Mayhem finally books the Sparrow into a StarMech facility for repairs. And there is much rejoicing.
The evrem ship’s AI adopts the moniker Sonnet. Insight give it read-only access to their data cores on Haven 6. It spends most of its spare time copying files and annotating them with insightful comments such as “this is wrong” and the like. It also tries explaining to Cinque what some of the advanced evrem tech does, without revealing how it actually works.
Sofi, now having a functional grasp of Galactic Standard, briefly meets with the crew to thank them again in person. They discover that ‘some’ of her people are on their way to the Verge. Yala leaves to train for a month. Wayne is struck down by a mysterious illness which he treats with copious amounts of strong alcohol. No one is certain whether the contents of the recovered crate of Sciseed were fully accounted for.
Concord make plans to deal with the Sciseed plantation on Lithius and rescue the colonists (and pirates) hidden in cryo. Genevieve Ordu, Thereon Jason “TJ” Drolock, and Kramer “Brains” Fillabar cooperate in exchange for various levels of leniency. Megan arranges for counselling and rehabilitation for the three rescuees returned aboard the Sparrow – Rebecca Chambers, Alison Short, and Chloe Winters.
Austrin Ontis agree to Concord oversight of Conrad’s trial. He is transferred to a secure compound on Diandes. His former rank of captain is reinstated in order to prosecute him at a military tribunal. Martinus Zeta, a mechalus with eight decades of multi-national law experience, mounts Conrad’s defence. He thoroughly routs the prosecution, who ask for a recess. An offer is made, leading to an agreed resolution. The original mutineer will be courtmartialed, Conrad will accept honourable discharge and voluntarily renounce his citizenship, and his estranged family will be told of his death and relocated to a Concord territory of their choice, with entitlement to his military pension. There is also a secondary agreement where Conrad and VoidCorp agree to forget about certain events aboard various space stations.
Gus goes under the knife to get cybered up. Conrad undergoes extensive facial reconstruction to further erase lingering traces of Kerensky from existence.
Alloy reveals that Insight have a plan to deal with V0RL. Everyone is assigned various tasks and there is a week of frenzied preparation. In the end, a combined force just about manages to pull off the multi-pronged assault. Gus has a brief conversation with V0RL shortly before its last backup node is taken out. It warns her that its demise will cause certain safeguards hidden throughout AeGrid to trigger and offers her an alternative: Alter its code to allow it to save itself and it will undo the work. She agrees but fails spectacularly to accomplish the rewrite.
When V0RL’s last node goes offline, widespread technological chaos ensues. Fortunately, this is short-lived and results in relatively few casualties. V0RL had warned Gus of the most dangerous code it had placed, which would have used a secret Thuldan weapon to obliterate Nectaris Orbital Station. Thinking on his feet, Conrad gets an open message to VoidCorp placed onto AeGrid, saying they will be held accountable for the orbital’s destruction unless they stop the Thuldan weapon from firing. Twenty minutes later, Nectaris continues orbiting unharmed. No one admits anything.
No official statement is released but shares of VoidCorp-owned subsidiaries plunge on the Vessy. Insight offer free tech support planetwide for the next 5 days, taking on large numbers of t’sa immigrants to help with response times.