Poe Dameron Read online

  “Your son is fine,” she said, looking up to meet Dameron’s gaze. “We have confirmation he’s alive.”

  “He is?” Dameron said, his voice rising in pitch as he clasped Trune’s shoulders. “Where? How? When can I see him?”

  Trune gently removed Dameron’s hands. He pulled back quickly, ashamed by the contact. He shook his head and began to pace around the cramped office.

  “Where is he?” he asked. “Where is my son?”

  “Your son seems fine, based on my intel,” Trune said.

  “Fine?” Dameron said, wheeling around. “How can he be fine? He was kidnapped. He’s probably—”

  “He’s one of them, Kes,” Trune said, finding it hard to believe her own words. But the facts were there. Her sources didn’t lie. It wouldn’t benefit them to lie. She knew it was true. And now he would, too.

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” Trune said. “Your son is a spice runner. He’s a criminal. Their kidnapping was a ruse to get away, and it worked too damn well. They tricked us.”

  Kes let out a coarse laugh.

  “Are you mad? There’s no way Poe would do that—would abandon everything….”

  “Really?” Trune said, trying to keep her tone soft and humble, trying to lessen the blow. The truth would do its own damage. “How many times did your son try to get off this moon, Kes? How many times did he scope out the docks and mingle with the transients to get an idea how to escape?”

  Kes Dameron didn’t reply. He didn’t need to.

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Kes, but the truth is what it is. I learned a long time ago that you are who you associate with,” Trune said. “And, as of right now, your son is a criminal.”

  Before Dameron could respond, Trune raised a hand. The signal coming in on her terminal was marked as urgent. She scanned the item quickly, her eyes widening at each word. It was a coded message, sent from deep cover—and it had details on just what the Spice Runners were up to next. Not what she’d expected. It was big. But she wanted to take them out on a big stage. It would make it all the sweeter.

  “Gotcha,” she whispered.

  “They’re everywhere!”

  Vigilch’s guttural exclamation bounced off every surface in the Ragged Claw as another wave of fire from the tiny drone-like Moraysian ships sent their ship reeling. Poe’s instruction to Zorii—to randomize her fire in the hopes of making it more unpredictable—had done some damage, but the miniature fleet was doing serious damage to the ship. They didn’t have much time—and everyone knew it.

  “You have a plan, I’m guessing,” Zorii said, trying to mask the anxiety in her voice as she turned to meet Poe’s eyes. “You always have a plan.”

  “I have a plan,” Poe said. He did have…something. Not a plan, per se, but a thought. He just needed a minute. “Can you hold them off a bit longer?”

  “Weapons are offline.” Gen Tri’s voice, usually stoic and placid, seemed agitated—another unnerving development. Without any weapons, the Claw was defenseless against the swarm’s nonstop firepower. That meant they had even less time.

  “Scratch that,” Poe said.

  He swallowed hard. His timeline had just been truncated. Badly.

  “Everybody buckle up!” Poe yelled as he flicked a switch above him. He felt warm, the pressure sinking in. He gripped the controls and whispered a hurried “You’ve got this” before raising his voice for the crew to hear. “Hold on.”

  The Claw dipped steeply, as if in free fall, hurtling away from the Moraysian ships. As they started to adapt and give chase, Poe turned to Zorii.

  “Hey, Copilot—your mission is simple,” he said with a smile. “Get me some damn firepower, will you?”

  Zorii nodded, her face frigid and focused. Over the past month, in between chores and their dirge-like existence on Sorgan, the two had grown closer—sharing long discussions about growing up, even if it was Poe doing most of the talking, and trading tips on their expertise. Flight for Poe, the thieving life for Zorii. He’d been pleasantly surprised by her willingness to learn and her ability to pick things up fast. Both were coming in handy already.

  “Goin’ up,” Poe said, trying to keep his tone light. The Ragged Claw shuddered in pain as Poe took it up again, almost retracing its sudden descent down, causing the cluster of small ships to disperse and try to reassemble like a confused school of fish. “Hang tight, folks—it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.”

  Poe knew the ship was in bad shape. Their deflector shields were fading fast, and he had no idea when—or if—the weapons would be back online. The Claw hadn’t been built for this, Poe mused, but it was too late to bemoan their circumstances. All they could do was move.

  “They’re reforming under us,” Zorii said, shaking her head almost imperceptibly as she tapped a few buttons on her console. She was cooler than Hoth, but the strain was showing. She was losing faith. “They’re locking on to us now. What do you—”

  Before she could finish, Poe had spun the Claw on its side and taken the ship careening left at a sharp angle, sending the drone ships past where the Claw had just been. If Poe had the ability to see two things at once, he would have enjoyed seeing the clustered warbirds bumbling into one another. He increased the Claw’s speed sharply. The thought had become an idea as he pulled the Claw out of its tailspin. Now it was a plan.

  “We’re heading straight for the Moraysian cruiser,” Zorii said, more a question than a statement. But she hesitated, trying to keep Poe focused on whatever he was doing. “At this speed, it might be a good idea—”

  “I’ve got a plan,” Poe repeated. “Trust me on this.”

  Zorii nodded. She had come to trust him, Poe realized. Their time together—including the skirmish with the Zualjinn—had made their connection more than one born of necessity but one of friendship. That meant more than he could express in the moment.

  Poe glanced at the cruiser from his terminal. The ship had an expansive hangar bay, from which the drones had sprung.

  “What are you doing, Dameron?” Vigilch asked, lurching forward, his face centimeters from Poe’s. “We’re going to collide with that ship! We’re within its weapons range. Are you mad?”

  Poe ignored the Klatooinian’s enraged panic.

  “Stick with me. I know what I’m doing,” Poe said. But Vigilch didn’t hear him mutter the last two words under his breath. “I think.”

  The Claw continued to weave, turn, and sway through the space between the swarm and the Moraysian cruiser, which grew in size as they approached. Yet no laser fire seemed to emanate from the command ship. They were still taking fire from behind, but Poe tried his best to take their lumps where the shields were the most effective. If this plan didn’t work, they were out of options. They were sitting ducks.

  “We need to retreat.” It was Gen Tri, walking toward the four of them clustered at the front of the cockpit, their voice ominous and distant. Vigilch and Zorii turned to them briefly, panic and frustration in their eyes. “We got bad intel. Tomasso is steering us in the wrong—”

  The Claw hurtled forward in a way that felt awkward and painful at once—a loud, metallic screeching sound cutting through the regular sounds of spaceflight. Poe winced. That was not good, he thought. Not good at all. A quick scan let him know the basics—thrusters almost gone, shields barely holding on, and a gaggle of armed ships chasing them down.

  Poe gripped Zorii’s arm and they locked eyes.

  “See what you can give me in terms of speed,” Poe said, trying to sound calm but aware of the desperation in his voice. “I’ll try to evade them as best I can.”

  Zorii nodded and turned her attention to her terminal. Vigilch was not so easily swayed.

  “We need to surrender, or we need to prepare to self-destruct,” the pirate said. “They cannot board this ship. They cannot have our se—”

  “The hangar…” Zorii said to herself, realization clicking in her brain. “You’re leading them into the hanga
r. But the doors are closed….”

  Poe nodded, giving Zorii a momentary smile.

  The Claw started to close in on the cruiser, with no response from the massive ship as the tiny drones continued to pelt them with laser fire.

  “We’re losing power,” Zorii said flatly. “Gonna be a struggle to make it. Shields will be down in seconds.”

  “Shut it off,” Poe said, not looking up.

  “Shut it off?”

  “Yes, all power except life support, shut it off,” Poe said. “Bring it to a full stop.”

  “We’re meters away from the ship,” Gen Tri said, confusion in their usually confident and distant tone. “What do we hope to accomplish here? A martyr’s death?”

  “What’s the escape pod situation on this crate?” Marinda Gan quipped. “You do realize the hangar bay doors are closed? Your little plan was misguided from the start.”

  “All power except life support is down,” Zorii said matter-of-factly. “We are defenseless.”

  “Great,” Poe said.

  “Great?” Vigilch asked, incredulous. “You’ve killed us, Poe. This is over.”

  “Not yet,” Poe said. He turned to Zorii. “Where are our little friends?”

  “Closing in fast,” Zorii said. “They’ll be on top of us in seconds.”

  The Claw shuddered, the ship rocking back and forth as a few of the small attacking vessels fired single, warning-style shots at them—probably trying to gauge whether the Claw was still in a fighting mood as they sped toward their target.

  “They’re speeding up,” Zorii said. Translation: Now would be a great time for your plan to, well, happen. “We should brace for impact.”

  Poe turned to the small crew.

  “Get strapped in. We’re going to move in a second.”

  “Move? We just shut everything down. They’re droid ships, Poe. They’re going to crash right into us,” Vigilch said, shaking his head furiously. “This is how it ends. Why did I ever think you could pilot this ship?”

  “T-minus ten seconds to impact…nine, eight,” Zorii said.

  Poe ignored her and flicked on the thrusters again, hoping he was timing this just right. Zorii’s eyes lit up. Her faith had paid off.

  “Gimme all the juice this ship can muster, Z,” Poe said, wincing slightly as he pulled up on the ship’s throttle. The Claw did an internal somersault, the ship’s entire hull straining and wheezing as it made a jagged, sudden turn upward at full speed—or the closest it could get to full speed under its current, damaged conditions. The crew was tossed around the ship’s small cockpit, Poe heard curses he hadn’t even known existed, and he wasn’t fully sure it had worked.

  Until the explosions started.

  Poe didn’t wait for Vigilch, Marinda, or Gen Tri to respond as he deftly pulled the Claw into a complete loop, turning the ship around to face where it had been moments before—except what had been there had been replaced by a gigantic, still exploding fireball of destruction.

  “Hot damn,” Poe said, pulling the Claw into something close to a full stop as the ship closed in on the damage.

  The docking bay doors were gone, and as the smoke cleared Poe saw that a gaping, uneven hole had replaced them. The Moraysian cruiser was rocking slightly to its side like a wounded purrgil.

  Vigilch was struggling to his feet, one knee on the ground, the tall Klatooinian still wobbly as he gripped Poe’s arm.

  “You sly little bastard,” he said, his one good eye almost staring into Poe’s soul. “Well done.”

  “We’re not clear yet,” Gen Tri said, their usual cool and resolve back in place as they seemed to float to Zorii’s terminal. “We have a job to do.”

  “What now?” Zorii asked, her eyes on Poe, a sly smile on her face. “Any other fancy ideas?”

  “Nah, this one’s simple,” he said, tapping a few buttons. “We’re going in.”

  The Ragged Claw sallied and sailed through the debris, the once pesky drones now an asteroid belt of burnt metal. The landing inside the disabled cruiser’s docking bay wasn’t smooth. Poe tried his best to minimize the bumps and scrapes, pulling the Claw into a clumsy but not altogether terrible landing. From what he could see, the docking bay was empty. As the adrenaline from the maneuver began to fade, Poe found it replaced by a sense of growing anxiety as the ship skidded into a full stop. That’s when he noticed the handful of figures approaching the ship, blasters raised.

  “Guys,” Poe said. “I think we’re surrounded.”

  Zorii and Poe had to take cover almost immediately, the blaster fire coming from what seemed like all directions. Vigilch, Gen Tri, and Marinda Gan scattered, as well, using the already battered Claw as a shield.

  The five figures, cloaked and carrying large blaster rifles, moved closer, not letting up with their fire as they approached. None of them tried to speak or hint to the Spice Runners what they wanted, or if there was any chance at some kind of agreement. It looked like this was to the death, one way or the other.

  Poe gripped the small blaster Vigilch had tossed to him as they disembarked. This wasn’t his area of expertise. He’d practiced, of course—his father had taken him out on the range many a time during his younger days, and he’d brushed up during the Zualjinn incident. His aim wasn’t the problem. He just hadn’t had much experience in live combat. His heart pounded—the buzz from their in-flight maneuver still coursing through him. Zorii tugged at his arm and moved them down the length of the Claw’s hull, looking for a few steps of cover as the foot soldiers continued to approach.

  “We’re evenly matched,” Zorii said. “But outgunned.”

  “This is true,” Poe said, crouching and taking aim. “Any suggestions?”

  Then they heard the scream—primal, like a wild animal’s. Out of the corner of his eye, Poe saw a figure move toward their attackers—twirling a long staff-like weapon.

  “Marinda,” Zorii said. She muttered a curse under her breath. “She’s not good with patience.”

  Poe focused on Marinda Gan, wielding the Twi’lek lyaer’tsa—a traditional weapon equipped with a vibroblade at one end. She used the weapon carefully, disabling two of the attackers with swift, precise motions. In what felt like an instant, their blasters were sliced and the two grunts were on the floor, clutching their arms and midsections. Vigilch and Gen Tri approached from opposite sides, the former dragging another one of the cloaked attackers.

  “Looks like this might be done before it starts,” Poe said.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Zorii said.

  Poe heard a loud hiss and watched as a doorway at the other end of the docking area opened up, revealing another handful of cloaked attackers—each one armed and spreading out to fire on the Claw’s crew.

  “Something’s not right,” Poe said. “Something doesn’t click.”

  “We need to get out of this area and find Ledesmar,” Zorii said. “We’re cornered.”

  Poe ignored Zorii, sending a blast over Vigilch and their friends. It grazed one of the new arrivals, sending them backward. A crackle of blue energy sparked briefly as the figure hit the ground.

  “Droids—enforcers. Not sure what kind, though,” Poe said, to himself as much as Zorii. “There’s no crew here.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it,” Poe said as he followed Zorii’s lead—toward the far end of the Claw, opposite the incoming platoon of cloaked attackers—in search of better cover. “Those ships were unmanned—the ones that were attacking us. Now we get surrounded by mysterious henchmen who walk kind of funny, don’t talk much, and just shoot…. It doesn’t add up.”

  “You like to jump to conclusions a lot for someone who hadn’t spent much time off-world as of a month ago,” Zorii said, sending a few quick shots toward the group as they moved between the Claw, some cobbled-together Uglies, and a collection of inactive, outdated droid tri-fighter ships that had seen better days.

  Poe peeked at their comrades as he leaned his back against the nearest ship’s ex
terior. It seemed Vigilch and Marinda were taking the direct approach—blasting and slicing at the heart of the attackers. There was no sign of Gen Tri, Poe noticed. The little he saw from the battle—as Vigilch took one down with a headshot and Marinda Gan speared another, sparks and shrapnel flying—confirmed for him they weren’t dealing with living beings but a cadre of droids under someone’s control. A lot of droids, though. A lot of angry droids.

  “Not sure how long we can hold them—they look like a mix between protocol and Dac pirate droids. Never seen anything like it,” Marinda Gan yelled, not turning her head. Poe understood she was talking to them, keeping their location vague to win them a few seconds. “Take point, get ahead of us. We’ll do our best here. Find who—and what—we’re after.”

  “Did she say what we’re after?” Poe asked as they darted toward the main entrance, under cover of a few quick blasts from Zorii.

  “So?” Zorii asked, tumbling toward the open doorway—the roll calculated and athletic, in stark contrast to Poe’s clumsy stumble.

  “They’re behind us,” one of the cloaked figures said, its voice mechanical and melodic in the way of most droids.

  Zorii spun around, one knee still on the ground, and fired a volley of blaster fire toward the group of droids. Poe stood and made his way toward a small terminal on the other side of the doorway. He tried a few buttons. Nothing. He looked through the doorway and saw the droids approaching, Zorii trying to hold them off.

  “Any luck?” she asked, not looking back.

  “Well, to be honest, not really,” Poe said, trying a different combination of buttons to no avail. “I’m thinking we might be better off just, well, running away.”

  The sound of enemy blaster fire increased. Poe thought he heard Vigilch curse. He tapped another combination of buttons and heard a slight beep, then the door began to close.

  “Closing, closing,” Poe said, trying to get Zorii’s attention. She noticed the movement and scurried through the small opening that remained as the droids fired at the shuttered entryway.