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‘I don’t even know whether he has a place for me. We haven’t even had those discussions.’

‘Then have them,’ her father asserted. ‘Hash it out, make a home, and give us some grand babies.’

Savvine gasped, shocked. ‘You two are incorrigible. Is that all you’re after?’

‘Naam,’ her mum insisted with a twinkle in her gaze.

Savvine rolled her eyes. ‘Fates help me.’

After a beat, she smiled. ‘I will return to him, but no promises on grandchildren. Also, I won’t leave until after the Bianchi family council tomorrow to discuss the vacuum of leadership we face.’

‘Should be interesting,’ her father quipped.

‘Indeed.’

The atrium of theEternahad never been so full, packed to overflowing.

Light poured through the great domed roof, a masterpieceof curved crystal panes and solar-harvesting latticework, casting golden ribbons down onto the mass of gathered Bianchi extended clan.

Hundreds stood beneath the arching vault, elders wrapped in ceremonial shawls, younger crew in patchwork uniforms, children perched on shoulders to see the stage at the far end.

Days of rationed water and sleep deprivation did not dull the pride in their spines.

Their ship had been reclaimed.

Their people were free.

The haunting whine of surveillance drones had finally fallen silent.

Now it was time to rebuild.

Savvine sat beside her parents on her left, Abby at her right, as the final few seats in the vast auditorium filled.

The fake Eugene loyalists and Helena Bianchi aficionados had been secured in a repurposed security wing.

Their treachery had been recorded, and a tribunal would soon decide their fates. However, the real question still hovered above the crowd like static in the air.

Who would lead them now?

The answer came in murmurs. In rising voices followed by rousing chants.

‘Rico! Enrico Bianchi!’

Her father was quiet and stunned.

Until, led by the overwhelming surge of cheers, General Arasteh himself strode forward to Enrico’s side.

‘The people have spoken.’

Savvine caught the disbelief in her father’s face as he wrung his hands with engineering grease still under his nails.

They clapped, stomped, whistled, and shouted.

He resisted. Of course he did.

Savvine understood Enrico’s reticence, which he expressed with his shaking head bowed, and his lips pressed together.

Still, the entreaties didn’t stop.