Chapter 146 · Honest Traders

The warning arrived halfway through breakfast.

Not an alarm. Not even a priority transmission. Just a routine traffic advisory appearing at the edge of the navigation display while Eli was trying to decide whether the last piece of bread justified getting up from the table.

Stent saw it first on his datapad. “Inspection zone ahead.”

That settled the bread question. Eli pushed his chair back and crossed into the cockpit. “How serious?”

“Standard Imperial commercial control. All civilian vessels entering the junction are being routed through verification.”

Eli looked at the system map. Their next jump point sat beyond a modest industrial system serving three lesser hyperspace corridors. Not strategically important enough for a major naval presence, but important enough that the Empire had apparently decided to remind everyone it still existed.

One customs platform. Two patrol craft. An Imperial corvette sitting near the principal commercial lane. Nothing unusual.

Which was what made it dangerous.

Eli leaned closer to the display. “Random inspection?”

“Not entirely. Cargo vessels are being selected by risk profile.” That was marginally better. Then Stent added, “We have been selected.”

Eli closed his eyes briefly. “Of course we have.”

Dara took the news without visible concern.

Nemi did not. “You said the ship was clean.”

“It is,” Eli said.

They were standing in the galley now, far enough from the cockpit that nothing they said would accidentally transmit over an open channel.

Nemi folded her arms. “We have two Rebel operatives aboard.”

“Yes.”

“And Rebel cargo.”

“Technically, we have perfectly legal civilian components aboard that happen to be travelling toward people the Empire would prefer not to possess them.”

“That distinction is going to comfort me enormously if they arrest us.”

Dara had already retrieved her travel bag. “What do you need from us?”

Eli appreciated the question. “Nothing clever.” Nemi looked disappointed by that too. “You’re passengers hired for a private transfer between Marent Twelve and Darsen Relay. Your identification is valid enough for routine inspection. The cargo is on the manifest as technical equipment and medical components, which is exactly what it is.” Dara nodded. “So we tell the truth.”

“As selectively as possible.” Stent stood beside the galley counter, checking the latest inspection protocol on his datapad.

“No attempt should be made to conceal your presence unless inspection escalates beyond routine verification.”

Nemi looked between them. “You’re both very calm.”

Eli shrugged. “We’ve done this before.”

“That is not comforting either.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Dara zipped her bag closed, but instead of following Nemi toward the passenger cabin, she remained where she was. “And what happens if they look closely at you?”

Eli frowned. “At me?”

“You’re the weak point in this cover, not the ship.”

That was not what he had expected. “The Faded Glory has a perfectly respectable civilian record. The cargo is legitimate on paper, and our identities should survive a routine check. But you know Imperial procedure well enough to behave like someone who has spent years on the other side of the inspection desk.”

“I grew up in transport.”

Dara gave him a level look. “And you served in the Imperial Navy.”

There was a brief silence.

Nemi’s head turned sharply toward him. Eli looked at Dara. There was a pause.

Dara raised one eyebrow. “You didn’t think I knew?”

“I was enjoying the possibility.”

Nemi stared at him. “You were actually Imperial?”

“For a while.”

“How long is ‘a while’?”

“Long enough that now is not the time to discuss it.”

Dara almost smiled. Eli pointed toward both of them.

“Cabin. Normal luggage. Normal passengers. If someone asks why you’re travelling together, you met at Marent Twelve and split the fare.” Nemi opened her mouth. Eli continued before she could speak. “No heroic improvisation.”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“Especially you.”

She looked offended.

Dara touched her shoulder and steered her toward the corridor. “Come on.”

Nemi allowed herself to be moved. As she disappeared, Eli heard her whisper: “How long do you think ‘for a while’ was?”

Dara’s answer came faintly from farther down the passage. “Longer than he wants you to know. As I did.”

Eli looked at Stent. “I liked her better when she made me nervous silently.”

“You still find her unnerving.”

“Yes.”

“That has not changed.”

“Thank you for the update.”

The Faded Glory joined the inspection queue thirty-four minutes later. There were nine vessels ahead of them. Mostly small freighters. One passenger shuttle. A bulk transport whose captain had already begun arguing with traffic control over delay penalties.

Eli listened for several seconds, then muted the channel. “Amateur.”

Stent glanced at him. “Because he is arguing?”

“Because he started arguing before they accused him of anything.”

“That is inefficient.”

“It makes them remember you.”

Eli settled deeper into the pilot’s chair. That was the entire game. Not invisibility. Invisible ships were suspicious. Forgettable ships were useful. The Faded Glory was excellent at being forgettable.

Her hull was old enough to be unremarkable, maintained well enough not to invite engineering scrutiny, and patched in exactly the places a working light freighter accumulated repairs after years of routine service. She did not look rich. She did not look desperate. She looked employed. Honestly employed.

That mattered.

The traffic queue advanced. A customs request appeared.

TRANSMIT COMMERCIAL REGISTRY, VESSEL CERTIFICATION AND CURRENT CARGO DECLARATION.

Eli sent the packet.

Their trader registry opened automatically alongside it. He had not looked at the full commercial history in several weeks. Now, while the Imperial system processed the submission, the entries scrolled across the secondary display: courier run. Fuel-ice transfer. Salvaged components. Machine seals. Medical equipment. Agricultural delivery. Replacement parts. A sequence of modest jobs across unremarkable systems. None particularly lucrative. None suspicious. All completed.

Several clients had left commercial assessments. Eli leaned closer. “Did you know people were reviewing us?”

Stent looked over. “That is a normal function of the registry.”

“I know what it is. I didn’t realize anyone bothered.”

He opened the latest entries.

DELIVERY COMPLETED AHEAD OF WINDOW.

VESSEL SMALL BUT RELIABLE.

CREW PROFESSIONAL.

Another.

NO DAMAGE TO CARGO. PAYMENT TERMS HONORED.

And another.

HONEST PILOTS. WOULD CONTRACT AGAIN.

Eli stared at that one.

Stent read it over his shoulder. “Accurate.”

Eli looked at him. “That’s adorable.”

“It is a commercial assessment.”

“Someone called us honest.”

“We completed the contract as agreed.”

“We are currently transporting two clandestine Rebel operatives.”

“That does not alter the previous transaction.”

Eli laughed quietly.

The registry continued. They had accumulated a reputation without noticing. Not a famous one. Nothing anybody would remember outside freight databases and local cooperative offices. But the pattern was there. A small independent ship with reasonable rates that didn’t have cargo disputes, unexplained losses, or customs penalties beyond routine administrative corrections. Pilots who arrived when they said they would.

Eli sat back. “That’s why they wanted us.”

Stent did not need to ask who. “The Rebellion you say?”

“Yes.”

Eli tapped the commercial profile. “They didn’t just check whether the transponder was clean.”

“They checked whether the identity was credible.”

“And it is.”

More than credible. It was true. That was the useful part. Every boring little contract they had accepted because they needed fuel had built the cover better than any forged record could have.

They genuinely were traders. At least some of the time.

The console chimed.

REGISTRY VERIFIED. PROCEED TO COMMERCIAL INSPECTION VECTOR THREE.

Eli exhaled. “Here we go.”

Inspection Vector Three led them past the customs platform rather than into it. That was encouraging. Ships selected for physical inspection were being directed toward docking arms along the lower structure.

The Faded Glory received a holding coordinate instead. Eli aligned the ship with it.

A minute later the comm activated. “Civilian freighter Faded Glory, this is Imperial Commercial Control. Confirm captain.”

Eli opened the channel. “Commercial Control, Faded Glory. Captain Horatio Figg.”

The name came easily now.

It had stopped feeling like an alias somewhere along the route and become simply another piece of the ship’s paperwork: Horatio Figg, independent trader; Ren Viros, co-pilot. The same names appeared on their docking records, cargo contracts, fuel purchases and every minor transaction they had accumulated since adopting the cover. That consistency mattered more than any elaborate fabrication ever could. If the controller pulled their commercial history, he would find Horatio Figg exactly where Horatio Figg was supposed to be.

“Registry shows independent light freight and courier operations.”

“That’s correct.”

“Current declared cargo: medical power assemblies, communications components, field generator regulators.”

“Correct.”

“Destination?”

“Darsen Relay.”

“Contract holder?”

Eli gave the commercial intermediary listed on the manifest. All true.

The silence that followed lasted just long enough for Nemi, listening from the passenger compartment, to become anxious.

Eli could almost feel it through the bulkhead.

The controller returned. “You’ve had multiple recent route deviations.”

Eli looked at the registry. There they were: Peloran Reach, Keldar Junction, Marent Twelve. Nothing dramatic. But enough to notice if someone wanted to.

He did not hesitate. “Freight work.”

“Explain.”

Eli leaned back and allowed exactly the right amount of tired amusement into his voice. “We’re small. We take what pays.” Stent looked at him. Eli continued. “Peloran Reach wasn’t even a freight stop at first. We diverted because buying direct at the farmers’ market was cheaper than restocking at the main station. Once we were there, the agricultural cooperative had a shipment stranded after a carrier failed to show, so they offered us the run back to the hub.” He gave a small shrug. “Before that we carried machine seals Coreward. Marent Twelve was passenger pickup and technical cargo. None of it’s glamorous, but fuel costs the same whether the cargo is interesting or not.”

A pause.

Then the controller said, “Your registry confirms.”

“Glad to hear somebody appreciates our career.”

There was the faintest change in the Imperial officer’s voice. Not quite amusement. Close. “Your vessel has a good commercial record.”

Eli glanced toward Stent. “Doing our best.”

“No disputed deliveries. No outstanding claims. Three priority-completion reports.”

“That sounds more impressive than it felt.”

Stent’s expression remained neutral.

Eli knew perfectly well he would hear about that comment later.

The Imperial controller continued, he sounded more relaxed now. “Two passengers aboard?”

“Yes.”

“Names and identification are already attached to the transit file.” That had been deliberate. Do not wait for customs to ask for something you already knew they would want. Offer normal information normally.

The data transferred. Another silence. Longer this time. Eli kept his breathing steady. No movement from Stent. No unnecessary glance toward the corridor.

The cockpit remained exactly what it should be: two freight pilots waiting for bureaucracy to finish happening to them.

Then: “Passenger records accepted.”

Nemi did not cheer.

Eli was proud of her. “Commercial Control, understood.”

“Cargo scan will follow. Maintain position.”

That was the dangerous part. Not because the cargo contained anything illegal by itself. It did not. But encrypted communications hardware could become interesting if an Imperial inspector decided to become curious about configuration.

The scan began.

A line of pale light passed across the Faded Glory’s hull from the customs platform.

Stent monitored it without speaking. Mass verification. Energy sources. Radiological scan. Weapons signatures. Cargo density.

Routine.

Eli watched the progress indicator move. Twenty percent. Forty. Sixty.

Nothing. The communications modules had been disabled exactly as promised. The medical components were medical components. The power regulators were boring enough to induce sleep. Eighty-seven.

Complete.

The comm opened again. “Faded Glory, cargo verification consistent with declaration.”

Eli let out a breath through his nose. “Good to hear.”

“Stand by for biological screening.”

His relief lasted approximately three seconds. The second scan was shorter. A customs biosecurity sweep: crew and passenger count, livestock, transported organisms, anything alive aboard that ought to appear somewhere in the declaration.

The display completed its pass. Then paused.

“One discrepancy.”

There it was. Eli’s hand stopped against the armrest. Stent’s eyes shifted toward the inspection feed. “Go ahead.”

“Four declared sapient occupants confirmed. There is an additional biological signature in the aft cargo section. Small. Non-sapient classification uncertain.”

Eli closed his eyes for half a second. Of course. Of course that was what did it. Stent turned his head toward him.

The Imperial controller continued. “I’m getting a Biological reading in the aft cargo section.”

Eli considered several possible answers. The truth won. “We picked up an animal at an agricultural colony.”

Silence.

“A livestock transport?”

“No.”

Another pause. Eli could hear the question forming. He decided to save them both time.

“A stowaway of sorts. It climbed into a vegetable crate.”

Stent looked away. Eli suspected strongly that was to prevent himself reacting.

The controller said, “So you have undeclared live cargo.”

“It’s not cargo.”

“Then what is it?”

“At the moment? A problem.”

This time the officer definitely laughed. Only once. Very quietly. “Species?”

“Still working on that.”

“Origin?”

“Probably Peloran Reach.”

“Probably?”

“We found it after departure.”

The controller’s tone changed slightly, bureaucracy returning. “Unregistered animal transport may fall under agricultural quarantine regulations.”

Eli straightened. “It was accidental transport.”

“Intent is not relevant to biological control.”

Wonderful. He should have known. Of all the possible things aboard capable of attracting Imperial attention, it was going to be the tiny carnivore sleeping in Stent’s shirt.

Eli rubbed his forehead. “We’re trying to identify it before releasing it anywhere.”

That produced a pause. A different one. The controller asked, “Is it contained?”

“Yes. We caught it.”

“Securely?”

“In a closed enclosure in the cargo bay. It has water, and it’s not getting out unless someone opens the trap.”

Stent finally leaned toward the comm pickup. “We intend to keep it contained until we can identify the species and determine an appropriate release environment.”

The Imperial controller went silent.

Eli looked at Stent. Stent looked back. Then the voice returned.

“Good. Maintain containment. If the animal originated on Peloran Reach, agricultural records should include native fauna. Depending on classification, you may be required to return it or transfer it to an authorized biological service.”

“Understood.”

“I’m adding an incidental fauna notation to your transit record.”

Eli stared at the console. Of course there was a form for this. “Thank you.”

“It will prevent repeat explanation at the next commercial control.”

Actually useful. “Then genuinely, thank you.”

A few seconds passed.

“Faded Glory, inspection complete. You are cleared through Junction Control. Safe transit.”

Eli keyed acknowledgment. “Commercial Control, much appreciated.”

The channel closed. He sat perfectly still for two seconds.

Then leaned back. “An incidental fauna notation.”

Stent nodded. “Useful.”

“We have officially registered the stowaway before naming it.”

“Yes.”

There was a beep from the corridor. Tee appeared in the cockpit doorway.

Eli looked at it. “Do not start.”

Tee beeped again.

“No. Customs did not arrest it.”

Another chirp.

“They did not arrest us either.”

Tee seemed to consider both outcomes satisfactory.

They waited until they were beyond the customs platform before going back to the common room.

Nemi looked up from her datapad. “You joked with him.”

Eli went to pour himself a caff. “With whom?”

“The Imperial controller.”

“That’s what you got from all that?”

“You joked with Imperial customs while they were scanning us.”

“We are traders. We do that often.”

Nemi watched him pour the caff, then looked toward Dara. “I can’t decide if that was confidence or insanity.”

Dara had stopped beside the fresher door. Her attention was on the commercial registry still open on the secondary display. “Probably confidence,” she said. “He knew exactly what the controller expected to hear.”

Eli caught the look and gave her a brief smile. It was a little too deliberate to be entirely natural. He hid the rest of it behind a sip of caff, then turned and headed back toward the cockpit.

Dara stepped into the cockpit after him and scrolled through several of the registry entries. “Your reputation is better than I expected.”

Eli put a hand over his heart. “Devastating.”

“I mean commercially.”

“Still devastating.”

She ignored him. “You’ve been taking legitimate work everywhere you stop.”

“We need fuel, and food.”

“That’s normal.”

“Repairs.”

“Frequently.”

“Docking fees…”

“Unfortunately.” Dara nodded slowly. “That’s why the cover works.”

Eli looked at her.

She turned the display slightly so Nemi, who has followed her, could see. “You can fabricate a trader registry. You can create contract numbers, payment histories, maintenance records. If the people checking are lazy enough, it might even survive.”

“But theirs is real,” Nemi said.

“Exactly.”

Dara opened one of the reviews.

SMALL VESSEL. HONEST CREW. DELIVERY AS AGREED.

She smiled faintly. “Honest traders.”

Stent, still at the controls, said, “We fulfilled our agreements.”

Nemi grinned. “You really like that review, don’t you?”

“It is accurate.”

Eli looked at the list again. He had spent months thinking of those jobs as necessities. A refinery needed seals. Someone needed ice moved. A merchant needed salvaged components delivered. A cooperative needed vegetables carried to market. They accepted the work, got paid and kept moving. Nothing strategic. Nothing heroic. Nothing Thrawn would ever have bothered entering into a campaign record.

And yet all those insignificant transactions had become something valuable.

Proof. Not proof of who they claimed to be. Proof of what they actually were. At least partly.

Dara closed the registry. “There are Rebel transports with six layers of fabricated commercial history that wouldn’t have passed that inspection as cleanly as you did.”

Eli smiled. “That sounds like a compliment.”

“It is.”

He waited.

Dara noticed. “What?”

“I’m adjusting to it.”

Nemi leaned against the hatch. “I still want to know how long you were Imperial.”

Eli sighed. “There it is.”

“You avoided the question earlier.”

“Because we were approaching a customs inspection.”

“We’re not now.”

Stent entered the next navigation sequence without looking up. “You served for more than ten years.”

Eli turned slowly toward him.

Nemi’s eyes widened. Dara laughed. Actually laughed.

Eli pointed at Stent. “You could have stayed out of this.”

“The information was requested.”

“It was requested from me.”

“You were avoiding the answer.”

“That is my right.”

Nemi stared at Eli with renewed fascination. “More than ten years?”

Stent rose from the co-pilot’s chair. “I’m going to check on our third passenger.”

“That is absolutely an escape,” Eli said.

“Yes.”

He walked out.

Nemi immediately dropped into the seat Stent had vacated.

“What rank?”

Eli closed his eyes.

From somewhere down the corridor, Stent answered calmly, “Lieutenant Commander.”

“Ren.”

There was no reply. A moment later, Eli heard the cargo-bay door cycle open.

He looked at Nemi, then at Dara, and accepted that whatever remained of his attempt at discretion had just become pointless.

“Yes. Lieutenant Commander. Imperial Navy.” He took another drink of caff. “And before either of you asks, no, I don’t work for them anymore. I deserted.”

That quieted Nemi for a moment.

Dara’s attention shifted toward the corridor Stent had disappeared down. “And him?”

Eli followed her gaze. “Ren?”

“He’s military. That much is obvious.” Dara leaned one shoulder against the bulkhead. “But not Imperial.”

“No.” The answer came easily.

Dara waited.

Eli considered how much of the rest belonged to him to explain. “Chiss military,” he said eventually. “Different government. Different service. Very different set of problems.”

Nemi glanced toward the cargo bay. “And now he’s travelling around with an Imperial deserter, hauling vegetables and checking on a tiny animal living in his shirt.”

Eli took another sip of caff.

“When you put it like that, our careers have both taken some unexpected turns.”

Dara was quiet for a moment. Then she folded her arms. “All right. Let’s address the bantha in the room.” Eli looked at her over the rim of his cup. “What are the two of you actually doing out here?”

There it was.

Not who they had been. Not which uniforms they had worn, or which government had once signed their orders.

Why they were here.

Eli lowered the cup, but instead of answering, he studied her for a moment. “Tell you what.” Dara’s expression sharpened slightly. “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

Nemi blinked. “That sounded terrible.”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

“I do. Still terrible.”

Eli ignored her. “You know I spent more than ten years in the Imperial Navy. You know my rank, you know I deserted, and you’ve already worked out enough about Stent to know he’s Chiss military.” He gestured between the two women with his cup. “I know your names, what you told us you do, and that somebody in the Rebellion considers you two valuable enough to put you aboard our ship.”

Dara regarded him for a few seconds. “That seems fair.”

Nemi looked considerably less cautious about the proposition. “Fine. Me first?”

Dara gave her a small gesture to continue.

Nemi shifted sideways in the co-pilot’s chair. “Slicer. Properly, not just someone who knows how to break into a cheap terminal. Commercial systems, communications, security architecture when I can get at it.”

“How long with the Rebellion?”

“Little over six months.”

Eli raised his eyebrows. “That recent?”

“I joined after Yavin.” There was no change in her tone. No shadow falling across her face, no carefully prepared tragedy waiting behind the words.

Eli noticed. “So what pushed you?”

“The Death Star.”

He waited.

Nemi shrugged. “Not because I lost anyone there, if that’s what you’re asking. I didn’t. I didn’t know anybody on Alderaan either.” She rested one arm across the back of the chair. “I’d been involved in political groups for years. Nothing particularly dramatic. Petitions, information networks, helping people get around censorship, slicing things I wasn’t supposed to slice when somebody needed records the Empire didn’t want them to have.”

Eli smiled faintly. “That last one sounds slightly more dramatic.”

“It got more dramatic toward the end.” Nemi smiled back. “I knew sooner or later I was going to get arrested. Everybody I worked with knew it. We kept telling ourselves there was a line between activism and rebellion because that made us feel safer.”

“And Yavin changed that.”

“Yavin made the line look stupid.” Her smile faded, though not into grief. “The Empire built something capable of destroying a planet. Then they used it. After that, sitting around pretending the problem could still be solved by making information inconvenient for local officials felt…” She searched briefly for the word. “Insufficient.”

“So you joined.”

“I found people who were already doing more than I was and asked what they needed.”

Simple as that. Eli believed her. He looked toward Dara. “Your turn.”

Dara had been listening without interruption. “My story is less idealistic.”

Nemi glanced at her. “Debatable.”

Dara ignored that. “I never served the Empire.”

“But?”

“The company I worked for did.”

That got Eli’s attention. “Contractor?”

“A large one. Industrial risk, logistics assurance, project underwriting. We evaluated supply chains, subcontractors, transport exposure, construction schedules. If an Imperial project required enough private industry, eventually some part of it crossed one of our desks.”

Eli knew the type. Companies that could spend decades technically outside the government while existing almost entirely because the government paid their invoices. “What did you do there?”

“Operational risk analysis.”

That explained several things.

Dara continued. “After Yavin, information started leaking. Not much at first. Procurement records. Shell companies. Projects that had disappeared into classified accounts. I started comparing them to work I had done over the previous several years.” Her mouth tightened slightly. “I recognized some of it.” Nemi had gone quiet. Dara looked at Eli. “Not the Death Star itself. Nobody had handed us a file marked planet-destroying battle station. Everything was compartmentalized. A fabrication contract here. Transport insurance there. Reactor-related industrial capacity somewhere else. Materials moving through subsidiaries that existed solely to prevent anyone seeing the whole structure.”

“But you’d seen pieces.”

“I had assessed pieces.” The distinction clearly mattered to her. “I had signed off on risks associated with some of those operations. Recommended contingency margins. Identified weak points in supply chains and suggested alternate contractors when delivery schedules were slipping.”

Eli understood before she said it. “And after Yavin you put the pieces together.”

“Yes.”

Dara’s voice remained controlled. “I learned that some of the operations I had helped keep efficient had fed into the construction of the Death Star.” Silence settled over the cockpit. There was no melodrama in the admission. That made it heavier. “I didn’t know what we were building,” Dara said. “But after Yavin, knowing that stopped being as comforting as I wanted it to be.”

Eli turned the cup slowly between his hands. “So you left.”

“Eventually.”

“That sounds like there’s a story between those two words.”

“There is.”

Eli waited.

Dara gave him the faintest smile. “You show me yours, remember?”

He laughed softly. “Fair enough.”

For a moment nobody spoke.

Then Nemi leaned forward. “All right. We’ve paid.” Dara’s expression said she was content to let Nemi make the demand.

Eli took another drink of caff and glanced toward the corridor leading aft.

Somewhere beyond it, Stent was checking on a frightened two-hundred-gram stowaway with considerably more care than he would ever admit amounted to concern.

“All right,” Eli said. “Our turn.”

“Ren was already out here when I met him.”

Dara’s expression changed slightly. Not surprise exactly. Interest. “Doing what?”

“Working.”

Nemi stared at him. “That was impressively unhelpful.”

“It was also accurate.” Eli glanced toward the corridor. “He’s Chiss military. There are things about what his people do this far from their own territory that aren’t mine to explain.”

“And he won’t explain them himself?” Dara said.

“Probably not.”

That earned the faintest smile. Eli settled against the edge of the console. “The version I can give you is that he was attached to a long-range reconnaissance assignment. Routes, regional stability, military activity. The sort of things governments like knowing about places beyond their borders even when they don’t advertise that they’re looking. He won’t even tell me.”

Dara nodded slowly. That, at least, required no leap of imagination. “What happened?”

“He got stranded.”

Nemi’s eyebrows rose. “Stranded how?”

“His way home stopped being available.”

“That is very carefully phrased.”

“Yes.”

Eli drank his caff.

Dara noticed, but let it pass. “And that's where you came in.”

“Eventually.”

“You just happened to find a stranded Chiss officer?”

“No. Nothing about it was that convenient.” That part was easy to say with conviction. “I was already out here. I knew Imperial systems, freight routes, civilian transport. He knew how to survive places I had no business flying through. We had complementary problems.”

Nemi considered that. “So you teamed up.”

“More or less.”

“And you've been trying to get him home ever since?”

“That was the idea.”

Dara caught the wording immediately. “Was?”

“There isn't one. That's part of the problem. We were looking for reliable navigation data.”

Dara's gaze stayed on him. “Imperial?”

“Not exactly. Someone who used to do navigation work for the Imperial Navy. Deep-range routes. The kind of data that doesn't make it into civilian charts.” There. That was where the falsehood fitted neatly into the truth. “We thought we might pick up the trail through Mon Cala. They've got a major navigation hub there.”

“And did you?”

“Not the person.” Eli rotated the cup slowly between his hands. “But enough to tell us where to look next.”

“Coreward,” Dara said.

“Coreward.”

Nemi looked around the cockpit. “And meanwhile you became freight haulers.”

Eli smiled.

“We were already flying a freighter. Fuel costs money. Food costs money. Docking costs money. Once you start taking one job, somebody offers you another.”

“And now people leave you good reviews,” Nemi said.

“Apparently.”

Dara was still watching him.

“So that's what the two of you are doing out here. Trying to get him home.”

Eli met her eyes. “That is what we're trying to do.” It was, he thought, a very good lie. Mostly because almost every individual piece of it was true.

Dara tilted her head. “And what do you do after you leave Ren on his doorstep?”

That caught him. Eli looked down at the caff in his hands, buying himself a moment he hadn't expected to need. “I haven't planned that far ahead.”

Nemi raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Really.” He gave a small shrug. “I'm an Imperial deserter with a freighter and a reasonably respectable trader registry. I suppose I keep flying. Take whatever work pays, try not to attract attention.”

“That's the plan?”

“It's more of a general direction.”

Dara studied him for another moment, and Eli had the uncomfortable impression that she had learned more from that answer than from everything he'd told her about Stent.

He took another sip of caff. “One problem at a time.”