Poe Dameron Read online

  “Smaatku holds court at the center of this area,” Zorii said, taking point. “It’s about a two-minute walk from here.”

  They’d adopted the attire of seasoned smugglers, unaffiliated and looking to deal. Both Zorii and Poe’s faces were covered by colorful scarves, only revealing their eyes. If anyone looked close enough, they’d be able to tell the two were human, but the hope was no one would have enough time to stare.

  It wasn’t hard for Poe to figure out where they were headed. Every stand, store, terminal, and workshop seemed to be built around another, larger building. For a split second, Poe thought he was back on Yavin 4, heading toward Gully’s. He could almost hear Fontis’s hissing tone, smell the wood chips and ale-coated floorboards. But they were very far from Yavin 4, and Poe wasn’t sure he’d ever see Fontis—or his father—again. The thought hit him like a strong wave. He tried to shake it off, but Zorii noticed his hesitation, taking a step or two ahead of him before turning around.

  “Poe, let’s go—we don’t have time for soul-searching,” she said, keeping her voice low. “In and out, that’s what Tomasso said.”

  He nodded. A few months earlier, he would have tried to debate Zorii—push back on her criticism, eager to have her believe he was as into this life as she was. But those days were gone, he realized. He wondered if there was a path back to what they’d been or had—to those two eager teenagers savoring their new, exciting life. Maybe they could figure that out at some point—decide if being part of the Spice Runners was really what they both wanted. Perhaps they could strike out on their own. Poe almost laughed. Who was he kidding? This life was all Zorii had ever wanted. He knew it in his soul.

  Smaatku’s base of operations was a social club, according to Tomasso—a place for people to meet, share stories, have a laugh, and listen to music. But from the outside it looked like any other dive cantina or dead-end bar Poe had seen. It made Gully’s look like a vacation spot. He followed Zorii as she entered the place called Rugova’s, and instantly his sense of smell was assaulted: the odor of bodies cramped together, of cheap overcooked food, of stale liquor and unkempt counters and floors. It reminded Poe of the outhouse on his dad’s farm after a few days of negligence. He looked at Zorii for a similar reaction but saw none. Stoic and unfeeling as ever, she was playing a role—a desperate smuggler looking for the next deal. Poe hoped no one had seen him wince as he stepped in. They’d be out of there soon, he reasoned, if everything went according to plan.

  The place was sprawling and labyrinthine—and though it was full of people, each group had enough space to huddle up in their own corner or hunch over their tables, whispering to each other or screaming for another beverage. Poe could make out a central staging area, with a number of uniformed guards standing around a throne-like seat. Zorii leaned in, her mouth close to his ear.

  “There he is,” she said. “We need to get close to him. He keeps the maps on his body.”

  Smaatku was a large, bulbous, and imposing figure who was also impressive in his physique, not just slovenly but stocky and strong—a being of power and clearly the leader, even there in that mixed company. He sat ramrod straight in his chair, scanning the venue and nodding to himself, the dark black bags under his large eyes in stark contrast to his greenish skin. He drank from a large silver goblet, long sloppy pulls that spilled almost as much as he managed to swallow. He wiped at his mouth with his bare arm and smiled in Poe’s direction. Poe almost froze, thinking the gang leader had spotted him, but soon realized Smaatku was merely entranced with the entire spectacle of Rugova’s. This was his element, and he felt at home with his people and his business associates. The perfect time to strike, Tomasso had said—when someone is most relaxed and expects it the least.

  Zorii motioned with her head for Poe to follow her as she circled the large central bar and moved to the left, toward a less trafficked hallway that seemed to be for staff. They made it a few paces before they were stalled by a towering Guat’a guard with two masked figures behind him, smaller in size but eager to point their blasters at Zorii and Poe.

  “You’re not allowed back here,” the Guat’a guard said, his voice gruff and low. “Go back to the bar. Mind your business, strangers.”

  They hadn’t discussed what to do if they were intercepted, but for Poe, this was the fun part.

  “Hey, no worries, friend. We get it,” Poe said, muffling his voice and raising a hand in a sign of peace. “Totally get it. In fact, we were just here to give you a heads-up about the Dressellians that just walked in. They’re shaking down the barkeep and it’s getting violent. They don’t seem to, well, fit with the vibe here.”

  The large Guat’a guard grunted in the direction of the bar, nostrils flaring.

  “Dressellians? Attacking Jarv?” he said, sounding more annoyed than surprised. He muttered something unintelligible but decidedly impolite before brushing past them and into the main bar area.

  That left Poe and Zorii plus the two masked guards. They’d kept their blasters locked on target.

  “You can move along now,” the first one said, moving his blaster toward the bar. “You’ve done your good deed for the day.”

  “Happy to help,” Poe said, turning around slightly. “We’ll be on our way.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the guards lower their weapons, expecting the two strangers to wander back into the crowd. Instead, Poe and Zorii both crouched and shot out their feet in a unified pair of kicks, each one hitting their respective guard in the lower leg. Both guards crumbled fast, following a soft crack as the kicks made contact. Their moans of pain were muted, muffled by the dark leather masks they wore. In the time it took them to recover, the blasters the guards had been pointing at Poe and Zorii were squarely pointed at them instead.

  “Don’t say another word,” Zorii said.

  The main doors to Rugova’s slid open as Zorii and Poe walked out of the musky watering hole and made for a batch of landspeeders parked near the entrance. They were not moving casually—quite the opposite. Poe’s heart pounded as he gripped the embroidered case close. After evading the initial coterie of guards, Zorii and Poe had slinked toward Smaatku and his throne. The overlord held the case tightly in his lap, and Poe knew they’d only get one shot at grabbing it. With Poe serving as a distraction—bellowing “It’s a raid!” turned more than a few heads—Zorii grabbed the goods and they made a beeline for the exit. They weren’t surprised when the gang gave chase. Poe heard Zorii a few steps behind him as they hit the open air, followed by a loud, gut-wrenching scream.

  “Do not let them escape!” Smaatku bellowed, the final syllable more a roar than an actual word. He was surrounded by about a dozen more masked guards, all of them chasing Zorii and Poe on foot. “Do not let them steal from us!”

  Poe took cover behind one of the landspeeders and sent over a few blaster shots. It didn’t slow down the horde much, but it bought him and Zorii enough time to hop on the farthest speeder—with Poe behind the wheel and Zorii clutching his midsection, turning her body to fire behind them. But the benefit of the small vehicle wasn’t paying dividends just yet, and the guards were closing in.

  “Can this thing go any faster?” Zorii asked, out of breath, each word matched by the sound of her blaster going off. “We’re not going to get far enough to avoid getting blown up.”

  “Patience, patience,” Poe said. He was trying his best to hide the anxiety in his voice as he slammed his foot down on the accelerator, the tiny landspeeder bumping on the ground as he tried to keep it steady and prevent it from flipping over. “Just keep me covered.”

  “I’ve got one blaster,” Zorii said, one arm wrapped around his torso so she could lean backward and send a few more shots in the direction of the guards, who were now a handful of meters away. “They have dozens. That’s bad math, Poe.”

  For a moment, a long shadow overtook them. Poe and Zorii glanced upward.

  Then the explosions started.

  Their landspeeder trembled
as a trio of blaster cannon shots landed behind them, obliterating the bulk of their pursuers. Poe, Zorii still gripping him, wheeled the speeder around and caught a glimpse of the carnage through the black smoke and fire. Screams of pain rose from the crater created by the cannon. Poe saw shadowy forms trying to rise but collapsing to the ground, unable to stand. The moans and pained sounds formed a chorus of anguish that Poe couldn’t shake, even as he pulled his eyes away and upward to see the Vondel hovering above the scene. Tomasso.

  “Was…was that…?” Poe said, faltering. “Why?”

  Zorii pulled him off the landspeeder, trying to get his attention as the ship landed and the rear hatch opened.

  “What did you want to happen?” Zorii said with a snap. “We had to make sure we could get away clean. Stop being so precious.”

  He didn’t respond. It was an argument Poe knew he couldn’t win—and he was tired of trying. Poe understood that lives were lost—but this wasn’t war in the same sense as the battles his parents fought in. This was murder, Poe realized. But Tomasso—and Zorii—were not as concerned with the loss of life, especially when the people being taken down were those they considered the enemy: rivals who would just as easily slide a dagger into their backs as make a deal face to face. In their eyes, they’d gotten what they wanted. At the same time, they were able to gut a potential threat—Smaatku and his gang—before they gained much traction. Win-win for them. But was it right?

  Poe knew the answer as he followed Zorii up the ramp, and it made his stomach turn.

  “Now entering the Torch Nebula,” Poe said as he pivoted the Vondel into the astral anomaly. Tomasso, Zorii, and EV-6B6 had strapped into their seats. “Gonna get bumpy pretty fast.”

  “Osako ships aren’t far behind,” Zorii said.

  “I’ve never been through a nebula before,” EV-6B6 said excitedly. “It should be interesting at the very least.”

  Poe fought the urge to turn around and just stare at the droid. But there was no time to ponder the awkward optimism of EV-6B6—they had to avoid getting overtaken by pirates. Just another day in the life of a spice runner, Poe thought.

  “They’re in pursuit,” Zorii said, checking a reading on her display. “Sensors are flickering. We should expect them to go offline any second.”

  The gamble had failed. Poe had hoped that by jetting into the nebula, he’d catch the pirates off guard, but they predicted his move. It made him feel like an amateur. But he wasn’t ready to give up. There was still a chance to lose them. If the Vondel’s sensors were fading, so were those on the three ships chasing it. But Poe was flying blind, and that put them all at risk every moment they wandered through the dust-filled, asteroid-heavy nebula. The Torch Nebula was far from a random space anomaly. Also known as the Torch sector, the nebula was a massive part of the territories populating the Outer Rim. It was so large that on a given night, you could spot it from the surface of nearby planets, like Guat’a and Shownar, creating a fireworks display of colorful lights. Poe was leading them through a tourist attraction, basically—except it wasn’t as pretty from the inside and could cost them their lives.

  Poe looked over his shoulder at Tomasso. His eyes seemed wild, hungry.

  “Tomasso, can you decipher those maps?” Poe asked, his body poised to turn back around at a moment’s notice. “Is there anything we can use?”

  “In terms of what, son?” Tomasso asked, getting out of his seat and moving toward Poe. “These maps—they’re about smuggling, how to get around…. Wait, I see what you mean.”

  The Vondel shuddered as Poe swung back around in his seat, squinting as he tried to make out what had hit them. Then it shuddered again.

  “They’re firing at us,” Zorii said, shaking her head. “That one barely made contact—they’re flying blind, too. But eventually they’ll connect.”

  A few moments of silence passed. Poe did his best to steer the ship—using his own vision to guide it around a batch of debris and a large asteroid chunk—but he knew this wasn’t sustainable. Eventually something would be impossible to dodge.

  “Yes, yes, how could I forget?” Tomasso said to himself as he made his way back to his seat, a small screen in his hands. “The Llanic Spice Run—it’s near here.”

  He handed the screen to Poe, pointing to the top of the map that dominated the visual.

  “This is where we are,” Tomasso said excitedly. “And this is where the Llanic Run intersects with the Triellus Trade Route—near the planet Llanic.”

  “How does that help us?” Poe said, trying to divide his attention between Tomasso and guiding the Vondel around the floating debris that made up most of the nebula. “I mean, it’s nice that those routes are there, but…”

  “The route is cleared, Poe—it’s a pathway for thieves and our kind to ferry goods, even through the thick of a nebula,” Tomasso said with a knowing grin. “It may not save us completely, but it’ll certainly help.”

  Poe felt his face grow hot, and a shot of shame passed through him for questioning the older man. Tomasso was no one’s fool, and while he took Poe’s defensiveness in stride, Poe still felt like he’d offended the spice runner. But the sentimental apologies would have to wait, he thought.

  Poe punched in the coordinates and guided the ship as best he could, knowing that the Vondel’s long-range sensors were unreliable at best, the short-range ones completely shot.

  “The pirates are trying to match our course change, but it’s taking them a second,” Zorii said, a sliver of hope in her voice. “They’re not quitting.”

  “Neither are we,” Poe said, more to himself than anyone else. He was surprised to feel Zorii’s hand grip his, the touch brief but true. Their eyes met before they returned their attention to their respective terminals.

  The ship shook again. A glancing shot but a hit nonetheless.

  “They’re strafing now, trying to get as many shots off as they can muster in one direction, hoping to make contact,” Zorii said. “Hard to dodge.”

  “I believe in you,” EV-6B6 said.

  “Why do these pirates have a deal with Smaatku?” Poe wondered aloud. It’d bothered him since Tomasso had picked them up from Guat’a with the Vondel. He knew Smaatku’s operation was small and growing—but was it big enough to partner with the Osako pirates? Wouldn’t they see it as helping a competitor?

  “You think they’re helping Smaatku?” Zorii said, a quick scoff escaping her mouth. “Not quite. They know what Smaatku has—well, had. Word travels fast in places like Rugova’s. The easier thing to believe is they figured out what we did and realized they wanted those maps, too.”

  Poe nodded. Zorii’s explanation made sense, but there was still a piece of the puzzle missing. He didn’t have much to go on beyond his own gut, and that wasn’t enough to spar with Zorii Wynn—something he’d had his fill of lately.

  The ship wobbled more violently, almost spinning out. Poe gripped the controls fiercely. His body was shoved forward, and he had to strain to stay in his seat.

  “What the hell was that?” Poe asked, pushing the Vondel downward to avoid a batch of debris. “We’re closing in on the spice run. Should be there momentarily, if I’m eyeballing this right.”

  “They’re still shooting,” Zorii said. “That felt like a direct hit. I can’t get a good lock on where they are, though.”

  “Which means they can’t lock on us, either,” Poe said. The ship spasmed again as Poe wove the Vondel around a few more errant meteors—hopefully confusing their pursuers a bit more. “Let’s keep that going.”

  The ship continued to shake and shimmy as Poe took it through its paces—diving deep, jerking left, right, and up again. It made for a stomach-turning ride.

  “This is almost enjoyable,” EV-6B6 said.

  A few minutes passed and Poe leveled out the ship’s trajectory. It was oddly quiet.

  “I don’t see them,” Zorii said. “But that doesn’t mean they’re not around.”

  “We’re taking the run now,
” Poe said, a drop of hope in his voice. If they managed to make it through the Llanic Spice Run, they’d be free of the Torch Nebula and in open space—which would give them a chance to jump to hyperspace and find their way home. If the drive was functional in time. “Hang on.”

  The Vondel groaned as it picked up speed, inertia pushing everyone back into their seats with a jolt. Poe let out a long breath. He didn’t realize he’d been holding it until that moment. Could they have lost the pirates? The ride smoothed out as the ship cruised through the last leg of the Llanic Run. In the distance, Poe thought he could see the end of the Torch Nebula. Once they were clear, they could pivot home and see to it that the head of the Spice Runners of Kijimi got the loot they’d snagged from Smaatku.

  Poe squinted as he poured on a bit more speed. The clearing changed shape a bit. What he’d first thought was an opening—a sign that the galactic anomaly was ending, was actually something else. Something big.

  “Is—is that a ship?” Poe asked.

  Zorii frantically pecked at her terminal, looking up every so often.

  “Sensors are still mostly offline,” she said. “But a bit better now that we’re picking up speed. It seems like that’s…not one of the pirate ships, though. Whatever it is, it’s not moving.”

  “Perhaps they’re here to help,” EV-6B6 said, her voice upbeat and curious. “That would be quite opportune.”

  Poe ignored the hyper-positive droid and pulled back on the speed, but it was too late. They were closing in, and as they moved toward the mysterious object, it came into focus.

  “Oh boy,” Poe said, the memory of their last encounter with the ship in front of them flooding his mind. “This isn’t good.”

  The giant Moraysian cruiser seemed to sense their recognition as it swiveled slightly to face the Vondel. It looked much improved from the last time Poe had seen it, when the ship had been seconds from complete destruction. Someone—something—had taken the time to repair it. But who? And to what end?