Arrowhead

Kye Cortland escapes from a political prison on a mining colony. In the chaos of the breakout, he amputates his own foot to prevent the machinery from tearing apart the other prisoners, saving lives at the cost of his mobility.

Cortland is recruited to join the rebellion against General Lang. General Hatch explains that Cortland’s father, a key rebel figure, is slated for execution in months on Lang's victory anniversary, and Hatch wants Cortland to hijack a scientific vessel to retrieve data to help free him.

Onboard the Arrowhead, Cortland wakes from suspended animation and hacks into the vessel’s data banks to aid Hatch. He worries the action might lower the ship’s defenses, but Hatch reassures him that it’s temporary and safe.

A dangerous EMI flare damages the ship and forces it to eject all escape pods. Cortland escapes in a shuttle and lands near the pods on a desert moon, starting a new survival chapter.

Exploring the moon, Cortland discovers the body of Arrowhead’s security chief and an undamaged pod containing biologist Tarren Hollis. He revives Hollis and uses her biometric data to activate the ship’s AI, RE3F.

Hollis accuses Cortland of being Hatch’s operative, claiming Hatch has been conducting terrorist acts. Cortland dismisses her charges as propaganda and she proposes a fair trial if he accompanies her to a rendezvous for rescue.

RE3F refuses to start the shuttle’s engines without Hollis’s login. A hostile insectoid attack occurs, seemingly killing Cortland and preventing the rescue attempt.

An obelisk resurrects Cortland after the insect attack, infecting him with a symbiote that heals his wounds and unlocks latent powers. He and Hollis then drag Oleander’s body to the obelisk and revive him using biometric data to unlock RE3F's functions.

When Oleander revives, he becomes hostile and shoots Hollis. Cortland retaliates, killing Oleander, but collapses from his own wounds in the process.

Cortland revives again; RE3F reveals he was dead for thirty-four days. The symbiote revives him, and with RE3F’s help they work to restore the shuttle’s power and escape the moon to rescue his father.

Cortland discovers that his symbiote triggers transformations under stress, and learns the moon is the subject of a relativistic time-dilation experiment. He also realizes Hatch and Lang intend to use the moon offensively.

Over the next three years, Cortland bonds with RE3F and learns to control his insectoid transformation while surviving on the moon. He and RE3F defend the refuge against a recurring insectoid threat and prepare for a final escape.

Hollis is revealed to have possibly escaped the moon. Cortland scavenges parts from the shuttle to upgrade RE3F with a mobile frame and launches an expedition to learn Hollis’s fate.

Exploration reveals the planet’s connection to a time-dilation experiment, with Oleander and Cortland’s original bodies merged into a planetary organism. Hatch arrives, captures Hollis and demands the data, but Cortland wounds him with a grenade in his cybernetic foot, then kills him by transforming; Hollis helps him return to human form as they plan to leave the moon to free Cortland’s father.