Poe Dameron Read online

  © & TM 2020 Lucasfilm Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Lucasfilm Press, an imprint of Buena Vista Books, Inc. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

  For information address Disney • Lucasfilm Press,

  1200 Grand Central Avenue, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-368-05659-5

  Design by Leigh Zieske

  Cover illustration by Phil Noto

  Visit the official Star Wars website at: www.starwars.com.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part I: Grounded

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Part II: Renegade

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Part III: Awakenings

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Part IV: Fallout

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  About the Author

  For my family, always.

  With huge thanks to the entire Star Wars family, especially Michael Siglain and my amazing editor, Jen Heddle; my agent, Josh Getzler; my good pal Bryan Young; and the many people who helped make this book a reality. I’m in your debt forever.

  “Waaahoooo!”

  The scream erupted from Poe Dameron’s lips as the A-wing veered upward with a long, painful shudder, the old ship barely dodging the trio of Civilian Defense Force vessels careening toward it.

  “Not good, Poe, not good,” he muttered to himself as he checked his ship’s display. Four ships total. All armed. All probably angry. All in better shape than his mother’s old bird. Not great odds.

  “What else is new?” he asked, a smirk forming on his face.

  This was supposed to be fun, he told himself—just a quick jaunt to blow off some steam. But he’d gone farther—higher—than he’d intended, and by the time he noticed, he was in someone else’s crosshairs.

  A crackle of sound signaled a message from his pursuers. Poe ignored it. The man’s gruff voice cut through anyway.

  “Poe, this is your last warning, son,” said Griffus Pinter, one of his father’s closest friends and a mainstay of the Yavin system’s Defense Force. Poe could visualize the older man’s expression, the scraggly gray beard quivering slightly with each rage-fueled word. “I don’t want to have to shoot you down.”

  Poe hesitated for a second, his hand hovering over the ship’s controls. Even at sixteen, Poe was mature enough to know a turning point when he reached one. He could give up, surrender—and maybe skate by. Get another slap on the wrist. He’d face his father’s wrath again, sure, but even those cold shoulders were finite. It would be another incident in a long line of rebellious incidents for Poe since, well, since eight years prior.

  Since the darkest day of his young life.

  The A-wing turned downward, as if heading toward the moon, the sudden move putting a strain on the old ship—as evidenced by sounds Poe had never heard it make. Griffus sounded equally aghast. The expletives jumping through the comm were almost musical—a collection of words Poe could’ve hardly imagined in his most creative moments.

  It had started as a lark. A lark fueled by anger, if Poe was being honest with himself. The argument with his father had hit the same notes as many earlier ones. The slightest suggestion of Poe becoming a pilot—of leaving Yavin 4 and following in the footsteps of his mother, Shara Bey—was met with an immediate rejection. A spark of emotion Poe only saw in his father in moments like that one. The rest of the time, Kes Dameron was sullen, isolated, and distant. This time, harsh words were exchanged. Poe was reminded of his inexperience and youth. Tears. Yelling. Shut doors and a growing canyon between the two Dameron men.

  Slipping into the A-wing had been a quick escape. A place to hide and think. The smell and feel of his mother’s ship served as a last sanctuary of her memory. A final place where Poe could commune with a woman who should still be around. Should still be at home when he’d storm in late, waiting with a hot cup of Tarine tea in her work-worn hands, a comforting smile on her face.

  “Do we need to talk, Poe?” she’d ask in those imaginary moments, in those scenes that still felt all too real. Hurt all too much.

  Before he knew it, though, he had been flipping switches and taking the ship out. In that moment, Poe’s mind had drifted back—to the same cockpit, the same A-wing, eight years before—to his mother, her hand over his, guiding him. They used to take it out from time to time. She wanted Poe to learn, she’d tell Poe’s father, Kes, when he protested. Who better to teach him? The ship had flipped into a barrel roll, their heads bumping into each other as she laughed—that clear, strong laugh. Confident and warm—like everything his mother did. Poe knew, even then, Shara Bey was a hero. Maybe he didn’t know she was a hero to the Rebellion, to the forces that would come together to create the New Republic, but she was a hero to him. A light he was always drawn to, a source he drew strength from.

  And she was gone.

  His mind was yanked back to the present, Griffus’s static-fueled screaming replaced by a clearer voice. Menacing. Unfamiliar.

  The sentence was brief, but its message was very, very clear.

  “Open fire.”

  The first two were warning shots. Poe, despite his inexperience when it came to space battles, knew enough. “You tell them what you’re doing, every step,” his mother had said. “If you want the conflict to deescalate, you have to give them every chance to do it for you.”

  But that third shot came in strong, knocking the A-wing for a loop. The ship began to spin, and the controls flickered.

  “Uh, think we got him—”

  “No, dammit, no,” another voice said. “Change course, immediately. We have to retrieve—”

  Then the feed went dead. An eerie silence permeated the A-wing’s tight quarters, replacing the clatter. Poe’s skin grew cold as he tried to regain some kind of equilibrium.

  The Defense Force officer’s voice had been nervous. Someone had overreached. Fired with the wrong intent. The hiss of air—a compartment breached, something gone awry—filled Poe’s ears as his head slammed back, a loud thunk following a split second after. The spins couldn’t be counted anymore—it was a constant rotation as the ship veered downward, the control display a muted gray.

  Poe tried to keep his eyes open. Tried to focus on what he could do. The ship wasn’t dead—couldn’t be. It was his mother’s ship. Had been her faithful partner for more rebel missions than Poe could imagine. Shara Bey of the Rebellion. Hero of the Battle of Endor. Friend to Princess Leia Organa and Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker.

  Mother.

  As the pressure increased, as the ship fell a
part around him, Poe’s mind drifted to the farm. His eyes rolled back in their sockets, his mind overwhelmed with the vertigo as the shaky A-wing gained speed, propelling into the Yavin moon’s atmosphere. He was going home.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Poe said, his voice a whisper. “Mom.”

  Kes Dameron opened the front door to the small house he’d built himself. He looked out into the Yavin 4 night, over the hectares of farmland he tended daily, and strained his eyes in an effort to catch a glimpse of something. Anything. A flicker of light, a shadowy figure. A sign that he hadn’t made another terrible mistake.

  He’d heard the A-wing power up. He hadn’t been surprised. Over the past eight years, since Shara died, they’d been having some version of this discussion. Poe would mention a desire to fly—to be like her, to join the New Republic, to see the stars. It would vary. Sometimes it would be an offhand remark about Shara; other times it would be an innocent question about the past.

  “What was Han Solo like, Dad?”

  “Can we talk about the Battle of Endor?”

  “Did Mom really help take down a Death Star?”

  Each time, in different ways, Kes would rebuff his son. Even after eight years, he couldn’t bring himself to talk about Shara. The mementos were gone, boxed up and stored in a shed Kes didn’t dare get close to, on the edge of the swatch of farmland they’d once owned together. He couldn’t bring himself to think of how her smile would shine through the darkest moments, or how her hand on his face could calm him. It hurt too much. It hurt to see her, or parts of her, living and breathing and moving in Poe. The thirst for adventure. The charm. He was Shara’s boy. But Shara was gone. As much as he loved his son, it still stung to see his wife in their boy’s eyes.

  Kes knew he’d been distant. With the boy, with his old friends—with people who knew them as Kes and Shara. The messages ignored. The long stretches spent on the farm, not venturing out to town or to the docks. The tropical climate of Yavin 4 had appealed to them when they’d first bought this land, began to tend it together as a family. Now what appealed to Kes was how small the settlement was. He knew pretty much everyone on the moon, and knew their routines—which made it easier to avoid them and go about his business on his own terms.

  Most friends took the hint. Stopped checking in after a few years. If he saw them in town, their exchanges would be brief—pleasant enough, but no staying power. Kes preferred to be alone, anyway. He had enough trouble with that. But L’ulo L’ampar remained.

  The Duros pilot was a friend. His green skin and winning smile were able to brighten any situation. He was loyal and honest, and if Kes was being true to himself—he didn’t want to lose the man from his and Poe’s life. L’ulo had flown in the Rebellion with Shara before and after the Battle of Endor. Had pushed her to retire after the Empire’s epic loss. Had even settled on Yavin 4 as part of the system’s Civilian Defense Force, though he traveled frequently. He was more like family than a friend, and when he came to visit, Kes tried his best to make those moments special. Poe, even as a recalcitrant teenager, adored L’ulo, seeing him as a lost talisman, a link to the mother he was forgetting as more time passed. To Kes, L’ulo was a link to a life he no longer lived or was interested in. A life of danger and intrigue—and, in his clearer moments, one of love. But that love had paid a price eight years back, and he would never be able to risk himself in that way again. So when L’ulo appeared, they would celebrate. He’d allow his friend to regale Poe with stories of battles with the Empire, to share flying tips and tricks, and to wash them in Shara’s glow for a bit longer.

  Poe.

  Where had Kes gone wrong? Had he been so selfish with his own grief—putting shields up, erasing the past—that he didn’t stop to consider his son might need to connect with someone? To laugh, grieve, or think about his mother? Kes knew this to be true, but he couldn’t control what he’d done. Poe was the best of them, but Kes only saw the best of Shara when he looked at his boy—now closer to a man than a child. He saw the fearlessness. He saw Poe’s wide-eyed wonder and hunger for adventure. He saw, starkly, the limits of Yavin 4. He knew that in time Poe would leave—with or without Kes’s blessing.

  Kes stepped out into his front yard, kicking some of the clumpy dirt off the long walkway that led to the small house. He could’ve made it easier on Poe, supported him and just hoped that the values he and Shara instilled in him—caution, confidence in his abilities, faith in the Force—would carry him through. But Kes wasn’t that type. Not anymore. He’d lost too much already. He couldn’t lose Poe, too. If that meant building a wall between him and Shara’s memory, if it meant preventing Poe from hopping into space until Kes thought he was ready, so be it.

  Kes shook his head slightly. He heard the noise, but it took him a moment to track it.

  Footsteps.

  He turned toward the far end of his property. Two figures. Armed. He reached for the sidearm that hadn’t been there in years, not since his days as a Pathfinder for the Rebellion. He thought about darting back into the house, grabbing the blaster rifle he kept locked behind his bed—but he knew he didn’t have time. Kes wasn’t as fast as he used to be, ex-Pathfinder or not, and the men approaching him were coming at a good clip. He’d be dead before he got to the door.

  The man on the left waved. Kes waited. A sign of peace, he thought, but he’d been tricked by better men before. His hand felt like it was cramping as his fingers again stretched to find the gun that was not by his side. What do these men want?

  When they came within range, the man on the left spoke in a loud, low voice.

  “Kes Dameron?”

  Their features were finally visible in the light that reflected off Yavin. Defense Force personnel. The man on the left, Robhar Dern, was known to Kes. He’d worked with Shara. The man on the right wasn’t. Whoever they were, it was bad news. The Defense Force didn’t come to your house to say hello, or to check in and ask about the kids.

  Poe.

  Kes felt like his skin had gone ice-cold.

  “Kes, sorry to bother you,” Dern said, taking Kes’s hand in a firm shake. He looked winded. They’d tried to get there quickly. That didn’t bode well.

  “No bother,” Kes said. “What brings you boys here so late?”

  “Guz Austin, sir,” the new one said, his eyes hungry and young. “We wanted to thank—”

  “Why are you here?” Kes asked, more forcefully this time, his eyes on Dern.

  Dern squirmed a bit, his face contorting into an awkward grimace.

  “Kes, we’re gonna need you to come down to the station with us, all right?” Dern said.

  Kes didn’t need to hear anything else. His heart sank, a widening void filling him from the inside out.

  “Wake up,” someone said. “Get up, kid. Time to move.”

  Every other word, Poe felt a jolt of pain at his side. Gentle but focused. He knew what it was. The butt of a blaster rifle. It wasn’t the first time Poe had been there. But it was the first time he’d felt this bad—or this surprised to have made it. I’m alive, he thought. He should be jumping up and down with glee. But all he felt was pain and—shame? He didn’t want to open his eyes. He didn’t want to be alive. Not feeling like this—his entire body aching, his mouth dry, his face cold and wet with his own tears. Those frantic moments in space, in his mother’s ship, were gone. His memory of his landing was fuzzy—visions of the A-wing crashing in water, Defense Force specialists circling the incoming vessel to soften its fall—but he remembered enough to know his mother’s ship had been destroyed. That wasn’t what he should be thinking about, though, he mused. He should be happy he’d made it out with two legs, two arms, and his head intact. But the ache he felt wasn’t physical—it was for his mother’s ship, the ship he’d learned to fly in with her. Like Shara Bey, it was gone. Like Shara Bey, it had been shot down from the sky, right outside his very window.

  He felt a hand on his collar, pulling him into a standing position. Instinct, not desire, made him
stand up. His legs were wobbly, his back stung, and a quick hand over his face told him he had more bruises and scrapes than he’d like. A scan of the inside of his mouth revealed that he still had his teeth. There was always a bright side, Poe thought.

  He opened his eyes. The Civilian Defense Force officer seemed a bit relieved at any sign that Poe was alive.

  “You with us, Dameron?” the woman said, her expression stern but caring. “The medics said you were okay—just some scrapes and bumps, but nothing too serious, which, honestly, is all kinds of miraculous.”

  “The…the ship,” Poe said, his voice sounding like metal scraping on rock. “Where is it…? Who are you?”

  “Elia Litte, Civilian Defense. Let me get this straight—are you seriously asking about the ship?” the officer said. “Kid, are you out of your mind? That ship isn’t anything anymore. Just spare parts and slag. Who cares about the ship? You’re alive.”

  “I care, okay?” Poe said, his voice rising and his eyes welling up. “I want it back. It’s mine.”

  Litte took a step back, shaking her head.

  “You gotta get your priorities in order, buddy,” she said, pushing a button on the cell door. It hissed open and she stepped out. “Lucky for you, you’ve got a free pass out of here. Must be nice to have connections.”

  Litte motioned for him to follow. Poe hesitated at first, but even his innate defiance told him this opportunity wouldn’t crop up again. She led him down a long hallway lined with other cells that housed the night’s collection of drunks, petty criminals, and unseemly characters. Yavin 4 wasn’t a large colony. It was a sparse assortment of settlements that tended to cluster around the moon’s ports and temples, a transient place. The settlers had not been there for a very long time—a little over a decade. Before being converted into a rebel base, Yavin 4 had no intelligent life to speak of; the civilization that had built its temples had long since disappeared. After the destruction of the Empire’s first Death Star, the rebels abandoned the moon as a base and, after a brief occupation by the Empire and in the wake of the destruction of the second Death Star, settlers began pouring into Yavin 4, many of them retired rebel fighters looking for a bit of peace and quiet after the war. Yavin 4’s permanent residents were paired with traders, skilled laborers, harvesters who dove into the gas giant’s atmosphere to collect gems, and people looking for a place to refuel and recharge before reaching their actual destination. Prospectors who spent time on Yavin’s other moons came to Yavin 4 to cut loose—to drink their earnings away and enjoy themselves. That was all well and good for them, for people who could hop on their ships and head off-world at a moment’s notice. But to Poe, that meant one thing—Yavin 4 was a boring, dead-end place with no chance of getting any livelier.