Ephraim roams a reviving Olympia, noting Sefi’s strict but prosperous rule and recalling Valdir’s recent murder of Godeater. His worries center on Volga’s fate and Sefi’s hold over him through the children. The city freezes as feeds show the Pandora under attack by ships flying Alltribe colors. Soon after, naked corpses rain over Agea, and Ephraim concludes Volsung Fá is provoking war.

Deciding the children will become hostages if tensions spike, Ephraim arms up with paralytic rounds, explosives, and a neodymium magnet. When skuggi led by Gudkind try to escort him to Sefi, he nonlethally drops them and sets diversionary charges. He launches the Snowball on a preset course and sprints to intercept Valkyrie escorting Pax and Electra toward the bunker.

Outmatched by armored Valkyrie, Ephraim throws the magnet, which shreds gravBoot internals and knots the squad into a stumbling mass, buying seconds. Injured by the magnetic pull and hidden implants, he reaches the children as they deploy harnesses and a helium link. The Snowball’s hook snags their line and drags all three into the ship as Valkyrie and ripWings give futile chase.

Aboard, Electra increases gravity for evasive maneuvers and performs rough field surgery, cracking Ephraim’s sternum to remove a calf tracker and a heartspike on his aorta. Later, woozy and sutured, Ephraim wakes to the children in the cockpit and mourns the life he’d imagined with Volga as they fly dark over stormy seas.

Pax refuses to return to the Republic’s Citadel, reasoning Victra may have escaped in a pod to the northern hemisphere. He and Electra commit to finding their people—and Ephraim’s—and to stop watching others “slag everything up.” The trio set a course to search for survivors, avoiding the Republic as war looms.