Chapter 60 · First flight

Once they cleared the atmosphere, the silence deepened into the smooth hum of hyperspace prep.
Eli leaned back, looking around the cockpit—the wide canopy of stars, the steady hum of working systems, the gentle lag of the inertial dampeners. “She flies like nostalgia,” he said.

Stent adjusted a display. “She flies adequately.”

“Which is better than we’re used to.”

“Comfort introduces inefficiency.”

“Spoken like a man who’s never had legroom before.”

Eli checked the coordinates, his hands settling easily on the controls. The readouts glowed steady blue. For the first time in months, everything worked the way it was meant to.

Behind them, Lysatra dwindled to a small gold spark against the black.

Eli watched it for a long time. “Feels strange leaving again.”

Stent didn’t look up. “Attachment is expected. The environment was stable.”

“Home, you mean.”

“If you prefer that word.”

Eli smiled faintly. “Tomorrow, we’ll be closer to the thing keeping us from Lothal.”

Stent made a small adjustment to the console. “Then tomorrow is already efficient.”

Eli chuckled, settled into the pilot’s chair, and eased the levers forward.

The stars stretched, and the Faded Glory jumped—
leaving behind the plains, the hangar, and the man waving at the edge of the world.

By the second day, the silence felt almost civilized.

Not the strained quiet of the Mynock, where every sound meant a system complaining, but a living calm—engines humming steady, bulkheads creaking like an old house that had finally remembered how to breathe.

The Faded Glory was larger than they’d ever needed, and she knew it.

Corridors stretched wide enough for two people to walk side by side without touching shoulders. Doors actually opened without having to push them, in fact, there were doors actually. Eli kept losing track of which way led to the galley and which led to the cabins, but he didn’t mind. Getting lost felt like luxury.

Stent didn’t approve of the space.

He spent the first twenty hours mapping every system, labeling panels that were already labeled, and rewriting the inventory in Chiss shorthand. By the time Eli finally fell asleep, Stent had reorganized both the bridge and the emergency locker.

The next morning, Eli found him standing at the stove.

“Didn’t know you cooked,” Eli said, still half-asleep.

“It is not a routine activity,” Stent replied, adjusting the heat with measured care. “However, your rest cycle remained uninterrupted. It was… efficient to proceed without you.”

Eli blinked, then huffed a quiet laugh as he moved past him toward the counter.
“Look at that—new kitchen and suddenly everyone’s a chef.”

He reached for the caff maker, flicking it on. The machine responded without protest—a novelty in itself.
“Guess it’s easier when the stove doesn’t actively try to kill you.”

He leaned against the counter while it warmed, half-watching Stent move through the small space. There was a difference, subtle but there—less rigidity in the way he adjusted the controls, less of that constant micro-correction that usually defined him. Not relaxed, exactly. But… unpressed.

Eli turned to the supply crates, prying one open and rummaging through what Laro had packed. Real food—grains, vegetables, something that might be meat, wrapped and sealed with more care than strictly necessary. He paused, fingers resting on the edge of the crate, a faint smile tugging at his mouth as the memory of the tarmac surfaced—Laro standing there, arms crossed, pretending it wasn’t a send-off.

“Guess my brother didn’t want me starving out here.”

Stent inclined his head slightly, though his attention remained on the stove. “That would be an inefficient outcome.”

“Yeah,” Eli muttered, softer now, before straightening and pulling out a container. “Wouldn’t look good on the mission report.”

Water came to temperature with a soft click. Stent measured portions with quiet precision, movements economical but no longer abrupt. The rhythm of it settled into the space—controlled, but not tense. Within minutes, the galley smelled… warm. Not rich, not particularly inviting, but unmistakably alive in a way ration paste never managed.

Eli retrieved his caff, leaning back against the counter again as he watched.
“You know,” he said, voice light, “this is dangerously close to domestic.”

Stent didn’t look up. “It is functional.”

“Mm,” Eli hummed, unconvinced, taking a sip.

When Stent placed a bowl in front of him, Eli straightened slightly, eyeing it with mild suspicion—as though it might still reveal itself to be some elaborate miscalculation. It didn’t resemble anything he’d eaten in the Ascendancy, nor anything from home. Something in between. Or neither.

“Try it,” Stent said. “It’s food. Not ration paste.”

Eli lifted the spoon, gave it a brief inspection, then took a careful bite. He chewed slowly, expression flattening with deliberate neutrality.

“Adequate,” he said at last.

He held the pause just a fraction too long, then took another bite, still studiously composed. The corner of his mouth threatened to give him away.

Across from him, Stent slowly lifted his spoon, watching him.

Eli swallowed, then added, with a touch more gravity than necessary, “Acceptable nutritional profile. Structurally sound.”

A beat.

“…might even qualify as food.”

This time, he didn’t quite manage to suppress the smirk. He straightened a little as he spoke, consciously echoing Stent’s cadence—flattening his tone, clipping the words just enough to turn the assessment into something almost clinical.

A poor imitation, maybe. But recognizably his.

Stent glanced at him briefly—sharp, assessing—and then returned his attention to his bowl. But there was a faint delay in the movement, a fraction of a second that didn’t align with pure efficiency.

Eli noticed.

And, for once, didn’t comment.

The day settled into pattern.

Eli handled navigation and the small maintenance tasks that kept his hands busy—minor recalibrations, system checks that didn’t strictly need doing but gave his thoughts somewhere to go that wasn’t… elsewhere. The ship responded well to it. Predictable inputs, predictable outputs. Clean.

Stent occupied the rest of the silence. Diagnostics, code adjustments, a full rewrite of the power-distribution routines that—according to him—improved efficiency by four percent. He recalibrated the inertial compensators twice, not because they required it, but because the margin existed.

Eli didn’t argue.

By the time the artificial lights dimmed into evening cycle, the ship had settled into something close to equilibrium.

Eli reclaimed the common room without asking. He dragged a chair to the viewport and sat with a mug of reheated tea, watching starlight bend faintly along the hull as they moved through it. The vibration beneath his feet was steady now—no jitter, no strain. Just motion. Controlled. Intentional.

For the first time in months, it didn’t feel like survival.

They were traveling.

He heard Stent before he saw him—the soft, measured shift of a chair against the floor. Not abrupt. Not precise enough to be purely functional. Eli glanced over his shoulder.

Stent had taken the seat at the table.

In his hands was a small box Eli hadn’t seen before—plain, compact, the kind of thing designed to be carried without notice. He opened it with careful economy and withdrew a narrow strip of fabric.

Tan. Almost beige. Unremarkable—until the thread caught the light.

Cerulean. The color of the Kres family.

Eli stilled slightly. That shade wasn’t accidental. He’d seen enough, heard enough, to recognize it. Not all blues were equal among the Chiss. Some carried weight. Some marked position. Lesser families got different shades of blue—muted, desaturated variations that never quite reached this depth. Colors that blended, that receded, that did not insist on being seen. Distinctions measured in nuance rather than brightness, but distinctions all the same.

That’s how chiss were. Nothing accidental or without hierarchy.

He didn’t comment.

Stent adjusted his posture—not rigid, but aligned—then threaded a needle with steady fingers. He paused once, consulting his questis, the display casting a faint blue reflection across the cloth. Then he began.

The motion was slow. Deliberate. Each stitch placed with the same measured intent he applied to code or calibration—but without urgency. No optimization loop. No correction.

Just repetition.

Eli turned in his chair, attention caught despite himself.

“…didn’t know you did that either.”

“It is not a priority activity under standard conditions,” Stent replied. “The current circumstances are… suitable.”

Eli shifted a little closer, resting his elbows on his knees, watching the pattern emerge. The shapes overlapped—lines intersecting, folding into each other, repeating with variation. At a glance, it looked decorative. A border. A greca.

But it wasn’t.

“Is that writing?” Eli said after a moment.

“It encodes meaning through positional layering,” Stent corrected. “Each form corresponds to a phonetic and conceptual unit. They may be superimposed without loss of structure.”

Eli squinted at it.
“So… you’re writing. Just sideways. And on top of itself.”

“A simplification.”

“What does it say?”

That made Stent pause.

The needle hovered above the fabric—not hesitation, exactly. Selection.

Then he resumed.

“It is not intended for external interpretation.”

Eli huffed softly. “Figures.”

He leaned back a fraction, but didn’t look away.

“…so what is it, then? A log?”

“No.”

“A message?”

“No.”

“A diary?”

Another stitch. Then another.

The cerulean thread traced its path across the neutral cloth, building something that resisted immediate meaning.

“It records alignment,” Stent said at last.

Eli tilted his head. “Alignment of what?”

Stent adjusted the fabric minutely, ensuring the tension remained even.

“Current state,” he said. “Cognitive. Behavioral. Situational.”

Eli blinked once.
“That is the most complicated way anyone’s ever said ‘how I’m doing.’”

“It is not narrative,” Stent replied. “It does not recount. It reflects.”

A beat.

“It allows for correction,” he added.

Eli let out a quiet breath through his nose, something between amusement and reluctant understanding.

“Right,” he said. “A self-assessment you can’t argue with.”

Stent did not respond.

Eli lifted his mug, taking a slow sip, eyes drifting between the viewport and the steady, methodical movement at the table.

“…and the color?” he asked, casual—too casual.

Stent’s gaze flicked down briefly, as if acknowledging the thread for the first time since he’d started.

“It is appropriate,” he said.

Not an explanation.

Not quite an answer.

Eli let it go.

He leaned back into his chair, letting the silence settle—not empty, just… occupied. The ship hummed around them, systems balanced, course steady. The stars moved in slow arcs beyond the viewport.

At the table, the cerulean thread continued to build something that looked like decoration.

And wasn’t.

Eli watched for a while longer, the faintest hint of a smile lingering—not quite amusement, not quite understanding, but something quieter.

Not survival.

Not quite rest.

But something close enough that neither of them felt the need to disturb it.