Chapter 90 · Route C

The heat from the springs lingered in Eli’s muscles long after they stepped out of the water. His bones felt loose, light in a way he hadn’t felt in weeks. Stent ran a hand once over his short, unfamiliar hair, still seeming subtly altered without the longer style he had once kept tied back in proper Ascendancy fashion, and appeared almost… comfortable. Not relaxed—that wasn’t quite a Chiss quality—but settled

The evening had deepened into full night by the time they reached the Faded Glory again. Stars glittered above the valley, sharp and clear against the dark.

Eli headed toward the galley out of habit. “I’ll get dinner started.”

Stent stepped in front of him, stopping him with a simple hand against his chest. “You will sit.”

Eli blinked. “I—what?”

“You are fatigued.” Stent looked at him with the same matter-of-fact analysis he used to evaluate malfunctioning starship components. “Your reaction times have slowed. Preparing food after prolonged stress leads to injury.”

Eli raised a brow. “And you’re going to cook?”

Stent gave a small, entirely serious nod. “Yes.”

Eli stared. “Do you even know how?”

“I do. And I have observed you.”

“That does not mean—”

Stent had already walked past him toward the storage lockers.

Eli sighed, half amused, half resigned. “Fine. Don’t burn the ship down.”

“I do not burn things,” Stent replied over his shoulder.

“We’ll see.”

Stent didn’t head back inside. Instead, he gathered a neat stack of dry wood from a nearby storage crate by the landing ramp — emergency supplies Eli had almost forgotten they had — and arranged them with deliberate efficiency.

He set a spark with a striker from the toolkit, shielding it with his hand until the flame caught.
Eli sat on a stone near the fire, watching with a mixture of curiosity and disbelief.

“You’ve… done this before?” Eli asked.

“Yes.” Stent skewered the vegetables and strips of meat in symmetrical patterns across two lengths of metal rod, then paused long enough to open one of the small packets of Lysatran spices they had sold only in part, reserving the rest for their own galley. He sprinkled the blend over the food with the same measured attention he gave to recalibrating a sensor array, turning each piece until the rub clung evenly to the surface. “But the process is simple. Apply heat evenly. Avoid scorching.”

“That’s cooking, yes,” Eli said, rubbing his temples with a slow laugh. “Sort of.”

The scent of roasting herbs and warm fat rose into the air. The fire crackled softly. The night around them felt almost unreal — like the galaxy and its chaos were a thousand light-years away.

Which, technically, they were.

Eli stretched out his legs, letting the quiet settle. “We should talk about our course.”

“Yes.” Stent rotated the skewers with a precision that would’ve been impressive if it wasn’t also faintly ridiculous. “We need to choose the most efficient path to Lothal.”

Eli pulled up the star charts on his datapad, the blue light flickering against the flames. “Four possible routes, just like we said earlier. Let’s eliminate the obvious bad ones.”

The Perlemian Route illuminated on the display first — the long arc through Corsin, Gizer, Makem.

Eli grimaced. “This one’s safe, but every major checkpoint has Imperial presence. With the rumor about Thrawn, we won’t make it ten minutes without getting scanned.”

Stent didn’t even look up from the food. “Unacceptable risk.”

Eli swiped to the next.

The Celanon Spur chain — longer, winding through Agamar, Axxila, Lianna.

“Too many minor ports,” Eli said. “Every one an opportunity for someone to notice us.”

“Too slow,” Stent agreed. “And too visible.”

Eli slid to the third.

The Braxant Run approach — narrow, half-patrolled, notorious.

“This route has ambush points all over it,” Eli said. “Rebel or Imperial. Take your pick.”

Stent finally looked up, a faint crease between his brows. “Why is this even an option?”

“Desperation and bad judgment,” Eli answered.

“Then discard it.”

Eli flicked it away.

Then he pulled up Route C.

The Cantonica Corridor. Cantonica → Troiken → Quermia → Overic Griplink → Lothal.

Clean. Quiet. Risky — but only because it depended on skill.

Eli stared at the glowing path. “This is the fastest. And the least patrolled.”

“And the one requiring multiple manual jumps on the last section,” Stent said.

“You’ve flown through the Chaos. You know how to handle unpredictable vector drift.”

Stent turned the skewers again, letting the firelight warm his face. “And you have successfully plotted jumps through uncharted territory.”

Eli exhaled, the decision settling between them like something inevitable. “So that’s our route.”

“It is the most logical.”

“And the most dangerous,” Eli countered.

“Yes,” Stent said. “But danger is constant. Inefficiency is optional.”

Eli snorted. “I’ll put that in a philosophy book someday.”

“You should not.”

The food hissed softly as Stent lifted the skewers away from the fire. He inspected them with a critical eye, then handed one to Eli.

Eli took the first bite — and blinked.

“Stent… this is actually good.”

Stent sat beside him, accepting the comment with the same calm he applied to everything else. “The spices helped.”

“The spices helped,” Eli echoed, amused. “You mean the rub you applied with the solemnity of a shipyard inspection?”

“It required even distribution.”

Eli huffed a laugh, taking another bite despite himself. The meat was smoky at the edges, warm with the Lysatran blend, and better than it had any right to be coming from a Chiss who had described cooking as a heat-management problem. “Well, even distribution worked.”

Stent took this as seriously as any field report. “Good.”

Eli shook his head, smiling in spite of himself. “You’re impossible.”

“I am learning,” Stent said, and because he said it without defensiveness, as if the admission were no different from acknowledging a corrected calculation, Eli found himself with nothing useful to say to that.

They ate in the quiet of the valley, steam rising from the springs behind them, stars clustering thick above the silhouette of their ship. The datapad lay between them, Route C glowing softly on the map — a thin, dangerous line threading toward a world that held answers no one else had been able to find.

When the fire had burned down to embers, Eli leaned back on his hands.

“So,” he said, “tomorrow we fly.”

Stent nodded once. “Tomorrow.”

The night wind carried the faint smell of herbs and smoke.
Above them, the path to Lothal hung like a constellation waiting to be followed.

Morning broke soft and pale across the valley, mist curling upward from the springs in long ribbons. The Faded Glory sat on her landing struts with an air of patient readiness, as if she had rested just enough to forgive the past week.

Eli stood outside the loading ramp, watching the sun edge over the ridge. His datapad showed the first three jumps of Route C already plotted—careful, precise, and with enough buffer in the transition vectors to account for any stray gravitational drift.

Stent emerged from the ship carrying two travel mugs. He handed one to Eli. “Hot tea.”

Eli blinked. “You made tea?”

“You were slow to rise,” Stent said, taking an entirely dignified sip from his own mug. “This appeared efficient.”

Eli huffed a laugh into the steam. “Keep this up and you might pass as approachable.”

“I am sufficiently approachable,” Stent said.

“Sure.”

They secured the cargo, checked Tee into his new socket in the navigation well—still a little twitchy, still adjusting, but operational—and ran through the preflight as the valley wind tugged at their jackets.

When the engines rumbled awake, Eli felt the familiar vibration through the deck plates; it carried a sense of rightness, of forward motion, of purpose.

Stent closed the hatch and joined him in the cockpit. “Are you prepared?”

“As much as I ever am.” Eli keyed in the route. “Three weeks to Cantonica. Manual calculations from there.”

Stent settled into the co-pilot’s seat. “We proceed.”

Eli glanced sideways at him. “We’re really doing this. Heading straight into the Empire’s mess because of a rumor and a handful of redacted files.”

“No,” Stent corrected calmly. “We are heading toward the data. The rumor is irrelevant.”

Eli leaned back in his chair, letting the moment rest between them. “Think anyone out there will believe it? That Thrawn’s ghost saved a rebel evacuation, walked through an Imperial relay, and vanished again?”

Stent didn’t hesitate. “Belief is a variable. The data remains.”

Eli let out a slow, steady breath. “Figures you’d say that.”

The Faded Glory lifted from the valley floor, kicking up dust and steam as she rose. The springs shimmered beneath them, turning the water silver in the morning light.

Eli eased them up through the atmosphere, the planet falling away behind them. Clouds thinned. The sky deepened into blue, then black, then starshot emptiness.

Stent watched the instruments with his usual calm, hands folded behind his back. “Course is stable.”

“Good.” Eli reached toward the hyperspace lever. “Let’s go chase some ghosts.”

The stars elongated—blue at the edges, white at the core—then unfurled into the long tunnel of hyperspace.