Perhaps he had truly underestimated Petr after all.

The words seemed to echo in Sha’s brain, reminding him too much of his flight of fancy a moment ago. Frost practically cracked his lips as he smiled cruelly, suddenly relishing the fight to come. He did not notice the tech blanch at the killer’s look that filled his eyes.

Let Petr come!

The Republic

24 September 3134

Askein wove slowly, intricately through the stars—a net to capture the elusive prize.

Starting at Adhafera, the first strands jumped to the Savannah system, where those ships with lithium-fusion batteries immediately jumped again to the Bordon system; a lone ship jumped to the Dieudonne system, where rumor said a lone Sea Fox JumpShip held station.

Those that did not immediately rejump unfurled kilometer-wide sails and began to drink in the universe’s life energy. Yet they could not wait the one hundred seventy-three hours for a standard recharge. Instead, tight-lipped commands were issued. Nervous technician castemen massaged controls; sweat-slicked palms eased safety parameters. The onboard fusion reactors spiked as the energy draw siphoned off into the Kearny-Fuchida hyperdrive. Each ship sought to shave some sixty percent off the normal charge times, but the forced quick charge might be catastrophic. A drive damaged by the force-feeding of such mammoth energies might blow during jump initiation or discharge violently upon arrival; either would strand a JumpShip for long weeks, if not months (averted eyes spoke volumes of the simple disappearance into hyperspace such measures might precipitate).

The skein continued to grow as sister ships met in transit were immediately tasked with the great hunt. Tendrils stretching out blindly, hunting, covering every possible location, avoiding the thought of a dead system jump.

The horrific beauty of the Castor trinary system, with its mammoth red giant and its evilly, brilliantly white twin sisters.

Blazing-hot Zosma, with its sparse system and monthlong intrasystem travel to a habitable planet.

The Dubhe binary: a cool orange giant and its lonely, pale yellow main sequence companion, orbiting a scant twenty-three AU.

Each system felt the pinprick of quantum mechanics and human ingenuity shred reality for a strained heartbeat, before the materialization of a JumpShip, the infinitesimal alteration in each system’s solar winds as sails rapidly deployed.

Each future day sluicing into today’s frothing rapids, flowing into the flatlands of the past and soon to be history saw Sea Fox JumpShips hitting additional systems.

A web interconnecting each world in a frenzy of need.

Birthed on Adhafera, it grew into an unfolding weave that flowed into an ever-widening cone, moving through most of Prefecture VII, into the interior of Prefecture VIII and sweeping relentlessly into Prefecture X.

The ilKhanate had to be found, the ilArcShip located.

The Khan saved.

Clan Sea Fox DropShip Ocean of Stars

Near Orbit, Stewart

Prefecture VII, The Republic

26 September 3134

“Why again are we holding station?” Jesup asked; the strain in his voice transmitted as a shout, yet Petr did not look up.

Jesup stood restlessly across from Petr in the main cargo hold of the converted Overlord-C DropShip. Originally designed to carry an entire Cluster of ’Mechs (Petr shivered to contemplate such a force of BattleMechs at his disposal), it now transported mostly cargo, with only a mixed Trinary of units left—a skeleton compared to the glory of years gone by.

Petr ignored Jesup for the moment—the echoes of focused activity as that small military force readied for action falling away as well—and continued studying the small holographic table between them.

Tapping the controls lightly, Petr zoomed through several regions of Stewart, what they were able to tap from the satellite comms. Enough to show the wicked battle raging in at least two different areas around New Edinburgh. Petr coughed, tasted the snotty phlegm coating his tongue and grimaced.

Am I getting a cold? The fate of Clan Sea Fox hangs in the balance and I’m getting a cold? He frowned in frustration, ignored his own vulgarity in his anger.

Jesup’s anxiety—he practically hopped from one foot to the other like a warrior ready for his first Trial of Position: a warrior who would lose with such impatience—peeled away Petr’s concentration layer by layer. Forced him to glance up, regardless of his wish to ignore the question.

Petr finally sighed, turned off the machine, which immediately folded back into the wall, straightened to a ripping crack of vertebrae. “You seem to be questioning all my actions of late. Demanding answers when I have already made my reasons clear.”

Jesup leaned toward him, as though to keep the words between them. “I would not need to ask for such clarifications if your decisions made sense.”

Petr stiffened. Felt the rage he had almost lost across the last week flare up, bringing a familiar warmth. “In case you have forgotten, Jesup, I am ovKhan. I need not explain my actions to you. You follow my orders.” He bit off the last words as though taking a mouthful of Jesup’s hide. He knew the rejoinder before the words emerged from the other man’s lips.

“Neg, ovKhan. Your great and powerful person does need to explain itself to me. Or I, like any of those under you, may decide to call a Trial of Grievance, quiaff?” Though the words came coated with his usual sarcasm, Petr noted, to his chagrin, that nothing touched his eyes.

Have I estranged him so much? Has our friendship gone so far afield? Petr closed his eyes for a moment, wished he knew how to undo enough of the damage to satisfy his aide until there was time to truly repair their relationship. To implement the changes he finally understood were needed. Yes, Jesup should serve the Clan and serve his ovKhan, but Petr had come to realize that by taking such for granted… he might as well be a spheroid.

But the time was not now; later, (had been saying that too much of late) he would fix it later.

He opened his eyes, and his shoulders slumped slightly at the admission. “Aff, Jesup. Aff. We stay in orbit because we do not have sufficient forces to defeat what we will face on-planet. We hold station until the forces on-planet have been weakened enough that we can make a difference.”

Jesup cocked his head to the side, confirmation and disgust warring for dominance on his face. “You hide,” he said.

Petr jerked as though slapped. Words of denial flooded his mouth, but he choked them off by refusing to open his lips. He refused to add lies to a situation that already sickened him. Already forced him to question everything he believed about being Clan.

Clan Sea Fox knew the trials, rituals and traditions of the Clans were flexible—guidelines to be bent and twisted when needed in order to further their goals. But this went beyond twisting, or bending, or winding… this stank of shattering.

“We have no choice,” Petr finally responded.

“There is always a choice, quiaff? Have you not told me that again and again?” His strident tone changed to that of a pupil reciting rote text. “A Sea Fox merchant makes choices every day. And none are trivial or insignificant. Each has a consequence that will unfold for the benefit or detriment of the Clan. It is you who must decide.”

Petr sniffed, felt the savashri phlegm at the back of his throat, focused on not gagging for a moment (subconsciously knew the gagging reflex stemmed from his current decisions as much as his cold), nodded his head. “Aff, Jesup. But there are times when both choices lead to detriment, and only by measuring the degrees can you know which is the lesser of two evils.”