“And who will defeat me? You? Have I not already defeated you?”

“Aff,” Petr said, slowly beginning to move his ’Mech forward once more, pinpointed Sha’s location on his radar. “You did defeat me, which should make your acceptance of this Trial of Grievance easy for you.”

“And if I wish to simply continue battling? Regardless of the interruption of the Marik forces, I still have superior numbers. And, ovKhan, a wonderful move, that. Just wonderful. Worthy of myself.”

The chuckle felt like a tossed gauntlet, hard and unyielding as it slapped his face.

“Then you would be as selfish as you have accused me of being.” Petr swallowed, closed his eyes momentarily and realized he must make the admission. Must goad him into single combat. To resolve this, so the rift could be healed. Much more of this brutal fighting and the remnants of Beta Aimag might never be fully integrated back into the water’s embrace.

“And, Sha, regardless of your misguided efforts, I must thank you. You were right. I have been selfish. My actions have been geared toward my own glory and not that of Clan Sea Fox. Not that of my people. For that, I will make sure your memory lives on… for me.”

Another lengthy pause swallowed the moment, while the whine of gyros and the thudding of ’Mech footfalls accompanied the Tiburon through the fog.

You are right there. Petr kept his eyes alternating between the graphic display of the radar and his forward viewscreen. Light flared ahead, sunlight streaming in, as though eating away the fog like a virulent pathogen consuming flesh.

“I never thought to hear such an admission from you,” Sha responded, his voice subdued almost to a whisper.

“We can all learn from our errors. I certainly have learned from mine. Will you learn from yours?”

“Ah, reverse psychology.” The chuckle once more, cold and unfeeling. “But aff, ovKhan. I will accept your rebuke and your conditions. I will end this here and now. All my hopes and plans placed in the balance of might makes right. The Clan way, quiaff?”

“Aff.” As he responded, the Tiburon stepped from the edge of the fog as though it were sheered away by a glacier: one moment darkness, and the next, not a hint of cloud in a lapis lazuli vaulting sky and a sun reaching zenith, pounding down with brutal brightness, sparking tears despite the polarization in his viewscreen. Some five hundred meters before him, as though they knew exactly where he would appear, a handful of ’Mechs and vehicles waited, Sha’s Sphinx in front.

And slightly to the left, the unmistakable outline of Jesup’s Thor.

Near Stewart DropPort, New Edinburgh

Lothian, Stewart

Prefecture VII, The Republic

27 September 3134

Though his boots smacked the damp ground with firm reality (water vapor steaming from the ground in every direction under the merciless onslaught of noon), Petr felt his head no longer attached fully to his body. Instead, it became a balloon, tied to a ten-meter cord, bounced, jounced and jangled in a stiff gale, as he slowly began walking toward the gathering of Beta Aimag personnel.

Though most Sea Fox trials involved hand-to-hand combat—a result of so much time aboard starfaring vessels—Petr particularly felt the burning need to face down Sha, to look the man in the eyes as he defeated him. Still, it had surprised Petr for a moment when Sha actually agreed, until he remembered his wounded arm.

No surprise at all, an excellent tactical move.

Tears coursed unfelt down his cheeks at the too-bright light. Eyes too used to the playfulness of Adhafera, whose sun beamed momentarily from behind an endless slate comforter before quickly hiding its face—a toddler laughing mischievously, hiding until the next moment to take someone unawares with its brightness.

The smells of the new world could not dent the numbness wadded around him. Not even his anger, which should have been white-hot and searing, could penetrate the depths of his malaise.

Jesup.

Petr’s feet followed a course presented by his subconscious brain while he continued to float, to spin lazily, to withdraw in denial.

Not the treachery, anger.

Not the seemingly unClanlike behavior, bitter disappointment.

His detachment hid a deeper emotion, one he could not bear to face. He had finally, painfully come to grips with his failings, had finally recognized how much his aide—his friend—was a part of the fabric of his life. Now, to have that foundation destroyed, to have the source of his pain flaunted in front of him by the man who sought to destroy his Clan… hiding was the only option.

The last distance passed as a dream. One moment Petr crossed the distance, and in another eyeblink he stood before Sha and his confidants. Those who tied themselves to his plan and to the ultimate consequences. Unblinking, he gazed at the crowd, his brain automatically editing the image: a human-shaped black outline in their midst cut out by his own eyesight.

With the words he wanted to say damned up tight, Petr stood motionless, unblinking, unfeeling, uncaring.

He once told someone he would do whatever it took to stop Sha. Whatever it took.

Now, standing in the bright sunshine, he had no shade for relief, no shadows for protection from the harsh consequences of his actions, from the recognition of the true cost of the butcher’s bill laid upon the scales. Despite his smothering numbness, the cold, analytical merchant brain summed up the columns of debts paid and owed and came up with a balance sheet in the black. Every individual in front of him would cease to exist, paying for their crimes of treachery with their life… and against the continued existence of the Clan, there could be no comparison. No compromise.

Yet the personal price…

“Is something wrong, ovKhan Kalasa?” Sha finally broke the tableau, his cool features quirked into the semblance of a smile—a predator toying with its prey. “Has your cold gotten the better of you?”

Petr opened his mouth to speak, but nothing emerged; moths of despair had eaten their fill and fled.

“Well, I believe that flu has him under the weather. Perhaps he is not nearly as strong after our last encounter as he believed. Quiaff, Jesup?”

“Aff,” came a muffled, soft reply.

Petr quivered for a moment as though in a palsy, before stillness returned. He did not wish to hear that name, hear that voice. Simply to the fight and be done with it.

“A Trial of Annihilation,” Petr spit his challenge through frozen lips. “Now.” A gasp from a woman to Sha’s right caused Petr to transfer his gaze momentarily, before returning his concentration to the only opponent who mattered.

Sha’s eyebrows rose and his thin-lipped smile stretched into a ghastly grin. “Annihilation,” he said, as though tasting the word for its weight, its power. “And I thought we were simply here for grievances between friends.”

“It cannot be any other way.” His shoulder ached with a hint of the pain to come; as with all else, Petr ignored it. “There can be no other way.”

“There are always other ways, other choices. Jesup has told me often of the choices you have made. Of your prattle about choices. Quiaff? You make a choice. I make a choice. We all make a choice. There are always other ways.” Sha glanced back over his shoulder, focusing on the person Petr fought desperately to ignore, turned back and began moving toward him. “Jesup made a choice some time ago. Saw what I and so many others have known for so long. Saw you using all around you without a care for their potential beyond numbers on a balance sheet.” He stepped into the large circle quickly inscribed into the ground. “Amazing what a hand in friendship can do.”