As Gravity receives a droplet attack alarm, James "Old Hunter" Hunter, the ship’s elderly cook, is the only person who feels relief. A flashback reveals that Hunter was secretly assigned decades earlier to guard Gravity’s gravitational wave transmitter as an "Anti-Swordholder." If Gravity’s command lost control or the transmitter risked falling into the wrong hands, Hunter was to destroy the controller, even at the cost of the ship.

Hunter had remained awake for the entire voyage by using pills to create the appearance of a hibernation-preventing illness. While posing as a beloved, harmless cook, Hunter monitored the crew, watched Blue Space through unauthorized backdoor access, and became infatuated with navigator Reiko Akihara. After the sophons went blind, strange impossible events aboard Gravity and reports like Commander Devon’s convinced Hunter that the danger around the transmitter had sharply increased.

When the droplet alarm stops without an impact, Hunter realizes the worst possibility: the transmitter remains intact in an uncertain situation. Hunter presses the self-destruct trigger, but the system reports that the bomb has been dismantled. Meanwhile, Captain Joseph Morovich and the senior officers review recordings and discover that both droplets missed because Blue Space shuttles pushed them off course after somehow disabling them; the once-perfect droplets have decayed into ordinary, dead metal.

Hunter reaches the gravitational wave control cabin first and finds Lieutenant Commander Park Ui-gun of Blue Space already there. Hunter shoots Park twice, but Park survives, and Hunter is struck down by an impossible attack that removes Hunter’s heart from his body without a wound. Blue Space marines then arrive in force, and Park tells Gravity’s officers that the ship has been captured.

On Blue Space, the crews of both ships gather while Captain Chu Yan reveals that trails near Trisolaris show the Second Trisolaran Fleet traveling toward Earth at near light speed. Guan Yifan confirms the observation, and Chu Yan argues that the transfer of Swordholder authority likely allowed Trisolaris to break deterrence and attack Earth. Because Gravity’s antenna will work for only two more months, Chu Yan proposes an immediate universal broadcast of Trisolaris’s location, hoping it will force Trisolaris away from Earth and give humanity time to escape.

Chu Yan submits the decision to a referendum among the 1,415 people aboard both ships, requiring a two-thirds majority. Blue Space votes overwhelmingly in favor, Guan Yifan becomes the first from Gravity to support the broadcast, and Captain Morovich joins the final collective vote. Gravity broadcasts the location of Trisolaris for twelve seconds, sending a death sentence for both Trisolaris and the Solar System across the universe at light speed.