleena's very good," Jason noted. "As long as the nurse doesn't go look and see what we did with the gurney, we have time."

"They saw you?"

_One of them did, yah,_ Jason affirmed. "She saw us take it back to my room. Odds are, she probably thinks we're having sex on it or something."

"Probably," Songa giggled.

As fast as Jason felt h