Holden, Miller, Naomi, and Amos board the tethered stealth ship in vacuum, finding a dead vessel scarred by signs of struggle and amber, glassy “vomit.” They pass a bank of capital-ship-killer torpedo tubes and reach engineering, where the crew’s remains are fused into grotesque protomolecule growth encasing the inert reactor. Amos begins cautiously bringing systems online.

They debate the ship’s lack of a brig and the improvised nature of its mission, then move to ops and the bridge. Miller accesses internal surveillance: the armored boarding party strips the Scopuli prisoners; Julie Mao fights back but is beaten, given a jumpsuit, and locked in a locker while others are restrained in the galley.

Skipping forward, Miller sees a failed prisoner uprising and a man spaced, then the outbreak: a crewman staggers out and vomits the golden resin on a guard. Amos, working the reactor, takes some radiation but continues. Holden correlates logs showing a late burst of system access and a manual atmosphere blowdown, likely by Julie, after two days of silence.

Holden then plays a Protogen corporate briefing. An unnamed presenter explains Phoebe harbors a protomolecule—an ancient, delivered payload meant to reprogram early Earth—calling it a transformative weapon and urging exclusive, rapid human testing. Holden and Miller conclude Protogen engineered Eros as a live trial and that the brewing war is a distraction.

As the implications settle, Naomi reports a new find on ops, drawing the team back to her console.