Chapter Text
The Blood Crow’s emergency supply locker was not, strictly speaking, a commissary.
Rask called it a commissary because Rask had a creative relationship with language whenever that creativity allowed him to complain with greater theatrical force, but the term implied a degree of availability, variety, and commercial dignity that the narrow compartment wedged between the internal mail office and the secondary packing-supplies store had never possessed and, Eli suspected, never aspired to possess. There were no open shelves, no posted prices, no selection screen, not even the faint democratic illusion that personnel might walk in and choose something. There was a fold-down counter, an administrative grille, a requisition datapad, three grey cabinets with biometric locks, and Petty Officer Mallik, who handled mail, personal deliveries, inspected packages, and, for reasons that had probably begun as a temporary solution during some previous deployment and then hardened into doctrine through pure Imperial inertia, a small reserve of emergency personal supplies.
Socks. Shaving cartridges. Dental tablets. Dry soap. Utility shower gel in sealed ration packets. Deodorant blocks. Sewing needles. Thermal cloths. Boot laces. Non-regulated analgesics. Abrasive strips for cleaning implants. Regulation combs, all of them in a grey so offensively neutral Eli suspected someone had designed them specifically to discourage vanity before it had time to organize.
There was also, on the top shelf behind Mallik’s shoulder, a row of identical narrow bottles labelled Imperial Navy Personal Fragrance, General Use..
No one used them.
No one had ever used them, as far as Eli could tell, except perhaps once, under duress, in a training exercise designed to test morale degradation.
The stuff did not smell good. It did not smell bad either, which somehow made it worse. It smelled like a room after every possible scent had been court-martialed and removed.
It was not a service. It was a concession.
The distinction mattered, especially because Mallik had the expression of a man prepared to remind anyone who forgot that the Navy did not exist to compensate for officers who failed to buy toiletries when they stopped at a base with a proper commissary.
“I need toothpaste,” Rask said, planting both elbows on the counter with the solemnity of a man requesting ammunition under fire.
Mallik did not look up from his datapad. “You do, ensign? Again?”
Rask nodded “Yes.”
“No.”
Rask blinked. “I didn’t specify a type.”
“No.”
“It could be a medical emergency.”
“It is not.”
“It could become one if I’m forced to report for bunk inspection with breath like last night’s synthetic nerf ration.”
Mallik scrolled once. “Last night’s ration was poultry.”
“That is what the label claimed. My mouth and I hold a different position.”
Eli, who had come only because Rask had assured him this would take thirty seconds and that he would in no way attempt to turn a visit to the emergency locker into a black-market negotiation, closed his eyes briefly and reconsidered, not for the first time, the chain of minor decisions that kept placing him beside Rask in administrative spaces.
Thrawn stood at his other side, perfectly still, datapad in hand, because fate, which aboard the Blood Crow had a particularly dry sense of humor, had decided that the shortest route between the auxiliary analysis room and the navigation annex passed directly by the mail office just as Rask began what he appeared to consider a legitimate campaign for human hygiene.
“Naval dental tablets are available,” Mallik said, still not looking at him. “Two units. Single use. No free fluoride. Next requisition authorized in seventy-two hours unless loss of personal kit is documented.”
Rask looked appalled. “That isn’t toothpaste.”
“No.”
“It tastes like chalk with institutional resentment.”
“It cleans teeth.”
“So would fine sand, if someone were desperate enough.”
Mallik finally looked up. “Fine sand is not recommended.”
Eli coughed into his fist.
Thrawn tilted his head by the smallest degree, which in anyone else might have been simple attention, but in him had the quality of an instrument activating.
“Why is civilian toothpaste not distributed?” he asked.
Mallik looked at him.
Rask looked at him too, but with a kind of alarmed gratitude, as if Thrawn had accidentally opened a door Rask had been battering with his forehead for years.
Eli had the late, crystalline awareness that it would have been better to let the conversation die with the fine sand.
“Because it is prohibited aboard, sir,” Mallik said.
Thrawn did not look surprised. Thrawn rarely looked surprised. The troubling thing was that, when something caught his interest, the silence that followed did not mean absence of reaction, but concentration.
“What’s the reason, quartermaster?”
Mallik didn’t hesitate.
“Because of toxicological risk”
Rask smiled.
Eli muttered, “No.”
Too late.
“Because of voluntary stupidity,” Rask said, with the satisfaction of a witness finally called before a tribunal. “Which is, in my experience, the most persistent category of human risk.”
Mallik closed his eyes for a moment, as though he had hoped, against all accumulated evidence, that the official explanation might survive for at least ten seconds.
Thrawn turned his gaze to Rask. “Explain.”
Rask straightened, delighted and terrible. “Two deployments ago, before I had the privilege of sharing corridors with our distinguished Ensign Vanto, and you, Lieutenant Thrawn, the Blood Crow kept civilian toothpaste in the emergency locker. Not much. Small tubes. Mint, saline, something herbal and horrible that probably violated a minor treaty. The idea was that if someone lost their kit, or a crew transfer came aboard without luggage, or the base commissaries were closed, Quartermaster Mallik here could prevent half a deck from smelling like a digestive reactor.”
“A reasonable function,” Thrawn said.
“We all thought so,” Rask said. “Until three gunnery sublieutenants discovered that if they ate enough of it to turn green, they could report to medical with vomiting, abdominal pain, cold sweats, and a face of regret so convincing that Medical had no immediate way to distinguish between accidental poisoning, spoiled rations, kitchen sabotage, or sudden allergy to existing during combat inspection.”
Eli turned his head slowly toward him.
“They ate toothpaste?”
“Yes.”
“On purpose?”
“That was the central point of the investigation.”
Mallik set the datapad down on the counter with a softness that did not conceal his exhaustion, although a smile played on the corner of his mouth. “One of them claimed he mistook the tube for an energy ration.”
Eli stared at him. “Who mistakes toothpaste for an energy ration?”
“Someone who has already decided to vomit before inspection,” Rask said. “But I appreciate your faith in human reasoning.”
Thrawn had stopped looking at Rask. Now he was studying the locked cabinets, the grille, the requisition datapad, the whole arrangement of the space, as though the story were not an unpleasant anecdote but the visible expression of a design flaw.
“Did ingestion reliably produce incapacitating symptoms?”
Eli turned back to him. “Lieutenant.”
“I am not requesting instructions,” Thrawn said.
“I know,” Eli said under his breath. “That’s the problem.”
Rask, who possessed the selective survival instinct of a man who knew when a conversation had become too interesting to abandon, answered before Mallik could decide whether Thrawn’s rank required a response.
“No fever. Not usually. But enough to take them down for a few hours, or at least enough to convince a tired medic that removing them from duty was safer than discovering whether the entire deck was about to start vomiting next. Nausea, diarrhea, stomach pain, weakness. Very useful if one is an idiot, a coward, or both with ambition.”
“Rask,” Eli said.
“I’m summarizing sanitary doctrine.”
“You’re enjoying it.”
“Both can be true.”
Mallik inhaled through his nose, slowly. “The final report recommended the removal of all civilian toothpaste containing free fluoride from emergency stores and replacement with controlled-use alternatives that could not be ingested in useful quantity without clear traces.”
Thrawn turned back to him. “Which alternatives were approved?”
Mallik answered at once, which suggested he had been forced to recite this too many times.
“Dental tablets without free fluoride. Low-volume enzymatic foam in sealed cartridges. Single-use abrasive strips for field conditions. Brushes with integrated measured reservoirs and pressure counters. Naval paste, issued only to medically authorized personnel, formulated with a bittering agent and traceable marker.”
Rask grimaced. “The bittering agent is a work of hatred.”
“Its purpose is to discourage improper ingestion.”
“Its purpose is to remind us that supply does not believe in mercy.”
“Its purpose,” Mallik corrected, “is that if someone attempts to feign illness by consuming a hygiene product, Medical can identify it on a quick screen and return the individual to duty with the appropriate disciplinary charge.”
There was a brief silence.
Very brief.
Then Thrawn said, “Efficient.”
Eli looked at him with tired indignation. “Don’t encourage him.”
“His reasoning is sound.”
“The reasoning may be sound. The existence of toothpaste designed to betray you if you eat it is morally depressing.”
“So is eating it,” Mallik said.
Rask raised a finger. “In defense of the human crew as a whole—”
“No,” Eli said.
“—I would like to point out that only three people did it.”
“Out of a crew of a couple hundred,” Eli said. “That does not improve your argument.”
“It improves it enormously. We are a statistically responsible species.”
Thrawn blinked once. “The incidence rate may be low, but the operational cost of each episode appears to have been disproportionate.”
Rask pointed at him with open admiration. “That. That is what I have always said.”
“You have never said that,” Eli told him.
“Not in those words. Spiritually.”
Mallik pulled two dental tablets from a drawer and placed them on the counter. They came sealed in a white strip, unbranded, unscented, and entirely without concession to the idea that hygiene might be allowed to involve pleasure.
Rask stared at them as though he had been handed a sentence.
“Is there nothing with flavor?”
“There is enzymatic foam.”
“Flavor?”
“Imperial Navy.”
“That is not a flavor.”
“It is a warning,” Mallik said, and pushed the strip toward him.
Eli, who had begun the scene in moderate amusement and ended it contemplating, with a kind of intimate horror, the breadth of possibility opened by boredom, duty rosters, young humans, and hygiene products, took one of the tablets before Rask could continue arguing.
“Thank you, Petty Officer.”
Mallik nodded, grateful in a way that was barely visible. “Ensign.”
Rask pocketed the other with offended dignity. “This is not over.”
“Yes,” Eli said. “It is.”
“My mouth disagrees.”
“Your mouth has no requisition authority.”
“Yet.”
Thrawn, who had remained thoughtful for the last few seconds, glanced toward the upper shelf. “The shower gel is also controlled?”
Mallik’s expression settled into the flat endurance of a man watching another corridor open.
“Yes, sir. Emergency issue only. Unscented, non-reactive, low-residue. Single-use packets.”
“Because of ingestion?”
“No,” Mallik said. “Because personnel used to hoard the scented ones and trade them.”
Rask brightened. “In fairness, some of those were excellent.”
“They were medical-grade dermal cleansers.” Mallik pointed
“They smelled like citrus and better assignments.” Rask said, shrugging.
“They clogged three disposal units, caused two allergic reactions, and one private attempted to dilute a packet into a room fragrance.”
Eli stared. “Why?”
“Cabins smelled like socks,” Rask said, as though this were both obvious and tragic.
Mallik continued, “The current gel smells like nothing, foams minimally, rinses clean in low-water cycles, and cannot reasonably be mistaken for food, lubricant, polish, coolant additive, or morale supplement.”
Rask looked wounded. “Morale supplement?”
“The phrase is from the report,” Mallik said.
“I object to being reduced to a category.”
“You were not aboard at the time.”
“I object on behalf of my people.”
“Your people,” Eli said, “being idiots?”
“Personnel with sensory needs.”
Mallik’s mouth thinned. “There is also regulation soap.”
He removed a small rectangular bar from another drawer.
It was grey.
Of course it was grey.
Eli did not know why he had expected anything else.
Rask leaned away from it. “That looks like it was carved from a disciplinary hearing.”
“It is anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, non-perfumed, stable across standard shipboard temperature variation, and issued only when shower gel is unavailable.”
“Does it remove skin?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
Mallik placed it back in the drawer. “Reasonably.”
Thrawn’s gaze shifted once more to the narrow bottles on the top shelf. “And those?”
Mallik did not need to turn. “Imperial Personal Fragrance. Neutral Classification. General Use.”
Rask made a low sound of spiritual distress.
Eli, unfortunately, understood.
Thrawn looked between them. “It is objectionable?”
“It’s not objectionable,” Eli said.
Rask stared at him in betrayal.
Eli corrected himself. “That’s the problem. It’s nothing. It smells like nothing happened in a clean hallway.”
“It smells like a personnel file,” Rask said.
“It smells,” Eli said, because the description had lodged itself now and would not leave him alone, “like the memory of soap after the soap has been reassigned.”
Mallik looked almost pleased despite himself. “It was selected to avoid interpersonal scent conflicts in close quarters.”
“It was selected,” Rask said, “by someone who believed joy was a ventilation hazard.”
“No one uses it,” Eli added.
“I have issued three bottles in fourteen months,” Mallik said. “Two were returned unopened. One was used to remove adhesive residue from a footlocker.”
Thrawn considered this. “Was it effective?”
Mallik paused. “Yes.”
Rask spread his hands. “There. Its true purpose revealed.”
“The label does not indicate solvent use,” Thrawn said.
“No,” Eli said. “Please don’t start, Sir.”
“I am not starting.”
“You are thinking.”
“That is not prohibited.”
“It should be, in this context.”
Mallik cleared his throat.
The conversation, having reached the point where the emergency supply locker’s cologne was in danger of being reclassified as a cleaning agent by a Chiss lieutenant with insufficient social deterrence, appeared to exhaust even Rask’s appetite for escalation.
Mostly.
They stepped away from the counter, the biometric lock clicked behind them with Imperial finality, and the narrow office resumed its ordinary rhythm: mail containers shifting on repulsor pallets, labels being scanned, someone's care package being weighed and judged by systems that had no opinion on homesickness.
Rask held up the dental tablet between two fingers. “I’m telling you, Vanto, one day the Navy will discover mint again and pretend it was an efficiency measure.”
“The Navy has discovered mint,” Eli said. “It banned mint.”
“For cowardly reasons.”
“For vomit reasons.”
“History is written by the non-vomiting.”
Thrawn walked beside them in silence for three measured steps, datapad tucked under one arm, attention clearly still engaged somewhere several layers below the surface conversation.
Then he said, “The prohibition is not based on the danger of the product during intended use, but on the probability of behavioral deviation under operational stress.”
Eli sighed. “That is a very elegant way to say three idiots ate toothpaste to avoid work.”
“It is also more broadly applicable.”
Rask lifted his hand. “As the unelected representative of fleet idiots, I request that it be noted some personnel are not attempting to avoid work, only particularly humiliating inspections.”
Eli looked at him.
Rask lowered his hand. “Hypothetically.”
“The personal supply category appears to present multiple vectors for misuse,” Thrawn continued. “Dental products, scented cleansing agents, fragrance, possibly grooming compounds.”
Eli, who had been watching Rask struggle to open the dental tablet packet with a level of resentment normally reserved for enemy action, took half a second too long to register the last part.
“Grooming compounds?”
Thrawn turned to him.
“Yes.”
Rask stopped fighting the packet.
“Oh no,” Eli said.
Thrawn’s expression did not change. That was rarely reassuring.
“The hair gel I use is civilian,” he said. “A widely distributed commercial brand. It has not been challenged during inspection.”
Eli stared at him.
Rask’s mouth opened.
Eli pointed at him without looking. “Do not.”
Rask closed his mouth with visible pain.
Thrawn continued, precise and entirely serious. “It is scented, though mildly. It is not issued through naval supply. It contains several compounds I have not confirmed against shipboard misuse classifications. Given the standard just described, should it be considered contraband?”
For one long, delicate moment, Eli saw several possible futures unfold.
In one, he answered seriously, and Thrawn submitted his hair gel for chemical review.
In another, he answered jokingly, and Thrawn failed to identify where the joke ended, which somehow also resulted in chemical review.
In a third, Rask survived long enough to make the obvious comment about the strategic importance of Thrawn’s hair, which resulted not in disciplinary action, exactly, but in a silence so lethal that Eli would have to drag him to safety by the collar.
He chose the narrow path between catastrophe and paperwork.
“No,” Eli said firmly. “Your gel is not contraband.”
“You are certain?”
“Yes.”
“On what basis?”
“On the basis that you use it on your hair, not as a ration substitute, medical excuse, room fragrance, adhesive solvent, morale supplement, or act of rebellion.”
Rask made a strangled sound.
Eli did not look at him.
Thrawn considered this with grave attention. “Then intended use remains the determining factor?”
“Intended use plus not being an idiot.”
“That second criterion may be difficult to codify.”
“Welcome to human regulations.”
Rask inhaled sharply. “I have several proposed codifications.”
“No,” Eli and Thrawn said together.
Rask looked delighted. “That was beautiful. Terrifying, but beautiful.”
Thrawn inclined his head slightly, still thoughtful, but apparently willing—for the moment—to allow his civilian hair gel to remain outside the contraband framework.
“Very well,” he said. “I will not submit it for review.”
Eli exhaled. “Thank you.”
“Unless requested.”
“No one is going to request it.”
Rask’s eyes gleamed.
Eli turned on him. “No one.”
Rask placed both hands over his heart. “I would never interfere with a matter of such tactical grooming significance.”
Thrawn looked at him.
Rask’s survival instinct, late but functional, arrived at last. “Sir.”
They continued down the corridor, past the mail office, past the locked cabinets and their tablets without flavor, their joyless soap, their shower gel designed by committee, their cologne so neutral it had become functionally philosophical. Around them the Blood Crow hummed on, full of rules written in response to incidents no one wanted to explain twice, full of officers too young or too tired or too human to be trusted entirely with ordinary objects.
Eli glanced once at Thrawn’s perfectly controlled hair and decided, with the weary certainty of a man who could feel the universe preparing another joke at his expense, that somewhere in the Imperial Navy there was probably already a regulation about grooming products.
He also decided he would rather defect than be the one who found it.