The ship goes dark, leaving Ryland Grace without lights or systems. On emergency batteries he learns both generators are offline, temperature control is down, and life support is limited. Searching the storage crawlspace, he finds the Astrophage generator and discovers its “fuel” lines are full of foul-smelling sludge.

Microscope inspection confirms Taumoeba have infiltrated the fuel supply and consumed the Astrophage, explaining the total loss of power and leaving the ship in a decaying orbit around Adrian. Rocky proposes sterilizing a generator and feeding it from his sealed Astrophage to restore electricity. Grace hands over the unit; Rocky cleans and seals it, returning reliable electrical power.

Grace remembers the four sealed “beetle” return probes each carry their own Astrophage. After sleep, he conducts a hazardous EVA on the still-spinning ship to open the nose, retrieve John, Paul, and Ringo (leaving George unmodified for Earth return). Rocky rapidly reverse-engineers and bypasses the beetles’ controls, converting three into audio-controlled, Astrophage spin-drive thrusters, while keeping one intact for the data mission.

Grace mounts the three beetles around the aft hull at 45-degree angles. To let them control attitude, he reels the ship halves together, enduring 6 g’s and briefly blacking out. Rocky uses the beetles to null rotation. With spin stopped but their orbit scraping Adrian’s upper atmosphere each pass, Grace plans the thrust duration and vector to reach the Blip-A before drag dooms them.