Chapter 166 · Mailbox

Jiruus greeted them with a holding pattern, a revised arrival slot and a customs officer who appeared determined to compensate for the previous week's disruptions by making every commercial captain personally responsible for the condition of the Empire.

Eli had anticipated the first two. The third became apparent when their landing clearance finally arrived, accompanied by an additional declaration concerning restricted agricultural imports and a revised cargo inspection form that had not existed when they left Stygeon.

"Filtration equipment," he muttered, examining the document. "Thirty-eight standard cargo units of industrial filtration equipment. What in the nine hells do they think we're going to import, a contagious disease?"

Stent, who had been holding the Faded Glory in the assigned orbital corridor for the better part of an hour, glanced at the new form on his display. "It is a general declaration. You can indicate that we are not carrying agricultural products."

"I did. On the previous declaration."

"Then you should have no difficulty completing this one."

Eli gave him a look that went entirely unappreciated. He completed the form, attached the original cargo manifest and submitted both to traffic control, where they disappeared into the administrative machinery of the Jiruus commercial authority. Their clearance arrived four minutes later.

The planet itself offered little to complain about. Its principal commercial spaceport occupied a broad plateau outside the capital, with extensive freight terminals, independent landing fields and enough ground traffic to suggest that the local economy had suffered considerably less disruption than some of the worlds they had visited recently. Industrial districts spread beyond the perimeter in orderly blocks, interrupted by warehouses, transport depots and the occasional stretch of undeveloped land. A pair of Imperial customs cutters occupied the military apron, but there were no additional patrols circling above the port and nobody seemed particularly concerned by their presence.

After Stygeon, the relative normality was almost disconcerting.

Stent brought them down on their assigned pad, settling the freighter between a refrigerated transport and a considerably larger bulk carrier whose crew was already engaged in an argument with a malfunctioning cargo lifter. Eli had the local freight directory open before the landing gear finished cycling.

"Consignee's confirmed the delivery. They're sending two lifters and a receiving officer, so we should be able to unload without having to rent anything."

"Have they confirmed the expedited-delivery premium?"

"Yes. Full amount, provided the equipment passes inspection." Eli glanced at the adjoining landing pad, where the bulk carrier's captain was now gesticulating at a second lifter that appeared to have arrived solely to observe the first. "And assuming we don't run into any more of those."

The unloading went considerably better than he expected. Their customer, a distributor supplying filtration systems to several industrial facilities on Jiruus, had apparently spent the previous two days reorganizing delivery schedules around the absence of the components now sitting in the Faded Glory's hold. The receiving officer was sufficiently delighted to see them that he overlooked Eli's rather obvious eagerness to complete the transaction and leave.

Unfortunately, the shipment included six processing assemblies that required individual certification before the distributor would accept responsibility for them. Eli found himself accompanying the officer through an inspection of every container while Stent and Tee supervised the unloading.

One of the assemblies had acquired a superficial dent during its journey. Eli produced the original loading inspection, the receiving officer photographed the damage and they spent fifteen minutes establishing that the dent had no effect whatsoever on the equipment's operation.

"Someone at head office will still complain," the officer informed him, signing the acceptance certificate.

"Someone at head office can come down here and look at it."

The man laughed. "You've never dealt with our head office."

"Believe me, I've dealt with plenty of head offices."

By the time they finished, the cargo hold was empty, the delivery had been formally accepted and their account was considerably healthier than it had been that morning. Eli collected the final receipt, thanked the receiving officer and accepted his recommendation concerning a nearby establishment that apparently served an excellent midday meal.

He had no intention of eating there, but it provided a convenient opening for another question.

"Actually, you wouldn't happen to know where the military postal depot is? I've got some personal correspondence that needs forwarding, and the commercial directory isn't particularly helpful."

The officer pointed toward the northern end of the port.

"Military annex. You'll have to go through the service entrance, though. They moved all their public counters inside the perimeter last month."

"Security?"

"Reorganization, apparently. Half the military departments on this planet have been reorganized since the beginning of the year." He shook his head. "My brother works in fleet procurement. Says they haven't had the same commanding officer for more than six weeks."

Eli sympathized, obtained directions to the annex and returned to the ship.

He found Stent in the cockpit, reviewing their departure options. Tee was occupied with the cargo-handling equipment, apparently determined to ensure that the receiving crew had not scratched anything while removing the last of the filtration assemblies.

"All delivered," Eli announced, dropping into his chair. "Paid in full, including the premium. I've also found our postal depot."

Stent looked up. "Convenient."

"Not particularly. They've moved the civilian counters inside the military perimeter, which means I can't simply walk up to a window and pretend to be somebody's concerned relative. Fortunately, I happen to have an alternative wardrobe."

He pulled up the local directory and transferred the relevant information to Stent's display. The annex occupied a group of buildings on the northern edge of the port, connected to the main military installation by a service road. There was a vehicle checkpoint at the entrance, but the pedestrian access appeared to be managed separately.

The place looked depressingly familiar.

Eli studied the layout for a few minutes, then closed the directory. He had enough information to get there without attracting attention by lingering around the entrance, and there was little point inventing complications before discovering whether any actually existed.

"Well. Time to get changed."

The uniform fitted rather better than Eli had expected.

He had anticipated some discomfort after months of civilian clothes, but the familiar weight of the jacket settled across his shoulders easily enough. The rank plaque was still in excellent condition, the collar closed without difficulty and the boots, which he had polished that morning, looked entirely respectable.

He checked the insignia in the mirror, straightened the belt and adjusted his cap.

The haircut Stent had given him during the journey had survived its first proper inspection, and the absence of his beard made an astonishing difference. Eli had become accustomed to the face of Horatio Figg looking back at him, with its increasingly unruly hair, practical civilian clothes and the occasional evidence of several days spent repairing an elderly freighter. The man in the mirror looked younger, considerably more respectable and annoyingly pleased with the result.

He turned slightly to inspect the fit of the jacket.

There was something rather disturbing about how quickly the old habits returned. He had already adjusted his posture without thinking, drawn his shoulders back and checked that nothing in his pockets disturbed the line of the uniform. Even his movements seemed to have acquired the economy of someone accustomed to spending a substantial portion of his working day in the presence of superior officers.

He had not particularly missed that last part.

When he emerged from his quarters, Stent was waiting at the central table with the package and the identification material they had prepared during the journey. He looked Eli over, paying particular attention to his collar and insignia.

"Well?" Eli asked, turning once. "Would you let me aboard an Imperial Star Destroyer?"

"I believe I would."

"That's encouraging."

"Although your boots are more heavily worn than I would expect of an officer assigned exclusively to administrative duties."

Eli looked down.

"Oh, come on. I polished the damn things."

"I did not say they were dirty."

"Nobody is going to examine the soles of my boots."

"Let us hope not."

Eli collected the package and tucked the identification card into his jacket. He had chosen the name Varrin, belonging to a junior aide he remembered from the Chimaera, and had kept the rank and assignment sufficiently unremarkable to avoid inviting questions. The man had been aboard when Eli left; whether he remained in the Navy was another matter entirely.

He checked the documents a final time, then looked at Stent.

"Anything else?"

Stent considered him for a moment. "You seem unusually comfortable."

Eli glanced down at the uniform. "I did this for more than ten years. It's probably the one disguise I've worn recently that doesn't require much acting."

"Except that you no longer hold the rank."

"An administrative detail."

"And you are no longer serving the institution."

Eli gave him a crooked smile. "That one's slightly more significant."

He had expected to feel uncomfortable wearing Imperial gray again. Instead, the uniform was familiar in a way that made him faintly uneasy, and he found himself wondering how much of the officer he had once been could still be summoned merely by putting on the appropriate clothes.

Apparently quite a lot.

Stent rose and accompanied him to the ramp. They had arranged for him to remain aboard the Faded Glory, where he could monitor the military annex's external approaches through the port's public surveillance feeds and their own sensors. If anything went seriously wrong, Tee had the departure procedures prepared and the ship could be brought to a nearby extraction point.

Eli sincerely hoped that would not be necessary. The prospect of fleeing an Imperial installation with a stolen package and an entire freighter attempting to collect him from a service road was considerably less appealing than spending the afternoon dealing with postal clerks.

"Try not to attract attention," Stent said as they reached the bottom of the ramp.

Eli regarded him.

"That's your advice?"

"I considered offering something more elaborate, but I believe you are sufficiently familiar with the procedure."

"Touching. Your confidence in me is overwhelming."

Stent's mouth curved very slightly. "I shall see you when you return."

Eli adjusted his cap and set off toward the northern end of the port.

The military annex was busier than its modest size suggested. Ground transports moved steadily through the main vehicle checkpoint, while officers, technical personnel and civilian contractors passed through the pedestrian entrance with the determined expressions of people who had somewhere more important to be.

Eli joined the queue behind a lieutenant carrying two equipment cases and a remarkably large stack of requisition documents.

The security officer at the entrance appeared to be having a difficult morning. One of the identification terminals had stopped recognizing civilian contractor permits, and a maintenance technician was attempting to repair it while explaining to an increasingly irritated major that the problem could not be resolved by striking the machine.

Eli kept his expression neutral and waited.

The lieutenant ahead of him eventually turned around.

"Supply or administration?"

"Administration. Fleet correspondence."

"Unlucky bastard."

Eli smiled sympathetically. "That bad?"

"Depends who you ask. I've been trying to get these requisitions authorized since yesterday. First they tell me the approving officer's been transferred, then they tell me the replacement hasn't arrived, and now apparently the entire department has been moved to another building." The lieutenant glanced at the cases at his feet. "If I have to carry these things across the base one more time, I'm going to requisition a repulsorlift just for myself."

Eli had heard variations of that complaint in enough Imperial installations to appreciate the universal appeal of inadequate administrative planning. He offered the lieutenant a few suggestions concerning the relative merits of delivering the cases personally versus leaving them at the receiving office and making the problem somebody else's responsibility.

The lieutenant appeared to find the second option particularly attractive.

By the time they reached the checkpoint, they were discussing the inexplicable tendency of procurement departments to insist that urgently required equipment could only be ordered using forms that nobody actually possessed.

The security officer barely glanced at Eli's package.

"Identification."

Eli presented his card. The officer passed it through the terminal, compared the displayed information with his face and returned it without comment.

"Purpose?"

"Fleet correspondence. Personal forwarding."

"Building four. Second entrance on the right. Don't use the main administration door; they've got work crews in there."

Eli thanked him and stepped through the checkpoint, suppressing the rather undignified satisfaction of discovering that his first attempt to reenter an Imperial military installation in months had involved considerably less effort than applying for a commercial landing permit.

The lieutenant caught up with him on the other side.

"You know where building six is?"

Eli consulted the directory displayed beside the entrance and pointed toward a service road running behind the barracks. "Other side of the vehicle depot. If you're lucky, you can cut through the maintenance yard."

"You're a lifesaver."

"Don't mention it."

They parted company at the next intersection, and Eli continued toward the postal facility.

He had forgotten how much time Imperial officers spent walking between buildings.

The Imperial Mail Processing Division occupied an unremarkable two-story structure adjoining the main administrative complex. A loading platform ran along one side, where several droids were transferring sealed containers into a military transport, and the entrance displayed an impressive collection of notices concerning prohibited articles, revised delivery schedules and the consequences of submitting improperly completed forms.

Eli stopped to read the latest additions.

Personal correspondence intended for personnel whose assignments had changed was now being forwarded through a central fleet distribution authority. Parcels addressed to officers serving under restricted operational orders required verification by the receiving authority before final delivery. Items intended for personnel whose current assignments could not be established would be held pending further instructions.

That last provision was not particularly reassuring.

He went inside.

The reception area smelled of recycled air, packaging materials and the faintly unpleasant remains of somebody's breakfast. Three clerks occupied a long counter behind which stacks of parcels competed for space with terminals, document trays and an elderly sorting droid whose malfunctioning manipulator arm appeared to be generating more work than it completed.

The queue was relatively short, although the man at the front was engaged in an increasingly complicated discussion about a package that had apparently been sent to the wrong sector three times.

Eli joined the line and examined the surroundings while pretending to read the notices on his datapad.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about the place. He had visited dozens of offices just like it during his time in the Navy, usually because somebody aboard the Chimaera had decided that the Grand Admiral's aide was uniquely qualified to resolve an administrative problem that everyone else had failed to understand. He remembered one particularly tiresome afternoon spent recovering a consignment of replacement uniforms that had been forwarded to an orbital shipyard in an entirely different sector.

Thrawn had found the incident mildly interesting.

Eli had not.

The lieutenant in front of him finally completed his transaction and left with a receipt, a collection of revised forms and an expression suggesting that he had lost the will to live.

Eli approached the counter.

The clerk was a thin human woman whose hair had been pulled into a tight bun. She accepted his documents without looking up.

"Name and department?"

"Aide Junior Grade Varrin. Fleet administration. I need to forward a parcel to Admiral Faro."

The woman's fingers stopped moving.

"Assignment?"

"Personal correspondence. Forwarding through fleet distribution."

"I meant yours."

Eli supplied the administrative designation on his identification card and placed the package on the counter. The clerk entered the information, examined the address and frowned.

"There's no destination."

"Her current assignment isn't available to the sender."

"Then you'll need a forwarding authorization."

"Isn't that what the fleet distribution service is for?"

"Not if the recipient's assignment is restricted."

Eli had been expecting something of the sort. He leaned forward just enough to examine the information displayed on her terminal, without appearing to take an undue interest in the rest of her work.

"Can you establish whether her correspondence is still being handled by central distribution?"

"I can establish that the destination field is incomplete."

He smiled pleasantly.

The clerk did not.

"Look, I've got a parcel that's already been forwarded once, a sender who doesn't have access to military assignment records, and an admiral whose current posting I'm obviously not authorized to disclose. I don't particularly want to know where she is. I just want to put this into the system so somebody who does know can deliver it."

The woman considered him with the expression of someone who had heard precisely the same argument from considerably more important people.

"That doesn't change the procedure."

"Then what does the procedure require?"

She turned the terminal toward him and highlighted the relevant section.

An authorization code from the originating administrative office, or a verified reference from the receiving command.

Eli examined it.

The first option was inconvenient. The second was impossible without knowing where Faro was currently stationed, which rather defeated the purpose of employing a central distribution service in the first place.

He read the regulation again, paying particular attention to the exceptions.

"There's a general fleet forwarding category."

"That's for correspondence with no operational restrictions."

"Precisely. This is personal correspondence addressed to an individual. The recipient's operational assignment may be restricted, but there's nothing restricted about the contents."

The clerk looked at the package.

“Fruit?”

“Apparently”

“Apparently?”

“I’m forwarding it, not eating it.”

That earned him the first indication that the woman possessed a sense of humor, although she suppressed it almost immediately.

The clerk rolled her eyes with the universal disdain of bureaucrats everywhere. “Every officer acts like they’re royalty. Last week someone tried to mail a tooka.”

“That sounds… problematic.”

“It was dead,” she said.

Eli blinked. He was beginning to understand why the woman had so little patience left for anyone in uniform. She took the package and examined the shipping label.

“Where’s it come from?”

“Private courier. It was handed over for military forwarding during transit.”

"Original sender?"

"Recorded on the accompanying note."

She opened the inspection field on her terminal and entered the information. Eli watched her work, careful not to display any particular interest in whether she accepted his explanation. The package was ordinary enough that he doubted anyone would investigate its commercial history unless given a reason, but he would rather not discover the limits of that assumption while standing in an Imperial installation under somebody else's name.

The clerk finally shook her head.

"I can't put it through without authorization. General forwarding doesn't cover restricted recipients."

She pushed the package back across the counter.

For a moment, Eli seriously considered accepting defeat, taking the box and leaving. He could find another postal facility, another garrison or some sufficiently obscure courier service that would be delighted to charge him an extortionate fee for the privilege of losing his correspondence somewhere between here and Coruscant.

Unfortunately, he had already invested rather too much effort in this particular operation.

"Who's your supervising officer?"

The clerk's expression hardened.

"Lieutenant Dresk. But she'll tell you exactly the same thing."

"I'm sure she will. I'd still like to speak with her."

Lieutenant Dresk was not especially pleased to be summoned from her office.

She emerged carrying a datapad and wearing the expression of someone whose morning had consisted of an uninterrupted succession of problems that could have been resolved by reading the relevant regulations.

"What seems to be the difficulty?"

Eli introduced himself and explained the situation in terms that were sufficiently concise to avoid irritating her further. A personal parcel had been entrusted to him for forwarding to a senior officer whose present assignment was not available to the sender. The local office had declined to accept it without a destination code that could only be obtained by knowing the recipient's assignment.

Dresk examined the label.

"Admiral Faro."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Which command?"

"That information wasn't supplied."

She looked at him.

Eli maintained a perfectly respectful expression.

"I understand the difficulty, ma'am. Unfortunately, the original sender isn't in a position to provide a current military destination, and I don't believe we're supposed to disclose operational assignments merely to facilitate the delivery of preserved fruit."

Dresk looked at the package again.

"Preserved fruit?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Something in her expression suggested that this was not the most ridiculous problem she had encountered that morning, although it might have been a reasonably strong contender.

She took the clerk's terminal, entered a supervisory authorization and brought up the fleet correspondence directory.

Eli watched her expression change.

"Of course."

He recognized that particular tone.

"Problem, ma'am?"

"Her last recorded distribution authority was reassigned three weeks ago. Half its personnel files haven't been transferred to the replacement command." Dresk examined the record more closely, then opened a second directory. "And apparently the replacement command hasn't acknowledged receipt of the previous distribution archive."

Eli resisted the urge to express an opinion concerning the current state of Imperial administrative competence.

Dresk continued examining the records, growing visibly less pleased with each successive screen.

"Wonderful. She's still registered for personal correspondence through central distribution, but the forwarding authority hasn't been updated."

"Then the parcel can be accepted under the existing registration?"

"It can be accepted," Dresk replied, emphasizing the distinction. "Whether it reaches her promptly is another matter."

"I believe the sender would prefer a delayed delivery to having it returned without even attempting one."

"Most of them do."

She entered an authorization, attached the general fleet forwarding designation and returned the terminal to the clerk.

"Register it under central distribution. No local destination. If the forwarding authority hasn't been updated by the next dispatch cycle, hold it for the following one."

The clerk nodded and began completing the documentation.

Dresk handed Eli his identification card.

"Next time, have the originating office complete the forwarding paperwork before you bring it here."

"Of course, ma'am. Thank you for your assistance."

She gave him a look that suggested he had just made a very optimistic assumption about the existence of a next time.

Then she returned to her office.

Eli waited while the clerk finished registering the package. The terminal generated a shipping record, assigned the parcel to the next available fleet correspondence dispatch and requested confirmation of the sending office.

He supplied the appropriate administrative reference and watched the information appear on the screen.

The clerk checked it, printed the shipping label and attached it to the box.

"Anything else?"

"No, thank you. That's everything."

She handed him the receipt.

"Central distribution. Dispatch scheduled for tomorrow morning, subject to availability. Don't come back here asking why it hasn't arrived."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Everybody says that."

Eli smiled, collected his documents and stepped away from the counter.

The package went onto a conveyor belt behind the sorting station, where a droid transferred it into a container already half full of personal correspondence. A lieutenant's carefully wrapped birthday present disappeared beneath a stack of padded envelopes, followed by the two jars of Lysatran quince and whatever other peculiar articles Imperial personnel had decided to send their friends and relatives.

The container continued toward the sorting room.

Eli watched it disappear through the doorway.

That was it.

He had delivered the package. Everything that followed depended on people he did not know, operating a distribution network whose own supervising officers appeared uncertain about its current organization.

He had also acquired a useful piece of information: Faro remained registered in the central military correspondence system, although nobody in this office seemed to know which authority currently handled her mail.

Not exactly a breakthrough.

But considerably more than he had known an hour ago.

He encountered the unfortunate lieutenant from the checkpoint on his way out.

The man was coming from the opposite direction, now carrying only one of his equipment cases and looking considerably happier than he had an hour earlier.

"Got it sorted?"

Eli held up his postal receipt. "Eventually. You?"

"Left the requisitions with the receiving officer. Told him if his department wanted the equipment moved somewhere else, they could arrange transport themselves."

"Excellent decision."

"They're probably going to file a complaint."

"Then you'll know they've received the documents."

The lieutenant laughed, and they continued toward the main entrance together. Eli listened while the man complained about the state of fleet procurement, contributing an occasional anecdote from his own experience and taking care to keep the details sufficiently vague. It was an unexpectedly pleasant conversation, helped considerably by the fact that neither had any reason to be suspicious of the other.

At the checkpoint they parted company, the lieutenant heading toward the military transport depot while Eli returned to the commercial district.

He did not look back until he was well beyond the annex.

Only then did he become aware of how much he had enjoyed himself.

That was an uncomfortable realization.

There had been no interrogation, no particularly difficult deception and no elaborate performance required beyond presenting himself as an ordinary junior officer dealing with an annoying administrative assignment. He had complained about regulations, sympathized with another officer's bureaucratic difficulties and persuaded a lieutenant to help him resolve a problem that was, from her perspective, entirely legitimate.

And for a little over an hour, he had almost forgotten that none of it was real.

He adjusted the package receipt inside his jacket and quickened his pace.

By the time he reached the Faded Glory, the commercial port had entered its afternoon rush. Freight vehicles moved between the landing pads, a transport shuttle was unloading passengers at the adjoining terminal, and a crew of maintenance technicians had surrounded the unfortunate cargo lifter that had been causing trouble when they landed.

Eli passed it with some satisfaction.

Apparently not everybody had managed to resolve their problems as successfully as he had.

The Faded Glory's ramp was closed when he approached. He transmitted the agreed identification code and waited while the new locking assemblies disengaged, producing a succession of mechanical clicks that sounded considerably more reassuring from this side of the hatch than he imagined they would to anyone attempting to force it open.

Tee was waiting inside.

The droid greeted him with an enthusiastic series of electronic comments, several of which Eli suspected concerned the rather alarming appearance of its owner in Imperial uniform.

"Yes, it's me. No, I haven't rejoined the Navy. And I would appreciate it if you didn't make that noise every time I come home wearing something unusual."

Tee expressed its opinion of that proposition and rolled away toward the cockpit.

Stent appeared a moment later, looking rather more composed than the droid.

"Successful?"

Eli extracted the postal receipt from his jacket and handed it over.

"Accepted for central distribution. They're supposed to dispatch it tomorrow morning, assuming somebody remembers which department is responsible for forwarding an admiral's personal correspondence."

Stent examined the document while Eli removed his cap and ran a hand through his newly shortened hair. He was looking forward to getting out of the uniform, although he was considerably more pleased to have returned without attracting the attention of anyone who might remember his face from the old days.

"Did you obtain any information concerning her current assignment?"

"Nothing reliable. They have an active registration for personal correspondence, but apparently the office responsible for forwarding it has been reorganized and nobody's updated the records." Eli began unfastening his jacket. "Lieutenant in charge managed to get the parcel accepted, though. Rather helpful woman, once she stopped treating me like an idiot."

Stent looked up. "An active registration is encouraging."

"It's better than having it returned as undeliverable. Doesn't tell us much else, unfortunately."

He took the receipt back and placed it with their other documents. The dispatch reference would allow him to establish whether the parcel had entered the central distribution network, although he doubted the system would provide any useful information beyond that. Once military correspondence reached a restricted forwarding authority, its movements generally disappeared from the ordinary tracking services.

Still, it was considerably preferable to discovering that the package had been rejected outright.

Eli removed his jacket and draped it over the back of a chair.

"Well, I've had enough of the Imperial Navy for one day. How are we doing for departure?"

Stent had already obtained a provisional commercial clearance. With the cargo delivered and their outstanding fees settled, there was no particular reason to remain on Jiruus beyond the time required to collect their next contract. Eli considered the available options for a moment, then decided that looking for work could wait until he had changed into something more comfortable and eaten a proper meal.

He was halfway down the corridor when Stent called after him.

"Eli."

He turned.

"Your performance appears to have been entirely satisfactory."

Eli looked at him, then at the Imperial jacket hanging from the chair.

"Coming from you, that's practically a medal."

Stent's expression remained perfectly serious, although there was something suspicious about the slight movement at the corner of his mouth.

Eli shook his head and continued toward his quarters.

The package was out of their hands. By the following morning, with a little luck, it would be on its way through the Imperial military postal system, and eventually somebody might deliver it to Admiral Faro.

For now, he had a legitimate cargo payment in their account, an entirely respectable postal receipt and a temporary HoloNet mailbox that he intended to check rather more frequently than was probably good for him.

He could live with that.