Dr. Emma Watson's lifelong dream of working and studying aboard the International Space Station has finally come true. But it quickly turns into a nightmare when a culture of single-celled organisms known as Archaeons, gathered from the deepest crevices of the ocean floor, and meant to be monitored in the microgravity of space, begins to regenerate ouf of control, and infects the crew aboard the shuttle Atlantis.
Soon the crew are suffering severe stomach pains, violent convulsions, and eyes so bloodshot that a gallon of Murine wouldn't help. There are many difficulties treating sick people inside a space module, and the lack of gravity affects the process of taking blood and inserting a nasal tube. Dr. Watson does her best, but her colleagues die off one by one and the people at NASA don't want to risk bringing the platform back to earth. Only Emma's husband, a doctor/astronaut himself, refuses to give up on her.
But there will be no rescue. The contagion now threatens Earth's population as well, and the astronauts are left stranded in orbit, quarantined aboard the station, where they are dying one by one....