Chapter 23 · Cam’co Station

The Icekestrel emerged from hyperspace with a low, rippling shudder that passed through the hull like breath drawn after long silence. Stars steadied on the forward displays, their scattered light forming the curved halo of Cam’co Station.

From his viewport, Eli watched the outpost grow—an intricate wheel of silver and gray panels stitched together by luminous docking arms. It wasn’t large by Imperial standards, but it was alive. Too alive, perhaps.

The traffic lanes around it were busy with patrol craft and freighters, yet what struck him was the absence of civilian ships. The few that drifted between the Chiss vessels all bore the crests of the Ruling Families etched proudly into their hulls: the six-pointed symmetry of the Mitth, the curved sigil of the Irizi, the spiraling glyph of the Boyna. Allegiance, literally engraved in metal. No neutral colors, no independents.

He leaned forward, the faint vibration of the ship beneath him. Civilian presence existed here only under supervision. It made sense. The Ascendancy didn’t do anarchy.

The Commodore’s voice sounded over the comm: “All personnel for surface inspection, report to Docking Bay Two. Commander Thykor will lead the delegation.”

Eli glanced at Larache. “Commander Thykor?”

Larache adjusted his sleeve, always the model of calm. “Patrol Command Division. Formerly Mitth Fleet. You will address him formally.”

“Do I ever not?”

“Frequently, sir,” Larache said without looking up.

Docking Bay Two buzzed with quiet precision. Commander Thykor, tall and dark-skinned even by Chiss standards, greeted the inspection team with clipped gestures. His uniform bore the faint silver trim of tactical command, his hair cropped in the angular style of field officers.

“Mid-Lieutenant Zieliv,” Thykor said when Eli reported. “You’ll accompany Ensign Larache. Documentation and verification of transfer lists. Minimal conversation.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“Good. The less you talk, the faster this ends.”

That, Eli reflected, was probably the Chiss version of hospitality.

The docking seals hissed open, and cold light spilled from the station’s corridor beyond.

Stepping into Cam’co Station felt like walking into a different world entirely. The air carried warmth, faint humidity, the tang of recycled water and too many occupants. The corridors curved gently instead of meeting at sharp military angles. Rounded walls, broad doorways, and soft lighting gave everything an organic sense of design, though he could tell each section was built from identical modules. Utility disguised as elegance.

This was his first look at civilian Chiss architecture—or as civilian as a frontier colony could be.

Naporar had been all corners and glass, an academy built on symmetry and order. Cam’co looked as though someone had taken that perfection and let it breathe a little.

He paused at a viewport, watching service shuttles glide through open space between the station’s arms. “Rounded shapes,” he murmured, half to himself. “Feels… softer.”

Larache’s red eyes flicked toward him. “Rounded shapes disperse stress evenly,” he said, as if reading from a manual.

“Still,” Eli said. “Feels different.”

“Different is not always preferable.”

“Noted,” Eli said dryly, but he couldn’t help smiling.

The deeper they went, the louder it became.

Sound—not mechanical hum or intercom chatter, but the living noise of people. The corridor ahead echoed with overlapping voices, snatches of conversation in Cheunh and something else—familiar yet twisted. A dialect. The words slurred differently, the pitch rising where he didn’t expect. He caught phrases, then lost the thread again.

He looked to Larache. “That’s Cheunh or am I having a stroke because I understand nothing?”

“A regional form,” Larache said. “I cannot follow it either.”

“You don’t speak any dialects?”

Larache’s tone stayed neutral. “I am from Csilla. We are taught standard.”

“So the rest of the galaxy speaks… regional?”

“The rest of the galaxy,” Larache said evenly, “speaks incorrectly.”

That was that. Eli turned around to hide his smile.

As they approached the station’s main concourse, the sound shifted again. It wasn’t speech this time, but music—a slow, layered harmony rising from an open hall somewhere ahead.

Eli stopped, listening. The notes were low, dissonant, resolving only at long intervals, a structure that seemed to stretch across breaths instead of bars.

“Chiss singing?” he asked quietly.

Larache nodded. “The station choir. Every major installation maintains one.”

“Even the Fleet?”

“Of course.”

Eli remembered. There had been a choir at the Academy too—one for every graduating year, their performances marking the cycle’s end. There was one aboard the Icekestrel as well, rehearsing in the observation bay on off-cycles. He’d heard them once by accident, their voices echoing down the corridor, the sound alien and human all at once.

It made sense now. Group harmony wasn’t art to the Chiss—it was discipline, math set to breath.

“I’ve never been invited,” he said, more to himself.

Larache looked faintly puzzled. “Do you wish to be?”

Eli shook his head. “Not really. Singing’s never been my thing.”

“Then you have avoided additional duty,” Larache said, which Eli suspected was the closest a Chiss could come to humor.

“You do sign?”

Larache paused for a moment, as if evaluating how to respond to this. “I do” he said, going for the simplest way, although conveying this wasn’t his thing either.

Commander Thykor reappeared at the head of the group. “Verification completed. We move to Administrative Hall.”

Eli fell back into step beside Larache. Still getting used to the smell of the station; for all its life, it was still a construct built for function.

He caught sight of a group of civilians crossing the opposite corridor—their clothes marked with different House symbols - be either by colors or sigils-, small variations in cut and braid that the eye could miss unless trained to see them. He tried to decode the pattern, but gave up. It was like trying to read a living equation.

Still, he noted the feeling it gave him—an intuition that under the smooth politeness of the Ascendancy, competition was geometry disguised as order.

The inspection team reached the administrative ring, where airlocks led into the station’s inner districts. Commander Thykor dismissed the group, assigning shifts for the following day.

Eli caught Larache’s eye. “You ever been here before?”

“Once,” the Ensign said. “Briefly.”

“Thoughts?”

Larache considered. “It is warmer than necessary.”

Eli laughed softly. “That’s… a start.”

He followed Larache toward the guest quarters the Fleet had been allotted—narrow rooms arranged along a curved corridor that overlooked the docking arms. The lighting dimmed gradually to simulate dusk.

Eli stopped by the viewport, watching small shuttles drift through the docking grid. The Family crests glimmered faintly against the black, each one a promise of belonging he still didn’t quite understand.

He found himself whispering, “You’d like this, Thrawn. There’s pattern in everything here, even the noise. Well, you probably had been here before.”

Larache glanced at him but said nothing. The hum of the station filled the silence instead, soft and oddly human. Well, chiss.

He began to notice the civilians first by their hair. On the Icekestrel, the uniformity of military grooming left everyone nearly indistinguishable at a distance. Here, variation was the rule.

Older men and women wore their hair long, some braided, some tied back loosely. Younger adults let it fall to shoulder length in gentle layers. A few had shaved patterns cut into their sides — small geometric symbols that looked almost like personal signatures. It was mesmerizing, a visual map of age and perhaps status.

He found himself wondering whether there were codes here, too — something subtle that said civilian, artisan, scholar, child.

The younger ones fascinated him most: teenagers with cropped, practical cuts, some even sporting the sharp undercuts reminiscent of cadets. It made him wonder if those were the children of Fleet officers stationed here, or if this was simply a stage in growing up Chiss.

They passed a line of food stalls in the concourse — orderly, of course, yet somehow cheerful. The smell of hot grain, mineral broth, and something faintly sweet drifted through the air.

Then Eli stopped. A small group of children darted past, no older than seven or eight by human standards, moving in perfect formation behind a tall caretaker who carried a cluster of questis. They wore the same clothes, tunics and pants on the same color, not military, but functional enough to blend in.

Further down, a boy of perhaps thirteen stood on a stool behind a merchant’s counter, operating a small payment console while two adults discussed prices. He looked entirely confident, focused, and unhurried.

Eli slowed. “Larache… is that—are they working?”

Larache followed his gaze. “Performing tasks, yes.”

“Tasks? That’s a child.”

“Yes.”

Eli frowned. “That’s not… normal. In the Empire, children don’t work. It’s illegal. Well, in the Core it is. Although in the outer rim… well, that happens.”

Larache’s red eyes narrowed slightly, confused. “Illegal? Why?”

“Because they’re supposed to study, play, grow before they have to worry about this kind of thing.”

“Study,” Larache repeated. “So that they may one day work?”

“Well—yes, but—”

“Then the distinction is sentimental.”

Eli blinked. “Sentimental?”

Larache nodded calmly. “Children in the Ascendancy are part of their community from birth. Each is assigned duties according to capability, never beyond it. Tasks teach contribution, not servitude.”

Eli stared at him. “So… child labor is just—what, integration?”

“Integration,” Larache confirmed, apparently pleased by the translation. “We do not isolate maturity as a sudden condition. We build it in increments.”

Eli couldn’t help smiling at that. “That’s… strangely efficient.”

“It is,” Larache said. “And it prevents confusion later.”

“I think I prefer confusion,” Eli muttered, but his tone held no judgment—only curiosity.

They continued walking, the noise of the concourse swelling around them again: voices in several Cheunh dialects, laughter, argument, the hum of commerce. The words still slipped past him, too fast, too tonal. For a moment he was transported back then to when he was a child, walking by his dad on one of these foreign ports where he was allowed to disembark with him.

One vendor shouted what sounded like a greeting; Eli half-understood the phrase “Warm returns to your duty,” though the accent bent it.

Larache didn’t translate; he simply inclined his head in polite acknowledgment.

“You understood that?” Eli asked.

“Enough to respond,” Larache said. “Dialectal variance is tolerated here. It is considered provincial but not improper.”

“So… regional accents,” Eli said. “We have those too.”

Larache raised an eyebrow. “You still do?”

Eli chuckled. “Apparently.”

At the end of the concourse, Commander Thykor dismissed the team to individual assignments. “Administrator Lathare will receive the Fleet delegation at midday,” he said. “Report to the upper offices for verification logs before then.”

Eli and Larache were left to themselves, the corridor suddenly open, the hum of conversation rising to fill it.

He looked around once more at the crowds, the light, the voices, the hair shimmering like living geometry, and thought, So this is what the Ascendancy looks like when it isn’t at attention.

He found it oddly beautiful.

They took one of the outer corridors that curved toward the colony’s agricultural section. Light panels along the ceiling shifted in hue as they walked—warm amber, then pale green—mimicking the color rhythm of a day that never really existed here.

Eli found the detail oddly touching. For all their engineering precision, the Chiss still built beauty into function.

Beyond the next junction lay the trade promenade, the part of Cam’co where civilians mixed freely with Fleet personnel. Rows of stalls curved along the arc of the wall, their owners standing behind counters of polished alloy. The air smelled faintly of heated nutrient paste and the mineral tang of preserved plants.

That was when Eli noticed her.

She couldn’t have been more than six or seven by human measure, small and straight-backed, hair cut in a simple line at her shoulders. She stood behind a low enclosure containing several small, furred creatures—something between a bird and a mammal, soft gray with trembling antennae. Her chin lifted each time someone came near, eyes fierce, protective.

Eli slowed to watch as a tall adult Chiss approached, spoke a few words, and gestured toward one of the animals. The girl crossed her arms, gave an unmistakably stern answer, then reached into the cage and produced a questis to check a list before nodding permission. The adult took the creature, paid, and left. The child returned to her post, shoulders squared, expression one of utter seriousness.

Eli smiled. “She looks like she just negotiated a major treaty.”

Larache followed his gaze. “Apprentice,” he said simply.

“So she’s working.”

“She is learning the duties of her community,” Larache said. “That stall belongs to a family collective. She will one day manage her own sector.”

“She looks proud.”

“She is,” Larache agreed. “Pride is the root of reliability.”

Eli watched the little girl adjust the feed tray for the remaining animals, her hands careful, deliberate. The creatures responded to her presence as if she were gravity itself. He couldn’t help but laugh softly. “Stars, she’s adorable. And terrifying.”

“Efficiency and emotion coexist at that age,” Larache said without irony. “It fades later.”

“I suppose it does.”

They lingered a moment longer before moving on.

Eli’s steps were slower now. He had been ready to object earlier—to call it child labor, to see exploitation. But the girl’s pride, the careful dignity with which she guarded her small responsibility, had changed something in him.

The integration wasn’t a system of control; it was belonging made tangible. Each task—whether tending creatures or carrying messages—was a visible thread tying the child to her people.

He realized how different that was from Imperial upbringing, where children were measured, classified, and assigned to academies long before they learned what they valued. The Chiss began with value and let duty grow from it.

He turned to Larache. “You said earlier they give children tasks suited to their skills. Who decides what those are?”

“The community elders,” Larache said. “Usually educators. The assessment is continuous. When the task no longer challenges, it changes.”

“So no single defining exam, no rank or title to prove worth?”

Larache gave him a mild look. “No. We do not grade existence.”

Eli barked a quiet laugh. “In the Empire we did little else.”

“Perhaps that explains your fascination with equations,” Larache said, perfectly calm.

“Touché, Ensign.”

They turned down another corridor, where the noise faded to the hum of ventilation and the rhythmic clatter of distant machinery. Eli thought about the children he’d seen—groups moving in ordered play, others running errands with tiny datapads in hand. Every one of them was seen, acknowledged, part of the machinery of life here.

“I think I understand now,” he said finally. “Integration isn’t just about work. It’s… identity.”

Larache inclined his head. “It is the first lesson we learn. We exist within the community, not beside it.”

Eli nodded slowly. “It’s a good lesson.”

“For some,” Larache said. “Others find it restrictive.”

“Like Thrawn.”

The Ensign gave a brief, neutral blink. “Like some,” he allowed.

They reached the administrative levels where the walls grew smoother, more metallic, the lighting more formal. The chatter of the concourse faded behind them, replaced by the controlled quiet of bureaucracy.

Eli glanced back once toward the trade ring, where the little girl still stood at her post, hands folded, the faint movement of the gray creatures visible through the transparent cage wall.

He smiled again, this time with no trace of irony. There was something admirable about a culture that trusted its children with small lives before trusting them with ships.

Larache spoke as they walked. “Integration gives stability,” he said. “Every Chiss grows with an understanding of place. That is why we fear disorder.”

“Because it erases place,” Eli said softly.

“Yes.”

They continued in silence, the air between them filled not with awkwardness but with thought.

He thought of the little girl, proud and fierce, guarding her small world in rhythm with the universe, and for the first time, the Chiss ideal of harmony made perfect sense.