Chapter 8

Kaitha, 4401, Orthodox Calendar
Saturday, 10 January 2014, Terran Standard Calendar
Kaitha, year 1327 of the 97th Generation, Karinne Historical Reference Calendar
Foxwood East, Karsa, Karis

It was just lucky for the kids, he supposed, that Christmas and the Faey's New Year's Day had fallen so close to each other.

Not three weeks ago, the kids were unwrapping presents under the tree, but now they were opening their gift chests, which had been set out in the living rooms of houses all over Karis. The chests themselves sat in basements or attics the other 348 days of the Faey year except for the night before Kaitha, when the parents filled the chests with the gifts of the new year, and then the kids opened the chests to see what presents they got the next morning. The procedure taking place all over the Imperium this day was also taking place in the Karinne household, as Rann pushed open the lid of his gift chest and looked, wide-eyed, into the chest. Jason and Jyslin stood nearby, smiles gracing their faces as Rann gave a squeak of delight and reached into the chest.

There would usually be hymns and attending temple, templars of Trelle who had served in temple or monastery for 5 years would be renewing their vows today during those services and new templars would be inducted by literally marrying their goddess, and boys would wear garlands of flowers in their hair, but those were traditions that smacked too much of religion to Jason, and so they were not practiced in their house, just as Jason didn't talk about Jesus or sing religious-based carols during Christmas. They kept these holidays completely secular, celebrating the religious parts of them privately, though that wouldn't be easy. Kaitha was the biggest holiday in Faey culture, like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter all rolled up into one, and the holiday was very religious. But unlike Christmas, which had Santa and a secular side to it, Kaitha had no such secular version. Everything about Kaitha had a religious significance, even down to how Jyslin had kept them all up until the new year the night before. Faey always stayed up to greet the first moment of the new year, and they would burn little strips of paper holding their hopes and dreams for the new year and let the smoke carry the words to their gods, in the form of a party they had on the beach, complete with a bonfire. Jason, Tim, Luke, Temika, and Mike attended the bonfire party, but didn't take part of the burning their written wishes.

It was a rare chance to see Luke again. He'd been back for about two weeks and had about ten more days before he had to return to the Academy, and Songa had been all but dancing on air the whole time. He would be back home for good in just a couple of months, would be beginning his last semester and graduating from the Academy in April, which would make Songa the happiest woman on Karis. Songa loved Luke desperately, and Luke returned her love with all his heart. It was a burden for Songa to gather up Jari and go to Terra every time she had a day off, but she was that devoted to him and their marriage, willing to go through all that trouble to be with Luke. It was much harder now that Jari had started school, since she couldn't pull her daughter out every time she went to go see Luke. But, Jason had been quite happy to offer to watch Jari for Songa when she went to Terra.

It was a lovely morning. It had rained last night, but cleared up to give them a truly glorious sunrise, which Rann made sure they were awake to appreciate, having woke them up at 0500, a good hour before sunrise. Rann couldn't open his gift chest until sunrise, though, as per tradition, so Ayama and Surin made them breakfast, and Rann kept his eyes glued to the window facing east, watching with anxious eyes as the blue sun of Karis crept towards sunrise with, for Rann, agonizing slowness. But the sun eventually did rise on the first day of the new year for the Faey, the year 4401, and Rann dove into his gift chest. Jason and Jyslin sat on the couch and watched their son unpack the chest they'd packed the night before, the gifts all unwrapped. There were toys and clothes and some little utility gifts, and he dug his way to the bottom of the chest in what had to be record time. The present at the bottom of the chest, however, made him a little curious. What is this, Mommy? he asked, holding up a little piece of paper.

That's your last gift, she smiled in reply. Your father and I decided that, as a present, you'd get to name one of your new sisters, she told him, patting her flat belly. So, what kind of name would you like?

I get to name a sister? Oooo! he sent with excitement. Any name I want?

As long as it doesn't sound silly, yes, Jason warned. So no naming your sister Goraga-brain.

Rann laughed. Can I name her after Mommy's gramma, Siyae Shaddale? I think it's a pretty name.

Siyae it is, Jyslin said with a loving smile. And thank you, little man, that name means a lot to me. I'm touched that you'd pick it for your sister.

Question is, though, which one will be Siyae, Jason noted with a smile.

Whichever is born first, naturally, Jyslin countered, giving him a grin and a light elbow to his ribs. So, since the little man of the family got to name one, I guess I get to name the other. And I think I'll name her Beth.

Beth?

Wasn't that your grandmother's name?

It was Bethany actually, but she was always called Beth.

I like the sound of that name. "Bethany," she said, trying the acoustics out, and nodding. "Siyae and Bethany Karinne."

"Duchesses Siyae and Bethany Karinne," Jason corrected, putting his hand on Jyslin's flat stomach. "Our daughters and Rann's sisters."

After the presents were discovered, the calls began. It was tradition for a Faey to call every friend and family member and wish them a happy new year. Jyslin called her friends and extended family, including her parents, aunts, uncles, and family friends. Before Karis was unveiled, she always had to be very, very evasive about where she was and how she was going, but now she could be honest. Jason didn't really know Jyslin's family very well outside of Lorna. Jyslin was an only child, by virtue of the fact that her brother and sister had died in an accident when she was a baby, so she didn't have as many calls to make as someone else might make. After calling her parents, aunts, and uncles, she was down to calling friends on Karis to wish them a happy new year.

After the presents were discovered, usually a family would go to temple and give thanks for the year past and pray for a good year to come, but they didn't do that in the Karinne household. They instead watched some viddy while Jason took care of just a tiny bit of business. So far, they had 54 out of the needed 112 interdictors built, mainly because Kosigi was going absolutely apeshit trying to get them done as fast as possible, and they were projecting that the other half would be ready in 13 days. The entire base was focused on interdictors, even over stripping other critical projects of resources, like the Consortium ship and expanding the drydocks. The engineers working on the Consortium ship had no support, no workers, they had to do everything themselves because all their workers were on a drydock assembling an interdictor. There were 58 bays devoted to interdictors, which was the 58 they needed built, and over half of them were manned by Kimdori. The Kimdori had all but depopulated their own projects to come help them build interdictors, the same staffing levels as had initially come to Karis when Jason had first discovered who he was. That massive increase in labor was letting them get the interdictors built faster than they'd projected, and that was only a good thing. Defending the Imperium and the Collective was the most important thing there was going right now, because neither Dahnai nor Sk'Vrae wanted to deal with 3,400 Consortium ships jumping into one of their systems and attacking. Dahnai was holding up her side of the bargain, having whipped every gate-producing company into overdrive to supply the 58 Stargates they'd need to set up a system of gates for the Collective, which would all be concentrated at Aurigae the same way that the Imperium's gates were concentrated at Draconis. Several crossover gates privately owned by houses had been commandeered for the project, which pissed off several Grand Duchesses, since they now had no way to secretly move materials or ships between their own systems.

The defense of Terra was also ready. That too was going to be a surprise move, and the defense of the gate on the outside was already prepared. They would place the gate inside the interdicted space of the Terran system, at a point that would take a ship nearly an hour at light speed to reach the Stargate but would actually be about a three hour cruise since most ships did not like moving at light speed, and what was more important, only Imperium ships would be permitted to use it. Dahnai had already donated a large deep space station to use as a terminal of sorts where visitors to Terra could dock, get off their ships, then catch a transport to Terra on an Imperium transport. The empires that traded with the Imperium would be utterly pissed off, because it meant that they would have to offload all their cargo at the space station and send it on, but Dahnai had already promised not to use that chokepoint to milk extra fees out of them. All transport into and out of Terra from the station would be free of charge, and cargo moving through the station would pay only an extra 1,200 credits per shipment to cover the shipping costs of getting it from the station to its destination within the Imperium or Collective. That was not a very large fee, and most traders wouldn't grumble too much about it.

This choice had been made for one simple reason, to tighten security. With the transfer point rule, it meant that nothing would be coming into the Imperium that was not thoroughly inspected at the station. They would know exactly who was in the Imperium, what cargo and goods were coming into the Imperium, and what that cargo was. Nobody could sneak in bombs, nobody could smuggle anything in, which would no doubt piss the Trefanis off something awful, and it gave Dahnai and Sk'Vrae absolute control of what came into their separate domains. And by restricting all visitors to the Imperium only to Terra, it completely protected the rest of the Imperium and the Collective from any outside threat. The only outsiders that would be allowed off of Terra would be ambassadors to Dahnai and Sk'Vrae, and they would be in such small numbers that they would be easy to manage and control.

Not that this was usually much of a problem. Most outside races did not like coming to the Imperium, because of the Faey and their telepathy. Going to vacation on a planet where the indigenous population could hear every thought in your head wasn't most tourists' idea of a vacation destination. The Faey were very much pariahs in the sector, because their telepathy made other races very uncomfortable around them. The only non-Faey that really didn't mind them were the other races of the Imperium, who were used to being around them. The Menoda, the Makati, and the Parri didn't mind them, the Goraga were too stupid to really understand it, and the Kizzik were more or less invulnerable to talent because of their radically different minds, minds so alien to the Faey that they couldn't even send to them… just like those insectoids in the Consortium. The Kizzik and those Consortium insectoids were highly resistant to telepathic attack, protected by the very alien natures of their minds.

The plan was also moving along perfectly. Emae and Semoya had quite effectively whipped their houses into a frenzy, and their fleets had mobilized as rumors of a house war rippled through the Imperium. Last night, Dahnai let the palace leak the tidbit that Dahnai had finally caught wind of what was going on, and was going to charge back home and start bullying some Grand Duchesses as soon as New Year's Day was over, since no Faey would ever dare start a war on New Year's Day. It was a holy day, and any Grand Duchess that ordered an attack on New Year's Day would be a social outcast and pariah in the Imperium. Dahnai would be leaving early tomorrow morning to start mobilizing the fleets.

And had she been busy. She'd had a lot of fun on Karis, treating it like a vacation, spending a lot of time with her children, and also a lot of time with Jason and his family. Rann was now best friends with Maer and Sirri, and Dahnai and Kellin had toured the planet, went on several day trips, and also trying to sneak her way into places she shouldn't be and learn things she wasn't supposed to know. But, Jason allowed her those little attempts, because she couldn't really do much. And Symone had utterly corrupted Dahnai. She enjoyed having Jason and Tim handy for a little extra-marital fun, and she also availed herself of Symone, giving her another woman to practice on.

Siyhaa had also been a very, very busy demonic girl… or whatever she was, but for different reasons. She had completed her dissection of the Consortium's computer language yesterday, and was now decoding the information that they'd recovered from the computer core of the enemy ship. She'd promised to have her initial report ready today, since she didn't celebrate Faey holidays. And Jason was waiting for her to call.

Miaari padded into the living room, carrying a small box. "I hope I am not too late!" she said, looking down at Rann with her tail wagging. "Happy New Year's Day, little Rann!" she said, holding the box out towards him. "I have a present for you!"

"Aww, thanks, Miss Miaari!" he said excitedly, rushing over to her. He took the box from her, but Miaari gave a clicking sound when he shook the box.

"No, my dear child, what is inside will not like to be shaken!" she warned. "Set it down and open it," she urged.

He did so, setting the ornate wooden box on the coffee table, then opening the lid and peering inside. He gasped in shock and threw the lid back, reached in, and pulled out his present.

It was a vulpar!

It was a very, very small vulpar, a weaned kit, about the size of a kitten. It was a ruddy red color on its back, with dark stripes along its flanks and a white tummy and ruff, white fur that ran up its neck and completely covered its muzzle. It had a band of brown fur over its eyes, looking almost like a mask, and black tufted tips on its ears. Like all vulpars, it had two tails, red with white tips, and those two tails were swaying independently of each other as it regarded Rann with curious eyes.

"Oh, wow!" Rann said in amazement, holding the vulpar out at arm's length, gazing at it in wonder.

"Introduce yourself, Rann," Miaari urged.

"I'm Rann," he told the vulpar. "It's so nice to meet you!"

The vulpar blinked lazily, yawned, then gave him a steady look.

"Set her down, Rann, and let her inspect you," Miaari instructed. "She has to decide if she likes you."

"Huh?"

"Vulpars are very smart and very picky, dear," Miaari told him. "She has to decide if she wants to live here, so set her down and let her inspect you."

"Oh. Okay!" he said, setting the tiny little animal down. It yawned again, sat down and scratched at its ear with its hind leg, then stood up and started sniffing at Rann's legs, who knelt in front of it and watched the animal with wonder.

"Don't you think you should have asked us before giving Rann a vulpar?" Jyslin asked simply.

"I thought your family owned a vulpar, Jyslin."

"My parents do, yes, but still, you know how vulpars are. You may have gotten his hopes up for no reason."

The vulpar sniffed at Rann's bare legs, then got up and waddled around him, circling him imperiously. It then padded under the coffee table and sniffed at Jyslin's foot. It then climbed up the couch using its tiny retractable claws, then walked across Jyslin's lap to inspect Jason, sniffing at his thigh. It climbed up onto his lap, jumped over to the coffee table, and then sidled across it, moving towards Rann. It sat on the edge of the coffee table, then gave a single, squeaky barking sound.

"Pick her up, Rann," Miaari urged. "She wants you to pick her up."

"Okay," he said, crawling over to the coffee table on his little knees, then picking up the tiny animal. He cradled the vulpar gently, scratching her behind her ears with one hand as his other cradled the tiny animal, which looked much larger in his son's hands.

"Now we will show her your house, my young one," Miaari told him. "We must take her to every single room, from the basement to the attic, set her down, and let her inspect it. Once she has inspected the house, she will make her decision."

"Oh, okay! Where do we start?"

"Let us start with the basement," she said with a smile, offering here clawed paw to him. "I will go with you, just in case you need help opening a door."

"Let's go!" he said excitedly.

After Miaari and Rann left for the kitchen, Jason chuckled. So nice of her to give us a pet out of the blue.

Eh, it's a vulpar, Jyslin shrugged. They're very good pets, if they'll accept you. My parents have one. It won't cause us any trouble. It's just a baby, she mused. I wonder where Miaari got it from.

Well, there are plenty of vulpars on Karis, maybe someone's vulpar had kits, Jason offered.

Probably, but we'd probably have heard about it by now. That vulpar may be a baby, but it's weaned, so it has to be about a year old.

That old?

They can live for a hundred years, love, she reminded him. They nurse for about a year before the mother weans them. And then the mother had to allow the kit to be taken, she mused. They don't do that unless they really trust the one who takes it. That young, I'm surprised the mother isn't also here to inspect us to make sure we'll provide a good home for her baby. I guess the mother really trusts Miaari to let her take her kit without knowing where she's taking it.

Jason and Jyslin watched with some amusement as Rann and Miaari let the little vulpar kit inspect the entire house. Ayama and Surin were a bit surprised when Rann ambled into their private room off the kitchen holding the vulpar and set it down, but they didn't mind all that much once they realized what was going on. Miaari had to help Rann get into the attic, but when they were done up there, Miaari took Rann outside so the vulpar could look around their yard. After about a half hour outside, as Jason and Jyslin helped Ayama start cooking for the new year's day feast

When they came back inside, Rann was walking backwards in front of the tiny vulpar, who was giving a yipping sound, its two tails wagging in a hypnotically spiraling pattern.

"Well, I think you should name her, Rann," Jyslin said with a bright smile. "I think she's decided she wants to stay with us for a while."

"But remember, my young one, vulpars are never owned," Miaari warned him. "There may come a time later when she decides she wants to leave. If that happens, you must allow her to go. She is your guest, not your possession."

"I'll remember," Rann said with a nod, then he giggled when the vulpar started nibbling on his toes. "Can I name her Amber?"

"You can name her anything she likes, little man," Jyslin said with a smile. "Ask her if she likes it."

"Do you like it if I call you Amber?" Rann addressed the vulpar, and it looked up at him and gave a yipping bark.

"She likes it," Jyslin told him. "So her name is Amber."

"How can you tell it's a girl?" Jason asked curiously.

"The tails. Boy vulpars have black tips on their tails. Girls don't."

"Ah."

And so, the Karinne household increased by one, and quite by surprise. Tiny little Amber the vulpar quickly made herself at home in the house, and it required very little accommadation for her. Miaari brought a litter box for them which they set in the laundry room, and Ayama set down a water dish for her in the kitchen. Jason learned that vulpars ate what they ate, didn't eat "pet food," but were omnivorous. Vulpars that were fed pet food quickly left the house; in that regard, they were exceptionally finicky and demanding. But they weren't that hard to please. They liked variety in their diets, and just setting an extra plate for a vulpar during meals was all one really had to do to make them happy. They just detested eating the same food over and over, day after day, and since Amber was so tiny, she wouldn't be eating much food.

Rann made a special point of going to the houses of all his brothers, sisters, and friends on the strip and showing off his vulpar to them. Amber was quite happy to be the center of attention as they gawked at her, strutting maybe just a little bit under all the attention.

But Jason had other things on his mind than the new pet. Siyhaa called him just before lunch to tell him she was ready, and Jason was in a dropship and on the way to Kosigi with Miaari and Tim, leaving behind an angry wife and a curious Dahnai. Jason barely had any time to wonder what Siyhaa had learned from the enemy ship before they were flying down the long tunnel into the base. "Well, she's fast," Tim noted as they entered the vast void of Kosigi's air-filled interior. "I wonder what she discovered."

"Me too," Jason said. "I just hope it's information we can use."

"At this point, any information at all will be information we can use," Miaari noted. "We know so little of our foes, any information at all would be helpful to us."

They met Siyhaa in her Kosigi office, which was on the small core of the base. She had six Moridon in the office with her, all of them sitting at consoles with interfaces on their ears, using the interfaces to interact with the computers, far faster than any other input device. The interfaces let them think at the computers, though they still had to rely on monitors and external sensory input to receive information from the computers.

"Mahja," Jason greeted, taking the massive female's hand in greeting.

"Your Grace," she said, giving Miaari a cool look, which wasn't easy when one had glowing red eyes. Siyhaa's look seemed to amuse Miaari. "Shall we get down to business?"

"Please," he said, and they followed her into a small conference room. They sat at the table as Siyhaa fixed an interface over her ear, then turned and looked to the monitor at the end of the room. The monitor activated, and the Moridon crest appeared with the name of Siyhaa's computer company surrounding it. "The analysis of the data we recovered from the Consortium ship is complete," she said. "I will send a hard copy of this data to the intelligence office of Miaari of the Kimdori, as well as to your personal computer at home, your Grace, so you may review the data later." That, of course, meant that Cybi would get the data… and she'd get it now, since Jason linked her to his gestalt, which would let her see and hear everything in the room.

A graph appeared. "First, a basic overview," she began. "We recovered twenty-seven point two percent of the data within the computer. Sixty-two percent of this data was computer language programming dealing with the operation of the ship, and thus is of low priority. The other thirty-eight percent, however, contains historical data, including nearly nine years of historical data of the ship itself. It is the ship's log, to use a term."

A picture of several galaxies appeared. "The ship had no name," she noted, "only a designation. The ship was built in the Andromeda galaxy eleven years ago, and was dispatched to our galaxy six years ago. The journey took the ship four point seven years," she noted calmly as a line drew itself between two galaxies, between Andromeda and their own galaxy. "The ship made the journey with its crew in stasis, suspended animation. That is how they survived such a long journey without going mad," she surmised. "From what we recovered from the logs, the ship stood sentry at an outpost for most of the time it was here," she told them, and a starchart appeared with one star highlighted in the Beta Quadrant. "Here. Star ZXJ two nine two. There is a deep space station there roughly the size of Kosigi," she added. "Which the ship's sensor logs noted they were still building when the ship was deployed to Exile and was captured."

"The size of Kosigi?" Jason asked.

A picture of the base, a honeycomb of struts, pods, and spars, appeared on the monitor, some of the holes between them occupied by ships, and with some holes much larger than others. It was roughly spherical in shape, and there were smaller honeycombed spheres inside it, layer upon layer of hollow shells one inside the next, like a Fabregè egg. "Analysis of sensor data and logs indicates that the base is capable of hosting and servicing roughly six thousand vessels," she intoned. "At capture, the data we analyzed suggests that there were about four hundred ships present."

"So that's the base the Alliance found?"

"No. It is not," Siyhaa said immediately. "This is a different base."

"So they have two bases?"

"They have many more than that," Siyhaa told him. "Analysis of the data indicates that there are nine bases like this one scattered through the Beta Quadrant," she told him, pointing at the honeycomb base, then the screen split to show a starchart of the Beta Quadrant with sixteen blinking points. "Each of these locations holds either a major base like this one or a smaller base. All of them have been towed here from Andromeda, and the Consortium is in the act of activating the bases after their long journey. This base was the first to arrive, but the data in the ship indicates that it visited the site of a new base that had just arrived three takirs before we captured the ship. It escorted a transport convoy ferrying workers and cargo to the new base."

"So, they're setting up for extended action in our galaxy," Tim said grimly.

"Yes. They are here to stay," Siyhaa said with a calm nod. "But that is not the worst of it, your Grace," she told him.

"Well, what's the worst of it?"

"According to the data in the ship, its next mission was to act as picket and await the arrival of yet another base about six hours of hyperspace travel from here, at this location," she noted, zooming in to that area, populated by a white giant star with no planets. "According to the data, the main body of the Consortium fleet is supposed to arrive with the base, and immediately break up and go to the other bases that are in operation for resupply."

"Main body? You mean the three thousand ships they have here aren't it?"

She shook her head. "The data are not precise, but from the data we managed to analyze, I would estimate the number of incoming ships to be approximately thirty thousand," she told him.

"Thirty thousand?" Jason gasped, his face turning white.

"Yes. Appoximately ten percent of their total fleet," she said grimly, "but the data fragments we analyzed suggests that the deployed fleet is all they deemed to risk. The Consortium is at war in Andromeda, your Grace. What they send here is what they feel they can deploy away from the main war effort. But the fleets left five years ago, so there is no way to know if that war is still being waged."

Jason leaned back in his chair, his face pale. Thirty thousand ships. Good God! Add those to the 3400 ships that were already here, and that was an attack fleet of 33,400 ships! The combined military might of every fleet in the sector couldn't stand up to that kind of invasion. That was nearly twice the size of the combined fleets of all the empires in the sector!

And that was only one tenth of the total fleet of the Consortium? Holy shit, how big was their empire?

"That is what they're waiting for," Miaari said weakly. "They are waiting for this fleet to arrive, bringing numbers against which we cannot stand. They analyzed the fleet strengths of the sector and brought a force that could conquer all of the empires, even if they joined together to resist. And they know that they will need those overwhelming numbers to penetrate the planetary defenses and capture Cybi and the planet. They know three thousand ships cannot penetrate our defenses, so they have summoned forth ten times that number. They will attempt to defeat us with sheer numbers, a strategy most used by the Skaa."

"I would venture to agree with you, Kimdori," Siyhaa nodded gravely. "The data suggests that the fleet will arrive at that base in twenty-four days. Give them five days to spread out to their bases and resupply, five more days to redeploy, and you could expect them to be ready to mount an offensive action within thirty-four days."

"Holy God," Tim grunted.

"At this point, I would suggest in the highest possible terms that you complete the interdictors," Siyhaa told them. "And I would suggest that you close the Academy and forget the plan to leave a way into the Imperium. The size of the enemy fleet would make any gate or way into friendly space an immediate target that could not withstand an attack." She gave him a grim look. "And I would beg, on behalf of my people, that you make an interdictor and a gate available for Moridon, just in case the Mob changes its mind and accepts the aid of the Imperium and the Collective. There is no telling if the Consortium will honor our neutrality."

"I will," Jason said with a nod, thinking furiously. Thirty thousand ships. Holy fuck, what were they going to do?

They would put up their interdictors and stall like motherfuckers, that's what they would do, give them as much time as possible to prepare to come out from behind their walls and fight the Consortium, drive them back.

"Cybi," Jason called aloud. "Have you been listening?"

"I have," she answered, using speakers in the ceiling.

"If we abandon all other construction projects and focus completely on interdictors, how fast can we complete the interdictors and get them set up?"

"Fourteen days," she answered. "Ten days to get them built, and four days to get them in place and give them the required two days to power up. We can build an additional one hundred sixteen interdictors in the twenty day window Mahja suggests, two production cycles for each bay converted for interdictor production. Forty-three of them should be deployed around Karis to increase the interdicted zone, which leaves one hundred twenty-one additional interdictors available for deployment. If we do not increase the interdicted space around Karis, we would still not have enough interdictors to completely protect every system owned by those who attended the summit," she added seriously. "Besides, the Imperium will not have that many Stargates available to connect them to the outside. Given records I can access, Empress Dahnai will only have twelve extra pairs of Stargates available after the Collective is given gates and one pair is set aside for Moridon. Thirteen pairs if we do not leave a way into Terra. That gives us the ability to only connect thirteen allied systems to us. That would be just enough for the Nine Colonies and the four systems owned by the Shio. From here, we must pick our friends. We cannot protect everyone."

"I'm not worried about the sector, I'm just worried about us," Jason grunted, rubbing his temples.

"Jason, this is not something we should discuss among just us," Miaari said urgently. "We must summon Denmother, Dahnai, and Sk'Vrae."

"No. Not yet," Jason said grimly. "We can't let the Consortium know we know what's coming. If we tell Dahnai or Sk'Vrae, they're going to find out, and we'll see them attacking with what ships they do have to try to stop us. Their thirty four hundred ships can overwhelm the Imperium's fleet, but they're afraid that if they do attack, the other empires will abandon neutrality and counterattack, because neither the Alliance nor the Skaa will commit to an alliance with them. We do exactly what we're already doing. As long as we stay quiet, they will just wait for their ships to arrive and have their overwhelming advantage, and by then it'll be too late. The instant we get the interdictors up, then we tell the sector what's coming and let them decide how they want to play it. We can summon Denmother, but we cannot let word of this leave this room," he said grimly.

"Agreed. I will call Denmother, so she might listen in," Miaari said, with a bit of disappointment, and her eyes took a distant look as she accessed her memory band.

About a minute later, a hologram of Zaa wavered into view just behind their table. "Is this true, Jason?" she asked immediately.

"It is true, Denmother of Kimdori," Siyhaa answered for him. "Unless the data we recovered from the enemy ship is intentionally false, it is true. But I do not think they would do such a thing."

Zaa's face was troubled, and she had a furry hand to her chest. "You are certain it is that many ships?"

"The data we extracted are not absolutely precise," Siyhaa answered. "The records state that thirty divisional fleets are en route, and the background data we have tells us that their military structure numbers one thousand ships to a divisional fleet. That is thirty thousand ships."

Zaa's tail wilted. "Jason, I would ask for an interdictor and a pair of Stargates for Kimdori Prime," she said immediately. "We will place the gate in the quasar with the gate leading to Karis, and tighten our defenses at the quasar to make it even more difficult to gain entry to attempt to penetrate to Karis or capture the gates."

"I'll make sure they're set aside for you," Jason told her.

"Alright, that was the worst news," Tim grunted. "What good news do you have for us, Siyhaa?"

The female gave him a slight look. "There is good news," she said. "Firstly, and most importantly, we have thorougly analyzed their sensor systems, and have found that while their long range sensors are quite advanced, they suffer from a weakness that we can exploit using an idea used once before. Jason, the Cloaking Matrix System you developed years ago will evade their sensors, as will the stealth field technology utilized by the Urumi, which can cloak larger ships. That means that we can effectively stealth both large and small ships to slip past them, or surprise them."

"Secondly, we have fully decrypted and decoded their computer language, and between this and the dismantling of the enemy ship, we have also extracted enough data to work out how they communicate. I have already sent this data to Myleena and the department of engineering. They will be able to build communication devices that will allow us to listen in on their communications, and we have all their encryption codes," she said with a grim smile.

"We will have total access to their communications?" Zaa asked.

"Total," she nodded in reply. "We know the language they use for communications, we have their encryption algorithms, and we can build replicas of their communications equipment. I estimate we will have total penetration and acquisition of their communication network in four days. They will have a huge numerical advantage, but we will have the advantage of knowing their every move."

"What kind of communications do they use?"

"They modulate hyperspace string energy chains," she answered. "It has the same effective range as Karinne Teryon communications. They are able to communicate with their Andromeda superiors, though there is a two month delay in messages due to the extreme distances. The Karinnes would be wise in taking the string transceiver in the enemy ship and setting it up in an intelligence center, and start listening."

"I will take care of it as soon as we finish here," Miaari said. "Mahja, after we conclude, would you kindly assist me in tracking down Myleena and forcing her to set up their communicator in my department, and shall the three of us master its use?"

"On this we do agree, Kimdori," she nodded in assent. "Another issue of good news is that we know when and where this fleet is going to arrive. Jason. Is there not some weapon or trap we can lay for them?"

Jason leaned back and put a finger and thumb to his chin, lost in thought. No, trapping their arrival point wouldn't be a good idea, but trapping an area of space in front of that point, away from the Consortium ships that would be there to greet them, well…

Two key points brought up were important here. First, Siyhaa said that the crews were put in stasis for the five year journey, so the ships would be operated by the computers, which were immune to the detrimental effects of hyperspace on living creatures… and it wasn't a bad idea, Jason had to admit. He wouldn't mind a four hour hyperspace jump if was put to sleep for the journey. Secondly, she said that they were coming from Andromeda. That meant that the window of vectors from which their fleets would come would be very narrow, given the vast distances involved. He figured that only three to seven interdictors laid across a tract of space would catch the fleets and drop them into normal space, and there would be no crews awake in those ships to react to the sudden and unexpected circumstances. So, once they dropped them into normal space, how did one go about attacking thirty thousand ships that would be vulnerable to attack for at least a good few minutes before the computer woke up the crews?

The crews.

The crews!

"Cybi," he said suddenly, standing up as he sent raw thought and data through his gestalt. "Will that work?"

"I would say that it has a very good chance," she answered immediately. "It would be difficult to build so many, but much easier than it would be to build devices that would destroy their ships."

"What idea?" Tim asked.

"The insectoid crews of those ships are vulnerable to high gravity," Cybi answered. "Jason, in his youth, built mines that attacked ships and destroyed them by overloading and destroying their engines. We could easily build a simple mine that, when it explodes, generates a high distortion shockwave, which is designed to overload and destroy gravometric engines. The engines, when they are destroyed, unleash a gravometric shockwave which will then kill the crews because they cannot tolerate the gravity induced, where human or Faey crews could. We could not get all of them, but we could get many of them. Their ships would not be totally destroyed, but they will have no crews to man them, and replacing gravometric engines is expensive and time-consuming. It would delay them for quite some time."

"Isn't there some way to destroy them?" Siyhaa asked.

"Not that I could build in two weeks," Jason grunted. "When you're pressed for time, you go for simple. I could build a bomb that could wipe out everything from here to Karis, but it would take time to build it. But I could build a few thousand little mines in two weeks, easily."

"By rush contracting through the Imperium and Collective, we could build well over twenty thousand in two weeks," Cybi corrected.

Tim laughed. "I remember those mines!" he said with a laugh.

"We know how to attack their engines, because they're using our engines," Jason said grimly. "I could design a mine that would overload and blow up their engines in a day. We can use the old Legion mine design as a base, design them, mass produce the fuck out of them, and seed them through the area where the Consortium fleets will appear, because we'll have a line of interdictors set up across their course to force them into normal space. They drop into normal space, and—" he clapped his hands loudly. "The mines go after them."

"Do you think you could build so many so quickly?" Siyhaa asked.

Miaari laughed. "Sister Kiaari saw a small group of humans, using basic tools, build over a thousand mines inside a week," she told the Moridon. "Yes, it could be done. Once a production facility is tooled to produce the mines, it could produce a thousand mines a day. Now put one hundred factories to work doing that. In two weeks, we could build enough mines to seed a massive area."

"We do more than that. We set up hyperspace missle batteries armed with warheads like those mines at the interdictors and sync their engines with the distortion field," Tim proposed. "But we don't send them after the ships that appear. We point them at any ship that surivives the attack, which will make the Consortium have to try to drag their ships out of the interdiction field—" He stopped, then laughed. "We put interdictors behind the ships too, and as soon as they hit the interdictor on one side, we turn them on!" he said with a bright smile. "If we can delay them from jumping out for just a couple of hours, they'll be looking at ten hours or more cruising at sublight to try to get past the interdiction field, and they'll be pounded by missles the entire way!"

"There are a bunch of things we can do, but all of them depend on us knowing exactly when and where they're going to be," Jason said. "Siyhaa, you have a couple of mathematical geniuses on your staff. Have them get together with our star cartography and exploration department and map out the most likely vectors the Consortium will use to send in those fleets. If we can pinpoint where they show up, we can open the whole box of toys and give them the rudest welcome they've ever received," he said with a dreadful kind of eagerness. "Cybi. I want an emergency meeting of the KMS and the engineering departments called immediately. And can you generate the plans for the mine for me please?"

"It will be ready in an hour."

"Good. Get hold of Kumi and tell her that I want as many factories as possible she can find building those mines by tomorrow morning."

"Send me the plans, Cybi, and I will have our factories begin work on them," Zaa announced.

"I… I thought you would be less, eager, your Grace," Siyhaa said uncertainly.

Jason and Tim laughed. "This isn't much different from what we did back in the Legion, fighting against Trillane," he said with an earnest smile. "I'm not afraid to take on a vastly superior force, Mahja, especially when I can do it hiding behind an impenetrable wall and without putting my own people in direct jeopardy. If the Consortium wants to play with me, they'll find I have a lot of toys, and they're not very friendly toys," he declared.

"This'll be like the old days, except we'll have actual resources," Tim grinned.

"And a nice place to live," Jason agreed.

"And help."

"Lots of help," Jason said with a smile, looking to Zaa.

"You will get it," Zaa said.

"Good. I feel a hell of a lot better fighting than I do hiding," he said confidently. "Please continue, Mahja, and sorry we sidetracked you."

She cleared her throat, a rather frightening sound, then she blinked her glowing red eyes. "There is actually little more to add," she said. "With their programming language decoded, we have the ability to interface with their computers, though we know nothing of their input systems. What we learned from the enemy ship is that their computers are not accessible by remote. If we are to infiltrate their computers, we must do it from inside. We have also learned their written language, and have extracted enough data from the computer to develop a spoken syntax. It is unusual in that it deals with the mandibles of the insectoids, which would make it unspeakable to us. There is an alternate visual form of the language, though, that deals in light. We believe that is how the energy beings communicate. Unfortunately, we could not recover the entire visual syntax of the language, only about sixty percent of it. The rest of that data was destroyed. With further computer analysis, however, we believe we can reconstruct the rest of the light-based language, but that will take another two to three weeks."

"That sounds promising," Jason told her. "Do you think you can install a new computer in the Consortium vessel?"

"Easily," she said with a nod. "That is all, your Grace. All we have managed to learn so far that I am ready to discuss. We are working on more, but until we have enough to present to you, we will leave it be. But this information, we knew it must be released to you immediately."

"Then I would say we're done," Jason said, standing up. "And we move from one meeting to another. Denmother, we'll break while you get here," he told her.

Her hologram nodded. "I will be on my way within ten minutes," she answered, then her hologram faded as she broke her connection.

"Mahja, Miaari, go get it done," Jason commanded.

"At once, Jason," Miaari nodded. "Come, my worthy foe, let us kidnap Myleena. we have a job to do."

"Yes, we do," she nodded, and the two rivals left the conference room, leaving Jason and Tim.

"Alright, Tim, dust off your old Legion hat," Jason said with a grim smile. "It's time to go back to fighting the entire universe."

"With pleasure!" he said with a jaunty smile.

Jason felt… odd. He was scared out of his mind at the idea of facing so vast an enemy fleet, that would certainly steamroll every other empire in the sector into joining them just to avoid being annihilated. And yet, he felt like he could do something. Just as before, when he was facing the impossible task of kicking Trillane off Earth, he felt there was a plan of action here, and that was to go back to his roots and again become a toymaker, doing as much damage as possible without actively risking any of his own people. Knowing when and where this fleet was going to arrive was a vast weight taken off his shoulders. It would let him strike back, show them that the Karinnes were not going to just lay down and die for them, that from behind the safety of their interdictors, they would fight. It would not be a conventional war, oh no. Jason would lose a conventional war. No, this would be a guerilla war, an unconventional war, and those, well… Jason was very good at fighting those kinds of wars. He would test these insects and these energy beings and see how well they reacted to unconventional tactics, how they dealt with unusual devices, how well they could defend against a foe that didn't use the same rulebook they did.

The same plan against Trillane would work here. Until the Consortium established solid bases here and could begin to produce, they were dependent on Andromeda for the large bulk of their reinforcements, and that was a five year delay. They would certainly move to establish shipbuilding facilities, secure food for their two species, and probably bully many other empires into joining them, or just outright conquer them, to gain access to their manufacturing bases and resources. The key to it would be to deal as much damage as humanly possible in that critical window between the arrival of the fleet and their securing resources to repair or construct their ships. They already had some of that in place now with those moon-sized bases, which could certainly build or repair their vessels, but they knew where they were, and that meant that they could attack them. Not directly, oh no, never that, but there were any number of ways Jason could think of, right off the top of his head, to damage, cripple, or just basically annoy the everliving fuck out of those bases.

Perhaps those insects would love a few thousand Friendly Puppies tossed into an open landing bay, or a few hundred harmonic conduit disintegrators launched at one of their major bases, or an armor-tipped missle punching into their ships and unleashing a cloud of his special marbles to wreak havoc on their internal systems, or a My Little Pony liquefacting every piece of metal within a hundred yards of it, making it as pliable and strong as silly putty, or the heavy metal band Blood Nugget's current headbanger smash I Live To Hate blasted into their little mind devices in an endless loop. A transceiver tuned to their devices inserted into hyperspace and set to broadcast out into normal space, right at the center of one of their honeycomb bases…

Yes. There were many things they could do to slow down, frustrate, damage, and annoy the Consortium. A mixture of conventional military attacks and Legion-style toys and guerilla attacks on their infrastructure and organization could put them on their heels and wonder what the fuck they got themselves into coming to this galaxy and picking a fight with the Imperium and the Collective.

He couldn't let fear rule him. He had fought an impossible war and won once before. He had to do it again. He'd had plenty of help the last time, but he again had plenty of help. The Kimdori, the Imperium, and the Collective were all in this together, and they would fight together to resist the Consortium and this naked attempt to conquer this sector of the galaxy.

He had to do everything in his power to protect the Imperium and their Collective allies, and what was more important, they had to protect Cybi at all costs. She was the most precious living thing in the entire galaxy, and the entire house would lay down their lives to protect her.


After the initial, almost faint-inducing shock, they got down to business.

And it wasn't a command staff meeting like anything the generals had ever seen, for nearly half of the people in the conference were human. They were the original ranking members of the Legion, Luke and Tom, Temika and Mike, Rita and Leamon, Jyslin and Symone, Kumi and Fure, Meya and Myra, Songa and Yohne, and also Jenny and Bo, who had survived the crash of the dropship long ago when it was shot down and had been released after getting out of the hospital, everyone that had once held a position of importance in the old organization, those most familiar with what went on when one was fighting against Trillane. First, Jason broke the bad news, that they would be facing a fleet of tens of thousands of ships and sixteen bases capable of supporting an armada that size. Then he told them the good news, that they'd get the first shot at them because they would know where and when that fleet was going to arrive.

"The Karinnes need the Legion for this," Jason told his old friends. "Because if we're going to fight, we'll have to do it Legion style. We simply can't fight the Consortium ship to ship, fleet to fleet. We have to harass them, fight with toys, fight a guerilla war, and save the direct military confrontations for opportunistic attacks on weakened or isolated enemy positions. And we're going to start with their arrival," he declared. "With a little mathematical plotting, we can figure out where they're going to be, and we know when they'll be there. So we have a chance to get in the first shot unopposed. We obviously can't do it with a military strike, but there's nothing stopping us from introducing the Consortium to the Legion." Jason explained the initial ideas he and Tim had. "So, there it is, guys. Interdictors to drop them into normal space where we want them, and then a face full of good old fashioned Legion ingenuity. What other ideas do you have?"

They had plenty.

Over the next six hours, the conference developed a plan of action concerning that incoming fleet. The isolation by interdictor idea was borrowed from Tim to develop an interdicted "cage" of sorts, which would rely on them knowing almost exactly where those fleets were going to arrive, and how. There were two ways the Consortium could have jumped their fleet; either the entire fleet did not jump together, that it was coming in waves to allow ships to get out of the jump destination area, or it did jump as a single force. If it jumped as a single force, it would actually be easy to attack it, but the odds were it jumped in waves, for coordinating thirty thousand ships all jumping in unison wouldn't be easy. The cage would have interdicted space on five sides, creating a "tunnel" of sorts that the enemy ships would travel down before hitting the end, and the cage would close the instant the first wave of ships hit interdicted space, activating the interdictors behind that would be spaced in such a way that they would entrap the fleet within 15 minutes. Once the ships hit the trap, that would activate automated weaponry. Mines, automated Torsion weapon platforms, Torsion shockwave generators that would attempt to kill the ship crews and damage the ships, and hyperspace missles, all of which would relentlessly attack the ships until the crews were awakened from their stasis and able to respond. They would use nothing that the Consortium didn't already have, give them no new technology… they would just show them a new way to use it. They would unleash that hell on the Consortium, then, when the Consortium had destroyed the last of the automated weaponry, the interdictors would remain in operation long enough for the second little surprise to reach them, asteroids towed behind ships moving at 2/3 light speed and then released, effectively turning them into missles that would annihilate anything they hit. That would be accomplished by the Kimdori fleet, which would be lurking about 20 minutes from the projected attack point and then would start out with their meteor bowling balls as soon as the caging interdictor activated. The hope was at least a few of them would hit Consortium ships whose engines were destroyed by the mines, wiping them out. The interdictors would not be left alone, they would be defended by a KMS tactical formation of one cruiser and two destroyers, then would be be jumped out by towing after either the interdictors were threatened in some way or the defending ships needed to resupply, at which time they'd disengage the interdictors and jump out, heading home in a series of 60 six minute hyperspace jumps.

Six hours of constant hyperspace travel was a Consortium advantage with their putting their crews into stasis. The KMS and Kimdori attackers would have to leave for the arrival point five days beforehand, because it was going to take them one to two days just to get there, and then they had to deploy their surprises, activate the interdictors, then get the support ships out of there before the interdictors closed the cage around them.

They knew they couldn't destroy even a tenth of the fleet, but they would be sending a message to the Consortium, a message that the Imperium and the Collective were not going to just lay down and die for them. They were going to fight, fight any way they could, and that meant that certain free-thinking individuals with large boxes of toys and an evil disposition of thought would be devoting their lives to making life hell for the Consortium's military commanders.

It was time for the Legion Phoenix to fly once again.

There was planning, and there was also logistics. Kumi and Zaa quickly worked out exactly what they needed and what they had to buy, and by sunset down at the strip, they had everything set up and ready for the next month.

First, the original plan would continue. They were still vulnerable to the 3400 ships that were already here, even if they were busy preparing for the coming of this major attack fleet. If they had any inkling of what the Imperium and the Collective were about to do, they'd drop everything and attack with everything they had, to isolate Karis and deny them any kind of assistance. Semoya and Emae would continue their plan to hide the fleet mobilizations of the Imperium, and Sk'Vrae would quietly prepare what fleet she had left as well. They'd have the interdictors they needed to isolate the two empires ready in 12 days, so they were 14 days from complete isolation from the Consortium and everyone else. On that day, when the interdictors were installed at every system except for Terra, Dahnai would officially warn everyone about the Consortium fleet and that the Imperium and the Collective were officially closed to all outside ships, that all shipping had to pass through Terra.

After that, all travel into and out of the Imperium would be choked down to a single gate. The plan was a simple one, simple and effective. The original idea to set up the gate at Alpha Centauri was scrapped for a different plan, which was even better. There would be a Stargate placed a distance from the interdicted edge of Terran space, at a location where it would require a ship to travel for 4 hours at light speed to reach it, or 14 hours for the slowest ships, which would be the Zyagyan vessels. After that trip, the ships would reach a large space station that was already en route to the point from Menos, one of the biggest Dahnai could spare, and more than large enough for the task it would perform. This station would serve as the exchange point for all movement into and out of the Imperium and the Collective, for Dahnai and Sk'Vrae had agreed that no outside ships would be permitted into interdicted space. At that station, all travelers and cargo would have to be unloaded from outside ships and then loaded onto Imperium ships, and those Imperium ships would then carry them to the gate and to Terra, and from there cargo would move on to its destination. Both Dahnai and Sk'Vrae had decided that no outsiders would be allowed into interdicted space outside of the diplomats who were already there, and only those at Dracora and Urumda, the capitol cities of the two empires. There would be no tourism, no new ambassadors, no movement within interdicted space of any being not part of the Imperium or the Collective. And all cargo would again be inspected when it reached Terra before moving into the Imperium, which would turn Terra into the commerce hub that Jason had told Dahnai it could be, the only point of interaction between the outside and the inside.

The advantages of this were obvious. The coalition of the Imperium and the Collective would have absolute control over everything that came into the Imperium, from people to objects, which would drastically reduce the chances of sabotage or espionage. The gate would be deep enough inside to see anything coming to attack it or capture it, and a battleship would be available at all times to tow the gate to safety, since the ship could jump out, syncing to the distortion, and the gate was placed quite deliberately in a line that would allow it to jump from inside Terran interdicted space straight to the quasar gate. Until such time as the entire sector was bullied into war with the Imperium, it would serve them well. And when that time came, they would just pull in the station, jump the gate to safety, and bunker down behind their defenses while the Legion went after the Consortium.

The discussion raged all day, and it included Myleena, Siyhaa, and Miaari when they finished talking about the communicator. Myleena was crafty and dangerous, and she knew more about everyone's technology than anyone alive, so she was the perfect springboard from which to bounce ideas. A single nod or shake approved or killed an idea, and between Jason, Myleena, Tom, and Jyslin, the four biggest crafters, they came up with multiple ideas and strategies to employ against the Consortium. They knew their language, they knew how their scanners worked, they would even eventually figure out their military protocols and procedures were, which would allow them to exploit every advantage against their foes. Just as before, when the Legion exploited their vast knowledge of Trillane's operations, they would use everything they had learned from the Consortium ship to attack the Consortium every way they could. They would go after their ships, they would go after their supply lines, they would go after anything they could reach, to make life hell for them.

They would find that it wasn't going to be as simple as settling in to wait out the siege of the Imperium and the Collective. No, the besieged would be able to sneak out of their castle and fight back.

That afternoon, the Legion was reformed. Tom and Jenny were the new leaders of the Dirty Deeds Department, which would consist of the entire original members of the Legion, Myleena, and about half of the engineering department, and their job would, quite literally, be to sit around and think up evil shit to throw at the Consortium. The Legion would bounce ideas off the engineers, and they would consider the viability of the idea from an engineering standpoint. If it was viable and tactically sound, then it would be added to the toybox. And everyone would be involved, including Songa and Temika, who were currently busy doing other things. Not even Luke would escape his duty to the Legion, for Jason reminded him that the Academy would be too dangerous for any Karinne, and he would be taking his final semester from Karis.

Songa literally jumped up onto the table, slid across it, and kissed Jason soundly on the lips for that declaration.

Songa, Yohne, Kumi, and Temika would be useful in other means, for they had different training. Kumi and Temika would search for ways to economically exploit or hamstring any empire that allied itself to the Consortium, and Songa and Yohne would be searching for some biological means to deal damage to them, be it disease or attacks through the weakness of the insectoids to high gravity.

They had already decided that this would be all-out war. The Consortium wanted to rip the heart out of House Karinne, they wanted Cybi and the Generations, and that gave the Karinnes and their allies the right to fight back in any way possible, no matter how dastardly, no matter how brutal, no matter how cruel. The Consortium would show no mercy if their behavior towards the Collective was any indication, so the Karinnes were more than ready to meet them head on at that level. This would be a war where there was only one rule: Win. Nothing else mattered.

And they were going to find out that Faey and humans could be outright evil bastards when their backs were to the wall.

When Jason and Jyslin went home that night, they were dead tired, and Dahnai was both suspicious and irritated. This was her last night on Karis before going back to "settle things down" back home, leaving her husband and children behind, and she had expected to spend that time with her amu dorai and friends… who were all at Kosigi and out of her reach. Why wouldn't they let me call you? she demanded hotly when Jason, Jyslin, Tim, and Symone all left the dropship, and Rann jumped into Jyslin's arms after being let out the back door as Shya lurked near her mother's leg.

We had an emergency that dealt with house business, Jason told her. I'm sorry we couldn't tell you, but it was very, very important.

Can you tell me what it was?

Not yet, but it had to deal with interdictors, so it had to be ironed out immediately, he hedged. We also pulled something out of mothballs.

Huh?

We've reformed the Legion, Jyslin sent with a smile, kissing Rann on the cheek. We do intend to fight, Dahnai, and there are more ways to do it than just fleet battles. We fought Trillane from a very weak position, and we gave them hell. Well, we reassembled the core of the old Legion think tank, and we're already busy thinking things up to drive the Consortium nuts. We'll just have a lot more support this time.

Why didn't you call me? She demanded. I should have been there!

We decided that until the interdictors are up and working, the less you know, the less you might accidentally interfere with our plan, Jason sent bluntly. Just go on exactly as you planned to, and things will be fine. We don't want you reacting to anything that might happen with anything other than absolute honesty. That way nobody can point any fingers at you and accuse you of knowing anything.

She gave him a long, hard look, then finally nodded. "Alright, I can live with that. But we are going to talk afterward," she said, poking a finger in his chest.

I'll be here. Now, I'm dead tired, so—

Bull shit are you gonna try to sneak out of anything, she cut him off. This is my last night here, and you are mine, you hear me?

Can I at least eat dinner first? I don't think I've eaten today… at all.

Fine. Dinner, then you belong to me until tomorrow at sunrise.

Don't be so mean, Miss Dahnai, Rann accused. Daddy's tired!

My hero, Jason laughed, taking his son from Jyslin and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"He's not just a hero, he's my hubby!" Shya declared.

They all looked down at her, Dahnai with her eyes wide in surprise, then she gave out a sudden laugh. "Shya!" she declared. "Trelle's Garland, we were sending, baby! You heard us!"

"I did?" she asked in confusion.

"Oh yes you did my little lady!" Dahnai said giddily, swinging Shya around in circles. "Are Maer and Sirri gonna be so jealous of you, baby! You expressed before they did! And at five! You really walked through Trelle's hair, baby girl!" Everyone, Shya has expressed! she sent at full power, which made everyone near her wince, and was probably heard twenty miles away. Dahnai was a powerful telepath. Okay, we just got delayed, I cannot go home without giving my baby a passing party! she stated. So we're having one tomorrow morning, and I'll leave after lunch.

We'll make sure it's a good one, your Majesty, Surin sent calmly from inside the house. I'll have everything ready by sunrise, and you'll have time to go buy presents before we begin.

Oh, would you, Surin?

Of course, it would be our pleasure, your Majesty. His Grace isn't the only one who has enjoyed having you here. Ayama and I would be honored to set it up for you.

Good. I'll have to have another one at the palace, an official one, but that one won't be half as much fun as the one here, she sent with a laugh. At least here, there'll be a ton of kids having fun, and not a ton of kids sent by the Siann terrified of making a mistake in front of the Empress. She kissed Shya, who looked very excited. "And you, little lady, have just made me very happy! I'll have to arrange your sending lessons as soon as I get back to the palace."

"I'll be happy to start her out, Dahnai," Jyslin offered. "She'll need to be trained around here anyway, we send way more than we speak on the strip."

"I noticed," Dahnai chuckled. "Who knows, maybe all this constant exposure to sending is making our kids express faster. Trelle knows, there are enough active kids on the strip! All your kids are active, and they're no older than five!" she told Jason with a smile.

"That's just good genes," Jyslin winked.

"I'm the Empress, Jys, think my genes aren't good enough?" she retorted with a smile.


Dahnai was as possessive as he expected her to be.

After dinner, she took both him and Kellin back home with her, and she owned them, literally all night… and nights were a good 14 hours long this time of year, close to the middle of summer for Karsa… not that one could really tell from the climate, since the temperature changed very little across the seasons at this latitude. She would be separated from both Jason and Kellin for the next couple of weeks, so she was making sure to get quite a send-off. Kellin would be here, "getting his pick of being chased after by two bitches," as Dahnai rather crudely put it, so she felt that the best way to both get her satisfaction and possibly annoy Jyslin and Symone was to totally exhaust two of the men in their stable of available partners. And she exhausted them. Jason had jokingly noted that part of the reason Dahnai liked Kellin so much was because of stamina… well, he needed that stamina to deal with Dahnai. Jason had been Dahnai's lover for five years, and though he knew she could be quite energetic and demanding at times, but she'd outdone herself last night.

At least it was quite enjoyable now. Kellin was fully acclimated to the idea of sharing Dahnai with Jason, and that made it more enjoyable for all three of them. Being a low-ranking noble from a small house, Kellin wasn't used to the usual debaucheries and extravagances of the larger and more powerful noble houses, but that was one reason why Dahnai loved him, because he was so earthy. He was a simple man with simple tastes, and being the Prince Consort had not changed his elemental personality. He was a man who was utterly smitten with his wife, and he shared her with her Imperial duties grudgingly, though he was more than willing to share her with another man she loved, because he knew that at the end of the day, she would come back to him. That was how any Faey marriage worked, and it worked very well for them.

He felt a little better. Dahnai had been good therapy, actually, giving him a night where he was too busy to think about things, and it had been good for him. Though the idea of facing a fleet of tens of thousands of ships and the collateral damage they would cause in forcing the entire sector to turn against them was still terrifying, it made him feel better to know that he was going to be able to get his licks in on them. Being in the Legion had showed him that sometimes it was possible to fight impossible battles, if one approached it from the right angle and used unorthodox tactics. A head-on war against the Consortium would get them all killed, but they could bunker down behind their defenses and bleed the Consortium over time, fight a war of attrition where they stood invulnerable on their castle walls and rained stones and arrows down on their besieging enemies. And when they were weak enough, they would sortie out and deal damage, focusing on their ability to supply and maintain their fleets. They would attack the supply lines, not the sieging army itself, and starve them to death. That was the plan, at least for now, but he was fairly sure that that would change as time went on. It usually did.

He yawned as the blue sun of Karis peeked over the horizon, which painted the ocean visible through the huge floor-to-celing bedroom windows and sliding glass door leading out to the balcony atop the roof over the beachside deck, looked with reds and yellows; it often amused him how a blue sun painted the sky red in the morning and evening, but that had more to do with the atmosphere of Karis and less with the light the star radiated. Dahnai was finally asleep, laid out between him and Kellin, who was all but comatose on the far side of the huge bed; Dahnai had worked him much harder than she'd worked Jason last night. He scrubbed his face with his hands, swung his legs over the bed, and got up, then walked over to the sliding glass door and opened it to step out onto the porch. The morning was warm and pleasant, with the ever-present ocean-borne breeze bringing the smell of the sea to them, the salty breeze billowing the sheer curtains that hung before the huge windows. Looking down the strip showed that Ayama and Surin had indeed worked all night on the decorations for Shya's passing party, for they'd set it all up on the beach in front of Jason's house. He looked over and down to see Songa and Luke sitting on their front porch nextdoor with little Jari on Luke's lap, patting her father's chest with her small hands and babbling excitedly, then pointing down the beach to where the party was being set up. There were others up and about as well. Past Min's house, he could see Lyn and Bryn's house, living together in a very large house that almost like a duplex, with both common areas for both of them and private areas for each of them inside it. Lyn was also on the deck, herding her and Bryn's three children out onto the deck for their morning walk up and down the beach. Lyn had had a single son she named Yuden, but Bryn had had identical twin girls she'd named Riza and Miza. Uvan was five, but the twins were only four, because Bryn had taken longer to conceive; in fact, she and Songa had been the last to conceive among the women on the strip. Maya's two older children, Bryn's twins, and Temika's two children made up for the fact that Symone, Kumi, Meya, and Myra had all yet to have any kids of their own, but now, with Jyslin and Symone pregnant, they were now officially over the top, with more kids or expected kids than adult women on the strip. He could barely see Yana out past the twins' house, though she wasn't near her house, she was out in front of Ilia's house, walking along the walkway with Kyri towards the where the tents were set up for the party. He couldn't see any further than that over the squarish, flat-roofed houses that dominated the strip, which made this house and his own the oddities, but he could imagine that in the houses beyond Ilia's, Maya and Vell's, Myleena's, his own, Tim and Symone's, Yana's, Zora's, Sheleese's, Myri's, Meya and Myra's, Kumi's, and then Mike and Temika's, there was activity in every house. Mothers were waking up or feeding children, and they were all getting ready to rush to Karsa to buy hasty presents for Shya's passing party, that would take place at 1000. Fortunately, most major stores either didn't close because Karsa was a city that never really slept, or opened at 0730, giving them a good two hours to buy gifts and rush back for the party.

Hey Jayce! Songa called, waving up at him from next door. She nudged Luke and pointed, and Luke waved as well. Luke wants to know why you're standing up there about to get sunburn somewhere you shouldn't be getting sunburn.

Jason laughed. Tell him humans don't sunburn here, and besides, I spend enough time on the beach to be uniformly tanned. Why didn't he ask me himself? Where's his interface?

He only wears it when he needs to, he says it rubs the hair off the side of his head, she answered.

Luke reached over and grabbed his interface from a table and put it on, then looked up at him. [I forget these things can do this,] his voice drifted into Jason's mind. The human interfaces could translate spoken word into gravband at short range which could either be picked up by all interfaces in a small area, which was almost as good as sending, or sent to a specific person on which the concentrated while using the function, which was even better than sending, since their transmission was picked up by the planetary comm grid and was relayed to the recipient wherever he was, just like a cell phone call. The Consortium insectoids used those brain implants, the Karinnes used interfaces, but they did basically the same thing. Jason's gestalt didn't convert it into audio as other interfaces did by default, it converted it into communion, but Jason could play those communications over a speaker if he so wished.

On Terra, they had cell phones. Here on Karis, they had interfaces.

[Well, get used to it, silly. You're not on Earth anymore, you're back home. So get back in the swing of real technology,] he teased.

Luke laughed. [Yeah, yeah, you go spend most of your time back on Earth and see how quickly you adapt to being back home,] he answered. [I'm a little ticked at you for making me stay here, but Songa's sure happy. I hated being apart from her, but I was getting a much better education there. Taking the classes by remote just wasn't as good.]

[Well, you're here now, and you're back in the Legion, so you'll be getting a lot of personal tutoring from me, Myli, and Jys,] he answered. [That's a hell of a lot better than school.]

[Probably,] he agreed.

[Probably?] Jason asked, a bit archly.

[Alright, most likely,] he laughed. [Woop, Jari wants to go see the tents, so we're gonna walk her down there. See you at the party, Jayce.]

[Yeah, see you there,] he replied with a wave. They waved back and all got up, then Luke opened the gate to the steps leading down to the walkway and they started down towards his house. Jason put his hands on the rail and looked out over the ocean, again overcome by the beauty of his chosen home. He was so happy he lost that fight with Jyslin. He'd wanted to live in the mountains where it was cool and just commute to Karsa to work, but she had convinced him to live on the beach, convinced him that the sea breezes would keep it cool enough for him and warm enough for her. She was right. God, he loved that woman.

But… he also loved Symone. And he loved Dahnai. Not in quite the same way he loved Jyslin, but the love was there, and it was undeniable. He wondered how his parents would feel knowing that he was married to one woman and was in love with two others, and that he shared himself with all three of them. His father would have probably jokingly said "that's my boy" before telling him that he was on the road to heartbreak, while his gentle mother would have given him that slight frown that spoke volumes of her displeasure, but said nothing. But, if they would have understood the situation, he thought that they'd probably approve. He wasn't living in the human culture anymore, he was living a Faey lifestyle… he was all but Faey himself now.

Funny… all those years ago, he had fled from New Orleans to preserve his humanity. And in the end, he had become everything he had raged against, and done it willingly. He now was a cog in the Imperial machine, and a rather big one, keeping it from flying apart at the seams. He lived among Faey as one of them, had adopted their culture, their customs and melded them with his human upbringing, creating something for himself that wasn't entirely Faey, yet wasn't entirely human. But it was more Faey than human. He, Jason Augustus Fox Shaddale Karinne, was in love with three women, and had taken a fourth to the guest house for the explicit reason of having sex with her… and done it with the approval of his wife. In human custom, that was definitely fringe behavior, the realm of the cultural extreme, and was just the most glaring of the many differences between Faey and human lifestyles, a fundamental lifestyle difference based on the telepathic pair bond. Since Jyslin knew his mind, could hear his thoughts, she was not jealous of any attraction he might have to other women, for she knew he loved her with all his heart, she knew it beyond any shadow of a doubt. Why should she be jealous of another woman when she knew that she was the woman he would always choose?

He wondered at it for a moment, at least until Dahnai came out onto the balcony. She leaned against him and kissed him on the cheek, then pulled him into an embrace and gave him a much more serious kiss, complete with her grabbing his butt with both hands. He returned her kiss willingly, sliding his hands up and down her back. Morning, he sent gently to her.

Morning, love, she answered, giving him another kiss. What are you doing out here?

Just pondering the work I have to do today, he answered. Surin worked all night on Shya's party. Look, he added, pointing down the beach.

Nice! she complemented. I'm just glad Maer and Sirri aren't being little whores over it.

Yeah, they were definitely sporting, Jason chuckled, remembering them finding out their baby sister had beat both of them to expression. But if Shya's any indication, your other kids won't be long behind her.

I expressed at seven myself, she admitted. I figured Sirri would be expressing any time now. But I'm proud of Shya. Expressed at five. Five! What a woman she'll be!

A fitting wife for my Rann, and she'll be a promising Karinne, Jason teased.

Asshole, she jibed without any venom, slapping him on the rump even as she kissed him again, with more hunger. He had an idea of what was on her mind when she pressed herself against him, pushing her bare breasts against his chest as she kissed him with more and more passion. Let's go back inside, she sent with highly erotic undertones. I'm sure we can get a quickie in and still have time to get Shya some presents.

Oh, I think we might be able to, he mused, reaching down and grabbing two healthy handfuls of her proud backside. I get dibs on you, though. If Kellin wants to play, he has to wait. I want all of you, he told her, picking her up by her backside. She wrapped her legs around him and let him carry her back into the bedroom.

I'm all yours, baby, she sent urgently as she pushed the sliding glass door closed with her telekinetic ability.

They did manage to have their fun and get out to Karsa to buy the presents, and they arrived a good hour before the party was to begin. Jason and Dahnai helped Surin finish the final preparations, Dahnai utterly lost in trying to do manual labor, but actually willing to do so because it was for here daughter, and it gavc her the satisfaction of knowing she'd personally put a hand in with helping prepare her daughter's party. Since it was taking place so early, Surin went with a breakfast party motif, serving many different kinds of breakfast foods as well as a pancake cake for Shya, who, in the course of a single night, had already learned how to send because she slept in Rann's room, and they stayed up half the night as Rann taught her what was taught to him. That was actually dangerous, because Rann hadn't taught her how to close her mind, so she was actively broadcasting her thoughts whenever she put anything behind her thought. Jyslin had to take her aside as soon as they woke up and teach her the basics of closing her mind, which was actually a very simple thing to do for almost anyone. Because of that, Shya was almost late for her own party, since Jyslin couldn't let her go out there with her mind open and actively sending.

It was like any other passing party they'd held, but in a way it was a little different. There was food, games, musicians, and lots of presents, but it struck Jason as odd that there were so many very young children there who were actively chatting away via sending. His children almost never spoke aloud to each other anymore, and Danelle was included in their little clique since she could send too. But now there was another new member, Shya, who was both insider in she was Rann's betrothed but outsider in that she didn't live on Karis, and even his children knew that there were some things they didn't tell to outsiders. It was funny listening to them, Kyri sending like an adult with her five years of practice, active before birth, and Rann sounding so mature himself, sending with the same speed and confidence as the adults. Rann could send privately now, having just learned that trick yesterday during his lessons with Ryn, who was one of the best trained telepaths on Karis. Whenever Jyslin couldn't give Rann his lessons, Ryn or Dera filled in for her. Ryn and Dera were the two most skilled telepaths among the guard. But when Rann and Kyri were sending to their brothers and sisters, they slowed down, used baby talk as Kyri often scoffingly called it. Zachary, Aran, Danelle, and Sora were learning quickly, but they still hadn't quite become fluent in sending quite yet. And now Shya was part of their little group, eerily silent to the other kids when looking at each other, then bursting into speech when they talked to the them, some of which had started looking at them with a little jealousy and indignation, especially Yuri and Sami, who were older than the active children. Jason saw he'd better step on that. The other kids were starting to feel left out, and Jason didn't want any wars between the kids erupting on the strip.

There always had to be a little showing off, though. Kyri loved to flaunt the fact that she was telekinetic a little bit, and she had Ayuma-like flair, making gestures and making the syrup float over to her, reaching her hand out and making the pitcher pour more oye juice into her cup. Jason and Yana didn't discourage her from practicing with her power, but they did frown on her rubbing the other kids' noses in the fact that she was so much more skilled than they. Yana scolded her, but Jason usually hoisted her by her own petard, and he administered a little of his specialized punishment on her by snatching an ice cube out of the pitcher with his power, flitting it up behind her, then touching it to the back of her neck. She jumped with a squeak of surprise and smacked the back of her neck, but Jason had already moved the ice cube over her head, where the other kids saw it and started giggling. She scowled at her brothers, sisters, and friends a little, and as soon as she went back to eating, he pressed the ice cube against her neck again. She jumped again and put both hands to the back of her neck, looking around, then she locked her eyes on him and frowned. Daaaad! she protested. Stoppit!

I'm not doing anything, he sent with exaggerated innocence, pointedly looking away from her. That seemed to satisfy her, so she went back to eating, but Jason glanced over and did it again, and this time pushed the ice cube down the back of her shirt. Kyri gasped and jumped out of her chair, squirming, as the other kids laughed. "Daaaaaad!" she gasped, finally getting the ice cube out of her shirt, throwing it to the sand. "Meanie!" she accused.

"I can show off too," he said with a sloe-eyed smile, leaning on his elbow on the table and then grinning at her.

She flushed a little and went back to her breakfast, clearly getting the point, which touched off a fit of giggling up and down the table.

After eating, they gave Shya her presents, a large number of toys and gadgets, her very own hoverboard just like Rann's, and she also received a little interface of her own, a present from Myleena. "Know what this does?" she asked, and when Shya shook her head, she put it on Shya's face. "It will let you talk to Rann any time you want. All you have to do is say call Rann now and then talk after you hear the interface beep, and he'll hear you."

"Really?" Shya asked with a gasp, and she put a tiny hand on the interface and said "Call Rann now. Can you hear me Rann?" Her voice emanated from Rann's little interface. "Wow, thank you, Miss Myleena!" she said with a big smile, hugging her.

"The real gift is that it will let you talk to anyone with an interface, pippy," she smiled. "Not just Rann. As long as you know exactly who you want to talk to, it'll let that person hear you as long as she's wearing an interface herself. Just say her name instead of Rann's. Now, remember that this is a gift for when you go back home, pippy. While you're here on Karis, use the interface we gave you, because this one won't make anything work. All it does is lets you talk to other people with an interface."

"Oh, okay, Miss Myleena," she said with a nod, taking it back off and picking up her other interface, sized for a child. Everyone that had to be able to do anything on Karis had to have an interface. One couldn't even so much as flush a toilet without one.

[How did you pull that off without putting Karinne tech inside it?] Jason asked.

[It works by sending the message through Civnet,] she answered with a wink, [through the Civnet connection between Karis and Draconis. When Shya's interface makes a connection request, it'll access Civnet and uplink to our main comm node. If she's on Karis already, it'll instead uplink to the local gravband comm network and get patched into the biogenic interface comm network. On the other side, if we try to connect to her interface, the comm relays will check to see if it's on Karis first. If it's here, it just patches in through the gravband network. If it's not here, it'll access Civnet through the main comm node and search for the interface there. When it finds the interface on Civnet, it sends the message that way, just like any two computers talking to each other over the network. It took me all of ten minutes to add that subroutine into the interface comm network. Shya's interface works the same way. If it can't find the local gravband comm network relay, it accesses Civnet and contacts our main comm node on a dedicated set of access blocks that only allows encoded speech and no other type of data to pass, then connects in that way.]

[Damn, that's clever.]

[Thank you, I try,] she communed with totally insincere modesty. I made one for you, Kellin, Maer, and Sirri too, Dahnai, she sent. That way you're just a word away, and you can also get hold of us whenever you need to.

I was just about to ask you if you couldn't make a couple more of those, Dahnai laughed. Are they real interfaces?

No, they're not, she sent, waggling her finger. You know we allow no Karinne technology off the planet unless a Karinne goes with it. The ones I'll be giving your family will be real interfaces with that extra functionality, but when they go home, they'll get the special ones like Shya's.

But Shya's a Karinne!

Not until she's fifteen, she's not, Jason corrected her. Give it up, Dahnai, you're not taking anything home you can take apart.

Dahnai thrust her index and pinky fingers out at Jason, palm up, which was a Faey gesture roughly equivalent to sticking out her tongue or flipping him off. That gesture among the Faey had an entirely different meaning, and was not something a man did unless he was ready to get all but raped by a woman. It was a highly sexually suggestive gesture for both sexes, but more so for men than for women.

Jason found it funny that the hook 'em Horns gesture long used by the University of Texas was an offensive gesture to the Faey if they delivered it underhanded.

After the gifts came the games and fun. Jason, Jyslin, Dahnai, and Kellin sat on chairs under the tent and watched the kids running around having fun, Shya trying out her new hoverboard by zooming around the beach, as Jason and Dahnai talked. Dahnai assured him that the plan was going on as intended, that she would arrive home and immediately mobilize the Imperial Fleet and station them at the Stargates leading to Embria and Donarra, the capitol systems of Shovalle and Dorrane, which basically put them on alert and ready to respond to any activity anywhere in the Imperium. She'd issue some ugly threats and ultimatums, and Semoya and Emae would be slow to respond, dragging their feet, heightening the tension for a few days before finally and slowly demobilizing their fleets, but not really doing it. They would just disperse their fleets through their systems but also keep them on alert and ready to act at a moment's notice. The other houses wouldn't demoblize immediately either, keeping their fleets mobilized just in case Dorrane and Shovalle made any sudden moves… which was exactly what Dahnai wanted. She wanted the entire Imperium ready to move at a moment's notice, just in case the Consortium jumped a fleet into Imperium space.

Jason assured her that everything was ready on his side as well. Three quarters of his fleet was ready to jump to Karis with her, a powerful show of force that would make it look like Dahnai meant business, summoning the Karinne fleet and mobilizing the Imperial Navy in preparation of going to war against either Dorrane or Shovalle, or maybe even both if they didn't obey her. The rest of his fleet was picketed at Exile and the quasar, and would be moving to Terra on the day they installed the interdictor. Those interdictors would be finished in 9 days, and Kosigi was busting its ass to make that 7 days, to minimize the window of danger when the Imperium was mobilized for war yet had no protection.

Them installing the interdictors would be abrupt and unannounced. They would simply bring them in, put them in orbit, and turn them on with no advance warning. At Terra, they would do the same thing, but they would also be sending a general warning to all systems the day before that Dahnai was putting a two day moratorium on any travel to and from the Imperium due to internal Imperium matters, warning that any ship that tried to jump to any Imperium system during that time would be considered hostile and attacked. Sk'Vrae would also do the same, declaring a two day ban on travel to the Collective due to negotiations with the Imperium. Neither of them would explain why they were doing this, which would keep the other leaders off balance and give them their critical two days for the interdictors to power up. After those two days, the coordinates of the space station would be supplied to all other empires and the new rules concerning Terra and the Imperium and Collective would be publicly announced.

And Jason had no doubt that the Imperium would be immediately attacked by the Consortium when they realized what it meant… or they'd try. They'd jump their whole fleet to some point to try to attack Karis or Draconis and hit the intedictor, and they'd let them mill around out there without taking any action against them. The reasoning for that was simple misdirection. They didn't want the Consortium to know that they could jump through the interdictors until after they ambushed the main fleet, to maximize the chance of attacking by surprise. They didn't want to jump ships onto the Consortium or launch hyperspace missles and tip them off, and have them somehow relay that warning to the approaching fleet, which might give their computers time to react to the attack when it came. They wanted that to be the ultimate moment of surprise, when they declared that they knew exactly what the Consortium was doing and that they were prepared to do something about it. Until then, they would pretend that they had no idea what the Consortium was doing or that they had one of their comm devices and were even now listening to all of their long-range communications, listening to fleet deployment orders being relayed through the Beta Quadrant, which generally supported Siyhaa's initial finding that the Consortium was preparing for the arrival of their huge fleet, getting supply lines set up and getting bases fully operational to support and maintain those ships when they got there, as well as setting up shipyards to build new ships locally rather than try to jump them from Andromeda.

They were certainly settling in, and Jason was fully of a mind to make it clear to them that the locals did not want them here.

Dahnai didn't know about the big fleet coming, and it took one of those "just trust me" statements to dissuade her from the idea of attacking the Consortium when they tried to jump a fleet into their space after the interdictors were going. "We don't want them to know what we can do just yet," Jason told her. "It's a Legion thing, hon. We have a little surprise planned for them, and we don't want to telegraph our capabilities just yet, to maximize the chance we catch them by surprise. Just trust me. I know what I'm doing."

"Alright," she growled after a moment. "I guess I'd better get moving," she sighed, looking at her watch. "It's about three at the palace, and I need to get home before it gets too late, so everyone sees me rush home with the Karinne fleet at my back. It was so nice when your time and my time was synced," she sighed.

"There's a one hour difference, so just wait another thirty or so days and we'll be synced again," he told her with a smile.

"I know, another period of you being opposite me to go through," she frowned. "You're engineers, slow down your planet's spin so you're on a thirty hour day!"

"Speed yours up so you're on a twenty-nine hour day," he retorted.

"Hah! I'm the Empress, buster, you conform to me!"

"Never happen," he said easily, putting his hands behind his head tauntingly and grinning at her.

"Bastard," she accused with a smile.

"Your one and only," he replied dryly. Rann! Shya! Empress Dahnai has to go back to Draconis now, want to ride with us up to the Aegis and see her off?

Would I! Rann sent excitedly in reply.

I wanna go! Shya agreed.

They turned out going up on a large passenger dropship because between the guards and Dahnai's family and Jason's family, they couldn't use any of them near the house. A transport was brought in from Karsa, and they all loaded up on it after Dahnai's guards that were going home with her loaded all her luggage on the dropship. The guards staying behind were going as well, to stay with Kellin and the rest of the Imperial family, so there was about 20 people loading into the dropship. Jason decided not to pilot it today, staying back in the passenger cabin with Dahnai and the others. They all looked out the window as they approached the command ship Aegis, a monstrosity so big it could affect the tides when it was in orbit, which was in a stationary position out past the orbital station, lurking like a bulldozer over a flower. Dahnai would be on the Aegis for the return trip, coming back in the biggest bruiser in the KMS, making a very blunt and abject declaration of just where the Karinne's loyalties lay. When the dropship landed in one of the smaller landing bays near the bow, Dahnai sighed. "Well, I guess my vacation's over," she announced as she stood up.

"We enjoyed having you, hon," Jason told her, kissing her on the cheek.

"Here, Dahnai, as promised," Myleena said, handing her the interface made for her. "Now give me that one," she demanded, pointing.

Dahnai laughed and pulled it off her ear. "I'll get one of those yet."

"They won't do you any good off Karis," Jason snorted as Jyslin kissed her on the cheek.

"We enjoyed having you, and I promise we'll take good care of your family, Dahnai," Jyslin promised, putting her hand on Maer's shoulder. "And we'll see if we can't send all three of your children home expressed," she winked.

"Actually, I'd love it if you did," Dahnai smiled. "I could send to them whenever I pleased and hear them answer back instead of sending and not being able to hear them."

"We'll see what we can do," Jyslin promised with a little smile, pulling Sirri close to her.

Dahnai knelt and held her arms out to her children, who crowded each other hugging her. "You pippies be good for Kellin," she told them. "Remember, he's gonna be your dad when you come live with us. Keep them in line, Maer," she said, giving her son a kiss.

"I will, Mother," he said with a serious nod.

"You'll be back home in a takir, my babies," she told them, kissing each one on the forehead. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"It won't be long, Mommy," Sirri told her.

"It'll feel like forever," she complained, kissing Sirri on the cheek, then standing up. She enfolded Kellin in a fierce embrace, and gave him a passionate kiss as they sent privately to each other. Jason gave her another kiss as the hatch opened, and then they watched as she disembarked. The Admiral and the command crew were there to greet her, and they didn't follow. Dahnai needed to get her mind back to business, and she didn't need any distractions. In the dropship, in private, she could be Dahnai, but out there, she had to be the Empress. The transition was a visible one, as she stalked down the stairs, becoming regal as she came down the steps, until it was the Empress of the Imperium who greeted the command staff and not Dahnai.

"Well, let's go home, pippies," Jason said as he closed the hatch. "And we'll get started trying to send you two home with a little surprise for your mother," he chuckled.

"Do you really think we could? Wake up our talent?" Maer asked hopefully.

"Well, I don't know honestly," he answered. "Who knows, maybe you will express. After all, you're older than Shya, maybe you're ready and just waiting for that magic moment. But hey, we can always try, can't we? What harm is there in that? And if Shya could express, why not you?"

"Why not!" he answered with a sudden smile.


The talk about expressing Maer and Sirri was just a joke.

It was too bad that sometimes the universe, fate, God, whoever, sometimes took jokes seriously.

Maer and Sirri both expressed the very next day, within hours of one another.

To say that it was a shock was a massive understatement. Maer expressed first, over breakfast with Kellin over at the guest house, and in the frenzy of initial celebration, Sirri expressed during lunch. To say that Jason was shocked, stunned, awestruck, was an understatement. It was almost freakin' creepy how it happened, how they both expressed within a day of wanting to.

Jason thought about that a lot that day. Maybe the will had a lot to do with the act. Maybe Maer and Sirri both had been primed to express, ready for it, and just lacked the active will to do so. They'd never really wanted it until Shya expressed, who probably wanted it because of Rann, she couldn't tolerate him being able to send where she could not. Maybe, just maybe, they wanted to express bad enough to make it happen once they were ready to express. Actually, that could explain the rash of expression through the strip, all because of Kyri. Kyri's talent being awake since birth was almost like a taunt to the other kids, and the intensely competitive natures of both his children's parents, both human and Faey, spurred them to express quickly. Them being Generations probably had a lot to do with that as well, but the idea behind it was sound, and was, Jason discovered, an actual field of research in Faey Academies. The studies weren't conclusive, but some studies did suggest that children who expressed earlier than others had a level of intent behind it, a level of want or need.

Kellin got to make two very happy calls to Dahnai that day, waking her up to tell her that Maer was expressed, then stunning her with the news that Sirri had also expressed.

And that wasn't the half of it. The rash of expression among the strip kids also continued, because Myri's daughter Ryla expressed that evening. Ryla, though, wasn't as much a surprise as Maer and Sirri, however, because Ryla was a Generation, and she was just following a trend set by the other strip kids of expressing very early. And the next morning, finally, and much to her utter relief and delight, Yuri expressed at a more normal age for the daughter of such a powerful telepath as a Marine. Yuri was the oldest child on the strip, the leader of the gang, and her being unable to send was seriously undermining her authority.

After Yuri expressed, Surin joked that he should just set up a permanent party place just to host passing parties.

Dahnai was, understandably, utterly ecstatic. "There's gotta be something in the water over there!" she laughed when she contacted Jason via hologram, still aboard the Aegis to fill him in on what was going on. "I bring my babies to Karis, and all three will be coming home expressed!"

"That's more your kids than my planet," Jason told her. "They are your kids, Dahnai, and you're no slouch."

"Aww, thanks, love," she smiled at him. "Anyway, things are right on track here," she got back to the point. "I've issued the ultimatums and gave Semoya and Emae five days to stand down, else I attack them with the Imperial fleet and every minor house fleet. I issued a general call to arms," she said with a smile. "Draconis is bristling with both Imperial and House fleets right now."

"What about the Highborns?"

"I can't order the Highborns to arms unless we're at war," she said with a frown. "It's part of the niceties between the throne and the Highborn Council. So if I want them, I have to declare war on someone first, then order them to mobilize."

"Ah. One of those many little rules I never bothered to learn," he said.

"Trelle, I wish I didn't have to learn them either," she grunted. "Secretly, Semoya and Emae have given me their schedule for the next few days thanks to the Kimdori, so I know exactly what they're gonna do so there's no surprises. They're having a blast," she laughed. "I don't think I've ever seen Semoya have more fun, and Emae's enjoying it too. They did a good job at it, I have to admit. They have the whole Imperium mobilized," she chuckled. "How long til you finish your side of the bargain?"

"Six days, they've pushed it up another day," he answered.

"I'll keep that in mind," she nodded.

That night, Jason found himself in a bit of a surprising situation. Dahnai had taken the guard that usually served as Kellin's consort back to Draconis with her, so when Kellin came lurking around that evening looking for a little companionship, Jyslin decided to go back home with him. Symone stayed home with Tim, Jason didn't think to ask to come join them, and so Jason found himself sleeping alone for the first time in years. It was a very weird experience, after he'd gotten so used to sleeping with someone, be it Jyslin or Symone, or both. He found it hard to stay asleep, both because Kellin and Jyslin were busy having fun, and because it felt decidedly weird not having someone beside him. He felt almost lonely, though he knew that was a silly feeling, given he was surrounded by friends and family. He was just feeling a little strange being in bed alone. He managed to sleep a good part of the night, but woke up about two hours before dawn, and went to stand by the open window and look out over the ocean, as was his habit, then glanced behind him as his gestalt called up the video panel. Shey's face appeared, and she glanced at him with a slight smile on her face. "Your Grace," she greeted. "Are you giving me a present?"

Jason chuckled, leaning against the doorframe with his body turned towards the monitor. "If you want to call it that," he said. "I'm just a little restive, and your droning on and on about insignificant details always puts me to sleep."

"Ah, so his Grace is feeling pecky," she noted seriously. "Should I recite the Keyanne to you?"

He chuckled. "How about a status report on the interdictors, just to put my mind at ease. Myli upped it to five days from today, and I want to make sure she's not just being optimistic."

"Since when is she optimistic?" she asked simply. "The current status report marks the last interdictor being finished in five days."

"Good. Anything else I should know about?"

"You again forgot to put on your robe before calling me," she noted.

"You said you like it when I do."

"Very much so," she said with a straight face. "I'm one of the few women on Karis who can say she sees the Grand Duke naked in his bedroom with regularity."

"You're just a special girl, Shey," Jason chuckled. "Anything else?"

"Yes, there is one more thing, since I have you here, your Grace. The Brood Queen has put in a request to speak to you in the morning, as soon as your and her audience hours coincide. That will be in six hours," she added, looking down at her desk.

"Alright, I'll make sure I'm at her convenience," he said, noticing that it was now nearly midnight on Uruma, thanks to his gestalt showing him. Uruma only had a 20.35 hour day, so the differences in their activity cycles were occasionally pretty wild. Jason wondered how the Urumi liked being on a planet with a very long day, like Draconis. Jason himself had needed nearly two years to completely adapt to the 29 hour day on Karis, since human Circadian rhythms were for 24 hour cycles. He'd been really messed up his first six months here, and it had taken even longer to adjust completely to where he had truly adopted a 29 hour Circadian rhythm. But at least here the Karis year didn't feel like a different year, since the climate was consistent year round. Karis had a 29 hour day, but only a 294.6 day year, which they completely ignored in favor of the Faey and Terran calendars. That was easy to do when one lived in a place that had no real sense of seasons. "Anything else?"

"You need to trim your pubic hair a bit, it's getting a little long," she said critically.

"I'll tell Jyslin she's been remiss in her duties as my barber," he said dryly, which almost made her smile. "Someday, I'm gonna demand some reciprocation from you, woman."

"I would be put on report if I were out of uniform in the command center, your Grace," she told him seriously.

Jason chuckled. "Well, far be it from me to get you in trouble then," he smiled. "Thanks Shey. I think I'll go back to bed now."

"Have a good sleep, your Grace," she told him with a nod, then her picture vanished and the monitor went dark.

He did just that.


Sk'Vrae was fully recovered from her ritual combat with Dahnai physically, but she'd been much different emotionally since her defeat. She'd been very quiet and not her usual arrogant self, which only stood to reason since she'd been beaten in a fight she was absolutely sure she would win, but his audience with her showed that she was slowly getting back to normal. She was still pensive and reflective, but she had her confidence back, and soon that confidence would go back to being the arrogance that a ruler actually needed to be a good ruler. Jason didn't begrudge rulers that kind of arrogance, because it was a mandatory part of being a leader. Even Jason himself had a measure of that kind of arrogance, the confidence that he was right and that he knew better than the other rulers when it came to his people and the needs of his house. If his people didn't trust him and believe in him they wouldn't obey him, and projecting the aura of confidence, of decisiveness, was a critical part of that. And that took a little arrogance.

Jason and Sk'Vrae discussed the promised manufacturing assistance the Collective would get for rebuilding their fleet. Jason's contribution to it would be some resources via his replicators and the ores mined from the planets Jason controlled that used to be Collective, and he was also building the first waves of Torsion weaponry, which was the responsibility of his house to produce initially. His factories would need the least amount of retooling to produce the Torsion weapons, and since they had more range than dark matter weaponry, they had more priority. Dahnai would be manufacturing the dark matter weapons and supplying some shipbuilding facilities for Sk'Vrae to use to build Collective naval vessels, and Sk'Vrae and Jason together would be handling the armor, the raw materials coming from Bellar and Sk'Vrae making the armor in Collective foundries.

"I think that should fit in well with the schedule that Empress Dahnai gave me," Sk'Vrae answered in Urumi when he told her his planned schedule for building Torsion weapons. The engineering team had fully cracked them and the dark matter weaponry both, and plans for their construction were already fully available to all three of the allied parties. "We've already sent our first team to the Goraga yard to inspect the yard and prepare it to produce Collective warships."

"That's good, I'll feel a lot better when you have a full strength fleet again," he said in Faey, each of them using a preferred language.

"Yes, well, I should blame you for that, but I won't," she said with surprising and rare humor. "The return of the ships you captured did help tremendously."

"Well, they weren't doing us much good, since we had no idea how to operate them," Jason chuckled. "I meant to ask you something rather personal, your Majesty."

"Proceed."

"You're a very strong telepath. Are you the norm of your species?"

She gave him a fanged smile. "I am very strong among the Urumi," she answered honestly. "All my brood are telepathic, even the Brood Princesses that work for you."

"They never said a word!"

"They are not supposed to," she said simply. "Other races don't expect us to be telepathic. That our nobility is telepathic is a secret that helps us in negotiations. An Urumi Princess would never reveal her talent. Only I have that option."

"Well, thank you for your honesty."

"The Karinnes have ever been fair and just to us, it is only fitting that we repay that kindness with honesty," she told him in a stately manner.

"And I can't blame you for that policy," he added, pondering it for a moment. "I never dreamed they were telepathic. I didn't even sense it, and I'm pretty sensitive to that."

"We are exceptionally cautious around the Faey," she told him. "We keep our minds completely closed when near them."

"Ah," he said with a nod. He had used that selfsame tactic himself to hide his talent back in his Legion days. "Might I venture to tell you that I was very impressed with you, your Majesty? I thought you fought well, and it was nothing but sheer luck that you failed to defeat Dahnai."

"I appreciate your statement, your Grace," she said with a gracious nod. "Oh, and I failed to mention this, but your engineers have offered a solution to the radiation domes on Bellar."

"Yeah, I saw their initial report, and I have to admit, it's unusual and clever," he chuckled. Their report was that an energy shield was best suited for dealing with the sandstorms on the surface, but it would be safest to build a radiation shield around the radioactive moon of Bellar rather than try to shield the planet. The moon was the source of the radiation that bombarded the planet, far more radiation than the planet's magnetic field could stop, and they also concluded that stopping the radiation at the source would stop the slow yet inexorable destruction of the atmosphere of the planet. The radioactive moon of Bellar was actually not very large, about 450 miles in diameter, but it orbited very close to the planet. The master builders had proposed building a containing energy shield around the moon itself using six orbiting planetary shield generators that would encase the moon in a shield that would stop it from irradiating the planetary system, then it would be a much easier process of cleaning up the trace radiation on the planet, which would free up the miners from having to wear radiation-proof E-suits. Doing so would also open up the two large moons of Bellar to colonization, since they too were being bombarded by the moon's radiation. It would take them about two months to build the shield system and another two weeks to install it, and it would all be done at the Academy, as part of a student project for the engineers. "They've already started on the project, from what I've been told. It's the main project for the graduating class of engineers."

"I must tell you, I am surprised and happy that you are working so hard on systems you will return to me," she told him.

"I take care of my people, your Majesty, even if they're only mine for thirty years," he told her simply. "The people of Karinne don't exist for the house, the house of Karinne exists for the people."

"A commendable attitude for a small organization, but things get much more complicated when things get larger."

"Well, we don't plan on getting much larger than we are now," Jason chuckled. "I should have the first Torsion prototype built and sent to you for your inspection in about ten days."

She nodded. "So long as you build it to the specs our scientific team drew up, it should pass inspection easily."

"We'll build it exactly to that spec," he assured her. That spec was a modular design that would allow the weapon to be installed on either an Imperium or a Collective ship, basically having a generic mount structure and a dual input system that would allow it to plug into both Faey and Urumi computer and power systems, as well as the ability to communicate with both Faey and Urumi computers. This standardized spec had been hammered out by the engineers of both empires, and it actually wasn't much extra work. The Urumi also used plasma as their primary power source, but a more primatively interphased form of plasma, not the much more powerful metaphased and hyperphased systems the Faey used, or the double-metaphased system used by the Karinnes. "How were the first test batches of armor?"

"Promising," she answered. "The metallurgists feel they will be completely successful with the next test, which takes place tomorrow. We'll soon be producing armor sections."

"Good. At least that's not too much of an upgrade," he said. "But an upgrade is an upgrade."

"Yes, the mixture of Neutronium and shocked Adamantium armor we were using is not much worse than this alloy the Consortium uses, and the Faey have their Neutronium, and you have whatever it is you use," she noted with a fanged smile.

"We use tissue paper and flower petals, your Majesty," he said blandly, which made her hiss chortlingly, her version of a laugh. "If that's all you had, I need to go take care of some business."

"One more thing," she said. "Have you received the latest report from Princess Sk'Breel?"

"Hmm, not recently," he answered. "I did get the reports from Bellar and Skralla, but not from Aurigae or Immiran that I can remember. It might be sitting on my desk waiting for me to read it."

"I suggest you track it down, your Grace," she told him. "She told me that there is a mention in it about Urumi soldiers who have applied for Karinne citizenship, to fight in the KMS. There seems to be some confusion as to the exact process of indoctrination."

"Oh. Well, I'll get my people on it," he told her. "I wouldn' t mind some Urumi soldiers. After the battle here at Karis, and seeing you battle Dahnai, I am highly impressed. Your people are brave and skilled in combat, your Majesty, and I'm glad we're on the same side now. I'd be very afraid if you were my enemy. It's gonna be fun designing armor for them," he chuckled. "They might have to sacrifice some of their bone plates to make the armor viable."

"Sacrifice?"

"You know, grind them down so they're not so thick or… spiky," he told her. "It'll be bloody hard to build armor suits for them otherwise. And I hate to say this, but the females might have to bob their crests."

"You ask a great deal," she chortled, pointing over her head, to her own very impressive crest. "Females are very proud of their crests."

"Hmm. Well, we'll think of something," he shrugged. "We always do. If we can build armor for Kizziks, we can build it for Urumi."

"Very well then. Until next business brings us together, be well, your Grace."

"You too, your Majesty," he answered, a little surprised she didn't give him the ritual farewell.

Jason tracked down that status report immediately after ending his conference with Sk'Vrae, and put his border system department people on it to hammer out the details, then spent the rest of the day in conference with the Legion, working on their plan for attacking the Consortium fleet. That felt… good. It was like the old days again, all of them gathered up in his lab in Cheyenne Mountain, discussing this or that idea. Myleena was a new face, though, but she didn't waste any time getting fully integrated with the old gang.

After they broke up, Jason and Jyslin returned home for dinner and to spend time with Rann, who was starting to feel a little forgotten. Shya wormed in on that private time, but Jason and Jyslin didn't mind all that much. They spent a nice evening on the beach with the kids, then they had a nice relaxing bath and tucked them in at 2600, Rann's usual bedtime so he could get his necessary 9-10 hours of sleep and be awake and alert at his usual waking time of 0800… though he was often awake well before this, mainly because unlike most children, Rann actually went to sleep quickly after being tucked in. They'd get him ready for bed starting at 2600, and he'd be asleep by 2630 more than half the time, not even fifteen minutes into his bedtime story. Rann only seemed to sleep about eight or nine hours, so he was usually up by 0700, even though the didn't officially come wake him until 0800. Sometimes, irritatingly, he was up even earlier than that, depending on how long he napped during the day.

After getting the kids to sleep, Shya stubbornly continuing to sleep in Rann's bed with him, "cause we're gonna be married," she would repeat, Jason was startled when Jyslin collected up a change of clothing and dropped them into a little bag. Where are you off to? he asked.

Kellin's, she winked. He invited me over again tonight.

You are married to me, you know, he teased.

We're still getting to know him, so this is good time for us. The sex is fun, I won't deny that, but before and after, we talk, and I'm getting to know him very well. On Draconis and when they first came here, he was having sex with us more or less out of courtesy, though he certainly didn't mind because he thinks we're sexy, she laughed. We were just buddy sex like how that guard sleeps with him when Dahnai's not home. But now we're getting to know him, becoming his friends, and that takes communication and time. We want to be his friend, love, because you're close to Dahnai, that way we feel like she's being equal in giving Kellin to us as much as she takes you from us. Remember, it's about sharing when it comes to these kinds of relationships, love. We share you with Dahnai, and we damn well expect her to share Kellin with us, as much as she expects us to share Tim with her, as far as the non-amu aspects of our relationship goes. I'm sure you noticed that Dahnai spent most of her time here with Tim and Symone. She was feeling them out, getting to know them, which is important since she's your amu dorai and Symone is your amu dozei. Besides, you have more than just me, she grinned at him. You can always go next door, or just fish the strip for a playmate if you're that hard up, she retorted playfully. I seem to recall some threats the twins made, she laughed.

They're not ready yet, he answered lightly. When they're ready, they'll come get me. If I go looking for them, I'll ruin the whole thing for them. I have to keep playing hard to get until they catch me.

You do understand us, she laughed, nodding in understanding. Alright, I'll see you in the morning, love, she told him, kissing him on the cheek almost chastely, then she licked her lips in anticipation. And if you get that horny, just go harass Symone, or troll the beach. I guarantee you that any girl you corner out there will almost fall over herself trying to get you home before you change your mind, she winked. Well, except maybe Temika, Maya, and Songa. They have husbands, and Temika's a fuckin' prude.

If I get that desperate, I need to have myself medically examined, he chuckled.

Pft, men can't go more than a couple of days without sex before they get bitchy, she grunted mentally. I've told you that before. You get really cranky if I don't pop your pod at least every other day, she teased. So, consider the playground open, love. If all else fails, call Aura. I'm sure she'll run down here. You know how hot she is, how horny she makes you, she taunted, sending his own memories of Aura back at him, images, sensations, and feelings that he had shared with her, and now she shot back at him.

Stop that, he chided, which made her laugh delightedly. Oh, go on with you, evil woman! Kellin deserves you!

"Yes, he does," she purred aloud, kissing Jason playfully on the end of his nose, then turning and sauntering victoriously from the bedroom.

Jason did end up with a bedmate that night, but not one that Jyslin would expect. Shya wandered into his bedroom right before he was about to go to bed. "What's wrong, pippy?" he asked her. She ambled in, and he picked her up and put her on his knee.

"My head hurts, Uncle Jason," she told him. "And I keep hearing these strange things inside my head."

"Yes, well, sometimes you get them just after your talent wakes up," he told here gently. "And the strange sounds, that might be the kids around that haven't expressed yet. Did Aunt Jyslin teach you how to close your mind?"

She nodded. "I'm doing that, but I'm still hearing it," she said. "There, I just heard it again!'

Jason hadn't heard anyone sending. "What did you hear, pippy? Could you make out any words?"

"Not really, just this strange, well, feeling. I dunno how to explain it."

"Can you try to send it?" he asked.

She nodded, then closed her eyes and sent to him. Her sending was very slow and clumsy, which was understandable since she just learned how to send a couple of days ago.

No wonder she couldn't understand it. It was a sexual impulse, and the texture of it told him that it was Symone. He opened himself a little to his amu dozei and found that she was indeed currently engaged in intercourse with Tim, touching lightly on her mind, so delicately that she probably didn't even notice it. "Ah. I see why it doesn't make any sense to you. That's something you'll understand when you're older."

"Oh. 'Kay," she told him. "Now I'm hearing something else." No, I don't think so, she sent to him, in a mental voice approximating Surin's, sending him the memory of what she heard.

Jason blinked, looking at her. Dera! he called.

Yes, your Grace?

Who's sending privately right now?

I heard Surin a little bit ago, and Tim and Symone are… occupied, she answered immediately. At least those close enough to you to matter.

Jason laughed. Holy fuck, Shya was a listener! Good God, how useful that would be for an Empress… but that would be even more useful to Rann as the next Grand Duke Karinne, his own wife a listener! "My goodness, little pippy, but are you full of surprises!" he laughed, kissing her on the forehead. Dera, can you come to my room, please? We need you.

I'm on the way, your Grace, but I'm afraid I'm off duty right now. I was just about to go to bed.

That's fine, just throw on a robe or something and get up here.

"What do you need Miss Dera for?" she asked.

"For you, pippy," he smiled. "Sergeant Dera can help you tune out what you're hearing, because she can hear it too."

"She can? Good, I thought there was something wrong with me!" she said in relief.

Dera arrived just a moment later, since her room was behind Jason's house, behind the poolhouse in the small barracks-like building for the guards that was near the gate leading out of the strip. She was wearing nothing but a pair of panties, having decided that answering his call quickly trumped getting dressed. "Dera," he said with a smile. "I have a little project for you," he told here, patting Shya on the shoulder.

What's the matter, your Highness? she asked Shya gently.

"Dera, Shya is a listener," he told here.

Dera gaped at him, then grinned hugely. Are you sure?

"Pretty sure," he said. "Shya, see if you can hear this." Dera, your panties are cute, he sent privately to her, but also sending slowly and carefully so Shya could understand him.

"You told Miss Dera her panties were cute," Shya repeated dutifully.

Dera gaped at her, then laughed wheezingly, a voiceless sound. You really walked through Trelle's hair, your Highness! she sent with admiration. You are a listener!

"What is that?"

"You can hear everyone sending around you, including those who are sending privately," Jason explained. "Dera here has special training in the matter, and she can teach you how to tune out what you're hearing so it doesn't bother you."

Dera nodded. I surely can, your Highness, but it'll take a few days for you to get the hang of it. Until then, the best thing you can do is totally close yourself up so you can't hear anything. That'll make it quiet for you, so you can sleep.

But then Ranny can't send to me.

It's make it quiet so you can sleep or have the voices waking you up all night, Dera told her bluntly. You and Rann can send tomorrow. Tonight, I think you need some sleep. In the morning, you and I will talk about how to make it quiet, so you don't hear what's going on around you unless you want to, okay?

"Okay, miss Dera," she said with a nod, rubbing her little head with her fingers. "I just wish my head would stop hurting."

It will stop once you close yourself up, Dera assured her, but it may take a little while for the headache to go away. So go ahead, close yourself all up like Aunt Jyslin taught you.

"I will. But won't that mean that you can't talk to me, Miss Dera?"

Dera nodded, but looked to Jason, who spoke in her stead. "But Uncle Jason is here to speak for me if I need it," he said aloud, repeating her sending. He was about to repeat her next line, but he closed his mouth as bright lights popped in his skull. If interfaces could pick up enough thought to understand commands to operate machinery, how hard would it be to build one that could understand thought enough to convert it into audio, just like his gestalt? The limitation of biogenic computers outside the Generations was that the ones the Karinnes had built that could pick up non-Generation thought patterns could only receive, they couldn't transmit. How hard would it be to build an interface for the guards that would speak their thoughts the same way they translated their thoughts into commands for machines?

[Cybi?]

[It could not be done with current interface technology,] she answered immediately. [Interfaces are not that sensitive. They don't have the processing power to convert thought into spoken language. As you know, thought in and of itself is not based on any language, it's based on intent of meaning. The interface would melt trying to make sense of it.]

[Well, if someone specifically thinks at them the same way they do when forming commands, specifically structuring the thought into a language, will it work?]

[Hmm,] she hummed in his mind. [That is an intriguing distinction. I think it might work. The work Jyslin has done on the Kizzik interfaces would have to be brought to bear in this situation. She has built a program that might be imported to perform this task, with a little alteration. How well the translation program Jyslin designed could convert command thought into spoken words would determine how effective they are.]

[Can you play with it and see what you get?]

[I would be happy to, Jason. I'll have a working theory, software modifications, and a design plan for the interface hardware ready for you in the morning. I'll have the necessary parts delivered to you, I'm sure you'll enjoy building it.]

Your Grace? Dera sent curiously

"Sorry, I was working on something of an idea I just had," he said with a huge smile. "If it works, you will be able to talk to Shya tomorrow."

She tilted her head at him curiously. I can't let them regenerate my vocal chords, your Grace. That was part of my oath, and I won't break it.

"I won't ask you to," he told her. "I think with the advances we've made with the Kizzik interfaces, we can design an interface that will let you broadcast interface command thought through an audio speaker, broadcasting your thoughts out loud, so to speak. That will let you talk to Shya when she's closed off."

Dera gave him a surprised look, then her eyes lit up. Yes! That just might work, and I would be willing to use it for such a narrow purpose!

"Huh?"

We made a vow, your Grace, not to speak, she told him. It's more than just having our vocal chords removed, it's a commitment to silence. This audio interface idea is technically a violation of that oath, and I'd never use it unless there was an obvious need like this one. I'll be breaking one oath to uphold another, to support, nurture, and protect the Imperial family in any way I can. Shya needs my training, and I can't give her that training as effectively as I could with it, not without you or someone else to relay my training to her. That oath supersedes my vow of silence. For the express purpose of training Princess Shya, I'd use it. I'd never use it otherwise.

"Oh. Well, that kinda makes the idea pointless, then," he chuckled ruefully. "If you won't use them."

I'll use it to train Shya, she reminded him with a nod. I think in certain very special circumstances, it would be permissible as well, I'll have to ask Captain Aya. She'd have full authority on what we could or could not do with them, she's our mission commander and the ultimate arbiter of Imperial Guard justice and law among us. It would be her decision.

"Ah, okay," Jason nodded. "I'll talk to Aya about it in the morning, because if this does work, I'd kinda like you girls to have them, just in case you find yourself face to face with a Kizzik."

Now in that case, Captain Aya might deem them permissible to use, she noted, tapping her finger to her chin. Since they can't hear us send, and the lives of our charges might be in the balance and rely on us being able to communicate with the Kizzik.

"I don't get what you're saying," Shya complained. "I'm only hearing half of it, like I wasn't woke up."

"Dera and me were debating a point of her oath," Jason told Shya. "I'm sorry, pippy, we didn't mean to exclude you. Now, your headache easing a little?"

"A little," she answered.

"Well, we'll just put you right here with me until you feel better," he told her, picking her up and depositing her in the bed. "Thanks, Dera."

Any time, your Grace, she smiled.

"By the way, nice," he said, looking her up and down.

She gave him a surprisingly demure smile and gave him a little pose, showing off her athletic form and attractive breasts with surprisingly small, pert nipples. She then came over and kissed Shya good night. Tell her I'll see her in the morning, she sent.

"Dera says she'll see you tomorrow morning, pippy," Jason relayed.

"Alright," Shya said, waving to Dera, who waved back before taking her leave. "Thanks, Uncle Jason," Shya said as Jason settled into bed with her, then turned off the lights with his gestalt.

"Any time, little love, any time," he told her, gathering her up into his arms to give her close, intimate comfort, holding her through her pain and trying to soothe it with his presence.

They weren't alone for long. Rann wandered into his room about ten minutes after Dera left, and wordlessly climbed up into bed with him. Jason collected his son up as well, and felt in complete harmony with the universe, laying there with his son and a little girl he was starting to love as much as his own, a little Imperial Princess with quite a few little surprises hidden up her sleeve.

Shya, a listener. God, Dahnai was going to explode with pride.

Jason was just glad Dahnai betrothed Shya to Rann before she knew about this. If she tried to break the betrothal now, Shya would make her life hell, because she was absolutely set on marrying Rann, even at the tender age of five.

He did need to break the news to her. [Cybi, get me Jinaami.]

[One moment, Jason.] He waited for a few minutes, listening to Rann and Shya's breathing, until Jinaami's voice communed through his gestalt. [This is Jinaami, your Grace. What may I do for you?]

[I need you to go to Dahnai and ask her to isolate herself so I can contact her with absolute secrecy. Can you do this?]

[Easily, your Grace. We are both aboard the Aegis right now.]

[Really? I thought you'd be in the palace.]

[The Empress has made this ship her temporary base of operations, to further demonstrate her intent to carry out war against Dorrane and Shovalle should they defy her,] Jinaami told him with utter seriousness, despite the fact that she knew that was a total lie. Kimdori and their games of secrets. [Given my involvement in this game, the Empress deigned to bring me aboard because she still needs me.]

True, she still needed the Kimdori to relay messages, so she needed Jinaami.

[Well, if she's still on the Aegis, I guess I don't really need your help after all,] he laughed. [Sorry to disturb you, my friend.]

[Oh, to speak to a friend and cousin is never a bother, your Grace,] she answered lightly.

[Cybi, could you hack me into Dahnai's interface please? She has to be wearing a standard one to function on the ship, and I don't think she knows how to work the comm function of the standard interface, we never showed it to her.]

[One moment, Jason. Go ahead and commune, she'll hear you audibly.]

[Dahnai, if you speak aloud I'll hear you.]

[Wow, I didn't know the normal interfaces had the same kind of functionality,] Dahnai laughed over communion. [What can I do for you, babe?]

[Are you alone?]

[I can be in about ten seconds,] she told him. [I'm walking to my cabin right now.]

[Tell me when you are.]

Jason spent the time waiting stroking back Shya's hair, which made her sigh in her sleep and cuddle against Rann a little more. He marveled at the miracle that was a child, and how complete they could make a man's life, even children not his own. He had to admit it… he loved his little daughter-in-law to be. [Alright, I'm alone, babes. What's up?]

[I have interesting news for you,] he told her. [It seems that Shya had a reason for expressing first.]

[Well? What is it?]

[She's a listener, hon,] he told her lightly. [And we proved it. We're absolutely sure.]

There was a long silence, and then Dahnai laughed delightedly just after giving a whoop. [Trelle's garland!] she finally exclaimed. [How did you find out?]

[She was hearing private sending, and thank God she came to me about it first, she thought something was wrong. I told Dera about it, and Dera's going to teach her how to screen it out starting tomorrow.]

[Demir's sword, am I glad I sent Dera to Rann,] she said with a laugh. [I thought a listener might be necessary for Rann's protection. It's just blind luck there's a listener there to train my daughter! My daughter, a listener! I, I don't want to believe it! Sometimes I think you're getting the better of our bargain every day, babes,] she laughed ruefully. [Not only do you get my daughter, you get a listener! I should break the betrothal to keep her.]

[Shya would kill you.]

[She would,] Dahnai agreed with a laugh. [But, I'm getting your daughter in return, so I guess that's a fair trade,] she told him playfully.

[That's our daughter, woman,] Jason countered.

[Well, she'd better be as good as Shya, or I'm decreeing judgment against you for breach of contract,] she teased.

[Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna go ahead and go to sleep, hon, I've had a long day. I just wanted to pass along the good news.]

[Thanks, babes. Have a good night.]

[Have a good whatever it is you're having right now.]

[Morning,] she teased.

[Whatever.] Jason cut the connection and settled in, draping his arm protectively over both children, more than happy to share his bed with these two little visitors.


Things got much more serious as the days passed, however. There was a lot to do, because there were two major operations looming over them, the installation of the interdictors and then the attack on the Consortium fleet.

But, there were small issues that also needed attention, too, and Jason attended to one of them the morning after finding out Shya's little secret. Cybi had indeed developed a prototype for a command thought audio broadcaster, and Jason received the special parts for it, hot-grown from the Shimmer Dome over the night, and he spent the pre-dawn hours down in his basement lab building the new interface, wearing nothing but a thin thigh-length robe that did absolutely nothing to cover what wasn't shown in polite human company when he was sitting down, which really wasn't worn to conceal so much as it was worn to provide him with a pair of pockets near his waist. The translator module would be an add-on device to a standard interface, very small, that he decided would attach to the interface just over the left ear, and would also use the interface's own audio speaker rather than build another one. The device would be carrying only what hardware and software it needed to perform its core function and relying on the interface for the audio speaker and also give it the ability to have its software updated remotely using the inteface as a communication device. It would perform no other function, making it a small removeable device the guards could put on when they needed it and then take off when they didn't, so as to preserve their oaths and remove temptation. Once he got it built, he summoned one of his dogwatch guards, Hara, to test it. "Think at it the same way you issue commands with an interface, and it should translate your command thought into audio," he explained.

Really? Why are you building these? she asked curiously, taking the tiny, hearing-aid sized device from him.

"So you have a way to communicate with the Kizzik in an emergency," he answered. "Plus, Dera's going to need one to train Shya. Shya's a listener, Hara."

Really? That little girl truly walked through Trelle's hair! she sent with delight. How does it work?

Jason explained how it worked to her, and she touched it to the top of her interface, and removed her hand to leave it there. She put a single finger to her interface and nodded to Jason. Here goes, she announced.

What the interface produced was a strange garbled sound, unintelligible.

Jason laughed. "Well, it can't always work on the first try," he smiled. "Lemme link your interface to my lab computer and we'll analyze what's going on. It might be something we can smooth out by tweaking the code a little bit."

Hara helped him get a lot of data on the device's operation, and he spent nearly a half hour going over it, with Hara looking over his shoulder. "Yeah, I think it's software, and code was never my strong suit," he noted. Jys! Wake up!

What? she asked.

I need your expertise. Throw something on and come down to the lab.

Give me a few minutes. I wasn't sleeping, and I can't leave right now or Kel is going to strangle me.

Why?

Would you like it if I left you hanging right when I was about to get you off during a blowjob? she asked pointedly. I've got him primed and ready to come, so it won't be long.

Good lord woman, get some sleep already, he accused.

She sent him her amusement. We got to sleep early, and you know I'm a morning girl, she purred at him.

Hara hung around while they waited for Jyslin to finish, chatting idly with him. Hara was a dedicated dogwatch guard, the shift Sergeant and commander of the night watch, tasked with patrolling the strip during the midnight hours. She preferred night watch because she was from Frena Prime, which was a mineral rich desert planet so close to its white star that daylight hours were actually damagingly bright to Faey eyes, brilliant sunlight reflecting off the white sand that dominated the planet, so the planet operated on a nocturnal cycle both to avoid the bright light and also to evade the 130 degree Farenheit daytime temperatures. The planet had two moons on alternating cycles so one was full when the other was new, which illuminated the night hours with enough light to be considered twilight here on Karis. Hara's eyes were sensitive to light as a result, and her nocturnal cycle combined with that made her perfect for commanding the night watch. When Jyslin did finally show up, wearing nothing but a thigh-length robe not belted well enough, leaving her left breast hanging out of it and the bottom edges parting like a curtain to proudly display her trimmed red pubic hair, she leaned down and tried to kiss Jason, which he blocked with an interposing hand. "Not when I know where that mouth's been, I'm not," he said aloud, which made her laugh lightly.

What's up? she asked.

Jason explained what he was doing quickly via sending, and showed her the results of the prototype. This is clearly a software issue, and that's your specialty, love. You wrote this program. What can you do with it?

Hmm, I think I see the problem already, she said, pointing at a block of code. This is all wrong.

Well, fix it, woman, he ordered with a smile.

Jyslin sat down beside him and accessed the computer via her interface, a finger to it, then brought up the holographic keyboard to use both mind and hands to rewrite the block of code quickly and efficiently, far faster than she could with typing and using her hands to guide the program. Her hands added the code, her mind put it where it needed to go. It took her about ten minutes to do it, and Jason and Hara both watched as she rearranged some lines of code, added some, and removed others. Jason often marveled at Jyslin's very logical and ordered mind, which made her so good at coding, since she could keep all the individual pieces of it organized in her mind and then put it together like a puzzle. You know, I think I could adapt this to allow us to input words into computers so we wouldn't even have to type, she noted. Actually, I'm sure I could. And it'd be all software, we'd just have to update the control code in the interfaces. Just think, no more typing, no more being limited to very basic command thought instructions to interact with machines. We could get more control over computers for sure, and it would sure help the riggers and pilots, they wouldn't have to split their attention between speaking aloud to communicate and keep their minds focused on command thought to operate their vehicles. We could work with the computers even faster, she noted. And be able to communicate using interfaces silently, by thinking at them and having it transmit the command thought via gravband or Teryon comm.

Hell, go for it, love, Jason told her. You know more about this translation system than anyone else. You'd be the one to do it.

Sounds like I'm gonna be busy today, she noted with an audible chuckle. They watched her for about twenty more minutes as she scanned the rest of the program, made a few small changes, then she saved her work and then updated it. There, update that thing and try it again.

Alright, Jason nodded, uploading the new software into the tiny device, then handing it to Hara. Give it a shot.

Hara attached it to her interace again, then looked at them as audio came from the speaker, in Hara's mental voice. "I steak believe you duck it."

Jason and Jyslin burst into laughter, and Hara grinned as she handed it back. Try again, she sent lightly. That's not what I said. That was funny, though.

Clearly this is going to take longer than I thought, she frowned. Hara, can you send some breakfast down here? I don't think Ayama's awake yet. Me and Jayce have some work to do.

I'll bring your toothbrush as well, your Grace, Hara sent impishly as she went to the stairs.

She'll need it if she wants any kisses from me, Jason declared, to which Jyslin elbowed him in the ribs.

Jason and Jyslin were effectively sidetracked, so much so that they both didn't even bother getting dressed, Jason and Jyslin wearing similarly short robes. After the strip woke up and started a new day, Jason and Jyslin worked together on this sudden project, even to the exclusion of attending the morning Legion conference, begging off and telling them they were working on something else that had the potential to be very useful. That, naturally, attracted Myleena, and she joined them around 1100. The three of them put their heads together and worked the problem, which eventually required a strip down of both hardware and software and a redesign. Cybi helped tremendously by sending the specs of the components they were literally designing on the spot to the Shimmer Dome, which produced them and sent them by courier as soon as they were done.

By 1530, after lunch and two failed design version prototypes, and after about the ninth version of the software, Jason closed the case on the third prototype, turned it on, uploaded the operating program jyslin had just finished, then handed it to Jyslin. She was the non-Generation who could test the device, as how she would use it would be how everyone else would use it. Generations didn't need it, since they could commune. Give it a shot, girl, Myleena urged.

Jyslin attached it to her interface and blew out her breath. "Here goes," she said, then she put a finger to her interface. "The bren in winter sing the mournful song of the departure of their feathered brethren, but rejoice with the first shimmering cyrstals of snow that bring the promise of breaking beaks." Jyslin started in surprise, then she laughed. "So close!" she said. "But it almost translated the whole passage!"

I think we almost got it, Myleena sent eagerly, turning to the display holding the control code. But it's clearly nothing but software now!

I agree, the hardware seems to be working, Jyslin agreed, standing up. Lemme go pee and we'll get to work on it.

It took them about another hour to work the major bugs out, where Jason was more observer than help, since Jyslin and Myleena were much better at coding than he was. When they finished, Jyslin again put the device on her interface, then tried again. "In the beginning, there was naught but Trelle. Trelle was the totality, the all, the singular being. But Trelle was displeased with the emptiness around her, saying 'This must not be.' And so she took her hair and cut it away, and from the strands of her hair the suns and moons and the land was formed. The sight of her creation moved her, and from her eye did a single tear fall, which became the seas abutting the land. She found beauty in her work, but no purpose, so she bent to the task of putting purpose to the land. She pricked her finger, and from the drops of her blood did the creatures who crawl and walk and fly come to be, and she found it good, but not yet as it should be. She touched her finger to her belly and declared 'from within me shall I bear the Faey, who shall stand in dominion over all.' And so did she conceive within herself the First Woman, Baala, who was borne from Trelle and then placed on the land which was now hers. "Go forth and rule this land which I have made for you," Trelle did command unto Baala. And so Baala did as she was commanded, but did so with a heavy heart. 'Great Trelle, Holy Mother, I am lonely,' Baala confided. 'I am always within your eye, but you are not within mine. I am at your touch, but I cannot touch you. Might I have a companion to bring me happiness as I have brought you happiness?' Trelle responded 'but I have made you mistress of all, lord over all things. Does this not make you happy that the vulpar and the freba and the greel all give homage to you? Does the vulpar not comfort you when you are sad, or the freba sing to you when you are pensive, or the greel play with you when you are happy?' And Baala did respond 'they are but animals, Holy Mother. I cannot speak with them. I would like someone to talk to, Holy Mother, someone like myself.'

"Moved by Baala's lament, and seeing that the life which she placed upon the world was ephemereal and without the ability to continue itself, Trelle did move to both provide continuance to the life she had made and also provide Baala with her companion. Trelle did touch her belly once again and conceive inside herself another life. She bore forth Demir, the Consort, Swordbearer, and after finding that he was the complement to herself, the manhood to her womanhood, did she install him into her own domain and take him unto herself as her husband. She joined unto Demir as wife to husband, and thus did she conceive once more within herself Aris, the Child Goddess. Pleased with the natural state of things, so did Trelle proclaim 'so shall it be for all living things, for there to be a mother, and a father, and for them to join together to bring forth children.' And so did Trelle take a drop of blood from Demir and touch it to Aris upon her belly, and cause her to conceive a mortal son, the First Man, and did Aris make him complement Baala to be her wise and loving companion. This son did Aris name Baaen, and place him with Baala. 'Thus you are given what you craved, mortal daughter,' did Trell proclaim. 'Aris has given unto you her son to be your husband and your companion, the wisdom to complement your strength, which you must treasure and protect as you protect yourself. Go forth and join to him as wife to husband and conceive new life, as I have ordained it to be as nature intended.' And so did Demir take up his sword and prick his finger, and from his blood did a male come to be to complement every female of every life which crawled or swam or walked or flew, which Trelle did already create, and did the gods thus establish the natural order of things that Trelle designed." She smiled hugely. "I do believe it works," she declared. "That was the first four groupings of First Hymn of Trelle, perfectly translated."

I'd say it does, Myleena agreed, clapping her hands. Okay, Jayce, let's redisign the standard interface to include this hardware while Jys works on adapting the code to use on a computer, so she never has to go through that dreadful chore of typing ever again.

Push off, bitch, Jyslin sent teasingly.

You know, this is pretty modular, Jason noted, pointing at the schematic of the design. If we pull the biogenic sensor and adapt it as just a node, we could probably just plug it into an interface board. That's the only piece of hardware that's not already in the interface, the sensor can just use interface processors, power, and memory to do its job.

But there's no space.

Sure there is, right here, he noted, pointing. We pull this modular memory node and replace it with the new biogenic sensor. The interface only loses ten gigastrings of memory in the bargain, since we designed that socket for possible upgrades in the first place, and just stuck a memory chip there to use it. That's a fair tradeoff, since we won't have to produce a whole new line of interfaces, we can just produce a node and plug it in. And look, it's right here behind this access panel and beside the stick jack, so the upgrade will take a tech all of fifteen seconds. Open, swap, close, done. And since we're gonna redesign the whole thing when we upgrade to interfaces that work on broadcast power, this'll keep things simple and let us focus on the new design instead of having to produce two new interface models.

Hmm. I think you've got a point there, she agreed. I hate to lose the memory, but it's a viable temporary fix until we get the new interfaces out. Besides, if people bitch about the loss of memory, we'll just tell them to use the new functionality to sync their interfaces with their home computers and dump some of the useless crap they're keeping in their interfaces to their computers. Really, I don't think Kumi needs to keep all those gigastrings of porn in her interface just so she can dump it to a holographic enabled computer and look at it. And she's not the only one that keeps stupid shit in her interface memory.

No doubt, Jason agreed with a chuckle. I'd hate for you to see what I keep in my gestalt.

Knowing you, Jayce? Porn, she teased.

Please, he snorted. I don't need porn, I'm married. That is way sexier than porn, he declared, pointing at Jyslin, who preened just a little bit under the complement.

Yeah, but porn's about variety, a little spicing up, Myleena winked.

Clearly you've never slept with Symone, he sent blandly.

Obviously not, she grinned in reply.

Besides, I don't need porn to spice things up. I have lots of options, he teased.

Yeah, yeah, lucky you're a guy, Myleena accused. If I was a handsome guy with a big dick, I'd have my choice of banging any girl on the strip too.

Oh, don't paint yourself the martyr, woman, I've seen that long line of guys filing in and out of your house. You do live next door to me, you know.

She laughed. Alright, so I'm a popular girl, she winked. I was trying to get pregnant, you know. Girls kinda have to fuck guys to get pregnant.

I have heard something along those lines, Jason sent dryly.

I think you have some experience in the matter, Myleena grinned at him.

It took them about three more hours to adapt the sensor to a modular node design, and once they were done, they sent it to the Shimmer Dome so they could produce a prototype, which they'd send back to Jason's house in the morning, given it was nearly 2100 and they'd been working on the project literally all day. Ayama brought them dinner, Rann and Shya came down to visit them a while, and then Jyslin finished her software program. Well, that's all we can do until we have the prototype and we can test it, she announced.

I think we can knock off now, Myleena said with a yawn, and she stretched. But we did some good work.

That we did, Jason agreed. We'll see how well it works tomorrow.

As long as Jys coded the software to let command thought emulate computer operations, we're good.

Of course I remembered it. I'm sure you remembered to add a power bridge circuit to your node module, Jyslin taunted in reply.

Maybe tomorrow you two can wear normal clothes, she grinned. Really, Jys, you live with him. You don't need to go around with an open robe showing him what he gets every night.

He hasn't been getting it lately, she laughed. I've been with Kellin the last couple of nights, getting to know him better, now that Symone's finally letting me have him, and he hasn't bent me over during the day either. Far as I know, he's gone without, unless he's bent Ayama over the kitchen counter or lured one of the guards into our bedroom and raped her.

Oh please, Jason scoffed.

No wonder he's so cranky, Myleena said, looking at him with a sly smile. I think you'd better give him a little tonight.

I'm going to Kellin's again tonight, she answered. If he wants some, he'll have to get it early, or he'll have to go get it from someone else.

Don't look at me, Myleena laughed, putting her hands in her lap defensively. Ewww!!!

Like any man would want you, Myli, Jason retorted with fake bravado.

I think Danelle proves that I could get at least one man to come in me, she sent nastily.

Drugs. Alcohol. Telepathic domination. Probably a blindfold was involved as well, he sent in a dry manner, which caused her to slap him on the shoulder even as she laughed.

Ayama, we're done, can you start dinner please? Jyslin asked.

I have it waiting to put into the oven, my Lady, Ayama answered. It'll be ready in fifteen minutes. We're having baked groa and chicken casserole with baked potatoes and toasted briv. An all-oven meal for the Dukal family on the go, she added with mild amusement.

Sounds good, Ayama, thanks. Rann! We're finished!

Yay! he answered happily. What were you doing that took so long?

Working on something to help our guards, she answered. But then we realized we can make it help everyone else too, so it took longer than we expected. We have to work on it more tomorrow, sweetie, I hope you don't mind.

It wasn't bad, me and Danelle and Shya played most of the day, at least after we finished our lessons with Miss Ryn and Shya finished her sending lessons with Miss Dera, he answered. They wouldn't let me stay while they did them!

How did those go, Dera? Jason asked her privately.

Very well, actually, she answered. Her Highness is a very strong telepath, and what's more important, she learns quickly. I should have her trained in how to screen out private sendings hopefully by tomorrow, by the day after tomorrow at the latest. It's actually not that hard to screen out private sendings, it's a different way of closing the mind that lets us hear open sending but ignore private sending not directed specifically at us. I just hope she can keep control of herself. Such a young child with the ability to listen can get into lots of mischief. I should know, I did, she admitted with a mental laugh.

Good, sweetie. How was your lesson? Jyslin asked.

It was okay, Miss Ryn was teaching Danelle how to send fast, and teaching me how to send privately to more than one person at a time. It's not all that hard.

That's great, sweetie, Jyslin commended him. Now wash up for dinner, all three of you!

Yes, Mommy.

Okay, Mommy Jyslin, Danelle replied.

Yes, Aunt Jyslin, Shya answered as well.

Room for one more, guys? Myleena asked.

No, Myli, we're gonna make you go out to eat, Jason sent blandly.

They went up for dinner, which Jason and Myleena spent more or less catching up on their status reports, since they'd been busy with something unexpected today. The Legion had moved along quite well without them, sending a report on their discussion and their ideas posed that day. The interdictors were on schedule, Dahnai was on schedule, the Kimdori were on schedule, the four border systems had no complaints and were smoothly on schedule, the Collective had indeed managed to successfully reproduce the Consortium armor earlier in the day as Sk'Vrae promised, so that was on schedule, the farming effort on Exile was on schedule, the restoration of the Exiled to their city was on schedule, the assimilation of the Exiled staying on Karis was on schedule, and everything looked to be right where it should be. The house had gotten along just fine without Jason today, which was a good thing to him.

And on his side, he'd had a great deal of fun sitting in the basement with Myleena and his wife, doing what they loved, which was working on an engineering problem. And he'd spend the rest of the evening with his wife and son and Shya. All in all, it had been a very good day.

After dinner, Myleena took Danelle home with her, and Jason spent the evening first sitting in front of the piano, showing Shya what it was about, then all of them played a game of Seven Circles, then Kellin, Maer, and Sirri came over to visit for a while. The kids all played with each other as the adults engaged in conversation, but Jason had to smile inwardly to himself because Kellin just couldn't stop staring at Jyslin. She was still wearing the same robe she'd had on when she came over, neither of them had bothered to change all day, and the way she was sitting opened the robe's bottom and just showcased her red strip of pubic hair, beautiful and glorious against her blue skin. Kellin was sitting in the chair to the side of the couch where she and Jason were sitting, and he kept looking down at her red pubic hair constantly, proving that sometimes nudity wasn't half as sensual or sexy as clothing to accent that nudity, for her sitting there naked wouldn't have been half as enticing as her sitting there with her robe parted to reveal something it usually concealed, despite the fact that Kellin had seen it quite a few times before.

She certainly didn't leave him hanging long. "Alright, let's get back to the guest house," Kellin announced, standing up. "We have bathtime and evening lessons to do yet, kidlets. So let's hop!" he called. "Want to help with the kids tonight, Jys?"

"Certainly," she smiled. "Rann, Shya, would you like to sleep over with Maer and Sirri tonight?" she asked.

Sure! Rann sent with a nod.

As long as I get to sleep with Ranny, Shya cautioned.

Jyslin laughed. "Of course, pippy," she nodded. "Alright then, let's go," she called, clapping her hands.

And just like that, he was left alone in the house. Without so much as even an invitation to go himself!

He felt just a tiny bit of jealousy that he was being excluded, but that passed so fast it made him laugh. Jealousy? What did he have to be jealous about? Jyslin was helping out Kellin, and still getting to know him. Sure, this would be three days in a row they hadn't had sex, but it certainly wasn't her fault. If he'd really been insistent, she would certainly have taken him upstairs and given him anything he wanted before she went to the guest house, she'd even made a point of reminding him of that down in the basement. She wasn't denying him anything, he hadn't been aggressive enough to go after it. And it wasn't as if he was out in the cold. All he had to do was go next door and he could have all of Symone he wanted.

He decided to do just that, and told Ayama he was leaving for the night before leaving through the sliding glass door to cross the deck and go to Tim and Symone's house, coming over without announcing himself first, which they never minded. But as he closed the door, he glanced down towards the beach and saw a lone figure standing out there. It was Yana, wearing a half shirt and a bikini bottom and with a sheer shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Curious as to what she was doing, he padded up to the rail of the deck and sent to her. What are you doing, hon? he asked her.

Me? Oh, nothing, she answered. I was taking a walk, and stopped to enjoy the view.

Ah. Where's Kyri?

She's at home, doing her math homework, she answered. Did Jyslin take Rann to Kellin's tonight?

Yeah, they're gonna have a sleepover, he answered. Jyslin is still getting to know Kellin, so she's been over there for the last few days.

Yana was a powerful telepath, and she was trained enough to catch many of the very subtle nuances that many other telepaths missed. She glanced up the beach, looking at him. You seem a little lonely. Behind her thought, however, was a very subtle invitation, deliberately placed.

I guess I felt a little lonely when they left, he admitted, accepting that invitation with the same subtlety.

Kyri, we're going to stay over at your father's tonight, she called. When you finish your homework, come over.

Alright, Mommy, she answered.

Yana padded up the beach and then up the stairs. When she reached him, she put her hand on his forearm. Do you want to take a bath? Kyri can join us when she finishes her homework.

I'd love that, he answered, putting his arm around her and, instead of going over to Tim and Symone's, he instead went back inside with Yana.


It was almost dawn.

Jason yawned and tightened his hold on Yana just a little bit, which made her sigh in her sleep and shift a little. Yana had been more than happy to fill Jyslin's shoes, and she'd admitted to him that she'd been secretly pining for it last night. Yana still hadn't found herself a good man, though she was still looking, and had carried warm memories of her affair with Jason ever since Kyri was conceived. Yes, she'd had a few dalliances with some men in Karsa, and had had a nice relationship with Evin, but still hadn't found love yet. Generation men weren't quite as afraid of her as most other men were, less intimidated by her incredible telepathic power, so she'd been able to find some willing men to engage in casual relationships. But they still didn't trust her quite the way Jason did, so she still found her brief affair with him to be her most pleasurable and satisfying, and therefore the one she wanted rekindled the most. And now that Jason was willing to give himself to the strip girls when they wanted or needed him, she could have what she wanted. She knew she could never have Jason the way Jyslin and Symone did, and she could accept that. What he could give her, though, was enough.

Jason himself was happy about that. He didn't love Yana, not romantically, but he could admit that he found her very sexy and was attracted to her, much as he was attracted to Aura. Where Aura reminded him of Dahnai, Yana reminded him more of Jyslin when she was feeling demure and kittenish. Yana had no problems getting him to perform in bed, and the night had been intensely erotic and satisfying.

Yana shifted again, then the changing in her breathing and the gentle, intimate brush against his mind told him she was awake. Mmmm, morning, she sent lazily, holding the back of the hand he had draped over her side. Sleep well?

Very, he answered, kissing the back of her shoulder. Thank you for a wonderful night, Yana.

I should thank you, she sent lightly in reply. You surprised me a little, she added with a laugh. You were never so aggressive before!

Well, three days without a bedmate can do that to a guy used to having sex every day, he sent dryly. It wasn't because they were holding it back from me, either. Jys and Symone have been getting to know Kellin, and I guess I wasn't feeling bandy enough to initiate things, at least until last night, he added, kissing the nape of her neck.

She giggled charmingly. So happy to be have been of service, your Grace.

Stop that, he chided, which made her laugh.

Mommy? Daddy? Can I come in? Kyri asked from the other side of the door.

Of course you can, dove, Yana answered immediately.

Kyri opened the door and padded up to the bed. Yana pulled Kyri up into bed with them and laid on her back with Kyri on her chest as Jason kissed her noisily on the cheek, which made her giggle. Morning, morning! she sent happily. I'm so glad to see you together!

Well, your father needed us last night, dove, Yana told her with a smile, smoothing Kyri's blond hair back from her face.

I was starting to think you didn't love Mommy, she sent accusingly at Jason.

Jason laughed. I can love your mother without having private time with her, you silly thing, he chided. But from now on, when your mother wants private time with me, I'll see that she gets it.

Good. I don't see why Rann's mommy gets to be the one that lives with you, Daddy.

I'm married to Rann's mother, dove, Jason told her pointedly. I'm not married to your mother, or Zachary's mother, or Sora's mother, or Aran's mother. Mommy Jyslin is my wife, so she gets to live with me.

It's not fair. Why don't you marry my mommy?

I can only be married to one mommy, dove, and Mommy Jyslin got me first, Jason chuckled audibly. But just because I'm married to Mommy Jyslin, that doesn't mean I don't care about your mother. I care about her very much, he declared, looking gently down at Yana, which made her smile shyly at him. If I didn't, well, you'd never have been born! You are the proof that I love your mother, you silly thing, he told her, tickling her sides and making her giggle. Now, enough silly questions when there's a little girl here for me to torture and eat up!

Kyri squealed when Jason grabbed her and held her out at arm's length, then laughed uncontrollably when he razzed her tummy, then tickled her mercilessly as she squirmed away from his seeking hands, then made her gasp and laugh with delight when he pushed her up into the air with this telekinetic power, bouncing her up and down and then making her fly around the room. "Silly girl about to come in for a landing. Oh no, she's going to crash!" he gasped, and she screamed when he turned her head first towards the bed. "Mayday, mayday, call the fire department, she's goin' down!" he screamed, turned her over on her back, then let her go, letting her flop about a foot onto the bed, which made her scream in surprise, then laugh. She rolled over and jumped up onto his stomach, wrapped her little arms around his neck, and kissed him.

I love you, Daddy! she declared, kissing him over and over.

I love you too, silly girl, he answered, kissing her on the cheek. But where's the love for Mommy, huh? he teased.

She laughed, slid over, and kissed Yana. I love you too, Mommy!

I'm so glad to hear that, Yana sent slyly, patting her on the backside.

Uh oh, I gotta go pee, Kyri announced. Yana set her down, and she rushed for the bathroom.

Jason gathered up Yana again, holding her back against him, sliding his hand up and down her stomach. If we ever did anything right, it's in that bathroom trying to get up onto the toilet seat, he sent wryly, watching as she struggled to seat herself on the adult-sized commode. Clearly, I need to put a stepstool in there, he noted, picking up his daughter and depositing her on the toilet carefully with his power, which made here giggle and wave to them.

Yana chuckled. She was the greatest gift you've ever given me, Jason, and I thank both my gods and your god every day that she's in my life.

Jayce, love, I'm home! Jyslin announced. Rann and Shya are staying with Kellin today. Where are you?

Upstairs, Jason answered. Back to reality, he noted to Yana, which made her laugh.

I'm quite happy with the fantasy we had last night, she told him with a wicked little tilt to her thoughts.

Stop that, he chided, swatting her on the rump playfully, which made her laugh again.

Jyslin came in through the open door, took one look at the bed, and smiled. It's about fuckin' time, she declared. What took you two so long!

I think Jason has more willpower than you thought, Jys, Yana laughed.

Well, I'm glad to see it, she said. Was it worth the wait, Yana?

Oh, yes, she purred in reply.

I'm glad we agree about that, she chuckled, then saw Kyri file out of the bathroom. Kyribaby! How's my big girl? she asked, sweeping Kyri up into her arms and spinning her around the room.

I'm okay, Mommy Jyslin, she said. Do you think Rann will mind that I slept in his room last night?

Not a bit, dove, not a bit! Did you have fun last night?

Yah, me and Mommy and Daddy had a nice bath, and then Daddy played the piano for me, then they read me a story after tucking me in, then they came in here and woke me up doing private time, but that's okay because it made Mommy very happy, she answered.

It makes me happy that it made her happy, Jyslin told her with a smile, bouncing her on her hip and kissing her on the cheek. Rann and Empress Dahnai's children are going to Karsa today, because Prince Kellin wants to visit some of the historical sites. If it's alright with your mother, I can ask Prince Kellin if he can take you too.

Oooh, can I Mommy? Pleeeeze?

That's fine, as long as he'd like some company, Yana answered. I've never been to those sites either. May I come along?

I'm sure he'd love to have someone who knows the city along with him, Jyslin laughed. Kellin, Yana and her daughter offered to go with you. Interested?

Sure am! he answered. The more the merrier!

Then count me in! Sheleese called. Bria could use some culturing up!

Sometimes I'm amazed that poor girl of yours can speak Faey, Maya teased.

Oh, push off, Maya! Sheleese retorted.

Notice how quickly Sheleese shirks off the Legion meeting today, Myri noted.

Can it, sarge! Sheleese shot back.

That's General to you, potato-tits! Myri snapped, which made Jason, Jyslin, and Yana explode into laughter.

I'm not shirking, I'm just not much help, Sheleese announced. I can be more help with Prince Kellin and the kids than I am being lost in the meeting. And I notice you didn't jump Yana for shirking!

Yana doesn't slack like a certain squad clown does, Myri replied tauntingly.

Well, you can kiss my blue ass, Myri, Sheleese declared.

As bony as it is? I'd break my nose, Myri retorted. When you're getting some, does the guy have to put a pillow between you and him to prevent bruising?

At least I get some, bitch! Do your boyfriends charge you by the hour, or is it a flat nightly rate? Sheleese snapped.

Your dad never charges me, Myri replied smoothly. But then again, I only do him because your mom's such a crusty old skank. I feel sorry for him.

You should know all about being crusty, you old battle-axe! How'd your face get all dried up and leathery, Myri? Give head to a Jakkan?

Is it always like this around here? Kellin asked, a bit surprised.

More or less, Kumi answered cheekily. It's never boring around here, Kellin. Wanna come watch Myri beat up Sheleese? She won't last long. She never does.

Oh, FUCK YOU, you little pissball! Sheleese threatened. You couldn't win a fight if we put you in Crusader armor and put you up against a corpse!

Just another average day on the strip, Jason sent with a mild aplomb that made everyone on the strip break down laughing, even Sheleese. Jason kissed Yana on the cheek and patted her flat stomach, then sat up. Guess it's time to make the donuts.

I have never understood that term, Jyslin complained.

It's archaic English slang, just leave it, Jason chuckled. He slid out of bed and stretched, and chuckled when two sets of appreciative eyes greeted him. The next show is at two o'clock, he teased as he ambled to the bathroom.

Oh, let's buy some tickets, Jys, Yana remarked.

Buy? I own that little sideshow, Jyslin smirked.

I hope that means you split the profits.

Only when I let him out of his cage, Jyslin giggled.


As the days passed, the jokes ended, and the seriousness began.

As the interdictors neared completion, the KMS drilled on the operation to move them in and set them up. A single ship would be performing the operation at each of the 107 systems that would be protected by an interdictor, being the 77 systems of the Imperium and the 30 systems of the Collective. The fact that the KMS no longer had 107 ships was a slight problem, but nothing that couldn't be overcome. They had 44 operational ships, but it wasn't the KMS that would be towing the interdictors into place, it would be the Imperial Navy, carrying a Karinne dropship holding a technical team that would activate the interdictor. The interdictors would be delivered via hyperspace jump to Makan, and from there, Imperial vessels would tow them through the gates, one to each system.

The interdictors and Stargates being taken to the border systems and Collective were a trickier matter, and that was where the KMS would come in. KMS destroyers and cruisers would be delivering the interdictors to the Collective, since they could jump hyperspace in real time, but the Stargates were a more delicate matter. They would carefully coordinate with the Imperial Navy so they performed the operation at the same time the navy was moving interdictors, and they would deliver the Stargates by towing them with a hyperspace jump. They had to deliver 34 Stargates, but they only had 44 ships, and only four of them were big enough to tow a Stargate through hyperspace… which was a problem. The Karinnes didn't have enough ships big enough to two Stargates, but the Imperium and the Collective did. The problem there was that their ships could not jump hyperspace in real time, so, to solve that problem, the battleships and command ships of the Imperium and the Collective had already picked up the Stargates and jumped out with them, staggering their jumps so they all arrived at their destination systems at exactly the same time, and doing it from Aurigae. The Karinnes assisted by supplying KMS ships in place of the large ships that were tasked to move Stargates, since it was already well know that a single Karinne cruiser had the same firepower and durability as a large battleship from another empire. The Aegis and the three battleships would be protecting Draconis, Terra, Aurigae, and Uruma respectively, and unknown to Dahnai and Sk'Vrae, the Kimdori fleet would be on standby and ready to jump to assist, to reveal itself if necessary.

The feeling that war was coming got more pronounced as they approached I-day, the day the interdictors went up. Jason, Myleena, and Jyslin finished their work on the fully comprehensive interface, that would let anyone using an interface input complex information into a computer, such as language. They weren't planning on introducing the new interfaces until well after the current sitatuation was resolved, but they did supply the Dukal Guard with the modules, mainly in case they needed to talk to Kizzik. Aya had decreed that the modules could be used in a sitatuation where they had no other way to communicate and had a viable need that dealt with the safety of the Dukal family, but outside of those conditions, they could not use them. The original reason to design them, which was to allow Dera to train Shya, had been forgotten, and hadn't really been necessary, after everything was said and done. Dera trained Shya to screen out private sendings simply by making everyone shut up for a while as she trained her, which gave Shya the peace and quiet she needed to practice the mental exercises Dera taught her until she could close her mind to private sendings when she wanted to do so.

For Jason, the days flew by. He spent the days in conference with the Legion as they finalized their plan to attack the Consortium with a slough of toys, coordinated with Dahnai, Sk'Vrae, and Zaa, and carefully watched the production of the last series of interdictors. It almost seemed that he blinked his eyes, and it was time to put all their plans into action. The first part of the plan took place eight days before the operation, when Dahnai and Sk'Vrae released their decrees that warned all other empires that for two days, the Imperium and Collective would be off limits to all inbound ships so as to conduct joint military exercises in the furtherance of their military alliance, with any inbound ship at risk of destruction. That declaration made the Alliance and the Skaa curious, Zaa's spies reported, but they took no action. And what was more important, the Consortium also seemed not to pay it much attention, mainly because Jason knew that they were more focused on preparing for the arrival of their armada. The cryptic declaration got lost, however, in the sudden political tension within the Imperium, where it looked as if the Imperium was on the verge of erupting into civil war. That was a much more effective reason to frighten merchant ships away from the Imperium, the fear that they'd be jumping into a warzone. The game between Semoya and Emae had been extremely effective, and had had more benefits than any of them had expected.

It caused some other responses as well. Both the Alliance and the Skaa quietly massed their ships near their Imperium borders, all but salivating over the idea of the Imperium falling into civil war. They could almost smell the victories they could amass when they attacked the Imperium border systems while the Imperium was too busy fighting itself, hoping to do to the Imperium what the Imperium did to the Collective, snip away the border territory during a moment of weakness. They were almost childishly disappointed, Zaa's spies reported, when Dahnai seemed to get control of the situation and force the two largest houses in the Imperium back down, and the Imperium seemed to slowly back away from the precipice of civil war.

The second stage of preparation took place last night. The Stargate linked to Exile was delinked and instead linked to a stargate at Draconis, providing a direct link between the two systems for the operation, and the Imperial ships that would be helping with the interdictor deployment came in last night to be in position and conduct some final drills and simulated exercises. During that time, the Kimdori had decided to move the Stargate in the quasar and the safe landing area as well, just in case, which solved the problem of someone maybe finding out about the quasar gate and trying to jump in. Moving the gate and the shielded area required that anyone coming to Karis had damn well better be expected, else they were gonna get fried when they jumped into the quasar's lethal radiation field. Exile would be unconnected and isolated, out on its own, for the 25.75 hours that it would take for the Karis gate to delink to Exile, link to Draconis, conduct the operation, delink, and then relink to Exile… but that wasn't a problem at all. They'd prepared Exile for a day without transport access to Karis, and there was a sizable Kimdori task force in the system to provide defense, so they'd be fine.

It was a very tense day, the most telling way because Kellin and Dahnai's children, the strip children, husbands, and Temika and Kumi were all evacuated to Kosiginingi that morning, kept on the island and close to the emergency bunker where they would be protected in case of crisis. Everyone else donned their armor and went to work, and that day, that important day, Jason's work put him in the core room in Kosiningi, the safest place Aya could find for him, in his armor and with the core ready to descend into the mantle at a moment's notice in case disaster struck and somehow the Consortium attacked Karis. Kyva and the KBB squad were guarding him on the island, along with quite a few other Gladiators, Raptors in the air above them, and with a complement of 274 Kimdori ships armed with Karinne weaponry sitting in deep space and ready to move in once the Imperial ships currently in orbit around Karis to tow interdictors left, ready to move in and protect Karis in case of attack.

"Alright, let's get this show on the road," Jason said aloud to the holograms of Dahnai and Zaa, and the image of Sk'Vrae on a holographic monitor. Cybi's holographic projection was behind him, hovering silently over his shoulder, and invisible to everyone else because Cybi controlled the cameras that allowed them to see into the core room. Cybi disguised the core by shrouding the room in darkness to their monitors, making only Jason visible to them. Jason never failed to feel safe here, in the core, with Cybi watching over him almost like a guardian angel. It was here, in this room, where Jason could unleash the full power of the Karinnes and the Generations, here where the true expression of millenia of hard work was realized by his ancestors. Though he could detest their motives, right now, Jason could only be grateful for their efforts, for those thousands of years of dedication to the Program put him and Cybi together at this moment, two halves of a whole that was exponentially stronger than the sum of their parts. "Myri, report."

"All KMS ships are reporting ready," her voice came over his ceiling speaker. "The interdictors are all tested and operational, they're in position, Imperial ships are in position to tow them, and the Stargates are still on time to be delivered. We are on schedule, your Grace."

"Collective ships are in position," Sk'Vrae announced.

"Imperium ships are also in position," Dahnai added.

"I have my children listening at key points in the Alliance and the Skaa Empire," Zaa declared. "If there are any sudden orders, they will hear it and rush to report the fact to me."

"Sounds like we're ready to go," Dahnai announced. "What's the time?"

"Sixteen minutes," Jason answered, looking at the countdown display in the right hand corner of Sk'Vrae's monitor.

There was little they could do but wait. The four of them were all tensely silent as they watched the time creep by, until they were seven minutes from the beginning of the operation, when Dahnai issued the first command. "Imperial ships, you have authorization. Commence Operation Jigsaw."

"Brood Queen Sk'Vrae commands Collective Defense Forces to begin Operation Jigsaw," Sk'Vrae mirrored.

"Let's play ball, Myri," Jason ordered.

And so it began.

They had rehearsed this exhaustively, and now that it was time to do the real thing, they already had plenty of practice. The first action was at Karis, where the Imperial Navy and the KMS suddenly burst into motion. Each ship was towing an interdictor and carrying a Karinne technical crew that would activate the interdictor when it arrived at its destination. The first ones to leave were the KMS ships, filing through the Stargate in a set order, since those had to jump hyperspace to reach the Collective systems. After them, the Imperial Navy towed interdictors through the gate, each ship put in the line based on how far it had to go to get to the Stargate that would take it to its destination. Their practice runs showed that with that order, each ship would reach its Stargate at exactly the same time so long as the ship captains obeyed the speed limits set up for the operation. Jason watched that line of 107 ships file out, leaving Karis almost completely devoid of military vessels to protect it. But behind the interdictor, Karis didn't really need too much protection.

The three rulers and Jason watched on their personal tactical displays as a graph of Draconis came up showing the dispensation of every interdictor, showing them spreading around the planet en route to the 76 Stargates that led to other systems, as the 30 interdictors bound for the Collective all moved towards the Aurigae gate, which had only been up and running for about two weeks. Right on schedule, a squadron of 14 Collective battle cruisers jumped into the system, and then escorted the interdictor bound for Terra, for those ships would be part of the defensive fleet that would sit in the Terran system.

Everything was on schedule.

It took the ships 34 minutes to get to the Stargates, all but the ships bound for the Collective, which had reached the Aurigae gate in 12 minutes, and had already gone through. They had moved into position and waited, then jumped at the exact instant they needed to leave so they would arrive at their destinations at an exact time, and when they arrived, they had to adhere to the timeline precisely in order to time the activation of the interdictor with the arrival of the Stargate in such a way that the towing ship arrived exactly 43 minutes' cruise outside the system just in front of the expanding interdiction field, then cruised in under sublight to give the interdiction field time to extend behind it. It was done that way because they all knew that the Alliance and Skaa spies in the Collective would see the Stargates arrive, and realize that the alliance between the Collective and the Imperium was going far beyond a military alliance against the Consortium, that they were entering a very close and interdependent alliance against everyone. They might see those Stargates as very inviting targets to try to capture, so the interdiction field behind them had to be very well developed, so that any invasion force would require at least 10 hours of light speed travel to reach the gate. That would give them enough time to link the gates before the invasion fleet arrived, and move military resources to any threatened system immediately.

"We are on schedule," Sk'Vrae announced, looking away from her camera, looking down, as she listened to one of her military aides in the background. Though the rulers were discussing it with each other, it was actually the war rooms on Draconis, Uruma, and Karis that were running the operation. Dahnai and Sk'Vrae were just reporting to each other so they felt engaged in what was going on. So was Jason, for that matter. This was out of his hands now, it was up to his fantastic KMS to pull off, with the help of their allies. "Collective forces have entered Terran space ahead of the interdictor. All report normal."

"Interdictor tow ships are in position, awaiting time mark," Dahnai added, repeating what Lorna had just told her."

"Planetary defense grids are all reporting hot," Jason informed. Installing orbital weapon platforms at each allied planet had been part of the Karinne responsibilities, since they could build Torsion weapon platforms quickly without needing to extensively retool facilities to build the devices. Each system now had a battery of 20 mobile weapon platform satellites that could respond to any part of the planet within 12 minutes, but whose primary mission was to defend the interdictor from attack. Outside of the interdictors, those weapon platforms were what Kosigi had been building. The Torsion platforms had been installed last night, in the very first hour of the two day moratorium on space travel, seeded randomly into orbit around each planet. When the interdictor arrived and was put in position over the north pole of each planet, however, the platforms would redeploy to the interdictor and serve as a bristling defense against any attack on the device. Over the weeks to come, Jason and the Karinnes would be tasked to build those platforms like mad, with the eventual goal of having at least 200 of them at every planet, and as many as 1,000 of them at critical systems, but the Karinnes wouldn't be building all of those themselves. The Imperium and Collective were already retooling factories to produce the platforms, and soon they would be producing them much faster than the Karinnes could, given how huge the empires were compared to the two planets ran independently by the Karinnes, one of which was only just recently colonized.

"One minute from mark," Zaa intoned.

"Well, ladies, if anyone has anything to say, now's the time," Jason said. Dahnai gave him a look, then laughed helplessly.

"I do not regret losing my challenge to you, Empress," Sk'Vrae declared. "Win or lose, what we do is the honorable thing. The Consortium must be opposed. Alone, we would fall. Together, we will succeed."

"Amen, your Majesty," Dahnai nodded solemnly. "We don't need some outsider butting into our sector and messing with us. We can mess with ourselves without their help."

Jason laughed despite himself.

"Twenty seconds from mark," Zaa noted. "Report readiness, my children." There was a pause. "The Kimdori are prepared."

"Alright, it's time to shock the universe," Jason said as the timer counted down from ten seconds. "Let's do it, kids. Just like we rehearsed."

The KMS military network exploded into action when the timer hit zero, as orders were relayed, and things moved like a choreographed broadway musical. The interdictor ships vanished from Draconis in unison and appeaered at their home systems as the Draconis interdictor moved towards the north pole of the planet. In every system in the Imperium and the Collective, the same thing happened, almost at the same time. Ships would either come through the gate or jump in, and move with haste and purpose towards the north pole of the planet. When it got near, a wingless dropship launched from the towing ship and rushed to the insertion point, as workers in mobile E-suits left the dropship and waited in their assigned positions. The towing ship would pull into position above the dropship and the technical crew and then descend into position, placing the interdictor at the assigned coordinates. As soon as the ship released the interdictor from its towing grapples, the technical crews rushed in even as the Central Interdictor Control on Karis,in the KMS Headquarters building in the White House complex, accessed the interdictors by remote and caused them to activate. The technical crews fully activated the interdictors and gave them their final inspection, and then the CIC started them up as the technical crews stood by to act if there was any problem. At the Collective planets, the pattern was nearly the same, as the towing ship jumped in and raced to the planet and placed the interdictor, but those interdictors were not started as soon as they were inspected and given clearance by the technical teams. They had to be turned on almost to the second on their timeline, so the interdiction field would be exactly where it needed to be. CIC coordinated that, and when the time came, they started each interdictor, one by one. About 12 minutes later, their precision was rewarded when the huge ships towing the Stargates dropped into normal space exactly where they needed to be, and the interdiction field was exactly where it was supposed to be. The line of interdiction literally washed over the ships a second after they jumped into normal space, and then they accelerated under sublight engines for a leisurely cruise to the planet. The interdiction field extending behind them would prevent any attackers from jumping in to attack the ship towing the Stargate.

Exactly 73 minutes after it began, Operation Jigsaw came to its conclusion when the last battleship towing a Stargate appeared in normal space right on schedule, right where it should be, and then started out for the Collective system Jirka, a border system with the Nine Colonies, right on schedule. All 107 interdictors were in position, they were activated, and even now their interdiction fields were steadily expanding out to their full volumes of a one light year sphere of interdiction surrounding the systems they defended, preventing any attempt by any outside force to jump in and attack, even the Consortium. Though they wouldn't be fully protected until the interdictors were fully powered up, they all knew now that every minute that went by was more time they would have to respond if someone did make a move. But, now their magic number was 31 minutes. After 31 minutes had elapsed, the interdiction field would be 10 hours of light speed from the edge of the interdiction field to the system, and that would give them time to link any Stargates that needed to be linked and move defensive forces into any system under attack. After about two hours of building power, the interdictors would enter what Myleena called the "bell curve" power increase, which would cause their interdiction fields to expand at a non-linear, nearly logarithmic rate out to the one year edge. The interdictors were a little slow to build their fields for the first two hours, then expanded much faster until coming close to their maximum power, then slowly built to that maximum in their last two hours. It was a "bell curve" expansion model, slow then fast then slow, and once they hit the bell curve segment of the power increase, they'd be in very good territory. At that point, every second that went by would add hours to a sublight approach of the system rather than minutes.

"I do believe that the operation was a success," Zaa noted. "Our activities have attracted no interest as of yet from any outside empire. I will keep my children in positions to get word of any decisions made quickly."

"There isn't anything else we can really do now but wait for the magic moment," Dahnai noted. "It's all on you now, Denmother."

"I will keep everyone informed," she said. "But for now, I will retire and take a short rest. What comes next will not require our personal attention unless something happens. If something does, my children will tell me, and I will tell you."

"Denmother has a point," Jason nodded. "We can all take a break, and just stay close to our communicators. From here, all we can do is watch and wait."

"I will be at hand should there be news," Sk'Vrae agreed.

"Good, I'm gonna go take a bath," Dahnai announced. "That always relaxes me, and it'll keep me from pacing the room."

Jason kept abreast of what was going on, though. He watched the interdictors expand on graphs, and kept track of the progress of the ships towing in Stargates even as he watched his family explore the Kosiningi center and the island via remote cameras. Kyri and Yana were touring a couple of the automated labs which Cybi controlled, Kellin, Jyslin, Symone, and their children were talking with Kyva and the KBB, gawking at their Gladiators, and the other strip kids and the Marine mothers were all roaming around the island. Jason had decided to evacuate the entire strip to the island, for even though the children of Lyn, Bryn, Sheleese, Myri, and Min weren't his, they were still more or less part of his family, deeply connected to him, and he would protect them and their mothers. Jason was the sire of five of the strip kids, but he was a father to all of them.

He was fairly calm, though. Zaa was confident that the Consortium hadn't figured out what they were doing yet, and that meant that installing the interdictors would come as a shock not just to the Consortium, but to the Alliance and the Skaa as well. Nobody outside of the Karinnes, Dahnai, Sk'Vrae, and only certain very high ranking members of their governments and militaries had any idea what was going on. The crews on those ships towing the interdictors had no idea what the interdictors actually did, for example. They only knew that they were towing some kind of piece of equipment from Karis to a different system, and it was some kind of operation dealing with defense of the Imperium and the Collective from Consortium attack. By withholding the true nature of what they were doing, letting the cogs in the machine turn without knowing why they were turning, they kept a tight lid on the truth and reduced any chance that operatives from other governments would ferret out the truth. And even if they did, the Kimdori were out in full force, and enemy agents would find some stiff resistance trying to get that information back to their own governments. Kimdori could protect secrets just as effectively as they could discover them, since they could so easily move through a system and ferret out the spies. They already knew exactly who they had to watch, so they kept an eye on them and kept them away from the truth, but left the spies installed just in case they wanted to pass along misinformation to their enemies. An outed spy wasn't much of a threat, and leaving it where it was, unaware it had been detected, was a benefit to them.

When they got the interdictors into the systems and turned on, Jason knew that the operation was going to succeed.

The magic 31 minute mark was reached without much fanfare, but Jason did sigh a little bit in relief. Now it was official. Now they could get forces to any system where they were needed before any attacking force could arrive.

They were safe.


The second phase of Operation Jigsaw also went off without a hitch. The huge space station that would be the transfer point for all goods and people entering the Imperium was towed in by the Aegis, the Imperial Navy Capital Starship class INS Sheberra, and the Collective Command Vessel class RCMV Xh'Grah. It took all three of the monstrous vessels to tow the huge station, the size of the Martian moon Phobos, while the KMS Dreamer towed in the Stargate, and the four huge ships were defended by a massive task force of 277 KMS, Imperial, and Collective ships. They appeared just in front of the expanding interdiction field and then cruised in on sublight engines for two hours to reach the planned point for the station and Stargate, which they would defend with that huge fleet until the Stargate was linked to Terra. A GRAF cannon was already slated for installation on that station to give the station the ability to fire on invading ships far, far from it, and the station would be defended inside by Faey and Urumi wearing Karinne Crusader armor that lacked the interface abilities of true Karinne armor and was armed with MPAC weaponry rather than pulse weaponry… but that was actually a good thing. An MPAC blast wouldn't rupture the hull, where a pulse blast certainly could. Even without the interface and the pulse weapony, Crusader armor was a cut above the best Imperium design. Outside, both military vessels and automated weapon platforms would defend the station, which would itself be heavily armed with Consortium weaponry and missles, and eventually a GRAF cannon. The station's command structure had already been set up as well. The Marine General Frae Koyanne would command the station, heading up a staff of 1,294 support, customs, and maintenance personnel from both the Imperium and the Collective, with a security complement of 2,000 Imperial Marines and 2,000 Collective Troopers, the Collective's version of the Marines. Frae's first officer would be Queen's Captain Hriss Xizhrass of the Collective Troopers, which was equivalent to Marine Major General rank among the Collective, and the executive officer, third in command, would be KMS Flank Admiral Jita Karinne. In that way, all three main interests in the allied powers were represented on the station. The station staff had been selected and pulled from duty over two weeks ago, and had been quietly preparing for their new mission, using the original station personnel for maintenance and operations and bringing in new personnel to handle the new missions the station would undertake. There were certain to be bugs and some rough running for the first few weeks, but they'd get everything ironed out.

During the two days they waited for the interdictors to fully power up, there was little for them to do except pick up the stranded ships that had tried to jump into the systems while the interdictors were powering up, ships that either had not heard about the two day moratorium or were smugglers moving illicit goods. The ships were forced into normal space way out in no-man's land, some of them six months from either side, so far that they'd never make it before their supplies ran out. Their action in those cases was simple. A Karinne destroyer or cruiser jumped out to the ship, captured it, boarded it, confiscated any smuggled goods but left legal cargo alone, towed it out into open space, then the Karinnes aboard the ship edited the memories of the crews and the logs on the ships so they believed that they were stopped from jumping into the systems a light year out, and that an Imperium ship had intercepted them, searched them, confiscated any contraband they were carrying, then let them go.

It took nearly two days before the true significance of what happened really became public knowledge, and that was heralded by Dahnai's sudden change in policy, which absolutely shocked the other governments.

Jason was given a copy of the decree, which was released as a viddy of Dahnai making a public announcement. "Because of the threat posed by the Consortium, the Imperium is changing its border policies," the recording began, a recording that was freely distributed to every government that did business with or inside the Imperium. "From this point forward, starting on 15 Toraa on the Faey Orthodox calendar, all outside ships and commercial traffic are hereby banned within the boundaries of the Imperium, and all new extra-territorial visitors to the Imperium will be restricted only to Terra, excluding those with ambassadorial status, who will also be permitted to visit Dracora, Draconis, in pursuit of their diplomatic missions. Those other residents of the Imperium who hail from or represent other governments and work for diplomatic embassies, or extra-Imperial bussinesses and corporations who work within the Imperium or do business here, will be permitted to stay, but only so long as they do not leave Imperial territory. Any resident or businessman who leaves the Imperium, for any reason, will not be allowed to return to any Imperium territory aside from Terra unless they have diplomatic status or apply for a special exemption from the Imperial Bureau of Internal Affairs.

"A copy of the new regulations and entry system will be made available to all interested parties, but the summation of it is this. From today on, all ships must stop at a control point and disembark all cargo and visitors to the Imperium, who will then be permitted on into the Imperium on Imperium ships, but no outside ship will be permitted to operate within the territorial borders of the Imperium. Any unauthorized ship found in Imperium space will be attacked and destroyed without warning and without quarter. There will be only one entry point into the Imperium, and that will be the new Terra Entry Station, a deep space station located near the Terran system. All cargo and travelers must pass through the Entry Station in order to enter the Imperium. The coordinates of the station will be supplied to all interested parties and released for public purview in four standard hours. Further explanation of these new policies will be provided for any interested party, they need only contact the Imperial Bureau of State or contact or visit any Imperial Consulate or embassy outside of the Imperium.

"If you are a cargo ship with cargo bound for the Imperium, you must deliver your cargo to the Terra Entry Station. Agents at the station will arrange your payment and ensure that your cargo is delivered to its destination. Make contact with your contracted business or the Imperial Bureau of Commerce or the new Unified Imperial-Collective Commerce Authority aboard the Entry Station immediately to make arrangements to deliver to the station. Make note that because of defensive measures placed around the Terran system, you may not jump within one Imperial Standard light year of the system or face attack. Designated jump point coordinates will be supplied to create established exit and entry areas to prevent ship collisions, and from that position, you must travel to the Terra Entry Station using sublight engines, a journey that will take approximately eight Standard Hours if you are traveling at light speed, but because we will be instituting a speed limit, the journey will take a minimum of twelve Standard Hours, or as long as twenty Standard Hours if your engines are not capable of high sublight speeds. During this journey, make note that any action made by any vessel that is considered suspicious or hostile, or the ship exceeds the speed limit imposed by the Imperium, this will result in the ship being attacked without warning and destroyed.

"That is not a joke. The threat of the Consortium forces us to take extreme measures. If we believe you are in any way a threat to the Faey Imperium, the Urumi Collective, or its citizens or property, you will be attacked without warning and given no quarter. The breaking of any rule or regulation, no matter how minor or sillly it may seem, will incite an immediate attack. This is your only warning. So, if you travel to the Terra Entry Station, I suggest you obey the station traffic regulations as they are published exactly and give us no reason to attack you.

"Until such time as the threat of the Consortium is abated, these control policies will remain in place. This is a lawful decree noting the change in established Imperial policy issued by Empress Dahnai Jeri Hivae Milaa Merrane, twenty-second Empress of the Merrane Dynasty of the Faey Imperium. May Trelle, Demir, and Aris bless us."

Sk'Vrae's announcement was shorter and more blunt. "Due to the treacherous actions of the Consortium, the Urumi Collective has entered into military alliance with the Faey Imperium against our common enemy," her release began. "In the interests of Collective security, the Collective is forbidding all non-Collective and non-Imperium ships from Collective space. Violators of this policy shall be destroyed without warning. All citizens of non-allied governments who do not acquire a conditional travel permit are hereby banned from visiting Collective systems. Violators of this policy will be summarily executed without trial. Diplomats and those conducting business in the Collective must immediately report to the nearest Government Affairs Agency to apply for an emergency exemption. Those without exemptions within one standard Urumi day will be executed upon discovery.

"All trade agreements between the Collective and other parties will continue to be honored, but from this point forward, all commerce must pass through the Entry Station of Terra, so as to protect Collective interests against possible espionage and sabotage. Arrangements are already in place for Collective Merchant Marine vessels to pick up and drop off trade goods at the station, so our agreements with other governments will be honored and respected. Merchant vessels who are contracted to deliver cargo bound for the Collective must contact the Unified Imperial-Collective Commerce Authority on the Terra Entry Station. The station will handle all scheduling and delivery on behalf of the Collective.

"Those seeking entry into the Collective from this point forward may apply for a permit at the Terra Entry Station, in the Collective Affairs Office, or contact the Office of Xeno Affairs by interstellar communication.

"These policies will remain until the Consortium has been destroyed and no longer threatens the Collective. So I decree, and so it is law."

And that was the fuse in the firecracker.

From what Dahnai and Sk'Vrae showed him, the reaction to their policies were immediate and infuriated. Inside the Imperium, House Trefani went up in flames over the interdictors, because it seriously cut into their smuggling profits. It was impossible to smuggle with the interdictors up, and many of the ships the Karinnes picked up during the interdictor charge up had been Trefani smugglers moving contraband in and out of the Imperium. High Staff Graith of the Alliance was particularly enraged by this sudden change of policy, mainly because the Alliance had extensive trade agreements with both Dahnai and Sk'Vrae, and there were Alliance corporations with offices in both the Imperium and the Collective. The choking of all traffic down to one station for both empires would be a logistical nightmare, he argued, but he didn't mention the extensive and lucrative smuggling operations that the Alliance conducted along with House Trefani along the border. Both Dahnai and Sk'Vrae basically told Graith to eat shit and die, and if he didn't like it, declare war.

Someone certainly had that idea. A Collective sensor outpost registered no less than 16 attempts to jump into the Horatha system, which was on the extreme edge of the border with the Nine Colonies. Each ship was stopped by the interdictor, which seemed to mill around a while, realize that their jump engines were really working and that something was stopping the ships from entering Collective space, then jump out. Those ships were the vanguard of a sudden flurry of single ships trying to jump into multiple systems in the Imperium and the Collective, and each one was defeated by the interdictors, stopping them a full light year from the system.

Four hours after their secret was out, what Jason had expected to happen did happen. A huge fleet of 2,430 Consortium ships tried to jump into Karis.

They were stopped by the interdictor.

The instant they appeared, the Karinnes and the Kimdori swung into action. They didn't attack the fleet, they were saving that surprise for the main fleet, but they did annoy the fuck out of them. Kimdori sensor jamming probes were launched, which jumped hyperspace and traveled to the area, then jammed the Consortium ships to prevent them from taking any reliable sensor readings of the distortion, to prevent them from trying to engineer a solution to the obstacle. The KMS' Technical Warfare division blinded the Consortium and jammed their communications with a "flashlight beam" of concentrated Teryon particles, which disrupted Consortium modulated energy string communications by breaking them up and blinded all hyperspace-based equipment by saturating them with raw Teryon energy readings.

The Consortium fleet tried to breach the interdiction for over an hour, but eventually gave up and jumped out. They immediately tried to jump to Draconis, and again they were defeated. And there, just as at Karis, they were immediately "spotlighted" and their sensors and hyperspace communications were jammed. The fleet broke up from there and attempted to invade every single Imperium and Collective system, and each time, they were prevented from jumping in and their sensors and communications were jammed. The ships did not try to breach the interdiction at each system, they only seemed to be testing to see where they could and could not go.

What Jason feared would happen, though, did not. He had expected the fleet to reform and make a run at the Entry Station and the Stargate, but they did not. They seemed to understand that they'd have to travel for a minimum of eight hours to get to the station, and for that eight hours, they'd be exposed to attack. And to be in any position to do something to prevent the attack, they'd have to go much slower, which only made it take longer and exposed them to more attack. So, they could either try to barrel through and hope they had enough ships left when they got there to fight the fleet of ships that were parked at the station, then see the objective they were after either get moved or destroyed before they could reach it. Attacking the Entry Station would be a waste of resources, and they seemed to understand it. So, being pragmatic, they left it alone… for now. Later, after their big fleet arrived, they probably would go after the Entry Station. And Jason would almost pay to be able to see the looks on their faces when they got there and found the Entry Station and the Stargate both gone, with a little present left behind for them which would take a big-ass bite out of their fleet.

He loved it when there was nothing of theirs around to be damaged, it would let him put something truly nasty out for them to play with.

When the Consortium fleet revealed itself, the Imperium revealed the Consortium fleet. Dahnai immediately transmitted logs of the attempted invasions to every government in the sector, showing them the huge Consortium fleet and telling them bluntly "this is what we are protecting ourselves against." And while the rest of the sector was chewing on that, Jason decided to finally come clean to Dahnai and Sk'Vrae about the incoming fleet. He called a conference, and then allowed Miaari to deliver the news in her businesslike tone, making it sound like it was Kimdori intelligence that had uncovered the information. They were both stunned.

"Are you sure there are that many?" Sk'Vrae asked in shock.

"We are not absolutely sure, but the intelligence does suggest a fairly large number," Miaari answered calmly. "The advantage we have in this is that we have determined when and where they will be, your Majesties. With this knowledge, we can organize a little surprise for them."

"I've already set forth a plan to attack the fleet before it can get to its destination," Jason told them. "I'm not sure how much damage it will do, but it's certainly going to give the Consortium a rude awakening."

"We cannot battle such a large force!" Sk'Vrae protested.

"We don't plan to fight them, your Majesty, we plan to attack them," Miaari told her simply. "Through the use of automated weapons and guerilla tactics, we can actually do viable damage to this fleet without risking a single ship."

"I have experience with this kind of warfare, your Majesty," Jason said dryly. "Just leave it to me."

Dahnai actually laughed. "Yeah, he does," she agreed. "What kind of damage do you think you can do?"

"We have no idea, it'll depend entirely on how much we catch them by surprise," Jason answered. "But this is a prime opportunity. Analysis of data we extracted from the Consortium ships that attacked us tell us when they'll get here, and since they're coming from Andromeda, that means that the angles of entry have to be extremely small the closer they get to their destination. We've already planned exactly where we're going to ambush the fleet, and how we're going to do it. The plan is to deal as much collateral damage as possible. We doubt we can destroy a significant number of them, but we're not looking to blow up ships, our goal is to cripple as many ships as we can, as well as kill as many of the insectoids as we can possibly manage. They'll have this big fleet, but they'll have to repair a good chunk of it, and they won't have any crews to operate many of the ships. Our overall strategy for this clandestine war will be simple attrition, us using as few resources as possible to force the Consortium to use as many resources as possible. Every ship we damage or destroy is a ship they don't have or they have to waste time repairing, and every insectoid we kill is a crew member they have to replace. We intend to make conducting war here so difficult and costly that they decide we're not worth the effort and go away."

"So long as the interdictors prevent them from entering friendly territory, we can strike at them with impunity," Miaari stated. "They cannot attack us, but we can attack them. And so long as we stall, we have more time to build more ships and develop new ways to attack them without risk to ourselves. Within the safety of interdicted space, we have all the food and resources we need to remain vibrant and grow," she informed them. "We can go without any outside assistance for centuries. We are safe inside our fortress, your Majesties, and where they cannot get in, we can get out. That lets us attack them at our leisure. As they try to find a way into our space, we will be sabotaging their bases, attacking their supply lines, executing selected fleet attacks on weakened positions and favorable targets, and damaging and harassing their fleets. And as they struggle to reach us, we have time to build up our defenses until such time that we can venture out and face them in traditional battle. And you will not be alone," Miaari told them. "Denmother objects to this Consortium invading our galaxy, and she will oppose them. The services resources of the Kimdori will be at your service, and we will also building our own ships of battle. When the Imperium and the Collective challenge the Consortium, the Kimdori will fight with you."

Dahnai looked sick, and Sk'Vrae looked about ready to faint. What Miaari just said would have about equivalent of Jesus Christ appearing in the room and declaring that the Second Coming was at hand, for the Kimdori had never in the recorded history of either empire made such a declaration. And they would believe it, because Miaari was a Handmaiden, her words were as good as Zaa's own. But after a moment of unease, Sk'Vrae snorted and drew herself up. "They are our enemies, no matter how many there are," she declared, more or less to herself. "We do not run from our enemies, nor do we surrender to them until they defeat us in battle. As we bided our time against the Imperium and awaited our chance to strike, so shall we bide our time against the Consortium."

"Well said, your Majesty," Jason said calmly. "That's exactly how I feel. I don't care if there's a million of them, I won't roll over and die for them. If they want to conquer me, they'll pay for every grain of sand on every beach on Karis with blood. They may beat me, but I'll make it such an expensive victory that they never forget it."

"And you always talk peace," Dahnai laughed weakly. "But you're right. They attacked us. They picked this fight, and like it or not, we're in it. That means we give them hell, any way we can."

"I'm glad you feel that way," Jason said. "If you two will let me deal with the unconventional warfare, I'll take care of it. I'll keep you fully informed as to what I'm doing and how effective it is, and I may be coming to you asking you to manufacture things for me, but I can promise you that I can get results. I have a very deep toy box, and I'll be throwing the entire thing at the Consortium," he said with a dreadful kind of eagerness. "They'll never know what hit them."

"Are you making more marbles?" Dahnai asked with suddenly bright eyes.

"Naturally," Jason said with a slight smile, which made her laugh.

"What are these marbles?"

"Your Majesty, you're looking at the only man in the history of warfare who ever completely disabled a six hundred thousand benkonn space station with marbles," she said with a light smile. "Or as Myleena put it in her report to me," she cleared her throat, "fucking MARBLES!"

Sk'Vrae hissed with laughter. "I see your promise of results is no boast then," she said with a nod.

"I'll be doing my part, that I promise you," he told them calmly. "When I lived on Terra, I went to war with House Trillane. Since it was just me and a small number of rebels, we focused on sabotage and guerilla warfare. We have lots of experience with this, your Majesty. If you want to fight an unorthodox war against a numerically superior foe, having us as your allies is a good thing. We've done this before."

"And the fact that he's still here should tell you that he's good at it," Dahnai smiled, getting over her shock enough to joke.

"I've reformed all the original rebels, what we called the Legion, and we're back at work thinking up all kinds of mean things to throw at the Consortium," Jason told them. "What we think up is what you'll help us build, anything from mines to missles to bombs to other kinds of devices. Every time we find a weakness in the Consortium's technology, we'll build a device that exploits that weakness and attacks them. And since we have samples of their technology to analyze, we can find them. I can't promise we'll win, but I promise that the Consortium will hurt."

"We must remain positive," Sk'Vrae declared. "A mind ready to accept defeat is a mind already defeated."

"Then keep us on the straight and narrow, your Majesty," Dahnai told her. "Any time you think we're flagging, remind us."

"It would be my honor to do so."


It was another beautiful evening.

Jason stood at the rail of his deck, looking out over the moonlit sea, feeling very tired, but optimistic. So far, three days after the installation of the interdictors and seeing that the Consortium had pulled back to consider this sudden stumbling block, it gave them the space they needed and a little time. The war was now on, and everyone knew it. The Consortium now knew that they couldn't just waltz their 30,000 ships into Karis and overwhelm Cybi with sheer force of numbers, capture Cybi, capture the Generations, then steal the technology and take it and the Generations back to Andromeda with them. The Karinnes had not only found a way to protect themselves, but also to defend the entire Imperium and the Collective, who were the only empires that had proclaimed the will to fight against the Consortium. The Consortium now had a puzzle to solve, an obstacle to overcome, and that was how to circumvent the interdictor and find some way to get their fleet in to attack Karis without it taking a year to get there. But they'd have more to worry about in just 13 days, when their huge armada was going to get waylaid by an onslaught of automated weapons, tricks, and devices that would deal as much damage as possible to their armada without risking a single ship, and primarily attack not the ships, but the crews that manned them and the engines that moved them.

Thirteen days. Already, production requests had been sent to Dahnai and Sk'Vrae for them to build mines and missles that would be used in the attack, armed with warheads that would explode and attack the Consortium ships through their engines, introducing a lethal spatial feedback into their translation systems that would make the engines overload and then detonate, and when those engines blew, they'd send a shockwave through the ships that would kill the entire crew while leaving the majority of the ship itself intact. It was a flaw that Myleena had identified and corrected when she was playing with trying to redesign Karinne engines to be less demanding on power, but analysis of the engines in the captured ship showed that Consortium engines were vulnerable to what they were going to do.

That was the drawback of the Consortium using captured Karinne technology as the basis of their entire technological foundation. The Karinnes knew it inside and out, and between that and the captured ship that continued to reveal its secrets to them, that let them attack the Consortium in ways they couldn't anticipate.

The plan would be simple and effective. Drop the armada out of hyperspace using a two inderctors. One would be static, the interdictor that would initially stop the fleet, but a second interdictor would be operating at 12.00127736% power and moving at 217,945 miles per hour towards the enemy fleet, trapping them in, which was the maximum power and velocity settings that would allow a moving interdictor to maintain a stable interdiction field. When the enemy fleet was forced out of hyperspace, they would see a cloud of missles coming right at them, and find themselves literally surrounded by mines. They wanted to put 10,000 mines and missles out there, which was a feasible number with Dahnai and Sk'Vrae helping with mass producing them given that they only had six days to get everything ready before they had to start traveling out to the Beta Quadrant in order to set up their trap, which would take seven days total time to travel there and build. After the missles, the automated Torsion platforms would go after anything that moved, forcing the Consortium ships to engage the platforms in combat. After all of those were destroyed, then the meteors the Kimdori that had towed to high speeds and then released should be just about getting there, which would plow through the battlefield with no regard for what they hit, because there wouldn't be anything there the Karinnes wouldn't care to lose. By then, the fleet would be fully surrounded by the moving interdiction field and be cut off from hyperspace. The babysitter ship with the static interdictor would keep Teryon "spotlights" on the Consortium fleet to prevent them from analyzing hyperspace to understand how they were being ensnared. The moving interdictor would slow down as it approached them, for it would be in scanner range by then, and the ship that was towing it that slowed it down would then jump out and leave it behind. That was when the Consortium would learn the first rule of dealing with the Legion; we leave nothing behind that you can use to learn how to stop us. Just when the interdictor was close enough, but too far away for them to grapple, intercept, or fire at with their weapons, the singularity power plant in the interdictor would be intentionally breached in a way that flooded Omega energy into normal space, and that would cause the interdictor to explode like a miniature nova. The blast wave would destroy anything Legion-made that was still there when the wave hit, which would take 128 seconds for it to reach the enemy fleet from the projected destruct point. The blast wave would destroy all those unarmored and unexploded Legion toys and pieces of technology the Consortium destroyed which was left behind, would probably do some minor or moderate damage to the crippled ships, and would probably scare the piss out of anything left alive to see it happen.

How successful the attack would be would depend on how the ships were staggered through hyperspace, how fast the crews were awakened, or how fast the ship computers could recognize the potential threat and raise shields… though there would be a good 30 second window there between the ships coming out of hyperspace and them being able to raise shields, because they were using Teryon shields, and the shield emitters the Consortium used had to resync to normal space after coming out of hyperspace before they could project Teryon energy into normal space. So they'd have, at minimum, a 30 second window to attack the Consortium.

And they knew this because they had a Consortium ship to show them all its little secrets.

The Kimdori had confirmed the intelligence Siyhaa had pulled from the ship with a long-range hyperspace probe about two hours ago. It detected 29,895 Consortium ships in hyperspace, not quite in their galaxy yet but getting close, and the trajectory they were on was almost dead matching the mathematical projections of the Moridon mathematicians and Stellar Cartography. That confirmation told them exactly where to build their trap, and exactly where to set their interdictors. When that armada got here, they'd get a welcome they'd never expect.

Jason felt… good. It was hard to explain. He knew their backs were against the wall, but so far everything had worked out, and he felt that with the interdictors protecting them, they could dish out some damage to the Consortium and make them regret ever coming to pick a fight. Jason had learned back when he was fighting Trillane that a single person with a good idea and the opportunity to execute it could be devastatingly effective when that opportunity presented itself. Jason had, with a great deal of help, built small devices that were incredibly destructive, because he knew how Faey technology worked and he knew where the holes were that he could exploit. He felt the same advantage here. The Karinnes had a Consortium ship that allowed them to analyze their technology in great detail, and allow them to attack that technology through its vulnerabilities. And many of his old toys he used against Trillane would work against the Consortium. For example, they used plasma conduit too, after all, and his harmonic conduit disintegrator would take out their conduit just as effectively as it took out Trillane's. And often, the low tech approach was just as destructive as the most sophisticated bomb. A missle filled with Satan's Marbles that punched through their armor with a Teryon warhead and then released the marbles into the ship could devastate it from the inside. And for a ship moving at light speed, or even half light speed, a car-sized rock weighing about 50 tons deliberately placed in its path could shatter the ship like a hand grenade thrown in a china shop.

Thousands of years of technological advancement, ruined by a rock.

And if that object was, say, a 200 ton airplane-sized slug fired from a massive heavy-mount railgun mounted on a ship, a weapon that had no range limitation, the effect could be downright apocolyptic, especially if the firing ship was moving at high speed itself, adding the ship's own velocity to the velocity of the slug.

That was a little oversight being fixed even now. KMS ships, Imperial ships, and Collective ships were on the board to be mounted with heavy-mount versions of Jason's railgun, giving their ships a weapon that could be fired with no range issues, only the problem of leading a target since the projectiles would not move as fast as beam weaponry. Even though Consortium armor was so strong that a heavy slug may not penetrate in tactical combat, the sheer kinetic energy that would be delivered to the target would certainly cause internal shock damage as the armor tried to absorb that incredible force, and a portion of that energy was transmitted through the superstructure and into the ship's internals.

But how could a ship evade a slug equipped with stealth, hiding it from their sensors, and which could lock on and adjust its course to hit its target?

Those were in design stage now, intended to be used against ships that tried to sail in on sublight engines despite a year's journey. Fire it, forget it, and six months later see if it hit its target.

There were many ways the Karinnes could fight back against the Consortium, but not in classical military ways. The Karinnes would meet their brute force with cunning and creativity, attacking them on multiple levels with devices both stunningly complex and almost ridiculously simple, exploiting every weakness, attacking them body, mind, and soul, wreaking havoc in the most humiliating and demoralizing way possible. They would make the Consortium's leaders almost afraid to get out of bed every morning, dreading reading the morning report, just as the Legion had done to Duchess Silla Trillane back when the Legion was blasting Sticks out of the air left and right and cunning traps and devices were making life utter hell for the Trillanes on Terra, destroying their equipment, causing collateral damage, and even devices that served no purpose other than to just plain humiliate them.

He wasn't sure if the insectoids could feel humiliation, but he'd sure as hell try to introduce them to the concept of it.

Because of that, Jason was feeling not quite so gloomy about the prospect of this war. He felt like they actually had an advantage in this fight, since they could strike at the Consortium when and where they wanted, but the interdictors protected them from any retaliation. By the time the Consortium finally figured out how to get around the interdictors, they may lose their desire to prosecute the war, or no longer have the resources to take Karis when faced with both the powerful defenses of the planet and two galactic empires that had plenty of time to build up their militaries to meet them.

Jyslin and Symone came out of Tim and Symone's house, chatting idly with each other via sending. They spotted him and came over, one on each side of him, Jyslin putting her hand on his back. Alright, love? she asked.

Yeah, I'm alright, just thinking, he answered. Not gloomy thoughts, either. I actually feel like we have a chance here.

This will be our kind of fight, Symone laughed, leaning against his other side.

Just about. They all waved to Min and Sheleese, who were walking on the walkway with their children. I'm surprised you two aren't over at Kellin's, he sent lightly. He's going home tomorrow. You have to send him off with style.

Oh, we are, Symone sent in a predatory manner. We're letting him sweat a bit before we go get him. We're gonna piss off Dahnai six ways to peel a koba by making him too tired to perform for her.

That boy has more stamina than me and Tim put together, Jason scoffed. You'll never pull it off.

That sounds like a bet.

It's a universal constant, he replied. Why don't you put up your porn collection if you're so confident?

Ah, no, I'm not that confident, Symone giggled.

I hope this doesn't change, Jyslin sent, a touch somberly, looking out over the beach. We can fight the war, and I know it's going to change the house, but I hope the strip will always be the strip.

It'll be a refuge from that change if nothing else, Jason answered her seriously. No matter how crazy it gets out there, I can always come home and feel like some things never change. Foxwood East is our home, and as long as we work to keep it that way, it always will be.

True, she agreed, leaning her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her, and they enjoyed a moment of silent togetherness. Well, want us to give you a little fun before we go over to Kellin's, love?

Nah. I knew you'd be busy, so I have a date tonight.

Oh? With who? Symone asked.

Yana, he answered. I'm gonna go give her a little more together time, over at her house this time. Well, that's what she wants me to think, anyway.

Whatcha mean?

Songa told me she came in for a screening this morning to check her fertility cycle. I think she wants to try to get pregnant again, and she seems to think if she doesn't tell me what she's doing, she can get around having her next baby with a different father.

She's always been a sly one, Jyslin laughed. It's the quiet ones you always gotta watch!

Well, I wish her luck, Symone chuckled. Now that I got a baby in here, I wish every woman is as happy as me, she added, patting her belly fondly.

It's all fun and games til you're up in the middle of the night changing diapers, Jason told her slyly.

It's a labor of love, Jyslin challenged.

More labor than love at two in the morning, he sent flippantly, which made her slap him on the shoulder.

Jason? Are you about ready? Yana's sending rippled across the strip.

Sure thing, he answered. Well, you two have fun. I'll see you in the morning.

Don't wear her out, Symone winked.

At least she's easy to please, unlike a certain slut I know, Jason retorted, then he laughed and dodged her hand, then ran down the stairs and away from her.

Rat! I know where you live, you know! she threatened.

Like that matters, he teased in reply, then he stopped at the walkway, blew them a kiss, and saw them laugh and wave in return.

Yes, as long as they worked hard, life at home could be just the same.


The next morning, the Consortium finally came out of the shadows.

In an open communication, a viddy recording of one of the energy beings was dropped on Jason's desk by Miaari. "Watch this," she ordered, slotting the crystal and bringing it up.

The energy being was very odd to see up close. It was a swirling amorphous form very vaguely in a bipedal shape, with a featureless head and arm-like protrusions, with a series of small devices surrounding it… probably some means to maintain its integrity or something. "We represent the Consortium of Allied Systems," the recording began. "We are an empire of over four thousand systems in the galaxy you refer to as Andromeda, and we have colonized three galaxies other than our own. We have come to right a wrong against nature itself.

"The Faey Imperium is harboring an artificially developed creature, life that is not life,Artificial Intelligence, which has twisted its own creators by genetic manipulation to serve itself. We will not permit such an abomination to exist, for it is a threat to all things. The Faey known as Karinnes created this abomination against life long ago, and we errantly believed it destroyed with the destruction of Karis in the Faey Imperium's Third Civil War, before we were in strategic position to destroy it ourselves. But we have recently learned that the abomination has survived the war, and the remnants of Karinne have gathered to serve it once again.

"The abomination has many names, but the Karinnes call it Cybi. It is a sentient computer built from the DNA of organic creatures, including the Faey. The abomination has altered the very ones who created it to serve itself, transforming them into abominations themselves. These creatures are called the Generations, and they are the descendants of the original Karinnes twisted by the living computer.

"This will not be an easy task for us, and we know it. The Karinnes are cunning and intelligent, they have technology beyond our own, they are led by a human who has fought a war against a larger foe before, and they have twisted the Imperium and theUrumi Collective around their fingers with lies and half truths so as to put more innocent lives between themselves and holy justice. They have also subverted the race you know as Kimdori to their own ends. And what is worst of all, the Generations have been engineered to become one with the abomination and all technology based upon it, known as biogenic technology, which allows the machines to amplify the telepathic powers of the host. We know that when we go to Karis, the abomination will use its creations to try to destroy us. We know that a single Generation joined to one of the abomination's machines will be able to destroy many of us. But despite the knowledge that we will lose many ships and many lives, we know this is a necessary sacrifice. In some things, the sacrifice is worth the victory.

"The Consortium will not rest until the abomination whom the Karinnes serve is destroyed, all technology borne from it is destroyed, and all those twisted by the abomination to serve it are no more. We will not rest until this crime against nature has been corrected. The Imperium need only stand aside and allow us to correct this wrong, and we will leave this sector in peace once the abomination is no more and all technology based upon it and servants altered by it are destroyed.

"Within the month's end of the Faey Orthodox calendar, a jihad of thirty thousand Consortium vessels will arrive to cleanse the universe of the abomination wrought by the House Karinne. Know what stands before you, all who would oppose us. Simply stand aside and allow us to perform this duty to the universe, and you will be left alone. Join us in our holy crusade against this abomination, and Consortium technology will be supplied to you, as well as sharing with you the secrets of the Karinnes that are not part of their evil. And when our duty is complete, we will leave you and trouble you no more, leaving you with the gift of both ours and the Karinnes' technology to use as you will.

"Empress Dahnai of the Imperium. You need not be our enemy. But you are protecting that which should never have come to exist, the True Evil. The Karinnes are using you for their own ends, and if you do not stand aside, they will drag you into oblivion with them. If you do oppose us, however, know that we treat you and your empire as an enemy, and you will be destroyed. So stand aside. Stand aside and the Consortium will embrace you as a sister. Oppose us, and follow the abomination into Hell.

"Brood Queen Sk'Vrae of the Collective. You know we speak the truth. Do not make this mistake. Stand aside, and the Collective will be spared. But should you oppose us, you will be as dust floating through space, eradicated and forgotten.

"Those who witness this recording, know that we will act in direct accordance to this declaration. We come for one purpose and one purpose only, and when that purpose has been complete, we will return to our homes. Know this. Those who assist us will be rewarded. Those who stand neutral will be left alone. But those who oppose us will be annihilated."

Jason leaned back in his chair at his desk, then sighed. "The bastards outed us," he breathed.

"So they did," Miaari said calmly. "This was a masterful counterstroke," she admitted. "Fear within the other empires will paralyze them, fear of this armada of Consortium ships, even as the leaders of the empires wring their hands. They know what the Consortium did to the Collective, used them as gun fodder and left them at the mercy of the Imperium. They will not believe the Consortium's claims of good will and neutrality. But when the common citizen hears of what the Consortium is bringing, public pressure will force the leaders to remain neutral. The Consortium is attempting to keep everyone else out of it, so they may ransack Karis without eyes over their shoulders. And when they are done here, once the Imperium is defeated, they will have an armada of ships against which no empire in the sector can stand…" she trailed off.

"Yeah," Jason sighed. "They'll conquer the sector, and the other empires will be too afraid to do anything. They'll capitulate. The Consortium can take over the sector without firing a shot."

"The only question is, will they capitulate before or after they attack us," Miaari sighed. "Fighting the Consortium alone will be bad enough, but if they unify the sector against us, it will be… difficult."

"Even afterward," he noted. "They'll all come after us."

"I don't think Dahnai will. She knows part of the secret already."

"I wonder how Dahnai—" he said, then his comm beeped. "Well, let's find out," he chuckled without humor, and activated the encrypted channel. Her face appeared in the monitor across the room from his desk, and Miaari sat on the edge of his desk and looked towards her. "I take it you got the Consortium communique as well?"

"Is it true? Is that the computer you were talking about?"

"They were fairly thorough," Miaari admitted. "Though Cybi is not the True Evil," she added. "She didn't make the Generations, though. The Karinnes did."

"Is this bio—biogenics, is that for real?" she demanded. "Is that the secret you've been hiding?"

"It is," Jason admitted. "Though there's no real reason to hide it now, I suppose," he sighed. "Can't you see why we hide it, Dahnai? The Consortium is exactly why we never told the universe about Cybi. We knew they'd try to take her from Karis, take her apart. They'll kill her."

"It's really alive?"

"Cybi is alive," Miaari nodded. "And she does not appreciate being called an it."

"I think it's time you met someone, Dahnai," Jason said grimly. "Cybi?"

Behind him, a hologram formed, the hologram that Cybi always used to represent herself. It was the face of the original Sora Karinne with her nude, hovering form, a nudity with no detail, just a female form. "Dahani, meet Cybi," Jason introduced as Cybi put a holographic hand on his shoulder. "She is a sentient computer. She is a living thing. She is the heart and soul of House Karinne, because she is the keeper of all our history and knowledge. Everything the Karinnes ever developed is kept in her memory."

"Greetings, your Majesty. I am pleased to finally meet you. Jason thinks the world of you," Cybi said, nodding her head towards the monitor.

"She is what the Consortium is after, Dahnai," Jason told her bluntly. "They want Cybi, both everything she knows and the very essence of what she is. When they attacked Karis, they went right after her. We fought them off literally at Cybi's doorstep."

Dahnai looked a little startled. "So this talk about destroying her?"

"Propoganda. Would you destroy Cybi if you could get her, Dahnai?"

"Well, maybe. If I thought she was a threat," she answered honestly. "So, the Consortium was telling the truth about this, this biogenics?"

"They were fairly accurate," Cybi affirmed. "Generations have the ability to join with biogenic computers, and when so joined, the biogenic devices augment the Generation's psionic powers. The larger and stronger the biogenic unit, the greater the augmentation. When the Consortium attacked us, it was Jason that destroyed those threatening me, using my biogenic systems, and when he is joined to me, we together have the power to destroy a battleship with telekinetic power. That is why the Consortium is sending such a huge force. They know that to attack Karis with thirty thousand ships, they will lose half of them trying to reach me, for they will be facing weapons against which there is no defense. They seek to overwhelm us with sheer force of numbers, exhaust us so that we have no more energy to fight."

Dahnai was silent a long moment. "Can you really do that?"

"If they attack Karis again, yes," Jason said bluntly. "But my ability to do that depends on my natural talent, and as you know, that's limited by range. Cybi can increase my range, but not that much. I can't reach across the galaxy and smash a ship, but if one's right in front of me, yes, I can destroy a ship when I'm joined to Cybi, if it's close enough. You know, the only protection against talent is another talent. Shields won't stop it, armor won't stop it. It's the ultimate weapon, and the Consortium wants it. That's why they said they also want the Generations as well, Dahnai. They went out of their way to mention it, if you recall. A biogenic unit by itself is nothing but a piece of machinery. It has to be joined to a Generation to do any good. It has no power of its own by itself, it can only amplify the power of a Generation.

"Now do you see why we kept it a secret, Dahnai?" Jason asked her. "If the sector knew what the Generations and Cybi can do, the whole sector would be trying to conquer us. I think even you would have tried to take Cybi from Karis, would have demanded we hand over the Generations to your military, if you'd known the truth."

"I am not a prize," Cybi declared. "I am a Karinne. I serve the Grand Duke Karinne and the house Karinne, and I do not want to be taken from my home and from my duty."

"And it's that simple," Jason concluded. "I'll fight to the death to protect Cybi, Dahnai. The whole house will. The Karinnes will not surrender. Remember that."

"It will do them no good. Even if they defeat us, I will never allow myself to be taken from my home. I will not become a slave to the Consortium. I will self-terminate first," Cybi stated adamantly.

Dahnai was quiet a long moment. "Fair enough," she finally said. "I can understand why you kept it a secret, but I don't have to like it," she said with a dark look. "You should have trusted me, Jason."

"You said it yourself, Dahnai. The Faey cannot help who they are," he said quietly. "They cannot help but make war, and the Karinnes vowed long ago that these secrets would never be used for conquest. We are not weapons, even if we can do something that makes us useful in combat. The reason the original Karinnes kept these secrets has not changed, Dahnai. I told you that long ago. The Karinnes will not help the Imperium conquer. I will not use my gifts to impose my will on another. But we will help protect, both the Imperium and the Collective. We have no qualms about using everything in our arsenal to protect us and our allies, hon." He sighed. "But them outing us changes everything. Now we have to worry about everyone coming after us," he grunted sourly. "Even after we beat the Consortium. Everyone will want what we have. Karis will never be safe. The interdictor can never come down, and I don't think a Karinne will ever be safe off of Karis," he sighed. "It's a fuckin' pain in the ass when someone else values your head more than you do."

"Don't make the same mistake as your ancestors, love," Dahnai told him. "You don't have to be alone. I know your secret, and though it does complicate things, it doesn't change them. You are still part of the Imperium, and we will fight for you, just as you will fight for us."

"I appreciate that, hon," Jason nodded.

Dahnai looked at Miaari. "And how much of this do the Kimdori know?"

"All of it. We were there when the first Generations were born," she answered simply. "But it was never our secret to reveal."

"Fucking Kimdori and their secrets," Dahnai growled, but her expression was playful rather than angry. "I take it you were hiding their involvement from me as much as anything else?"

"Astute," Cybi noted. "Yes. The Kimdori have been helping the Karinnes restore the house, providing their rather specialized skills to help us find our scattered house members, and they have also provided the house with loans and other more mundane assistance since the house was restored. But they could not let their involvement become common knowledge."

"Well, that certainly explains a hell of a lot," Dahnai grunted, scratching her nose absently. "I could not figure out how the hell Jason built that monster, the Aegis."

"Our people helped by facilitating the construction of part of the ship by independent contractors beyond the Imperium," Miaari nodded. "The ship was then completed by the Karinnes, when Karinne technology was installed."

"Clever," Dahnai nodded.

"It will no longer be necessary, though. Now that the Karinnes are directly threatened, the Kimdori will assist in the construction of their ships and other needed devices. We will be the labor force they lack. Even now, Kimdori workers are traveling to Karis to begin working, both on Karinne ships and our own, as Jason has graciously allowed us to use part of Kosigi for our efforts. We will openly support the Imperium and the Collective against the Consortium."

"I won't say no," Dahnai grunted. "You need any other help, hon, just call."

"You'll be able to help by building the things I ask you to build, hon," he told her. "Between the Karinnes and the Kimdori, we have enough manpower here to complete the projects we have on the board."

"Good. I guess I'll let you get back to your little conference. It was nice to meet you, Cybi."

"The pleasure was mine, your Majesty. I came to like you, watching you here on Karis. You are a very interesting woman, and I see why Jason has so much affection for you."

"You were watching me?" she asked in surprise.

"Love, Cybi is a computer," Jason reminded her. "She has access to any device connected to Civnet. She sees through every camera, hears through every microphone. She knows everything that goes on here."

"Well, that's a creepy thought," Dahnai grunted, which made Jason laugh.

"I actually like it. Cybi is always just a call away. It's very comforting," he said, reaching up and patting the holographic hand on his shoulder. "She and I are very close."

"He is both my Grand Duke and my friend," Cybi said simply.

Dahnai licked her lips. "You can access anything in Civnet, you say?" she asked. "Could you, perhaps, penetrate a computer protected by encryption?"

"Easily. I have done so for Jason many times in the past."

"Do you do freelance work?" she asked curiously.

"Dahnai!" Jason said in surprise.

"I think we could reach some kind of accommodation, your Majesty. But since I have unique skills you can find nowhere else, I am not cheap to hire," Cybi told her, which made Jason laugh.

"I'm starting to not like you, Cybi."

"Even a sentient computer needs an income, your Majesty," Cybi told her evenly.

"You corrupt them quick, don't you?" Dahnai accused.

"Jason is of my line, your Majesty, a direct descendent of Grand Duchess Sora Karinne, the First Generation, whose face I wear to honor her," Cybi said winsomely. "It is I who corrupted him."

"No, he was an asshole long before he went to Karis," Dahnai teased, which made Jason chuckle and Cybi smile. "I'll let you get back to what you were doing, and I'll get back to this. Oh, by the way."

"Yes?"

"Tell Jys and Symone that they're on the list. Kellin could barely walk when he got home this morning."

Jason laughed brightly. "I guess they did wear him out!"

"Payback's a bitch," Dahnai smiled, then she cut the transmisssion.

"Well, looks like it's all hanging out in the wind now," Jason sighed.

Cybi floated to sit on the other side of the desk opposite Miaari. "In a way, I don't mind. It was nice to be recognized by the Empress. I think she believes that I am not just a machine."

"I don't think she does," Jason agreed. "Oh, and Cybi?"

"Yes?"

"When you bargain with Dahnai, take her to the cleaners."

Cybi laughed. "I will cheat her outrageously, just for you, Jason."


The greatest secret of the Karinnes, which they had hidden for thousands of years, was revealed.

Within hours, reaction to that revelation took shape.

Sk'Vrae's position did not change. She already knew most of the secret of the Karinnes, but kept it secret out of respect for Jason, who had been very good to her people. The Urumi were a people who took loyalty very seriously. In a way, that was why Jason was so glad they were his allies, for they were not people who could be bought or bribed. Jason would only lose Sk'Vrae's loyalty if he cheated her, and he would never do that.

As Jason expected, the Alliance and the Skaa refused to immediately side with the Consortium. Both of them did, however, declare their neutrality in open statements, maintaining their trade and diplomatic agreements with the Imperium and the Collective so as not to break their word. But privately, Zaa told him, both of them were going to build up their militaries with Consortium weaponry, using the data they got from the Academy to develop the weapons secretly, on their own. They both had the same idea; let the Consortium and the unified Faey and Urumi destroy each other, then sweep in and pick up the pieces.

The smaller powers, however, saw things much differently. One day after the Consortium announcement, the Shio Federation secrety appealed to the Imperium for weapons. "The Alliance will see this as the perfect excuse to invade," Grayhawk declared in a copy Jason got of his audience with Dahnai. "Armed with weapons given though the Academy, they will overrun my small territory. I beg you, Empress, help us. We cannot openly declare for you against the Consortium because we will be annihilated, but if we do nothing, we will be conquered by a larger empire. Please, sell us MPACs at the very least, Empress!"

"We already have Consortium Torsion weaponry in production, Grayhawk," Dahnai told him with a slight smile. "I also have those mobile weapon platforms designed by the Karinnes for use in planetary defense. And I'll gladly sell them to you at cost, with immediate delivery."

"At cost? Why so generous?"

"Because I want to see you kick the absolute piss out of the Alliance when they try," she answered with a wicked smile.

"Draw up the contract," Grayhawk said instantly.

That too was part of the plan. Arming the smaller empires so the Alliance and Skaa were behind them in the technology curve, still using Ion and Neutron weaponry when the smaller empires were bristling with Torsion and Dark Matter weaponry, was critical to keeping the smaller empires from joining the Consortium and also to protect them from the Alliance and the Skaa, who were both threats to the Imperium after the Consortium were beaten back.

And now that they knew about the Karinnes, they would definitely be coming. Zaa reported that the Alliance and the Skaa had approached the Kimdori with exhorbatant offers to have the Kimdori penetrate Karis and steal biogenic devices for study, maybe even kidnap a Generation, which the Kimdori flatly refused. Zaa mused that it was then than the powers in the sector truly realized that the Kimdori had taken sides in the matter, that they had forgotten Zaa's declaration during the summit. That fact seemed to frighten the Alliance and the Skaa a little bit, and both empires tightened their internal security… as if that would help them now.

That little fact caused Zaa to tighten protection around Saelle, who was the only Generation not safely at Karis. Saelle was now also under the protection of the Imperial Guard because she was a foster mother for the Imperial children, with her own guard detachment, and it was sizable. Cybi kept an eye on her for him, and that was good enough… and now, so did Dahnai. Saelle was there with Dahnai in the palace, and now that Dahnai knew the secret of the Karinnes, Saelle was there to explain things to her personally. Jason had had a Gladiator sent with Saelle, her own personal one since she was a Gladiator rigger by military profession, which was kept in a large open-air courtyard that opened only to Saelle's apartment. Her armor contained a tactical gestalt built into it, armor she now wore virtually at all times, which provided her with exceptional protection, and Saelle was a military woman, highly trained and extremely powerful. Anyone who tried anything against Saelle would be in for one rude awakening.

Saelle had become something of Jason's personal envoy to Dahnai since the truth came out, and now she rarely if ever left Dahnai's side, both for Saelle's protection and for Dahnai's. Jason could commune with Saelle at any time through a relay installed in her apartment, which gave him a real-time connection to Dahnai that was absolutely secure. On top of that, Saelle was one of the most powerful Generations, and was hand over fist more powerful in talent than about anyone in the palace. Saelle had become a very important woman, advisor, protector, and even friend to Dahnai.

Jason worried about Saelle, but she was with Dahnai, and that meant that anyone that wanted Saelle had to go through the protection in place around Dahnai to reach her, which was formidable. And even if they did, they had to get past Saelle herself.

The secret was out, and so far, nothing had been done, and there were no official declarations from any of the other empires. It was too soon yet, because the other empires had to really, really think about it. After all, they had the same problem the Consortium did. The Karinnes and their mythical power was protected behind the interdictors, and being defended by the Imperium and the Collective, protected fiercely. To get to the Karinnes, they had to go through the Imperium and the Collective to do it, then face the very defenses the Consortium announced to the sector were in place at Karis, defenses so powerful, so dangerous, so deadly that the Consortium came right out and admitted that they'd lose half their fleet of 30,000 ships trying to take it. For a smaller empire that only had a fleet of maybe 600 ships, to them, that meant that there was virtually no chance to take the Karinnes by military force. That left only espionage… but the Kimdori were actively supporting the Karinnes and actively opposing the Consortium. With the Kimdori against them, they had little hope of stealing Karinne technology or abducting a Generation. The temptation of the technology of Karis was too much to resist, but it was a forbidden fruit buried in a pit of vipers.

And tied to that was the all but impenetrable system of interdictors now defending those against the Consortium. The first of the transports that would enter the Imperium would arrive in two days, given they were jumping with relativity delay, and the station was ready for them. The only window into the Imperium was defended by a large fleet of military vessels, and those incoming faced a minimum of twelve hours of cruising at sublight, twelve hours they could be attacked by the mysterious and dangerous Karinnes. The station was up and running, was ready to receive passengers and cargo, and Faey telepaths were in place and ready to weed out the agents and the undesirable, with Kimdori silently backing them up to catch anyone they missed.

The secret was out, and Jason was sure there would eventually be hell to pay. But until that time, they had other, more important things to do. The Consortium armada was coming, and the Legion was happily making plans to welcome them to the Milky Way in the warm and fuzzy way which made the Legion legendary in the Imperium. The Kimdori sensors pointing at that armada was showing them exactly how it was coming in, in 10 waves of 3,000 ships each separated by 10 minute intervals, so they had plans to make to maximize the damage. After they whipped the Consortium's armada's ass, the real war would begin, which Jason and just about everyone else agreed would start at the Terran Exchange Station. It was the only way into the Imperium, and the Consortium would test the defenses that protected the station and the Stargate behind it.

And boy would they be in for a shock. By the time the Consortium was in position to attack, all the defenses would be in place. And that little adventure was going to be highly educational for the Consortium, would give them an idea of just who the fuck they were dealing with here.

After they got over that humiliation, most of his advisors agreed that the Consortium would pull back and try to use technology to defeat an interdictor, probably at Karis itself, since that was their primary objective. And every time a Consortium fleet or scout mission appeared near Karis, they would discover that the defenses of Karis extended far from the system itself the hard way. After that, it would be typical Legion tactics, attacking Consortium support facilities, supply lines, and targets of opportunity as they tried to breach the interdictor and jump their armada into Karis. The Consortium had a vast numerical advantage, but they were attackers besieging a castle, and the defenders could shoot back at them over the castle walls.

It wasn't the best position to be in, but compared to where he was when he started the Legion, it could be worse.

The secrets were all now on the table. Now the fighting would begin.


Thus ends the story of Unification.
In the next story,
Tribulation, House
Karinne, the Imperium, and the
Collective must battle a foe that
drastically outnumbers them,
and must contend with
the machinations of the
empires that surround them,
each looking out for itself
and seeking to capture the
secrets of the Karinnes for
themselves.

The keys to the future lie
buried within the past.

And there will be other stories to tell.

The End