<div align="center"><strong>-=the stowaway – her favorite spiral staircase – the Gamble=-</strong></div><br/>Uncertain about – oh, nearly everything – the blond-rooted redhead snuck out into the corridor about twenty minutes into her deliberation of options. She needed more information to make a suitable decision as to her next action. She could not get more info stuck in her cabin. Therefore  she needed to find the info somewhere else, the flight deck being the most likely to have some… any… accurate or not.<em>Zao gao</em>, why didn’t they first have accurate information on their computer screen weeks ago? Maybe the captain had been hard pressed to take a job in a hurry and changed his mind at the last minute, or even mid-flight. He certainly hadn’t sounded very approving of this Abernathy involved. So where to go now?<br/><br/>If she had understood everything correctly from the Captain’s announcement, there were four people on the ground outside helping with the transfer of cargo. There were two people, both female, inside the cargo hold to watch over the other crew and keep security tight. Mae, the girl that had been in the infirmary just after Persephone, was ‘keeping the engine warm’, whatever that meant. Was she the cigar smokin’ engineer whose boots fit so well? More than likely the pilot, sittin’ on the bridge, ready to dust off fast.<br/><br/>Keeping low – her customary posture aboard the Gamble – she silently climbed the spiral staircase, listening for movement or voices. Those tiny noises from the cargo hold were little worry, though she grew curious about the kind of cargo they were taking on. Obviously, both crews were busy unloading crates or stock against the metal grating that served as a floor below. Slipping past the galley’s built in furniture and into the portside hallway, she moved forward into the ship, stopping at the next hatch, twisting her pillowcase luggage in her hands. Listening for her count of 200, she let the hatch slide open and darted low toward one of the crew’s staterooms, hiding at the turn in the corridor. There were at least two more hatches between the bridge and her body but she felt her heart rate rise as if she were already surprised with facing someone, ready to bolt. Near to sweating her anxiety out through her pores, the stowaway inched toward the next hatch, shaking slightly. She’d have preferred being stuck inside one of the caskets that was thought of as an escape pod than in this situation without any idea what to do, but then she didn’t mind small spaces.<br/><br/>Letting the next hatch open, she stepped through as a ruckus began below. That was no longer the boring, tension-filled sound of loading and unloading cargo. It was bullets and ricochets and yelps and thuds from falling or thrown bodies. In addition, pidgin Chinese was being shouted ahead of her. While she could not keep the hatch from closing behind her, the stowaway had little worry that the feminine voice ahead and the cacophony from below would fail to drown out that insubstantial noise of her entry. The cursing was welcome as it meant that her arrival was not the only thing to surprise the crew right about now, IF she’d even been noticed. However, she drew back as the last hatch flew open, a nearly naked girl running out with her hair streaming. Blue eyes wide, her gaze followed the girl down the stairs toward the cargo hold where the noises of imminent pain still lifted in spurts.<br/><br/>Something had gone wrong.<em>– Doesn’t it always? –</em><br/><br/>Dashing onto the flight deck, the stowaway managed to step right in the spreading crimson pool of nail polish, tracking a little with her boot print right up to the console. Less concerned for the information on the screen, she watched the<em>mi tian gohn</em>going on out in front of the ship. She realized immediately that it wouldn’t matter where the ship were headed next if all the flight crew died on this stinkin’ rock. Sliding right back out of the seat, she ran after the disappearing girl – Mae, she assumed.<em>If something happened to Mae… where would that leave me?</em><br/><br/>*****<br/><br/><em>Zao gao</em>= Damn it<br/><em>Mi tian gohn</em>= Excrement<br/>