“Bad choice of words, Dameron?” Trune said, the knowing smirk on her face almost driving Poe to take the offensive again. Who was this young woman? Why did she have such an obsession with him—and with the Spice Runners of Kijimi? “Does it sting to picture the people you care about learning how their golden boy left home to join up with one of the deadliest new crime syndicates in the galaxy? Did you think they were just friendly traders looking for a way off Yavin Four? Surely you can’t be that dense.”
“It’s not what you think,” Poe said, ashamed of his own defensiveness. “They’re friends.”
“Your friends are gone,” Trune said. “Except for the girl you sent away. Vigilch, Gen Tri, Marinda Gan—they’re all victims of this insane mission you’re on. I would’ve savored arresting each of them. But I’m left with you—a kid who’s lost his way.”
Her words stung Poe because he felt the truth in them. As much as he wanted to think she was lying, Trune didn’t need to trick Poe. The others were dead. He’d made a mistake staying, and he might pay for it with his life—or his freedom.
Poe pulled his arm away, but a greater force knocked them both back. The ship sank, its balance off, the vessels in the hangar moving along with the gravitational drop and sending the entire space into complete chaos. Trune regained her footing first but didn’t reach for her blaster—instead she spoke into her wrist with an urgency that worried Poe.
“What is going on?” Trune said. “Report.”
A harried-sounding male screamed on the other end. “The ship doesn’t have much time,” he said. “Think we hit it too hard—it seems like it’s coming apart, Officer Trune…. We need to get you off, along with your team.”
“I’ve got a prisoner,” Trune said. “I need to be pulled out immediately.”
“We need you back at the drop-off point. We cannot send another team in—again, I repeat, we cannot send in another—”
Trune cut the connection, but before she could return her attention to Poe, she was met with the butt of his blaster in the back of her head. The soft crunch of contact let Poe know he’d hit hard, and the speed with which Trune toppled to the floor confirmed he’d knocked her out. Had he truly been a spice runner, a ruthless space pirate as Trune had so easily suggested, he would have left her there—and rushed to find his way off the quickly imploding ship. But Poe couldn’t bring himself to do that. He dragged Trune out of the hangar bay, groaning as he tried to minimize the damage he could cause by pulling her along with him. As he walked through the doors Zorii had disabled just a few minutes before, he found the two New Republic officers he’d stunned earlier. One of them was slowly getting to his feet. Poe spoke quickly and clearly.
“I’ve got your leader—she’s hurt,” he said. “You need to get back to your drop-off point or your crew won’t be able to get you. Don’t question me on this if you want to live.”
The officer nodded as Poe handed Trune over to him. Poe noticed that the other stunned officer was waking.
“Where are you going?” the first officer said, shifting his weight to better carry his leader. “You can come with us. I’ll mention that you saved Officer Trune.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Poe said. “Good luck.”
The first officer nodded as he and his colleague picked up Trune and started off down the hallway, in the opposite direction Poe needed to go.
The Ragged Claw looked almost docile as Poe approached the second hangar bay. He stepped aboard the ship, taking two steps at a time as the Moraysian cruiser lost control of itself more and more the longer he remained aboard. The ship was breaking down, scaffolding crashing to the floor, lights flickering on and off, doors unable to open. This was a gamble, Poe knew. The Claw hadn’t exactly been in tip-top shape when they’d left Sorgan, nor had they landed it comfortably after Poe’s maneuver outside the Moraysian cruiser.
He turned the power on and waited. The ship gurgled to life, the lights coming on with a flicker, like a reverse-dimmer effect. He did a quick status scan. Shields were barely there. Hyperdrive was working in theory. It could fly. That was all Poe needed. At least for now.
Another tremor, this one stronger. It didn’t feel like the cruiser was under attack. It felt like the ship was destroying itself, years of wear and tear finally coming to collect their due. As he wove the Claw out of the hangar, he let his mind drift back to the Spice Runners—to Zorii, that kiss…to Vigilch and his crew, how he’d never see them again. A sharp jolt went through him. Of regret, and imbalance. He couldn’t take the Claw back to Yavin. Those days were gone. But did he think the best thing to do was fly back to Sorgan? His gut said yes. He had unfinished business. He had to make sure Zorii had made it back safely. He had to see her again. This was his life now, and regardless of whether he regretted the journey so far, it was what he had to work with.
A quick scan of the perimeter showed Poe that the New Republic ships had made haste and left, escaping to tend to their wounded and avoid a massive explosion. Sound advice, he mused. He took the Claw out into open space and let the thrusters guide the banged-up ship as far as he could from the mammoth Moraysian vessel before kicking it into hyperspace.
“And away we go,” Poe whispered to himself as the starship groaned into the jump.
The visions rushed past him as the Ragged Claw hurtled back to Sorgan—flashes from the past. Memories and dreams blended together like a feverish vision.
His mother, clutching him to her chest, his arm limp, shattered.
On the A-wing—her hands resting over his, showing him the subtle art of the barrel roll. He leaned back; their eyes met—a warm smile on her face. Her lips kissing the back of his head. Mother.
“I wonder what your father would say.” Trune’s words rang through his skull, shifting the visions from nostalgic to dark. He was back on Yavin 4, standing nose to nose with his father. Both men yelling, their faces red and spent from the effort. Both fighting an unwinnable battle they refused to back away from.
“I won’t let you do this to yourself, Poe,” Kes Dameron said, slamming a fist on their small dinner table. “The war is over. We don’t need any more young men sacrificing themselves.”
“But you did, Dad,” Poe responded in his head, as he’d done many times before. “You and Mom both served the Rebellion.”
“That is over!” Kes screamed, and the dream shifted, back onto the Moraysian cruiser—as Poe sent the handle of his blaster into the back of Sela Trune’s head, knocking the New Republic officer unconscious. He had attacked someone who served the same cause his parents had fought for—and for what? To escape the ship as a fugitive, unable to ever return home?
“Not just yet,” Poe said to himself.
Poe felt a great weight on his shoulders as he brought the Ragged Claw down on the soggy surface of Sorgan, the Spice Runners camp still intact despite the loss of so many just a few hours before. Poe looked down on the surface, half expecting to see no one but instead catching sight of two figures waiting for him as he disembarked. Zorii’s wan smile and tired eyes were a welcome sight. Less so was the haggard, predatory stare of the man known as Tomasso. While Zorii’s expression seemed almost joyous at the sight of Poe and the Claw, Tomasso’s look was wary and disdainful. Poe longed to know what thoughts were taking up space in the older man’s head, and what he’d been told about their struggles aboard the Moraysian cruiser.
He’d soon find out.
Poe pulled his long, thick coat tighter around his body as he walked up the steep staircase. The strong gusts of wind threatened to knock him and Tomasso off the rickety steps as they made their way up to the top of the mountain. Poe’s eyes were teary from the whipping winds, and he squinted to avoid getting more dirt in them. Tomasso, on the other hand, seemed unperturbed, scurrying up the flimsy steps like a toddler chasing a toy. The Marimkes Mountains, of which Poe and Tomasso were scaling the largest peak, were the only notable landmark on the veritable wasteland that was the planet Elkeenar of the Penagosis syst
em, which was as off the grid as one could get in the known galaxy. This suited Poe Dameron fine.
It had been three months since their bloody encounter with Sela Trune and Ledesmar on the Moraysian battle cruiser, and Poe still found himself reeling from it. The losses still stung—Vigilch, Marinda Gan, and Gen Tri—and the doubt that reared its head after those losses had yet to fade away. He no longer grappled with whether he’d made the right decision to leave Yavin 4—he just dealt with the aftershocks, which were strong and ever present. Moments after Poe had landed their ship, the Ragged Claw, on the swamp planet Sorgan, Poe and Zorii Wynn had been ushered to myriad Spice Runners safe houses around the Outer Rim—a few days here, a week there, never longer than that. The Spice Runners knew they were on the New Republic’s sensors, Tomasso had explained, and their numbers were depleted in the wake of the battle with Ledesmar. It was time to regroup—and to learn on the go.
“Pick up the pace, Poe Dameron,” Tomasso called from the top of the makeshift stairs, motioning to Poe. “We don’t have much time.”
Time. Poe had once thought of time as a flowing river—endless and always moving. But his friends’ deaths had slowed the flow to a trickle. Every second counted more. Every moment moved a bit faster than he’d have liked. For years, he’d lived life like a repetitive, soul-draining chore—the same things, the same people, the same moon. He loved his father and his family, of course. His friends and routines. But he’d hungered for something different and livelier. He’d gotten it in spades. Now he wasn’t sure where he’d lay his head to sleep from one night to the next, whether he’d be piloting the Ragged Claw into a pitched battle or roasting nerf meat over a fire on any given day. He’d gone from zero to another numeric system altogether in the span of a minute—just by agreeing to pilot the Ragged Claw off Yavin 4.
As he gripped the railing and pulled himself to the top of the mountain, he found Tomasso standing nearby, looking relaxed, as if climbing a massive rock was just another routine task in the life of the Spice Runners of Kijimi’s second-in-command. They’d been on Elkeenar for a few days, mostly spent working on the Claw and waiting for word from Kijimi, which would naturally come to Tomasso first and filter down to Poe and Zorii in a slow drip.
Poe thought back to that moment on the Moraysian cruiser. It had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, to lean in and kiss her. It had felt right then and still felt right. But Poe wasn’t exactly experienced in the ways of the heart, and he’d probably managed to screw things up somehow. He’d messed up relationships with people before. His dynamic with Zorii hadn’t changed, exactly. There’d been other intimate moments—hands clasped together, lingering kisses, quick longing glances—but they seemed more like an extension of the warmth he knew they shared, not necessarily a sign of what was to be.
Poe pushed the thoughts away as he approached Tomasso. These things would shake out on their own, whether he wanted them to or not, and as much as he cared for Zorii, he couldn’t make them be something else.
He reached the older man and nodded, trying not to seem as winded and exhausted as he felt.
“Here we are,” Poe said. “You wanted to chat? Doesn’t get more secluded than this.”
Tomasso nodded and Poe followed him toward a small hut-like structure. The space inside was barren and not much warmer than outside. Tomasso took a small chair and motioned for Poe to take the only other seat. For a split second Poe wondered if this was the end—if Tomasso had taken him up there to kill him and solve the lingering problem the Spice Runners had been struggling with since Yavin 4. But he tried to ignore the thought. If that was true, it would be too late to stave it off anyway.
“Sit, sit,” Tomasso said. “Don’t worry. I’ve come here to praise you, not punish you.”
Poe tried not to exhale too loudly. He’d come to admire the aging spice runner over the past few months—first out of sheer intimidation, then out of a respect born of long hours spent watching the leader at work. Tomasso acted in the way he expected others to, and seemed to treat all—from the lowest members of the organization to the one person above him—with the same level of care and kindness. But there was a sharp edge beneath the soft exterior, which was truly befitting a thief. You could respect Tomasso, but you could never fully trust him. The definition of a scoundrel, Poe thought as he looked at the man across from him.
“Funny way of showing it, Tomasso,” Poe said, scratching at the awkward stubble that had begun to grow on his face. “You had me worried there for a second. Maybe longer.”
“Understandable,” Tomasso said. “But no. We are quite happy with your work, and with Zorii’s. You both share a great future as members of our growing organization. Our leader has taken a very special interest in this small but active branch of the Spice Runners.”
“Well, they sent you here to train us, so that’s a good sign,” Poe said. “Right?”
“Indeed, as you’ve probably noticed—it’s my duty to ensure you and Zorii learn the tools of the trade so you can not only serve the Spice Runners well now but in the future,” Tomasso said, nodding to himself. “There is also the question of trust.”
“Trust?”
“Yes, yes. The events of the last few months were worrisome beyond the death toll, you see,” Tomasso said, wincing at his own words. “That knowledge—of what you and the team were doing, and who you were after—was known by only a small, tight circle. By the leader of the Spice Runners of Kijimi, myself, and your immediate teammates.”
Poe let Tomasso’s words sink in. The elder thief was being very clear. Someone had betrayed the Spice Runners—and it was someone Poe knew and worked with closely.
“But why would anyone betray us to end up dead?” Poe asked. “If it was Vigilch, Gen Tri, or Marinda Gan—they’re gone. They died fighting Ledesmar and Trune. Seems like a not-so-great payoff for a risky betrayal, you know?”
“That is the mystery, young Poe,” Tomasso said, a dry laugh crossing his chapped lips. “Who, indeed? I have no reason to doubt your loyalties. I certainly don’t doubt those of young Zorii Wynn. So that begs the question, was the traitor double-crossed in some way? Or…”
Poe waited, but the older man lingered on the word. After a few moments he continued, his voice growing hoarse and raw.
“…is the double cross still coming?”
“This station could use a little cheering up.”
Poe and Zorii rolled their eyes at each other as EV-6B6 followed them down Ankot Station’s central walkway, which would—according to the schematics Tomasso had handed them—lead to a large promenade. It had been a few days since Poe’s chilly—in terms of temperature and in terms of mood—meeting with their leader, and it felt good to be off Elkeenar and away from the machinations of the Spice Runners, even if Poe was once again in the dark when it came to why they were doing what they were doing.
They walked slowly, their steps echoing down the winding hallway. Ankot Station had seen it all, even from its perch on the inner fringe of the Outer Rim. Once a highly trafficked base for the Galactic Empire, after the Battles of Endor and Jakku, it had fallen under the thrall of various spice-running gangs before being taken over formally by the New Republic. But the control was in name only, as Zorii didn’t hesitate to clarify for Poe.
“The New Republic can’t patrol everything everywhere,” she’d said with a scoff. “They don’t have the time or energy to care about the Outer Rim. Surely you know that by now.”
Poe gave her midsection a friendly jab. She swatted his hand away playfully before leaning into him, her lips landing softly on his. The kiss was tender but brief, ending as Poe pulled back for a moment. They looked at each other briefly and hesitated, stepping apart and continuing on their way, as if the kiss had been a short detour. Poe tried not to focus on these missed signals as much anymore, but something hadn’t happened after that kiss on the doomed Moraysian cruiser. While the feelings were there—and while they sometimes found themselves in intimate contact—it rarely
evolved beyond that, as if stopped by some unseen barrier. Poe wasn’t sure if he’d put it up or if she had, but it was there nonetheless, and he was unsure how to get past it.
In his darker moments, alone, lying in whatever bed he called his own on a given night, Poe wondered if it was hesitation that stemmed from that moment on the Moraysian bridge—when Gen Tri had ordered him to fire on the New Republic ships and he’d paused for a second or two too long, just enough for Marinda Gan to step in. Did Zorii think him weak? Or perhaps not loyal to her cause? Possibly, Poe thought. Possibly because it was true.
As if in response to his thoughts, Zorii gripped his hand—her fingers tightening around his for just a moment and then releasing them—and it meant something, Poe knew. Their eyes met. Zorii gave him a devious smile.
It was clear to Poe that Zorii reveled in their current life—on the run from the New Republic, hopping from base to base, learning the tricks of the trade from one of the best thieves in the galaxy in Tomasso, and taking orders right from the top of the Spice Runners of Kijimi food chain. This was what Zorii had dreamt of since birth, and she didn’t hesitate to tell Poe that when they had moments together—lying by the fire and sharing stories of their childhood, in the pilot’s seat of the Ragged Claw as Poe guided Zorii’s hands over the controls, or as Zorii walked Poe through the various tools in her compact but versatile lock-picking kit. Over time, she’d become a more than serviceable pilot, and he could do a passable imitation of a scoundrel.
“Kind of odd to be here, on our own,” Poe said, his eyes darting around the space station. “I mean, aside from Eevee.”
“I’m very happy to be here with you,” EV-6B6 chirped. “It is truly an—”
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