Reload

Drummer, commanding a Belter fleet, recovers the Nauvoo and immediately initiates a retrofit operation on the return trip.

On Earth, Errinwright sets up Anna to be front and center for S.G. Sorrento-Gillis's speech before the U.N. General Assembly, a speech where her influence can be found. At a key point in the speech, Sorrento-Gillis makes an abrupt but planned turn in his tone, declaring Mars the true enemy. Anna, later in the episode, is upset that she was used again in this way by Sorrento-Gillis thus she quits her job writing, calls out Errinwright for being a terrible person and then calls Gillis weak and deplorable.

On the supply-strapped Rocinante which is running on fumes, the crewmembers discuss salvaging some supplies from debris in space consequent of the prevailing war around Jupiter. This would mean scavenging through recently-destroyed Martian ships. The crew must appease Alex that desecrating the wreckage where fallen Martians are entombed is an unavoidable necessity. Holden asks Naomi to find the best target. They soon ride up to the Kittur Chennamma, a derelict MCRN ship whose front end has been sheared off, it appears to have been caught off-guard because it never deployed its PDCs.

When Holden, Amos and Prax enter the Kittur Chennamma which appears abandoned, Holden hears someone within a compartment banging out "S.O.S." using Morse code, meaning someone is still alive on the ship. The group sets up an emergency airlock bubble outside the compartment hatch which they open and find three surviving navy crew members, one woman and two men. They transfer the survivors to the med bay, where they recover. Once the survivors realize they are on the "stolen Tachi", they begin to understand the Rocinante crew is looting their ship for supplies. While he had remained with them trying to make the survivors comfortable, acting from outrage and demanding the return of the Tachi to Mars, those three survivors soon overpower Alex. In the process, taking his pistol and violently assaulting him.

At first, the Martian survivors go to the operations deck, with Alex hostage. They quickly take Naomi captive demanding she relinquish control of the Rocinante to them. Ranhofer, one of the survivors, heads to the armory to obtain additional weaponry. Holden discovers the survivor with a weapon before he could locate the ammunition for the assault rifle. Holden manages to wrestle Ranhofer to the deck and chokes him out then triggers the master alarm in silent.

On the operations deck, Holden draws a rifle on Sinopoli, the ensign who has Naomi held hostage, creating a standoff between the groups. Bobbie, who hasn't appeared before the surviving Kittur Chennamma crew until this point, ascends to the operations deck, in this change of dynamic momentum, Naomi breaks away from her captor. Bobbie, facing the barrel of Alex's captured pistol, calmly talks down the remaining armed hostile survivor, Loftis, freeing Alex from her clutches. Amos presently returns from the K.C. hoisting the previously incapacitated Ranhofer to the ops deck but, he has missed the action.

Avasarala, who has also missed the action on the operations deck, insists throughout the episode that she needs to get a message out to Admiral Souther. She notices the reverend Anna is in attendance to Sorrento-Gillis's public address and recognizes the reverend's close past connection to the Secretary-General. She shows Holden and Naomi the recording of Errinwright's admission of treason. Avasarala considers sending a message to Anna, who is considered an outsider and probably not as closely monitored. Holden agrees to send the message, having Naomi route through an untraceable relay.

Avasarala, Holden and Bobbie later speak with Sinopoli, whom they consider the most reasonable of the three Martian K.C. survivors. Avasarala tells him the war was built on a lie from a conspiracy within the UN government but, adds that Mars is not without some blame. She believes the only way to put an end to the conflict is out here, away from the politicians; she remarks that she's aware of the irony, since she's a politician herself. The Kittur Chennamma has been prepared for Sinopoli and his compatriots to rejoin the MCRN Jupiter fleet and Avasarala requests he show his commanding officer the recording of Errinwright and have it passed along to Souther.

On Io, Jules-Pierre is trying to dismantle his Caliban hybrid project, trying to save the remaining children. Mei insists to the medical research handlers that she be allowed to see Katoa or talk to her dad. Dissatisfied at the response from Jules-Pierre, Mei rushes off down a corridor leading to the room she witnessed Katoa's nurse enter earlier. Jules-Pierre, realizing he is locked-out, has Lawrence Strickland brought and demands the door be opened. When Strickland does so, they find Katoa. Katoa who, appears to drift between conscious control and entranced possession, is still intact though now glowing iridescent blue from a majority of his body. Katoa is shown to be interfacing with the other protomolecule infestations previously observed throughout the Sol system. Katoa also dismembered and dissected his nurse in grotesquely horrific manner, splaying out the corpse organ-from-organ and limb-from-limb, in a pattern reminiscent of the disaggregation performed upon the Arboghast over Venus.

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