The gavel slammed against the steel desk to produce a crowd silencing echo. Immediately the mass of people that had assembled found seats in the dimly lit gathering hall. Surrounding everyone were the cold gray walls of metal and plastic which stretched beyond this room for a mile in either direction and has acted as a home to generations of people.

While the gathering hall everyone had collected in normally went by Gatsby's today it fulfilled the job of presenting as a court room. At each exit sat intently 2 guards adorned in the trademark State Blue of the ship's military whose light blue pants and jacket was rumored to be the same color as the sky back on Earth. The guards stood looking in to the room past the public towards the 3 officials sat at a table elevated above the others. The officials sat at the head of the court room looking to the lone man sat at the only table between the crowd and the 3.

“Todd Welder, you have been accused of the crime of Trespass, Murder, and Theft of Knowledge” The official kept his gaze at the paper in front of him. “How do you plead?”

“Guilty, but with good cause.” He replied. While the center official did not return the look, Todd kept his eyes focused on the official's.

“State your cause.” The official picked up another paper.

“The crimes I committed I admit were heinous, but the acts being done and secrets being kept needed to be exposed. Those things we have a right to know.”

The officials flanking the central one continued to be preoccupied with surveying the room and the crowd gathered in it while the central made only passing glances at the accused.

Todd sat upright in his chair, shackled hands resting on his table and feet planted squarely below him. “Trespass was committed against those who flaunt themselves as untouchable and whose behavior was reinforced by Statesmen who would rather see an extra bottle of grain-wine than justice.”

While the crowd had been making their presence known with small pockets of gossip the room fell silent as the man dangling over the precipice of the abyss recited the words practiced for days in the dark cell they had kept him in.

He continued, “Murder was committed against one who flaunted himself as untouchable, whose behavior was reinforced by Statesmen, and who used that reinforcement as a means to avoid justice for murdering my son.”

The guards at the exits analyzed the crowd more intently now, their relaxed stances betrayed by hands resting on holstered weapons. As the guards scanned they observed the mood of the public beginning to shift. After having become more docile at the start of Todd's speech they began to listen with a spark of interest. What began as a boring curiosity the people came to fill time in their boring day became a rock of an idea dropped in their minds. The things Todd spoke about was not alien to those gathered, Statesmen fraternizing with local criminals or criminals disguised as official's. From taking extra taxes to looking the other way for murder, if you could afford the bribe their was always a friend to be made in a Statesmen.

He kept his feet planted firm, Todd's gaze shifting from one official to the next as they struggled to meet his stare longer than a moment. “Theft of Knowledge was a crime not committed by me in my attempts to get the information out, but by those who intended to keep the information hidden.” Todd's face had reddened, the lines of his brow furrowed deep and his eyes now locked on the central official's. “The knowledge was stolen by those who flaunt themselves as untouchable, whose behavior is being reinforced by the Statesmen in this gathering hall, and who sit atop heightened desks accusing me of crimes.”

The table at Todd's feet jumped forward and Todd lifted himself to his feet. Shackled hands held together at his front and feet spread at what little clearance the chains allowed. At his rear he heard the shouting erupt exactly as he had planned. He knew with the chains binding him he could do nothing but stand there, holding his stare at the central official who appeared frozen in his seat on the brink of panic. Behind the elevated tables disappeared the two flanking officials, black robes sticking out of the crowd like a pimple as Todd watched them attempt to push their way through the wild crowd.

Suddenly the screams went silent though Todd could still see their mouths miming. His ears felt a painful sensation worse than anything he had experienced before and he lifted his hands to attempt to cover them. Cold chains slapping against his face, he mutely cried out as only one hand at a time could reach either side of his head. As the reports continued to assault his head he opened his eyes to survey the chaos in the room. People were coughing through the growing cloud of smoke as they fled out of the trio of exits, stepping over an assortment of bodies both covered in both ragged brown clothing and sky blue jackets.  Towards the center of the room Todd could see mounds of black robes that now covered the corpses of the former officials as pools of button-red blood spread from their perforated heads across the cold gray metal floor.

“How you holdi'up, Chief?” Said the man who appeared before Todd with a pair of bolt cutters which he promptly put to Todd's chains.

“How many did we lose?” Todd asked, stretching his newly freed legs.

“Three.” The man replied solemnly, “but the three we planned for.”

The public had cleared out, panicked screams fading to rushing footsteps attempting to get away from the scene as fast as possible. Those who remained were just a few in number but worked diligently to search and strip the bodies of the guards before the blood could stain more of the uniform.

“Good.” Todd said joining the other men who had no hoisted the bodies of the three co-conspirators on their shoulders. “But we still got a lot more planning to do”.

They walked out of the smoke filled hall in the same direction as the audience that had just ran through. Stopping halfway down the hall Todd depresses a section of gray metal panel and pushes the newly revealed doorway in before ushering the other men through and closing the hatch behind him.