Aylen excludes Ratthi and Gurathin while taking SecUnit, officers Farid and Tifany, Port Authority supervisor Gamila, and the Port Authority bot Balin to the Lalow, the cargo ship connected to Lutran’s transport. Gamila explains that the Lalow’s cargo transfer has been stalled for two cycles and that the ship has stopped responding. When the crew demands that only Aylen and Gamila enter, SecUnit reluctantly stays outside, then realizes too late that the hatch closure has cut off their feeds and activated jamming.

SecUnit breaks into the port admin systems through SafetyMonitor, boosts Aylen’s blocked signal, and receives her urgent assistance code. Balin opens the hatch, and SecUnit storms the ship with drones. Inside, SecUnit disables the armed crew members before they can harm Aylen and Gamila, while Farid and Tifany secure weapons and the response team arrives. Aylen orders everyone associated with the Lalow arrested.

At Station Security, SecUnit’s presence confuses weapons scanners, and the Lalow crew’s familiarity with and hostility toward SecUnits stands out as suspicious for a non-corporate ship. Aylen tells SecUnit that the Lalow’s cargo containers are empty, despite no record of cargo leaving the ship. SecUnit also notes to Pin-Lee that GrayCris might be involved, though there is not enough evidence.

During interrogation, the crew claims to be ordinary traders from WayBrogatan who never enter the Corporation Rim and never carry passengers. Their fear and evasions reveal that they expected someone else, not Station Security. When shown Lutran’s image, the crew initially denies recognition, but reacts strongly to his name. Miro, one of the crew, admits that Lutran was connected to a group of escaped contract labor refugees from BreharWallHan, a mining corporation system near WayBrogatan.

The crew’s story reveals that the Lalow had been smuggling enslaved laborers’ children out of BreharWallHan’s asteroid mining operation, and Lutran was supposed to arrange their next step to safety. SecUnit concludes the killer is likely a BreharWallHan agent, while Indah keeps other possibilities open. Reviewing Merchant Docks surveillance, SecUnit finds the refugees leaving the Lalow and Lutran entering soon after, but also discovers that the refugees never appear exiting the docks, meaning they vanished inside.

As Station Security prepares to search the Merchant Docks, SecUnit presses Indah to allow a real diagnostic of StationSec and PortAuth systems, arguing that reliance on alerts is inadequate if the surveillance has been tampered with. To prove the vulnerability, SecUnit briefly takes over Station Security displays with an episode of The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon using Farid’s vest camera. Indah accepts the point and authorizes SecUnit to check the systems for hacking.