Randi Stewart is a sergeant on a marine base where her father is the commanding officer. She is being treated by the new base psychiatrist, Bill Turner. Her brother, Gordon Stewart is running for political office. General Stewart is murdered and Randi is the key suspect. Once Bill starts investigating the crime through his treatment of Randi, he begins to uncover an unusually large amount of suicides on the base. The intrigue grows and so does Bill's unprofessional feelings towards Randi. Is she the murderer? He doesn't really want to find out. He just keeps getting sucked deeper and deeper into the "Quicksand".

Grocery store clerk Simon occasionally sells drugs from his cash register at work, so when soap opera actors Adam and Zack come looking for Ecstasy on a quiet Christmas Eve, they are surprised to find Ronna covering his shift. Desperate for money, Ronna decides to become an impromptu drug dealer, unaware that Adam and Zack are secretly working for obsessed narcotics officer Burke.

On July 2, a giant alien mothership enters orbit around Earth and deploys several dozen saucer-shaped 'destroyer' spacecraft that quickly lay waste to major cities around the planet. On July 3, the United States conducts a coordinated counterattack that fails. On July 4, a plan is devised to gain access to the interior of the alien mothership in space, in order to plant a nuclear missile.