Chapter 98 · The Gate of Silence

The docking office sat at the far end of the port’s administrative wing, a squat concrete block half-lit by flickering strips that hummed with the same tired resignation as the rest of the city. The door slid open before Eli touched the panel, as if the building itself had decided to hurry them inside so it could stop caring.

Inside, a single clerk hunched over a cracked terminal, the ports of a dozen data cables sprouting behind him like roots from a dying tree. He wore the uniform of a Lothal civil authority officer, though the fabric sagged and the insignia looked sun-bleached to the point of surrender.

Eli stepped forward first, datapad in hand, keeping his posture neutral—not submissive, not assertive, just quietly forgettable. Stent stood at his shoulder, silent, posture sharpened into the blandness of someone determined to draw no attention at all.

“Name,” the clerk droned without looking up.

“Horatio Figg,” Eli said, sliding the forged cargo license across the counter. “Independent trader. One co-pilot, Ren Viros. Cloth, rations, tools. Light volume.”

The clerk’s fingers moved across the keys with the sluggish rhythm of someone long past caring about efficiency. The system chirped once, error-lit, then resolved into acceptance.

On the screen, Eli saw the codes they had buried under several layers of obscurity—legitimate old cargo licenses, retrofitted with obsolete encryption masks. Nothing flashy. Nothing current. The sort of paperwork an overworked official wouldn’t bother digging into.

The clerk squinted at the data. His eyes flicked to Stent.

Then to the droid standing politely behind them.

“Unit identification?” he muttered.

Eli answered before Stent could. “Navigation assistant. Registered in Rago. Nothing unusual.”

Tee beeped softly but submissively.

The clerk stared another second too long. Then:
“…Fine.”

He stamped the datapad with a heavy, analog thud that felt like a verdict.

“Curfew’s at nineteen-hundred,” he said. “Stay off Imperial streets after that. And if anyone asks, you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Understood,” Eli said.

The clerk didn’t smile. He barely breathed.

“Next.”

The dismissal was sharp, cold, almost panicked.

Eli tucked the pad under his arm and stepped out, Stent shadowing him without a word.

Lothal’s air hit them with a stale heaviness as they exited the office—dust from refineries, heat from machinery, and something under it all, something metallic and old, like memory refusing to dissipate.

The docking paperwork was approved. Their identities held. No alarms. No suspicion.

But the silence afterward felt like a held breath waiting to be exhaled.

Stent didn’t speak until they were halfway down the ramp into the street.

“All civilian inquiries here are defensive,” he murmured.

“Meaning what?” Eli asked.

“Meaning they are afraid of noticing the wrong thing.”

A gust of hot wind swept through the alley, carrying dust across their boots.

Eli nodded once. “Then let’s make sure we’re the right kind of nothing.”

Stent didn’t respond, but his eyes flicked toward the skyline—toward the banners still clinging to the walls, toward the towers that still bore the scars of orbital fire.

Lothal watched them.

And the paperwork did nothing to soften the stare.

The city hit them like a bruise.
Not because it was loud or violent, but because it was silent in the wrong way—the way cities get after something terrible has happened and the people are trying very hard not to notice they’re still alive.

Eli and Stent crossed the outer thoroughfare leading toward the capital’s fringe, and everything around them wore the same expression: fear kept barely under the skin.

Imperial banners—new, not old—hung from every major building, their fabric still crisp from manufacturing. Someone had replaced them recently and aggressively. A row of stormtroopers marched in formation beneath one, white armor gleaming under the oppressive afternoon light. Their rhythm was painfully precise, the kind of cadence drilled into soldiers who weren’t patrolling as much as making a point.

Eli didn’t stare. But he didn’t have to. Every local did it for him.

The streets were fuller than he expected. Not lively—just occupied. People moved quickly, shoulders tight, eyes lowered, expressions carved into caution. Any who heard the patrol boots approaching stepped aside on instinct, not hesitation.

“What’s the mood?” Eli muttered.

Stent didn’t slow. “Retaliation.”

Eli swallowed. “How bad?”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t an answer. It was a statement of scale.

Tee rolled close to Eli’s leg, dome angled upward as a pair of stormtroopers passed too near for comfort. The droid’s motors pitched in a soft, nervous whirr—quiet enough not to draw attention, loud enough for Eli to feel through his boots.

“It’s okay,” he murmured under his breath. “Just stay close.”

Tee pressed even closer.

They reached a broader avenue leading toward the edge of Lothal City’s commercial district. From here, Eli could see the skyline—several towers still bearing scorch marks from orbital fire, a few newly-rebuilt facades covering deeper structural wounds, and in the distance, the faint outline of the Imperial dome rising like a tumor that had grown back after being cut open.

People avoided looking at it. Even from far away.

“Two weeks,” Eli whispered. “That’s all the liberation lasted.”

“Long enough to anger the Empire,” Stent replied evenly. “Not long enough to weaken its will.”

The stormtroopers at the corner turned sharply, their helmets snapping in unison toward a poor vendor whose cart wheel squealed too loudly.

The man froze. The troopers watched him until he lowered his head and pushed the cart away with exaggerated care.

“So much for celebration,” Eli murmured.

“Celebration implies hope,” Stent said. “This population remembers the cost of that.”

They continued deeper into the city. Still no voices raised. Still no laughter. Still the thick heaviness of people who had learned that survival demanded invisibility.

Eli slowed when they reached the marketplace—a place that should have been noisy, filled with the barter and bustle of daily life. Instead, conversations were conducted at whispers. Merchants kept one eye on their stalls and the other on the stormtroopers circulating along the perimeter.

A woman selling cheap vegetables stopped talking mid-sentence when she noticed Eli looking her way. Her face went pale; she dropped her gaze and pretended to rearrange her produce.

Stent saw it too. “They assume strangers are informants.”

“Are we likely to draw attention?”

“Less than the average visitor. More than they prefer.”

Eli huffed air through his nose. “Perfect.”

They walked on.

The city felt alive only because fear kept its heart beating.

Everything else had already gone quiet.

They chose a modest stretch of the marketplace—neither central nor deserted, just forgettable enough that two small-time traders might plausibly blend in. Eli kept his posture loose, his hands visible, his expression faintly tired in the way honest work made people look. Stent moved beside him with the same deliberate neutrality he had practiced, his steps quiet, his gaze drifting without appearing to track anything.

Tee rolled at their heels, dome swiveling with silent disapproval every time a stormtrooper came into frame.

Eli approached the nearest produce stand, selecting a few dented meilooruns as if debating their worth. The vendor, a middle-aged man with deep creases at the corners of his eyes, didn’t look up.

“Quiet day?” Eli asked casually.

The man flinched. A tiny, involuntary movement. Then: “Prices are posted.”

Eli nodded as if the man had simply been brusque. “Right. Just making conversation.”

“Don’t,” the vendor whispered, eyes fixed firmly on the fruit in his hands.

Stent stepped closer, his posture angled slightly toward the nearest patrol, tracking their route with clinical precision. Eli saw the subtle tightening around Stent’s shoulders—the kind that indicated he was counting distances, evaluating trajectories, assessing the trouble that curiosity might invite.

Eli left the produce stand without pressing further.

They moved on. Eli tried again at a cloth seller’s makeshift stall, picking up a bolt of cheap fabric and running his fingers along the rough weave.

“Good material,” he said softly. “Where’s it sourced from?”

The seller didn’t speak. Didn’t look up. Didn’t breathe, for a second.

Eli tried a different angle. “I hear a lot happened here recently. Must have been—”

The cloth seller dropped the fabric from her hands as if burned. “Don’t,” she hissed, voice strangled with fear. “Just—don’t.”

Stent’s eyes flicked toward her, then toward Eli. A micro-shake of his head.

Not here. Not with ears everywhere.

Tee emitted a low, warning chirp. Eli could only agree.

Eli stepped back into the footpath, hands in his pockets, watching the flow of people. Every conversation stopped whenever a trooper passed. Every glance toward the skyline snapped down to the ground the moment it risked being noticed.

“Stars,” Eli muttered. “It’s like everyone is waiting to be punished.”

“They are,” Stent said.

Eli asked softly, “For what?”

“Surviving.”

The words shouldn’t have hit as hard as they did. But they fit the air too well.

Further along the market, near the edge where the makeshift tents thinned and the broken pavement began, Eli tried a final, lighter approach. He nodded at an older woman tending a crate of wilted herbs.

“Evening,” he said. “We’re new here. Traders. Looking to learn where the good work is.”

The woman’s eyes flicked to his face, then to Stent’s—the myrialan concealed under his hat, patch on one eye, posture too exact to read as easy.

Her mouth tightened. She swallowed visibly. Then she murmured, barely audible:

“You should leave before dark.”

“That bad?”

She didn’t answer. She simply looked past him toward the nearest patrol and shook her head once, in a gesture that meant: not here. not now. not safe.

Eli stepped away slowly.

As they returned to the main path, Stent leaned in with the smallest tilt of his head.

“You are pushing too hard.”

“I’m barely asking anything.”

“That is enough to cause fear.”

Eli scrubbed a hand over his face. “We’re lucky they didn’t assume we were informants.”

“They still might,” Stent said.

Tee chirped in sharp agreement.

“Right,” Eli sighed. “We keep our heads down. And try our luck somewhere else.”

Stent gave a measured nod. “Now you are learning.”

Eli didn’t answer. He didn’t trust his voice not to carry.

They moved on, swallowed again by the murmured silence of a city that refused to speak.

They set up their trading stall in a modest corner of the outer market—the kind of place small-time merchants used when they wanted to be visible but not memorable. Eli laid out the cloth bolts neatly, turning the display into something halfway respectable. Stent stood behind the table with an expression so bland it bordered on unremarkable.

It should have drawn attention. Traders usually did. Fresh goods usually did.

But nobody came.

A few passersby glanced at the fabrics from a distance, no more than half a second’s interest before their eyes darted away with the reflex of a city conditioned to avoid hope and strangers in equal measure. Two young men paused on the far side of the market lane, whispered something too quiet to decipher, and disappeared around a column without even pretending to browse.

Tee beeped a frustrated observation. Eli translated under his breath: “Yes, Tee. I know. Zero customers.”

Stent shifted his weight slightly. “Our cover remains plausible.”

“That’s… one way of looking at it.”

“It is the correct one.”

An elderly farmer eventually shuffled by, drawn by habit more than intent. He touched one corner of a cloth bolt, pinched the fabric with the uncertainty of someone who used to know quality but hadn’t handled a decent textile in years.

“How much?” he asked, voice low.

Eli offered a number well below value. The farmer winced.

“That’s too much.”

“It’s already discounted.”

The farmer’s eyes flicked up toward a pair of stormtroopers passing on the upper street. His entire posture folded inward. He didn’t haggle. He didn’t apologize.

He just walked away.

Eli let out a slow breath. “They can’t afford anything.”

“No,” Stent said.

“Even cheap prices are too much.”

“Yes.”

“And we’re supposed to make a living here?”

“We are not here for profit.”

Eli looked at the empty street. “Well. Good. Because we’re not getting any.”

Tee emitted a long, pitying tone.

“Hey,” Eli muttered. “I’m trying.”

Later in the afternoon, a woman paused, hesitated, and touched a bolt of blue-grey cloth—her fingers trembling so slightly Eli almost missed it. She looked at him, then down at the fabric, then up again. Her eyes flicked to Stent. She swallowed visibly.

“How much?” she whispered.

Eli lowered the price further. Stent said nothing.

The woman bit her lip, shook her head, and backed away without buying anything.

Eli watched her go. “This is… worse than I thought.”

Stent responded softly. “Economic collapse as punishment. Typical Imperial retaliation.”

“Punishing the entire population?”

“Yes.”

“For rebelling?”

“No.” Stent’s tone turned almost clinical. “For succeeding.”

Eli stared at the quiet marketplace where no one spoke above a murmur, where no one dared to approach a stall without looking over their shoulder first.

“Then this isn’t just occupation,” he said. “It’s a message.”

“Yes.”

“And we’re stuck in the middle of it.”

Stent didn’t disagree.

They packed the goods back into the satchel slowly, as if the act of closing the stall too quickly might draw attention. Eli kept his voice leveled. “If anyone asks why we’re still here, we can point to this.”

“Poor sales.” Stent nodded once. “A valid excuse.”

“We can say we need to try again tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“And the day after.”

“Yes.”

“And keep waiting.”

Stent looked toward the horizon where the Imperial dome rose, oppressive even at a distance, and answered: “Exactly.”

They lingered there for a moment, feeling the weight of a city where nothing moved except fear.

The excuse was ready. They had time now. Time to look, and listen, and search for what they had come to find.

Even if the city itself wanted them gone.