Trama

Holden and crew are trapped in a badly damaged shuttle. On Ceres, Miller uncovers clues about Julie Mao. On Earth, Chrisjen Avasarala questions a terrorist.

Holden experiences a flashback to meeting Ade. She is teaching him how to make coffee. The flashback ends with Ade saying repeating her last words to him: "There is something you should know".

-- SPACE (NEAR SATURN)

The debris field from the destroyed Canterbury reaches the shuttle Knight, causing it to take critical damage. The airlock is breached and the ship spins out of control. They manage to shut the doors to the airlock and save their air.

Holden orders Alex to follow the stealth ship, wanting revenge. The other crew members try to talk him out of it. Alex refuses. Holden is beside himself that they will not follow his orders. Amos asks him if he really thinks rank still matters at this point. Holden tosses Alex out of the chair so he can follow the ship himself, Naomi quickly disables the ship. Holden pulls a gun on the crew, but when he sees how everyone is against him, he just storms off.

-- CERES

Miller takes a shower. His water ration runs out before he can finish. He leaves his apartment and has a conversation with one of his neighbors about the late water shipment. The neighbor is concerned it is not an accident. Water is life. One late shipment means riots. Two in a row means dead bodies in the street.

Miller goes to Julie's apartment to look for clues as to her whereabouts. He finds messages from Julie's father threatening to sell the Razorback if she doesn't come back home. The Razorback is Julie's racing ship. She was quite an accomplished ship racer before she split from her family. Miller watches the reply she sent back. Julie tells him to sell the ship. She will not let the family control her any more. Miller shows a look of appreciation for Julie's resolve.

Julie has a hamster in her apartment. It is running on a wheel. Miller tells the hamster to keep going, you'll get there. He notices that her apartment still has water rations and uses it to complete his shower.

-- EARTH

Sadavir Errinwright (Shawn Doyle), under secretary of the UN chastises Avasarala for using gravity to torture the belter terrorist. He tells her that the secretary general has expressly condemned such treatment. If Avasarala wants to talk to him again, she will have to put him in a tank.

She returns to question the belter, this time in a tank like Errinwright demanded. The terrorist does talk to her, but does not give her what she wants. The belter does not confirm that he is in the OPA, just a belter concerned for the future of his people. He says belters are exiles in space with no home to return to. He refuses to tell her where the stealth tech came from and where it is going. She says he will have to be sent somewhere worse than this. The belter says he understands, and that everyone has to fulfill their duty.

-- SHUTTLE KNIGHT

Going over the damage to the shuttle, the crew discover that the radio is damaged so they can't call for help. They don't have enough oxygen to make it to any heavily populated areas. Any ship will just think they are space trash. The only way out is to fix the radio antenna on the exterior of the ship. Since the airlock is destroyed, they will have to vent the ship, wasting precious oxygen. But they have no choice. Holden and Amos (at Niomi's request) go out to fix the antenna to get the radio working.

-- CERES

Miller and Havelock are called in to investigate a case regarding water thieves. In the luxury section of Ceres, where rich earthers live, one of the park areas with lush vegetation has been drying up and turning brown. Miller expects that it is a local crime gang, the Greigas, who are known for stealing water, but not usually enough to cause a lot of attention. A resident of the area makes a snide remark about belters not appreciating the importance of green areas to recycle the oxygen. Havelock tells the man that if everyone on Ceres had views like this one, maybe they would respect it more. The resident rolls his eyes and leaves them to their investigation.

-- SHUTTLE KNIGHT

Holden and Amos are working on the antenna. Holden tries to strike up a conversation to get to know Amos better, but Amos doesn't cooperate. He thinks they'll be dead soon anyway. Amos says the only reason he is out here helping is because Naomi asked him to. As far as he is concerned, she is the new captain.

Holden asks Amos if Naomi and him are items. Amos says that he isn't very good with ethical situations and that he can't think of a good reason not to just kick Holden off the exterior of the ship and let him die in space, except that Naomi wouldn't like it. She is his moral compass.

Inside the shuttle everyone is wearing suits to provide oxygen. Naomi is working the radio to help Holden and Amos make repairs. It becomes clear that Alex is hypoxic. His suit is not working correctly. He begins to convulse. Shed hooks up his suit to his so they can share oxygen. The oxygen in the shared suit starts to run out.

Amos and Holden finally get the radio working. They come back in so they can close the airlock and restore air in the cabin. Alex is OK, but Shed has passed out. It looks like he is dead. Holden tries to save him and he finally gasps back to consciousness. Alex thanks Shed for saving his life.

-- EARTH

Avasarala tells Errinwright that the terrorist will need to be sent to Luna (the moon of Earth) for more questioning. She can't get him to talk. Errinwright seems confident that the team on Luna will be able to break him. Errinwright marvels that Avasarala is two heartbeats from running the planet, but isn't accountable to anyone.

She tells him that she believes that the OPA may be trying to obtain stealth weapons. Since there is no way the OPA would be able to afford it, she theorizes that Mars may be helping them. Errinwright is doubtful, he doesn't think Mars wants to heat up the cold war. Avasarala still wants every single Martian weapons facility under a microscope.

-- SHUTTLE

The radio is fixed but it is still damaged enough that it won't be able to reach very far. It seems they wasted their air for nothing. Holden has an idea to gather as much power as they can from the rest of the ship. They get to work. The irony that they will now be depending on someone to answer a distress signal is not lost of them.

Alex says they will have to hope there is some caring soul like Ade that hears the signal. Shed says that Ade is the reason they are in this mess. Holden, feeling guilty for his actions and anger for Shed bad mouthing Ade, pushes Shed down to beat him, but Naomi stops them. Privately she tells Holden to save his guilt for the off chance they get out of this alive. Holden sarcastically says "yes, sir".

-- CERES

Holden and Havelock are following the pipes to find who has been diverting the water for the gardens to steal it. The maintenance worker helping them has an OPA tattoo. Miller is surprised that his boss lets him show his colors like that. The worker replies that his boss has one too. They find where the pipe had been tapped, and continue their search to find the thieves.

Using a drone to follow the diverted pipe they locate the thieves in a warehouse. The thieves are planning to sell the water to belters only. Miller and Havelock break in and confront them. They capture the leader of the group.

Miller is surprised that it is just a kid. The Greigas usually run this territory. They were better at stealing just enough water and from the right areas to not get caught. But this kid took too much water from the wrong people. The kid says all the Greigas left Ceres, and he wants to take their place. Miller threatens to send him to prison barge for a couple of years. The kid stares him down, unafraid. Instead, Miller cuts the kid free and warns him to leave the water alone. Havelock expresses his shock that Miller let the kid go. Miller responds with a derogatory gesture.

-- EARTH

Avasarala receives a message that the belter terrorist killed himself on the way to Luna for interrogation. He did it by avoiding the high gravity medication during the flight. Averslala was using gravity to try to hurt him, but he used gravity to hurt them back and now his information dies with him.

-- KNIGHT

The crew begin to reason about the events that have occurred. Naomi disassembles the transmitter they found on the Scopuli. She determines that it is definitely martian tech. The ship that blew up the Canterbury had to have highly advanced stealth tech. They can't think of anyone other than Mars that would have tech like that. It seems very likely that it was Mars that lured them to the Scopuli and killed the Canterbury. The radio comes online with enough power for several hours. They begin transmitting the distress signal.

-- CERES

Miller is looking for the Razorback at the docks. He doesn't find it, but the dock master remembers Julie. He says she was being harassed by someone on the docks and she handled herself very well and put the man on the ground.

Miller asks the dock master what ship she was tending to. He tells him it was the Scopuli (the same ship that Holden and crew found at the distress signal). The dock master asks if she is in trouble. Miller says it's probably nothing she can't handle.

-- KNIGHT

The crew receives a ping back from a ship in the area in response to their distress signal. They begin to celebrate, thinking they are saved. Then Alex realizes that the ship that is responding is a flagship of the Martian Navy. The ship is called the Donnager. They just told the people who were trying to kill exactly where they are.

-- CERES

A news report is playing about a missing ice hauler, the Canterbury. Turns out the destruction of Holden's ship was the cause of the delayed water shipment. We see Havelock enter a brothel.

Miller is still investigating Julie's online accounts. Going through dating profiles and He finds one that she accepted. It's a potential lead. Octavia shows up and asks how the investigation is going. Miller says that Julie is no longer on Ceres. She boarded a ship called the Scopuli which went dark right after takeoff and vanished. Octavia mentions it seems to be the week for missing ships.

Ocatvia notices a birthmark on Julie's picture and finds it odd that her parents didn't get it fixed. Miller says it is not a birthmark. It's a scar. She didn't want it to be fixed because she thought of it as a badge of defiance. Octavia laughs and wonders aloud how Miller could possibly know that. We see a look in Miller's eye that indicates he has come to feel something for Julie.

-- KNIGHT

Holden and the crew prepare for the Donager to arrive. They believe they will be killed as the only witnesses to Mars' attack. Holder rashly decides to broadcast a message to any ships in the area describing their situation.

He tells the entire system that they responded to a false distress signal transmitted by martian tech only to have a stealth ship destroy the Canterbury. They are now being taken by the martians onto the Donager. If they are killed, that should be taken as confirmation that Mars is behind the attack.

The other crew members are in disbelief over what just happened, and are terrified of the repercussions of telling the world that Mars was to blame for the attack. Surely this will start a war. Amos offers to shoot Holden if Naomi gives the word. But she does not.

The Donager reaches the Knight and pulls in into his hold. The martians break through the shuttle doors with guns drawn. They announce that Holden and crew are now prisoners of the Martian Congressional Republic.