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Then, nothing.

The logo of her ship quivered, stuttered, and went dark.

Her brow furrowed.Unusual.

She tapped the directive again, escalating. ‘Override, level green priority, engage auto-command protocol B3. Connect my neural imprint. Bring theEternaonline.’

Still,nada.

Her blood ran cold.

A second later, the console spat back a garbled burst of code.

Then: ACCESS TO THEVENANTIA ETERNADENIED. COMM LINK COMPROMISED.

The screen dimmed.

Panic bloomed in her chest like a bomb.

She staggered back a step. ‘What the hell?’

Her node sparked. A quiet ping. Private, encrypted, one-to-one.

She recognized it and accepted it at once. ‘Abby? Abby, talk to me -.’

Her comm officer’s voice bled through, broken and panicked. ‘Savvine, it’s me. I don’t have long. Something’s wrong. Frameworks are glitching, and your father just told me engineering is down. It appears our ship’s been hijacked.’

Savvine’s heart lurched. ‘How? By whom?’

‘I don’t know. It was subtle. Silent. All our systems flickered out. Backup protocols got bypassed, and malware must have slid into our core operating processors. Enrico and the general have tried to reboot manually, but we’ve been hacked and our credentials are being kicked out of the mainframe.’

Suddenly, the call cut off.

Savvine froze, the blood roaring in her ears.

Surging to her feet, she stormed out of Xander’s office and down the hall toward the atrium where she had left him.

She spotted him, speaking with Boaz and Kaal near thekahawahub.

‘Xander?’

He swiveled at her urgent call, the expression on her face stopping him cold.

She walked straight to him, eyes burning. ‘I just got through to Abby,Eterna’scomms and tactical officer. She claims there’san unknown takeover of the ship’s systems. TheVenantia Eternais offline. My people, my ship, may have been hijacked.’

Xander’s face hardened, his eyes flaring.

‘Help me,’ she murmured. ‘Please. I need your help.’

He didn’t hesitate; he stepped in, reaching for her waist, pulling her close.

He bent to rasp into her ear. ‘You have it. What’s mine is yours,belleza.’

Caught between panic at theEterna’sunknown demise and relief that Signet had her back, Savvine returned to the Signet boardroom with Xander.

Miral, Kaal, and Santi joined them at the table as Savvine linked her comm tab to the conference room holo server.

Miral managed to recreate an encrypted link to Abby on board the Eterna, which they used to gain intel on theEterna’ssystems.