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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shayuri" data-source="post: 2972589" data-attributes="member: 4936">"Gah!" Mel blurts as she awakens, and instinctively scrabbles on the floor alongside the cot for the first solid object...in this case a boot. With her other hand she claws at her face, as if trying to peel of a spiderweb. Finally she sits still. Waits. Nothing.Oh but she hated this. Shivering in the dark, wondering if that noise was a rat, or something worse...like the action on a gun. Once again, she had to go through the litany. Should she have run? Maybe it wasn't too late to go back, tell them what happened. She was a good pilot, maybe they'd let her go.Mel knew better. She'd seen what happened to people who screwed up. Even if it wasn't their fault. Cartels couldn't afford not to make examples. They employed selfish bastards. They needed those bastards to understand how things worked, or -everyone- would be dumping cargo. No pilot was good enough to justify the risk of being seen as 'going soft.'Same time though, the Rim was a big place, and this was not a BIG offense. She doubted they were hiring hunters. More likely waiting for her to put a foot wrong and fall into their hands. Cheaper. As long as she used her brain, and played it safe...Light. Squeezing in through the slats on the tiny hole that passed for a window here. Thin and grey, but it meant the sun was on its way. With a groan, Mel sat up and swung her legs off the bed. Coffee, she thought. Yeah, that helped some. Egg and sausage sandwich. Even with reconstituted eggs. In the dark, operating by touch, Mel got dressed and hauled herself out of bed.By the time Mel reached the starport, her egg sandwich (import sausage was just stupid expensive) was gone, and her coffee better than half gone. A look at the flight board gave a list of incoming ships with their berths and ETA's, which she copied onto her notepad. Port directory gave her a list of the occupied berths, which she compared to yesterday's list...damn, two ships had left. Two more possibilities, flown the coop.Working a comb through her unruly hair, Melara headed from there one of the public terminals to start the long and tedious process of monitoring the postings. One advantage to showing up early. Not only did you catch the redeye ships coming in, but you usually got a good public terminal too. Not one where the audio was out, or the screen kept messing up.It was a small blessing, but Mel was at that point now. Count up the small blessings, and hope that in the end they added up to a miracle.</blockquote>

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