Dock 7
Overview
Dock 7 is the unofficial home base of Soriano-Yoon Human Consulting, tucked into an alcove off Corridor F in the Rust Ring sector of The Float. A decommissioned Class-4 interstellar freight container, it sits recessed from the main docking bay — just far enough from the foot traffic of freight workers and off-shift dockworkers to afford some discretion, close enough to stay in business. The squatter’s rights paperwork Mitch Soriano filed to claim the space invokes a municipal clause that hasn’t been tested in forty years and may not apply to non-citizens. Nobody has pushed the question yet.
A hand-painted sign reads SORIANO-YOON CONSULTING — HUMAN SPECIALISTS in three species’ scripts. It is the most professional thing about the exterior. Everything else is gunmetal gray, partially sanded-off Dhek cargo markings, and a retrofitted manual slide door that jams in cold weather.
Details
The container’s interior divides into three informal zones. The front third serves as a reception area: two mismatched salvaged chairs face a desk fashioned from a packing crate topped with a welded section of hull plating. Mitch’s chair is taller. He found it first and refuses to swap. The middle third belongs to Dennis Yoon — a full-length workbench running the port wall, organized in a system that looks chaotic and functions precisely, stocked with tools, components, a xenobiology reference library in physical editions, and an uncountable number of mugs. The rear third holds a folding table, a whiteboard recovered from a decommissioned Hovvi administrative office, and a cot both of them describe as being “for emergencies.” A concealed exit behind a shelving unit opens onto the adjacent maintenance corridor. It is not mentioned to clients.
Power comes from an illegal splice into Berth 12’s maintenance grid. Climate control cycles between swamp-warm and freezer-cold with no stable middle setting. The metal walls carry sound in ways that make conversations feel intimate — or claustrophobic, depending on the nature of the meeting. The corrugated floor rings underfoot. There are no windows.
Significance
In a station where reputation is currency and discretion is infrastructure, Dock 7 occupies a carefully maintained social position. The freight workers of Corridor F extend it a kind of passive neighborhood protection — not out of loyalty, but because the office has proven useful to people who need problems resolved without documentation. The clientele self-selects: individuals and species who have heard the human legends circulating on The Float, or who find themselves in situations that licensed consultants won’t touch, or who were referred by someone who owes Mitch a favor. There is no other advertising.
The Brothers Timpani, a competing consulting operation, consider the existence of Dock 7 a personal insult. They cannot account for how two humans in a repurposed freight container in the Rust Ring are pulling the clients they’re pulling. The sign on the door, Mitch maintains, is sufficient explanation. Dennis maintains that the sign is a liability that has not yet gone off.