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Santi entered with his usual irreverent flair, spinning a compact rifle in one hand and muttering lyrics of a Terran kill song beneath his breath.

His cuirass was sleeker, made for mobility and sharpshooting, marked with white sigils along his spine and thighs.

‘You know,’ he said, glancing around, ‘if we don’t die tonight, I say we all take a holiday. On one of the pleasure yachts in theflotilla, complete with re-imagined sea views, beachside resorts, and room service.’

‘Focus, Santi,’ Miral muttered.

‘Tis my way, Miral. If I can’t see the payoff, I struggle with the knockdown.’

He grinned at the pair as he prowled away to board his Corvette.

Miral and Savvine exchanged amused glances, then tracked to theÚltima X, where they got into their crash couches and prepped for launch.

Outside, the docking bay lights cycled from amber to green.

They moved out in three Corvettes, all bearing the matte-black signature of the Signet strike fleet.

TheÚltima Zephyr, piloted by Santi, shimmered as its cloaking array activated.

Kaal took theShieldwake, a tank-class vessel with interior drone launchers and siege cannons.

Savvine marveled at the upgrades to Xander’s ship,which bristled with even more Sable tech.

‘You’ve been busy.’

‘I found myself with downtime while you focused on Xander’s recovery,’ Miral clarified with a grin. ‘This baby is now packed with modifiable hull tech, upgraded weapons systems, hardened shell plating, adaptive camo, and a drop-pod at the base for infiltration landings. She’s fast, stealthed, and now plays dirtier than ever before.’

Her synth hands flew over the Corvette’s controls, and the engine purred to life.

One by one, the Signet gunships disengaged from the docking cradles with whispering hisses and dropped into the vacuum of the cosmos.

The formation was tight, elegant, and predatory, lethal harbingers of death, growling through space toward theVenantia Eterna.

Savvine led them out of the void as the Bianchi dreadnought loomed ahead like a ruined cathedral adrift in a flickering star field.

Its vast hull was webbed with carbon scoring and lengthy, ragged seams where power surges from Miral and Eugene’s recent fight blew out entire decks.

Savvine’s jaw clenched beneath her visor. Her fingers flexed on the handles of her twin plasma blades.

The Bianchi ark ship appeared damaged, its capacity grid weak, but it was still afloat, and regal in its long-arched frame and domed sanctum towers.

She gazed at it, her heart going out to everyone within.

Tonight, if all went well, they would be free.

While the skirmish with faux Eugene decimated the outer defenses of the Eterna, his troops of synth droids still marched through the halls of the generational ship.

It was this army that they came to overcome.

The time for fury was upon them.

Suited up and toting weapons, Miral and Savvine snuck out of their parked, stealthed Corvette and drifted to the aft of the Eterna.

Kaal, Boaz, and Santi joined them.

With soundless nods, neural whispers, and hand signals to communicate, they breached a lateral shaft, an old maintenance tunnel forgotten in the schematics.

They slipped inside the belly of theEterna.