Chapter 82 · Grand Admiral

The Lambda shuttle dropped out of hyperspace with a shudder, the stars snapping back into hard, crystalline points.

Eli felt it in his teeth — that sudden stillness before a storm.

Klyssos filled the viewport.

Not a planet or a station. A geometry of Imperial paranoia: an orbital fortress wrapped in rings of signal arrays, turbolaser towers jutting out like thorns on a metal bloom.
It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t meant to be.

It was meant to be obeyed.

The Rebel pilot muttered something in Rodian under his breath — the tone needed no translation.

Eli leaned forward, tension prickling up his spine. Every instinct he’d buried since his days aboard the Chimaera rose at once, cold and unwelcome.

Stent sat motionless in the crew area, a white silhouette against the shuttle’s dim interior. He didn’t fidget. He didn’t shift. He didn’t need to.

Just looking at him made Eli’s stomach twist. The uniform did most of it. The posture — the still, analytical presence — did the rest.

“This is it,” Eli whispered.

Stent nodded once. “Proceed.”

The pilot opened a channel.

Static crackled. Then—

“Unidentified Lambda shuttle, you have entered restricted Klyssos airspace. Transmit identification and clearance.”

The voice was clipped, bored, waiting for an excuse to fire.

Eli felt his pulse in his throat.

The pilot glanced back at them. “Whenever you’re ready, sir.”

That sir was for Stent.

Stent rose — slow, controlled, every movement rehearsed until it felt inevitable. He stepped into the cockpit threshold, not too close, not too far. Position mattered. Everything mattered.

The comm light blinked again. “Lambda shuttle, respond or you will be escorted—”

Stent pressed the transmit button. And with a voice that made Eli’s skin crawl in both awe and discomfort, he said: “This is Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

The cockpit went still. Not silence — stillness.

Even the pilot forgot to breathe.

On the other end of the line, a sharp inhale. A shuffle of bodies.
Raised voices. Someone barking, “Verify that! Verify—”

Then: “…Grand Admiral… Thrawn?”

Eli felt the world tilt. He had prepared for this, practiced this, rationalized this —

but nothing prepared him for the sound of fear and reverence overlapping in that officer’s voice.

Stent didn’t flinch. “You kept me waiting.”

The words dropped like a blade.

For three heartbeats, no one spoke.

Static hissed over the comm — the kind that meant frantic scrambling on the other end, personnel tripping over regulations, trying to decide whether they should salute or call their superior or shoot someone.

“G–Grand Admiral,” the voice stammered. “We… we were not informed of your arrival.”

Stent lowered his chin a fraction. A perfect imitation of annoyance so subtle that Eli felt it in his bones.

“Evidently.”

If the officer on the other end hadn’t been sweating before, he certainly was now. “Forgive us, sir. Please transmit your—”

Stent didn’t let him finish. “Stand by for clearance.”

He tapped Eli’s datapad — the physical gesture meant nothing, but the protocol demanded it. Eli activated the forged authorization string with a thumbprint that wasn’t even checked by the system — because the system, as Rinna predicted, didn’t bother trying to read alien biology.

They waited.

One second. Two. Ten.

Eli realized his hand was gripping the armrest hard enough to ache.

Then: “Clearance received. Opening approach corridor. Docking Bay Fourteen is prepared for your arrival, sir.”

The light on the console flipped from yellow to green.

The pilot exhaled so sharply the sound startled himself.

Eli didn’t move. He couldn’t.

Stent stepped back into the crew area and sat, hands folded, calm as a lake under starlight. “Proceed,” he said.

The shuttle angled toward the fortress, slipping into the illuminated docking path. Massive armored doors parted like the jaws of something ancient and hungry.

Eli swallowed, throat dry. “Never thought I’d miss paperwork,” he muttered.

Stent glanced at him, deadpan. “This is paperwork.”

Eli let out a strangled laugh — half terror, half disbelief.

The fortress swallowed them whole.

And the door closed behind them like the seal on a coffin.