In the sweltering back kitchen of a Times Square restaurant, undocumented cook Pedro is caught between mounting pressures at work and a complicated romance with waitress Julia. When money goes missing, suspicion spreads, igniting tensions that threaten to upend the fragile hopes of the staff.

Federation Officer Shapiro crash-lands on a desert planet with no sign of water, life, or a way off. Her crew-mate Rand is no help, resigned to his fate on the hypnotic alien dunes. Locating the ship's emergency beacon is their only hope, but when a salvage crew answers their distress signal, it's already too late.