The Crew of the Athena discuss the impending crisis cause from Icrion's disappearance. They decide the first course of action is to retrieve the last probe sent from Icrion to look for any additional information on it. Victor departs to make preparations in case of war, but provides contact information.
The Athena departs for the nearby probe which is only a few hours away. On arrival, Lemons leads a small team to secure the probe and move it to the science bay. The probe appears to not be functioning, so Lemons attempts to get it to broadcast the rest of it's message while Tali sets up a receiver. Lemons gets the probe broadcasting again, which causes a horrific maddening wailing to be broadcast throughout the room. Tali attempts to suppress the signal, but it begins to broadcast over the ships intercomm system as well and affect lighting system to blink in a seizure inducing way. Lemons flees from the science bay in a panicked state.
Por attaches his droid to the prob and hacks the probe to stop broadcasting. However, the probe seems to react and counter hacks the droid, infecting it with some sort of computer virus. Redlen shoots the probes interface panel, but the droid is already out of control.
It becomes apparent that the probe is infected with some sort of advanced computer virus that has spread to the ship, so Tali orders activating the ships manual overrides and disconnecting all automated systems. Luckily the Athena has greatly prepared for this type of situation as a precaution against terraformer attack, and the virus is quickly contained on the ship.
Por's droid however is still acting erratically and evading capture, dodging away from Por when he tries to shut it down. Tali leaps after it, but the droid somehow causes nearby equipment to fly off the shelves towards Tali using some unseen force. Tali manages to evade the attack and pull the droid's power supply. The immediate threat is over, but the probe still hums menacingly in the middle of the science bay.
Tali finds a way to securely copy the probe's data using her science equipment. Por wants to “talk” to the probe. The crew cautiously move the probe to an airlock. Lemons refuses to go near the probe, but assists in repairing it's interface panel remotely. Redlen rigs the probe with explosives in case something goes wrong. Tali and Por remain in the airlock with EVA suites while Lemons and Redlen wait on the other side ready to blow the probe out to space if anything should go wrong. They hook up a simple text terminal for Por who tries to communicate with the probe through text. The probe responds with a series of rapid ascii art images which are too quick for Por to comprehend, but cause him to feel compelled to keep watching. Tali studies him while he is watching the stream and realizes that the images are some sort of subliminal messaging that is programming Por's mind. Tali hits the console out of Por's hands and orders Lemons to open the air lock. Unfortunately in Lemon's panicked paranoid state, he assumes she means open out into space (she did not). Tali manages to grab Por and secure them both inside the airlock while Por struggles to reach the console as the probe is ejected out into space.