“Where are you going?” Poe asked, ignoring Zorii’s question. He was walking after her, with EV-6B6 a few paces behind. “We’re done. This was a wash. Let’s get back to the Claw and connect with Tomasso. There’s nothing for us here.”
“Wrong,” she said, sliding into another terminal and typing away feverishly. “We have to get what we came for. I’m not going back empty-handed.”
Poe moved closer to her, trying to make eye contact.
“Zorii, it was a trap,” Poe said. “There’s nothing here. We need to go back and talk to Tomasso, see why they were after you in particular. Doesn’t that worry you?”
She met his eyes.
“Of course it does,” she said. “But I’m also worried about not completing our mission. Doesn’t that worry you?”
She looked away and continued to type, checking the screen above the terminal every few moments. After a while, she spoke, not looking at Poe or EV-6B6.
“Sotin’s ship is still docked,” she said. “Looks like the Guavians took him out while we escaped.”
“Guess he got a raw deal after all,” Poe said.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer smuggler,” she said, leaning in to check something else. “Okay, let’s head to his ship. That’s where we’ll find the goods, I think.”
“But why would he double-cross us and still have what he promised?” Poe asked. “That seems backwards.”
“Any smuggler worth his weight in mirkanite has some kind of goods on them,” Zorii said, standing up and tapping the door on the far wall of the control room, opposite the sliding doors that had crushed the Guavian. “We find his ship, we find something of value—which ensures this trip wasn’t a complete waste of our time and money.”
Poe didn’t respond, letting his mind process what was going on. What he’d gotten himself into—that day and ever since he’d agreed to join the Spice Runners on Yavin 4.
Zorii noticed his silence and kept going, saying words that would haunt Poe Dameron for the rest of his life.
“We have to get what we came for.”
They found Sotin—alive and bound—near his ship. His pale face was bruised and bloodied, but the smuggler was otherwise intact. Poe pulled out his blaster and approached him, his own face flush with anger.
“How’d you wriggle your way out of this, Sotin?” Poe asked.
Sotin looked up, his eyes glassy, as if he was just waking up from a long nightmare.
“Oh, it’s you,” Sotin said, trying to force a grin. “I wondered who’d find me. If anyone would.”
“The Guavians left you to die?” Zorii asked. “How sad for you.”
“Oh, not to die, not exactly. Even Guavians have a code, my dear,” Sotin said. “It’s what makes us all thieves and criminals, no? I tipped them off to you, and they felt that was enough to let me live. Who am I to argue?”
Poe swung the handle of his blaster into Sotin’s face, the soft crunch of the Fiumarian’s jaw bringing him some minor satisfaction. He grabbed Sotin by the neck as his head snapped forward, yellowish blood caked on his mouth.
“Why are the Guavians after Zorii?” Poe asked, shaking Sotin with every other word. “What did they want?”
“Are you mad?” Sotin spat, his expression baffled and pained. “I’m close enough to death as is. If I tell you that, I might as well jump out of this hangar myself.”
Poe shoved the smuggler back, watching as his head slammed into the cold ground of the space station.
He felt Zorii’s hand on his arm, pulling him toward Sotin’s stout Corellian freighter—a G9 Rigger. EV-6B6 was already making her way up the loading steps and into the ship’s main storage area.
“Come on,” Zorii said. “Let’s go.”
She seemed softer somehow, as if she felt bad for Poe but also sympathized with his anger—or was drawn to it. But there was something else, something that was left unsaid. Poe tried to shake it off as he moved a half step behind her.
As they boarded the ship, Zorii got on her knees and began feeling the floor—running her hand over certain areas, almost as if she was wiping it down. Poe and EV-6B6 crouched down and tried to see what she was looking at but came up empty.
“Um, Zorii?” Poe asked. “Are you okay?”
“Trying to find something,” she said, almost to herself. “Every ship has one. Every smuggler needs one.”
“Needs…what, exactly?”
“A secret compartment,” she said, grunting to herself as her fingers latched on to something. “There…this is it. Help me out here.”
“A secret compartment for what, though?”
“Poe, can you think for a second?” Zorii said, exasperated. “He’s a smuggler. Smugglers steal and, well, smuggle things. How else do you think people like Sotin transfer goods illegally?”
Before Poe could respond, a loud, sharp screech filled the storage area and Zorii fell backward, a panel in her hands. Beneath where the panel had been was a long tunnel with a ladder embedded in it. Where it led was anyone’s guess. Poe didn’t have much time to ponder, though. Zorii started to climb down, unfazed by the ladder to nowhere. Poe followed, telling EV-6B6 to stay topside.
A few moments after they started their descent, Poe heard noises. The buzz of voices. A chorus of nervous whispers. Eventually sobs. What is down here? he thought. Who is down here?
What had Sotin been doing?
Zorii heard the same sounds but remained stoic as they reached the end of the ladder and a lower level—dark and claustrophobic. The sense of falling deeper into a hole with no sure way of getting back out hovered in the back of Poe’s mind. The smell hit them hard. Dank and dirty. Waste and soiled clothing. They both pulled out their blasters and walked down a low and narrow hallway, dust and grime coating the walls. It didn’t take long for them to reach the main holding area—the secret compartment Zorii had hoped to find. But she hadn’t hoped to find this, Poe knew.
The space was not large—perhaps the size of the entire Ragged Claw—and full of people, all kinds. Human, Kubaz, Yarkora, a Dressellian or two, Crolute, and a Duros in the background. They ranged in age from teenagers to the elderly. Various genders. Each one of them was chained to the wall—and it looked like they’d been down there for some time.
“What is this?” Poe asked.
“Prisoners to be sold into slavery,” Zorii said, moving toward the first row of captives.
She started blasting the connections holding their bonds together. With each blast, a handful of them were freed, rubbing their hands, muttering thanks in their native tongues. Zorii nodded and moved on to the next row, repeating her action. Poe moved past the crowd of people forming around Zorii—those who were freed and looking for a way off the ship, and those still chained in place, desperately tugging and moving closer to freedom.
“Slavery?” Poe said. “How is that possible?”
“Look around you, Poe,” Zorii said, continuing with her task, not slowing down. “What other explanation is there?”
“So Sotin is a slaver?”
Zorii didn’t answer. Another obvious question, Poe thought. He continued anyway.
“We have to take him in, or—do something, destroy this ship,” Poe said. “Or, I dunno, we have to—”
Zorii spun around, eyes wide, blaster in hand.
“What, Poe? We have to what? Kill Sotin?” she asked harshly. “To what end?”
“So we do nothing?”
Zorii scoffed, offended.
“No, we free these people, take them somewhere, and move on,” she said, destroying the last batch of restraints. The crowd was beginning to get unruly, desperate to get out of the cramped, soiled chamber.
“Sotin needs to pay for this,” Poe said, surprised by the chill in his own voice. “This is wrong.”
Zorii smirked and looked up at Poe. She patted his cheek. It was not a gesture of affection.
“Poe, you have much to learn, even after all this time together,” she said. “Do you really
think killing Sotin—which, wow, is that what you’re suggesting?—will fix anything?”
Poe bristled.
“Of course it will,” he said, stepping into Zorii’s space, his anger bubbling out with every word. “He won’t do it again. It will make others hesitate, too. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Sotin is scum,” Zorii said, waving her hand to gesture at the people in the holding area. “This is wrong, yes. But do you really think by destroying him—his ship, or his operation—we’ll win? That we’ll eradicate all the bad things in the galaxy? Someone else—someone much worse—will come along. And then what, Poe Dameron? Do we stop being Spice Runners and start being heroes?”
“So, what? We just let him go?” Poe said. He was in her face. They weren’t talking anymore; they were yelling. “We just resign ourselves to being part of this? To doing business with people like him?”
Zorii shook her head and backed away.
“If we let him go, we deal with the devil we know. The Spice Runners have worked with Sotin for a long time, Poe. We need him around. We free these people now, and we do some good. He knows he cheated us, and I don’t expect it to happen again. That’s how these things work. Thieves double-cross thieves who double-cross scoundrels. It’s the world we live in,” Zorii said. “It’s not our call anyway. Tomasso spoke to Zeva directly about this, and she sent us because she thought we could handle ourselves. Coming back and saying we killed Sotin without at least trying to get their okay first doesn’t make sense. What if the Spice Runners leadership knows something we don’t? We can’t just act on our own. Sometimes you have to let things go.”
Poe slammed his fist into the ship’s wall before he even realized he was going to do it. The pain helped—gave him something else to feel, to think about. Something besides rage and helplessness.
“This isn’t you, Zorii,” Poe said, his voice hollow and soft.
She cut through the people who’d begun to crowd around them and jabbed him in the chest with her fingers, pushing him back.
“This is us,” she said, baring her teeth. “This is how things work out here, Poe, on the edges of the galaxy. There are no black-and-white answers or simple choices. It’s all gray and complicated. You can’t just swoop in, play hero, and leave. You have to live in this world.”
“This arguing is making me very uncomfortable,” EV-6B6 said. They ignored her.
Poe started to respond, but Zorii cut him off.
“What did you think you were doing when you got on the Ragged Claw, Poe? Saving the galaxy?” she said. She moved farther into the holding cell, motioning with her blaster for the group to follow her. “I’ll meet you back at the base once I figure out what to do with these people. How to do some actual good, instead of daydreaming.”
A moment later, Zorii Wynn was gone, leading the group of prisoners down the walkway and to the ladder, to freedom. Poe Dameron stood alone in the dank holding cell, his hand bruised and bleeding and his world in pieces.
“You’re going to fly us through the Torch Nebula?” Zorii asked, her voice rising above the chaos swirling around them. “Are you insane?”
Poe shook his head. No, he was not insane. But he was desperate. He was piloting the Vondel, Sotin’s old ship, at maximum speed and it still wasn’t enough. He felt the space between their ship and their pursuers closing. Along with Zorii, he had Tomasso and the EV droid, but he wasn’t sure any of them could help him.
There were three slim and fast Karura-class ships hot on their heels—enforcers for the bloodthirsty Osako space pirates, hell-bent on getting their hands on what the Spice Runners of Kijimi had just made off with. It had been a busy few hours. He shot a quick glance at Zorii, who was frantically checking her terminal to try to find some kind of lost reserve, any forgotten button or switch that might get them ahead for a few moments while the hyperdrive slowly came back online. If it came back, Poe mused.
Six months had passed since the incident on the Moraysian cruiser. Eight months since Poe Dameron left his home on Yavin 4 and signed up with the Spice Runners of Kijimi. Much had changed over that time, Poe thought, perhaps too much. Ever since Zorii and Poe had parted ways on Ankot Station—she taking Sotin’s prisoners on the Vondel, Poe and EV-6B6 returning to Tomasso with the Ragged Claw—a chill had permeated their relationship. A tension appeared, fully formed, replacing the warmth and intimacy Poe had come to rely on during his first few months away from home. While there had been glimmers of the Zorii he first came to know, her default setting was now one of distance. It had made Poe’s new life that much lonelier, and he longed for the chance to sit and talk it out with the woman he considered his closest friend.
But that conversation would require time and peace, two things the Spice Runners had in short supply these days. After Sotin’s betrayal and the Guavian attempt on Zorii, Tomasso—on orders from the mysterious, secret leadership of the Spice Runners—kept the team moving. He was vague and evasive about the need to continue changing locations, but Poe picked up enough. They were at risk, and despite the fact they’d let Sotin live, there were people eager to find out where this specific cell of the Spice Runners was hiding. Even if, on some level, it made sense, for Poe the plan proved haphazard and disruptive. He was surprised at how much he needed a home base—a place to call his own, routines to fall back on, and people he could trust. Instead, he was thrust into a nonstop world of subterfuge, shady dealings, and murky morals, without ever coming up for air. Poe was slowly realizing his thirst for adventure only stretched so far. Sure, put him on a ship and he would do his best to pilot it out of any jam. But he was becoming less and less interested in navigating the corrupt and confusing worlds that populated the Outer Rim.
Poe was torn. He fed off the adventure—the shootouts, the high-stakes space battles, the last-minute escapes. It was what he’d dreamt of since before his mother died, even before he desperately longed for a life outside of the constraints of Yavin 4. But at what cost? He often found himself wondering that as he laid down to get a few hours of sleep on any given night.
The incident inside the Vondel was the most egregious, but it wasn’t the only one, Poe knew. His days were littered with them. Firing on New Republic ships. The murder of Ledesmar. Moments when he felt his new life tugging at the very fabric of who he was. His mind often skittered back to his confrontation with Sela Trune, aboard the Moraysian cruiser—when she’d asked him what his father and L’ulo L’ampar would think of what he’d become. What would they think? He tried not to dwell on it. There were more pressing issues at hand.
“They’re closing in,” Zorii said, not looking up from her terminal. “I hope you have a better idea than just sending us through that nebula, Poe. We’ll be flying blind.”
Truth was, he didn’t. The best they could hope for was losing the Osako pirates in the space anomaly, which would send all their sensors off the grid and leave them to rely on their own, very limited senses—not the safest way to navigate the galaxy.
The order had come from the top of the Spice Runners organization, according to Tomasso—from the mysterious commander only referred to directly as Zeva or “our leader.” They were to steal a handful of rare, previously-believed-to-be-destroyed star maps known as the Letters of Where and When, which—legend had it—carved out the best, most effective smuggling routes in the galaxy, the kind of paths that couldn’t be weathered even by time and technology. They worked the galactic terrain and were the kind of head start any smuggler—especially an up-and-coming gang like the Spice Runners of Kijimi—would literally kill for.
According to the information passed down to Tomasso, the maps were being kept on the planet Guat’a, a barren, dank rock known mainly as a hub of chaos and bloodshed—a haven for spice runners, smugglers, bounty hunters, and anyone else who took refuge in the underbelly of the galaxy.
The maps were in the possession of the warlord Smaatku, a large, bloated, and slow-moving green-skinned Gordelian who hailed from the Nishmar system
on the fringes of the Unknown Regions. Gordelians were often considered lazy and rarely seen away from their homeworld, but Smaatku was a rare exception, having built a strong organization on Guat’a aligned with the Osako pirates. The new confederacy didn’t yet pose a major threat to the Spice Runners or other organizations of that tier, but Smaatku had also refused to pay his proper tithe to the gangs above him on the food chain. Add to that the fact that, despite being unclear on how to decipher the fabled maps, he had them in his hands and could very easily begin using them to his great advantage, and Smaatku’s new group was evolving from minor annoyance to viable threat. That meant it was time for the Spice Runners to take Smaatku’s shiny toy and use it for their own means.
“Let’s teach them a bit about what we do,” Poe said with a grin, tapping his terminal as if he was playing a valachord. “This is where you clap confidently, Zorii.”
She gave him a forced smile. He felt Tomasso’s hand grip his shoulder.
“We cannot afford to lose this prize, as you know,” the older man said. “I should also note that the Osako pirates are not known for their kindness to prisoners. In fact, I have yet to hear of a time when they took prisoners.”
Poe swallowed hard. Tomasso wasn’t one to mince words.
They’d managed to land the Vondel on Guat’a with little fanfare—they’d purposely used Sotin’s ship so as not to raise alarms. The Ragged Claw had become too closely identified with the Spice Runners of Kijimi. The hope was that word about their run-in with Sotin hadn’t spread that far into the Outer Rim. They’d been wrong, but they hadn’t known that yet.
Tomasso and EV-6B6 had stayed behind as Zorii and Poe entered Guat’a’s main trading post, a market-style area known as Alshuey—half town, half trading post, and for all intents and purposes a festering dump. Everything looked and smelled worn down. Little eye contact was made, and the entire stretch of land seemed pelted by sounds from every corner—loud, droning music; unintelligible screams; the staccato rhythms of bartering, pleading, and dealmaking.
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