Chapter 159 · Compromised

“We noticed.”

The woman at the bottom of the ramp did not raise her weapon. None of the others did either, although all four were armed.

Rain ticked steadily against the duracrete between them.

Eli glanced once at Stent, then back at her. “The package is aboard. Still sealed.”

“We know.” Her eyes moved briefly toward the interior of the Faded Glory. “You’ll bring it down yourselves.” That caught him slightly off guard. “We’re not searching your ship,” she continued. “Two of ours will go with you while you retrieve the case. They won’t touch anything unless they have reason to.”

Respectful, then. Suspicious as hell, but respectful. Eli could work with that.

Stent gave the smallest nod. “Acceptable.”

The woman looked at him for a moment before turning back to Eli. Late forties, perhaps. Dark hair cropped short, rain gathering along the shoulders of a plain jacket. Nothing about her identified rank or allegiance. Nothing needed to.

“Vela Norr,” she said. “You deal with me.”

“Horatio Figg.”

Her expression did not change. “For now.”

There it was.

One of the men beside her shifted his weight, not quite smiling. Human, narrow-faced, brown hair beginning to gray at the temples. He carried no weapon openly, but Eli could see the outline beneath his coat.

Vela indicated him with a tilt of her head. “He’s Tarin.”

The man gave Eli a small nod.

Nothing else.

Eli had the uncomfortable feeling that introductions had gone rather better for everyone on the ground than for the two people standing on the ramp.

Vela sent two of the others forward. “Mera. Joss. Go with them.” The woman and the younger man stepped onto the ramp.

Eli turned back inside. “Tee is going to object.”

“I heard the droid.”

“It has opinions.”

“So do I.”

Fair enough.

They sealed the ramp behind them and headed toward the cargo bay. Tee was waiting in the corridor. Its dome snapped immediately toward the strangers. The protest started before Eli could say anything.

“They’re supervising.” Eli explained. But Tee answered. “They are not searching the ship.” Another burst followed. “And nobody is taking anything.”

Joss looked at Mera. “Does he always do this?”

“Yes,” Eli said. Tee whistled sharply. “Almost always.”

They passed the common room.

Ch’eth had been curled out of sight in the back of the enclosure, but the unfamiliar voices brought him forward. A moment later his narrow head appeared near the transparent panel, ears alert as he peered out at the strangers.

Then he saw Stent. Ch’eth came the rest of the way to the front and put both forepaws against the panel. Scratch.

Stent looked down at him. Ch’eth scratched again.

Mera glanced toward the enclosure. “What is that?”

“A kivren.”

She looked at Stent. Then at Ch’eth. “He wants out.”

“Yes.”

Stent did not open the enclosure. Ch’eth scratched harder.

Joss watched for another second, a slight smile crossed his lips. “He really wants out.”

“Yes.”

Eli kept walking. “You’ll find Ren is very good at resisting emotional blackmail.”

Ch’eth scratched once more behind them. Stent ignored that too.

The sealed case was exactly where they had left it, secured against the forward bulkhead of the cargo bay. Eli released the restraints while Stent checked the exterior seals.

All intact.

Mera and Joss stayed well back.

That, more than anything, told Eli they meant what Vela had said. They were there to watch, not rummage through the ship.

Eli took one end of the case. Stent took the other.

Joss moved half a step forward on instinct, then stopped himself. Apparently don’t touch anything worked both ways.

They carried it back through the corridor.

Tee followed as far as the ramp.

“No.” A low complaint. “You stay with the ship.” Another.

Stent looked down at him. “You know how to take care of it.” Tee beeped.

They lowered the ramp. Vela had not moved. Neither had Tarin.

The case came down between Eli and Stent and landed on the wet duracrete with a dull thud.

“Set it there,” Vela said.

They did.

Tarin crouched beside it and produced a compact scanner from inside his coat. He passed it over the seals first, then the identification plate, then the edge of the casing.

Two lights changed from amber to green.

“Outer authentication matches.”

“As it should,” Eli said.

Tarin looked up. “You dislike that phrase?”

“It usually means somebody is about to find something expensive.”

“Occupational experience?”

“Unfortunately.”

Tarin stood. Vela still had not relaxed. “Move.”

The warehouse across the pad looked abandoned from the outside.

Inside, only the first section bothered maintaining the illusion. Old freight containers. Stripped loading equipment. Coils of conduit. A cargo lifter with half its casing removed.

Beyond a composite partition, the building changed.

People. Portable comms. Power cells. A small medical station against one wall. Two speeders without registration markings.

Not a base exactly.

More than enough to make Eli understand why they had been kept waiting aboard the Faded Glory for fourteen minutes before anyone approached.

Two technicians took custody of the case.

Eli watched it go.

Vela noticed. “They’ll verify it.”

“That’s why we brought it.”

“Good.”

She pointed toward a smaller room at the rear.

The room had probably once been an office. One table. Four chairs. No windows.

Eli went in first. Stent followed.

Tarin entered behind them and sat opposite Eli. Vela remained standing.

Tarin placed a datapad on the table. “Horatio Figg.” Eli looked at him. Tarin touched the screen once. “Eli Vanto.” No hesitation. No fishing expedition.

They knew.

Eli leaned back slightly. “Yes.”

Vela watched him. Tarin scrolled. “Lieutenant Commander, Imperial Navy. Assigned to the Chimaera. Personal aide to Mitth’raw’nuruodo.” Eli’s expression stayed still. “Thrawn,” Tarin added.

“I know who you mean.”

“Apparently very well.”

“Yes.”

Tarin looked at the datapad again. “You disappear from Imperial records shortly after his promotion to Grand Admiral. No transfer. No discharge. Later a death record was issued.”

“No.”

“Then nothing for quite some time.”

Eli said nothing.

Tarin looked up. “And then you begin turning up again.”

That was the part Eli had expected.

A second file appeared on the screen. Different name. Different trail. ZIELIV.

Vela moved closer to the table. “You used that identity with Rebel contacts.”

“Yes.”

“And Figg?”

“Another identity.”

“You collect them?”

“I travel.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“Sometimes it is.”

Tarin did not look amused, but neither did he look offended. He simply scrolled farther.

Eli had met intelligence officers like him before. The dangerous ones were rarely the loud ones.

Vela was watching Stent now. Stent had not spoken since they entered the room.

Her attention settled on him. “And you.”

Stent met her eyes.

Nothing else.

Vela waited. “So,” she said, “let’s start with something simple.”

Her attention stayed on Stent. “Full name.”

“Stent.”

“We have that.”

“Then you already have the answer.”

Vela’s expression tightened slightly.

Tarin looked down at the datapad, but Eli caught the small movement at one corner of his mouth. Not amusement exactly. Recognition, perhaps. He had already spent enough time digging through their records to know what sort of cooperation they were likely to get.

Vela tried again. “Who do you work for?”

Stent said nothing.

A few seconds passed.

“Military?”

Nothing.

“Government?”

Still nothing.

Vela rested both hands on the back of the empty chair beside her. “You understand that silence is an answer too.”

“Yes.”

“And what answer do you think it gives me?”

“That would depend on your assumptions.”

Eli looked down at the table. There was the problem with Stent. He could say very little and still somehow make the room worse.

Vela pulled the chair out and sat at last. “You arrived in Rebel records with Vanto. Before that, almost nothing. No commercial history worth mentioning. No residence records. No employment history. No tax trail, no school records, no medical registrations, no family connections. You appear from nowhere, start travelling with the former aide to Grand Admiral Thrawn, and expect me not to ask questions.”

“I expect you to ask them.”

“Good. Then answer.”

“No.”

Simple enough.

Vela stared at him.

Tarin intervened before she could push harder. “We found references to another Chiss travelling with Vanto before Figg existed. Same physical description. Same name, when a name is given. That part at least appears consistent.”

Eli glanced toward him.

Tarin noticed. “You’re wondering how much we found.”

“Yes.”

“A fair amount.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

No, probably not.

Tarin shifted the datapad closer to himself. “Your trail is easier,” he said to Eli. “Imperial personnel systems were built to retain information. Even after records are archived, fragments propagate. Promotions, requisitions, duty rosters, transfer authorizations, security clearances. People leave traces.”

“Especially people with paperwork jobs.”

“You had more than a paperwork job.”

“I had a lot of paperwork.”

Tarin ignored that. “You entered Imperial service as Eli Vanto. Myomar Academy. Logistics background. Assigned to the Blood Crow, then transferred into Thrawn’s command structure. By the time he reached flag rank, you were still functioning as his aide.”

Vela watched Eli carefully while Tarin spoke.

Eli let him.

There was little point pretending any of this was new information.

Tarin continued. “Then Thrawn is promoted to Grand Admiral and you disappear.”

“Shortly after.”

“Days?”

Eli considered that. “Close enough.”

“No discharge. No transfer. No court-martial. No body. No notice to next of kin that we could find.” Tarin paused. “That leaves two obvious possibilities.”

Eli had a fair idea what they were.

Vela supplied the first. “You deserted.”

“And the second?” Eli asked.

Tarin answered. “You didn’t.”

There it was.

Eli leaned back.

Vela folded her arms. “A newly promoted Grand Admiral loses his personal aide at almost exactly the moment he gains access to resources and assignments far beyond the reach of ordinary sector commands. That aide then vanishes completely.”

“And eventually turns up moving freight.” Tarin added.

“Under false names.”

“Usually useful when you’ve deserted an authoritarian government.”

“Or when you still work for it.”

Eli looked at her. “If I still worked for the Empire, I’d like to think they could afford me a better ship.”

Tarin glanced up.

Vela did not. “The ship isn’t funny.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

That was only partly true.

Vela leaned forward. “Where did you go?”

Eli knew which gap she meant.

“After I left?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Her eyes narrowed. “No, you don’t remember?”

“No, I’m not telling you.”

The room went quiet.

Tarin’s gaze shifted briefly toward Stent.

Of course it did.

Eli saw the connection happen exactly as it must have happened when Tarin first assembled the file: Vanto disappears. Later reappears with a Chiss. Thrawn himself is Chiss. The intervening years are blank.

It did not take a genius slicer to start drawing lines.

Vela followed his glance. “You went with him.”

Eli said nothing.

“Or to wherever he came from.”

Still nothing.

“Did Thrawn send you?”

“No.”

That answer came easily because it was true.

Vela noticed the difference.

“Did he arrange your disappearance?”

Eli hesitated.

Only for a fraction of a second.

Too long.

Tarin saw it. Vela definitely saw it.

“Interesting.”

“Not particularly.”

“You answered the first question immediately.”

“I answered both.”

“No. You avoided the second.”

Eli exhaled through his nose. “Thrawn did not send me on an Imperial assignment. I did not continue serving the Empire after I disappeared. That is the relevant part.”

“To you.”

“Yes.”

Vela turned toward Stent. “And you won’t tell us where you came from.”

Stent looked at her. “Correct.”

“Who sent you.”

Nothing.

“What your rank is.”

Nothing.

“What your relationship to Thrawn is.”

Nothing.

Vela gave a short, humorless laugh and looked back at Eli. “You picked a very helpful travelling companion.”

“He has his moments.”

Stent did not react.

Tarin scrolled again. “Klyssos.”

Eli's humor disappeared.

Tarin turned the datapad around.

The image was poor, taken at distance and enlarged past the point where most facial detail had softened into blocks. It did not need to be good.

White uniform. Blue skin. Red eyes. Stent in Thrawn’s insignia. Eli beside him in Imperial gray.

He remembered that uniform far too well. They still had it on a locker in the Faded Glory.

Vela tapped one finger against the tabletop. “Explain.”

“It was a Rebel operation.”

“Convenient.”

“Still true.”

“Authorized by whom?”

“People who can confirm it.”

“Names.”

“No.”

“Vanto—”

“No.”

Vela’s voice sharpened. “You don’t get to decide what information we require.”

“I do when you’re asking me to identify Rebel contacts who trusted us enough to work with us.”

“This is a Rebel cell.”

“And I met you twenty minutes ago.”

That stopped her.

Not for long.

“You expect us to trust you while refusing to extend the same courtesy.”

“No. I expect you to verify what I’m telling you through your own channels.”

Tarin was watching him more thoughtfully now.

Eli nodded toward the datapad. “You managed the rest.”

A beat.

Then Tarin said, “He has a point.”

Vela looked at him.

“I didn’t say I trust him. I said he has a point.”

She did not like that distinction.

Good.

Tarin turned the display back toward himself. “The Klyssos material is incomplete. We found references to an operation involving an Imperial command impersonation, followed by disruption of Imperial activity in the sector. That is consistent with what you’re saying.”

“Thank you.”

“It is also consistent with a staged operation designed to establish credibility.”

Eli sighed. “There it is.”

Vela sat back. “You see our problem.”

“Oh, I see several.”

“You have an answer for everything.”

“No. Mostly I have answers for the things I actually did.”

“And the things you refuse to discuss?”

“Those are still things I actually did.”

Tarin looked down at the datapad again.

That earned the faintest twitch from him.

Vela ignored it. “Why are you looking for Thrawn?”

Eli went still. Not much. Enough.

Tarin looked up immediately.

Eli cursed him internally. Competent slicers were bad enough. Competent slicers who paid attention to people were worse.

Vela caught it too. “You are looking for him.”

Eli did not answer.

“What happened to ‘answers for the things you actually did’?”

“That one wasn’t a question about this delivery.”

“It is now.”

“No.”

Vela’s patience finally showed a crack. “You arrive with a Chiss who refuses to identify his affiliations, after spending years off the record, carrying sensitive hardware into one of our cells. Your last documented Imperial position put you at Grand Admiral Thrawn’s side. Then we find evidence that you’ve been moving through Rebel networks under multiple identities and impersonating Imperial officers. And you expect me to accept that your reasons for doing any of this are private?”

“Yes.”

She stared at him.

Eli shrugged slightly. “You asked.”

A knock sounded at the door.

Vela did not look away from him. “Come.”

One of the technicians entered, carrying a small reader and a strip of seal material in a transparent evidence sleeve.

“The package is good.”

That changed the room. Not much. Enough.

Vela turned. “Everything?”

“Outer seals match the Sembla identifiers. Internal seal is intact. Authentication modules correspond to the manifest. Encryption hardware is the expected batch, serials included. No evidence of tampering.”

“And the authorization chain?”

“Valid.”

Tarin held out a hand. The technician passed him the reader. He checked the display himself.

Eli watched him.

After a few seconds Tarin set it down. “Confirmed.”

The technician left.

Vela remained silent for a moment.

Then she looked at Eli. “The package is accepted.”

There. Done. Nine days late, one stolen ship, one miserable week on a port world and far too many hours of South Three later, but done.

Eli felt a small piece of tension leave his shoulders. Not enough.

Vela noticed that too.

“Don’t get comfortable.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“The delivery checks out. You don’t.”

Tarin picked up the datapad again. “I still have questions.”

“I assumed you would.”

“So do I,” Vela said.

Stent had not moved.

Eli glanced at him.

If anything, he looked more closed than when they had started. Which Eli would not have thought possible.

Vela followed the glance. “Let’s try your partner again.”

Stent looked back at her.

Before she could speak, something sounded in the main room outside.

Not an alarm. A comm signal. Then another.

Someone answered quickly. Too quickly.

Tarin turned his head toward the door. Vela did the same. The voices outside were muffled through the partition, but the tone had changed.

A chair scraped. Hurried footsteps.

Then the door opened without anyone knocking.

A young woman Eli had not seen before stood there with a comm unit in one hand.

She looked at Vela. “Space Control just flagged two military reversions.”

Vela was on her feet before she finished. “What?”

“Imperial.”

The woman swallowed. “Two Star Destroyers.”