Choose Your Jump - Entry 003 Winning Choice: Check the Cargo “You Shouldn’t Have Opened That” You don’t wait. The hold cycles open with a low hiss, colder than it should be. Your breath fogs as you step inside. The crate that shifted is easy enough to find because of the reinforced casing. No markings. No registry tags. You break the seal. Inside is a stasis pod. Frost clings to the inside of the glass. Power levels fluctuate - stable one second, dipping the next. The readout flickers, trying to resolve something it doesn’t want you to see. Life signs maybe? Engineering tries to pull a clean scan, but the system fights back - data loops, error codes, partial readings that don’t line up. Whatever’s inside is being deliberately obscured. Then the ship shudders. Proximity alert. The contact that was trailing you is now close and it’s not alone. Two more returns appear across the sensor screen. Back in the hold, something changes. The pod’s internal display stabilizes for half a second, long enough to show a silhouette. Humanoid? Then it glitches out again. The hail comes through again more insistent this time. “Unregistered vessel, cut power and prepare for boarding.”