Jeridan tried to focus on the tour Patricia was giving him rather than what Patricia had hinted she'd give him once the tour was over.

The tour was interesting enough, after all, and he was finally seeing the labs of the organization that had employed him and lied to him for nearly a year.

They had left the party through a door that led first to a large, open office area where he had noticed all the monitors were switched off, and then into a spacious computer room. Again the monitors were off. He bet even if he turned them on, the computers would be heavily encrypted. While the compound didn't seem to have much security, the computers certainly would.

And did they really need all that much security? Even though this was a relatively high-tech world, none of the scientists on Eridanus Delta had ever worked with stuff of this caliber. It would be like if he had to figure out that computer room back on the Imperium station.

Still, he worried about the armored cars out front.

Patricia was explaining the impressive capabilities of the mainframe and the other computers. Jeridan cut her off.

"What's up with the Royal Guard outside the front gate?"

Patricia shrugged. "They said they wanted extra security after you landed."

"That's what they told Mikael."

"Who?"

"Professor Chapek."

"Oh, I didn't know his first name."

Interesting they go by last names here, but only by first names out in the field. Another layer of obfuscation?

"When did those guards show up?"

"A few hours ago."

So they detected our approach and guessed it was us.

"Did they come inside?"

"They never come inside. We're under royal protection."

"Well, that's a relief," Jeridan said.

Not.

Patricia smiled and said, "This way."

They passed into a large machine shop. Lathes, drills, milling machines, and other devices were set up in separate work areas. Jeridan recognized several partially finished parts from jump gates.

"We've made an inventory of all the spare parts we might need, those most sensitive to the effects of time or that are positioned near the outer skin of the jump gate and might have been hit by a meteorite large or fast enough to break through. That way we can repair any jump gate that needs it."

"At least those that weren't stripped clean."

Patricia grimaced. "So true. We can only hope that we can bring enough back online that we can establish a large enough network to fight the Rimscourge."

"How many do you think can turn on right away, once we power them up?"

Jeridan had asked both Nova and Derren and they said that "the problem was being studied."

Typical nonanswer.

"We've done a pretty extensive survey and as far as we can tell, about fifteen to twenty percent of them should be able to fire up."

"That's it?"

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Jeridan had been hoping for more, although, he had to admit, he had been expecting less.

"We also estimate that about thirty percent more only need minor repairs. Those will take time."

"Time we don't have."

"We've already shipped spare parts to key positions."

"Really? Just how much manpower does the League have?"

Patricia laughed and took a sip of her champagne. "We don't need manpower for that. We just stuck the parts in sealed crates on the fastest freighters we could hire and sent them to their destinations. We prepaid for storage and when the time comes, we'll message the local government alerting them that the parts are there and give them instructions on how to install them."

"Clever. Was that your idea?"

"No, Professor Chapek's."

"I'm sure you came up with plenty of other clever ideas."

Patricia laughed and squeezed his hand. Jeridan smiled. He liked where this was headed.

She led him through another door where they ended up in an electronics lab where worktables were strewn with a jungle of wiring and circuit boards.

"Here we're doing the same project but with wiring. The engineering guys had a major headache figuring all this stuff out."

Jeridan slipped an arm around her waist. "Imperium code must be even more complicated."

She drew herself closer. "Big time. Oh! You need to see this."

She took him to the next room lit only by a massive golden hologram floating in the center. It was a schematic of a jump gate, a full ten meters across.

For a moment, Jeridan forgot his lust.

"It's so complete!" he gasped. "I've never seen it in such detail."

They walked slowly around it, holding hands.

"We've reconstructed it from every known jump gate we've had a chance to study. They're pretty standardized. While they constructed different models over the years, they didn't vary all that much. Check it out."

Jeridan stepped forward and reached his hand into the hologram. He felt a warm tingling, stronger when he touched the external skin or deck levels, weaker when he touched the inner workings. A fingertip sticking into the open interior of a room felt no tingling at all.

"I like the interface."

He expanded his thumb and forefinger to zoom in on what looked like a control room, then moved his hand back and forth to look at it from different angles.

"Keep zooming in," Patricia said. "See how close you can get."

He did as she asked, making the control room bigger and bigger until it took up the entire display, becoming life sized.

"Keep going," Patricia urged.

Jeridan grinned and kept zooming in. Soon he was looking at a circuit board, then a portion of the circuit board, then an individual circuit.

"Wow."

He fiddled with the hologram a little more, fascinated, then remembered his company.

Jeridan turned to her. "Thank you for showing me this. After all I've been through, this is a real treat."

Patricia stepped closer. "It sounds like you went through a lot of hardship."

"Yeah. It's worth it, though. If we can get the jump gates back online, who knows what we can do?"

"We'll get them back online. And we'll have a chance to unite the galaxy."

Patricia's eyes sparked in the golden glow of the hologram, reflecting his own excitement.

Without a word, they came together. They kissed for a long moment, their hands roving over each other's bodies.

"Not here," Patricia whispered. "Someone might come in."

"Let's go to your office."

"It's on the other side of the compound and I don't want to wait."

"Neither do I. Where then?"

"This way."

She led him through a door and they found themselves outside. She led him to the outer wall of the compound where a small durasteel door with a keypad marked the back exit.

"I hope the Royal Guard aren't out there."

"They aren't. They're only guarding the front entrance. They're pretty lax."

Jeridan knew this was true from experience. The compound was in the middle of nowhere and any threats would come by road. The Royal Guard wouldn't think beyond the most obvious threat.

Patricia punched in a key code and the door clicked open. She and Jeridan slipped out.

Fields stretched to the horizon in all directions, dotted every now and then by coppices or distant farmhouses. One cluster of trees stood only fifty yards off. Jeridan and Patricia laughed and raced toward it.

As soon as they got amongst the trees they fell into each other's arms, lips locking. Within moments, Patricia was pulling off his jumpsuit.

Jeridan felt a rising desire, and also another feeling he couldn't quite figure out.

It took him a moment, and by then they were both half-undressed.

The feeling was guilt. He felt it so rarely he hadn't recognized it.

He eased back a bit, holding Patricia's straying hands.

"What's wrong?" she asked, her face flushed, breath coming fast.

"I … don't look like this."

"Huh?"

"I'm wearing an electronic disguise. I don't want to lead you on."

He pressed the button on his chain and switched to his regular appearance.

"Oh! Why are you wearing that?"

"My partner and I have been here before. We sold hoverbikes to the aristocrats, better ones than the Royal Guard have. The king got jealous and ordered our arrest. We had to get the hell out of the system."

Jeridan didn't mind lying since he was being honest about the important stuff.

Patricia laughed. "That's great! The king is tyrant and deserves to be overthrown. Anything bad you do to him counts as a good deed."

"Glad you see it that way."

Patricia put her arms around his neck. "But you don't need any disguises with me. I like your real appearance better."

"Really?"

"Really."

They embraced again and fell to the ground. They didn't come out of the coppice for quite some time.

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