On the Martian dreadnought Harman Dae-Jung, Bobbie Draper uses the empty docking bay to jog under near-constant one-g acceleration during the trip to Earth. She pushes herself partly to regain conditioning after Ganymede and partly to avoid seeming weak before reaching Earth. When a young yeoman surprises Bobbie with a summons, Bobbie trips, bruises her knee, and sprains her wrist, revealing how unsettled Bobbie’s reflexes have become.

Bobbie reports to a conference room where Captain Thorsson and two civilian analysts question Bobbie about the Ganymede attack. The analysts reconstruct the timeline and conclude that the blue-eyed creature, now called the Anomaly, was at the center of a moving radio blackout. Bobbie rejects the idea at first because the creature had no visible technology, but Thorsson insists the data shows the jamming followed the creature.

The analysts trace the creature’s likely insertion point to old, unused hydro-plant service tunnels near the dome. One civilian suggests the UN Marines may have been transporting the creature and then fled when the weapon escaped control. Bobbie angrily argues against this, insisting the UN platoon fought almost to the last Marine and ran toward the Martian position only because the survivors wanted help continuing the fight. Thorsson accepts Bobbie’s point but ends Bobbie’s participation in the meeting.

Later, Bobbie cleans and disassembles her combat suit’s Gatling gun in a cargo bay. Captain Martens approaches and explains that Thorsson is worried Bobbie may be shell-shocked. Bobbie resists, but Martens presses Bobbie with evidence: Bobbie nearly injured herself because of a harmless interruption, Bobbie became heated in the meeting, and Bobbie has repeatedly cleaned a weapon Bobbie has not fired since boarding the ship.

Martens identifies Bobbie’s condition as post-traumatic stress disorder caused by surviving an impossible fight and losing Bobbie’s unit. Martens offers help, saying Bobbie needs to process what happened. Bobbie refuses to believe talking will heal Bobbie and instead fixes on a mission: someone put the monster on Ganymede, and Bobbie intends to find and kill that person.