Chapter 65 · The Rebel Whisper

They were between jumps when the distress call came through.

A weak signal, cut in half by static, barely more than a whisper against the background noise of the void.

Eli was monitoring the comm bands when it flickered onto his screen.
“—Mayday, freighter Helda’s Grace, registry four-one-two-nine. Systems failing. Request assist—”

Then it cut out.

He adjusted the filters, pulling the signal apart until he found the tail end of the transmission — a steady pulse from an emergency transponder. The coordinates scrolled onto the nav display.
“Twenty five minutes from here,” he said.

Stent looked up from the copilot’s station. “Off route.”

“Barely.”

“Barely is unnecessary.”

Eli glanced over at him. “It’s a distress beacon, not a sales pitch.”

Stent didn’t answer right away. He turned back to the screen, reviewing the telemetry with meticulous calm. “Signal strength indicates the ship has been adrift for hours. Probability of survivors is minimal.”

Eli leaned back in the chair. “You’re quoting statistics again.”

“Statistics are reliable.”

“People aren’t.”

“Which is precisely why we avoid them,” Stent said.

They sat in silence for a moment. The hum of the Faded Glory’s reactor filled the space between them.

Eli’s gaze drifted to the viewport, to the endless field of stars. “You remember the pod,” he said.

Stent’s jaw tightened. “Irrelevant.”

“It’s not irrelevant. We took a chance, and it worked out.”

“An anomaly. You mistake fortune for wisdom.”

Eli smiled faintly. “That’s what keeps us alive.”

“Luck is not survival,” Stent replied.

Eli keyed the course adjustment before the argument could calcify. “We’ll just take a look. If it’s empty, we move on.”

Stent’s silence stretched, deliberate, like a held breath. Then, flatly: “So it will be.”

The Faded Glory turned toward the coordinates.

When they dropped out of the sub-hyperspace course, the wreck was waiting.

The Helda’s Grace drifted alone, caught in the light of a pale star. Her hull was pocked and twisted, her dorsal plating peeled away in ugly curls of metal.

Eli felt something cold settle in his stomach. “No transponder reply. Core’s cold.”

Stent’s readings came in a second later. “Reactor breach. Radiation levels at lethal proximity. This ship has been dead for hours.”

Eli frowned at the damage pattern. “Looks deliberate. Not an explosion — focused hits. Someone carved her open.”

Stent zoomed the image. Black scoring lined the freighter’s midsection, too neat for chance. “Laser fire. Sustained.”

“Pirates?”

“Or something more organized.”

Eli watched the silent wreck turn slowly in the dark, the broken cargo doors yawning wide. “No escape pods. No distress buoy. Whoever hit her didn’t want witnesses.”

Stent’s voice was even. “Our curiosity is satisfied.”

“Not yet,” Eli said quietly.

The Faded Glory coasted closer to the wreck until the debris field filled the viewport. Fragments of hull plating tumbled slowly past, flashing in and out of starlight like dying embers.

“Radiation spike climbing,” Stent said. His voice was calm but clipped. “We are too close.”

Eli adjusted the filters, squinting at the readouts. “Still within safe tolerance. I just want a clearer scan.”

“The clarity you seek will come with exposure,” Stent replied. “We should log the coordinates and leave.”

Eli didn’t answer. The main display showed a cluster of rotating metal shards, remnants of cargo struts and plating. Between them floated smaller objects—unrecognizable, caught in slow drift.

“Look at that pattern,” Eli murmured. “Hull breaches are all starboard side, sequential. Whoever hit them came in from above and walked the guns straight through.”

“A tactical assessment will not alter the outcome.”

“Maybe not,” Eli said, “but it tells us what kind of people we’re dealing with.”

Stent turned his head, the faintest hint of exasperation in the gesture. “Eli Vanto, this is not our concern.”

“It might be. If someone’s hitting ships along the Namadii, we should know who.”

“Our mission does not include investigative detours.”

“Neither did yours when Ba’kif, or was it Ar’alani? pulled you out of the Expansionary Fleet,” Eli muttered.

Stent’s gaze flicked toward him, unamused. “Do not presume to interpret the Ascendancy’s methods.”

Eli sighed. “Fine. But we’re here now.”

They drifted in silence for a few seconds. The ship’s scanners ticked quietly as they updated, the radiation slowly spiking toward the red.

Then Stent said, almost absently, “There.”

Eli looked up. “What?”

“Portside, fifteen degrees. Below the main debris cluster.”

Eli leaned forward, following the line of Stent’s gaze. At first he saw nothing but twisted wreckage, light glinting off torn durasteel. Then, as the ship’s rotation caught the angle, something small reflected back — a curved dome, half-charred, spinning end over end.

Eli blinked. “That’s a droid.”

Stent adjusted the magnification. “Astromech unit. I’d say it is a model from the R-series. Significant hull damage.”

Eli stared at him. “You can tell that from here?”

“The markings are faint, but visible,” Stent said, as if that explained everything.

Eli huffed a quiet laugh. “I’ll never get used to those eyes of yours.”

“I was not aware adaptation was required.”

Eli ignored him, zooming in on the target. “If it’s an astromech, it’s probably got a record of what happened.”

“Assumption.”

“Educated one.”

Stent didn’t blink. “We are not retrieving debris. The ship is irradiated, unstable, and irrelevant.”

Eli hesitated, watching the droid tumble slowly through the void. “Maybe. But it’s the only witness we’ve got.”

“Then let the witness remain silent.”

Eli’s hands hovered over the thruster controls. “Or we can find out who silenced it.”

“Eli—”

“Just a closer look. That’s all.”

“The next statement will be ‘just a rescue,’” Stent said dryly.

Eli smiled faintly. “You’re learning how this works.”

Stent’s sigh was almost inaudible. “You are incapable of restraint.”

“Guess that makes us even,” Eli said. “You’re incapable of curiosity.”

The Chiss didn’t answer, but the faint tightening of his jaw said enough.

Outside the viewport, the dead droid kept spinning — small, silent, and waiting.

Eli’s fingers hovered over the control board. The droid’s shape kept tumbling in the debris field — a dull, cracked dome catching flashes of pale light. It looked small, lost, harmless.

But something about it felt wrong.

“I’m sending a ping,” Eli said.

Stent’s tone was pure disapproval. “To what end?”

“To see if it’s still alive.”

“Machines do not live. They function or they do not.”

“Fine,” Eli muttered, “to see if it still functions.”

He keyed the short-range transmitter and sent a signal burst: a standard R-series wake command. The pulse rippled out into the dark.

Nothing.

Eli frowned. “No response.”

“Then the matter is settled.”

“Or,” Eli said, “the receiver’s damaged.”

Eli sent another ping, this one on an older frequency. For a moment, the comm line hissed with static—then a burst of high-pitched chirps and trills answered back. Short. Compressed. Urgent.

He frowned and tapped the console. “That wasn’t static.”

The ship’s translator kicked in, decoding the binary bursts into flat Basic on the auxiliary display.

DON’T CALL FOR HELP. THEY’LL KILL ANYONE WHO ANSWERS.

The words appeared once, lingered, then vanished as the signal cut.

Eli and Stent stared at the screen.

Eli’s voice dropped to a whisper. “That came from the droid.”

Stent’s expression didn’t change, but his tone thinned. “It was not transmitting distress. It was warning.”

“Or hiding,” Eli said softly.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it felt watchful.

Eli exhaled slowly. His voice, when it came, was quieter than usual. “It was not transmitting distress. It was warning.”

Stent’s eyes were fixed on the droid, as if trying to decode it. He blinked and turned to the navigation console, prompting the computer with the coordinates for their next destination.

“Or hiding,” Eli added.

“Machines do not hide,” Stent replied. “They follow commands.”

“Then someone told it to keep quiet.”

“That is not our concern. It may be bait”

Eli looked back to the viewport. The little speck of metal still turned slowly among the drifting wreckage, its dome catching light like a blinking eye. “Maybe not. But whatever told it to hide also left this ship looking like a dissected carcass.”

Stent’s expression barely shifted, but the faint twitch of his jaw betrayed irritation. “Your instinct is to reach for danger.”

“My instinct,” Eli said, “is to make sure it doesn’t reach for us first.”

Stent’s gaze returned to the screens, the course calculation already in the way. “Then the appropriate action is withdrawal.”

Eli hesitated, his fingers brushing the control lever. “Or investigation.”

The droid’s signal flickered again — a faint binary pulse, no translation this time. Three bursts, evenly spaced, like a heartbeat. Then silence.

Stent watched it, eyes narrowing. “It is waiting for something.”

“Maybe us,” Eli said.

“Then it is intelligent enough to be dangerous.”

Eli let out a short, humorless laugh. “That’s what people used to say about Thrawn.”

Stent’s stare hardened. “Thrawn did not drift half-dead in the void.”

“Point taken.”

The soft ping of the targeting scanner filled the cockpit, steady as breath. Outside, the debris turned, and the small astromech spun lazily in the cold — silent, patient, aware.

Eli’s hand stayed on the controls. “If it wanted to warn someone, it chose us. I think we owe it a look.”

“Debt,” Stent said flatly, “is a human obsession.”

“Guess you’ll have to keep studying us, then.”

Stent didn’t answer, but his gaze stayed locked on the tiny figure beyond the glass — as if even he, for a moment, wondered what it was hiding from.

The standby lights bathed the cockpit in amber while the droid’s signal pulsed faintly on the scanner — three dots, then silence.

Stent sat on the pilot’s chair, hands on the controls. “I will state it once,” he said evenly. “We are not bringing that thing aboard.”

Eli didn’t look up. “It’s a droid, not a plague.”

“An unknown machine recovered from a destroyed vessel that warned us not to respond.”

“That just means it’s smart,” Eli said, fingers dancing over the controls. “Look, we’ve been running calculations manually for days. A functioning astromech could shave hours off each jump.”

“Our jumps are precise.”

“They’re slow.”

“Accuracy outweighs speed.”

“Tell that to the next customs frigate we have to outfly.”

Stent’s expression barely shifted, but the tilt of his head said enough. “Efficiency does not require sentimentality.”

Eli sighed, shutting off the sensor feed. “It’s not sentiment. It’s common sense. An astromech’s navigation package alone is worth more than half this ship.”

“Then salvage it later,” Stent said. “From a market. Not from a graveyard.”

Eli turned in his chair to face him. “You think taking it counts as theft?”

Stent’s tone didn’t change. “Theft is defined by claim, not conscience. Somewhere in this sector, an owner’s registry still lists that droid as property. On this side of the galaxy, such things matter.”

Eli smiled faintly. “You’re worried about ethics now?”

“I am concerned with complications. Every time we acquire something that isn’t ours, we inherit the attention it draws.”

“Then we don’t broadcast it,” Eli said. “We pull it in, scrub the registry, and pretend it’s been here all along.”

“That is deceit.”

“That’s practicality,” Eli said. “You’re not the only one fluent in efficiency.”

Stent studied him for a long, silent moment. “You are determined to disobey my recommendation.”

“Not disobeying,” Eli said, flicking the docking controls. “Just making a tactical adjustment.”

“Semantics.”

“Words I learned from you.”

The Faded Glory’s forward claws extended with a metallic sigh. Through the viewport, the astromech turned lazily, almost aligning itself with the ship’s slow approach.

Stent’s eyes narrowed. “It is cooperating.”

“Maybe it’s as tired of drifting as we are.”

“That is not an answer that inspires confidence.”

The claws closed gently around the droid. The moment it touched the hull, its faint beacon died. No signal, no light. Just a small, blackened dome resting against the airlock rim.

Eli watched the readouts stabilize. “Pressure equalized. Radiation contained. We’re good.”

Stent didn’t move. “If it powers on unexpectedly, we eject it immediately.”

“Fine. But if it helps us plot a cleaner route through the Namadii, you owe it an apology.”

“I do not apologize to machines.”

“Then you’ll have to practice on me instead.”

That earned him a single, thin exhale that might have been a sigh.

They left the cockpit together. The corridor lights were dimmed, humming softly as the ship adjusted for new mass.

Stent’s voice followed him down the narrow passage. “You trust too easily.”

Eli glanced back. “No. I just prefer not to leave potential answers floating in space.”

“Answers are irrelevant when one forgets the question.”

Eli smiled faintly. “Then remind me what ours was again.”

Stent didn’t reply, but his look said it clearly enough: Find Thrawn. Nothing else.