- CO CDR Tom Chandler and his crew find themselves in a whole new world when the ship's scientist passenger, Dr. Rachel Scott, reveals that the entire planet is in their hands.
- Battle ship captain CO commander Tom Chandler courteously accommodates zoologist Dr. Rachel Scott's wishes to research birds in the Arctic while his crew engages incommunicado in war games. When his patience is exhausted, a satellite call to the White House has his return order overruled by the Pentagon, the top-secret research is national security priority. Then a Russian force attacks her last and successful sample hunt, but is fought-off. Chandler orders a hasty return home, but finally learns the world is in the grip of an unprecedented pandemic which wiped out most of humanity. It started from Egypt but spreads over all continents, wiping out all demographic, economic and political order. They attempt to bring the bird virus sample, the only hope to develop a vaccine, to a US lab, but the disease already rendered the entire country lawless, hence too unsafe, so Scott must improvise in the primitive lab aboard.—KGF Vissers
- Rachel Scott, a paleomicrobiologist, is helicoptered into a remote site in Egypt to visit people infected with a virus. Once spots appear, the victims die within two days. She draws blood from one of the infected men then races back to her helicopter.
US Naval Station, Norfolk, VA
At the dock of the USS Nathan James, members of the Naval Mounted Warfare Unit want to bring their dog, Admiral Halsey, aboard. CMC Jeter doesn't think the captain, Commander Tom Chandler, will go for it.
Chandler checks in on Dr. Scott, who has just arrived and taken over the helicopter bay for her lab. He's concerned about the safety of the 218 people aboard. She tells him they're virologists studying birds -- she's lying.
Four Months Later Top Secret Delta Mission on radio silence at the North Pole
Scott collects samples from the frozen ground while back on the ship Chandler runs a test of their missile system, which is successful. He announces to the ship that they've completed their mission successfully and he's going to ask the Pentagon permission to break their four months of radio silence.
Chandler sends two men to retrieve Dr. Scott, who hasn't finished her work yet.
Back on the ship, she confronts Chandler, who is tired of her belligerence. He tells her they're heading home so she has to wrap up her work.
Lieutenants Kara Foster and Danny Green step into a supply closet to make out briefly, but she puts him off until they're home.
In her lab, Scott tries to reach the National Security Advisor to ask for more time to complete her work. Her assistant, Dr. Quincy Tophet, stabs a mouse with a syringe and generally looks shifty.
Chandler radios the Pentagon but is told their mission has been extended and they're to maintain radio silence and await word.
Day Two of Mission Extension On the bridge, Chandler is annoyed that Dr. Scott is back out on the ice. She announces to Quincy that she thinks she's found what they're looking for.
Suddenly, five unknown aircraft appear on the ship's radar.
The two men guarding Scott see that they're Russian and race toward her, immediately taking fire on their snow mobiles. Dr. Scott furiously packs up her samples as Quincy urges her to leave them.
The helicopters continue to pursue the snow mobiles, firing on them and then the doctors. Commandos jump out of one of the copters and take on the seamen on foot. Chandler locks down the ship and prepares to fire.
Out on the ice, Admiral Halsey, the dog, attacks a sniper before he can fire on Dr. Scott.
Two of the Russian copters begin firing on the ship and Chandler orders them destroyed. One goes down and the big gun takes out another.
Back on the ship, Chandler interrogates one of the Russians, asking what he wants. "The cure," the man says.
Chandler orders Slattery to break radio silence and confronts Dr. Scott about "the cure," threatening her samples.
She relents: Seven months ago there was an outbreak outside Cairo unlike anything they'd ever seen. The CDC and WHO wanted a sample of the virus from the victims, but nothing worked. She thought they had to find the primordial carriers -- the birds. She finally found their feeding ground.
She had orders from the White House and a satellite phone to stay in contact. When they left, the virus was in phase 2, in small clusters in Asia and Africa. They're now at Phase 6 Global Pandemic, 80 percent of the world's population is sick.
She admits most of her colleagues think she's crazy, but she says what's in the case might be the only hope they have.
Slattery interrupts to let Chandler know the President of the United States is on the video conference. Chandler gives Dr. Scott her samples.
On the vid-com, Chandler is surprised to learn the president is the woman who was Speaker of the House when they left. The president died two months ago, the vice president a week later. The remaining government is holed up in a bunker. Russia no longer has a functioning government and most of the population is sick or dying -- including, likely, the families of everyone on the ship. She tells him to head to a secure lab off the coast of North Carolina, so Dr. Scott can work on the vaccine.
Later, Chandler and Slattery watch news reports about the end of the world and mass rioting for food.
Slattery seethes at being left in the dark, and Chandler resolves to tell the crew everything. They'll head to the coast of France in the hopes of refueling at an unmanned station.
Chandler addresses the assembled crew on the deck.
Later, Chandler tries to get through to his wife and kids, but the phones are down. He wonders if he'll ever see them again.
On the bridge, Chandler learns that only four people were able to get through to home and the news wasn't good. Slattery learned his son is dead, but his wife and daughters are in a safe zone.
Suddenly, after no radio contact, they get an unconfirmed fire order and in the next second they're being fired upon by a surface ship. It's a nuclear missile. They prepare for impact, but it flies clear over them and hits land -France. The systems go out on the ship, leaving them in the blast zone.
In the lab, with limited power, Rachel and Quincy scramble to save their melting samples.
With one more charge left to essentially jump start the ship, Chandler holds the electronics in place himself, getting thrown into the wall -- but the power comes back on.
With almost no fuel left, they head for an abandoned Italian cruise ship nearby.
Unable to reach anyone, Chandler, Dr. Scott, Jeter and a team suit up and prepare to board it, looking for fuel and food. Dr. Scott reminds them the virus is highly contagious and airborne and they have to leave their helmets on at all time.
Aboard the cruise ship, a team works on setting up a fuel transfer link.
Another team, led by Chandler, goes to the galley and begins packing up food. They find bodies stacked and wrapped in the freezer, and the ballroom is filled with beds and bodies. Dr. Scott checks on a man who is still alive and moaning. She draws some blood and injects him with morphine, telling him to let go.
Walking down the stairs, Lt. Frank Benz trips and falls. His helmet is ripped off as he tumbles, and he knows he's done for. He refuses to go back to the ship, and when Chandler and Dr. Scott find him, he pulls out his weapon. Even as Chandler orders him to put the gun down, Benz says he has no desire to die of the disease. He shoots himself in the head.
Back on the ship, they have a funeral in dress white (with no body) as Drs. Scott and Tophet work in the lab.
Later, Dr. Scott tells Chandler she discovered the virus had been genetically modified, meaning it was weaponized or escaped from a lab. That means it's stable and her primordial samples should provide a basis for a vaccine.
With the radios back up after five days, they get an old message from the president telling them North Carolina isn't safe and they should head to Jacksonville, but they can't reach anyone to confirm it.
Another message comes through -- it's a video message from Chandler's wife. They are safe at his father's cabin in the woods. She asks him to get there if he can.
They pull up to the coast of Florida. Chandler checks in on Dr. Scott and asks her if she could make the virus in the ship's lab if she had to.
Slattery and Jeter prepare a group to head to land, even though they haven't been able to reach anyone. Chandler pulls Slattery aside and tells him trying to make it to the lab 200 miles inland is too dangerous. Slattery argues that people want to go home and try to find their families, but Chandler notes they only have 80 biosuits for 216 people. Slattery doesn't like, but Chandler gives the order.
Chandler addresses the crew: "We have no contact with home, and I have good reason to believe that they American government is no longer functioning and the country we all hoped we were coming back to no longer exists." He tells them that Dr. Scott's ingredients for a cure are humanity's only hope. "Our mission now is simple: We do whatever it takes to stay alive at sea until they find that cure." Their next stop is an unmanned fuel station outside Guantanamo.
Master Chief Jeter leads a salute to the captain on the bridge.
Down in the lab, shifty Dr. Quincy makes a call in Russian, say he doesn't know what to do, the ship isn't stopping.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content
Top Gap
What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Phase Six (2014) in Spain?
Answer