SecUnit gets Abene, Miki, and the injured Hirune into the geo pod and seals it while a drone scouts the route back to the shuttle. While Abene powers up the digger control station and Miki treats SecUnit’s wounds, SecUnit learns that Miki already told Abene there is no Consultant Rin. Abene accepts that without pressing the issue, focusing instead on survival and on restoring the diggers.

Using suit comms on the shuttle, SecUnit secretly listens to Gerth controlling the remaining team and realizes the combat bots are not waiting on the route back. Working through the problem with Abene and Miki, SecUnit revises its assumptions: Wilken and Gerth were likely not sent to kill the assessment team directly, but to trigger the failure of the tractor array so the facility would finally be destroyed. They conclude Wilken and Gerth must have sent an encrypted signal that launched a work zipper carrying a combat bot toward the tractor array.

Because the attack is imminent, SecUnit activates three diggers and uses them as a decoy while escorting the humans back through the facility. At the shuttle, Abene privately warns Kader to evacuate everyone at once, and the apparent approach of the diggers creates enough panic to force the crew out. Gerth emerges in powered armor, but SecUnit freezes the armor with a command override. When combat bots rush the docking area, SecUnit throws explosives to delay them, gets everyone aboard, and launches the shuttle. As the shuttle pulls away, SecUnit uses one of the diggers to seize and crush a bot at the lock.

On board, Abene and the others decide to save the tractor array by nudging the incoming work zipper off course with the shuttle. SecUnit wants only to leave, but the team commits anyway and succeeds with seconds to spare. Almost immediately the last combat bot, which has clung to the shuttle hull, breaches the airlock. SecUnit orders everyone into the flight deck, grabs charges and a core cutter, and prepares to fight. Miki refuses repeated orders to retreat and charges the bot to help; SecUnit uses the opening to fire the core cutter through the bot’s processor, destroying it.

The victory costs Miki its life, because the combat bot crushes Miki’s chest before shutting down. Shocked and detached, SecUnit ignores the humans’ attempts to reach it, summons its own ship, puts on an evac suit, and slips out through the ruined lock so the team will think it was blown into space. Once aboard Ship, SecUnit checks Wilken’s gear for tracers and finds hidden identity markers and a different memory clip in the ammo bag. Reflecting on Abene’s genuine love for Miki and on Miki’s choice to save others, SecUnit decides not merely to transmit the geo pod evidence to Dr. Mensah but to take it to her in person.