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In an ideal world, Abbas would have loved the chance to capture one of the machines in order to study it. Haqq Najir had certainly harped on about that, requiring quite an irritating degree of convincing before finally realizing that such a feat was impossible. Abbas had seen it firsthand. When defeated, the machines annihilated themselves, leaving seemingly no trace behind.

Because of course they did. This was the Morgunov they were talking about. If anything, Abbas would have been even more mistrustful of the machines if they didn't self-destruct in some way. That would have just made him wonder why Morgunov was allowing them to study his technology so easily.

Haqq was still quite young and naive in that way. A budding genius he might have been, but when would his arrogance stop causing him to underestimate others? Emperors, especially.

The boy had been helpful, though. After the fight with Ivan at Dunehall, Abbas had wanted to make upgrades to the suit right away. The world at large might have been praising him for his incredible victory, but he knew the truth. That fight had nearly been a disaster. It absolutely could have gone Ivan's way if conditions were even slightly different.

So Abbas had been doing his best to ignore all of the attention--even from the Vanguard, when he could.

To his mind, there had been no greater priority than elevating the suit to new heights as quickly as possible. He'd kicked the hornet's nest by capturing Ivan. This attack would have arrived eventually, and he needed to be prepared.

If only he could have done more.

Even in its sub-optimal condition, the suit was probably still more powerful now than it was when he'd faced the Salesman. The incredible, tide-shifting potency of the suit's fusion-propulsion system in that fight had greatly motivated him to find a way to weaponize that technology.