Gurminder turned around, flicked the switches that lit up the inside of the rig through the cars all the way back to the rear hatch and headed back to the first articulation. First glance didn’t show anything but the relit cargo latches along the narrow space twenty meters long. Three steps and he turned left and right, and checked the seals for leaks, then the linkages there for any possible flow of air out into the thin atmosphere of Mars. All good. Next were the scrubber modules. They also tested out.

Each block had its own manual meters, so it would be easy to determine every step if any were out of sync as he suspected, but none were.

He continued checking down the vehicle. All the seals and linkages tested out, too. The tanks tested fine, so where was the problem? The levels were still dropping, just about twice as fast as they should. It was as if there was another person on board, like he was running with a co-pilot.

Or had a stowaway.

“Oh fricken baggit,” he swore.

CU security must have been enjoying had an off day or something. How in fear and terror did anyone get through out onto and across hanger four to pick his rig to flip into? Damn served him right for not changing his codes since his last flow through. Didn’t really matter, though. If someone could get through three levels of exit clearance, then they could get aboard a rover.

His wasn’t a MarSec operation after all.

But now what, he wondered, slightly hunched halfway down the cars as he passed under the next articulation. And how dangerous was his stowaway? Or might it be a MarSec agent looking to make their way into a clan fortress?

Gurminder didn’t normally carry a weapon on the rig. More suspicion would turn his way if he did, and then full blown trouble if he carried anything other than a beacon shooter and didn’t register it with each and every pass. So yeah, he his emergency flare gun was the best he had for self-defense. So, he headed up to the cockpit, pulled that out and headed back to the rig’s cargo cars in search of what and who shouldn’t be there.

If he was a stowaway, that was where he would hide and had.

He slowly walked back down the narrow interior access corridor, listening, banging on compartments he knew to be empty. When Gurminder thumped the one marked 7BE, the echo sure didn’t sound as empty as it should have. Adding to that his thump was followed by the faint sound of muffled rustling.

There you are...

Holding the gun high in his left hand pointed straight, Gurminder popped the compartment up and open.

Two brown eyes peered at him from the compartment’s dark depths.

What?

There was a... a girl in there dressed in a p-suit that was way too big for her. She was young, and by her size and shape, dark clumpy hair longer than most Martians would cut it. She sure wasn’t a bornhere. Her skin was tan, even ruddy, the kind of rosy complexion only newly arrived Earther’s bore. Hells. Just his damn luck. He’d somehow picked up a runaway newlander and a kid at that.

“Don’t hurt me,” the girl pleaded, and scrunched further back into the compartment as if she could somehow push herself back into the shadows and disappear. “I just wanted to go home, I didn’t think anybody would notice me.”

Home? Where did the girl think she was going? No newer would ever call The Hole home.

“Who are you?” he demanded to know, realized he was waggling the rocket barreled flare gun at her while he did. Gurminder lowered it, but raised his voice as he leaned closer to her, adding, “and what do you think you are doing on my rig? How did you even get in there?”

“I was just trying to get to Elysium Field,” she squeaked out, still plastering herself against the rear of the compartment as best as she could. “And your code block was just 4 grades deep. Anyone could figure it out.”

If they had a compulock spinner, sure. But what the hell? Where does a newlander get that kind of tool?

“We aren’t going anywhere near there,” he told her. “Didn’t you read the markings before you crawled in here? This is a Planitia long hauler not a field transport!”

They were going in the exact opposite direction. How could someone who want to stowaway to Elysium pick a rig like his?

“But the markings…” she offered in a small voice. “I was told it meant you were going to the field.”

“And what dustpicker would tell you that?” Gurminder wanted to know.