Assured Destruction

On the Rocinante, Avasarala is unconscious in the med bay recovering from the recent trauma escaping the UN Ship. Bobbie confronts the crew about vandalization/defacement of the MCR flag. Holden interrupts the conversation to tell everyone that they are luckily off everyone’s radar at the moment and will continue towards Io. Holden tells Bobbie, they will fix the Razorback’s communication capabilities so they can be on their way and that’s all he owes her and Avasarala. When Avasarala awakes, she summons Holden for a conversation where she suggests sending out a few select messages to people in the UN, which Holden thinks is a bad idea.

Chrisjen Avasarala shares the intel about her plan to bring Jules-Pierre Mao in to testify against Errinwright for the conspiracy to create protomolecule hybrids. Holden reveals that they battled one of the hybrids and defeated it. Prax explains the significance of Io to the protomolecule project and the connection to his daughter and the children of Ganymede. Amos indicates he'd destroy the Io site after rescuing the children. Holden and Nagata reveal the Belt has the protomolecule and Chisjen criticizes them for that.

Alex catches Naomi looking up Tycho station on the maps from the cockpit of the Razorback as she considers her options to leave the crew on that heading. Alex confronts her and extends an olive branch.

Avasarala also attempts to make peace with Nagata but Naomi does not trust her and tells her that she can see through the deputy undersecretary to recognize a motivation to secure a protomolecule sample for Earth. The both conclude that they won't be friends.

On the UN drop ship escaped from Guanshiyin, Cotyar and Theo the tech, receive notice they are to be rescued by the Agatha King. Theo, who is unclear what he should say to the captors, asks Cotyar for guidance. Cotyar misdirects Theo’s attention away from himself so he can strangle/break Theo’s neck, understanding Theo would be quick to tell his captors the entire story.

Souther who commands the battle ship the Agatha King, gets word that Admiral Nguyễn will soon be arriving. Once Nguyễn does arrive, Souther offers him command of the ship, which he declines. His first action is to interrogate Cotyar who is in a med bay of the ship recovering. Not getting much information, Nguyễn leaves the interrogation upset. Later, Souther arranges a few calculated power outages, so he can see Cotyar in person without Nguyễn present. Cotyar discusses nefarious actions the cabal, lead by Errinwright, are committing. Nguyễn senses Souther's subterfuge and relinquishes him of command over the Agatha King and, when Souther hesitates, Nguyễn further threatens to relinquish him of duty.

On Earth, Gillis and Errinwright are discussing if they should take preemptive strikes against the five MCRN stealth retaliatory stations near Earth that could launch nuclear destruction down upon Earth. Gillis is not convinced this is the best course of action so, giving himself more time to consider, he postpones his decision of a preemptive strike until all five bases are identified. Errinwright is upset that Gillis has not given the go ahead to strike right away. When all five locations are found, having listened to Anna's counsel and heard the success odds projection, he initially calls for a stand-down. Gillis is proud of this decision but, Errinwright continues to prod the Sec-Gen's vanity until Gillis reverses his decision and thus gives the order to execute the railgun attack. All five outposts are decimated; however, before the last outpost is destroyed, it releases a missile that carries its own MIRV salvo of nuclear missiles. Once the missile reaches Earth’s orbit, it releases all of its nuclear missiles, a majority of those missiles are quickly destroyed by Earths planetary defenses before achieving landfall. A single nuclear missile penetrates the defense, striking in South America and detonating. Errinwright seizes on the connection between the delayed railgun problem and the nuclear detonation on South America in order to assign fault to Gillis for his earlier decision to delay. Errinwright relays this blame to Anna, who is disgusted.

On Io, Katoa exhibits some new-found strength to the amusement of the other children*, leaping and scaling the tunnels and corridors of the moon's repurposed old Helium-3 mine. Strickland says that interactions between the kids decreased cortisol levels which increases protomolecule absorption. Katoa, who seems to be ok is suddenly taken over by the protomolecule and convulses spasmodically in front of everyone as Jules-Pierre looks on via video monitor. Jules-Pierre who earlier saw a picture of his daughter Julie (infected by the protomolecule on Eros) and then encountered the young Mei (who is looking for her daddy), decides to end the experiment on children on Io. Strickland protests the action but, Jules-Pierre declares the subject closed.