Chapter 100 · Stories No One Tells

They left the docks early, just after first light, when the city had not yet decided what kind of day it would permit. The streets still smelled faintly of coolant and dust, the heavy stink of refineries drifting slowly eastward in the wind. Eli signed out a rental speeder from a warehouse overseen by a clerk who looked half-asleep and fully uninterested. It was a small, unimpressive machine with peeling paint and a whining engine, which made it one of the safest things they could have possibly rented.

“No one notices junk,” Eli said as he swung a leg over the saddle.

Stent slid onto the rear seat without comment. “Visibility decreases with mediocrity.”

Eli grinned faintly. “See? You’re starting to understand traders.”

Tee beeped irritably from the dock ramp, as if offended he couldn’t ride with them.

“You stay and guard,” Eli said. “Please.”

Tee chirped a resigned farewell and retreated back into the Faded Glory.

Eli started the speeder. The engine coughed, sputtered, then held. Perfect.

They headed toward Capital City.

The capital’s central bazaar wasn’t lively; it was congested. Bodies moved through the stalls not because they wanted to, but because routine had become a survival instinct. Colorful banners fluttered weakly overhead, their once-vibrant fabric dulled by soot. The vendors shouted, but only enough to fulfill the performance of commerce, not the spirit of it. It all felt forced, brittle. A marketplace on the edge of breaking.

And above it all, always visible, always watching— Imperial overseers perched on raised platforms like carrion birds waiting for a stumble.

Eli slowed the speeder near the bazaar gate. “Looks lively,” he muttered.

“No,” Stent said. “It looks afraid.”

Eli parked beneath a tangle of wiring that hung from a broken streetlamp, the speeder settling into its rest with a disgruntled rattle. They stepped into the flow of the market, letting the noise swallow them.

Stent kept his hood low, posture calm, gaze drifting without ever staying still. Eli played the role of a weary trader well—too well, perhaps, given how naturally it came to him.

He bartered first at a ration stall, exchanging a small bolt of rough cloth for a bundle of sealed meal packs. The vendor’s eyes flicked back and forth between them and an Imperial trooper posted at the corner.

“You from offworld?” the vendor asked quietly, as if the question might be a crime.

“Yeah,” Eli said, casual. “Just passing through.”

“That so.” A pause. The vendor weighed his words carefully. “Then don’t stay long.”

Before Eli could respond, the man turned to his next customer, ending the conversation without ceremony.

Stent said nothing. He moved with him to the next stall.

They continued across the bazaar, buying a few odds and ends simply to justify hovering. Eli made small talk when he could, asking questions that sounded innocuous—weather, harvest shortages, supply routes—but beneath it he angled for something else: the shape of the city’s wounds.

Snippets drifted through the noise:

“…capital under curfew again—”

“…shipyards working day and night—”

“…stormtroopers arrested three last cycle—”

“…they say the mines aren’t mines anymore…”

Eli filed every fragment away.

Stent pretended not to notice, but Eli saw the small changes in him—the slight tightening at the jaw, the careful angling of his stance when stormtroopers passed, the way his eyes flicked not at their armor, but at their gait. Assessing. Always assessing.

“What do you think?” Eli murmured, pretending to compare two sets of cheap gloves.

“I think,” Stent said softly, “that this place has learned how to speak without moving its mouth.”

Eli exhaled a quiet breath. “And?”

“And you are asking questions in a city that fears the answers.”

Eli didn’t argue.

The bazaar swelled around them—voices, smells, colors, the forced hum of daily life performed under watchful eyes.

And somewhere beneath that noise, something else stirred.

Something beginning to notice them.

They wove deeper into the bazaar, letting the crowds absorb them. The noise didn’t feel natural; it felt staged, like a world trying to remember what ordinary life looked like after months of boots on its throat. Merchants called half-hearted prices. Children stayed silent. Even the animals tethered near feed stalls made more noise than their owners.

Eli lingered near a table of rusted tools, turning a hydrospanner over in his hands as if genuinely considering it. The vendor, a hunched man with oil-stained fingers, seemed grateful for a customer—any customer—if only for the appearance of normalcy.

“You hear any news from the outer settlements?” Eli asked lightly, as though making idle conversation.

The man stiffened. His eyes darted around before returning to Eli with calculated indifference.

“Depends on who’s asking.”

“A trader,” Eli said. “Looking for reliable routes. That’s all.”

The vendor made a sound that could have been a scoff or a sigh. “Reliable routes? Not since the… incident.”

“Incident?”

“You know. When the sky tore open. When half the fleet vanished.” He tapped the side of his head as if to knock loose the memory. “People been calling it ‘the battle that swallowed ships.’”

Eli kept his face neutral. “That bad?”

“Bad enough,” the man muttered. “Heard some say a Jedi did it. Summoned some beasts out of the void. Nonsense, of course.” He chuckled—a brittle, nervous sound. “Tall tales get taller every cycle.”

Stent stood just behind Eli, utterly silent. Eli didn’t have to look to know the Chiss officer had already filed the term Jedi away for dissection later.

“Appreciate the info,” Eli said.

“Didn’t give any,” the man replied quickly, already turning away.

They moved on.

At a grain seller’s stall, Eli paid for a small bag just to have an excuse to stand there. The seller handed it over with trembling fingers.

“What happened with that fleet, anyway?” Eli asked, voice pitched for casual curiosity. “People keep mentioning it.”

The seller shook her head so fast her braids rustled. “Don’t. Don’t ask that.” Her eyes flicked past him toward the street, where a pair of stormtroopers were questioning a group of teenagers. “I don’t know anything,” she whispered. “Nobody does. Or nobody wants to.”

She stepped back. Conversation over.

Eli sighed. “This is getting us nowhere.”

“Incorrect,” Stent murmured. “It is confirming the scale of suppression.”

Eli blinked. “That’s… bleak.”

“Accurate.”

They reached the bazaar’s central fountain—a cracked, algae-stained monument that once must have been beautiful. The water pumps wheezed with intermittent, unhappy spurts. A cluster of locals sat nearby, speaking in low tones. The moment Eli and Stent approached, the conversation dissolved like breath in cold air.

Still, one fragment didn’t vanish quickly enough:

“…beasts… sky turning blue… something pulled them—”

Then silence. Then empty stares. Then avoidance.

Eli didn’t press them—it would have been stupid to try.
Instead, he turned to Stent.

“Thoughts?”

Stent’s answer came without hesitation. “Folklore.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

But something in his tone said the topic was already filed under dangerous but irrelevant in the Chiss mental archive.

Eli wanted to argue, but the marketplace shifted around them, tightening in ways he couldn’t name. Eyes flicked away. Voices lowered. Stormtroopers patrolled with renewed purpose as curfew drew closer.

Lothal didn’t want to tell its stories.

Lothal wanted its stories buried.