“I see you recognize me, sweetness.” Her sultry, almost naughty tone and the breathless chuckle that came with it, so incongruous with the walking assassin standing in the doorway, pulled a return chuckle from him before he could stop himself.

She looked pointedly toward Jesup.

Petr stood, turned to look at Jesup and watched a war between confusion and horror on his face.

What in the Founder’s name is going on? Jesup’s unasked question practically rang out in the silence.

The implications of Jesup’s response crashed down on Petr like a tsunami. Sharing a coquettish chuckle with an obvious spheroid special forces intel agent? A dishonorable assassin? Aff, that would go over very well indeed with his Aimag. If Jesup was having a hard time buying it, he shuddered at the thought of the rest of them swallowing such behavior.

But he’d come this far, trusted this much. Events were moving too quickly for regrets. Like a true Clansman, he simply moved to seize the moment. Perhaps her sudden appearance heralded the ability to act, not just react.

He turned back to her. “Why have you come, Snow?”

She casually stripped off her mask, her wet locks framing her face, those amazing eyes. A grunt from behind brought Petr’s head around again to see the look of extreme distaste Jesup wore.

Petr slowly turned away from Jesup and his mind illuminated with an epiphany. Much to his astonishment, at some point, he had stopped seeing her as he did at their first encounter. Though this was only the third time they had met—their banter, her obvious intelligence and military abilities—they all stacked up to change his perception. She was not, could never be, beautiful, or even pretty. But she had transformed from his initial impression of ugly to …striking.

Those smoky eyes.

Her gentle smile told him she had read his emotions on his face. And with no Clansman able to see his face, he did not care; he returned the smile for a moment.

A shared promise for a future they both knew could never be.

The rumble started low and then built to a crescendo, rocking the vehicle gently, an illumination briefly flaring outside, before fading. The second DropShip lifting off brought them both back to the reality of their situation. Of the here and now and the responsibilities they could not ignore.

“What have you brought for me?”

“Oh, a fine wedding present, sweetness. A mighty fine present. You just wait a moment and I’ll be back.” She slipped into the night as though parting shadows. The sudden silence in the vehicle felt louder than the burn of the DropShip.

“That”—Jesup broke the silence after only a handful of breaths—“is where you have been getting your information.” “Sweetness” hung suspended in the air between them as though carved from ’Mech armor.

Petr had never heard Jesup speak in such a deadpan voice, as though his emotions had been stripped and painfully flayed from within. Petr did not turn, not wanting to face it. Responded softly.

“You have trusted me through honor and disgrace, across a dozen worlds and more. You must trust me now.” Years of taking this companion, this friend, for granted yawned before him.

He felt he might shatter from the stillness. He should have brought Jesup in from the beginning. Should have done so many things, which had escaped him.

Which he took for granted.

Sha’s face rose before him. Though he still emphatically believed Sha to be heading down an irredeemable path, some of his words held truth. Petr was lying to himself. Placing his desire above that of his people. Above his Aimag.

Above his friends.

For a moment, he embraced the ache that blossomed and threatened to overwhelm him. He luxuriated in the pain, finally understood the depth of the redemption he would have to undertake. Then he took the ache and wrapped it around and back down, spiraling it, sending it down into the depths, to be dealt with another day.

A day when the fate of his entire Clan did not hang in the balance.

Just then the darkness split asunder and Snow returned, moving fully into the vehicle. Behind her, wearing nothing but short briefs, an elemental stepped up and into the HQ, rocking the vehicle as much as did the DropShip. He bent over considerably to fit through the door. Though his head would have brushed the ceiling if he stood straight, the man bowed himself, as though his mental spine (his self image) were shorn away, torn from him. Slack lips formed a perpetual “O” of surprise, and his eyes darted this way and that, like Tidinic’s, trying desperately to escape, but with the full, horrifying knowledge none existed.

Petr looked in dismayed revulsion at a Clan elemental, bearing few physical marks, reduced to such a state. Snow snapped her fingers and the elemental immediately went to both knees, cradling something in his hands. Jesup’s grunt of disgust echoed his own.

He looked at the smug expression on Snow’s face and once again found himself torn between two emotions. He felt awe for her ability to break an elemental, and revulsion at seeing the epitome of the Clan eugenics program brought low by a spheroid.

Smoky eyes.

If he thought about those conflicting emotions too long, he knew which side he would come down on. The rest of his Aimag would never understand.

“What… is… this?” The slow, drawn-out words from Jesup scraped across the room, heightening the tension. Petr could almost feel Jesup’s hands reaching toward Snow’s neck with delusions of snapping it; there could only be one outcome to such a gesture, and Petr would hate to lose a friend he only recently came to appreciate.

A chair scraped loudly across metal as Snow pulled it out from under the vehicle’s holotable, placed a booted foot on it. “This is the proof you have so desperately been seeking.” She raised her chin, a clear challenge to Jesup.

He did not rise to it, though Petr swore he could hear Jesup’s teeth grinding.

“Snow,” Petr said, trying to refocus the moment, “what is it?” In all their eyes, the elemental had lost his human status.

“This is Corin,” she said, caressing his head as though petting a favorite dog. “He and I have had many long, long talks. You Clanners are so stoic, but once I get to know you, you can’t shut up.” She batted her eyes in his direction. “Right, sweetness?”

Petr cleared his throat, actually uncomfortable. Could she make it any worse? “Please, Snow, get to the point.”

“Oh, the point,” she began. “Well, that would be the fact that this here fine specimen happened to accompany ol’ man Sha on his sabbatical to the Falcons.”

“What!” both men cried simultaneously. With avid hunger, Petr appraised the elemental in a new light. Proof! The proof he needed.

Then he contemplated saKhan Sennet’s reactions. His probing questions. Any answer can be dragged out through torture.

Snow smiled a look of pure triumph, which transformed her face. Victory made anything, anyone, beautiful. She gently tapped him on the head, and the elemental opened up his hands, raising what he held. The dim lighting of the flickering holotable revealed a small, mechanical plug-in, like a small noteputer memory cartridge. It took a moment for them to recognize what they were seeing.

“Savashri!” Petr growled, triumph washing over his face. He looked at Snow again and once more they shared a fleeting moment, her blazing eyes matching his, their emotions raging across the short distance between. Though the storm still blew in, they just might have found the shield to ride it out.

A battle armor ROM memory core—the elemental had worn his armor during the meeting.