Chapter 68 · Project Harvest

The ship’s outer skin still ticked as it cooled, the sound echoing through the corridors like slow rain.

Eli sat in the copilot’s chair, head resting against the backrest, letting the last of the adrenaline bleed away. The air smelled faintly of ion burn and recycled filters.

Stent checked the instrument panel. “Structural integrity at seventy-nine percent. Outer hull shielding degraded. Minor system failures.”

“Feels like we just wrestled a thunderstorm,” Eli said.

“Accurate.”

He let the word hang in the still air. The lights flickered once, steadied. He could feel the vibration of the engines—tired, but steady.

“Engines need cooldown,” Stent said. “We hold position for repairs.”

“Yeah.”

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Only the hum of the power core filled the cockpit.

Then Eli said, “I’m going to check on our new passenger.”

Stent didn’t look up. “If it awakens, vent it immediately.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

The maintenance bay still smelled faintly of burnt circuitry.

The astromech sat in its safety cradle, dome dark, scorch marks still fresh on its plating. Eli crouched beside it, the faint blue glow of his datapad washing across the metal.

“Let’s see what you’re hiding,” he murmured.

He pulled off one of the droid’s access panels. Half the internal components were fused from heat damage; several others were missing entirely.

He replaced the corroded memory node with one of Laro’s old parts — a mismatched unit, too large by a few millimeters. It fit anyway, with some persuasion and a curse.

“Don’t blow up, don’t blow up…” he muttered under his breath.

He linked the datapad to the droid’s central socket, bypassing the primary boot command. The screen blinked twice, then filled with scrolling lines of code — fragmented, disordered, and heavily encrypted.

Eli frowned. “Half your brain’s slagged, but you’re still guarding secrets.”

The droid’s dome twitched faintly, an involuntary servo movement. The light under its central photoreceptor flickered once — a faint, uncertain blue.

“Hey,” Eli said softly. “Easy there. You’re safe.”

The droid let out a series of weak, broken chirps — distorted binary tones that the ship’s translation software struggled to interpret.

The display on the datapad translated what little it could:

DATA DAMAGED. PARTIAL ACCESS AVAILABLE. EXCHANGE REQUIRED.

Eli raised an eyebrow. “Exchange? You’re bargaining now?”

More beeps, shorter this time.

INFORMATION TRADE PROTOCOL ACTIVE.

“Great. A droid with conditions.”

He glanced toward the doorway. “You hearing this?”

Stent’s voice came from the comm panel. “I am. It demands compensation?”

“Something like that. It says it can share partial data.”

“Pertinent?”

Eli looked at the readout again. Fragments of text scrolled across — broken designations, location tags, code names. One repeated three times before the script looped:

PROJECT HARVEST.

He felt a chill settle under his ribs. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Pertinent.”

“Define.”

“It’s flagged under fleet logistics. Missing convoys, black-flag requisitions, deep storage fleets.”

“Rebellion intelligence,” Stent said flatly.

“Maybe. Or something worse.”

He disconnected the datapad before the ship could crosslink with the droid’s active feed.

The droid’s photoreceptor flickered again, projecting a garbled hologram of starlines and half-visible symbols. Eli watched it for a few seconds, frowning. “You’ve been carrying this a long time, haven’t you?”

The droid gave a single, low chirp — the sound almost mournful.

Eli reached over and toggled the safety cradle’s power back to standby. “Get some rest, partner. You’ve earned it.”

He turned and walked out of the maintenance bay, leaving the droid in darkness.

On the way back to the cockpit, the hum of the engines sounded steadier, calmer — or maybe he was just too tired to hear the stress anymore.

Stent didn’t look up when Eli reentered the bridge. “Results?”

Eli sank into his seat. “Partial data. Maybe more when I can clean it up.”

“Rebel origin?”

“Probably. But whatever it’s carrying — it’s about Imperial fleets. That much I’m sure of.”

Stent’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Outside the viewport, the stars stretched in thin, pale lines.

The galaxy, Eli thought, was full of ghosts.

And somehow, they kept finding the ones that could still talk.

Eli hadn’t meant to fall asleep in the pilot’s chair, but the hum of the engines and the warmth from the console had done the rest.
He woke to the sound of a soft, intermittent tone — not an alarm, more like a heartbeat out of rhythm.

He blinked the fatigue away and checked the readings. The signal came from the maintenance bay.

“Stent,” he said, voice rough, “our guest’s awake.”

“I am aware,” Stent replied over comms. “It activated autonomously fifteen minutes ago. Containment protocols remain in effect.”

Eli pushed himself up and headed aft. The lights flickered back to half power as he passed, systems recovering from the earlier shutdown.

The astromech’s dome glowed faintly when he entered the bay. Its photoreceptor tracked him as he approached. The translation feed on the wall console was already scrolling.

UNIT OPERATIONAL. DATA CORRUPTION: PARTIAL. PRIMARY OBJECTIVE: DELIVERY.

Eli crouched beside it. “Delivery to who?”

The droid emitted a series of high, clipped beeps, rapid and firm. The translation module struggled for a second before settling.

CONTACT CELL – TILA’S REACH – PRIORITY CODE OMEGA.

Eli frowned. “Tila’s Reach. That’s on the edge of the Badrin Spur — unaligned system. You’re a long way from home, little one.”

More chirps.

DELIVERY CRITICAL. PROJECT HARVEST DATA MUST REACH CELL.

Stent appeared in the doorway, arms folded, calm as ever. “We are not couriers for Rebel cells.”

Eli didn’t look up. “They’re not exactly advertising it.”

“The Empire will not care for the distinction.”

Eli exhaled. “We’ve risked worse for less.”

“We have risked survival for curiosity. This is different.”

Eli stood, facing him fully. “Not really. That droid’s carrying data about Imperial fleet movements. That could come on handy, you know you can learn a lot by studying logistics movements. There could be information about the seventh fleet in there.”

“Coincidence does not imply connection.”

“It’s a lead,” Eli said. “We haven’t had one in weeks.”

Stent’s expression hardened. “We will not endanger our objective by engaging in another’s war.”

Eli’s tone softened. “Then don’t think of it as a war. Think of it as logistics. Moving a piece where it needs to go.”

“That piece is Rebel property.”

“And we’re not the Empire anymore. By how the Empire is working, I doubt they’d be friendly about us: you are a chiss and I’ll be labeled as a defector.”

Eli rubbed a hand over his jaw. “You’re determined, I’ll give you that.”

A voice came from behind him. “Determination is rarely contagious.”

Stent stepped into the bay, hands folded behind his back, expression unreadable.

Eli turned slightly. “He wants us to take him to Tila’s Reach.”

“Then he will remain disappointed.”

“Not necessarily. We could use this.”

Stent’s eyes narrowed. “Use it?”

Eli stood, arms crossed. “Think about it. That droid’s carrying classified data — Imperial fleet routes, movements, whatever Project Harvest is. If we get picked up by a patrol, it’s our ticket out. We say we found it adrift, turned it over for inspection. The Empire gets its toy back, we get to leave.”

“And if it is Rebel property?”

“Then they owe us for returning it,” Eli said. “Either way, we walk away alive.”

Stent didn’t move for a long moment. Then, flatly: “Your reasoning is self-preserving, not strategic.”

Eli shrugged. “Survival’s still strategy. You taught me that.”

The Chiss’s gaze flicked to the droid, then back. “We are not wasting resources on this thing.”

“It’s not a waste. It could be valuable—navigation interface, encrypted systems—”

“You propose repairing a destroyed courier droid carrying contraband intelligence. You intend to do this on a ship barely holding its own hull integrity.”

Eli frowned. “You’re not wrong.”

“I rarely am.”

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. We won’t deliver it. But at least let me fix it enough to make use of it. Format the core, clean the memory. It’ll make jumps easier.”

Stent folded his arms. “Then repair it with minimal cost. No new components, no upgrades.”

“I’ll use what we have.”

“Good. Because if this indulgence costs us credits that could have bought coolant or rations, I will vent it into space myself.”

Eli glanced down at the droid, who chirped weakly — as if offended. “You hear that? You’re on probation.”

The translation software flickered.

UNDERSTOOD. WILL PERFORM OPTIMALLY.

Eli blinked. “I was joking.”

“I am not,” Stent said.

Eli turned off the datapad and leaned against the bulkhead. “You really can’t help it, can you?”

“Help what?”

“Being right all the time.”

Stent looked past him to the dark window, where the stars were faint and distant. “Efficiency requires accuracy. Accuracy requires discipline. And discipline keeps us alive.”

Eli smirked. “Yeah. But it makes us lousy company.”

“Then we will continue to be alive and unpleasant,” Stent said.

He turned and left the bay without another word.

Eli crouched again beside the droid. “Guess that’s the end of the discussion.”

The droid emitted a single chirp that the translator rendered dryly as:

NEGOTIATION COMPLETE. BUDGET LIMITED.

Eli laughed under his breath. “You’ll fit right in.”

He cut the power feed to standby and leaned back, eyes half-closed. “Welcome to the Faded Glory, partner. Try not to explode. By the way… what’s your name?”

The droid gave two short chirps followed by a higher warble. The ship’s translator rendered it in block text on the wall console:

UNIT DESIGNATION: R6-T3.

Eli smiled faintly. “R6-T3, huh? We’ll call you Tee. Easier to curse that way.”

The droid emitted a soft, rising beep — acknowledgement, maybe approval.

Eli chuckled, shut off the overheads, and left the maintenance bay with only Tee’s single blue photoreceptor glowing in the dark.