The armor was all there was. The body itself was gone.
“No,” Eli heard himself mutter under his breath. It was impossible. A blast that caused so little damage to the ship behind it couldn’t possibly have disintegrated a body so completely. Especially not without doing the same to the armor that had encased it.
A movement to his left caught his eye. Emerging into the clearing were the three stormtroopers who’d gone to look for their missing comrade. They had indeed found him.
Or at least, what was left of him.
—
Eli had half expected the transport and troop carrier would be attacked as they lifted into the sky. But no missiles, laser pulses, or catapulted grenades followed them up. Soon, to his relief, they were safe in the Strikefast’s hangar bay.
Captain Parck was waiting beside the transport’s hatch as the men filed out. “Colonel,” he said, nodding gravely as Barris emerged behind Eli. “I don’t recall giving you permission to leave your position.”
“No, sir, you didn’t,” Barris said, and Eli had no trouble hearing the weariness in his voice. “But I was the commander on the scene. I did what I deemed best.”
“Yes,” Parck murmured. Eli looked back over his shoulder, to see the captain shift his gaze from Barris to the transport itself. “I’m told you brought the alien settlement up with you.”
“Yes, sir,” Barris said. “Everything that was there, right down to the dirt. I can put the techs back to work on it whenever you want.”
“There’s no hurry,” Parck said. “You’ll accompany me back to my office. Everyone else is to report for debriefing.” He turned to face the line of techs and navy troopers.
And his eyes fell on Eli.
Quickly, Eli twisted his head back around. Eavesdropping on officers was very bad form. Hopefully, Parck hadn’t noticed.
Unfortunately, he had. “Cadet Vanto?”
Bracing himself, Eli stopped and turned around. “Yes, sir?”
“You’ll accompany us, as well,” Parck said. “Come.” With Parck in the lead, they left the hangar bay.
But to Eli’s surprise they didn’t go to the captain’s office. Instead, Parck led the way up to the hangar bay control tower, the lights of which had been inexplicably darkened. “Sir?” Barris asked as Parck stepped to the observation window.
“An experiment, Colonel.” Parck gestured to the man at the control board. “Everyone out? Good. Dim the lights in the bay.”
Barris stepped to Parck’s side as the lights outside the observation window faded to nighttime levels. Cautiously, trying to stay as inconspicuous as possible while still getting a good look, Eli eased to a spot just behind Parck on his other side. The transport and troop carrier were prominently visible directly below; beyond them at the other end of the bay were three Zeta-class shuttles and a Harbinger courier ship. “What sort of experiment?” Barris asked.
“The testing of a theory,” Parck said. “Make yourselves comfortable, Colonel; Cadet. We may be here awhile.”
They’d been there nearly two hours when a shadowy, human-shaped figure emerged stealthily from the transport. Silently, it slipped across the darkened hangar bay toward the other ships, taking advantage of the sparse cover along the way.
“Who is that?” Barris asked, leaning a little closer to the transparisteel divider.
“Unless I’m mistaken, that’s the source of your troubles down on the surface,” Parck said with obvious satisfaction. “I believe that’s the castaway whose home you invaded.”
Eli blinked, frowned. One man? One man?
Barris apparently didn’t believe it, either. “That’s impossible, sir,” he protested. “Those attacks couldn’t have been the work of a single person. He must have had some help.”
“We’ll wait a moment and see if anyone joins him,” Parck said.
No one did. The shadowy figure moved across the floor to the other ships, where it paused for a moment as if considering. Then, deliberately, it stepped to the door of the middle Zeta shuttle and slipped inside. “It appears he was indeed alone,” Parck said, pulling out his comlink. “He’s in the middle Zeta. All weapons on stun: I want him alive and unharmed.”
—
After all the trouble the castaway had created on the planet surface, Eli had expected him to put up a terrific fight against his captors. To his surprise, he apparently surrendered to the stormtroopers without any resistance at all.
Perhaps he was taken by surprise. More likely, he knew when resistance was futile.
At least Eli understood now why Parck wanted him along. The prisoner’s cargo crates were labeled with a Sy Bisti variant. If he spoke the language itself—and if it was the only language he spoke—the Imperials would need a translator.
The group was halfway to the hatchway where Parck, Barris, Eli, and their stormtrooper escort waited when the hangar bay lights came back up.
The prisoner, as Eli had already noted, was of human shape and dimensions. But there the resemblance to normal humans ended. His skin was blue, his eyes a glowing red, and his hair a shimmering blue-black.
Eli stiffened. Back home on Lysatra, there were myths about beings like that. Proud, deadly warriors that the stories named Chiss.
With an effort, he tore his eyes away from the face and his mind away from the old myths. The prisoner was dressed in what appeared to be skins and furs, apparently sewn together from the indigenous animals of the forest where he’d been living. Even marching in the center of a rectangle of armed stormtroopers, he had an air of almost regal confidence about him.
Confidence. That was definitely part of the stories.
The stormtroopers brought him to within a few meters of Parck and nudged him to a halt. “Welcome aboard the Venator Star Destroyer Strikefast,” the captain said. “Do you speak Basic?”
For a moment the alien seemed to be studying him. “Or would Sy Bisti be better?” Eli added in that language.
Barris threw a glare at him, and Eli winced. Again, stupid. He should have waited for orders. The prisoner, too, was gazing at him, though his expression seemed more thoughtful than angry.
Captain Parck, for his part, only had eyes for the prisoner. “You asked him whether he spoke Sy Bisti, I assume?”
“Yes, sir,” Eli said. “My apologies, Captain. I just thought—the stories all say that the Chiss used Sy Bisti in their—”
“The what?” Parck asked.
“The Chiss,” Eli said, feeling his face warming. “They’re a…well, they’ve always been thought of as a Wild Space myth.”
“Have they, now,” Parck said, eying the prisoner. “It would appear they’re a bit more substantial than that. But I interrupted. You were saying?”
“Just that in the stories the Chiss used Sy Bisti in their dealings with us.”
“As you also used that language with us,” the prisoner said calmly in Sy Bisti.
Eli twitched. The prisoner had answered in Sy Bisti…but he’d responded to a comment that Eli had made in Basic. “Do you understand Basic?” he asked in Sy Bisti.
“I understand some,” the Chiss answered in the same language. “But I’m more comfortable with this one.”
Eli nodded. “He says he understands some Basic, but is more comfortable with Sy Bisti.”
“I see,” Parck said. “Very well. I’m Captain Parck, commander of this ship. What’s your name?”
Eli opened his mouth to translate—“No,” Parck stopped him with an upraised hand. “You can translate his answers, but I want to see how much Basic he understands. Your name, please?”
For a moment the Chiss was silent, his gaze drifting around the hangar bay. Not like a primitive overwhelmed by the size and magnificence of the place, Eli thought, but like another military man sizing up his enemy’s strengths and weaknesses. “Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” he said, bringing his glowing eyes back to Parck.
“But I believe it would be easier for you to call me Thrawn.”
A life path may change because of important decisions or events. Those were what drove my current path.