A year after Eros, humanity's fleets were trapped in a starless 'slow zone' around an alien station—a war-mode relic of a galactic civilization annihilated two billion years ago. Framed for the Seung Un bombing by Clarissa Mao (posing as dead Julie Mao), Holden was lured to the station, where the ghost of Miller revealed its true history. When the deposed Captain Ashford tried to destroy the Ring with the Behemoth's laser—risking the whole solar system—Bull and Sam died stopping him, and Clarissa, turned by the minister Anna, blacked out the ship, letting Miller lift the lockdown, save Earth, and open every gate onto a thousand new worlds. Now the ships are going home, Clarissa bound for trial aboard Holden's Rocinante. This epilogue closes on Anna. In the observation lounge of the Thomas Prince, a month from home, she records a loving message to her wife Nono and daughter Nami, reflecting on the friends lost and the grief awaiting the families of the dead, but also on the staggering hope the returning fleet carries: a future without limits, a childhood among the stars for Nami. Cortez visits, their old warmth shadowed by formality; he brings word that Secretary-General Esteban has fallen to Nancy Gao (with the hidden hand of Chrisjen Avasarala), and he confesses he backed the wrong side, seeking Anna's forgiveness. She grants it freely, insisting he is a good man who acted out of fear. Gazing at the star field, Anna longs to give those worlds to Nami, while Cortez—still uneasy whether humanity should reach so far—leaves her with words that ring with both hope and warning: whatever her daughter finds out there, it is the future Anna chose for her.