"So…" Alamber took a long swallow of his new drink, the same pale blue as his hair. "I keep meaning to ask, back on Vrijheid, I know Big Bill had the docking clamps locked, so how did you really break your ship free of the station?"
"Easy." Ressk looked pleased with himself, but Torin figured he had the right. "First, I disabled the proximity alerts, then I removed her from the sysop, and the station kicked us free."
Alamber shook his head. "Uh-uh. I know that story, but you're totally talking through your ass if you expect me to believe it. Big Bill had sleeper programs in place to prevent that." Generally, it wasn't easy to spot a di'Taykan rolling his eyes, but Alamber made the motion obvious. "Come on, seriously, it's not like you were the only ones there with brains. Big Bill was an ass but a clever one."
"Yeah, but…"
"No but." Alamber pulled out his slate. "Link up. I'll sketch out the defense programs, then you tell me how you got past them."
They all watched silently as Ressk stared down at his screen. "That isn't…"
"I'm not done," Alamber sighed. "Keep your boots on." He sketched with the back of a painted fingernail instead of a stylus. "There. You know, roughly."
Ressk's nose ridges actually fluttered as they opened and closed. "He's right."
"Of course I'm right."
"I didn't even see that code. The docking clamps shouldn't have released." Ressk didn't look pleased with himself anymore. If Torin had to name his expression, she'd say freaked covered all bases.
"Yeah, but they did," Werst reminded him.
"So the question becomes how did they release?" Mashona drained her glass and added, frowning, "Or maybe the question is why."
"Way I see it…" Alamber snapped his slate back onto his belt. "… the only way you…" He paused, his hair flicked forward. "… we could've gotten free was if there was what amounted to a physical failure of a part of the clamp at exactly the time you needed it to give way. Exactly. Bottom line, you guys… us guys…"
"We." Mashona held his gaze until he nodded.
"Okay. We were either a part of the biggest fukking coincidence ever or we have the kind of luck that says we're loved of the gods."
"What gods?" Werst wondered.
He shrugged. "Does it matter?"
Torin looked down at where the little plastic KC-7 had been. Then she checked the floor in case she'd knocked it off the table. "Alamber, what were those docking clamps made of?"
"What were they made of? Same thing every other docking clamp is made of. Metal. Ceramic. Plastic." He looked around the table, eyes darkening. "What?"