"I just don't see how that's going to work," Charles said with an unflinching grin.
"He's a point there, captain," Aiden chimed in. "Your plan is creased to all hell."
Saul paused, taking a look at the people who sat around the room. Aiden sat smugly across from him, his hand rapping on the table.
Charles sat off to one side, hunched over, his hands tented and trained in thought. With him, he had brought four others who were scattered out amongst the room's derelict furniture. One of the four, a purported codebreaker named Taika, tossed a dusty sepak ball off the ceiling with annoying repetition.
Saul leaned forward on the table from the place he had been standing and ruffled his moustache in thought before speaking.
"I think you loads are missing the point. We only need to get into the outgoing shuttle bay."
"Why not just go straight for the whale's maw? We walk up and knock on The Par Abadd's door," Charles asked.
"Don't be stupid," Aiden scoffed. "The whole place will be littered with dockhands, station attendants, not to mention stand-up merchant naval types like ourselves. We can't just walk in. We'll be seen."
"Maybe being seen is the point?" Karl, the mouthy dockhand from earlier, chimed in from where he stood at the doorway.
"Who invited you?" Saul asked, trying to not appear flustered.
Karl motioned to Charles, who returned a nod.
"He's your man on the inside?" Aiden asked.
"That he is," Charles said, not bothering to look over at Aiden. "A damn fine asset to have."
"An asset?" Saul scoffed. "Maybe he'd be useful if he could keep his temper off the stove."
"Ey! What's it to you, brother?" Karl mocked.
Saul ignored him and instead stared right at Charles.
"You told me only those trustworthy would be here."
"Trustworthy? Well, that's a matter of perspective," Charles motioned for Karl to come closer.
With a smug grin, Karl slammed a stack of papers on the galley table.
"There be your trust old man," he spat.
Saul and Aiden both grabbed a portion of the stack. Saul read a few lines; crew complements, docking schedules, ship manifests – all sequential, assumed untraceable and recently unencrypted.
Aiden, who was holding the last page said, "Dead earth, that cargo weight ain't right!"
"Give it here," said Saul, feeling suddenly like a jealous toddler with his hand outstretched.
Aiden shrugged and handed him the slip.
Saul read line by line. It was a manifest time-stamped for three weeks before The Par Abadd was scheduled to dock at the station. It read Gross Weight: 9 Tonnes.
"That's…" Saul paused.
Charles, who was looking over his shoulder suddenly showing a sign of interest said,
"Should be at least three times that."
"How much volume?" one of the unannounced men in the corner asked before adding, "name's Luan. Logistics."
"200 cubic," Saul said.
"Then four times that for diamond," Luan answered.
"Five," Taika said, with a certain level of nonchalance.
"Five? No way this code monkeys thinking it's five!" Karl ungracefully interjected.
"Five," Taika affirmed. "Five if it's quell diamond. Denser than the common variety."
"He's right," Saul said. "Quell is manufactured in solid cubes, not mined and left loose. Less airspace that way."
"Solid cubes? Wily golems those fels..." Luan scoffed. "Three, four, five times, makes no difference. Ain't no way that's moving as a solid piece."
"So we need a method of transporting the cube as a solid chunk, then?" asked Saul.
"You're not listening," Luan said. "That betty's too big!"
Taika looked up from his terminal, suddenly following Saul's line of thinking.
"A shuttle, then?" Aiden said, suddenly getting it too.
Saul nodded.
"Earth be damned still… you get that piece of quell out of the ship's hold, then what? Drag it off into the sunset?"
For a logistics man, Saul was concerned by how little the man knew about logistics.
"We push it out into space and pick it up later."
"And how you plan to do that, brother?" Karl asked.
Charles nodded to one of the last men left unintroduced. The man stood, peeled back his coat and pulled out a slender device.
"With this," the man said, tossing the device onto the table.
"Hail Mary, Soffan!" Charles said, apparently the only one in the room who knew what the device was. He tried to get to his feet but instead tumbled off the chair to the floor.
"Mind explaining what this is?" Saul asked, nudging the device with a rolled-up stack of manifests.
"It's an O.M.S," Soffan said, a certain pride ringing in his voice.
"An… O.M.S.?" Saul asked.
"An outgrav, or outward-gravity material supplanter," Soffan explained.
"Earth to hell, it's a bomb!" Aiden said.
The men sitting around the table jumped. Aiden leapt behind another table. Taika, Luan, and the other man in the corner took cover as well, while Charles just shut his eyes from his place on the floor.
They were shouting now. A cacophony of threats echoed in the tiny space and a knot of anxiety formed in Saul's gut. He had been the only one who hadn't taken cover except for Soffan. And he knew that should it have been a bomb, he was too close to have stood any sort of chance of walking out of the room with his life, let alone his legs still attached. Saul waved his arms in an attempt to stop the bickering.
"Easy, boss. This one's just a dud," Soffan explained, after a long tense moment. "Real one still had some tinkering."
"Well, good warning you gave then, asshole," Charles said as he stood and brushed off his trousers. "Earthen hell, this place is filthy. Couldn't have picked a cleaner place, Calmos?"
"Yeah, a right good shit you've made 'ere," said Karl, stepping back into the room from his hiding spot just outside the door frame.
"You expect us to work with this clown?" Aiden muttered.
"This clown," said Soffan, "can blow you all back to The Solar War if I'd like."
"Now now," Saul interrupted. He hated playing the part of the father, but it was obvious to him that someone had to maintain control.
"Now, Charles," Saul continued. "Can you rustle up a few more for muscle?"
"I believe that's why I'm here." The last man in the corner stood. He was bald, with tanned skin and a half-smile of broken teeth — a sight you didn't often see nowadays, except in the poorest reaches of the Sovereignty.
"They call me Olivio," he said with a smile, moving around the room and shaking the hands of everyone involved.
...