Alien Cargo

After months in hyper-sleep aboard the cargo ship SSS-17, crew members Chris McNiel and Theta Kaplan are suddenly awakened by the ship's computer. They find that they are nearly ten months past their planned schedule, with the ship's systems badly damaged and fuel nearly exhausted. Their discovery hints that something has gone terribly wrong on board.

McNiel and Kaplan realize the ship's internal systems are compromised and that they are stranded off the ecliptic with limited life support remaining. They quickly understand that the first shift crew likely caused the catastrophe, but the reasons for the destruction are unclear. They only have about nine hours before their life-support runs out.

Using the ship's logs, the survivors locate a space probe brought on board earlier and find a mysterious substance. Their analysis reveals the presence of an unknown biological agent. These discoveries deepen the mystery about what caused the ship's state of chaos and damage.

Tensions escalate between McNiel and Kaplan, leading to a violent struggle. They argue fiercely over the nature of the alien substance and their circumstances, which quickly turns into an aggressive fight throughout the damaged ship. The hostile environment and stress push them toward the brink of death.

Kaplan, trapped in the cold cargo hold, recovers her senses and deduces that the strange substance is a biological agent that induces psychosis but becomes inert at low temperatures. She injects herself with a suggested cure from the ship's computer, temporarily halting her psychosis.

With Kaplan managing her condition, she and McNiel attempt to persuade a nearby deep-space research vessel to undertake a rescue. The research crew considers the possibility of saving them by slingshotting over before their life-support fails completely.

McNiel and Kaplan discover that the drug they used to cure the psychosis only provides a temporary fix. They realize they remain infected with the biological agent and are at risk of contaminating the rescue crew and the rest of humanity, so they are cautious about risking further infection.

As their life support systems near failure, McNiel and Kaplan transfer the uninfected crew members into sleep chambers for their safe escape before the chambers fail. They stay behind aboard the damaged vessel as it plunges toward the sun, choosing to remain with the ship to prevent contamination.

With time running out, they dismantle the space probe and discover it contains a canister filled with the blue biological contaminant. This discovery reveals the probe's secret cargo and the dangerous nature of the extraterrestrial agent.

It is revealed that the probe originally came from Earth and unintentionally gathered the alien virus in space. The virus then infected an unknown alien race, which eventually retaliated by sending the probe back to Earth, initiating a cycle of contamination and biological warfare.