Holden and Naomi arrive at a Ganymede relief depot run by Santichai and Melissa Supitayaporn, elderly missionaries who manage aid with strict efficiency. Santichai scolds Holden for fighting with customs officials and for arriving with less food than the OPA promised, forcing Holden to apologize and promise to contact Tycho about the missing supplies.

While Naomi finishes paperwork with Melissa, Holden asks how the crisis began. Melissa explains only that UN and Martian forces started shooting and station systems began failing, but Holden is troubled because the fighting was brief, localized to Ganymede, and unexplained. Naomi agrees that someone must know why the battle started.

Holden and Naomi leave the depot and see Ganymede's worsening collapse: yellowing plants, dark corridors, wedged-open pressure doors, armed civilians, and hostile stares. A nearby explosion draws them toward a warehouse where a hungry crowd is confronting port security and armed corporate guards over a freighter believed to be carrying food off the moon.

Holden recognizes the situation as a potential massacre. Claiming to be an OPA representative named Walter Philips, he inserts himself between the mob and the guards and learns that the freighter is Mao-Kwikowski Mercantile property with food aboard. When the corporate guard refuses to surrender the cargo and threatens violence, Holden nearly reaches for his gun.

Naomi stops Holden and takes control of the standoff. She calls Amos over an open channel and has him confirm an OPA gunship can intercept the freighter, then threatens to disable, strip, and scuttle the ship unless the food is handed over. The corporate guards back down, the crowd surges toward the cargo, and Naomi sharply tells Holden that he has been acting recklessly and unlike himself.

Afterward, a battered and malnourished Praxidike Meng approaches Holden by name. Holden initially assumes Prax needs relief aid, but Prax insists he needs Holden's help specifically, leading Holden to ask what the problem is.