Chapter 20 - The Sovereign HorizonDecember
The winter solstice brought a pristine, blanket of white snow to the rolling hills of Virginia, mirroring the very morning I had stood on my parents’ porch a year and a half ago.
How much a life could change in eighteen months.
Across the country, Arthur Palmer was serving his federal prison sentence, reflecting on a life of misplaced priorities. Savannah was working a retail job in Chicago, slowly rebuilding her life on honest, earned wages. And I stood on the porch of Grandpa Walter’s farmhouse, wearing a comfortable civilian wool sweater, holding a steaming mug of tea, completely at peace.
My phone rested on the wooden railing beside me. It chimed gently with a routine administrative update from the DIV command post, which I locked and ignored.
The mission was secure. The institution was clean. And my life was entirely, sovereignly my own.
I took a deep breath of the crisp, clean winter air, feeling the steady, unshakeable rhythm of my own pulse.
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My name is Lieutenant Colonel Fiona Palmer.
I was kicked out in the snow, underestimated by my family, and handed a box of secrets. I opened it, I audited the system, and I took the whole damn country forward.
