One more stupid setback: woke up with battery drained. I failed to actually check that the USB-PD adapter that came with the modem was charging the UPS. 🤦 It kept power cycling, probably tripping overcurrent charging the battery despite the label claiming it was rated high enough.
So I'm just gonna put a 15V barrel adapter on it rather than buying a better USB-PD adapter or tying up one of my existing good ones. That cuts out the wasteful diode too.