SecUnit checks the dock surveillance system and finds no evidence of hacking, which undermines its certainty that the camera blackout hid Lutran’s killer. Indah revokes SecUnit’s system access without argument, then sends search teams through the docks and ships while the Lalow is still being examined. Evidence from the Lalow supports the claim that the refugees traveled aboard it alive, but Station Security has limited time before it must either charge or release the crew.

Because the search teams think SecUnit might alarm ship crews, SecUnit is assigned to utility areas with hazardous-materials technicians and cargo bots. While the search continues, officers debate how the refugees could have disappeared and how Lutran’s body was moved. SecUnit grows increasingly worried that a highly skilled intruder, possibly linked to BreharWallHan, has hidden all traces of access to Port Authority systems.

A technician reports that one pressurized transfer module is missing from inventory. This shifts the investigation: the module could have been used to move the refugees from the Merchant Docks toward Lutran’s transport without attracting attention. SecUnit reconstructs a likely sequence in which Lutran loaded the refugees into the module, returned to his transport to receive them, discovered the module had been diverted, and was killed by someone waiting there.

SecUnit realizes the missing module is probably attached to a ship still in holding outside the station. If the BreharWallHan agents learn Station Security has found it, they may kill the refugees and flee, so SecUnit privately warns Indah that Port Authority systems and possibly communications must be treated as compromised. Though Indah challenges SecUnit because it previously found no hack, SecUnit admits it was wrong and argues that the perpetrator may be as skilled as or better than SecUnit.

Indah accepts the warning and covertly redirects the public search while taking Aylen and SecUnit to Mensah’s secure council office. From there, using systems separate from Station Security and Port Authority, Indah contacts the station responder and orders scans of the ships in holding. In the secure office, Indah and SecUnit acknowledge that a local actor with legitimate access may have altered records and camera data.

The responder locates a ship hiding near the old colony ship hull with the missing module clamped to it. Indah makes rescuing the refugees the priority, but Aylen warns that an EVA rescue cannot be organized through compromised channels without alerting the enemy. SecUnit concludes that covertly reaching the ship and module is now its job.