The Genesis Shipyard offices were quieter than the celebration they'd left behind, the corridors feeling almost sterile after the warmth of the conference room. Athan led them through the familiar maze of administrative spaces, past offices filled with staff who looked up with respectful nods as their Commander passed.

  "I forgot how much I hate paperwork," Chris muttered, earning a snort from Ryan.

  "Millions of credits worth of paperwork," Emily pointed out. "I think we can manage."

  They followed Athan and Karen into a spacious office overlooking Genesis's central hub. Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, Luca could see the massive orbital shipyard sprawling in all directions, from construction bays and manufacturing facilities to the steady stream of ships coming and going. It looked different than he remembered, busier somehow and far more organized.

  Karen closed the door behind them and gestured toward the chairs arranged around a conference table. Michael took a seat in the corner, close enough to be supportive but far enough to give Karen space to work. Athan moved to stand by the windows, arms crossed, watching the shipyard traffic with the careful attention of someone who knew every vessel by sight.

  "So," Karen said, pulling out the data pad. She set it on the table and immediately pushed it aside. "The charter can wait until we get back to the Moon. That can wait until you're rested and the samples are secured."

  Luca blinked. "I thought—"

  "You thought I actually cared about filing paperwork right now?" Karen's eyes crinkled with something between amusement and exhaustion. "Luca, you've been gone for five months across interstellar distance. I couldn't contact you, couldn't help you, couldn't even know if you were alive except for those charter status updates every so often."

  She moved around the table, dropping the persona of the IFC Director to simply be Karen. The woman who'd sent seven kids from Sandworth to the stars and spent every day since wondering if she'd made a terrible mistake.

  "How did you do? Did anyone almost die?" she asked, looking directly at Luca.

  The room erupted in laughter. Danny nearly fell out of his wheelchair. "That's... that's really your first question?"

  "Oh, just a few times," Ryan said, grinning.

  "Let's see," Chris started counting on his fingers. "Killer insects, toxic atmosphere, that thing with the biological samples—"

  “We’re fine,” Zoe said. “Mostly. I only disemboweled Luca once.”

  "Some radiation exposure," Emily added quietly.

  Karen's gaze sharpened, and Luca saw her focus on the brief comment, the way Emily's shoulders tensed, how her voice had gone carefully neutral. But Karen didn't push.

  Instead, she continued her circuit around the table. She examined Danny's wheelchair setup, asked Joey detailed questions about physical therapy protocols, studied the faint scars on Ryan's hands, and noticed how Chris favored his left side when he thought no one was looking.

  "Sleeping?" she asked.

  "Better now," Zoe said. "The first few weeks were rough."

  "Eating?"

  "Like kings," Danny said, grinning. "We got MRE wrappers up the wazoo."

  "Lying to yourselves?"

  A heavy silence fell over the table. Pixel, who'd been curled near Danny's chair, lifted her head and made a soft chirping sound.

  "We're okay, Karen," Luca said finally. "Really. We're different, you can see that. But we're okay."

  Karen studied his face, those sharp eyes reading every line of stress, every mark left by five months of constant pressure. "You're older," she said finally. "All of you. Good older, mostly. But older."

  She straightened, moving back to the head of the table. "Your turn. What do you want to know about what happened here?"

  "Everything," Emily said immediately. "The sabotage investigation—"

  "The short version," Karen interrupted, settling into her chair. "Someone tried to kill you before you left. We figured out who. We stopped them. Permanently."

  "Director Alexei Barkov of the UER Council," Michael said quietly. "He was running a human trafficking operation disguised as legitimate adventuring companies. Seventeen compromised organizations, thousands of victims. The attack on your launch was the opening move: he planned to blame your deaths on equipment failure and use the political chaos to expand his operations."

  Luca felt ice in his veins. "You said stopped him?"

  "I shot him," Karen said matter-of-factly. "Three times. In the chest, then twice more for good measure. In the middle of an opera house in Monaco, in front of three hundred witnesses."

  "You what?" Chris's voice went up an octave.

  "In front of witnesses?" Danny added. "Like, actual witnesses who could identify you?"

  "That was the point," Karen said calmly.

  The room fell into stunned silence. Luca's mind raced through the implications. Karen had shot a member of the UER Council. In public. In front of witnesses. And she was sitting here, calmly explaining it like she'd filed a complaint form.

  "You killed a UER Director," Emily said slowly, as if testing the words to make sure they were real. "And Anderson... what? Just let you?"

  "He thanked me," Karen said. "Privately."

  "Fourteen thousand, six hundred and forty-three people," Karen continued, her voice carrying the weight of every single one. "That's how many we pulled out alive. Children and teenagers taken from refugee camps, separated from families, processed like inventory. We found facilities with bunk beds stacked four high, holding pens disguised as training centers."

  She paused, letting that settle.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  "The operation that freed them was coordinated across eleven time zones, involving six thousand and thirty-seven IFC operatives." Karen leaned forward, her gaze intense. "We hit every facility simultaneously, extracted every victim, and eliminated every cell in his network."

  "Jesus," Ryan whispered.

  "The political fallout was... significant," Michael added. "Anderson used it to consolidate power, clean out corrupt factions, and restructure the UER's command hierarchy. He went from seventy percent planetary consolidation to ninety percent overnight."

  Karen leaned forward. "Which brings us to our current situation. Anderson wants to see your faces. He wants to put you in front of cameras so rumors don't fill the gap. The UER is at ninety percent consolidation of Earth, but things are fracturing. Regional tensions, separatist movements, the usual political chaos that happens when power structures shift too quickly."

  "A Victory Tour," Athan said from his position by the window.

  "Exactly," Karen confirmed. "Over the next few months, major cities, showing the flag. Proving that humanity can do more than survive, that we can thrive, that we can reach the stars and come back better for it."

  "Are we actually better for it?" Danny asked quietly.

  Karen's expression softened. "Look around this table. Five months ago, you were seven kids who built humanity's first privately-commissioned FTL exploration ship and convinced me to back the craziest charter in history. Now you're the officers of humanity's first successful interstellar survey vessel. You've proven that FTL exploration works, that alien worlds can be safely surveyed, that we can build ships capable of months-long missions. You brought back technology that will change Sol's infrastructure."

  She gestured toward the windows. "Half the ships you see out there are based on the first version of the Triumph. You laid the foundation for everything that comes next."

  Luca opened his Triumph Initiative interface, the familiar blue screen materializing in his vision. He scrolled through the organizational hierarchy, past the crew roster and mission parameters, until he reached the parent company structure.

  "Karen," Luca said slowly, looking up from the interface. "Do we address you as Patrician now?"

  Karen's hand found Michael's briefly. "A week ago, Anderson offered me a Sovereign Charter. The IFC is now recognized as a Noble House with legal standing equal to the UER itself."

  She met each of their eyes in turn, her expression hardening.

  "I didn't take it to support Anderson. I took it because the UER will complete the unification sooner rather than later. As the UER consolidates more territory, the System grants them more authority. Eventually, the System would have classified the IFC as a 'critical asset'. Noble Houses can’t be classified. They can only be negotiated with."

  "Meaning what?" Ryan asked.

  "Meaning that in a 'State of Emergency,' the UER could soon have legally nationalized the shipyard or drafted our personnel," Karen explained grimly. "We would only be free because we are useful, not because we are untouchable."

  Emily stood, moving to the window. The lights of Genesis stretched out before her, dozens of ships and construction bays representing everything the IFC had built. "You're saying they could have just... taken it all? The ship, the platform, everything?"

  "Yes," Karen said simply. "Not that we wouldn't have put up a fight, but we are dependent on Earth."

  Luca looked at his father, then back to Karen. "And the Triumph Initiative? We were an independent subsidiary. Are we still?"

  "Your finances, your assets, your ship, those are still yours," Karen assured him. "You are still the owners of the Triumph Initiative. But legally? You're vulnerable. You're seven civilians with a starship. That makes you targets for every bureaucrat looking to make a name for themselves."

  She tapped the table, bringing up a complex diagram of the new House structure.

  "That's why I’m naming every member of the Interstellar Frontier Company a Ward of House Stevens. The Triumph Initiative is already a subsidiary of the IFC, which makes it part of House Stevens organizationally. But you need a stronger protection than a corporate structure can provide."

  "Wards?" Zoe frowned. "That sounds like we're children."

  "It sounds like 'Diplomatic Immunity,'" Michael corrected. "It's an archaic System term, but the legal weight is absolute. As Wards, you fall under Karen's direct protection. If the UER wants to question you, detain you, or 'recruit' you, they have to go through the Patrician first. It puts a legal firewall between you and the government."

  Danny wheeled closer, curiosity replacing shock. "Wait, the System is giving you actual feudal objectives? Like, build a castle and recruit knights?"

  "I'm still figuring out what the System actually means by all this," Karen admitted, her frustration briefly showing. "I'm getting notifications about 'Demesnes' and 'Retainers' that I haven't even had time to process. But I know what it means for you. It means safety. It means when they ask you to do something you don't want to do, you can say no. Because you answer to House Stevens, not the UER."

  Ryan frowned, rubbing the back of his neck. “So… do we need new passports or something?”

  "Yes," Karen replied without blinking.

  Ryan looked around the table, waiting for someone to laugh, to tell him Karen was joking.

  "…Seriously?" Ryan asked.

  Luca looked at his father. Dad, what the hell is this?

  Athan met his eyes, and the corner of his mouth twitched up in a small grin. He shrugged slightly, the gesture saying everything: Yeah, it's real. And I'm fine with it.

  "Seriously," Karen confirmed. "House Stevens will issue its own credentials. Think of it as diplomatic papers. When you travel, you'll carry both UER citizenship and House Stevens wardship. One lets you move freely, the other keeps you from being detained."

  Joey leaned forward. "What about the rest of the IFC? Genesis Platform staff? Are they all getting new documentation too?"

  "Everyone," Karen said. "It's going to be a bureaucratic nightmare, but yes. House Stevens credentials for every IFC employee."

  Chris's expression shifted. "And our families?"

  Karen's jaw tightened slightly. "That's... we're negotiating."

  "But we still have to do the Victory Tour," Ryan said.

  "That," Karen said with a tight smile, "is the price. We give Anderson his parade, he gave us our sovereignty. It's a trade. But you do it under my supervision, with my security, and with clear boundaries."

  Zoe leaned back in her chair, Pixel jumped up to curl in her lap. "Are there things we should know? Things that... complicate this?"

  Luca felt the weight of the Varnathi knowledge pressing against his consciousness. The ancient civilization they'd discovered, the implications of intelligent life in the Alpha Centauri system, the careful decision they'd made to keep that information contained until they could assess the political ramifications.

  Karen studied his face. "Are there discoveries you're not ready to put on a form?"

  "Yes," Luca said simply.

  "Then they stay off the forms until you are ready," Karen said without hesitation. "Our policy on classified research is simple: if you're not comfortable releasing it, it doesn't get released. Period."

  Luca saw Emily's shoulders relax, watched Danny's grip on his wheelchair armrests ease.

  "Questions?" Karen asked.

  "How bad is the surveillance on us now?" Chris asked.

  “It's certainly active," Michael replied. “We’ve identified two adventuring companies with confirmed moles operating on the Genesis Shipyard. Logistics, maintenance access, nothing flashy. The kind of placement that watches traffic and schedules.”

  “Inside the IFC?” Ryan asked.

  Karen’s expression hardened. “Not confirmed. But I’d be shocked if they weren’t trying.”

  Luca felt the weight of that settle. “Then why haven’t they done anything?”

  “Because they don’t know what you brought back,” Karen said. “Only that you came back early, with a ship that shouldn’t exist yet.”

  "Fantastic," Luca muttered.

  "It'll die down," Karen said. "Celebrity is like radiation, dangerous in high doses, but the half-life is usually pretty short. We'll do the Victory Tour, be professional and boring in your interviews, and in six months they'll be chasing someone else."

  She stood, and the rest of the team began rising as well. But instead of heading toward the door, Karen looked at Michael.

  "Can you take the boys back? I think Matteo's probably started a betting pool by now."

  Karen turned to Emily and Zoe. "Emily. Zoe. Walk with me."

  Luca watched as the group began to separate. Michael moved toward the door, gesturing for Ryan, Chris, Danny, and Joey to follow. "Come on. Let's go see what kind of trouble your brother's gotten into."

  Danny rolled toward the exit, Pixel padding silently at his side. Chris and Ryan looked at each other but followed without comment. Joey paused at the door, looking back once before stepping through.

  Emily and Zoe were already moving toward Karen, who had turned toward a side corridor. The conversation that would follow wasn't his to hear.

  When Luca turned back, his father was still there, standing by the windows overlooking Genesis’s sprawling shipyards.

  “Dad,” Luca said quietly. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  Athan didn’t turn right away. His reflection lingered in the glass, framed by the lights of ships threading through the yard.

  “Of course,” he replied.