Chapter 103 · The Long Night Between Them

Eli slipped out of the cantina first, moving with the deliberately casual stride of a trader who’d simply finished his business and was headed back to his vehicle. The sun was already drifting toward the horizon. Stent remained inside for several breaths more, letting the distance widen, letting the watcher lose the thread of their connection.

Eli reached the rented speeder and pretended to struggle with the ignition just long enough to sell the illusion of an unremarkable man annoyed by an unremarkable machine. The engine coughed, clattered, then roared reluctantly to life. When Eli did glance back toward the cantina, Stent was no longer visible in the doorway.

Good. Or not good, really. Just necessary.

He swung the speeder into the lane, letting the wind scrape past his ears as he headed toward the north docking district. The city changed rapidly as he traveled—market noise thinning into industrial hum, industrial hum fading into the uneasy quiet of curfew approaching. Imperial patrols thickened at every intersection, their white armor glowing faintly in the low light.

Eli kept his head down. He didn’t slow. He didn’t stop.

By the time he reached the Faded Glory, the shadows had lengthened into something close to night.

Curfew hour was close.

Tee rolled out the moment the speeder skidded to a halt, trilling anxiously as Eli hopped off.

“I know,” Eli said. “I know. He’s not here yet.”

Tee issued a sharper, more insistent chirp.

“He’ll come,” Eli insisted, though his voice landed with less confidence than he’d intended. “He always does.”

Inside the Faded Glory, the familiar hum of the systems gave him a momentary illusion of safety. Eli set the ramp to security recall and locked down the outer sensors. Tee stationed himself at the entrance with the officious air of a droid guarding a king.

Eli paced. Then sat. Then stood again.

Curfew warnings blared faintly from the city—recorded voices echoing across metal and stone, the sound carrying into the dock like the growl of a world tightening its jaw.

Tee beeped impatiently.

“I can’t go after him,” Eli snapped, more at his own nerves than the droid. “I don’t know where he went, Tee. I’d just wander into a patrol and end up in a cell next to him—if I even found him.”

Tee quieted. Not convinced—just quiet.

Eli stared at the closed ramp. His fingers twitched.

He hated waiting. Hated not knowing. Hated the thought of Stent being alone out there in a city where people vanished for far less.

He paced again. Checked the time. Checked the scanners. Checked the street feed from the external cams. Nothing.

Curfew hit like a hammer—lights dimming across the district, troopers barking down the streets, citizens scattering homeward like startled birds.

Still no sign of Stent.

Eli sat at the base of the ramp with his arms around his knees, Tee beside him, both staring at the security monitor as the night deepened into something heavier, darker.

Time crawled. Midnight came and went. The ship felt too large, too hollow without a second heartbeat inside it.

Eli rested his forehead against his arm and whispered into the empty air:

“Damn it, Stent… where are you?”

Tee let out a low, sympathetic chime.

The night stretched.

Eli couldn’t sit still, but he couldn’t lie down either. Every time he tried to rest—even for a minute—his mind replayed the man in the cantina whispering into that commlink. Replayed the shadows they’d acquired in the alleys the night before. Replayed the way Stent had told him no running, behave, as though he’d expected this.

He made caff. Strong. Bitter. The kind that scraped the back of the throat like judgment.

Tee chirped warningly, but Eli wasn’t listening. The first mug vanished fast. The second took longer.

By the time he poured the third, his hands were shaking not from caffeine but from the tension of holding very still while his mind sprinted full-speed into every worst-case scenario he’d ever studied.

He forced himself to sit at the small galley table, staring at nothing while the ship hummed around him in its patient old rhythm.

“She’s not built for one person,” he told Tee.

The droid tilted his dome. A soft, sympathetic beep.

“I mean she can be,” Eli said, rubbing his eyes, “but she wasn’t meant to be. Not like this.”

He checked the time. A handful of minutes had passed. He checked the scanners again. Nothing.

He paced. Sat. Stood. Paced again.

Hours slipped by like water through open fingers.

Every time he closed his eyes, even to blink, he half-expected to hear the ramp unlocking, or Stent’s boots on the deck, or the old familiar cadence of his voice saying something maddeningly calm like, I am here.

But the ship stayed quiet. Too quiet.

The caff pot ran low. He refilled it.

Tee trundled closer, chirping softly, an anxious pattern Eli recognized as: Rest. Now.

“I can’t,” Eli whispered. “Not until he’s back.”

The droid nudged his ankle.

“I said I can’t.”

So Tee stationed himself beside the ramp again, as though determined to stare the night into submission.

Eli returned to the galley and wrapped his hands around another steaming cup.

His eyes burned. His spine ached. He was beyond tired—he was hollowing out slowly, watching the ship’s chronometer tick in patient increments toward dawn.

At some point he stopped pacing. Stopped mumbling. Stopped arguing with himself.

He simply sat near the ramp, caff cooling in his hands, watching the camera feed of the empty dock outside.

Waiting.

Just waiting.

Dawn bled slowly across the docks—pale, bruised light seeping between storage units and gantries. The city wasn’t awake yet; the troopers were still on curfew rotations. The air tasted of refinery smoke and cold metal.

Eli blinked hard. His vision swam. At some point he had stopped drinking and simply held the mug for warmth.

Tee straightened suddenly, dome snapping toward the ramp.

Eli froze.

One soft tap. Then another.

He stumbled to his feet, heart hammering faster than the caff ever pushed it.

The ramp controls beeped once—someone outside had pressed the manual request.

Eli hesitated only long enough for instinct to tell him it wasn’t an Imperial boot pattern.

He hit the release.

The ramp lowered a crack. Cool dawn air seeped in.

And Stent slipped inside like a shadow returning to its rightful shape—coat dusted with grime, hair ruffled by the night wind, eyes sharp despite the lack of sleep.

He moved past Eli with the composed gait of someone who’d spent the night calculating every risk, every alley, every checkpoint. He did not limp. He did not sag. But he carried exhaustion like a weight hidden beneath a perfect line of posture.

Eli stared at him, disbelief and relief colliding in his chest.
“Where—” His voice cracked. “Where in the galaxy were you?”

Stent locked the ramp behind him. Only then did he answer.

“I chose not to be arrested,” he said simply. “I hid.”

Eli fought the urge to grab him by the shoulders. “You were gone all night.”

“Yes.”

“You could have at least— stars, Stent — you could have signaled.”

“That would have risked attention. And I didn’t have a commlink on me. We have to get one for each.”

“Telling me you’re alive is ‘attention’ now?”

Stent finally looked at him directly. Not apologetic. Not cold. Just honest.

“Yes.”

A long moment passed. Eli’s breath wavered in his chest. “I thought something happened to you.”

“It did not.”

Eli swallowed hard, anger dissolving into something quieter, rawer. “Good.”

Stent inclined his head, acknowledging the sentiment without naming it.

Then his voice shifted—calmer now, steadier, the tone he used when presenting conclusions, not comfort.

“They were following us before the cantina,” he said. “Tonight confirms it.”

Eli nodded slowly. “We’ve been marked.”

“Yes.”

Eli exhaled. “By who?”

“That,” Stent said, “is the next step to discover. I tried to follow, but it wasn’t safe to continue my persecution, so I choose cover.”

Tee chirped once—shaken, scolding, relieved.

The Faded Glory hummed softly, as if settling around them again now that both of its crew had returned.

And outside, Lothal’s morning broke grim and quiet.