Chapter 71 · The Net

Her gaze lingered on Stent, her shock not entirely fading. “You shouldn’t look like that,” she said at last, tone almost accusatory. “No one does. Not anymore.”

Eli’s curiosity sharpened. “You recognized him fast. Most people just see the skin color and make assumptions or fail at identify the species. You knew who he reminded you of.”

“I was Navy,” she said shortly. “You learn the faces of flag officers, especially the ones who could end your career with a glance. He looks like Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

“Still,” Eli pressed, “Thrawn was careful. Only his bridge crew ever got close enough to remember him like that.”

Her eyes flicked to him, narrowing. “You sound like you were there.”

Eli didn’t blink. “Maybe I was.”

The air thickened for a beat. Somewhere outside, a crane groaned, dragging a rusted hull across gravel.

She folded her arms. “He’s dead, you know. The whole Seventh. Gone at Lothal.”

“Gone?” Eli asked softly. “Or destroyed?”

She hesitated, studying him. “Destroyed. Pulled apart by the same Rebels he spent years chasing. The Chimaera, the escort destroyers, the entire command net — none of them came back. Fleet command called it ‘lost with all hands.’ That’s all anyone knows.”

Eli’s voice stayed calm, but there was a new weight beneath it. “And yet, here you are — ex-Navy, working for people who would’ve shot you once. So maybe you know more than you’re saying.”

She gave a dry laugh. “If I did, I’d have sold it a long time ago. Whatever happened over Lothal, it burned more than ships. It burned every connection that made the Empire make sense. Especially after Yavin.”

Eli tilted his head. “Then maybe we can help each other.”

Her expression flickered between caution and curiosity. “What kind of help are we talking about?”

“The practical kind,” Eli said. He nodded toward Tee. “That droid’s full of intelligence data. We brought it here to hand off to the right people. But I’d rather trade it — for information about the Seventh. Anything that isn’t propaganda.”

She shook her head slowly. “You think I have something worth that?”

“I think you’ve got something no one else does. You knew the man’s face. You served close enough to hear the rumors, the things command didn’t put in the reports.”

Her jaw tightened. “And if I tell you what I know, what happens to me?”

“Depends on what you say.”

That earned him a small, sharp smile — the kind of smile that belonged to someone who’d survived far too long on bad odds.

She looked away first, the motion sharp but restrained. “You’re chasing ghosts,” she said. “Whatever you think you’ll find in the ashes of the Seventh, it’s not worth it. That Grand Admiral is gone. The fleet’s gone. All that’s left are stories and wreckage.”

Eli’s voice was quiet. “You sound like you were there.”

“I watched the feeds,” she said. “The Rebels called it a victory. Command called it classified. I call it a massacre. The Chimaera was the last ship seen over Lothal’s orbit. Then nothing. The sky went white.”

Her voice softened, almost reluctantly. “After that, they started cleaning house. Everyone connected to the Seventh got reassigned, investigated, or quietly disappeared. I decided I liked breathing and took my chances out here.”

Eli studied her, measuring the sincerity in the bitterness. “So you defected.”

“Defected?” she repeated, a dry laugh escaping. “No one defects. You just stop showing up to work one day and hope the Empire’s too busy killing someone else to notice.”

He let that hang, then said, “You served under Commodore Faro?”

“Close enough.” She hesitated, fingers tapping lightly against the metal desk. “I served under Admiral Faro for a year. She had her own task force by then — independent operations along the Rim. Sharp woman. Fair, by Imperial standards. She got reassigned after I left.”

“Left,” Eli repeated. “Not transferred.”

Rinna’s expression hardened. “Defected. If you want to call it that.”

He tilted his head. “Before or after Lothal?”

“Before,” she said. “When the orders came down to redeploy the Seventh, everyone knew it wasn’t a patrol. The Empire doesn’t move that much hardware for mop-up duty. Lothal had gone dark — some kind of organized cell, new command structure, big enough to make High Command nervous. I didn’t wait around to see how that ended. I had friends still on those ships.”

Eli studied her. “Then you were lucky.”

“Lucky,” she said softly, tasting the word like something sour. “Sure. Let’s call it that.”

Her eyes sharpened. “How do you know that name, Commodore Faro. She’s an Admiral now. Your intel is old.”

“Rumors.”

Her gaze flicked to him, she wasn’t buying it. “You talk like someone who’s seen the inside of a Star Destroyer but didn’t stay there.”

Eli hesitated just long enough for it to sound real. “I served on the Chimaera. IT. Left before the end. The Empire didn’t exactly appreciate people asking questions.”

Something in her expression shifted — not trust, but recognition. “Then you already know the truth,” she said. “The Empire eats its own.”

He smiled faintly. “I noticed.”

The silence stretched, filled with the hum of the outpost’s generators and the distant clang of metal. Rinna finally pushed off from the desk. “All right. You want to make this trade — droid for what little I know? Fine. But I’m warning you now, you’ll walk away with less than you think.”

“I’m used to that,” Eli said.

She gave him a sideways look. “You’ve got an odd way of asking for help.”

Eli’s tone stayed mild. “All the same, I’d like to hear it from someone who was close enough to smell the fire.”

She nodded toward Tee. “Let’s see what your courier’s hiding. Maybe it’s worth something after all.”

Eli gave the droid a gentle pat. “You heard her, Tee. Showtime.”

The droid trilled softly, rolling forward toward the terminal — his tones quick and uneven, as though nervous or excited.

She crouched by the interface, fingers moving over the patched-together keyboard. “You ever think,” she said, not looking up, “that the galaxy’s just one long loop of people digging through old mistakes?”

Eli’s mouth quirked. “All the time.”

“Then maybe this is just another one.”

The monitor flickered, its display filling with scrolling code and the faint pulse of an encrypted data block.

Rinna leaned closer. “Project Harvest, huh?”

Eli felt something cold settle in his gut. “Yeah. That’s the one.”

The terminal’s glow washed over Rinna’s face as the first lines of code unspooled across the screen. Tee’s dome tilted slightly, the lights on his interface ports cycling in uneven rhythm — anxious, expectant.

Rinna worked fast, her fingers moving with old precision. “Encryption’s Imperial — naval-grade, but layered with a civilian cipher.”

Eli frowned. “Meaning?”

“Meaning whoever did this wanted it to look Rebel, not Imperial. That’s not easy to fake.”

She paused, studying the strings of code racing down the display. “Checksum drift… heavy redundancy. It’s been copied a few times.”

Tee beeped once, a sharp, eager sound.

Rinna muttered, “Easy, little one. You’ll get your big reveal soon enough.”

Eli crossed his arms. “You’re sure this was Imperial work?”

“Positive. Nobody outside the fleet used this indexing structure. But the Rebel-style encryption was added after. Sloppy work, too — the kind that only needs to hold long enough to fool whoever tries to open it.”

Her tone went flat. “Which makes me think we’re the ones being fooled.”

Eli glanced at her. “You saying this is bait?”

“I’m saying this looks designed to be found.”

A tone chirped — low, metallic. The screen flashed once, then stabilized.

Rinna frowned and leaned closer. “That shouldn’t happen.”

Lines of data reassembled into new headers: PROJECT HARVEST – LOGISTICS REALLOCATION. Then, below that, a cascade of fleet codes: ship registries, convoy routes, classified designations.

Eli’s pulse quickened. “That’s Imperial fleet traffic.”

Rinna didn’t answer. Her hand hovered over the keyboard, uncertainty creeping into her composure. “There are many registry numbers. Someone has been storing ship movements for a long time.”

“How long?”

“It is linked to projects. Some old like Stardust. Second Sun… I haven’t heard of that one.”

Eli stepped forward. “Can you trace the shipments?”

“I can try—” She froze. “Wait. Look.”

The text on the screen distorted, repeating a single command line.

SIGNAL TRANSMISSION ACTIVE.

A quiet dread filled the shed.

“Someone wanted to trace who was accessing what. If I’m right, we just lit up on every listening post still tied to the Navy.”

Eli’s voice was low. “How long?”

“Too late to stop it.” Rinna’s tone was clipped now, her fingers hammering keys. “It’s transmitting through every active relay Tee’s ever touched.”

Tee let out a panicked burst of binary, his photoreceptor flashing red, trying to override himself.

Stent’s voice came from behind them — calm, measured. “So?”

“The droid triggered a broadcast. Unknown destination.”

She swore under her breath. “No. We triggered it. Harvest isn’t data — it’s a net. Every fool who opens it pings back to the Empire. They are harvesting us!”

Eli’s gut went cold. “So they know someone’s listening.”

“And they’ll send something to clean up whoever’s listening.”

The monitor flared crimson, filling the room with its glow.

The terminal’s static died in a sharp hiss. For a heartbeat, no one spoke — just the rasp of their own breathing and the low whine of Tee’s processor spinning too fast.

She glanced at the console’s dead display. “That signal’s already off-planet.”

Eli’s pulse kicked. “How far can it reach?”

“Far enough,” she said tightly. “Once it hits a fleet relay, Imperial command will flag it. They’ll start plotting a trajectory back to us right now.”

Tee let out a broken burst of binary — high, desperate, almost pained. His dome lights flickered erratically.

Eli dropped to a knee beside him. “Tee—stop. You’ll short yourself out.”

The droid’s body trembled, servos locking. Smoke curled from a scorched panel near his base.

“He’s trying to block the broadcast,” Rinna said, crouching beside them. “He’s rerouting through his own core—”

“Then he’ll burn his core out doing it,” Eli snapped. He yanked the interface cable free, sparks jumping across his hands. “Enough!”

The light in Tee’s photoreceptor dimmed to a faint blue. His frame sagged, a low whir fading into silence.

Rinna stood, jaw tight. “You just cut our only trace on where that message went.”

“I also kept him from cooking himself alive,” Eli shot back.

“Small mercies,” she muttered.

Outside, nothing had changed. The scrapyard lay as still as when they’d arrived—cranes motionless, torches dark, the distant forest unmoving beyond the fence. The silence pressed down heavier now, the kind that came before anyone realized they should be afraid.

Rinna looked toward the horizon through the grimy window. “Give it a few hours, maybe less. Imperial ships’ll start vectoring this way. Patrols first. Then something heavier to make sure.”

Eli exhaled, steadying his voice. “Plenty of time to be somewhere else.”

Rinna turned to him, eyes sharp. “Then I’d start moving, officer.”

Eli stiffened, caught off guard.

She gave a knowing smile. “You don’t lose that posture. Navy’s written all over you.” she pointed with her chin towards Stent “And you too” Rinna shoved open the door. “You just dragged the Empire to my front yard.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Eli said.

“Then maybe you’ll live through it again.” She glanced toward the rusted comm tower beyond the yard, jaw tightening. “They’ve raided this place before. Once they smell a signal, they don’t stop until they scrape the dirt clean.”

She grabbed a headset from the wall, already moving. “I’m going to try and purge the net, wipe every relay before they get a traceable lock. You two—” she pointed sharply toward the shipyard gates “—get gone. Now.”

Eli looked to Stent’s, calm amid the dread sensation of upcoming chaos.

“Time to go,” Stent called.

“Yeah,” Eli said grimly. “Before the storm lands.”