<div align="center"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 20pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: verdana;"><strong>Chapter 3: The Venom of Vipers that Glide in the Dust.</strong></span></span></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;"><strong>T</strong></span></span><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 12pt;"><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: georgia;">he past two weeks voyage had been mostly uneventful for the crew of The Gamble.  For the most part things were calm, returning to normal, if such a thing could be said given their lifestyles.Mae and Vince had both healed nicely and been cleared by Dani to resume their duties piloting the dragonfly.  In an odd turn of events some of the crew complained of personal belongings going missing, books, clothing, only for them to turn up later in a different location.  Then there were the strange and unexplained noises and shufflings that could be heard in the "night", noticed mostly by one - the captain.  His mind had begun to ponder, and he found himself circling on the notion his boat was haunted by some unsettled spirit.  Sailors from Earth that was had long told ghost stories when things were peculiar-like aboard there ships, so it would stand to reason that if one believed such stories ... the same could happen on a space-bound boat.  The captain however, was none too swift to get a reputation as someone superstitious or a crackpot by the crew.  And there was no point in spooking anyone right before a job.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>T</strong></span>he Gamble now remained but a day's travel from their destination, Bellerophon. Their job was simple: Rendezvous with the downed Shāyú - one of the newer Osprey class mid-bulk transports, retrieve her cargo, and deliver the goods to a client at a location to be specified at the rendezvous near Isis Canyon.  Finally, something would be simple.<br/><br/><br/></span></span><hr/><br/><div align="center"><strong>-=Captain Griffin Kingston, taking an early morning walk through the ship to clear the cobwebs =-</strong></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>O</strong></span>pening the door to his cabin in the very early morning hours of the morning shift, Griff leaned out from his stateroom, first peeking down the corridor towards the flight deck where he noticed Mae nursing a steaming cup of coffee while poring over the ships navigation charts and flight systems. A small smile creased one corner of his mouth despite the worry that plagued his thoughts. Turned to scan in the other direction, he was satisfied the crew, with the exception of Mae, were not yet stirring about the ship.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;"><strong>G</strong></span>riff was worried over the mission, concerned that there was some detail he’d overlooked, some angle that he missed that might play to their disadvantage and put his ship and crew in harm’s way. To help calm his nerves, Griff had slipped from his bed - where he’d lay awake for the last hour, staring at the cold steel of his ceiling – and decided to take a stroll through his ship before the rest of the crew began to stir. As he slipped naked from his room, he turned aft and started his au naturel trek through out The Gamble, all the while watching and listening for signs of anything out of the ordinary, should the ghost that he felt certain was haunting his ship reveal itself on his naked excursion. He was hoping to clear his head, regain some focus on the mission and potentially catch anything he might have missed, and over the years he’d found this to be one of the best ways to achieve that.