Tomos Goff stepped into the cell like it was a cabin that belonged to someone else, and that did not matter. The intake slate would say Tomos Goff anyway. The door thudded shut behind him.

  Sweat. Wet cloth. Old metal.

  Weak yellow light. One man snored in the corner. A shadow shifted on the top bunk.

  He paused by the entrance and counted. Three awake. One turned to the wall.

  A thin balding man with a scar on his chin. A broad one covered in tattoos, arms like beams. A younger one with restless eyes.

  The big one spat. “Who are you. Which block.”

  “New transfer,” Tomos said. “Came in today.”

  The scarred man spoke softly. “What did you catch time for.”

  “Side cargo,” Tomos answered. “Port work. Wrong crate, wrong people, wrong payments. Audit, paperwork, regime. They shipped me here so I’d stop stinking up the docks.”

  The big one gave a short laugh. “Dock rat. Hustler.”

  “A hustler is you behind a storeroom door,” Tomos said. “I worked until somebody tried to twist my neck.”

  The younger one snorted, then shut up under the scarred man’s look.

  “All right,” the scarred man said. “I’m Krok. That’s Rail.” He nodded at the tattooed giant. “And the kid is Red. Do not twitch if you want to live. This place zeros people fast.”

  Tomos nodded like the warning was weather. “I’m riding it out. Do the time and leave.”

  Rail smiled without warmth. “Leave. Everyone says that. Then the mine takes them.”

  A guard shouted down the corridor. “Up. Work detail. Move.”

  They marched in a chain. Magnetic ankle rings dragged at the floor, turning every step heavy. Cameras, bars, and light aimed straight into faces. Guards with batons, some with compact rifles. No powered armor today, but the senior deckhand enforcer still did not relax.

  The lift shuddered on the way down. Air thickened, iron and dust. Below, noise never stopped. Drills, fans, belts, a steady growl that ate words unless you leaned close.

  Inmates moved like ants. Gray uniforms. Faces black with dust. A few coughed like their lungs had been sanded raw. Men did not fall often, because falling cost you. If somebody went down, nobody helped. They cleared the body and kept the line moving.

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  A shift boss waddled along with a tablet, yelling. “Move. Quota drops, rations drop.”

  Guards did not hit for doing bad. They hit for doing slow. One strike, then they walked on. Nobody explained. They trained.

  Tomos worked steady and plain. No hero act. No extra talk. Listening was the whole job.

  Talk in the mine stayed low, not because it was forbidden, but because sound vanished in the roar. Men spoke with lips and breath.

  “Any word,” Red whispered as they hauled a tool crate.

  “Quiet,” Krok muttered. “Ears everywhere.”

  Red scoffed. “What ears. They only understand a baton.”

  “Zip it,” Rail cut in. “Business first.”

  The first days brought nothing new. Work, shouting, beatings, sleep, water for breakfast. Tomos watched who clustered together, who had backing, who wore the rat look. A few inmates were too sure of themselves. They moved like men waiting for a signal, not men grinding through another shift.

  On the fourth day, near a conveyor, two men stood with their backs to a camera like it happened by accident.

  “How is the timing,” one asked.

  “Soon,” the other replied. “Everything is set. Guns. Armor. Saws.”

  “The chain boys.”

  “Also. Keep it quiet. Do not stir the water.”

  Tomos kept his face blank, as if the words meant nothing. Inside, cold settled behind his ribs.

  That night, after lights out, Krok whispered through the bars to someone next door. Tomos lay still and listened.

  “They keep it in the mine,” Krok said. “Old drift. The one they call the Bughouse.”

  “Wasn’t that a collapse,” a voice answered.

  “It was. Now it is a pocket. Plywood over the entrance, rock piled on top. If you do not know, you walk past it.”

  “And the guards.”

  Krok gave a quiet snort. “In it too. Not all, enough. A cache like that under their noses means somebody is protecting it.”

  Bughouse. Tomos kept the word.

  In the morning the senior deckhand enforcer started mapping the tunnels with his eyes.

  Mid shift, Tomos let himself fall a step behind, as if the ankle ring tugged wrong. A guard barked at him. Tomos quickened his pace and slid back into the line. The rule was simple: never look smart.

  Signs and paint marks. Old stencils. The mine had older branches, some sealed, some half-collapsed.

  Bughouse announced itself in the air first. Damp rot. Old mold. Smoke.

  A filthy plywood sheet stood in the passage, rocks piled on top. If you did not know, you walked right past.

  Tomos glanced back. Guards were farther away, near the drills.

  He crouched like he was fixing a boot and lifted the plywood a fraction.

  Crates. Stacked neat, like a storeroom. Markings still on the metal.

  He opened it a hand’s width.

  Compact rifles. Short carbines. Magazines. Body armor. Helmets. And a saw sword, a crude chain blade welded onto a cutter frame, built to tear through people. Coils of chain. Zip ties. A couple of homemade grenades wrapped in metal casing.

  Tomos closed the plywood carefully and reset the rocks. Then he walked on.

  That evening, Rail spoke as if it were casual. “Dock boy, you have sharp eyes. Do not stick your nose where it does not belong. They bury men fast here.”

  Tomos met the stare. “I’m not sticking my nose anywhere. I’m living.”

  Krok chuckled. “Sure.”

  Later, when the cell went quiet, Tomos stared at the ceiling and counted breaths, slow and even.

  He understood the truth. This was not a riot being prepared. It was already standing on its feet. All it needed was a command.

  If Wilt and Goodman did not move in time, the colony would light up.

  They would not finish Minton with a knife.

  They would tear him apart with a crowd.