On a failing orbital station, the lower modules are flooded and degrading toward reactor cascade failure. Corporate command sends a squad of conscript soldiers into the submerged sumps to map an alien Warden brood's architecture and secure a tactical data cache for the next wave. The conscripts are forced to wear the damaged, inherited gear of dead predecessors, including helmets with stress fractures and rifles with welded barrels.

The Warden is a massive, calculating hunter that flanks through maintenance tunnels and learns the squad's movement signatures. As the soldiers attempt to cross a flooded, zero-gravity chamber to reach their objective, the alien uses the station's own infrastructure to outmaneuver them, targeting their tethers and armor with surgical precision. The squad discovers their target is a deliberately sealed, lethal ra ...