The ceiling of the transport swam into focus as I regained consciousness.

I groaned, taking in the hard floor beneath my back and an unfamiliar quietness all around me. From the moment I had stepped on the transport, the vibe had been bustling, followed soon after by chaos. But now, the room around me seemed quiet as a tomb, no talking, no mechanical sounds, not the low hum that always existed in the background during space travel. I heard no battle sounds or sputters from the damaged ship systems, just an occasional moan from the ship’s hull as if shifting under a great pressure.

A moment later, Vomero’s scaly green face appeared above me.

“You’re the first awake,” he said, and I could hear the tint of relief in his tone.

Pushing myself to lean on one elbow, I surveyed the area. We were in a different part of the transport, presumably the cargo bay. People were scattered around the floor, unconscious. I took stock—Cash's big body was laid out just inside the doorway, as if whoever dragged him there didn’t have the energy to take him any further; Dick was sprawled out next to a crate with a wound in his side that someone had bandaged; Ryuuk's body was lying furthest from the door, probably because he was the lightest to carry.

“The others will probably be up soon,” said Vomero, he glanced over to Cash’s body by the door. “It may take the big guy longer, though, considering...”

“Considering what?” I asked, glancing suspiciously at Cash.

“Never mind,” he said. “I believe people deserve to keep their secrets...until they don’t.”

I watched him silently for a long moment before nodding. “Does that mean you’re not going to ask me about that power I channeled before I passed out?”

“Like I said...”

Glancing back around with a nod, I caught sight of another body lying on the floor, snoring.

“Well, how about that?” I said, smiling to see the old man drooling as he slept it off. I had never caught his name. “Honestly, I didn’t expect that old geezer to survive. Hell, I didn’t really expect any of us to survive.”

“Several didn’t.”

I looked back at Vomero.

“You zapped everyone,” I assumed.

“Almost everyone,” he answered. “You avoided most of the shock on that wooden bench.”

“Thanks for that. So, what are we doing in here? Holing up against the next wave?”

“There’s no next wave that I can tell,” he said. “I think you took out most if not everyone who was outside the transport with your attack. After everyone was knocked out from mine, I... took care of all the unconscious fish guys left in the transport.”

My mind flashed to an image of Vomero’s neurotoxin spikes jabbing into the Merdudes during our battle.

“If the threat is gone, why are we back here?”

“The damage was already done. Water was spilling into the breach. So, I dragged anyone who was still breathing back here. There was enough residual energy from my electric shock to get the doors closed again and seal us in here. It was the only room still considered air tight.”

“So, we’re trapped,” said Dick. He had awoken unnoticed in time to hear Vomero’s explanation.

At the word “trapped” my heart started to race. I closed my eyes and thought of the vastness of space, forcing myself to pretend we were just in a transport cargo bay traveling normally from planet to planet. It was a technique I had practiced many times to deal with my agoraphobia.

“At the moment,” said Vomero. “But at least we’re not dead.”

“Yet,” spat Dick.

“Hey, if you had a better idea...oh wait! It wouldn’t have mattered because you weren’t conscious to tell it to me,” Vomero mocked.

“Because you zapped us!”

“We would have all died fighting anyway,” I interjected. “Well, some of us. Where the hell were you at when the rest of us were slitting throats to survive?”

“I was doing what I could,” Dick defended, motioning to his wound, “and sorry if I’m not as good at killing people as you! That's a little fucked up, by the way.”

“Oh, you want to complain about all the guys I killed so they couldn’t come kill your sorry ass?!”

“I’m just saying it’s kind of shady. You know? Suddenly, you’re a fish-gutting ninja with magic filet knives that appear out of nowhere? Then whatever the hell you did to all those Merdudes outside. Your hands are too full of secrets to be pointing fingers at other people.”

“You want to talk about secrets? Like the pheromones you’ve been using to sexually charge me up whenever I get close?”

At that statement, a flurry of noises emerged from people around the room. Vomero let out a noise than can only be described as disgust. Cash, who had apparently awoken during the argument offered a “Not cool, man.” Seeing Dick’s sheepish look, I pressed the advantage.

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“That’s right. You didn’t think I’d pick up on that, huh? What kind of perverted prick goes around dosing people with pheromones? Unless it’s just a distraction? So that someone doesn’t start thinking about things like how we just have to take your word for it that the pilot was already dead when you found him!”

“Listen, lady, I don’t spike people with pheromones like some date-rapist. It’s just part of who I am. Can I turn it up when I want? Sure. But how’s that any different than ramping up the charm when you’re trying to get into some hot chick’s pants? It’s not my fault if you wanted to pick up what I’m putting down.”

I chose to ignore his defense of “you’re hot, so I tried” and refocus my argument.

“So, you’re not denying that you could’ve killed the pilot. It’s pretty convenient you’re the only other pilot onboard.”

“I don’t have to defend myself to you. And for all we know that guy could have been dead for a while. The ship practically flies itself in transit. All we have to go on is some body-builder-look-a-like's word that he can eyeball a corpse’s time of death.”

“It’s not considered a look-a-like if you actually are a body builder, dumbass,” Cash said. “What I'm more interested in is just how much water I have to swim through to get out of this tin can.”

All eyes turned to Vomero.

“Well, more with every passing minute for sure.”

“Dammit. So, we’re sinking to the bottom of the ocean.” Mine was more of a statement than a question.

“No,” Vomero said carefully. “We passed the technical bottom of the ocean minutes ago. According to the ship’s scanners, we landed in the ocean over a very sizeable schism, which we are now falling into.”

Everyone erupted at once.

“That would have been handy to know at the start!” I said.

“That’s just fan-fucking-tastic!” This came from Dick.

Cash’s outburst was the most severe, most likely due to his fear of water.

“What the hell were you thinking? You stuck us all in this box to die!” His fist slammed into the nearest aluminum crate, leaving a sizeable dent.

“You wanted me to leave you to sink like a lead weight, then?” Vomero asked with quiet menace. “That’s still an option, save on all that hot air you’re always blowing.”

Cash got up in his face. “I’m getting really tired of listening to your smart mouth,” he growled.

“I’m the only reason you’re not fish food right now,” Vomero said his voice getting louder as he inched even closer toward Cash’s face. They were almost standing toe-to-toe, now, Vomero’s neck craned back to glare at the larger man, undaunted. “So, if you think you’ve got what it takes to shut my mouth, give it a try!”

I scrambled to my feet and up onto one of the cargo crates to avoid being trampled as Cash threw his entire body-weight at Vomero. The lizard man pivoted as their bodies impacted, throwing them both off balance and tumbling to the floor where they tussled for a moment before regaining their feet and throwing more punches.

Cash’s fists packed the bigger punch, but Vomero’s short swift strikes held the numbers advantage. Blood started trickling from various places on both men as they traded blows. Cash threw Vomero into a crate, which he then grabbed and swung at Cash, stunning him briefly from the force of the blow.

“So, are we going to just let them punch each other to death, or what?” I said to Dick over the crash of crates breaking and objects flying.

“One guy can punch a hole through a wall and the other stabs people with poison barbs, if they want to kill each other why should I care, much less get involved? Sounds like we’re all dead anyway.”

While it wasn’t in my nature to be as morose as Mr. Tall-Dark-And-Depressed, I didn’t disagree with his assessment that getting in the way of the fight might be a hazard best avoided.

Suddenly, the tone of the fight shifted as Cash caught Vomero by the neck and pinned him against the wall. He was raising his fist to punch him full-force in the face when Vomero reached up and grabbed Cash’s face. He sent an electric pulse through the big man to shock him, but the result was startling.

Sparks flashed off Cash’s face and the arm holding Vomero’s neck dropped limply to his side. The half of his face Vomero touched also drooped as if he was having a stroke, and the eye on that same side went completely black. Cash stumbled to one knee as tiny currents of electricity visibly arced up his arm and down his spine.

Despite all of this, he didn’t look like a man being shocked but rather like a machine being short-circuited.

So, that was the secret Vomero mentioned. Cash is part cybernetic.

That explained a lot. His cybernetic arm obviously gave him some type of beyond-human strength, letting him punch through things, pry doors open and bend metal tridents around people’s necks. It was now obvious how he could determine the pilot’s time of death with a glance. That left eye obviously had some scanning abilities and who knows what else it could do.

Being exposed by Vomero’s attack seemed to piss Cash off even more, though there wasn’t much he could do about it in his current state. The fight had largely been in his favor before with superior size and strength, but, now, Vomero held the upper hand.

The lizard man, apparently not forgetting that Cash had just tried to splatter his face on the wall, extracted a single spike from his fist.

“You think I couldn’t tell what you were from the first moment I saw you?” Vomero sneered. “I can literally see the electrical pulses running through your circuitry. You’re not some big, strong man after all—just some prick hiding behind his enhancements.”

His neurotoxin spike slashed down, just as Dick and I both yelled out a protest. Our objections went unheard, however, as Vomero plunged the poison spike into Cash’s non-bionic shoulder.

The large man never even flinched. Instead, he let out a low chuckle.

“Well, isn’t that just ironic,” Cash said, sitting up against a nearby wall, his human hand holding up his bionic one like a sling. “Here we are trying to rip each other apart. But as it turns out, you can’t kill me any more than I can kill you.”

Vomero slid down the opposite wall from Cash and looked at him, weary from the fight. “Anti-venom?” he guessed.

“140 different varieties,” Cash answered. “Produced internally. You’re not the first person to try and poison me.”

“Eh, it wasn’t even enough to kill you anyway, not being half cyborg. But it would’ve hurt like hell.”

“It does sting a little, if that helps.”

They stared at each other for a moment before breaking out in laughter.

A rustling commotion at the back of the cargo bay drew everyone’s attention in the silence that followed the fight.

Ryuuk pushed himself to a half-leaning, half-standing position, knocking over several crates as he did. His feathers looked frazzled and charred, standing up in ruffled disarray on various spots of his body.

“Oop. Sorry, bout that,” he said to nobody in particular as another crate tumbled over near him. He looked a wreck, a fact made even more comical by the careful way he straightened his cowboy hat on his head and brushed at a wrinkle in his leather vest.

Ryuuk shook his head as if to clear out the fuzziness, putting a hand to his temple as he finally took a look around. He paused mid motion as he noticed everyone in the room staring at him. His eyes darted from the strewn and busted crates to Cash and Vomero’s bloody, swollen faces.

“Wait. Now, what did I miss?”