Ray Ferrier is a divorced dockworker and less-than-perfect father. Soon after his ex-wife and her new husband drop off his teenage son and young daughter for a rare weekend visit, a strange and powerful lightning storm touches down.

College friends Devin, Jack, Shelly, Kristy, Shaun, and Flower rent a spacecraft to autopilot them to Centauri Five for a holiday break. Impatient over the rental agency restricting the ship’s speed to 10x, Devin and the others convince Shaun to remove the craft’s constrictor device. Doing so damages the computer’s automated systems, as well as the ability to send a distress beacon, causing the six friends to crash land on an uncharted alien planet.