In the future, Earth’s appetite for resources has become a major motivator for deep space exploration. Immense, privately-owned and operated mining ships called “planetcrackers” orbit planets and use sophisticated equipment to carve out entire city-sized chunks of rock, and reduce them to component elements and raw ore.

When an immense mining ship, the USG Ishimura, comes into contact with a mysterious alien artifact in a remote star system, its communications with Earth are mysteriously cut off. Engineer Isaac Clarke is sent to repair the Ishimura’s communications array, but he arrives to find a living nightmare - the ship is a floating bloodbath, the crew unspeakably mutilated and infected by an ancient alien scourge.

Clarke’s repair mission becomes one of survival as he fights not just to save himself, but to return the artifact to the planet … at any cost.