The last thing you remember is the violent shudder of the Kepler breaking apart, the transporter beam's golden light, and Commander Vance's voice cutting into static.

You don't wake so much as you reassemble. Your atoms scream in protest. You are on the transporter pad of the U.S.S. Rubicon, but the world is silent and dark.

The great warp core hum is gone. In its place is a deep, bone-aching quiet, broken only by the frantic sputter of the transporter console behind you and the dim, rhythmic pulse of red emergency strips along the corridor ceiling. The air is freezing and smells of ozone, scorched metal, and the sickly-sweet tang of a coolant leak.

A calm, synthetic voice echoes from the walls, the ceiling, everywhere at once: "Core Breach Protocol initiated. Containment failure in T-Minus 59 minutes, 30 seconds. All personnel: evacuate immediately."

The console screen tells the story in cold, green text. A system log shows the evacuation order, a massive power surge, and the final line: TRANSPORTER BUFFER FUSION. MATTER REASSEMBLY COMPLETE.. You were in the buffer. You were put back together after the ship was abandoned.

A wall-mounted schematic flickers. Most of it is grey and dead. One icon pulses with a stubborn, green hope: an escape pod, in Primary Docking Bay 3. A route is highlighted.

You rush into the corridor. The instant the last of you crosses the threshold, a deafening hydraulic SHUNK roars behind you. You spin. The massive emergency blast doors to the transporter room have slammed shut, their red "SEALED" lights glowing like malevolent eyes. Simultaneously, every red emergency light along your highlighted path ahead winks out, plunging the way forward into an absolute, suffocating black.

The ship's AI, VIKTOR (Virtual Intelligence Kernel for Tactical Operations and Reasoning), politely informs you: "Emergency lock-down engaged. Primary power to Deck 4 terminated. Manual reactivation required. Please proceed to the Engineering Auxiliary Control room. Core Breach in T-Minus 58 minutes, 15 seconds."

The countdown begins.

It is pitch black.

You are likely to be eaten by a grue.