Poe Dameron Page 19

  Poe gripped Zorii’s arm but wasn’t sure what it meant. They’d had moments like this before—like on the Moraysian cruiser—when the intensity of whatever was going on brought them physically closer. The intimacy was always charged and fleeting, but the energy lingered. But this felt more focused, like they were airing everything in the hopes that what was left was something they’d want to hold on to.

  “At first, yes. I just wanted something else,” Poe said, nodding. “I wanted off Yavin Four. I wanted to experience the galaxy. To fly and fight and risk my life for something, like my mother had. Like my father had, before he lost the fire.”

  “Then what?” Zorii asked. “What changed your mind?”

  “Then I got to know you. You’re…important to me,” Poe said, caressing Zorii’s face. “I figured after a while we could score our own haul—that maybe you and I could break away, leave all of this behind. It was our friendship—this bond—that kept me around, Zorii. We make a good team.”

  Zorii pulled away with a jerk.

  “That’s not enough. I’m not looking to be rescued, Poe Dameron,” she said. “Don’t you see? This—the Spice Runners of Kijimi—it’s not just a lark or a joyride for me. It’s my life. It’s what I was born to do. You’re a great pilot—maybe the best I’ve ever seen. You’re smart. You’re brave. But you’re a hothead. A silly romantic. You get caught up in being some kind of galactic hero when what we need—what I need—is a comrade, someone I know is going to be here forever, in the trenches, because this is where they want to be.”

  “Someone like Tomasso?” Poe said.

  He regretted the words the second they left his mouth.

  The punch landed fast and hard, a blow that showed Poe the full force of Zorii Bliss’s strength. It came from a place of simmering rage—a reaction that she’d kept in check for a long time. He reached for his face, felt the hot skin that would surely bruise. She stood in front of him for a second, registering the pure shock in his eyes, before she stormed out of the tiny cabin without looking back.

  After a few minutes, Poe walked out of the room, rubbing the side of his face gingerly. He’d ice it for a while, giving Zorii time to cool off, then find her and talk it out. He’d messed up. He knew how close she was to Tomasso, knew she was broken up about what happened. He’d poked a raw nerve and deserved the shock of pain.

  “She has a temper,” someone said. He turned around to find Zeva Bliss, still wearing her massive helmet, standing behind him, half shrouded in darkness.

  “You’d know best,” Poe said, not in the mood for ominous warnings or threats, “fearless leader.”

  Zeva Bliss stepped out of the shadows and Poe sensed a tinge of fear in the back of his mind. He suddenly felt very much a young man, standing in the company of unadulterated power. Zeva Bliss had more than an air about her—she had presence.

  “Watch your tongue, boy,” Zeva said, her mechanized voice weighted with years of experience and more battles than Poe could imagine. “I will humor you for only so long.”

  Poe nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s been an eventful few hours.”

  “Yes, I can see that,” she said, moving closer to him. “You were close with Tomasso, no?”

  Poe winced, enough of an answer.

  “Despite his failing at the end, I could not have asked for a better second-in-command,” she said, some regret filtering through her helmet. “But he made a fateful mistake. And I did not rise to this position by forgiving traitors. He’d have taken us all down with him.”

  “You’d been watching us the whole time,” Poe said, not a question—a statement of fact. The pieces had begun to click together, the stray bits of string weaving into something he could make out. “That case—the one we stole from Ledesmar. What was it? Why were you so desperate for us to get it?”

  Zeva Bliss tapped her helmet.

  “It was the most important item I own—a symbol of everything I stand for,” she said. “And it had been taken from me. I sent in my best people to get it. Only a few survived.”

  “No one knew it’d been taken,” Poe said.

  She shook her head.

  A few moments passed before Zeva Bliss spoke again.

  “You’ve done well for us, Poe Dameron,” she said. “But mastering your training is one thing. You now have to prove more than that.”

  She reached for him, and her cold armored hands weighed heavily on his shoulders as she continued.

  “You have to show me that you’re not only someone who could someday be a proficient thief and smuggler but that you are one, right now,” she said. “That this is the life you’ve chosen, and that this is the group you’ve decided to pledge your allegiance—your entire being—to. If this is the path you want, there will be no past life for you, Poe. Yavin Four, your family, your dreams—they disappear. There will only be the Spice Runners of Kijimi, and nothing else. I will be your only reason and purpose.”

  “I’ll stand by Zorii,” Poe said, surprising himself with his own words—words that had only existed as strange thoughts and concepts in the ether of his mind before then. “I’ll do whatever I can to help her.”

  Zeva Bliss paused, processing what Poe had just said, hesitating for a moment.

  “Let’s hope that is enough, then,” she said. “Or you, like others, will have to be dealt with…accordingly.”

  Zeva Bliss turned and began to walk toward the ship’s bridge.

  “What’s next?” Poe asked. He’d be respectful of Zeva Bliss and her world—he had enough of a survival instinct to understand what was expected of him—but he wouldn’t be passive. He wanted to know what was in store for them. Had to know.

  She turned around and seemed to size Poe up.

  “What’s next?” Zeva Bliss said, her voice rising, even through the robotic filter of her helmet. “The death and rebirth of Zorii Bliss and Poe Dameron, the newest Spice Runners of Kijimi.”

  Zorii Bliss walked down the dark, ice-coated alley, her face speckled with snow. Even the hood of her cloak couldn’t protect her from Kijimi’s painful, frigid weather. Her boots sloshed as she stepped over the obstacles she’d quickly forgotten after leaving her home planet—along with the sleeping derelicts, the fast-talking con artists, the shadowy thieves waiting to pounce. But they knew. They all should know. Who she was. And who she was destined to be.

  She made a sharp left turn, slipping slightly on the worn cobblestones mostly hidden by snow and patches of ice, and stepped down a winding flight of stairs. It felt strange to be back. With Poe. The thought entered her mind without warning, but she couldn’t deny the truth it held. When she first met the boy—well, man—from Yavin 4, she hadn’t expected much of him. A means to get off the moon, really. But over time she’d come to care for him. He was insufferable, she wouldn’t deny that. But he was also charming. The thrill of those early days was like a tonic to Zorii. The memories of hands clasped together, longing kisses after everyone else was asleep, the twinkle in his eyes as an idea took shape—it all seemed like a vivid dream as their worlds had grown darker, more fraught.

  “Hey-hey, Zorii is you?”

  The gravelly yet still high-pitched voice seemed to come from nowhere as Zorii reached the bottom of the stairs. The space was a workshop, with half-finished droid bodies lining the walls, and tools and other machinery covering a massive workbench at the center of the room. But Zorii was no stranger to this place—or its owner. A tiny figure popped up, seemingly from within the droid parts scattered around the table. The Anzellan’s mashed-together features and tiny build didn’t immediately make one think of a master droidsmith, but that’s who Zorii was in the presence of now. Babu Frik—whose mastery over all things mechanical was second to none.

  “Babu,” Zorii said, skipping the last few steps as she approached her old friend. “How are you?”

  “I is good, good, yes,” he said, continuing to work on the droid as if Zorii wasn’t there. “Zorii return Kijimi, Bab
u glad.”

  “I missed you, old friend,” she said, giving the droidsmith a gentle pat.

  Babu looked up at her.

  “I miss, too,” he said with a quick nod. “Your mama, miss Zorii, her own way.”

  Zorii didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure her mother could miss anyone. But she was wary of speaking out—even in the slightest way—against Zeva Bliss. Many others had done so. Few had survived the experience. And Zorii knew her mother’s spies were everywhere.

  “Here-here, sit with Babu,” he said, waving a tiny hand toward a stool. “Chat-chat.”

  Zorii took the seat and let out a long sigh.

  “Wow-wow, says many that sound, eh?” Babu said, not looking at Zorii. “You home, but frowns, no joy I see.”

  Zorii opened her mouth but stopped short of talking. She wasn’t ready, she thought.

  Babu turned around, a frown on his already puckered tiny face.

  “Busy busy, much to do,” he said, the annoyance in his voice obvious. “Zorii-Z, special to Babu. But not much time. Work is everywhere, yeah-yeah.”

  Zorii looked around the cluttered workspace. The room had been like a second home to Zorii growing up—an escape from the demands and expectations of her mother. A place where she wasn’t Zorii Bliss, daughter of the feared Zeva Bliss, leader of the Spice Runners. She was just Zorii, a kid with kid problems and daydreams. In contrast to the bleak, freezing world outside Babu’s door, his workshop was an oasis of calm and freedom.

  “My mother wants to sit with me today—to talk about the future. My future,” Zorii said, the words picking up speed as she progressed. It was a relief to let it out, even if just here, to Babu Frik. These were things she couldn’t share with anyone else—not even Poe, and certainly not her mother. Neither would understand. “I don’t know what she’s going to say. But I have a feeling it won’t be good. That she’ll want me to pledge myself to her, more than I already have, even. And I’m fine with that—I love my mother. And I love being a Spice Runner. But it feels like so much to, I don’t know, to have everything decided for me so early. Is my story already written? Am I just going through the paces? What if I want to do something else—”

  Babu gave a slight shake of his small head. “Spice Runners we always, and always be. Zeva not just leader big boss, she mama to you. Make hard. What of boy?”

  “Poe?” Zorii asked. “I—I don’t know. He’s strong-willed. Smart. Cunning. He’d make a great Spice Runner—”

  “He on Kijimi, so he Spice Runner,” Babu said matter-of-factly. “Not?”

  “Yes, I suppose he is,” Zorii said, a tinge of uncertainty in her voice. “But there’s something…a hesitation. I can see it in him. I worry that we’re just a means to an end, Babu. A path off his homeworld, a way to learn how to survive.”

  “You like boy, I think,” Babu said, pointing a long, sharp tool at the protocol droid parts strewn over his table. “If Poe go, what is Zorii? Must think.”

  Zorii didn’t answer. It wasn’t the first time she’d pondered the question. Though she’d felt a Kijimi-like chill settle over her bond with Poe since the revelation of her mother and Poe’s father, she still thought of him often. Still spent hours with him each day. It was easy to fall into familiar routines, even now. What would she do if he ran? Would she leave everything behind? She wasn’t sure.

  “Enough about that,” Zorii said, forcing a smile. “I have a favor to ask of you, dear Babu.”

  “Zorii I do help help, no worry,” Babu said, shuffling closer to Zorii’s hand and welcoming another tender pat. “Friend to you.”

  The cavernous battle room was empty and dark as Zorii stepped inside, a slight, cold wind hitting her. She could make out a figure at the other end of the large room, the glint from the helmet the only clue as to who it was. Zeva Bliss didn’t turn as Zorii approached, her footsteps echoing as she made her way toward her mother.

  As she reached Zeva, Zorii ducked, barely dodging the first blow from her mother’s long staff. She wasn’t so lucky on the second one, the tip of the weapon connecting with her chin and sending her on her back, the battle room’s cold, rocky surface scraping through her tunic. She winced but didn’t make a sound.

  Zeva Bliss, staff pointed at Zorii’s face like a sword, approached, her expression unreadable behind her helmet’s large visor. Her voice was filtered but still clear enough to be understood. She didn’t even sound winded.

  “An attack can come from any direction, dear daughter,” Zeva said, shaking her head. “You must always be ready. Always on guard.”

  Zorii pushed her mother’s staff aside and got to her feet, wiping her mouth and finding no blood on her sleeve.

  “You wanted to see me…Mother?”

  “Yes,” Zeva said, pacing around her daughter. “I felt it was high time we spoke—freely and honestly—about you, Zorii Bliss.”

  The name still shook her. She’d been Zorii Wynn for so long, she’d become used to the ruse. But Zorii Wynn was gone now, and all that remained was Zorii Bliss, daughter to the leader of the Spice Runners of Kijimi.

  “I’m here,” Zorii said, trying to keep her tone neutral. “As you desire.”

  “As my daughter, you are weighed down by great expectations already, so I say this not without some understanding,” Zeva said, her pace slowing as she turned to face Zorii. “But we all face challenges we must defend against, and this is one such time—for you and me.”

  Zorii nodded, unsure of her mother’s point but certain she would not appreciate being interrupted.

  “Tomasso is gone, his betrayal a surprise that I will never recover from,” Zeva said. “He was like family to us. But over the years, his resentment grew and, by the time I killed him, he’d been serving as an informant to our enemies in the New Republic for months, if not longer. Word was beginning to spread within the Spice Runners and, had I not acted, my own hold on power would have weakened. Do you understand?”

  Zorii didn’t respond. She understood her mother’s logic—but she couldn’t believe it to be true. Tomasso had always been stern—but also kind, generous, and a fountain of experience and information. He didn’t have an opportunistic bone in his old body, unless he was moving to benefit the Spice Runners as a whole. She would have never thought him capable of betrayal—much less on the scale her mother suggested.

  “I don’t need to be your mother to see the doubt in your eyes,” Zeva said. “But take my word, young one. Tomasso saw his time ending. He sought to find meaning for his life and ended up in the hands of the New Republic. I saw the evidence with my own eyes.”

  Zorii looked away, unable to meet her mother’s gaze, even through the dark visor that shielded her face from the world.

  Zeva approached and placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “I have things coming together very soon, things that will alter not only the lives of our crew but the entire landscape of the galaxy,” Zeva said. “And I need people I trust close to me. Family. I once thought Tomasso was family. Like a brother. But I was wrong. His death…”

  She trailed off. His murder, Zorii thought before Zeva continued.

  “It leaves a vacancy only you can fill, Zorii,” she said. “I need a second-in-command. I need my daughter standing by my side. Will you do that? Are you ready?”

  Zorii met her mother’s gaze, her eyes fierce and focused.

  “I am ready,” she said. “I have been ready.”

  Zeva stepped back with a nod.

  “Good,” she said. “As I expected.”

  She placed a hand under her helmet, near where her chin was, and there was a soft hiss. She lifted the helmet up over her head, revealing her true face—her sharp green eyes standing out from her snowy skin; a long, aging scar running down her right cheek; the pitch-black hair falling to her shoulders. Her expression was focused on the task at hand, but Zorii found the move jarring. She’d of course seen her mother’s face—as a child, over the years—but not in some time. Not since Zeva had ascended t
o her role as leader of the Spice Runners of Kijimi. It was disconcerting to see that visage—of the woman who raised her, nurtured her—underneath the helmet of the cold, cruel overlord known as Zeva Bliss.

  “There will come a time, dear one, when I will step back—or be taken back,” Zeva said, her eyebrows raised in anticipation as she moved closer to Zorii. “And this will be yours. Not merely the garb of the leader of the Spice Runners, but the power—and the responsibility.”

  Zorii held the helmet—her hands on it alongside her mother’s—and felt a jolt of something. Power. Rage. Excitement? She wasn’t sure. This was all she’d ever wanted. At least until…

  Poe.

  When she thought back on this moment in the years that followed, she could never pinpoint what made her turn around just then. A cough? A scraping of boots on the floor? No. It was something deeper than that. A feeling within her that signaled they were not alone. They hadn’t been for a while. Someone had been listening intently, afraid to even move.

  Her eyes met Poe’s as she looked back, and she knew things would never be the same.

  Being a Spice Runner of Kijimi wasn’t something you could put on hold. It wasn’t something you could freeze while you pondered what you’d gotten yourself into. Poe Dameron knew this. Had been grappling with it for a good, long while. But it had never been as stark as in this moment.

  Spice running waited for no one.

  The scene from a few weeks back, of Zorii Bliss hoisting her mother’s helmet up, still haunted Poe. The vision was frozen in his mind. He still had questions. He still wanted to talk to Zorii—to get to the root of what was happening. But it would have to wait. They had a mission. For Zorii Bliss, the mission always came first.

  These thoughts bounced through Poe’s mind as he crouched down, trying to move stealthily. The only sounds he could hear were his and Zorii’s heavy breathing as they made their way across the frigid plateau on the outskirts of Kijimi City, capital of the planet Kijimi, home to the Spice Runners. He pulled out his macrobinoculars and looked down at their target—the Dai Bendu Monastery. He could hear EV-6B6’s metallic footsteps stop behind them.