Another week goes by, and Cobb decides that he'd be a content man if he never had to step foot in a casino again. It's exhausting, really, the way he's living now. Spending his days in the presence of Zart's shift, gaining their near-absolute trust, and his nights gambling. But he's wracked up quite the credit count, and there are several crates of weaponry stored away in one of the warehouse's darkest corners.

There's one night where he stops by to talk to Arik that his body just collapses, Trala and the other man hiding him away in the warehouse and watching over him in four-hour shifts as he rests. When he finally wakes with enough energy to leave, it's Zart he finds at his side, the working shifts having switched over while he was out.

Cobb stares into the dark corner hiding the blasters. "You think we've got enough?"

"I think we're close," is all Zart says.

"One more crate, then."

He spends the rest of that day in his motel room, memorizing the factory's layout and just barely remembering to eat every few hours. Makes sure to get a couple more of sleep before he gears up and heads back out to gamble the night away.

It turns out that his mind is far too foggy for a game of chance, and he loses nearly everything he'd had left from the last purchase. Cobb sleeps long and hard after that, because he's not willing to come so close to losing that last crate again; he doesn't want anyone without a weapon when the revolution breaks out.

That second week on Corellia is drawing to its end when Cobb settles on approaching the cousins about de-chipping everyone in the factory. He times his arrival just right, showing up when the shifts switch. Arik reluctantly agrees to bring it up with his crew when they return to the bunks come nightfall, and Cobb convinces Zart into speaking up before his own. They stand before the gathering together, the two of them, and lay out their plan.

The news goes over about as he expects, though he's pleasantly surprised that the slaves' fear expresses itself in way of an uproar of questions rather than the lot of them shutting down completely like they had the first time he'd intruded upon them.

One man that Cobb's long-since recognized as so afraid that he's against the whole motion stands up and asks why they should trust a man they've only just met to dig a knife into their heads. Several more people than usual side with him, and Cobb supposes it's a fair question- they don't know him, not really.

"You don't take out your chips," He calls over their outburst, "there's always the chance you'll get snatched up in all this again. I've seen it b'fore, an' it ain't pretty.

"The choice is yours: You wan'ta risk it? Keep those damn things in your head rather than trust an old sand-rat an' his knife?" Cobb shrugs and hopes his quiet sneer looks as self-derogatory as he means it to be. "Go ahead. No one's makin' ya have it done. But this is the safest bet to stay free forever."

Look at me. Twenty-plus years and still going, he doesn't say. He's made himself enough of an example over the past couple of weeks- they already know that he's been a free man for many blessed years.

In the end, it takes Zart raising his voice over the crowd and turning to Cobb- the stranger he had so graciously offered his trust to- to silence his people. And Cobb sees again the respect they hold of him, the confidence, the side of the boy that's so alike himself. He's not sure that he's ever been so proud of someone in the moment that the kid volunteers himself to have his chip removed first. His heart swells, and Cobb wonders if this is how a father feels when his son becomes a man.

"I'll go first. Today, even, if that's okay."

It is.

The procedure is more than successful, and the others bravely step forward, falling into line in a manner not unlike dominoes. By the end of the third sequential day, even the man who had been so against him from the start bows his head and offers his reluctant allegiance.

Another three sees the other shift done and recovering, too. Standing before them as the last de-chipped woman settles into a ragged hammock, he turns to Arik and tells him to make sure that he spends some time with his cousin. Because once the action breaks out, who knows what will happen, what will be lost.

Arik thanks him most profoundly for his kindness, for helping them all where no one else had ever bothered before.

Cobb sleeps well that night.