Chapter 177 · The Stupid Genius Plan

Berchest was only two days from Kiros.

Under almost any other circumstances, Eli would have spent part of the morning looking through the freight listings before they left. A short contract in approximately the right direction was good for the accounts, good for the commercial history attached to Horatio Figg and Ren Viros, and generally preferable to flying an empty hold across inhabited space.

This time he did not bother.

He sat at the galley table with the route open on his datapad while Stent finished breakfast opposite him. Two days, assuming an ordinary civilian jump profile and no delays at either end. The most efficient freight options added between eighteen hours and three days, depending on how charitable one felt about the phrase minor deviation.

Eli dismissed the listings. “We go straight there.”

Stent looked up from his cup. “I agree.”

That stopped Eli for a moment. “You agree?”

“Yes.”

“No argument about maintaining our commercial pattern?”

“Not for a journey of this length. We have completed legitimate work recently, the ship is not required to be under contract every time it moves, and accepting cargo solely to manufacture an explanation for a two-day journey would create more records than simply making the journey.”

Eli considered that, then closed the freight application completely. “That was disturbingly reasonable.”

“I generally attempt to be.”

“You generally attempt to make me explain why I want to do something first.”

“That is because you frequently improve your reasoning while defending it.”

Eli stared at him.

Stent continued drinking his tea, keeping an eye on Ch’eth, who emerged from the open cargo hold door, stopped on his hind legs and sniffed the air before dashing under the table.

“I liked you better when I thought you were doing that accidentally.”

“I was not.”

From beneath the table came a faint rustle, followed by the sensation of something climbing Eli’s trouser leg. He reached down before Ch’eth could progress much farther and extracted the small kivren from the folds of his clothing. Ch’eth objected immediately, twisting in his hands and trying to bite his fingers.

“No.” Another wriggle. “You have an entire ship.” Ch’eth stretched toward his lap. “Where are you hiding stuff now?” That accusation produced no visible remorse.

Eli deposited him beside Stent instead. The Chiss caught him automatically with one hand and allowed him to settle against his thigh, where Ch’eth curled into a compact shape and appeared to forget that Eli existed.

“Traitor,” Eli said.

Stent stroked one finger once along the animal’s back. “He prefers stability.”

“He prefers whoever is least likely to move him.”

“That is also stability.”

Tee rolled past the galley entrance and gave an inquisitive whistle. “We’re leaving as soon as we clear the berth,” Eli told him. “No cargo this time.”

Tee stopped. His dome rotated toward Stent. “No cargo,” Stent confirmed. The droid produced a suspicious descending tone.

Eli pointed at him. “Do not start. We are allowed to fly our own ship somewhere without getting paid for it.” Tee beeped again. “Yes, I understand that this is inefficient.”

Stent glanced down at Ch’eth. “You have become predictable.”

“I live with an analytic mind and a droid who has developed opinions about our cash flow. Of course I’ve become predictable.”

The thought should have been funny enough to linger.

Instead Eli found himself looking back at the route.

Berchest sat behind them now as a confirmed negative: a contingency apartment that had remained stocked, powered and untouched through the years after Lothal. No hidden message. No secret secondary cache. No record of Thrawn ever activating the terminal. They had gone there hoping to find the beginning of a trail and instead had learned, with uncomfortable certainty, that the trail had not begun there.

Kiros was the next point.

Another set of coordinates. Another piece of infrastructure established before Thrawn vanished. Another place that might contain absolutely nothing.

Two days was short enough that Eli preferred to find out quickly.

He locked the datapad and stood. “Let’s go.”

—

The Faded Glory left Berchest with an empty cargo hold.

Eli discovered that he liked it. Not enough to abandon freight work, and certainly not enough to say so where Stent could interpret it as an argument against future contracts, but there was something pleasant about lifting from a port without a delivery timetable attached to them. No handling requirements, no consignee expecting an arrival window, no refrigerated containers waiting to become expensive if the environmental system developed opinions.

They were simply going somewhere because they had decided to go there. The sensation lasted approximately six hours before Eli began looking for things to do.

He checked the navigation solution twice, reviewed the latest business accounts, reorganized three folders on his datapad and finally went down to inspect the cargo bay despite knowing perfectly well that it contained nothing requiring inspection.

Stent found him there ten minutes later. “You are bored.”

“I am checking the tie-downs.”

“There is nothing tied down.”

“That makes it an excellent opportunity.”

Stent leaned against the hatch frame, arms folded loosely. His hair had grown enough over the last several weeks that the shape was beginning to resemble the style Eli remembered from the Ascendancy rather than the shorter cut they had maintained while keeping Ren Viros deliberately nondescript.

“You could review the Kiros files again.”

“I have.”

“The ship maintenance schedule.”

“Did that yesterday.”

“The accounts.”

“Six hours ago.”

Stent considered him. “You could sleep.”

Eli gave him a look.

“That was not intended as criticism.”

“It sounded like criticism.”

“You slept five hours.”

“Five and a half.”

“Five hours and thirty-seven minutes.”

Eli pointed toward the corridor. “Go away.”

Stent did, looking entirely too satisfied with himself.

—-

Kiros offered them no difficulties at all.

They cleared planetary control under the Faded Glory’s civilian registration and found a berth at one of the secondary spaceports serving the capital. The fees were unremarkable, traffic control processed them without comment, and nobody showed more interest in Figg and Viros than was required to assign them a landing pad and collect payment.

The coordinates from Thrawn’s contingency files led to a suburban commercial district less than twenty minutes from the port.

Eli checked the address twice on the way there. “It’s a self-storage facility.”

Stent glanced at the same information on his datapad. “It is.”

Eli looked out through the speeder window at a succession of low warehouses, repair shops, wholesalers and vehicle rental yards passing beside the road. “Thrawn had a storage unit.”

“Apparently.”

“That may be the least impressive sentence I have ever said about him.”

“I do not believe impressiveness was one of the selection criteria.”

“No. Cheap rent and proximity to the spaceport probably were.”

The facility itself did nothing to improve the effect.

It occupied a long rectangular building behind a perimeter fence, with a paved loading area along one side and a row of smaller access doors along the other. The sign over the entrance had probably been brighter when it was installed. Nothing was neglected, exactly, but nothing had been spent merely to make the place attractive either.

The security, on the other hand, was better than Eli had expected.

The outer gate required an account code before it would admit a vehicle, and a second check waited at the pedestrian entrance. Cameras covered the approaches and loading areas without obvious blind spots. The doors were reinforced, the locks commercial-grade rather than household hardware, and the access system kept individual records for each unit.

Not military security. Not even close. But for a civilian facility storing furniture, business inventory and whatever people accumulated faster than they could find room for it, it was respectable.

“There are easier places to break into,” Eli said as they crossed the parking area.

“That is usually sufficient.”

The reception area was empty.

A service droid sat behind a low counter, its casing marked with the facility’s logo, while beside it a freestanding terminal offered account access, payment services and directions in six languages. There was no human attendant, no office door behind the desk and no sign suggesting that anyone was expected to arrive later.

The droid turned its head as they entered. “WELCOME. PLEASE ENTER YOUR CUSTOMER IDENTIFICATION OR ACCESS AUTHORIZATION.”

Eli entered the code from the contingency file.

The terminal paused for less than a second. “AUTHORIZATION ACCEPTED.”

A facility map appeared. Building Three. Lower level. Corridor C. Unit C-47.

The droid rotated slightly toward the interior doors. “UNIT C-47 IS AVAILABLE FOR CUSTOMER ACCESS. ENVIRONMENTAL STATUS: NOMINAL. ACCOUNT STATUS: PREPAID.”

Eli stopped. “Prepaid?”

He touched the account information.

The original contract had offered the usual monthly rental, but that option had been declined. Instead, the unit had been purchased outright under a perpetual storage agreement, with maintenance and access rights included for as long as the facility remained in operation.

No recurring payments. No renewals. No future account activity required.

Stent read over his shoulder. “That eliminates a recurring financial trail.”

Eli nodded. “And means nobody ever has to remember to pay the rent.”

“Also useful.”

“Very Thrawn.”

They followed the map through the first security door.

The interior resembled every storage facility Eli had ever seen near a freight port, only cleaner. Long corridors ran between rows of numbered doors, interrupted by lifts and loading bays. Some units were large enough to hold the contents of an apartment. Others were barely deeper than a cupboard. Climate controls hummed behind the walls, and small status lights beside each door showed whether environmental monitoring was active.

A cargo trolley stood folded against the wall beneath a sign asking customers to return it after use.

Eli looked at it. Then at Stent.

“No.”

“I said nothing.”

“You were thinking it.”

“I was thinking that it would be useful if the unit contained something heavy.”

“That counts.”

The lower level was quieter. Their footsteps carried farther there, softened only by the constant background hum of ventilation. There was nothing secretive about the place; customers came here because they had too much furniture, seasonal business stock, household possessions between moves or crates they did not want occupying valuable space elsewhere.

That ordinariness worked in its favor.

They reached the correct corridor. C-47 was near the middle of the row.

Eli stopped in front of it. The door was narrow. He checked the dimensions displayed on the account. “Two meters by one.”

Stent nodded. “So after the apartment on Berchest, we have now graduated to a closet.”

“It is a storage unit.”

“Ok, so it is a closet with billing.”

The access panel requested the same secondary code listed in the contingency file. Eli entered it. The lock released with a solid mechanical click.

Before opening the door, Stent took out the scanner. Eli nodded. They had already agreed on that much after Berchest. The sweep found nothing beyond the building systems. No transmitter, no independent power source, no unexpected signal and no indication that anything had been attached to the door or frame. The access history available through the unit panel showed scheduled maintenance checks and no customer entry after the unit had originally been sealed.

Eli read the date carefully. Before Lothal. Whatever waited behind the door had been placed there before Thrawn disappeared. “So this does not tell us he came here.”

“No.”

Eli rested his hand on the handle. “Good to establish disappointment before opening it.”

“That seems unnecessarily pessimistic.”

“Berchest has adjusted my expectations.”

He pulled the door upward.

The unit was exactly as small as advertised.

Two meters deep, perhaps a meter wide, with bare composite walls and enough room for one person to stand between the stored items. There was no furniture and no attempt to make the space usable for anything except keeping property dry and secure.

Several sealed containers had been stacked neatly against the back wall.

A rolled sleeping mat stood upright beside them. A compact field pack rested on top of one case, still secured with its original straps, and two vacuum-sealed bundles occupied the narrow shelf above.

Eli stepped inside.

The first container held clothes.

They were packed by type and climate: shirts, trousers, thermal layers, underclothes, boots and a dark outer coat. Most were civilian, deliberately unremarkable and chosen to avoid any obvious Imperial association. The cut of several garments was less ordinary.

Stent lifted one sealed packet and checked the sizing. “His size?”

Eli looked at the label. “Yes.”

There was no reason for the discovery to affect him as much as it did. The clothing had been placed here before Lothal. It proved preparation, not survival. Thrawn had not worn any of it, had not opened the packet or stood in this tiny unit deciding what he needed next.

Still, Eli found himself running one thumb over the sealed fabric before putting it back. “Very practical.”

“That would have been the objective.”

“Civilian clothes, boots, something warm. Enough to walk out of here looking like almost anyone.”

“Not almost anyone.”

Eli glanced at him.

Stent indicated the size.

“Someone approximately two meters tall and blue would remain distinctive.”

“Thank you for preserving the realism of the scenario.”

The next case contained the sort of equipment Eli would have expected from a contingency cache: medical supplies, compact survival gear, sealed ration packs, a basic tool kit and several identity chips stored in protective sleeves.

None had been activated. Nothing had been used.

The third case was heavier. Inside were datacards. A great many datacards.

They were arranged in fitted rows, each labeled either in printed Cheunh or in the precise compact handwriting Eli knew immediately.

He crouched beside the box. “Navigation files.”

Stent leaned closer. “Regional intelligence. Technical manuals.”

Eli worked through several more. “Imperial infrastructure. Ship systems. Supply data. Political assessments.” Another stack. “Art catalogues.”

Stent looked at him. Eli held up one card. “Of course there are art catalogues.”

“They may have analytical value.”

“I know exactly what argument he would have made.”

“Then there is no reason for me to make it.”

“That has never stopped you before.”

The labels covered collections from several regions of the Empire, historical surveys, museum archives and reproductions of art traditions Eli recognized from conversations aboard the Chimaera. It was absurdly characteristic: faced with the possibility of isolation, Thrawn had apparently decided that emergency provisions should include enough material to continue studying civilizations while waiting for circumstances to improve.

Eli put the card back in its slot. “At least he was consistent.”

Beneath the datacard case sat a smaller metal container. Unlike the others, it had no external label. Eli tried to move it and immediately adjusted his grip. “That’s heavy.”

Stent crouched beside him and examined the lock. “Use the secondary code.”

“You are very confident.”

“It has worked twice.”

“That is how people become complacent.”

“Enter the code, Eli.”

He did. The lock opened. Eli lifted the lid. Then stared.

The upper compartment was filled with physical credit chits.

Not a few emergency denominations tucked into a pouch. Rows of them occupied fitted channels inside the case, most in high-value denominations and arranged with the same infuriating precision as everything else Thrawn had prepared.

Eli did a quick estimate. Then started again.

“That cannot be right. Three hundred thousand??”

Stent looked into the case. His expression remained almost perfectly controlled. Almost.

Eli turned his head. “Was that an eyebrow?”

“No.”

“It was.”

Stent ignored him and lifted the inventory card stored inside the lid.

Beneath the credits, separated by a protective layer, lay several compact bars of refined metal. Eli recognized platinum and rhodium immediately. A third had a faint blue-gray cast he could not identify, but the assay markings made its value obvious enough.

Stent finished reading the inventory.

Eli waited. “Well?”

“It is a considerable reserve.”

“How considerable?”

Stent looked at the case again. “Very.”

Eli began to laugh.

It escaped before he could stop it, quiet at first and then stronger as the sheer ridiculousness of the situation caught up with him. For months they had calculated fuel margins, chosen docking facilities partly by price, taken contracts because repairs did not care whether a job was interesting, and measured every interruption against how long their money would last.

Meanwhile, Thrawn had left a small fortune in a suburban storage unit twenty minutes from a spaceport.

Stent watched him. “I do not understand what is amusing.”

Eli gestured at the open case. “This.”

“It is an emergency reserve.”

“We are using our savings to look for Thrawn.”

“Yes.”

“And Thrawn left money in case someone needed resources during exactly this sort of contingency.”

“Yes.”

“So we can use Thrawn’s money to look for Thrawn.”

“That appears to be the intended function.”

Eli covered his mouth with one hand, trying unsuccessfully to regain control.

“That is the stupidest brilliant thing I have seen in months.”

“There is nothing stupid about it.”

“It becomes stupid when you say it out loud.”

“It remains sound contingency planning regardless of phrasing.”

Eli looked again at the rows of credit chits. “The stupid genius plan.”

Stent sighed. That only made it worse.

Once Eli had stopped laughing, they began treating the contents like what they actually were: resources.

The inventory card gave them a better idea of the total value than either had managed by looking at it. The physical credits alone amounted to a little over three hundred thousand, while the refined metals represented another substantial reserve whose precise value depended on where and how they were sold.

Eli sat back on his heels. “All right. Two hundred thousand.”

Stent looked at him. “Credits?”

“Yes. That gives us a more than generous operating margin that we can stop making every decision around the next invoice without emptying the reserve.”

Stent considered the figure for a moment. “Agreed.”

Eli gestured toward the lower compartment. “Half the metals too.”

Stent nodded.

“And the datacards,” Eli added.

This time Stent looked toward the larger case. “All of them?”

“All of them. Money can stay here. Clothes can stay here. Rations can stay here. But if those contain intelligence, navigation material, technical references or anything else Thrawn thought worth preserving, leaving them behind because carrying the box is inconvenient would be ridiculous.”

“The collection is extensive.”

“We own a cargo ship.”

Stent regarded the stacked cases for another moment, then stood. “I will get the trolley.”

“Good idea.”

Stent disappeared down the corridor. Eli remained inside the narrow unit, surrounded by the peculiar remains of a future Thrawn had planned for and never needed. He began sorting the credit chits.

Two hundred thousand sounded abstract until he started transferring it into one of the empty field bags. The denominations were large enough that the physical volume remained manageable, but the weight accumulated quickly. He counted twice, then once more because this was not the sort of arithmetic he intended to discover he had performed badly after leaving the planet.

The metals were easier. Half meant half. He divided the bars by type and weight, leaving each remaining stack as close as possible to the original distribution. Platinum, rhodium and the unidentified blue-gray alloy went into a second container, compact enough to carry but heavy enough that Eli immediately understood why the trolley had become necessary.

By the time Stent returned, Eli had arranged their share beside the datacard cases.

Stent pushed the folded cart into the unit and stopped. “You took all of them.”

“The datacards?”

“Yes.”

“I told you I was going to.”

“I had expected you to reconsider after lifting the first case.”

Eli looked at the two densely packed containers. “They're data.”

“They are heavy data.”

“That does not make them less useful.”

Stent unfolded the trolley. Between them they loaded the datacard cases first, then the credits and metals. The cart settled noticeably lower beneath the weight but remained well within its stated capacity.

Everything else stayed.

The civilian clothing went back into its original containers. The survival kit remained sealed. The med supplies, ration packs, sleeping mat and spare equipment stayed exactly where Thrawn had arranged them years earlier.

Eli stood at the entrance when they were finished and looked over the unit one last time.

They had taken a great deal. It still did not look stripped.

The place retained its purpose: if Thrawn somehow reached Kiros tomorrow with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, he would still find shelter equipment, food, basic medical supplies, spare clothing and enough money and material wealth to continue.

Less than before. But enough.

“We should leave a record,” Eli said.

Stent considered that. “The access log will show the unit was opened.”

“It won't show what we took.”

“That is true.”

Eli pulled an unused datacard from his own kit and recorded a short inventory: two hundred thousand credits, fifty percent of each refined-metal reserve, complete datacard collection removed for recovery operations. No explanation beyond that. No names. No sentimental message.

He left it inside the credit container.

If Thrawn ever opened the box, he would understand.

Stent pulled the storage door shut. The lock engaged with the same solid click it had made when they arrived.

For the first time since Berchest, they left one of Thrawn’s contingency points carrying more than information.

—-

Getting the trolley back through the facility proved less dignified than discovering a secret reserve.

The wheels were small, the lower-level floor had several expansion seams, and every one of them seemed determined to announce their passage with a hard metallic clack. Eli took the front while Stent pushed from behind, partly because the cart had developed a tendency to pull left under the uneven load.

They passed no one.

The automated station at reception registered their departure without comment. The service droid acknowledged the account access, reminded them to close the outer gate and wished them a productive day in exactly the same tone it presumably used for customers removing old furniture.

Outside, afternoon traffic moved along the suburban road.

Eli looked down at the cart. “This is going to take a while. I mean, going through this…”

Stent adjusted his grip as one wheel caught briefly on the edge of the pavement. “We have time while on hyperspace.”

The datacard cases went into the rear storage compartment. The metals followed, carefully positioned so they would not shift during the drive. Eli kept the credit bag with them rather than leaving that much portable money out of sight.

When everything was secured, Stent returned the trolley to the collection point near the entrance.

Then they drove back toward the spaceport, and the Faded Glory waited exactly where they had left her.

Tee had maintained the ship, Ch’eth had maintained whatever private campaign he was currently conducting against one of Eli’s socks, and the landing pad attendant had shown no interest in their absence.

Eli carried the credit bag up the ramp first.

Stent followed with the first datacard case.

They has to make several trips.

The metals went into the most secure storage compartment aboard the ship, buried beneath entirely legitimate freight equipment and maintenance supplies. The credits went into the lockbox they had previously considered more than adequate for their business funds and now discovered was much smaller than they remembered.

The datacards took longer.

There were too many to leave loose, so they cleared one section of the galley storage and transferred the cases there intact. Eli resisted the temptation to begin opening them immediately.

Barely.

When the last case was aboard and the ramp finally sealed, he stood in the middle of the corridor and looked around.

Nothing about the Faded Glory had changed. That was not entirely true. Their financial situation had. Their information had. And their search had just acquired several hundred physical pieces of Thrawn’s contingency planning.

Stent came up beside him. “We should catalogue the cards before selecting the next destination.”

“We will.”

“And verify the metals.”

“We will.”

“And revise the ship accounts.”

Eli looked at him.

“Tomorrow.”

Stent considered that reasonable enough not to argue.

Eli leaned against the bulkhead.

For months, every unexpected expense had been a calculation.

Fuel against food. Repairs against docking. Time spent searching against time spent earning enough money to continue searching.

Kiros had not told them where Thrawn was. It had done something almost as useful. It had removed one of the things that could force them to stop looking.