Approaching Phobos, Darrow reflects on the moon’s transformation into the Hive, the nerve center feeding the Core, and on Quicksilver’s veiled power. Disguised and carrying suicide teeth, the Howlers ride a decrepit cargo hauler, planning to be “lost” among helium-3 containers by bribed officials to reach a Sons safe house.

After docking and waiting tensely in the container, a Red contact, Rollo, arrives with the Ares countersign and hustles them away from a Syndicate-controlled dock. He briefs them on recent Society sweeps with Legionnaires and Syndicate enforcers that shattered local Sons operations, forcing cells underground.

On a tram through maintenance levels, Rollo describes contract bondage and injury-driven poverty among Reds and Oranges. Ragnar urges compassion for drug-weary vagrants; Victra argues they chose their degradation, prompting Darrow’s rebuke. Rollo reveals his Julii Industries employment and the costs that keep workers trapped, while Darrow confronts the gulf between his ideals and the people’s realities, passing graffiti of Eo that rekindles his purpose.

The group skirts the Hollow and higher security tiers to a deserted industrial hub cleared minutes earlier by the Sons. Darrow worries that bombing industry will also destroy livelihoods, but keeps his doubts to himself as they move into a Julii-owned garbage hauler garage.

Inside, more than six hundred Sons—poorly armed workers—gather. Sevro takes command, rejects rhetoric, and has Pebble and Clown reveal mining explosives. He declares their mission to “blow shit up,” signaling the start of large-scale economic sabotage that will unsettle Phobos and pave the way for their operation against Quicksilver.