Escape Pod

ESCAPE POD

Daniel Harris is awoken by a shrieking alarm. He is a junior officer on the interplanetary vessel Itami Conveyor, returning to Earth from the outer colonies. The ship is carrying cargo and eleven passengers. Captain Liang informs Harris that an explosion has seriously damaged the engines and the young man is charged with manning one of two escape pods, should evacuation become necessary.

Reaching pod two just before the panicking passengers, Harris locks himself inside. Despite their desperate pleas, he follows the captain’s orders and keeps the hatch closed. The Conveyor is stranded in a remote quadrant known as the Wasteland and it may take months for them to be rescued; Harris cannot allow the pod’s eight-person capacity to be exceeded.

While he prepares the vehicle for departure, more passengers arrive and all have their reasons for demanding entry. One man, James, insists that his pregnant wife Ellie be allowed in. The other passengers agree that she should enter the pod – but they can’t agree about James. After a protracted dispute, he is permitted to go in with Ellie. But when Harris opens the hatch, an aggressive pair named Santos and Dresner try to force their way in. Harris and James fight them off but James is injured.

Contact with the bridge is then lost. One of the passengers, Amara, is a communications expert and offers to help. Harris gets her safely inside. While Amara works to restore contact with the captain, there is a second explosion. Passengers from the rear of the ship are forced to abandon pod one and they all congregate outside pod two. Worse is to come: toxic gas from the explosion floods the corridor and the passengers begin to collapse. In their desperation, some attack the hatch and Santos take a hostage. Harris fears he will have to open up but – at the last minute – the resourceful Amara gets through to the captain, who uses emergency venting to release the gas.

Shortly afterward, the last passenger reaches pod two. Ferretti is an armed intelligence agent working for the Colonial Directorate. He shows Harris his ID and demands to speak to him privately. Ferretti confides that he was returning to Earth with a piece of priceless alien weaponry: it has been stolen from a secure container in the Conveyor’s hold. The agent demands that Harris help him search the passengers but many of the others aboard support Sundown – a radical terrorist group opposed to colonial authority. Taking advantage of the ensuing confusion, Dresner seizes Ferretti’s gun. He is talked down by the agent but then Santos snatches the weapon. In the deadly chaos that follows, all three men are killed.

Recovering the gun, Harris withdraws to the pod and learns that the captain cannot save the ship. Liang orders him to save as many as he can. But while Harris agonises over who to let in, the pod is detached and blasts away from the ship. In shock, he watches as the Conveyor explodes. A final message comes in from the captain: it was sabotage.
At that moment, Harris and Amara turn to find James holding the gun on them. Ellie lifts her shirt and removes the fake pregnant stomach. Inside is a canister containing the alien weapon. It was they who detached the escape pod, condemning the remaining passengers to death. They are saboteurs and thieves; working for Sundown.

Determined to give Amara a chance, Harris charges at James and is shot. As Amara and Ellie struggle for control of the gun, the dying Harris stops James intervening. The tough, resourceful Amara prevails and shoots both Ellie and James. With his last breaths, Harris reminds her about the Lonely Light: a white dwarf star that can guide her out of the Wasteland. Moments after he dies, she sees it through the escape pod window. Only Amara has survived; Harris has given her a chance to live.