Doctor Avrana Kern, now running the Lightfoot through an organic ant-based system, reacts with immediate suspicion when the alien fleet suddenly becomes chaotic and hostile after the Lightfoot’s first visual transmission. Because the ships appear to share enough Old Empire technological roots for Kern to interpret them, she rapidly analyzes their weapons and begins emergency evasive measures.

Kern sheds layers of the Lightfoot’s flexible silk-like hull as electromagnetic chaff, confusing incoming missiles and lasers while sharply altering the ship’s shape and course. The larger alien vessels cannot turn quickly, but they launch small, agile fighter craft that pursue the Lightfoot with lasers and railgun fire. Kern, drawing on hidden weapons built into the ship without the crew’s full knowledge, begins firing back and destroys or damages some attackers.

The fight turns deadly when railgun projectiles pierce the crew compartment. The Lightfoot’s structure can repair the tiny holes, but one projectile kills Bianca instantly, depriving the crew of their Portiid captain and coordinator. The remaining crew continue working: Portia and Viola calculate firing solutions, Zaine and Helena manage energy demands, and Fabian and Meshner attempt to predict routes through the dangerous field of enemy fire.

During the battle, Meshner’s experimental implant malfunctions and overwhelms him with strange sensory data, including a reconstructed Portiid memory of an ocean sunset. Meshner realizes he has entered a virtual processing space created by the implant as it tries to model Portiid Understandings, and that the implant has also linked him into Kern’s systems. Kern confronts him inside a virtual battlespace, identifies him as a drain on her processing power, and tries to fence off his simulated consciousness before it damages the ship.

Before Kern expels him, Meshner perceives something Kern missed because she had narrowed her calculations too much: the alien ships are not acting as one unified enemy. Some are firing on others or intercepting their weapons, creating protective gaps that the Lightfoot can use as cover. Meshner forces this insight to Kern, proposing a course through the fleet rather than straight escape, and Kern accepts the possibility with a smile before Meshner is returned to his body.

Meshner wakes in the chaos of the damaged crew compartment, suffering a seizure or near-fatal neurological crisis. Zaine scans his head, Helena uses a muscle override to restart his heart, and Meshner returns with blood in his mouth and stars in his vision, while the battle’s outcome remains unresolved.