Chapter 70 · R-09 Scrap Operations

Sector R-09 lay on the outskirts of the outpost, where the rebuilt streets gave way to bare foundations and the remains of hangars long since repurposed. The hum of the generators faded behind them, replaced by the dry clatter of cutting torches and the occasional metallic crash of something heavy being dropped onto something heavier.

The light thinned as they walked—long stretches of shadow broken by the flare of welding arcs. What structures still stood were made of scavenged hull panels, half-collapsed cranes, and skeletal towers wrapped in cable.

Tee projected a narrow blue arrow across the dirt path, pointing them toward a corrugated gate stenciled with a half-erased designation: R-09 SCRAP OPERATIONS.

Eli stopped short. His eyes swept the perimeter, catching the faint glint of glass behind a rusted beam. “Cameras. At least four, maybe five. Someone likes to watch their guests.”

Stent followed his gaze and gave the smallest nod. He switched to Cheunh, voice low and precise—words meant more for tone than meaning. “Stay alert. If they reach for a weapon, I will act.”

Eli muttered in Basic, “Appreciated,” and pushed through the gate.

The scrapyard stretched wide and uneven, a maze of stripped hulls stacked three high. A crane arm creaked lazily above, moving some half-melted engine core from one pile to another. The air was hot with dust and the faint tang of ozone from welding sparks.

A figure emerged between two gutted transports — tall, wiry, posture sharp from old discipline. Her coveralls were patched and burned in places, the insignia on one sleeve scraped nearly blank. Gray streaked her hair, pulled back in a rough braid.

“You looking for parts or selling them?” she asked, voice clipped, businesslike.

Eli gave an easy half-smile. “Depends which pays better today.”

Her gaze flicked past him, taking in Tee with visible calculation. “That one’s yours?”

“Something like that,” Eli said. “He’s the reason we’re here.”

The woman stepped closer, folding her arms. “Not many bring an R-series out this far. They’re good at remembering things people shouldn’t.”

“Yeah,” Eli said lightly. “That’s the problem.”

Before she could respond, Tee rolled forward, dome twitching. His optical sensor brightened twice, then he let out a string of clipped, urgent chirps — a pattern too structured to be random.

The woman froze mid-step. The sound echoed off the wrecked hulls around them.

Eli blinked. “Tee—what are you doing?”

The droid repeated the sequence, faster this time, almost jittery. His dome angled toward the woman as though waiting for a reply.

Her expression changed — suspicion giving way to something colder, older. “That’s not standard binary,” she said quietly. “That’s a field code.”

Eli frowned. “For what?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes went to the cranes overhead, then back to him, weighing him against the droid. “For people who aren’t supposed to exist anymore.”

The woman hesitated a moment longer, then jerked her chin toward the far side of the yard. “Inside. We’ll talk there.”

Eli followed as she wound her way through narrow aisles of stacked debris. The air was heavy with the scent of scorched metal and old coolant; above, the cranes turned slowly, their servos whining like something in pain.

She led him to a small prefab shed welded against the base of a toppled freighter hull. The sign above the door once read Operations—half the letters were missing now.

Inside, it was part office, part refuge: a workbench cluttered with tools, a datapad patched with tape, and a kettle perched on a power coil. Two chairs, one of them occupied by an old flight jacket instead of a person.

The woman keyed the door shut behind them. “All right,” she said. “You and your droid show up broadcasting a dead code, and you say you’re here to deliver something. Start explaining before I decide I don’t want to know.”

Eli rested a hand on Tee’s dome. The droid gave a soft chirp, its lens dimming as though listening. “He’s carrying encrypted data. It’s supposed to be for your network. We didn’t read it — only checked for traps.”

“You didn’t read it,” she repeated, watching his face.

“We didn’t decrypt it,” Eli corrected, carefully. “We just know it’s… not imperial format. That’s why we brought it here.”

Her eyes narrowed, sharp and analytical. “And where did you get it?”

Eli hesitated. The truth — that they’d found Tee in the wreckage of a freighter destroyed by Imperial fire — might make her bolt before they got anything useful. Better to draw her out first.

He leaned on the edge of her desk, voice light. “Before I answer, maybe you could tell me what’s on it. You recognized the code.”

Her mouth twisted into something not quite a smile. “Nice try, stranger.”

He shrugged. “Can’t blame me for asking.”

“No,” she said softly. “But you should blame yourself for staying.”

Eli’s brow furrowed. “What?”

She raised a finger, motioning for silence. “Someone’s coming.”

Outside, gravel crunched under deliberate footsteps. The faint hum of the yard’s cranes died, leaving only the wind moving through the stacked wreckage.

The woman’s eyes flicked toward the sound.

Eli caught the movement. “Name? I’m Zieliv.”

The irony landed a second late, dull and private: he had abandoned the Ascendancy’s visible claim on him as soon as he could, and yet here he was, offering the name they had carved into his life because, in this corner of the galaxy, Eli Vanto was the more dangerous truth.

For a second she only stared at him, as if the question belonged to a different room, a different life. Then her jaw tightened.

“Rinna,” she said. “That’s all you get.”

“Rinna,” Eli repeated, not quite a promise, not quite a warning.

The door swung open, and Stent stepped through, tall and composed, the dim light catching the sharp lines of his face and the pale blue of his skin.

Rinna went rigid. Her breath caught once, hard enough to break the silence.

“No,” she whispered.

Eli straightened. “Easy.”

Her eyes did not leave Stent. “That’s impossible.”

“He’s not who you think he is,” Eli said quickly.

Rinna’s face remained locked between disbelief and recognition, but the recognition was wrong, Eli realized; not personal, not precise, not the shock of seeing a man she knew, but the older, uglier recoil of someone seeing a uniformed nightmare step back out of history wearing the wrong face.

“A Chiss,” she said, voice thin. “Here.”

Stent inclined his head by the smallest degree. “That is accurate.”

Her gaze sharpened, taking in the absence of Imperial white, the wrong posture, the lack of rank cylinders, the quiet foreignness that did not quite match the ghost her fear had built around him.

Eli kept his voice low. “He’s not the Grand Admiral.”

Only then did her eyes snap back to him, suspicion cutting cleanly through the shock.

“Then you’d better start from the beginning.”