Raised in claustrophobic captivity, a young man yearns for an adventure amongst the stars—but when he finds it, escaping the villainous Custodians, he's left questioning what freedom truly is.

SYNOPSIS:

A gentle hum. Throughout the Custodian prison, there is a constant, unwavering humming. Machines speak to one another—and James listens in. Raised under the oppression of the Custodians, brought into their prison system as a newborn, this has been all the young boy has ever known.

However, when the humming stops one night, James and his ragtag group—Ged, Cait, and Heggard—manage to flee the prison and make a break for the stars. They fight off guards and shoot off in a stolen ship, watched as they drift away by The Warden—a monster more machine now than man.

In their efforts to find freedom, the crew find themselves, first, on Likk Loran. Though a once-great planet, the leaders of the Coalition, Likk Loran is nothing more than a water-world now. But beneath its vast sea, James finds an old robot who imparts its knowledge upon the group before sacrificing itself to ensure their escape. Blasting back into the stars, the crew sets their sights on the Custodian homeworld, Orda Prime.

There, they discover the truth about the Custodians' rise to power and the only way they might defeat the evil force. But this knowledge comes at a cost. Seeing the freedom of conformity—the lives of those on Orda Prime compared to what he's lived in prison—Heggard betrays the group, killing Ged as an offering to the Custodians. James and Cait manage to escape once more, and Heggard is taken to meet The Warden.

As James and Cait set out to find the key to bringing down the Custodians—an ancient, powerful machine known as a Guardian—Heggard is given his reward. He is mutilated and pulled apart, then reassembled into a machine. A machine whose only purpose is to do as Heggard did on Orda Prime: kill the other escapees.

Things come to a head, finally, as James and Cait return to the prison, now with the Guardian to aid them. A riot ensures. Heggard is let loose. And Cait and James split up. Armed with a mining laser—all that the Guardian had aboard—James fights Heggard. He wounds him, removing his robotic limbs, and leaves him, apologising after seeing the consequences of his betrayal. James carries on, deeper into the prison—listening to the machines—until he finds The Warden.

In the main reactor room of the prison, James and The Warden clash. It is a truly one-sided fight, with The Warden immediately disarming James and taking control. He beats James until he bleeds. He whips him, kicks him, and stomps on him. Then, finally, he delivers his monologue. They're two sides of the same coin. James is nothing but a weaker version of himself. And James shows him how wrong he is. He takes control of The Warden's machinery just long enough for Cait to arrive. Together, they beat back The Warden—and the reactor explodes.

James and Cait rush back to the Guardian, along with fleeing prisoners, and they escape just in time. As the prison explodes silently in the vacuum of space, James watches. He holds Cait's hand, as she stands besides him, and they share a kiss.