When a commercial airliner is accidentally shot down in a military exercise, the captain (Vin Diesel) of a relatively small ship and the commanding officer of the Dreadnaught, the most advanced Navy warship ever created, become embroiled in a David and Goliath-style battle of high-tech high seas. Refusing to go along with the cover-up (and let the survivors die), the captain of the outgunned, older ship must evade and out-think the larger juggernaut, with all of its technological advances.