Chapter 111 · The Trail That Remains

Kallus moved toward an auxiliary console in the corner — a battered thing with mismatched keys and a cracked display, salvaged from an Imperial relay tower long since stripped. He keyed in a sequence with deliberate, measured movements. Not hurried. Not hesitant.

Just resigned.

A map flickered onto the screen. Orbital rings of Lothal. Crossed-out sectors. Dead zones. Restricted debris fields.

And one glowing marker.

“There,” Kallus said.

Eli stepped closer. “A graveyard.”

“Not a graveyard,” Kallus corrected. “A sorting yard. One of the Empire’s orbital junkfields. They brought the largest fragments of the Seventh to this sector. Stabilized them. Catalogued them. And then classified the entire ring.”

Stent leaned in, studying the display with that narrow, analytical stare. “Purpose?”

“Propaganda,” Kallus said. “Control. Maybe both.” He zoomed the map, the marker brightening. “The Empire wanted to bury the truth. They couldn’t. So they hid the parts too big to ignore.”

“And the rest?” Eli asked.

Kallus let out a long, slow breath. “The smaller pieces?” His jaw hardened. “Left in orbit. Left in the atmosphere. Left in the streets. They let the debris fall. They let it rot. They let the world see the wreckage every single day.”

Stent absorbed that in silence.

Eli felt something cold in his chest. “A warning.”

Kallus nodded. “A reminder. The Seventh wasn’t lost. It was punished.”

He tapped the glowing marker.

“This is the only place the Empire couldn’t scrub clean. Too big. Too delicate. Too… telling. They dragged the remains into a controlled orbit and stationed a patrol there for months.”

Stent’s voice lowered.

“Does anyone guard it now?”

“No,” Kallus said. “Not officially. But that doesn’t mean it’s safe. Remnant crews still linger around the old command rings. Scavengers. Loyalists. People who can’t let go.”

“And traps,” Eli murmured.

Kallus nodded once. “Oh yes. Traps. Electronic. Physical. Procedural. Anything to keep people away.”

He keyed a final line into the console — a set of encrypted coordinates, blinking softly. “This,” he said, “is as close as you’re going to get to where he vanished.”

Stent studied the data as if committing each decimal to memory.

Eli swallowed hard. “This could actually… be something.”

“It is something,” Kallus said. “Whether it’s what you want is a different question.”

He shut down the console with a heavy click. “Whatever you do,” he warned, “don’t go blundering in like you did here. The Empire may have left this world, but its traps haven’t. They buried the truth for a reason.”

Stent inclined his head, a gesture that held the sharpness of military respect.

Eli murmured, “Thank you.”

Kallus didn’t smile. Didn’t soften.

He simply said:

“Bring him home, if you can.”

And for the first time, he looked like a man who wanted that to be possible.