Chapter 79 · Klyssos

The briefing chamber was a carved-out section of the old mining station — low ceiling, exposed conduit, a holotable that flickered whenever someone breathed too hard. Still, it felt more like a war room than anything Eli had set foot in for years.

Captain Marae stood at the front, her arms folded, gaze locked on the rotating holo of the Klyssos relay station. It hung in the air like a steel knot: angular, cold, surrounded by rings of signal arrays and turret clusters.

Stent wore the white uniform now. He stood at Eli’s side, expression neutral, posture straight, presence unsettling.

Eli still hadn’t gotten used to looking directly at him.

Marae gestured to the map. “This is Klyssos. Imperial relay node, mid-tier classification. Purpose: command-level verification, fleet redeployment logs, and long-range signal routing.”

Rinna tapped the projection. “The good news: the station’s still operating on pre-Lothal protocols. No grand admiral’s file has been deactivated because the Empire doesn’t know what to do with that absence. This is our assumption. They’ve kept his clearance profile registered to avoid rewriting the chain.”

Marae nodded. “Which means: if someone steps in with the right authority, the system will fold fast.”

Stent tilted his head. “Define ‘right authority.’”

“A Grand Admiral,” Marae said bluntly. “Which is where you come in.”

Stent accepted this with the faintest nod, as though they were discussing meteorology.

Eli didn’t. “We still haven’t addressed the fact that biometric scans could fry us alive.”

Rinna switched the holo to a secondary schematic. “They won’t. The Empire’s biometric suites are human-calibrated.”

Eli blinked. “Meaning?”

“Meaning the system doesn’t even try to read alien physiology,” Rinna said, tapping a pulsing red block on the schematic. “The scanners at Klyssos are old. Pre-Lothal. They’ll see blue skin and immediately default to a manual verification protocol.”

Marae snorted. “For once, the Empire’s bigotry works in our favor.”

Rinna nodded. “No blood checks, no retinal alignment — just holographic match, voice cadence, and command-chain confirmation. All human-based parameters. It can’t cross-reference him properly, so it’ll accept the surface readings.”

Stent said, with quiet certainty, “All achievable.”

Eli rubbed his temples. “You say that like we’re forging a hallway pass.”

Marae zoomed in on the docking bay. “Here’s how this works.”

She pointed to the approach vector.

“You arrive on a stolen Lambda shuttle.”

A new image flickered — the shuttle in question, half repaired, half cannibalized.

“You’ll have a four-person Rebel crew. Their job is to keep the ship running and keep their mouths shut.”

Then the station interior.

“Stent enters as Grand Admiral Thrawn. Eli accompanies him as aide-de-camp. You two will walk directly to the command uplink chamber.”

Eli blinked. “…walking into the center of an Imperial installation pretending to be a dead Grand Admiral?”

Marae didn’t blink. “Yes.”

“And then what?”

“Then you give them a fabricated emergency authorization,” Marae said. “A story simple enough to hold under interrogation, complex enough to seem official. Your window is thirty minutes before the authentication cycles cross-check deeper files.”

“And if the lie cracks early?” Eli asked.

Marae looked him dead in the eyes. “Then you improvise. Preferably in a way that does not require us to retrieve your corpses.”

Stent didn’t flinch. “Acceptable parameters.”

Eli whispered, “Speak for yourself.”

Rinna leaned back, arms crossed. “Look. The Empire’s a mess after Scarif and Lothal. They’re stretched too thin to question the impossible. A Grand Admiral showing up out of nowhere with a crisis override? They’ll open doors just to avoid being court-martialed.”

Marae’s tone hardened. “But make no mistake: one wrong phrase, one misstep of protocol, one flicker in your voice—”

She tapped the holo.
The station’s turbolasers lit up red.

“—and Klyssos will seal itself and incinerate everything inside.”

Eli swallowed.

Stent simply nodded.

“Understood.”

Marae studied them both, then killed the projection.

“Get your cover story straight. Get your codes built. We launch when you’re ready. No later than forty-eight hours.”

She walked out without waiting for questions.

Rinna lingered at the door, shaking her head softly.
“Hope you two like pressure.”

Stent said, “We are accustomed to it.”

Eli muttered, “Speak for both of us again and I swear—”

But Stent was already turning away.