As the Japanese sweep across the Pacific, the Allies make a last-ditch effort to defend Java. Captain Nick Everard, commanding the cruiser Defiant, joins a mixed group of Allied ships to engage a superior Japanese invasion force. Nick is badly wounded and his ship is caught alone in the tightening noose of Japanese dominance. To escape, the battered Defiant must play a cat-and-mouse game with the hunting Japanese among the islands of the Java Sea.