Chapter 143 · A Clean Ship

The rebels took thirty-seven minutes to reply.

Eli spent the first ten pretending he was not watching the communications console. By minute twenty, he had stopped pretending.

At thirty-seven, the relay chimed.

Tee answered before either of them could move, rolling across the cockpit and projecting the incoming packet onto the secondary display with a self-satisfied chirp.

“Thank you,” Eli said. “I was going to do that.”

Tee rotated his dome toward him.

“I was.”

Another chirp.

Stent continued reading the navigation feed without comment.

Eli opened the message.

It was longer than the first one, although not by much.

ROUTE INFORMATION AVAILABLE.

PAYMENT NOT REQUIRED.

That seemed promising.

Then he scrolled.

TRANSPORT REQUEST. TWO PASSENGERS. LIMITED CARGO. COREWARD TRANSFER.

Below that sat a set of coordinates, a time window and a short list of conditions; no weapons discharge aboard unless necessary. No inspection of passenger personal effects. No questions regarding destination beyond what was required for navigation. No external communications during transit without mutual agreement.

Eli read the list twice. Then he leaned back. “No.”

Stent looked over from the other console.

“You offered transport capacity.”

“I offered it as a theoretical bargaining instrument.”

“The distinction was not included in the message.”

“I assumed they would understand.”

“Why?”

Eli stared at him. Stent waited.

“That was rhetorical.”

“I know.”

Eli looked back at the transmission.

The pickup point was not dramatically out of their way. In fact, whoever had arranged it had clearly studied their probable Coreward route and chosen something irritatingly practical: a small repair station orbiting an industrial moon, close enough to the next major hyperspace corridor that they would lose perhaps half a day.

The rebels were not asking for passage all the way to the Core.

Only three systems. A handoff. Simple.

Which was exactly why Eli distrusted it. “What’s the cargo?”

“Not specified.”

“Of course it isn’t.”

“The mass allocation is.”

Eli glanced at the figures. “Forty-eight kilos.”

“Minimal.”

“That could still be forty-eight kilos of explosives.”

“It could also be medical equipment.”

“Or forty-eight kilos of explosives disguised as medical equipment.”

Stent considered the possibility without visible concern. “We can establish restrictions before accepting.”

Eli gave him a look. “You’re in favor of this.”

“I am in favor of obtaining accurate route intelligence.”

“We could ask nicely.”

“We did.”

“And now we’re being extorted.”

“No regulatory stamp.”

Eli stared at him.

A pause.

Then Stent added, “Therefore, by your previous definition, it cannot be taxation.”

Eli pointed at him. “You have been waiting to use that.”

“Yes.”

Tee emitted a pleased electronic trill.

“Both of you are terrible.”

The attached intelligence sample was what ruined Eli’s refusal.

It contained only one sector. That was enough.

The rebel network had marked three current checkpoints absent from civilian navigation advisories, two local military commands operating outside standard Imperial authority, a hyperspace junction experiencing intermittent closures and a patrol pattern that did not appear anywhere in the official Navy traffic updates.

More importantly, the information had timestamps. Recent ones. Eli expanded one entry. “This was updated six hours ago.”

Stent was already comparing it against their own data. “The Imperial advisory still lists the corridor as unrestricted.”

“It hasn’t been unrestricted for four days.”

“Correct.”

A second entry showed traffic being diverted around a damaged navigation relay. Their commercial charts had no notice of the damage at all.

Eli sat back and rubbed both hands over his face. “I hate when criminals have better infrastructure than the government.”

Stent glanced at him. Eli lowered his hands. “Fine. Insurgents.”

“That was not my objection.”

“What was?”

“You served that government.”

“So did you, briefly.”

“I did not.”

“You attended Imperial facilities, worked with Imperial officers and acquired several Imperial uniforms.”

“That is not service.”

“Tell it to Customs.”

Stent returned to the data.

Eli stared at the rebel route map for another few seconds. Then he opened the response field.

“We set conditions.”

“Agreed.”

“No explosives.”

“Unless declared.”

“No.”

“There may be legitimate reasons—”

“No explosives.”

Stent inclined his head.

“No biological agents, no volatile chemicals, nothing broadcasting, nothing that can decide to explode because someone looked at it incorrectly.”

“That final category is imprecise.”

“They’ll understand.”

“No weapons larger than personal arms,” Stent added. “All weapons secured during routine transit.”

“Good. And we inspect the cargo.”

“Their conditions prohibit inspection of personal effects, not cargo.”

Eli looked at him. “You noticed that immediately.”

“Yes.”

“That’s unsettling.”

“It is useful.”

Eli typed.

Their reply took longer than the rebels’ original request.

By the time he finished, it read less like acceptance and more like a commercial contract drafted by people who expected everyone involved to lie.

Stent reviewed it once. Then again. “You have included liability for damage to the vessel.”

“Yes.”

“They are unlikely to compensate us if arrested.”

“They can still know I object in advance.”

Eli transmitted the packet.

The response arrived four minutes later.

TERMS ACCEPTED.

A second line followed.

YOUR SHIP IS CLEAN. KEEP IT THAT WAY.

Eli frowned.

“Still don’t like that wording.”

Stent did not answer.

He had already pulled up the Faded Glory’s current registry.

The ship, as far as the Empire knew, was almost aggressively uninteresting.

A privately owned light freighter. Civilian registration. No flagged modifications. No known association with Rebel logistics. No history of seizure. No suspicious docking pattern obvious enough to interest a bored analyst. Its current record showed courier contracts, salvage work, minor freight transfers and fuel purchases scattered across systems that had little strategic importance.

Even the irregularities were mundane.

Late docking fees. One transponder verification dispute. An automated customs query over mismatched cargo mass that had been resolved within twelve minutes.

Eli stared at the record. “We’re boring.”

“That has been deliberate.”

“We’re extremely boring.”

“Yes.”

“I’m almost offended.”

Stent brought up another layer of public Imperial traffic records. “The rebels are correct.”

“That sentence always makes me nervous.”

“The ship attracts no attention.”

“The ship doesn’t.”

Stent looked toward him.

Eli tapped his own chest. “I am technically a man who disappeared from Imperial service years ago.”

“Under your current documentation, you are not.”

“And you’re blue.”

“Yes.”

“That remains difficult to falsify.”

“I had noticed.”

Eli looked again at the ship’s history.

The Faded Glory had survived this long because nobody cared about it. Not enough to investigate. Not enough to remember.

It was old, patched, modest and visibly employed in the sort of work that generated paperwork rather than intelligence reports.

Which, apparently, made it valuable. “You know what they’re doing,” Eli said.

“Yes.”

“They don’t need a pilot.”

“No.”

“They need the transponder.”

“And the record associated with it.”

Eli exhaled.

Somewhere in the Rebellion there were probably ships specifically built for covert transport, crews trained to avoid Imperial inspection, slicers who could produce identities better than anything Eli could invent.

But covert vessels accumulated histories. Suspicions. Patterns. Sooner or later, someone noticed the same freighter appearing near too many incidents.

The Faded Glory had no such history.

Yet.

“They’re borrowing our innocence,” Eli said.

Stent’s eyes moved toward him. “The ship’s innocence.”

“Thank you.”

Their pickup coordinates led them to an orbital repair station called Marent Twelve.

It had once serviced mining vessels.

Now it appeared to service anything capable of paying.

Half its docking arms were dark. The illuminated half were crowded with freighters, tugs and small transports in varying states of repair. The station transmitted no military affiliation, although an Imperial customs identifier remained buried in its registration metadata like a fossil.

Eli liked it immediately.

Nobody at Marent Twelve had time to care about strangers.

The Faded Glory docked beside a bulk cargo shuttle whose starboard engine had been removed completely.

Eli watched two mechanics argue underneath it as the docking clamps engaged. “Pickup window begins in forty minutes.” Stent rose. “You’re coming?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t the question.”

“I know.”

Eli sighed.

They had already agreed Tee would remain aboard.

The droid had objected.

Loudly.

He was still objecting now from the corridor, producing a stream of annoyed tones while Stent checked the interior security system.

“Tee, somebody has to watch the ship.”

The droid beeped.

“Yes, I know you always watch the ship.”

Another series.

“No, that doesn’t mean we don’t trust you.”

Tee’s dome rotated sharply toward Stent.

Stent paused.

“What did he say?”

“I’m not translating that.”

“Why?”

“Because then I’d have to admit he has a point.”

Tee gave a triumphant whistle.

Eli grabbed his jacket. “Lock the ramp behind us.”

Tee’s response carried unmistakable sarcasm.

Eli stopped halfway down the corridor. “I heard that.”

The meeting point was a small cafe.

Not a shadowed maintenance compartment. Not an abandoned hangar. Not even a discreet spacer bar.

A cafe. A quite mundane one, with bright lights, plastoid tables. A line of station workers buying fried noodles and something advertised as nerf stew that Eli doubted had ever encountered a nerf.

He and Stent took a table near the back. “This cannot be the correct location,” Stent said.

Eli checked the coordinates. “It is.”

“There are forty-three people in this room.”

“Exactly.”

“That does not improve the situation.”

“It does if nobody knows which two of the forty-three are meeting us.”

Stent surveyed the cafeteria again. Three mechanics. Four freight crews. A family travelling with two exhausted children. Several independent pilots. A group of miners arguing over a game displayed between their trays.

Nobody appeared interested in them.

Eli bought caff. Stent declined.

Then, while Eli was adding sweetener, Stent’s attention shifted toward the counter display.

Eli followed his gaze. Small packaged cakes.

He said nothing. Stent looked away. Eli continued saying nothing.

They returned to the table.

Five minutes later Stent stood. “One moment.”

Eli watched him walk back to the counter. When he returned, he had a small wrapped cake. Eli took a long drink of caff and heroically refrained from comment.

Stent sat. “You may say it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

“You were.”

“I was going to respect your privacy.”

“That would be unprecedented.”

Eli smiled.

Stent opened the cake.

The rebels arrived seven minutes late.

That, more than anything, convinced Eli they were probably genuine.

The first was a woman perhaps ten years older than him, human, dark-haired, wearing the practical clothes of a freight supervisor. Nothing about her suggested military service until she sat down.

Then Eli saw it. The assessment of exits. The choice of chair. The way her attention moved once across the room and then stopped needing to.

The second was younger. Also human. Male. Thin, tired-looking, carrying a tool case covered in manufacturer stickers. He had the slightly distracted air of an engineer whose mind was still occupied with a problem elsewhere.

Neither introduced themselves.

The woman looked at Eli. Then at Stent. Her attention stayed on Stent for a fraction longer. “That him?”

Eli raised an eyebrow. “That depends very heavily on what you were told.”

“The Chiss.”

Stent ate another piece of cake.

“Yes,” Eli said. “That’s him.”

The woman sat back. “I expected taller.”

Stent looked at her.

Eli covered his mouth with one hand.

The younger man abruptly became interested in the tabletop. The woman smiled. “Good. You’re real.”

“That was your authentication procedure?” Eli asked.

“No. But it helped.”

She slid a datapad across the table. The screen displayed the same route intelligence sample they had already received, now expanded across several sectors.

“This is half.”

Eli did not touch it. “And the rest?”

“When our people reach the transfer point.”

“Our people.”

“Two passengers.”

Eli looked from her to the younger man. The younger man finally spoke. “Not us.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“It shouldn’t be.”

The woman ignored him. “You collect them here. You transport them to Darsen Relay. From there, somebody else takes over.”

“What are we carrying?”

“Passengers and two sealed cargo cases.”

Stent set down the remainder of his cake. “Contents.”

“Medical components, communications hardware and power regulators.”

“No explosives?”

“No.”

“Volatile chemicals?”

“No.”

“Active transmitters?”

“Disabled for transport.”

Stent regarded her for another second.

She reached into her jacket, withdrew a compact scanner and placed it on the table.

“You can verify the cases before loading. We expected you would.”

That appeared to satisfy him.

Slightly.

Eli tapped the route map. “Why us?”

The woman glanced at him as if the answer should already be obvious. “Because you asked for information from inside an Imperial sector while flying a ship that has crossed three Imperial checkpoints in the last month without generating a security review.”

“You checked.”

“We check everything.”

“You found our current registry.”

“We found enough.”

Eli did not like the phrasing.

The woman noticed. “If we knew who you really were,” she said, “we probably wouldn’t be sitting in a cafeteria.”

“That is not particularly comforting.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Stent leaned slightly back in his chair. “What makes the vessel useful?”

This time her answer came without humor. “You have something we don’t.” Eli waited. “A ship nobody is looking for.”

There it was.

The younger man looked toward the crowded room. “Imperial customs see rebel ships everywhere now. Half the time they’re wrong, but they’re looking. Cargo haulers with odd routes, old diplomatic registrations, medical transports, anything moving through the same sectors too often. Your freighter looks like exactly what it claims to be.”

“A badly maintained courier?”

“A moderately maintained courier.”

Eli nodded. “Thank you.”

“You take ordinary contracts. You pay docking fees. You buy fuel where normal people buy fuel. You complain about transit charges and keep moving.”

Eli glanced toward Stent. “They know about Keldar.”

“Likely.”

The woman continued. “You don’t behave like smugglers. You don’t behave like rebels. You barely behave like people worth remembering.”

“That last part felt unnecessary.”

“It’s why you’re useful.”

Eli looked at the route again. Three systems. No significant deviation. They would receive current intelligence covering most of their probable path to the distributor. It was, annoyingly, a very good trade. “What aren’t you telling us?”

The woman smiled faintly. “Several things.”

“Anything likely to get my ship shot at?”

“If everything goes correctly, no.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“Then being shot at will probably not be your primary concern.”

Eli stared at her. Stent spoke before he could. “Acceptable.”

Eli turned. “Really?”

“The statement is logically accurate.”

“That is not the same as reassuring.”

“I did not say it was.”

The woman’s smile widened slightly. “I like him.”

“Please don’t encourage him.”

They inspected the cargo first.

Two cases. Forty-six point seven kilos total. Medical power couplings. Encrypted relay modules. Replacement components for field generators. Nothing explosive. Nothing biological. Nothing especially dramatic.

Eli looked through the inventory. “This is it?”

The rebel contact stood beside him in the station cargo bay. “What were you expecting?”

“I don’t know. Proton detonators. Stolen targeting computers. Secret plans.”

“To what?”

“Something large.”

She gave him a tired look. “Rebellions need power regulators too.”

Eli looked back into the case. Most of the contents could have been purchased legally in a sufficiently large industrial market. Probably had been. Only the destination made them rebel supplies. That was somehow more unsettling.

He had spent enough years in the Imperial Navy to think in terms of fleets and bases and weapons. But insurgencies had to eat. Repair pumps. Replace filters. Charge equipment. Keep medical units running. Somewhere, somebody fighting the Empire was apparently waiting for three replacement converter assemblies and a box of sterile diagnostic couplers.

War reduced to maintenance.

Stent checked the seals. “These are acceptable.”

“Glad to have your approval,” the woman said.

“You should be.”

She looked at Eli. “Definitely like him.”

“I warned you.”

The passengers arrived separately.

The first appeared at the Faded Glory’s berth carrying a battered travel bag and wearing the expression of someone who had spent the previous hour being inconvenienced by public transport.

She was young. Younger than Eli had expected. Mid-twenties, perhaps. Brown skin, tightly braided hair, civilian jacket, no visible weapon. She stopped at the bottom of the ramp and looked up at Eli.

“Courier?”

“Apparently.”

She held out a small identity chip. He checked the code against the authentication string the rebels had provided. “Nemi.”

Match.

“Come aboard.”

She climbed the ramp, saw Stent waiting in the corridor and stopped. Not dramatically. But completely.

Stent inclined his head. “Welcome aboard.”

Her eyes moved to Eli. “You didn’t mention—”

“No,” Eli said. “They apparently didn’t mention him to anyone.”

Stent’s expression remained neutral.

The woman recovered quickly. “Right.” She shifted her bag. “Fine. You can call me Dara.”

Then Tee rolled around the corner. She looked at the droid. Tee looked at her. “You have a droid.”

“We have many astonishing features.”

Tee chirped.

“Yes, you’re one of them.”

The second passenger arrived twelve minutes later.

She was older than the first, with gray beginning at her temples and the composed, self-contained air of someone who had spent years learning how not to attract attention. She carried no luggage beyond a narrow pack and one datapad.

Her authentication matched.

She stepped aboard, acknowledged the younger woman with a brief nod, then noticed Stent waiting farther down the corridor. Unlike her companion, she did not stop. Her gaze travelled over him once: posture, stance, the way he had positioned himself where he could see both the ramp and the passage leading into the ship. “Military,” she said. It was not quite a question.

Stent inclined his head. “Yes.”

The younger passenger looked between them. “You can tell that just by looking at him?”

“I could tell before he answered.”

Eli sealed the ramp behind them. “You’ll find he has difficulty pretending to be anything else.”

Stent turned his head toward him. “I have successfully passed as a civilian on multiple occasions.”

“You pass as a military officer wearing civilian clothes.”

“That is still civilian attire.”

The older woman’s mouth twitched. “Chiss have military?”

Stent regarded her for a moment before answering. “Yes.”

She accepted that without asking for a unit, rank or explanation. Eli suspected that was deliberate. People who lived under compartmentalization apparently learned when an answer had reached the edge of what they were going to get.

She shifted the strap of her pack higher onto her shoulder. “Fair enough.”

The younger woman was still watching Stent with open curiosity.

Eli pointed down the corridor. “Passenger compartment is through there. There are two bunks, storage under both, and if Tee tells you either one belongs to him, he’s lying.”

A sharp, offended whistle came from somewhere deeper inside the ship.

The older woman glanced toward the sound.

Then back at Eli.

“Could be worse.”

“Please don’t test that theory.”

The Faded Glory undocked twenty minutes later. No alarms. No pursuit. No sudden arrival of stormtroopers.

Marent Twelve continued rotating beneath them as if nothing unusual had occurred. Which, Eli supposed, was the entire point.

Their passengers remained in the converted crew compartment while Stent guided them toward the outbound traffic lane.

Eli watched the station recede. On the console beside him sat the first half of the Rebel route data. Beyond it waited two weeks of increasingly unstable space, a distributor who might no longer have what they needed, and a Coreward journey that had somehow acquired passengers who could get them arrested merely by existing in the wrong place.

He looked toward Stent. “We were going shopping.”

“Yes.”

“For fruit.”

“Yes.”

“And now we’re transporting Rebel operatives.”

“We are.”

Eli waited.

Stent looked over. “You appear to expect a conclusion.”

“I’m trying to identify the exact point where this got out of control.”

“The initial plan required deceiving an Imperial naval officer through falsified military postal metadata.”

“That was controlled.”

“It required obtaining a specific preserve from a distant planet.”

“Still controlled.”

“We are travelling several weeks Coreward because you failed to verify local availability before designing the operation.”

Eli frowned. “That part was unnecessary.”

Stent returned his attention to the controls. Behind them, one of their new passengers shifted something in the adjoining compartment.

Tee rolled through the cockpit, paused beside Eli and issued a soft questioning beep.

“No,” Eli said. “We are still looking for quince.”

Tee chirped again.

“Yes, while helping the Rebellion.”

Another chirp.

Eli pointed toward the corridor.

“Do not make it sound stupid in front of the passengers.”

Tee rolled away.

Stent watched him go.

“I believe that is beyond his control.”

Eli settled deeper into the chair.

Ahead, the jump point approached.

The Faded Glory looked exactly as it had the day before: tired hull, legal transponder, ordinary cargo record, no reason for anyone to remember her.

A clean ship.

For approximately the next three systems, that description was going to require a very generous interpretation.

Dinner did more to normalize the situation than anything else had.

Eli cooked.

They still had fresh provisions aboard—vegetables, greens, a small amount of fresh protein and several things bought at their last proper market stop—but they had reached the point where using them was becoming less a luxury than basic inventory management. Another few days and half of it would start losing the argument with refrigeration.

So Eli used more than he normally would.

The result was a large pan of vegetables, grain and strips of protein cooked together with enough spice to make the galley smell temporarily unlike recycled air.

Nemi had watched the preparation with open interest from the table. Dara had watched Eli. There was a difference.

By the time they sat down, Eli had learned that Nemi was a slicer, although she had described herself first as a “communications technician” and only admitted the rest after Dara gave her a look.

Dara had been less forthcoming. “Intelligence,” she had eventually said.

Eli had waited for elaboration. None came. He decided that was probably the elaboration.

Nemi took another helping before anyone else had finished the first. “This is good.”

“Thank you.”

“I thought couriers lived on ration bars.”

“Bad couriers do.”

Across the table, Stent continued eating without comment.

Dara glanced toward him. “And he cooks too?”

Eli looked at Stent. “He does, actually.”

Nemi looked surprised. “Really?”

Stent lifted his eyes from his plate. “Why is that unexpected?”

Nemi hesitated.

Eli rescued her. “Because you look like you consider meals a scheduling requirement.”

“I consider meals necessary.”

“That did not help.”

Nemi laughed. Even Dara smiled slightly. For the first time since they had boarded, the four of them managed several minutes in which nobody evaluated anyone else as a potential security problem.

It did not last. It was, nevertheless, progress.

After dinner, Nemi disappeared into the passenger cabin with her datapad and an assurance that she was not going to connect it to anything aboard without asking first.

Dara remained long enough to help clear the table.

Eli noticed.

An intelligence officer who voluntarily helped with dishes was either remarkably civilized or using the opportunity to continue observing them. Probably both.

Then she excused herself for the night and retired to the cabin that had previously been Stent’s, which she’d share with Nemi.

Eli had watched him vacate it before they boarded at Marent Twelve.

There had been no discussion about sleeping arrangements. Stent had simply appeared in the captain’s cabin carrying his few personal effects, opened the unused half of Eli’s wardrobe and begun transferring them into it.

Eli had taken one look at what he was doing and decided it made perfect sense.

The other cabin had two bunks and its own storage. Leaving Stent’s belongings scattered through half the lockers would only force their passengers to work around them—or, worse, invite questions about what belonged to the strange Chiss sharing their ship. Moving everything was simpler.

There had not been much to move.

A few changes of clothes. Toiletries. Personal equipment. Several carefully maintained items Eli had learned not to touch without asking. A new small packet of Corellian fruit pastes had migrated as well, despite apparently qualifying as neither equipment nor essential supplies.

By the time their passengers arrived, the cabin was entirely theirs.

Now Eli finished putting away the last of the dinner things and headed aft.

The captain’s cabin had never been extravagant, but aboard a ship the size of the Faded Glory it was generous: a double bed, a small private refresher and enough floor space that two people could move around without negotiating every step. The built-in wardrobe had two compartments, one of which Eli had barely used.

Stent had solved that inefficiency. His clothes now occupied it with considerably greater organization than Eli’s occupied the other.

Eli stopped in front of the open wardrobe. “You reorganized my shelves.”

“I reorganized my shelves.”

“They were my shelves this morning.”

“You were not using them.”

“That isn’t the point.”

Stent closed the wardrobe. “What is the point?”

Eli considered. “I don’t know yet.”

“Then inform me when you determine it.”

He turned toward the bed. Eli watched him sit down and begin removing his boots.

Sharing the cabin itself did not bother him. They had spent long enough crammed together aboard the Mynock for personal space to become a fairly flexible concept, and this was hardly the first time circumstances had put them in the same bed. Compared with some of the places they had slept over the years, the captain’s cabin—with a proper double mattress and a refresher three steps away—was practically decadent.

Stent apparently agreed.

He began undressing with exactly the same complete lack of self-consciousness he had displayed aboard the Mynock, dropping his shirt onto the chair, removing his trousers, and gathering the rest of his used clothes into one hand.

Eli barely looked up from the datapad he had picked up from the bedside table. Then Stent reached for the door. “Ah.” Stent stopped. Eli lowered the datapad. “You may want to reconsider that.”

Stent looked at the bundle of clothes in his hand, then at the door. “They require washing.”

“I know.”

“The laundry container is outside.”

“I also know that.”

Stent waited.

Eli gestured vaguely at him. “There are four people on the ship now.”

“Yes.”

“And two of them have known you for approximately six hours.”

Stent’s expression remained blank.

Eli sighed. “Human courtesy generally discourages walking through shared corridors completely naked when you have guests aboard.”

A pause. “This is our vessel.”

“Yes, and normally I would agree that you can parade around in all your blue glory wherever you like.”

Stent’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“But,” Eli continued, “we currently have passengers. Human passengers. Female. They may prefer some warning before discovering just how little interest Chiss culture apparently has in modesty.”

Stent considered this with the seriousness of a tactical adjustment. Then he nodded once. “Reasonable.”

He set the used clothing beside the door instead.

The trousers were the exception. Those he shook out, folded with irritating precision, and returned to the wardrobe.

Eli watched him. “You know those are going to wrinkle eventually.”

“They will wrinkle less if folded correctly.”

“You live with me now. You’re going to have to lower your standards.”

“I have lived with you before.”

“Then you already know what I mean.”

Stent ignored that and disappeared into the refresher. A moment later, the shower started.

Eli stripped down as well, though unlike Stent he retained his underwear, then stretched out across his side of the bed with his datapad while he waited.

The shower did not run for long. That, too, was familiar. Stent had always approached bathing with the same efficient economy he applied to almost everything else: wash thoroughly, waste nothing, leave.

Stent emerged with a towel around his shoulders, drying his hair as he crossed the cabin. “We should reduce water consumption while they are aboard.”

Eli lowered the datapad again. “We’ve got enough.”

“For normal operation, yes. There are now twice as many biological occupants.”

“Temporarily.”

“Which still doubles consumption.”

Eli glanced toward the refresher. “The reclamation system can handle it.”

“I believe it can. I also prefer not to discover otherwise after a filter failure.”

That was difficult to argue with. Especially several days into a journey. “Short showers.”

“Yes.”

“Tell them too.”

“I will.”

Eli slid off the bed and headed for the refresher.

His own shower was equally brief.

By the time he came back out, rubbing a towel through his hair, Stent had changed into the clothes he normally slept in: loose shorts and an equally loose shirt, soft and worn enough that they bore little resemblance to anything he would willingly be seen wearing outside the ship.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed.

And putting on his sleeping socks.

Eli stopped. Not because the socks were new. Quite the opposite. He knew them very well. Soft, warm, carefully kept—Stent even washed them by hand rather than trusting them to the ship’s laundry cycle—and, so far as Eli had ever been able to determine, they were the only genuinely private possession Stent owned.

Everything else could be discussed, inspected, packed, lent, repaired or catalogued without particular concern.

The sleeping socks were different.

Eli had learned that aboard the Mynock, after making the mistake of picking them up while looking for something else and receiving a look from Stent that had communicated, with extraordinary clarity, that he should put them back immediately.

He had.

He had also never forgotten it.

Now Stent pulled the second sock into place and adjusted it around his ankle.

Eli smiled.

Stent looked up. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“That expression indicates something.”

“I just like that those survived everything.”

Stent glanced down at his feet. “They are useful.”

“They are sleeping socks.”

“Yes.”

“You have crossed half the galaxy, survived the Chaos, Imperial territory, pirates, damaged hyperdrives and whatever else the universe has thrown at us, and you still have the same sleeping socks.”

“They remain functional. I try to keep good care of them.”

“That isn’t why you keep them.”

Stent looked at him. Eli’s smile widened. There it was. That tiny boundary.

The one place Stent simply declined to elaborate.

Eli lifted both hands. “All right. Private matter.”

“Correct.”

“You see? I respect boundaries.”

Stent gave him a long look. “Occasionally.”

“I’ll take it.”

Eli tossed his towel toward the chair and went to retrieve something to sleep in.

Behind him, Stent settled back against the pillows, warm socks safely in place.

Some things, apparently, survived everything.