On Pressure Vault Five, a dying cryogenic fuel station succumbing to vacuum and absolute zero, a hidden civilian population has been systematically abandoned by black-budget command. Sergeant Ryker and an engineering reconnaissance squad enter the frozen, zero-gravity access tunnels to retrieve a priority archival core proving the atrocity. Dormant alien predators called Stiltworms sleep inside the frost coating the station's hull, waking to hunt whenever they detect structural vibration.

The extreme cold drains the soldiers' suit batteries, forcing them to crawl through the narrow gaps between massive cryogenic tanks. Stiltworms rehydrate from the frost to hunt via mass-drop, deploying anesthetic mucus spheres that numb human tissue and chemically degrade suit pressure seals. The squad attempts to cycle the compartment lock and rig a manua ...