An experiment gone wrong leaves intergalactic pioneers at the mercy of a deadly entity.

SYNOPSIS:

David Verde and Bailey Cross are on the last legs of a long detail at an Outpost far from home. Their mission is to turn a lonely, uninhabitable micro planet called Exodus One into a proxy for future settlement.

The impossible adventure lures them to the “abyss” of space where, buoyed by technology, they manipulate the atmosphere to create a little earth in heaven. All seems well as the forest they brought thrives, churning out oxygen to rupture the natural vacuum they inherited. After two years levels almost support life.

The harsh conditions of nearly constant night are interrupted by bursts of violent light from a temporary sun streaking across the sky every seventeen hours. The tumbling terrain is bounded by distant mountainous hills on the far horizon, resonating a bleak, unforgiving landscape. Success here will make Bailey and David legends.

Anticipating an end to their assignment, they get news their rotation is delayed along with supplies. An incident at the Outpost on Orbit Four commands all attention, and the two pioneers, people close to David and Bailey, are missing. It’s the last straw and Bailey begins to change.

During routine data gathering, the Outpost is rocked by a mysterious explosion. Cracked and ruptured, sector five is breached to the outside world. With no other living soul in this creation, Bailey and David are terrified.

Unbeknownst to them, they awakened a long dormant Entity bent on saving its planet.

Events are repeating themselves. Other outposts go dark leaving only questions. Central Command sends a support group armed to the teeth. The same support group that investigated Orbit Four.

Bailey descends into an altered state of symbiotic kinship with the wounded planet and senses the writing on the wall. They must leave and leave now. Wright, the group leader, refuses. His mission is to investigate and eradicate and, hopefully, put his own torment to bed.

In a dream (or is it?), Bailey walks to the far hills and into a cave. There she meets the formless energy, the Entity awakened by their environmental molestation. It means to exact retribution and reclaim the planet. It enters her consciousness, attempting to find weaknesses in its newfound enemies. Bailey starts awake.

The organism kills Petrusco and Gomez, two of the support group, in the forest. Wright and Halloran arrive in time to find only their comrades’ ashes.

Unable to penetrate the structure in its natural form, the Entity subsumes Bailey to use her as a weapon against “the contagion.” As her, it sabotages the life support system, fights and kills Wright and tries to do the same to David.

In the nick of time, Halloran, the last surviving soldier, arrives, rifle in hand. She shoots Bailey, sacrificing her to destroy the Entity, saving those left.

The final scene has a recalcitrant, emotionally scarred Halloran decrying ignorance of forces beyond our vainglorious comprehension, while David waits his own interrogation.