On Quietus’s bridge, Darrow oversees the endgame as Blues calmly manage incoming missiles and his flanking squadrons close a trap on Karnus. The enemy’s last ship is annihilated, and the crew celebrates. Darrow contemplates laurels and future commands, banters with Victra and Tactus, and considers recalling Sevro and Quinn, while Roque quietly affirms that this victory will change everything.

Anomalous sensor ghosting appears. Moments later, a damaged Bellona destroyer emerges from an asteroid hollow and rams Quietus midship. Darrow shoves crew into escape routes, carries the badly injured Theodora from the shattered bridge, and fights through panicked corridors with Grays clearing a path. In Darrow’s suite, desperate crew force the door; the Grays kill three to seal it. With only four seats in the pod, a Gray named Marcel pulls a gun to claim a spot; the sergeant executes him and takes survivors by rank.

Torpedo stores detonate, gravity fails, and Darrow’s pod launches. Through the viewport he watches his man-of-war tear apart, realizing the scale of deaths his miscalculation enabled. The Grays argue bitterly over the execution as Darrow’s guilt mounts, recognizing that his Institute-born rule-breaking invited new tactics against him.

Spotting Karnus’s ship still intact, Darrow dons a starShell to launch himself from the pod and crash through the enemy bridge in a revenge strike. At the final moment, Academy Proctors remotely override his controls, aborting the attempt. Karnus escapes into the black, and Darrow’s promised triumph becomes a devastating loss.