Chapter 96 · The Descent

Lothal appeared gradually on the edge of the sensors, a faint swell of color against the dark, the kind of slow reveal that made Stent’s hands tighten almost imperceptibly on the controls. He didn’t speak; he didn’t need to. The shift in his posture told Eli everything — they were close enough now for instinct to take over, for the disciplined stillness of a Chiss pilot to settle into the cockpit like a second gravity.

Eli leaned over the navigation console, adjusting the harmonics as the Faded Glory glided out of hyperspace. “Vector holding,” he murmured. “We’re aligned with the civilian lane.”

“Yes,” Stent said.

The viewport brightened as Lothal resolved into full form: green plains, broad and wind-scoured; blue seas muted by atmospheric haze; scars visible even from orbit — long burns across the land, the faint geometric pattern of old bombardments, and above it all, a halo of debris that circled the planet like a broken crown.

Not debris exactly. Wreckage. Imperial wreckage.

Eli clicked his tongue softly. “They didn’t even bother clearing it.”

“Correction,” Stent said quietly. “They left it intentionally.”

Eli swallowed. He didn’t argue.

Closer now, the orbital ring came into view — not a real ring, but a drifting trail of metal fragments and fractured durasteel plates caught in Lothal’s gravity well. TIE solar panels spun like shards of black glass. A section of a Gozanti’s hull rolled slowly, edges torn by explosive decompression. One piece — unmistakably from a larger cruiser — was pitted and scorched, drifting with the lazy, tumbling motion of something far too heavy to have ever belonged in open sky.

Tee emitted a low, uneasy whirr.

Eli answered with a quiet, “Yeah. I see it too.”

Stent didn’t look away from the viewport. His hands, steady and exact on the control yoke, adjusted their approach with the kind of precision that required as much instinct as training. “Prepare to receive entry vector.”

Already on it, Eli routed the beacon data through the navicomp. “Incoming trajectory is narrow. Very narrow.”

The console chimed, projecting a tight corridor highlighted in cold blue. Deviations glowed red.

“Do not deviate from designated path,” an ancient automated voice announced, its distortion making it sound more like a warning left in a tomb.

Two TIE fighters appeared next on the sensors — one left, one right. Their approach was rigid, mathematical, as if flown by pilots who were exhausted or indifferent or both. But they didn’t fly as Imperial pilots would. Their engines howled briefly as they closed in, taking up flanking positions that were neither escort nor threat, just surveillance given form.

“They’re not hailing us,” Eli noted.

“They are evaluating,” Stent said.

The TIEs moved the way predators did when they had been taught not to pounce.

Eli tracked their positions, keeping a steady eye on the telemetry. “You’ve got it?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Stent said, making a minute correction to keep them within the lane. “Maintain navigation feed.”

“Working on it.”

The Faded Glory descended through the corridor with the grace of a ship piloted by someone who understood that survival depended on precision, patience, and silence. Stent’s posture never wavered. His expression didn’t shift. Only the subtle tension at the corner of his jaw betrayed the pressure of threading a needle shaped like a planet’s wounded orbit.

As Lothal grew larger in the viewport — the soft curve of its horizon, the broad green sweep of its northern plains — Eli felt the change in the air.

Not in the ship. In himself.

As if the closer they got, the more the planet exhaled something heavy, old, unresolved.

“It feels…” Eli began, searching for the right word.

Stent finished it for him. “Watched.”

He didn’t say by whom.

He didn’t need to.

The Faded Glory continued downward, the debris halo passing above them like a silent accusation.

And Lothal — green, blue, scarred, alive — waited.

The docking instructions came through as a dull, static-throttled transmission, the kind of message that had been recorded once and simply left to play on a loop until someone forgot where the controls were. The words dragged, slightly uneven, and the pauses between them felt less like timing and more like exhaustion.

“Inbound vessels… maintain vector.
Prepare documentation.
Docking assignments… automatic distribution.
Curfews in effect from… nineteen-hundred local.
Avoid restricted zones. Avoid excavation sites. Avoid Imperial… authority zones.”

The final word cracked so sharply the recording reset itself mid-syllable.

Eli shivered. “Seems welcoming.”

“It is functional,” Stent said, adjusting their angle by a precise half-degree.

“That’s one word for it. ‘Haunted’ is another.”

Stent did not dignify that with a reply, which only made Eli more certain he wasn’t wrong.

The civilian port assigned to them was nowhere near the capital proper. Their vector bent northward, away from the city center and its glass-and-burnt-steel skyline, toward a set of docks spread along the outskirts where the architecture flattened into large hangars, fuel depots, and maintenance yards.

From above, Lothal’s northern hemisphere carried the look of a world that had been built for agriculture once. The outlines of fields were still visible if you squinted—great sweeping patches carved into the land like memory preserved through habit. But most of it had been overtaken by industrial structures: refineries belching pale vapor, storage tanks gleaming dully under the sun, long lines of conveyors and mechanical harvesters sitting idly in fenced lots.

The agriculture that remained—far in the south, miles of green arranged in disciplined blocks—seemed like an afterthought. A concession to the idea of feeding a population no one had bothered to care for properly.

Eli scanned the terrain as the data streamed in. “This place used to be farmland, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And now?”

“Extraction,” Stent said simply.

He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.

The advisory message repeated itself, slightly more distorted this time.

“Curfews in effect… avoid Imperial excavation sites… report suspicious activity to local oversight… failure to comply will…”

The end clipped into silence. Then restarted. And restarted again.

Tee gave a low, displeased buzz, almost offended by the system’s sloppiness.

“Yeah, buddy,” Eli said, “I know. That’s not good maintenance.”

“It is intentional,” Stent murmured.

Eli turned toward him. “Letting the equipment fall apart?”

“Letting the atmosphere remain oppressive.”

Eli blinked. “You think this is psychological?”

“I think the effect is consistent with psychological conditioning,” Stent said, tone clinical. “Over time, constant warnings degrade into background dread.”

Eli stared back at the viewport, at the long sprawl of refineries and warehouses stretching toward the capital.
“Looks like it’s working.”

The descent corridor narrowed as they swept lower, the Faded Glory gliding past the last line of industrial towers that ringed the outskirts of Lothal City. The guidance beacons blinked a dull, exhausted amber. The sky below thickened with refinery haze, pale and sour, drifting like ghosts without conviction.

Stent managed the controls with unbroken precision. His hands adjusted the sublight output by increments so minor Eli barely saw the movements, only felt them in the soft shifts of the hull.

“Landing lane confirmed,” Eli murmured. “Pad seventeen-B.”

“Yes,” Stent said.

Tee whirred anxiously.
Eli checked the ventral sensors—mostly out of habit.

He froze.

“…Stent,” he said quietly. “We’ve got a tail.”

Stent didn’t look away from the viewport. “Describe.”

“Small signature. Very small. Between pulses. But it’s there.”

Eli expanded the feed. A faint silhouette flickered at the far edge of range—too distant for detail, too close to be accidental. No transponder. No hail. Just a shape riding the atmospheric edge like a shadow pinned to their trajectory.

Stent’s voice dropped into analysis. “Relative speed?”

“Matching.”

“Vector?”

“Also matching.”

“And deviation?”

“Zero.”

Stent nodded once. “Expected.”

Eli blinked. “How is that expected?”

“It is common,” Stent said, “for controlled worlds to observe new arrivals.”

“By hiding in the clouds?”

“Yes.”

“That seems—”

“Efficient,” Stent finished.

Eli’s mouth tightened. “I was going to say creepy.”

Tee gave a soft, uneasy beep of agreement.

The shadow kept its distance but did not falter. Each time Stent adjusted course for the descent corridor, the silhouette corrected with the same quiet precision, a mirror refusing to break formation.

“Not Imperial,” Eli murmured.

“No.”

“Not local security. And not rebels, obviously.”

“No.”

“So… who?”

Stent didn’t answer. Not because he didn’t know. But because he wouldn’t guess.

The ship sank lower through the haze, the air around them vibrating faintly with thermal shimmers from the refineries. Eli watched the shadow through the distortions—one moment visible, the next swallowed by the thickness of the atmosphere, then visible again, steady as a heartbeat.

It didn’t approach. It didn’t leave. It simply witnessed.

When the docking vector locked in, the guidance system forced a small drop in altitude. Stent followed the command without resistance, angling the Faded Glory toward a cluster of duracrete pads near a storage depot.

Eli checked the scanners one last time.

The shadowed vessel flickered—
once—
twice—

And then vanished. Not flown off. Not changed course.

Just gone, wiped from detection as if the atmosphere had swallowed it whole.

Eli felt something cold settle low in his ribs.

“…Stent?”

“Yes.”

“It’s gone.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not even slightly bothered?”

“No.”

“Should I be?”

Stent’s eyes stayed on the landing zone ahead. “Awareness is wise. Anxiety is not.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It is the answer.”

Eli let out a shaky breath. Tee emitted a single, disapproving chirp on Eli’s behalf.

The haze parted as they broke through the lower cloud layer, revealing the sprawl of the outer docks.

The pad was waiting.

So was everything else.