Alpash leads Holsten Mason through the damaged Gilgamesh to awaken Isa Lain, who is revered by the Tribe. Frail but mentally sharp, Lain immediately assumes command, ordering Holsten to contact the satellite while Karst and Vitas prepare options. She insists they explore dialogue before any attack.

Holsten transmits in Imperial C and receives garbled, near-Imperial replies. A numeric intelligence test follows, which Holsten and the Gilgamesh answer. The next transmission simplifies, and Holsten identifies repeated forms implying “approach,” “near,” and “permission,” suggesting a tentative welcome.

Karst presses for a strike, while Vitas frames the choice as a prisoner’s dilemma: the catastrophic risk of trusting and being betrayed outweighs the cost of fighting needlessly. Holsten hesitates, but Lain weighs the stakes and the uncertainty over who is speaking from the satellite.

Lain decides to attack first. Karst orders the two drones to fire on the Brin 2 Sentry Pod trapped in the planet-spanning web. Their combined lasers breach the ancient hull; heat shrivels nearby strands and the satellite tears free, venting and falling into the planet’s gravity well.

The drones exhaust their reactors and tumble away, spent. The Sentry Pod, home of Avrana Kern, becomes a falling relic, signaling that the Gilgamesh has chosen a hostile approach toward the webbed world below.