“Does anyone else smell that?”

I looked up questioningly at Cash, whose spike wound I was bandaging. Vomero and Dick, who were standing nearby inspecting busted open crates, also paused to look at Cash.

“I mean, I’m not trying to be insensitive here,” Cash continued. He cocked his head toward the back of the cargo bay where Ryuuk was helping the old man to his feet. The former still looked a sight with his feathers sticking out different ways. “But does anyone else think he smells like...”

“What?” Dick asked, pointedly.

“Fried chicken,” Cash finished.

“Wooow,” was all I replied. Having finished my bandaging, I shook my head and walked away.

“Some people,” Vomero uttered, turning back to a broken crate.

“Intolerance isn’t sexy, man,” Dick added with a slap on the shoulder as he passed by.

“So, you do smell it!” Cash called. “It’s not like that. We’re all thinking it. I’m just the one saying it...”

It seemed that after all the fighting, an unspoken truce had been called while we, once again, attempted to cheat death. I reflected on just how many times in the past 24 hours this had been necessary and decided it wasn’t the type of bad habit I wanted to add to my repertoire.

I refocused my attention on Vomero, who was going over the details of our situation. I was sure the annotated version was somewhere between “very bad” and “completely hopeless,” but I had never been one to give up without a fight.

“Luckily, the transport ship’s hull is built to withstand immense pressure,” Vomero said. “Even with the damage done during the attack and crash, this cabin could remain intact indefinitely. The problem is the rest of the ship is completely flooded and open to the pressures of the ocean outside. Even if we had a way to power it and get it moving again, I don’t see any way we would be able to withstand the external pressure long enough to actually accomplish it...Unless someone has an unspoken immunity to approximately 16,000 PSI of pressure?”

We all looked back and forth at each other, questioningly. My mind was on Cash and his hidden cybernetics.

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “Only parts of me are mechanical, and I honestly have no idea what type of pressure even the cybernetic parts of me can withstand.”

In truth, none of us really knew anything about each other, despite all that we had been through in the past few hours. Was it possible that someone could survive the crushing weight of the outside ocean without anyone knowing? The thought also crossed my mind that whoever sabotaged the ship in the first place by killing the pilot might have planned a way of escape. If that person was still alive in the cargo bay, however, I doubted they wouldn’t be willing to share that information.

I suddenly felt very weary, the weight of the past day’s pendulum swing of emotions hitting me all at once as the adrenaline of constant combat subsided. I missed my crew—people I could depend on and trust with my life. Instead, I found myself in one of the direst situations I had ever been in, and that was saying something, with people I barely knew and couldn’t trust.

Sinking down onto a nearby crate, I rested my head against the wall and tried to think.

“Maybe there’s somethin’ in these here crates that could help us out,” said Ryuuk.

“Looks like mostly non-perishable food items and materials, based on the ones Vomero and Cash broke open during their fight,” said Dick. “But I guess it’s worth looking through all of them just to make sure.”

Everyone, including the old man, took a crate and started searching it. I chose the one I was sitting on. Most of the metal crates were small and had latches that held the tops closed. Some of the larger crates were made of a wood-like composite material with the lid nailed or glued shut. I popped the latches on my metal crate and lifted the lid.

Inside, copper ore bars glinted orange. I picked one up, testing its weight in my hand. They were surprisingly light for their size, possibly some type of advanced composite. I unpacked a few more rows of the bars to make sure nothing else was in the crate. Satisfied with my inspection, I moved on to another crate. My companions were pulling various freeze-dried and packaged food supplies, textile materials of all types, and other common commodities out of crates, as well. Most of the metal crates seemed to hold craftsman type materials such as common ores and basic machine parts.

Nothing looked helpful. The most useful thing anyone found in a crate was a set of mechanical tools, but without a way to go outside and fix anything, that wouldn’t prove beneficial either.

“Damn,” Vomero muttered. “I was really hoping to find some type of power source like batteries or ion generator.”

“Why do we need that?” Cash asked. “Can’t you just zap everything again if we need more juice?”

“It doesn’t really work that way,” Vomero explained. “It’s not something I can do often; it takes a lot out of me. I barely managed the strength to pull you all in here after the last time.”

“So, what? Can you just eat some of these rations, fuel up and rest and zap it again tomorrow?” Dick asked, holding up one of the freeze-dried packages of food.

“Maybe by tomorrow I could muster the energy for another big shock,” he said. “Though, I doubt we have that long.”

“What does that mean?” Ryuuk asked. “I thought you said this tin can was good to go indefinitely.”

“Our air supply probably isn’t,” I finally added to the conversation. “That’s why you were hoping for a power supply wasn’t it? You need it to juice up the air filtration system and buy us more time.”

Vomero just nodded, plopping down on an emptied crate.

“So, how much air is left?” Ryuuk asked.

“Hard to say, but I’d guess less than a day for sure,” Vomero answered.

“More like hours, half a day at most,” Cash added.

“You have atmosphere gauges in your eye, too?” I asked, incredulously.

“No, but my body monitors the oxygen levels going through my lungs,” he offered. “The air is already starting to get a little thin.”

We all sat in silence for a moment, contemplating our hopeless scenario. I could see by looking at every person’s face that we were all running through every possible solution we could imagine. I felt like Dick seemed the most equanimous about our situation. Maybe he was good at hiding his emotions, or maybe he had reasons not to worry about it. I couldn’t tell if my suspicions were well-founded or residual from our earlier spat. It just didn’t seem like he was that affected by the situation.

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For my part, I wanted to panic. My agoraphobia was screaming at me, but I knew it would cause me to start hyperventilating, making the situation worse.

“The air filtration system might not be keeping up, but it will help slow it down,” I said, talking more to myself than anyone else. It seemed to help. “Or else, I’d imagine we’d already be struggling for air with so many of us in this small area.”

“The system readout program is offline now,” Vomero said. “The last readout I got before it shut down indicated that what little power was left was all going to the air filtration system, but it was struggling to stay on. I think the deeper we go, the more stressed the power supply mechanism will become before it shuts off completely.”

“Well, then you’re all welcome,” Ryuuk said, rifling through a crate of food.

We all looked at him quizzically.

“For being the lightest person here,” he continued, munching on a piece of dried meat from one of the pouches. “Also, have you thought about making some of these materials into a battery?”

“Do you know how to do that?” Vomero asked, skeptically. Ryuuk just shrugged as he continued to gnaw on the meat from the side of his beak.

“I tinker a bit,” he said. “Mostly in weapon smithery, but sometimes that requires knowing how to build the occasional power pack. But I mean it would still need something to charge it.”

I could feel myself staring at the scorched Avian man as if he had just grown two more heads. I guess I shouldn’t have been so shocked. Even someone who seemed as green as this guy had to make a living somehow.

“Power supply!” I burst out suddenly. “Vomero, you said this compartment had some type of separate power source keeping something in containment. What if we locate it and use it to power the air filtration system?”

“Maybe,” he said. “But whatever this containment system is or its power supply, my senses can’t pinpoint them. I haven’t noticed any unusual energy emanating from anywhere.”

“I don’t see how any of this matters,” said Cash. “Whether we have hours or days, without a way to actually get out of here, we’re screwed.”

All of the excitement died with his statement. He was right. I wasn’t going to quietly accept death, however. Not without at least trying to find whatever this mysterious containment unit was hiding. What if it was a ticket out somehow?

In fact, as I looked around the cargo bay at the strewn remnants of the crates, a thought occurred to me. Someone attacked us. This was a mid-level class transport. The crates were full of basic materials and supplies. The whole lot couldn’t be worth more than 20,000 credits. That wasn’t exactly a payload by anyone’s standards.

Now that I had time to decompress, my mind was turning back to an earlier question I had shoved aside. Why was someone trying to attack a random transport ship? Since high profile passengers never traveled on anything but upper-class vessels, I had to assume that either someone had been lying about their identity or there was something on this ship besides the normal cargo we could see. Maybe it was both.

I stood and started feeling around the wall panels, moving crates around on the floor and from against the walls.

“What are you doing?” asked Dick.

“Look, if you guys are just going to mope until your last breath, go ahead,” I said. “In fact, save me the air and go ahead and off yourself if all you’re planning to do is wait to die. But I’m not leaving any stone unturned.”

“You’re searching for the power supply?” Vomero asked.

“Yea. Surprisingly, I have an aversion to slow strangulation, which I hope to avoid as long as possible if not indefinitely.”

The others all joined me at probing the wall, ceiling and floor panels for any sign of a storage compartment or even loose rivets. Thinking there might be some hollowed out area, I started thumping on anything I could reach.

“Shhh! Quiet for a second,” I called, as my toe kicked one area that rang with a slightly deeper sound.

Everyone stopped what they were doing to listen. I kicked it again and was rewarded with a low, hollow thud. Just to be sure, I kicked another spot of the floor nearby. This one gave off a more solid thunk sound. I looked around, and everyone seemed to move at once toward the area where I stood.

There was no panel here; it was just part of the solid steel floor.

“There was a crate of tools,” Dick said, and I noticed his unaffected attitude had vanished. He definitely seemed interested in whatever we were about to discover.

After retrieving what looked like a small sledgehammer and pike, Dick held them up for approval.

“This is the only thing I could find that doesn’t need a power source to run or a flame that would suck all the air up,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s going to cut it,” I said, flatly.

“Well, it’s all we got,” he insisted and started trying to hammer a hole into the floor. The sound of the metal pike being pounded at the steel floor was jarring, and Ryuuk quickly called for the noise to stop.

“I feel like my brain is about to rattle out of my head!” he said. “You’re not even making a dent, so cut that out.”

Dick glared at him but stopped. “Fine, but I don’t see anyone else with a better idea.”

I narrowed my eyes at Cash.

“You patched the original breach hole,” I said. “How did you do it? You must have something that can cut through steel.”

He rolled his eyes and groaned. “I have a laser torch in my hand,” Cash admitted reluctantly.

“Wow, nice, thanks for volunteering that piece of information,” Vomero said sarcastically. “You were just going to let Dick-head here scramble our brains with all his hammering?”

“It’s just Dick,” the aforenamed muttered.

“What happened to ‘people deserve to keep their secrets until they don’t’?” Cash accused.

“This is one of those ‘don’t’ moments,” Vomero replied.

“Are you going to help out or not?” I asked, losing patience. “A laser torch will suck up less air than a regular blow torch, but even if it didn’t, it’s still worth the risk if we’re all going to suffocate eventually, anyway.”

Cash just shrugged and pointed a finger toward the hollow-sounding spot on the floor. His fingertip glowed brightly as he started to methodically cut a large rectangle in the floor.

“Fascinating,” said Vomero, as he moved closer to inspect the mechanism in Cash’s finger. “It’s cutting without damaging the outer layer of artificial epidermis.”

“I’m not a science project for you to study,” Cash grumbled as he worked, but Vomero paid no mind.

Eventually, the hole was cut, and Dick used the metal pike to pry the loose metal out of place. Underneath the steel floor plate, some type of system consisting of a series of tubes and wires ran in an intricate pattern even beyond the border of the hole Cash had cut. It looked as if the whole floor was designed to house this system and the steel floor plates were just a means of protecting or hiding the system. In the center, where I had detected the hollow spot was a glass case, the surface of which seemed frosted over from the inside. It hindered any attempt to see what was inside.

“What the hell?” Cash said, echoing my thoughts.

“That’s strange,” said Vomero. “Even with the unit exposed, I still can’t sense any energy signature coming from it.”

“What does that mean?” Ryuuk asked.

“I am not sure. Either this has a very sophisticated shielding mechanism integrated into it, or...”

“Or what?” I prompted after he fell silent for a long moment.

“Or whatever is powering this containment unit isn’t electromagnetic energy by nature.”

“Meaning, it could be an organic energy source?” I clarified.

“So, whatever is in this containment pod is powering its own system?” Dick interjected.

“Possibly,” Vomero said. “There’s no for sure way to know without opening it.”

“Does anyone notice how this thing takes up the whole floor?” Ryuuk asked.

“Yeah,” I added. “Whoever put this here wasn’t planning to just store it for transport and take it out at some destination. It was built into the ship. They would have had to take this whole thing apart to get it out.”

“Or blast it apart...” Cash said, ominously.

“Well, at least we know why we’re in this mess,” said Dick. “But I don’t see how this is going to help us.”

Just then the transport felt like it hit a bump, and everyone inside was tossed around.

“I think we’ve stopped moving,” Vomero said.

“Did we hit the bottom?” I asked.

“It’s a deep trench,” he replied. “It should have been another few hours before we hit bottom.”

“Maybe we landed on a ledge,” Dick offered.

“It’s also a very wide trench,” Vomero, responded with exasperation.

“Well then what the hell is it, smartass?” Dick returned.

But there was no need for a reply. Something pounded on the cargo bay door. We stared at it without moving.

“This can’t be right,” said Cash. “My systems say the air quality has improved in here.”

“And the ship’s status system just came back online. It indicates the rest of the ship is no longer flooded...even the damaged under compartments,” Vomero added.

The next pounding came from the door that connected the cargo bay to the rest of the ship. Again, we stared at it without moving. Finally, the pounding continued, and a faint voice could be heard on the other side of the thick paneled door.

I looked at my companions with a shrug and pushed the door release button. Everyone took a collective step back as the door swished open to reveal a concerned-looking Matthew standing on the other side.

“Oh great!” he said, relieved. “You’re alive.”