A group of elite interstellar commandos crash lands on a planet while transporting an alien prisoner. Amidst shifting loyalties among the group, they must track down and recapture the escaped creature, alive. The escaped prisoner sets traps and picks off the commandos one by one. When only Commander Karza and Lieutenant Centauri 7 are left, Centauri suggests they kill the prisoner, but the commander insists that he be taken alive, regardless of the mounting cost. The two engage each other in a tense standoff, and the commander reveals that the prisoner, the last survivor of a planet destroyed during a war, has threatened to destroy their planet in retaliation.