Chapter 86 · Priority Signal

Stent moved before anyone else understood what was happening.

One moment he was seated in the crew section, silent and composed; the next, he crossed the cockpit with a force Eli had only ever seen him use in combat drills. His hand locked onto the navigator’s shoulder and hauled him out of the chair with a single, efficient motion.

The man twisted in surprise, trying to pull free, but Stent’s grip didn’t budge. He pinned the navigator against the bulkhead with his forearm braced across the man’s chest—firm but measured, enough restraint to immobilize without crushing.

“Navigator,” Stent said, voice low and contained, “you will explain why you are delaying the jump.”

The man’s breath hitched. “I—I’m not—”

Stent applied the slightest increase of pressure. Not a threat. A consequence.

“You are lying,” he said simply.

Eli pushed himself out of his seat and approached the console. “Hold him. Don’t let him near anything.”

“That is already the case,” Stent replied without looking up.

Eli leaned over the nav display. The coordinates hadn’t been tampered with—no corrupted vectors, no altered values—but the final commit sequence was untouched. The navigator hadn’t input a single confirmation since takeoff. He wasn’t struggling with the calculations.

He was stalling.

Eli’s stomach tightened. “He didn’t try to sabotage the system. He was waiting.”

The navigator shut his eyes briefly, shoulders slumping in Stent’s hold. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Eli snapped his head up. “What did you—”

He didn’t get to finish.

A sharp alert flashed across the cockpit console, bathing the panels in red.

PRIORITY SIGNAL — KLYSSOS COMMAND.
LAMBDA T–41, HALT IMMEDIATELY.

The pilot swore and grabbed the throttle with both hands.

The fourth Rebel jerked in alarm, glancing between the unconscious nav station and the viewport. “You’ve got to be kidding me—how did they already—”

“They were warned,” Stent said, finally releasing the navigator just enough for him to slump to the floor. “Moments ago.”

Eli’s pulse hammered in his throat. “He must have sent a ping the moment we cleared the hangar.”

The pilot didn’t wait for permission. “Everyone hold on.”

He shoved the engines into full thrust. The shuttle jumped hard, the inertial dampers complaining as they climbed away from the station.

Outside, the faint glint of TIE fighters began to spill from Klyssos’s launch racks like angry insects.

And the nightmare began to take shape.

The shuttle pitched hard to port as the pilot fought for a clean escape vector, the stars outside tracing arcs through the viewport. Behind them, Klyssos loomed like a steel blossom unfolding into death — hangar doors yawning open, TIE racks emptying in neat, terrible lines.

Eli caught only fragments of the view before the nav console demanded his full attention. The ship shuddered as the pilot pushed her engines into a region most engineers would have filed under “don’t.” Warnings flared in orange arcs across Eli’s display; he dismissed them with swift, practiced gestures.

“Come on,” Eli muttered, half to the nav computer, half to himself. “Give me something stable…”

The course projection jittered, recalculated, jittered again.

They were still too close to the gravity shadow. And too close to the incoming fighters.

A sharp metallic thump echoed behind him, followed by the scrape of boots on deck plating.

Eli didn’t turn. He didn’t have to. Stent was dealing with the traitor. He trusted Stent to handle it with the efficiency of a man trained in a fleet where hesitation meant death.

Another scuffle. A muffled grunt. The dull sound of someone being forced to the floor.

Eli’s jaw tightened, but he kept his eyes on the screen.

He needed thirty seconds of straight vector. He didn’t have three.

The first volley from the TIEs streaked past the portside windows — green lances of coherent light slicing through vacuum with silent menace. The pilot cursed as an indicator turned red on his display.

“Shields holding,” he said, not sounding convinced. “But they’re not going to for long.”

“Then don’t let them hit us,” Eli replied through gritted teeth.

The pilot shot him a look. “Brilliant advice, Lieutenant! Any other wisdom?”

“Fly straighter.”

“We’re being shot at!”

“That doesn’t change the math!”

The pilot swore again, but steadied the ship.

Outside, the TIEs tightened their formation.

Eli felt the shift — the subtle dread of trained precision. This wasn’t just pursuit; this was a net closing.

Eli forced the nav computer through its last cycle. “Five seconds,” he said. “I can thread us through if you hold this vector.”

The pilot nodded, face set and pale. “Holding.”

Another barrage rocked the shuttle sideways.
One bolt scraped the starboard stabilizer, glare flooding the viewport for a heartbeat.

Eli swore under his breath. “That was close.”

“Close?” the pilot echoed. “Close was two minutes ago. This is suicide.”

A moment later, footsteps approached the cockpit.
Stent appeared, posture perfectly composed despite the chaos, brushing nonexistent dust off his sleeve.

“Is assistance required?” he asked.

The pilot barked a humorless laugh. “Not unless you can fly this thing and drink caff at the same time.”

“I can fly it,” Stent said simply. “Caff is unnecessary.”

Eli didn’t look up. “Stent, go sit down.”

Stent blinked. “I am offering aid.”

“And I’m telling you to sit down,” Eli said, stabbing a finger toward the rear compartment. “The pilot has it.”

The copilot nodded emphatically. “You’re very blue and very calm, my friend, but unless you’ve logged flight hours on a Lambda under fire, stay out of the chair.”

Stent considered this with a dignity that made the moment strangely surreal. “I have flown one before.”

“Great,” the copilot said, “but not this one. Let us work!”

Stent hesitated — just for a breath — then stepped back. “Very well.”

Eli didn’t have the bandwidth to parse whatever odd expression crossed Stent’s face. He only heard the soft retreating footsteps and breathed a hair easier.

The next wave of TIEs spread out, creating a pincer movement that would drive the shuttle into an intercept arc.

Eli saw it all in a glance — the angle, the encroaching gravitational curve, the narrowing corridor of escape.

He keyed in the jump-lock, fingers flying so quickly he risked mistyping through sheer desperation.

“Two seconds,” he said.

“Two?” the pilot shouted. “Two is nothing!”

“It’s what we have!”

A final blast clipped the rear shields. The lights flickered. The nav computer chimed.

Eli grabbed the hyperspace control. “Jumping!”

“Do it!”

The stars stretched, whitened—

—and the Lambda tore itself into hyperspace with a bone-deep shudder, the violence of the transition rattling every loose component onboard.

Then, just like that, silence.

Not peace.

Just the absence of noise.

The kind that leaves room for what comes next.