Unknown armored boarders seize the Scopuli, and Julie Mao is shoved into a storage locker aboard the attackers’ ship with orders to stay silent or be shot. Dehydration and fear dominate the first days; she disassembles a neglected environment suit for water and uses its waste bag, rationing while listening to distant footsteps, doors, and her crewmates’ cries.

When she finally tries to make contact, Julie hears the mechanic Dave pleading as the captors cycle the airlock and space someone. She stays silent afterward, her earlier resistance—low-g jiu jitsu before being knocked out—proving useless against their force. The ship eventually goes quiet; thrust stops, gravity ends, and for a full day no one comes.

Desperate by day eight, Julie kicks her way out of the locker. She arms herself with a magnetized pipe wrench and searches deck by deck: cabins tidy, commissary scuffed by a struggle, med bay and torpedo bay empty, comms powered down with no sign of the Scopuli. The silence suggests evacuation, but she heard no airlock cycles.

At engineering she finds the hatch sealed from within and evidence of violence. After hours cutting and cranking it open, a hot, coppery, hospital-like smell floods out. Inside, the cavernous engineering bay is transformed: a wet, pulsing, vein-laced mass coats the reactor where readouts should be.

As Julie approaches, a portion of the growth shifts and reveals Captain Darren’s head embedded in the flesh. It speaks—"Help me"—confirming that whatever happened began in engineering and has consumed the crew, leaving Julie alone with an incomprehensible, living threat.