<div align="center"><strong>-=the stowaway – aboard the Gamble, Eavesdown Docks – mouse in a maze=-</strong></div><br/>Panting lightly, she could hear around her breathing, the movements and discussions from around the corner and behind the skiff. A female quietly warning something first, then the crackle of a radio and a question about the receiver’s twenty, assuming they were asking about their location. Finally, a male called out across the cargo bay to someone at the entrance. She’d not made out many of the words but overheard at least five distinct names and took panicked note of that last bit about getting the lead out. Realizing that someone was in a hurry, she too moved with haste. Spinning around the corner into the aft section, she ducked immediately before the dryer, keeping her back to the infirmary. It was her dire hope that if anyone were looking out toward her at this very moment, they would not later recall who it was they saw pilfering the laundry. Grabbing up the first thing that might cover her chest under the jumpsuit, she spiraled up the stairs, emerging into the thankfully empty galley.<br/><br/>Sliding her socked feet over the floor, she moved through the common area, looking around as she tore down the top of her jumpsuit. Finally untwisting the garment in her hands, she blinked in surprise at the cute characters on the slightly faded logo before trying it on. The neutral colored T-shirt fit across her shoulders just fine – it was her ample bosom that stretched the material across her chest making ripples as the logo stressed between her breasts.<br/><br/><div align="center">(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_U-4kIJCjlwU/SDugLfTuqmI/AAAAAAAAAR8/6CTXHW5sJv4/s320/fruity%2Boaty%2Bbar%2Btshirt.gif)</div><br/><em>Enough daydreaming!</em>She skittered to the countertop and disposed of her dried fruit pit, the evidence of her previous theft being destroyed as the recycler reclaimed the material for simple expulsion later. She considered the jumpsuit that hung around her hips and happily imagined it being fed into the waste bin as well. Instead, she tugged the hanging arms up to tie them in front of her waist, making a belt of them over the bottom of the T-shirt. Pulling open a cabinet door to search for portable water or anything edible and small enough to hide inside the pocket of her jumpsuit, she grabbed a random packet and stuffed it down the side of her leg. She would have continued but for the warning of movement downstairs again.<br/><br/>Rushing away from the stairs she’d climbed, she cursed herself a blue streak for forgetting that the galley was the worst place to be next to the cargo bay. All that open access, seven different stairs or doorways opening into it… she’d been lax in her desperation. She should leave, get off this thing before spotted or cornered… but it was a fine little ship and they’d just landed hours before, ready to stay a while. Maybe she could get to the bridge and determine their next destination, examine their itinerary and history. Sneaking down the starboard corridor toward the bow, she discovered the shower to her right, lifting her eyebrows at the sublime prospect of getting clean… later when everyone was gone or sleeping.<br/><br/>She clung to the hull wall, avoiding being seen by anyone below in the cargo bay. Moving toward the bridge, she listened for the ambient sounds both forward and aft, hoping to avoid detection by anyone until she could safely close another door between them and herself. Pausing near a closed hatch, she surmised that it might enter into a crewmember’s room, the matching one across the hall confirming her suspicion. Passing between them, she stayed to the right and opened the next corridor hatch, hopping up the steps just beyond. Beelining to the next hatch, she knew from her memory of the diagrams on this and similar ships that there would be rooms beyond it, between her and the bridge. So far, so good… why wait? Moving as quietly as she could in her torn up socks, the aches of her troubles wearing at her the more she moved, she stood to the side and flashed a peek into the forward corridor as she opened it, just in case. No one about, she slipped in, making certain the hatch closed again behind her. Holding her breath as she moved toward the bridge, she bit into her lip, her nerves screaming at her to escape –<em>and go where?</em><br/>