Chapter 139 · The Raid

No one hesitated after that.

The station erupted into motion. Salvagers sprinted down corridors, grabbing whatever they could carry—datapads, tools, personal bags, half-eaten ration packs. Someone kicked over a crate by accident, scattering metal brackets like startled insects.

Kix fled toward the Faded Glory at top speed, beeping at a pitch that suggested meltdown. Tee chased after him, not to help—just to make absolutely sure Kix didn’t get there first.

Eli felt the adrenaline strike like cold lightning. “Numa, come on!”

She looked back once—toward her workbench, her tools, the half-dismantled station she’d clearly lived on for months. Her jaw tightened.

“Fine,” she snapped. “But if anyone touches my arc torch I will personally feed them to the reactor.”

The Trandoshan grabbed her elbow and hauled her toward the ramp. She didn’t fight him.

The blaster fire grew louder, sharper. Closer.

Eli and Numa climbed the ramp as Stent sealed the outer hatch behind the last crew member. The moment the lock engaged, he was already moving for the cockpit.

“Strap in,” he called over his shoulder. “We take off immediately.”

Numa fell into the co-pilot’s jump seat without protest, breath fast, lekku twitching with fury and fear. Eli took the auxiliary station. Varo, the Mirialan, and the Trandoshan strapped themselves to whatever had straps.

Stent didn’t sit. He threw himself into the pilot’s chair with a precision Eli had seen in battle reports. The cockpit lit up around him like a beast waking.

“Docking clamps disengaged,” Eli said.

“Good.” Stent punched the vertical thrusters.

The Faded Glory tore free from the station with a judder that rattled every panel.

Behind them, on the external feed, raiders spilled into view—armored in mismatched plates, firing wildly into the docking ring they’d breached.

Too late. They were already gone.

Once they cleared minimum safe distance, Numa leaned forward, fury overtaking fear.

“Those bastards. They’ve been circling us for weeks—leeches! You two have guns on this thing?”

“One,” Eli said. “Singular. Mounted by the loading ramp.”

She stared at him. “That’s adorable, but useless.”

“Correct,” Stent said calmly.

“Then what’s the plan!?” she demanded.

Stent banked the ship, hard. “Identify our pursuers.”

The forward display flickered as the Glory’s sensors swept the space behind them. Three signatures emerged from the static: A scavenged gunship with hull plating scavenged from half a dozen models, a shortened transport with improvised thrusters and…

Eli blinked. “Numa… is that a Lambda?”

It was. Barely. The poor shuttle looked held together by tape, luck, and spite, but the sensor readout was unmistakable: Two dorsal heavy laser cannons. Fully powered. Badly mounted. But real.

Numa snarled. “They stole that last cycle. Been terrorizing everyone since. The idiots don’t even know how to park it straight!”

Stent’s eyes narrowed with the quiet interest of a tactician watching a puzzle unfold. “They have weapons,” he said. “And we, at present, do not.”

Eli felt the shift in tone. Not fear. Not panic.But strategy.

“What are you thinking?” Eli asked.

“I am considering,” Stent said, “the best way to make their weapons… irrelevant.”

Numa grinned with feral delight. “Now that’s the spirit.”

The Trandoshan rumbled agreement.

Varo muttered, “We’re dead,” but didn’t sound convinced.

Tee rolled up behind Eli’s chair, beeping anxiously. Kix beeped back, quieter now, as though both droids understood: running was no longer enough. Adventure had arrived. Whether they wanted it or not.

Stent didn’t waste time with explanation. His hands moved across the controls in a blur of elegant economy; the Faded Glory responded like a creature startled awake.

Numa braced herself against the co-pilot console. “What are you doing?!”

“Compensating for our disadvantage,” Stent said, and dove.

The Lambda filled the viewport—awkward, battered, but unmistakably dangerous with those two dorsal heavy lasers powering up in a sputtering glow.

Eli swore. “They’re charging—”

“I am aware.”

Stent flicked a switch. The ramp-mounted blaster whined to life.

Eli stared. “You’re not seriously going to—”

He fired.

Not at the cockpit. Not at the engines. A pinpoint spark struck the hinge housing of the Lambda’s starboard wing.

For one breathless moment, nothing happened.

Then the wing twitched. Tried to unfold. Juddered violently. And stuck.

Numa burst out laughing. “YOU CRIPPLED THEIR FANCY WING! That’s genius!”

“It is practical,” Stent said.

The Lambda lurched sideways, off-balance, firing wildly. A blast streaked past their hull, grazing so close Eli smelled the discharge through the vents.

“Okay, okay, we need to MOVE.” Numa jabbed a finger at the viewport. “That thing can still shoot—just not aim!”

“Correct,” Stent murmured. “Which is why we leave its arc.”

He rolled the Faded Glory under the Lambda’s belly, then snapped upward with a precision so tight it made Eli’s stomach slam into his throat.

The Lambda tried to follow. But with one wing locked and the other half-deployed, it spun like a drunk bird.

“Goodnight, sweetheart,” Numa said sweetly. “Hope your stabilizers write their wills.”

The other two raider ships closed ranks, trying to compensate. Their fire was scattered but determined.

Stent ignored them.

“Debris field ahead,” Eli warned.

“Yes,” Stent said. “Ideal.”

He angled the ship toward the drifting skeleton of the station. Plates of metal, torn struts, half-cut braces—everything the salvage crews had been stripping for days hovered in loose clusters.

“Hold on,” Stent said.

No one had time to ask why.

He dipped low, skimmed along the edge of a half-sheared pylon—then kicked the port thrusters at the exact moment the Glory’s hull brushed a dangling plate.

The pylon spun free with a groaning shriek, and a wave of debris unfurled behind them like a collapsed star.

The two raider ships flew straight into it.

Chunks of metal clanged off their hulls. Plasma shots scattered, ricocheting off drifting scraps. One ship veered wildly; the other throttled down in panic.

Numa whooped. “YOU JUST MADE A SCRAP TSUNAMI!”

Eli grabbed onto the console. “Stent, are we clear?”

“From the first threat, yes,” Stent said, steady as bedrock. “But they will adapt. We move to the next stage.”

Numa blinked. “Next stage? You did that on purpose?!”

“Of course,” Stent said.

Behind them, the Lambda limped, wobbling like a wounded animal. Its locked wing prevented pursuit. Its other wing stilled uselessly.

But its guns still worked. And the raiders inside were shouting orders.

Eli saw the glow of charging coils. “They’re trying to get a shot.”

“Yes,” Stent said. “We are out of their line of sight.”

He angled the ship toward the station’s hollow midsector—where shadows collected in pockets of twisted girders and unlit maintenance corridors.

“Everyone hold tight,” Eli said reflexively.

Numa snorted. “I stopped holding on two minutes ago. I’m just clinging to hope.”

Stent didn’t answer. He slipped the Faded Glory into the station shadow like a ghost vanishing into a throat.

The raiders followed.

And that was the mistake Stent had been waiting for.

The shadows swallowed them whole.

Inside the station’s half-gutted midsection, the sunlight thinned into fractured beams slanting through twisted metal ribs. Echoes carried strangely here—a distant hum, the occasional crackle of stressed wiring, the hollow whisper of nothing where maintenance crews had once lived.

Eli watched the sensor feed tighten. The raiders’ two ships slipped into the shadow after them, jittery in formation, clearly unnerved by terrain they didn’t understand.

The Lambda limped behind them, wing locked, trying to maintain balance.

Numa leaned forward, eyes wide. “You are INSANE. This is where radar goes to die.”

“Yes,” Stent said. “And so do pursuit vectors.”

He angled the ship deeper. The raiders followed.

Eli watched the Lambda’s unstable drift, the glow of its dorsal cannons flickering through the metal latticework.

“They’re not giving up,” he said.

“They will,” Stent replied.

And then, without looking away from the viewport:

“Eli. The Haranir subterfuge, remember?”

Eli’s breath caught. “You’re serious.” Stent was citing one of the maneuvers Thrawn had described on his diaries.

“It is applicable.”

Numa blinked. “The what now?”

Eli’s hands were already moving across the panel, fingers flying through a sequence he’d practiced only once—years ago—when Thrawn had put into action one of his obscure tactics during a mission.

“Fake energy spike,” Eli said. “Specifically: fake high-yield reactor anomaly.”

“Coming from us?” she asked.

“No,” Stent said. “Coming from the station.”

Numa’s eyes widened. “Oh. Oh gods. You’re both lunatics.”

Stent didn’t deny it.

Eli hit the final switch.

The Faded Glory’s deflector relay surged—not outward, but sideways, bleeding radiation signature into the surrounding scaffolding. The old station, already struggling to stay coherent, drank in the signal and amplified it, twisting it into a bloom of lethal-seeming reactor buildup.

Alarms screamed across every ship in sensor range.

On the raiders’ comm frequency—open, undisciplined—someone shouted: “ENERGY SPIKE! GET OUT! GET OUT NOW!”

Numa cackled. “THEY THINK THE STATION’S ABOUT TO BLOW!”

“Accurate,” Stent said calmly. “From their perspective.”

The Lambda lurched violently, losing what little equilibrium it had. Its guns dimmed as the crew abandoned firing protocols and scrambled for escape procedures. One of the escort ships peeled off first, thrusters flaring hard. The other followed immediately, engines sputtering as they panicked.

“Come on, come on, take the bait—” Numa chanted.

The Lambda hesitated, wings stuck, frame shuddering against half-formed maneuvers.

Then its engines spasmed to full power.

The shuttle careened upward in a desperate arc, sideswiping a piece of scaffolding, knocking loose a dozen panels, and barely clearing the station’s silhouette before it fled toward open space.

Eli’s relief lasted exactly two seconds.

“Uh… Stent?” he said. “They’re… they’re going for pickup.”

On the display, the two fleeing raider ships adjusted course, matching speed to scoop up their Lambda crew. Someone was yelling on their comms, their panic spilling into open airwaves.

“They’re abandoning the shuttle,” Eli said.

“As expected,” Stent replied.

The Lambda drifted—power low, controls abandoned—somehow still intact.

Numa leaned forward, voice small. “Please tell me they’re just gonna leave it—”

A bright flash tore across the sensor feed. The Lambda vanished in a blossom of fire and twisted metal.

Numa covered her mouth. “They… they blew up their own ship.”

“They will not leave salvage for others,” Stent said.

“Monsters,” Varo muttered from behind them.

Eli swallowed. “We… should go.”

“Yes,” Stent said. “Now that they are fleeing, we must exit before they recover coherence.”

The Faded Glory rose out of the station shadow like a fish darting from reeds, slipping back into clean starlight. The raider ships were already disappearing into hyperspace trails—scared, disorganized, and thoroughly deceived.

Debt repaid in survival.

Numa slumped into her seat, breath shaking once before she steadied it. “I cannot believe that worked. I CANNOT. BELIEVE. THAT WORKED.”

Eli exhaled hard. “I can’t believe we’re still alive.”

Stent corrected their course, voice steady. “We were never in true danger.”

Numa stared at him. “Tall blue man… you terrify me."

Stent took this as a compliment.

Once the raiders were gone, the station’s skeleton settled back into its uneasy quiet.

Lights flickered. Metal cooled. And in the distance, the remnants of the Lambda drifted in a slow, mournful spin.

Numa fixed her gaze on the wreck. Her grin returned, sharper now.

“We’re coming back for those cannons,” she said.

Eli blinked. “The ones on the Lambda?”

“Oh yes.” Her eyes glowed. “You better believe those beauties are becoming station defenses.”

Varo whooped. The Mirialan smiled. The Trandoshan rumbled with satisfaction.

Stent didn’t comment. He didn’t need to.This place had just become safer.Because they had flown through. And because they would not be forgotten.

The Faded Glory touched down with a soft metallic shiver, her landing struts hissing as they settled against the battered dock. The moment the ramp lowered, the station greeted them with a different kind of noise—shaken voices, hurried footsteps, the strained laughter of people who had expected death but been given a reprieve instead.

Numa was off the ship before Eli could unbuckle, sprinting across the metal grid with Kix humming behind her like a frantic shadow. Her crew scattered immediately: the Mirialan ran toward the east corridor, Varo jogged toward the shattered docking ring, and the Trandoshan vanished down a maintenance shaft with surprising grace for someone his size. They needed to check on whoever they had on the station.

“They’ll be back in a couple hours,” Numa called over her shoulder. “Nobody’s hurt—just rattled. Raiders didn’t get far enough to steal anything worth crying over.”

Blaster scorch marks lined the deck. A toolbox lay overturned. Someone’s half-eaten ration bar was still floating where the artificial gravity had glitched. But no bodies. No fires. No missing workers.

Eli felt his chest loosen a little.

Numa stopped short as she reached the edge of a docking pylon, pointing outward. “THERE she is!”

The remains of the Lambda drifted in the void—charred, broken, but not entirely lost. One wing was still intact. So was one of its dorsal heavy cannons, floating a dozen meters off the hull, cracked free by the explosion and held in place by a dangling tether.

Varo whistled low. “Salvage rights?”

The Trandoshan appeared behind him, eyes gleaming. “Salvage rights.”

Numa grinned with unholy delight. “SALVAGE. RIGHTS.”

She slapped Eli’s shoulder. “You three neutralized the threat. That cannon’s yours by every rule of the void. Congratulations. You’re the proud owners of one extremely illegal, extremely sexy piece of Imperial hardware.”

Stent regarded the cannon for a long, measured moment. Then turned to Eli. “No.”

Numa blinked. “No?! What do you mean no?! Look at that thing! This station hasn’t seen a gun that pretty in years!”

Eli rubbed the back of his neck, already understanding Stent’s logic before he spoke it.

“A courier ship,” Stent said, “mounted with an Imperial heavy cannon, would attract the attention of every authority, raider, syndicate, and paranoid sensor officer from here to Serenno.”

Numa deflated theatrically. “Well, yeah, but that’s half the fun—”

“Not for us,” Eli said gently.

Stent folded his arms. “It would compromise our business. And it would compromise you by association.”

Numa looked between them—their faces, the Faded Glory, the drifting cannon—then let out a long sigh, hands thrown skyward.

“Fiiiiine. Then we’ll keep it.” She jabbed a finger toward the station frame. “Right there. Mounted on the east ring. Anyone tries to come back? BANG. No more raiders.” Numa turned back to Eli and Stent, planting her hands on her hips. “You two,” she said, “are officially heroes of the station.” A beat. “Very quiet, stoic heroes. One of you is painfully polite. The other welds like a snob.”

Stent blinked. “I do not weld—”

“YES YOU DO,” Numa and Eli said in unison.

Tee beeped triumphantly, as if siding with the universe.

While Numa’s crew drifted back in ones and twos from their check-ins, the cannon recovery began in earnest. Tow lines were launched. Magnetic clamps engaged. Kix buzzed with excitement as he coordinated with Tee—who reluctantly allowed cooperation after three sharp beeps that translated to I’m watching you.

Varo wiped sweat from his brow. “Two hours and we’ll have that beauty mounted. Raiders won’t know what hit them.”

Numa nodded firmly. “This place needs teeth. You gave us the chance to grow them.”

Eli felt a warmth in his chest at that. A community had survived because they happened to be passing through. Because Stent had pulled off something impossible, following Thrawn’s inspiration. Because they’d flown toward danger instead of away.

Stent didn’t bask in it. He simply checked his wrist display. “Your repairs will resume once your crew stabilizes the station?”

“Yep.” Numa popped the ‘p’ like a firecrack. “Couple hours of high-fiving and emotional processing, then back to welding like our lives depend on it.”

“They might,” Stent said.

“See? Optimism!” she chirped.

Eli snorted.

They stood together on the dock—the station crew, Numa, Eli, Stent—watching the cannon float into position. A small victory. A hard-earned survival. Something bright carved out of something cruel.

Stent tilted his head slightly. “This is acceptable.”

Numa stared at him. “Tall blue man… that’s the highest compliment you’ve ever given us.”

“It is not intended as—”

“TOO LATE!” she shouted. “WE’RE TREASURING IT FOREVER.”

Eli laughed, the sound echoing off metal beams like something the station hadn’t heard in too long.

The work would continue soon. But for now, the station breathed again. Alive. Because they had been here.

Repairs resumed once the adrenaline faded. Voices softened. Tools hummed. The station found its breath again.

By the time the new cannon was mounted, Numa’s crew had returned to the Faded Glory’s underside with renewed purpose, attacking the last structural braces with speed only partially fueled by gratitude—and partially by Eli’s leftover hand pies.

Numa paced between them, pointing dramatically at weld seams. “GOOD! YES! Reinforce that! No, not like that, like you love it! Like you respect it! Pretend it’s your grandmother’s cookware!”

The Mirialan blinked slowly. “I hated my grandmother.”

“Okay! Pretend it’s someone ELSE’S grandmother’s cookware!”

Varo burst out laughing so suddenly he nearly dropped a support brace.

Even Stent had stopped correcting people’s technique. Which, Eli suspected, was the closest the universe would ever come to a miracle.

When the last weld cooled and the underside gleamed with fresh steel, Numa spun on her heel and clapped once.

“DONE. She’s solid. Not beautiful, but solid. Like a punch in the ribs that saves your life.”

Stent ran a gloved hand along the final brace. He didn’t smile. But something in his posture let go—a tension that had clung to him since Baros. “It is acceptable,” he said.

Varo slapped the Trandoshan’s arm triumphantly. “He said it AGAIN!”

Numa beamed, hands on her hips. “We did good work, boys.”

“You did,” Eli said.

“She,” the Mirialan corrected, pointing at Numa. “Does good work. The rest of us just try to keep up.”

Numa looked modest for a grand total of three seconds before twirling toward the Faded Glory’s ramp. “PAYMENT TIME!”

They settled the final cost beside a stack of cable reels. Eli offered the agreed-upon crates of Baros supplies, plus the leftover sealant. Numa accepted with the solemnity of a queen receiving tribute.

Varo whistled low. “You sure you don’t want to stay a cycle or two? We could use steady work like this.”

The Trandoshan nodded. “And steady food.”

Stent answered for them. “No, thank you.” Not harsh. Just final.

“We have a destination,” Eli added. “And a business to tend.”

Numa rolled her eyes but smiled anyway. “Fine. But I’m stealing your droid.”

Tee screeched in outrage. Kix hid behind Numa’s legs, peeking out in betrayal.

Eli snorted. “He’s attached.”

“I know,” she said. “I’m irresistible.”

The station crew gathered as they prepped to depart. Some waved. Some simply nodded.

The Trandoshan gave Stent a solemn thump on the shoulder that nearly knocked him sideways. “For your… precision,” he said.

Stent blinked twice. “Thank you,” he managed.

“That’s basically a marriage proposal,” Numa whispered loudly. “Run.”

Eli laughed despite himself.

At the foot of the ramp, Numa turned serious for the first time since they’d met.

“You saved our lives,” she said. “Not with a blaster. Not with a threat. Just with… smarts. And guts.” She gestured at the east ring where the cannon now sat, gleaming. “That gun will protect us. For real. For a long time.”

“Glad it’s staying,” Eli said.

“You’d have looked ridiculous with it,” she said cheerfully. “Courier ship my ass.”

Stent inclined his head. “You will be safer.”

“Safer,” she agreed. “Not safe. But safer is something.”

She stepped back, giving them room to board. For half a beat, her smile softened.

“You’re good people. Weird people, but good.”

Eli lifted a hand in farewell. Tee beeped a goodbye. Kix chirped loudly, then attempted a tiny salute and the ramp closed.

As they lifted off, Eli watched the station shrink in the viewport—a jigsaw of metal, lights, and survival stitched together by stubborn hands.

“Nice place,” he murmured.

Stent didn’t look away from the controls. “Dangerous.”

“Most nice places are.”

Stent was quiet a moment. Then: “They will endure.”

And somehow, Eli believed him.

The Faded Glory slipped back into space, leaving behind a tiny spark of defiance—a station bristling with new steel, a crew who’d won their future one welded brace at a time.

Ahead lay the long road again. But behind them, they’d left something standing.

And that mattered.