SecUnit gives Amena a live feed through its visual sensors while it heads for engineering, both to reassure her and to avoid having to explain bad news. As it moves through eerily undisturbed common areas, Amena comments on how normal everything looks, and their conversation turns to Thiago, Mensah, and how little people on Preservation understand about corporate violence. SecUnit reaches engineering without encountering targetDrones, but finds active engine-monitoring stations, a smashed ART repair drone, and the familiar smell of growth medium.

Following the smell, SecUnit finds a large organic mass fused over ART’s engines and realizes it resembles the alien contamination associated with the Targets. At the same time, Target Five finally picks up the screen device, letting SecUnit identify and begin tracing targetControlSystem’s communications. SecUnit also notices that the Targets’ behavior has been strangely passive, as if they expect quick outside support rather than a prolonged standoff. When it checks a countdown display and questions the groggy Eletra, SecUnit concludes the alien remnant has forced ART through the wormhole at an impossibly accelerated rate, and moments later ART exits into normal space, proving it.

By comparing control displays, SecUnit finds evidence that a safepod is attached to ART’s hull and reactivates comms. Arada answers immediately, revealing that she, Overse, Thiago, and Ratthi were dragged along in a damaged safepod when the raider ship entered the wormhole. SecUnit sends them a route to the safe-zone airlock and, at the same time, launches a crude self-replicating attack at targetControlSystem, gambling that the hijackers’ system cannot handle ART’s architecture well enough to resist it.

Before the group can get inside, the safe-zone hatch is breached. SecUnit sends Amena to the airlock while it circles around to intercept Targets Five and Six. On the way, Amena uses the fire suppresser Ras had identified to spray a stealth targetDrone, exposing its camouflage and helping her get past it to the junction. SecUnit engages the two Targets and their drones in close combat, using contact from its own drones to track the hidden attackers and forcing the fight to stay away from the airlock long enough for Amena to cycle Arada, Overse, Thiago, and Ratthi aboard.

During the fight, SecUnit receives a delayed internal packet from ART, tagged with the name Eden. The video clip contains a line about being trapped in one’s own body, which SecUnit interprets as proof that ART is still conscious inside the hijacked ship and that targetControlSystem’s hold is weakening as ART’s systems begin to restart. Realizing it needs to reach ART’s bridge while also keeping the Targets away from the newly arrived humans, SecUnit shouts that it will blow up the transport and runs toward the control area, successfully drawing Targets Five and Six after it while telling Amena only to get everyone to Medical.