nd marked with a star to denote its importance. There would be no rest, no respite. They had to jump from Earth directly to Draconis, because Jason had to get to the Empress as fast as possible. _Five. Four. Three. Jys, grab hold of him! One. Jump!_

It was easier this time. Jason blocked everything out, all sounds, all smells, eveything, focusing only on the feel of Jyslin's skin under his hand, the pressure she was exerting holding onto him, the feel of her considerable armored weight in his lap and the uncomfortable bite on his legs from the seams of her thighplates. He focused completely on the sensations he knew was real, and it made all the sensory ghosts that afflicted them in hyperspace from getting to him.

It was over. Reality snapped back into place around them, and he opened his eyes and found himself looking at the blue and green jewel which was the planet Draconis. Zora had jumped them in as close as she could get them, and the ship lurched forward as many smaller ships took note of this monstrosity that had just jumped in, a ship of alien design to them that looked like it just came from a battle, and they gave it one hell of a wide berth as it advanced towards the planet. "Myleena, how bad off are we?" Jason called as he urged Jyslin off his lap and unbuckled himself, then stood up. Jason ordered the computer to broadcast the _Siann_ message on a diplomatic frequency, part of what Zaa had taught him for this ordeal. So long as they gave that broadcast, they couldn't be challenged until the matter was settled by elements of the Empress' personal staff. No ships could fire on them or approach them, but the _Scimitar_ could not raise shields, come within one thousand _kathra_ of the planet, nor open any gunports, maintaining a completely docile posture. It was a flag of truce that only the Empress could order violated.

_Anyone not busy, I need damage control teams!_ Myleena sent through the ship. _Get the Terrans that aren't injured to help! I got plasma leaks all over and we got some environmental failures in the stern!_

_How bad?_ Jason asked.

_It coulda been a hell of a lot worse,_ she answered. _We have a couple of days of work ahead of us, but the ship's still spaceworthy. The redundant systems took over when the primaries went down. We're running on auxiliary power and life support in section 25 on all decks, deck 1 and 2 sections 1, 2, and 21, and the primary exchanger on deck 14 blew. The shield generator is in standby after a critical overheat, and won't come back up until it runs a self diagnostic._ She opened up to send through the ship. _Anyone that works damage control needs to be in armor or an E-suit! E-suits are stowed in cargo bay 3, two decks up and one section forward of the ramp bay._

_Are you sure they still work after a thousand years?_ Min called.

_I checked them, they work,_ she answered, standing up. _Everyone just stay there, I'm coming down!_

_Songa, how bad are the injuries?_ Jason called.

_Three broken bones and a concussion,_ she answered. _Nothing I can't handle, Jayce._

_Can we get out of the skimmer now?_ Kumi called.

_Yeah, Myleena, swing by the belly bay and take them to the ramp._

She gave him a wave of the hand as she rushed to the hatch. _Just hang there a minute, I'm on the way to get you._

_Myleena? As in the Black Ops engineer that was working against us?_ Tim asked curiously.

_The same, honey, but we're on the same side now,_ she answered. _Turns out me and Jason are cousins, so we have a common interest._

_Jason, you're a Merrane?_ Kumi asked in surprise.

_No, I'm a Karinne,_ he answered.

_A who?_

_It's a long story. Just sit tight and wait for Myleena, then go with her and help get the plasma leaks under control. This ship has to get you guys home. Zora, after I leave, I want you to jump back to Karis and wait there, before Trillane gets their fleet here to pick up where we left off at Earth. I don't want the ship out where they can see it and get any bright ideas._

_How will we know to come get you?_

_The Kimdori have an ambassador here, I can get a message relayed to Miaari's ship. As soon as they decide to pick up the call I'm making and answer me, I'll be leaving in the Nova._

_[Message incoming. Imperial priority channel,]_ the computer warned.

_Speak of the devil, and he knocks at your door,_ Jason mused as he ordered the computer to put the image on the center hologram.

He found himself looking at a mature Faey male wearing a shimmering gold formal shirt, like a doublet or something, with a diamond chain woven into his pale green hair and a thick emerald teardrop hanging from his left ear. "This is a priority channel reserved for official Imperial business," the Faey man sniffed scornfully, looking at Jason, his eyes moving to and fro as he took in the bridge and the people on it. "It's an Imperial crime to use this channel and broadcast the message you are sending out."

"It's no crime at all for me," Jason answered, a bit bluntly, turning to face the hologram. "By the Laws of Siann, I demand an immediate audience with Her Imperial Majesty, Dahnai Merrane. The laws state that I am entitled to this audience no matter who I am, and if I'm found to have used this protocol without the proper right to do so, I can't be executed until _after_ I stand before her and say what I have to say. It's called the Martyr's Gambit, and you can look it up in the charter if you don't believe me. If the Empress wants to execute me, you can't do it until _after_ I make my statement, and only after I am declared unfit to use this channel legally. That is the _law_."

The male gave him a strange look. "You have correctly cited the law," he said with some respect. "But you cannot call for the Martyr's Gambit to be granted audience with Her Imperial Majesty until you strike the Gong of Morr. Your ship may not be fired upon without Imperial permission, but let's just see you get down here without breaking the conditions of the Ducal Call," he said, somewhat smugly.

"The Empress can grant me safe passage to the palace," Jason protested.

"Yes, I suppose she could. If I bothered to inform her of this. But, given I know who you are and I'm aware of that sizable price on your head, I think I'll make a call to Grand Duchess Trillane instead," the male grinned. "Let's just see you get down here in one piece when the Trillanes mobilize their Draconis garrison to intercept you," he added, and then he ended the transmission.

"Why that son of a bitch!" Zora snapped.

"How is he going to explain to the Empress why there's a ship up here broadcasting the flag of truce without explaining why he hasn't talked to whoever's doing it?" Myri demanded.

"I'll bet she doesn't even know," Jason growled. "If they think that's going to stop me, they got another thing coming. Myri, take the conn," Jason ordered as he told the computer to prep the Nova for takeoff.

_What are you doing?_ Jyslin demanded.

_If they want me to ring the gong and fulfill the technicalities of the law, fine,_ he snapped mentally. _I'm going to take the Nova and go down there._

_Jason, the Novas are unarmed,_ Myri protested.

_True, but they're fast as lightning, and once I get the Nova into the airspace of the Imperial Palace, it's instant death for anyone who fires on me. Right now time is on my side. If I can get down there before that Merrane asshole gets through to the Trillanes, I can get to the palace before anyone can stop me._

_Jason, that's crazy._

_Sometimes crazy works,_ he answered immediately, which made Myri laugh despite herself.

_Jason, love, don't do this,_ Jyslin pleaded, holding onto his hands. _Bring this ship down. Let us go together. It would be safer, and I don't want to see you putting yourself in danger._

_This ship can't go, love, or it'll break the truce and they can fire on it,_ he told her, touching her face. _And now, this is a battle of words, and I'm the only one that can fight it. So, I won't take all of you into harm's way. This is _my _fight now. You fought for me back on Earth, my love, you fought hard and you fought well. But your fight is over now. It's my responsibility, and I have to take it back from you. This is something I have to do, or Earth will never be free of the Trillanes. If you've ever trusted me before, my love, trust me now. I've flown the Nova before, back on Karis. I got very familiar with it, because I knew I'd have to land on Draconis in another ship, so I picked the fastest thing I could find that would let me outrun anyone else. I know how it handles, and I promise you that it's the fastest thing on this planet. If there's anything that could get me down there to the front door of the palace in one piece, it's that Nova. Now, let me go, love. Every second counts._

She gave him a stricken look, then sighed and let go of his hand.

_That's my girl. Go sit in Myri's seat and have them fill you in._

He ran at full speed through the ship, down to the stern where the main landing bay was. There, crammed into the small bay, were both of the functional Novas, both dropships, and that evil-looking Gladiator e-mech. The canopy of the closer Nova was open, and the ship was already powered up and waiting for him. He almost jumped up to the canopy edge, scrambling up the retractable ladder, then dropped down into the seat and started strapping himself in. His gestalt took over primary control of the Nova, and it was by telepathic communion that he ordered the canopy to close and the landing bay to activate the airskin shield to prevent decompression and open the bay doors. The doors swung open silently overhead, but there was a loud warning klaxon blaring through the bay warning that the doors were open. _Alright, I'm heading out. Zora, get this ship out of here. Jump back to Karis as soon as you get the doors closed, and get the repairs underway._

A cacophony of sendings touched him, all of them warning him to be careful, to watch himself, and be safe, even if some of them had no idea what was going on, like Kumi, the Terran telepaths, Fure, Yohne, and Myra. He grabbed posts on each side of the cockpit that were nothing but handholds, so he wouldn't touch the controls, and then interfaced with the Nova and established a direct controls link. Now, the ship would literally fly by his thoughts, giving him absolute control over the vessel, a control every bit as exacting and perfect as Zora's had been over the _Scimitar_. The ship lifted off from the deck the instant the canopy closed, and then it rocketed up and out of the bay even as it retracted its landing gear, sucking Jason into the seat. The little ship did have a rudimentary inertial damper system, but it wasn't nearly as good as the system in the _Scimitar_. It would shave a few G-factors off his turns and acceleration, but wouldn't nullify it.

The little ship reacted to his very desires, flying with an absolute perfection of intent with him that it was like _he_ was flying and not the ship. It turned and lanced away from the _Scimitar_ with startling speed, shocking the hell out of the sensor officers who were monitoring traffic and watching the strange, old ship that had jumped in unscheduled from unknown origins. They'd never seen a ship accelerate so fast before! Jason enabled communications, and listened to the controllers trying to contact him.

_"You have no clearance to approach Draconis! Slow to a stop and enable your telemetry beacon and pilot identification or we will call in fighters to stop you!"_ one of the controllers warned, as the ship relayed that over a speaker in the cockpit.

_[This ship has no telemetry beacon, and my pilot identification is Jason Fox, pilot control number T93-2775. If that's not enough, you wanna call in fighters? Fine. Let's see them catch me,]_ Jason communed, which the Nova's computer translated into a gravband transmission that the controllers would hear audibly.

In a matter of seconds, the tiny ship traversed a thousand _kathra_ and turned to make a high-speed atmospheric entry. By the time the controllers scrambled fighters to intercept the Nova, it was already leaving a trail of burning air behind it as it breached the atmosphere and descended, heat burning the air around the ship as the ship's heat shields absorbed the majority of the energy, keeping the cockpit comfortable. Jason brought the ship down in a very steep descent angle, slowing down as he descended, coming in over the ocean and not far from Dracora.

Jason had outrun the fighters in space. He wasn't so lucky with the fighters stationed in Dracora itself. A tactical hologram popped up on the right showing the city and a swarm of at least two dozen contacts rising up from the city and moving towards him. He realized that he couldn't come straight at the city. He had to circle it, get them to get behind him, then turn and race for the palace once he had them out from between him and his goal. He veered off to the north, moving out over the continent and going wide, turning away from the city. The fighters continued to climb, but were now on an intercept vector. He widened that circle until he was flying directly away from the city, which put all of them behind him. The tactical hologram suddenly widened and showed four groups of contacts, two to the west, one to the north, and one almost directly over his position and a hundred miles _up_. Those were the space-based fighters entering the atmosphere to chase him down.

He couldn't stay on this course. He turned, a wide circle even as he continued to descend, causing the city-based fighters to change course to intercept, until he was out over the ocean again. He studied the four groups and saw that no matter which way he went, he was going to run smack into one of them. The closest group, the ones from the city, were going to intercept him before he reached the city no matter which way he went, because if he went too far wide, one of those other groups was going to intercept him first. If he tried to race through them, he was running a huge risk, since the Nova had no armor. It was nothing but a flying engine, built for speed and agility

Speed and agility.

_Agility_.

Holy _shit_, was that a crazy idea... but sometimes crazy works.

He saw that there was only one way he was going to reach the palace alive, and that was to go through the city-based fighters, and minimize their opportunities to shoot at him. And there was only one way to do that. He had to put the ship on the deck.

_Between_ the buildings of Dracora, right through the city itself.

They'd be maniacs to fire at him in those artificial canyons between three hundred story buildings, they'd be killing a hell of a lot of civilians. And down there, the Nova's small size and superior maneuverability would give him a decisive advantage. It could out-turn a Starhawk or Dragonfly, and down there, turning ability was going to be the most critical aspect of a ship.

It was insane, but there was no other way.

Jason nosed the ship into a power dive, going straight down, racing at the deep blue of the ocean below as he kept a mental eye on his altitude, a number in his mind's eye that decreased with alarming rapidity. The ship began to vibrate and shudder as it plowed through the thick air near the surface, but Jason ignored that, keeping one eye on his altitude and one on the Dracora fighters, who were now racing towards him. He was sixty _kathra_ off the coast, and he was lined up to come right over the Medical Annex and enter the city proper.

10,0000 _shakra_. The ship still shuddered heavily, making a banging sound, and the city fighters were 20 _kathra_ away.

5,000 _shakra_. The sea filled his canopy view now, and the fighters were 7 _kathra_ away, seconds from firing range.

1,000 _shakra_! Jason pulled up, hard, even as the lead fighters opened fire on him with deadly bolts of metaphased plasma streams. They didn't count on him using such a brutal angle, an angle that would make most pilots pass out, so their initial salvo went wide of him. Jason felt his eyeballs sink back into his head as his vision grayed out from the immense pressure of coming out of such a powerful dive, but the Nova's inertial dampers kept him from exceeding his limits and passing out. The tips of the ends of the two diamond-shaped wings hit the ocean, shattering a wave and sending a shower of misty water drops into the air. The impact made the Nova lurch, however, and almost slammed the bow into the ocean. Jason managed to recover, and then punched the ship at full throttle, skimming so close to the water's edge that the gentle windblown waves very nearly hit the belly of the ship. The high speed at water's edge created huge twin columns of water high into the air behind him, a wake of spray that concealed the ship from the eyes of the pilots behind and forced them to rely on targeting scanners. But they were too busy turning and trying to catch up to the small Nova, pushing their engines beyond maximum, which just barely allowed them to keep up with the smaller, faster craft. Jason had to dip the ship high to avoid a small pleasure boat ten _kathra_ from the shore, and the sonic boom behind him overturned the craft and sent its five occupants flying, splashing into the sea. The fifteen fighters behind charged past the capsized boat, but one of the pilots called out to sea rescue to come pick them up.

It was just safe enough for them to try, he realized. Jason felt the edges of it as one of those pilots in the fighters behind him reached out with her mind, and tried to attack Jason. He brushed aside her assault with almost scornful disdain, but he was too busy lining up his entry into the city to worry about striking back at her. At 1600 _kathra_ an hour, almost 750 miles an hour, that shoreline was going to be behind him in a matter of seconds! He slowed down as he turned the ship, and the fighters behind seemed to pull up, waiting for him to pull up and go over the buildings ahead. But he didn't.

At 250 miles an hour, Jason lanced in between the hospital and the Medical Services administrative headquarters only 100 _shakra_ above the ground, shattering windows in both buildings for ten stories and dragging an air wake behind him so powerful it overturned parked hovercars, uprooted two trees, and knocked everyone to the ground and sent them tumbling.

The fighters behind broke up. Ten of them pulled up to go high, but five of them gave chase through the city itself, and Jason learned almost immediately that they _were_ crazy enough to fire at him. He almost didn't believe it when the lead ship opened fire, forcing him to evade wildly in the narrow canyon of the major artery through the huge buildings, as streams of plasma sizzled by the canopy and slammed into a building far ahead, sending a spray of fire, plascrete, and glass showering towards the ground. Jason's fast eyes and quick reflexes let him catch sight of a border, and he turned the ship _hard_ and descended at the same time, doing a banking vertical turn to get away from the fighters. They matched the turn, and he turned again at the end of the building, banking high and to the right to prevent them from getting a line of fire, then turned to the left and dropped to the deck, the tip of his wing mere feet from the ground as he banked through and leveled out. The five fighters turned into the parkway behind him, and he punched the throttle to get to the end of one of the two hundred story buildings between which he flew before they could shoot at him. He just barely managed to make the corner just as the lead fire unleashed a pair of plasma bolts from the gunports under and to each side of the nosecone, as the Nova turned left and ascended.

Right towards a suspended walkway between the two buildings!

Jason reacted out of sheer panic, spinning the ship and going high, and he just _barely_ cleared the walkway, so close his canopy almost hit the roof of the glass and metal bridge as he passed over it inverted. He hooked down to get behind it, and behind him, in his rear monitor display on the left, he saw the glass and metal walkway _explode_ as the lead fighter rammed it. The Dragonfly spun in the flying debris, relatively undamaged from the impact but the impact sending it somersaulting out of control, and it dropped to the ground in a wide arc along with the remains of the bridge, plowing into the ground in a huge cloud of dust.

Jason was too busy gripping the posts in a white-knuckled grip to care much about shaking one of his pursuers, for the other four had cleared the bridge, and there were still ten more overhead, shadowing the movements of those on the deck, waiting for the Nova to come out into the open where they could get a shot at it. Jason weaved the ship between two blocks of buildings in a scissors motion, turning back on his path with each cleared building, getting a feel for the spacing between the buildings. The Starhawks and Dragonflies kept up with him, unable to line up a shot but not dropping out of the chase, so Jason started taking the turns faster and faster, pitting his natural reflexes and his superior machine against his more experienced pursuers in their slower, less maneuverable ships. He took one turn so fast that the leading edge of his right wing nicked the glass of the building, shattering it and sending glass flying into the parkway below. But the lead Starhawk clipped its entire wing into the glass, the wing caught on a wall, and then the ship vanished as it was yanked into the building, sending a fiery cloud of building materials billowing out into the air. The Starhawk plowed through the entire floor and erupted from the glass around the corner, in a straight line from where it went in, then dropped the hundred _shakra_ to the ground below as just part of a rain of debris.

The Nova came out into a vacant lot, and Jason punched it to get through before the fighters above dove down and opened fire. He turned vertical and skimmed along the side of a building with his canopy mere inches from the glass, his air wake shattering it behind him, and then he dove to the deck as he made another turn, weaving left and then right. He nearly rammed a hovercar that came out from between the buildings in front of him, his wake sending the hovercar spinning out of control to crash into the ground, but he never saw what happened because he'd already turned between another pair of buildings. He realized he was getting deeper into the city, where the buildings would be even larger, and there would be more open space between them, giving the fighters more opportunities to fire at him. But he was also coming into some slow traffic, moving into an area of the city where hovercars flew at the altitude he was using; most sections of the city, the hovercars and zip ships flew above building level, only descending between them to land. But here, closer to the center of the city, the buildings were so tall, so massive that many hovercars simply flew between them, turning corners, mirroring what ground-bound cars back on Earth did on city streets. Those hovercars were now obstacles to avoid, as the Nova lanced along a parkway between two monstrous buildings, even as the hovercars seemed to be warned about the oncoming fast movers and tried to get out of the way, most of them going up. But, the open space let Jason open the throttle more, using his ship's advantages of speed and agility to overcome the experience of his adversaries.

He lost another pursuer when he banked a corner going nearly 200 miles an hour, plastering him to his seat because he took the bank oriented in the direction of the force, and the three remaining fighters mimicked him as they took the turn themselves. But the last remaining Starhawk just couldn't navigate the turn at that speed, and her belly slammed into the side of a building. Again, the armored fighter survived the impact, but that impact sent it out of control, bouncing it right off the building to plow stern first into the building on the far side, disappearing into it in a cloud of dust and shattered glass. The two remaining pursuers were in Dragonflies, which were smaller and more agile that Starhawks. He led those two on a mad, chaotic, meandering chase through Dracora, always turning just before they could get a line of fire at him, speeding up to nearly 500 miles an hour in the straight-aways, then braking hard and navigating tight, right-angle turns at almost impossible speeds, and basically aggravating the hell out of them. The fighters above kept trying to get into a position where they could dive down and take a shot at him from above, but he kept turning wildly, almost randomly, making it impossible to predict where he was going to go.

But Jason knew where he was going, and thanks to Miaari's sharing, he had a detailed memory of this city. He knew exactly where he was, exactly which direction the palace was in, and he was following a route that would take him right to the palace without surrendering cover from the fighters behind him, which were the much bigger threat. He could see it when the fighters overhead dove at him and react, but those two fighters behind him could shoot him down if they got a clear shot. That was the one thing he absolutely could not give them.

He turned a corner and found himself staring at a swarm of hovercars! He rolled around one car and then dove under a bunch of them, then had to jerk high to avoid one that dove away to get out of his path, but had dove right down into him. He ordered his fighter's comm to broadcast on emergency control, a frequency every hovercar's radio would receive, but someone else beat him to it. _"This is an emergency! Fighters are pursuing a renegade ship within Dracora proper, in the Trades district! All hovercars and civilian traffic in the Trades and Barter districts are to land immediately! Repeat, all hovercars and civilian traffic in the Trades and Barter districts are to land immediately!"_

That actually helped. When the Nova took another turn hard and fast, it did so _over_ a series of hovercars that were diving to the ground, moving to follow the emergency instructions and land so they would get out of danger. Jason banked again, hard, between two glass towers, and saw a glittering crystal lattice spire in the distance ahead. The spire of the palace!

Now came the gamble. He hit that broad avenue and put the Nova into overdrive, maxing out the throttle in a hard command. He was slammed into the seat of the fighter and felt his head swim as it punched supersonic in a heartbeat, the broad grassy avenue narrowing and narrowing in his vision, becoming a razor thin sliver between blurring glass and steel, where the slightest deviation off his course would cause him to drift right into one of those buildings before he could correct. The fighters behind him dwindled in the distance, but then they stopped getting smaller, even started gaining ground on him, and he knew that they were just trying to get enough of a bead on him to fire on him, try to hit him when he was going so fast he had no room to evade if they did so. Jason edged closer to a building, close enough for his sonic boom to blow out all the windows explosively, sending a cloud of broken glass out into the air behind him to conceal his ship in a cloud of scintillating colors to their eyes and confuse their sensors as they tried to read through a cloud of solid objects to lock onto him. He slammed the brakes by going into full reverse throttle seconds after sending that cloud of glass, almost sending him through the windshield and causing a jet of blood to spew from his nose as all the breath was crushed out of him, and then he nosed the Nova straight up and gained altitude, then banked hard and dove between two buildings as the blinded Dragonflies didn't react in time and overshot him, flying under him, even as three fighters above had dove down on him and fired, spraying plasma bolts into empty air where he would have been, bolts that slammed into the grassy ground below and exploded violently, further blinding the Dragonflies that flew through the smoke and debris. One of them wobbled in flight, its wing clipped a building, and then there was an explosion of glass and debris as the fighter ripped through the building, tumbling into it.

The last remaining fighter was joined by three more that had dove on the Nova, but they couldn't see him, relying on tactical scanners and control sensors in orbit above to pinpoint his location, where Jason had a full tactical view of the city sector showing him where the remaining eleven fighters were, and also showing him that nearly thirty had nearly reached the scene from other bases and were about to join the pursuit. God bless the Karinnes and their excellent sensors.

It wouldn't do them any good. He had them now.

Jason banked again into another broad avenue, and again went supersonic, pushing the Nova, pushing himself to the limits of his endurance, as he wheezed and struggled to breathe. His eyes were locked on the crystal spire that quickly got larger and larger, as he kept track of the seven fighters above as they pushed hard to get into a diving position. The small ship seemed to oblige them when it suddenly slowed down, but did not turn. They maneuvered into position, rolled, then dove at their quarry.

But the strange, small ship had vanished. It was nowhere to be seen, and it had vanished from tactical scanners.

Running lights blinking on, Jason carefully maneuvered along a small tunnel that had once been part of the subway of Dracora, part of the city's historical landmarks, a two _kathra_ section of tunnel that had not been filled in as a kind of monument to their past, but had been fenced in to prevent people from getting in. The Nova had done well in breaking through that fencing without doing any damage to itself. Right now, he knew, the fighters were searching for him, and it wouldn't take them long to find the hole in the fence and realize where he went. He had to get out of the tunnel before that happened, so they weren't sitting there waiting for him. So, he flew through the old tunnel as fast as he dared, hopeful that it was almost over. The tunnel came up only a _kathra_ from the Imperial grounds. If he could get the Nova over the fence, the fighters wouldn't _dare_ open fire on him. Not so long as he was broadcasting the Truce Call, which he ordered t