Chapter 27

Once he was suited up, Zeke entered Baraz’s ship.

He’d had to lock onto the bay door on the port side of the second hold. It was the only hold with any air pressure. Freya had to pump more air into it before the two, huge bay doors would let Zeke open them.

He only opened them high enough to walk through. Ships couldn’t open their hold’s bay doors to a station or another ship if the air pressure was not equalised. They also got charged for the air required to equalise the pressure, which wasn’t cheap.

While Zeke had the resources, he did shut the doors behind him. He hadn’t blinked because neither he nor Freya knew what was on the other side. He wasn’t surprised to find it empty, but why take an unnecessary risk?

Zeke’s first job was to scan the empty hold for leaks. He found a pin-prick hole on the port side in the ceiling above the other bay doors. A quick repair spell fixed it. While making his way to the airlock compartment, Freya informed him the pressure was now stable.

The ladder to the top-level hatch was in the airlock compartment, as was a maintenance hatch to the bottom of the ship. Zeke blinked to the other side of the hatch, sealing the hold from above. Only an idiot leaves anything in an airlock compartment.

He found himself in a second, smaller, airlocked chamber. He was disgusted to find a length of pipe blocking the door open. In this instance, he was glad he had blinked. The door opened into a hallway that accessed the helm.

Zeke had to lock his boots so he could manually open the doors. It was a mess inside. Housekeeping hadn’t been the men’s top priority. The damage only added to the mess.

He soon discovered a third breach. It was in the ceiling, on the opposite side of the helm to the one he had witnessed. It was more significant, being some 5cm across. It must have let what was left of the air to be sucked out.

The breach had also caused the loose items to be dragged in its direction, smashing loose even more things. Disgusted, Zeke quickly checked the rest of the ship after determining that the computer had shut down. He found that just about every compartment on the top level was in vacuum, cold, and dark.

Not even the emergency lighting was working. Anything loose had been sucked towards the breaches in the hull in that compartment. He was surprised by how little food was on board. The two living compartments were dirty, cramped, and unappealing.

Back in the helm, after closing the doors and clearing some junk away, Zeke located the hatch to the escape pod. It was in the port side wall of the helm, directly behind the seats and in front of the doors into the helm.

Freya called him, “Captain, it may interest you to know that this model doesn’t have an airlock compartment between it and the pod. The hatch is the door to the pod.”

He was shocked to learn that there was no airlock between the pod and the helm. The more modern ships had, at the least, two doors, so the compartment the pod was linked to could be sealed to maintain the contents.

Grumbling, Zeke squatted and then blinked into the pod. He was relieved to find that it was still airtight. Looking around, he decided that he wouldn’t have wanted to be stuck in the pod for any length of time.

Inside, it was barely 2m in diameter and 2m in height. The ladder was off-centre, so it rested against the lip of the round, 80cm wide hatch. From the helm, if the gravity unit was on, you would have to crawl over the ladder on your hands and knees to get in. It was not ideal in an emergency.

Two ratty crash couches bracketed the ladder. A control console was between them and behind the ladder. In the wider area, two screens hung on the wall above a shallow storage area for emergency ration sachets and bulbs of water.

The pod was filthy, with several sidewall panels missing and wiring and components exposed. It was poorly provisioned, and its onboard computer showed that the water bladders were half empty. They would have provided little radiation protection.

The oxygen cylinder was empty, and the meter read that the oxygen in the room was only twenty percent instead of the twenty-two point five it should be for inside a ship. The carbon dioxide scrubber was missing.

If the men had made it into the pod before the breach, they would have been lucky not to run out of breathable air in six to seven hours. Due to the breach, it depended on how much air they let escape trying to get in.

Zeke doubted they would have lasted four hours, especially since they were panicked. The only good thing was that the small 0.5g gravity compensator was already on, as was the emergency lighting.

Zeke blinked back to his ship. He told Freya what he found before he released the men one at a time and blinked them into the pod. There was barely enough room to lay them on the floor.

Zeke altered the code in the simple onboard computer to record the men entering the pod moments after the second breach. Freya provided the time.

Zeke changed Shorty’s memory of his dive over the chair after the second breach. It became, him going head-first through the pod’s hatch after Baraz had opened it. He would remember no more.

Zeke left Baraz with the memory of getting to the hatch and Shorty going head-first into the pod. That was when he hit his head. After he climbed in, the ship shuddered as he shut the hatch. He fell off the ladder, smacking the back of his head.