Cabin Pressure by Kris P. Kreme
When a prank by a fellow flight attendant leaves Stella Chen with no gum before a long international flight, she stumbles upon the perfect solution.
Promising the no-gum alternative to managing the pressure changes of takeoffs and landings, Stella quickly pops some pressure pills a local man at the airport claims are great for both diving and flying.
Unfortunately she fails to take seriously the side effects and soon pressure is building in ways Stella never imagined.
In the world of friendly skies, senior flight attendant Stella Chen never sees too much friendliness. At least when it comes to her staff she doesn’t. Younger than many in her position, Stella Chen got there by traditional hard work, long hours, and thorough efficiency. She’s not flying the skies to have fun, she’s there to do her job and unfortunately that makes her seem somewhat stuck-up and overbearing.
There are two consistent annoyances she can count on during every single flight her crew works and one is the constant jabs or pranks by Shay, the woman who has passed into her thirties and been bitter ever since at taking orders from a younger girl like Stella.
Shay has Mika, the youngest flight attendant and fellow Asian on her staff eagerly following in her footsteps and the two of them are becoming more than just a nuisance, no help from Stephen, the final member of her flaky flight crew.
Still, for Stella, one nuisance rises above even Shay and her annoyances and that nuisance is the pressure changes of so many takeoffs and landings. Every one seems worse than the last and the amount of times in a week she goes up and down into the air, Stella is growing tired of the gum chewing sugar rush solutions that seem the only way to manage it.
Everything collides in what for Stella might be the worst air disaster never to happen in the air on a short stop in Hawaii one night. Awaiting a flight out at midnight to Tokyo, Stella realizes she’s all out of gum and makes a simple run to the various stores and shops in the airport to find some.
It seems fate has other plans though, or it would if fate’s name was Shay. A mysterious woman who Stella doesn’t hesitate to identify for a moment has purchased every last stick of gum in the place, ridding the entire airport of Stella’s one link to sanity during a flight.
Going everywhere, asking anyone, Stella is determined to deny Shay the satisfaction of her prank this time. This is the final flight in a string of flights all week before they each have some time off and can recover. She’s going to get through it one way or another.
Following a tip from a cashier in one of the airport shops, Stella finds a local vendor playing a late night card game with airport security and he seems to have the solution for her, as long as she doesn’t mind not having to chew or getting the sugar rush of gum.
For Stella Chen, a non-gum solution to pressure changes is everything she could have asked for, oddly a dream come true and all thanks to Shay’s pranking. The only thing is, the man is somewhat sketchy on this miracle supplement’s side effects, claiming she must not take on an empty stomach or else bad things might happen.
Walking away with the bottle of vitamin like pills, Stella feels assured she will survive the flight and prove Shay’s no doubt costly prank useless. Of course given Shay’s prior pranks, Stella technically hasn’t had a full meal in almost two days.
Popping several of the pills, Stella rolls the dice and prepares for takeoff on Tokyo Air, an flight with few passengers but the requirement to wear retro revealing uniforms. It’s all part of the fun as pressure starts to build as soon as the plane leaves the runway and Stella quickly discovers why she should have listened to the warnings.
This is one flight no one aboard will forget as Stella and soon all the flight attendants become so much friendlier than expected, providing beverages in a way never imagined. Sometimes the pressure on the job comes from outside but occasionally it swells outward from within and Stella Chen knows just how to handle the pressures of her job.
Cabin Pressure, the first Kreme adventure in the air.
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