Chapter 77 · Authorization String

Rinna stepped back, the dim console light catching the sharp angles of her face. Whatever she thought of his answer, she held it behind her eyes.

“You bring him home,” she said. “If he’s out there. But don’t expect the galaxy to thank you for it.”

“I’m not doing it for them,” Eli replied.

“Good,” she muttered. “Because you won’t get gratitude. Just consequences.”

She turned and walked out, boots echoing faintly down the metal corridor.

Eli stayed there a few seconds longer, letting the tension bleed out of his shoulders. The holotable dimmed behind him, leaving him alone with the soft hum of the reactor and the weight of everything unspoken.

He finally exhaled, pocketed his datapad, and headed back toward the hangar.

Stent was waiting at the base of the ramp, arms folded, posture utterly controlled. For a moment Eli wondered if he had heard any of the conversation through the thin bulkhead.

“You were delayed,” Stent said.

“Rinna had questions.”

Stent’s gaze lingered on him. “Did you answer them?”

“Enough,” Eli said. “Too much, probably.”

The faintest shift crossed Stent’s face — concern, disguised as analysis. “The fewer who know the truth of our mission, the better.”

“She didn’t get details. Just direction.”

“That is still more than most should have,” Stent replied, though his tone lacked reprimand. It sounded more like resignation.

Eli gave a tired half-smile. “Yeah. I know.”

Ghosts, Rinna had said.

He didn’t need reminding. The ghost they were chasing was etched into every corner of his past — and, if tonight proved anything, into Stent’s future too.

The Faded Glory was dim, lit only by the soft spill of the cockpit screens.

Outside, the stars hung motionless — a cold, patient audience.

Eli sat at the nav console with his datapad, thumb hovering over the same line he had reread a dozen times.

GRAND ADMIRAL AUTHORIZATION STRING

A header he had once handled daily. A ritual he had never thought he would see again — and certainly never thought he would forge.

Stent stood near the viewport, hands loosely clasped behind his back, posture straight in that deceptively calm way Eli had learned to interpret as concern.

Eli finally broke the silence. “You really think this is going to work?”

“I think it can,” Stent replied. “The system will not question what it already accepts as truth.”

“You mean you.”

A faint pause.

“The resemblance has already proven… inconvenient.”

“That’s one word for it.”

Eli let the datapad clatter lightly onto the console. “If they probe too deep, the whole thing collapses. The voice alone — you can’t sound like him.”

“I can reproduce cadence and phrasing,” Stent said. “I have listened to enough of his recordings.”

“Yeah, but you don’t feel like him.”

“I consider that an advantage.”

Eli huffed, something between disbelief and reluctant amusement. “You always do.”

The hum of the ship filled the pause — soft, steady, the sound of old machinery refusing to stay retired.

Eli rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You know what happens if this fails? They won’t just arrest you. They’ll dig. And when they dig…” He tapped his chest lightly. “Thrawn’s aide shows up in the archives. I don’t exactly fade into the background.”

Stent turned from the viewport. “Then we succeed.”

“You make it sound simple.”

“It is not simple,” Stent said. “But it is necessary.”

Eli let out a dry laugh and leaned back. “You really don’t see what this looks like, do you? You can walk away from this if it gets bad. Chiss don’t answer to anyone out here. But me— I’ve already been both sides’ problem once.”

Stent studied him in silence before answering.

“You feel loyalty to these Rebels.”

Eli shook his head. “I feel like I’m done running from what I helped build. If that means helping tear it down, then fine. But this…” He gestured to the datapad. “This is playing with ghosts.”

Stent’s voice softened. “Then let the ghosts serve a purpose. If his image can protect us, let it.”

Eli’s eyes met his, something tight and old flaring between them.

“You know he’d hate that.”

A rare flicker crossed Stent’s face — not sorrow, not fondness, but something close.

“He would understand it.”

Eli exhaled, long and slow. The fight drained out of his posture.

“Fine,” he said. “But if we’re doing this? We do it my way. One wrong step — one — and I pull the plug.”

“Agreed.”

Eli picked the datapad back up. His fingers moved with reluctant familiarity, stitching together fragments of authorization strings he thought he had buried years ago. Bits of Imperial architecture, half-remembered protocols, the sharp-edged logic of a system built by paranoia.

Stent watched from the shadows, quiet and steady, as the shape of Thrawn’s command code began to take form under Eli’s hands — a ghost reconstructed from memory and necessity.

After a while Eli murmured, “Guess we’re really doing this.”

Stent’s voice was calm, but gentler than usual. “Then we prepare efficiently.”

Eli snorted softly. “You know, sometimes you sound exactly like him.”

“Then the training begins well,” Stent said.

That surprised a laugh out of Eli — short, tired, but real.

He leaned back in the chair, staring at the mass of code slowly blooming across the datapad screen. There were biometric loops to spoof. Clearance strings to braid. Holographic profiles to approximate. A dozen tiny traps waiting for one misstep.

“We’ve got a lot of work ahead,” Eli said quietly.

“Yes,” Stent replied. “And limited time.”

Silence settled again, but not the heavy kind — a practical, shared silence.

The kind before a long climb.

Eli powered the datapad into standby and set it down on the console between them.

“No heroic engines. No dramatic turns.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Not yet.”

“Not yet,” Stent echoed.

Outside the viewport, the stars didn’t move.

Inside the Faded Glory, two men sat with the weight of their decision — a plan born from desperation, shaped by ghosts, and not yet set in motion.

Tomorrow, they would begin.

Tonight, they just breathed.