Star Wars: Before the Awakening

by Greg Rucka

  Poe nodded slightly. “It’s a Pinnacle-class luxury ship, made by Vekker Corp. I’ve seen Pinnacles once or twice before. They’re exclusive ships, everything aboard handmade, or so Vekker advertises. Only the very wealthy can afford them. They trade luxury for efficiency, practically hang an invitation off the hull for pirates saying, ‘Money in here.’”

  The general grinned, and when she did her eyes seemed even livelier than ever, that brown warmth in them almost glowing.

  “Could you fly one?”

  Poe ran a hand through his hair. “Sure. It’s designed to be flown by a single pilot, though it crews better with two. Not counting, of course, any servants the owner may want aboard.”

  “Good,” Leia said. “I want you to steal it.”

  Poe looked from her to the image of the Hevurion Grace and back again. He answered her grin with his own. “Sure. Anything else you’d like while I’m at it? Maybe pick you up one of those new Nebulon-Ks?”

  “I’m not entirely convinced the Nebulon-Ks have solved their combustion-shielding problems.” She switched the display off, and her smile faded, the joke at its end.

  “What’s this about, General?”

  “We’ve suspected Senator Ro-Kiintor of colluding with the First Order for years, Commander. He’s delayed or derailed motions covering everything from sanctions to increased support for the Republic Navy. He’s taken numerous unscheduled and impromptu vacations to locations in the buffer region, in the neutral territories. There’ve been sightings of the Hevurion Grace in First Order space. Large sums transferred to his accounts through shells and third-party corporations via the CSA. He’s not only in with the First Order, but he’s in deep, Poe. He may have access to the top, to General Hux. Perhaps to Snoke.”

  Leia rubbed a thumb against her temple. “But we haven’t been able to prove any of this, Poe. No hard evidence, just circumstantial. And we’ve tried, believe me. Twice in the last year Ematt’s sent his agents aboard the Hevurion Grace after one of the senator’s trips, trying to access the logs, the navicomputer, to prove where he’s been. Each time the files had been purged prior to landing.”

  “You want me to kidnap a Republic senator?”

  She looked alarmed by the suggestion. “No, no, that’s precisely what I don’t want you to do. I want the ship, I want those logs, the navicomputer data, all of it, before anyone’s had a chance to cover their tracks, you understand? But no loss of life, not even a bruise on the senator or any of the crew aboard if it can be possibly helped. And it must be completely deniable. Ro-Kiintor is a traitor, I’m sure of it, but until we can prove it, he remains a member of the Senate, and the Resistance will honor that. We must honor that, or we’re no better than the First Order.”

  Poe frowned. “If they’re purging the data, they’re almost certainly doing so within minutes of coming out of hyperspace.”

  “That’s Ematt’s thinking, as well.”

  “It’s a very tight window in which to take the ship. And it’ll have to be done in space, it can’t wait until the senator’s landed.”

  “I am aware of that. I’m aware of exactly how difficult this mission will be. Which is why I’m giving you the option of saying no, Commander. I have to stress this, Poe.” Leia reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it. She was meeting his eyes, as grave as he had ever seen her. “This is not an order. It could go very, very wrong, and if it does, the Resistance would have to deny any involvement. You and anyone you took with you to do this would be on your own.”

  She released his hand and sat back. That air of sadness had descended on her once more. His father had carried a similar melancholy after his mother had passed; Poe would see it descend on him like a shadow, settle over his shoulders like a blanket made of warmth and memory and longing and loss. Leia wore something made of the same material, and not for the first time Poe wondered how she had come by it and, perhaps more importantly, who had given it to her.

  “I’m going to need a few things,” Poe said.

  “First of all, this is a volunteer mission,” Poe told Iolo and Karé. “You want to take a pass, it will most definitely not be held against you. I will probably think even more highly of you if you say no. It verges on crazy. It is entirely unofficial.”

  Karé stretched her long legs out in front of her and braced her hands behind her neck as a makeshift headrest. They were in Poe’s quarters aboard Echo of Hope, late at night ship’s time, just the three of them and their droids. Any sense of formality displayed in front of their respective squadrons was entirely absent.

  “I love it when he talks like this,” Karé told Iolo. “You always know it’s going to be something good when he talks like this.”

  “I’m not sure it’s something ‘good,’” Iolo said.

  “We haven’t heard it yet.”

  “And you won’t unless you let me talk,” Poe said.

  Karé tucked her legs beneath her chair and straightened in her seat. “Sir, yes, sir, Commander, sir!”

  Poe laughed, then turned to BB-8, and the droid took that as his cue to begin projecting the visuals for the briefing from his central lens. The images floated in front of all three pilots, flickering occasionally: the schematics of the Hevurion Grace and the file information on its crew and passengers, including Senator Ro-Kiintor. Karé laughed when she realized who they were looking at, and Iolo’s already slightly larger eyes grew even larger. But neither of them objected, both listening carefully as Poe broke down the operation, the objective, and his plan.

  “It’s a tight window,” Poe said. “We have to hit the ship the moment it comes out of hyperspace, we have to disable it, get me aboard, get the senator and anyone else on the ship into the escape pods and off the vessel, restart the engines, and then get out of there again. And we have to do it within eight minutes.”

  “Why eight minutes?” Iolo asked.

  “Republic response time to the Uvoss system,” Karé said, and Poe nodded. “It’s not on any of the patrol routes and that’s probably why the senator’s been using it as his hyperspace entry and exit when he’s taking these little jaunts.”

  “But the first thing they’ll do when they realize they’re under attack is send out a distress call,” Poe said. “Nearest Republic squadron will need at least eight minutes to respond.”

  “So we need to be gone by the time they get there,” Iolo said.

  “Exactly,” said Poe.

  “At least eight minutes?”

  “Minimum. Could take them longer.”

  “Then let’s hope it takes them longer,” Iolo said.

  Since the mission required deniability, none of them could use Resistance-affiliated vessels. They had to leave their X-wings behind. Through some wheeling and dealing and the judicious use of favors owed to him, Poe managed to acquire three venerable Incom Z-95 Headhunters for the operation. The fighters had entered production during the Clone Wars and were, in many ways, considered the precursor to the X-wing class. Long retired from official military use, the Z-95s had since dispersed throughout the galaxy, finding homes with smugglers, gangsters, pirates, and any others who wanted a fighter to do their business, legitimate or otherwise. If things went horribly wrong, at least Poe, Karé, and Iolo couldn’t be accused of using Republic, or Resistance, resources for their rogue operation.

  Complicating things further, none of the Z-95s were fitted for astromech assist, which meant that all of their hyperspace jumps to and from the Uvoss system, where they intended to intercept the Hevurion Grace, needed to be preprogrammed. There was an upside to this, in that it meant Karé and Iolo could shave a handful of seconds off of their escape; Poe would have to rely on a data chip carried with him to force-feed the jump coordinates to the Hevurion Grace’s navicomputer once he had control of the cockpit.

  BB-8 did not like the idea of being left behind, and made his displeasure known to Poe.

  “I’m going to be sitting in a Z-95 cockpit wearing an EVA suit,” Poe told the droid. “And y
ou want to sit on my lap? Worry less about being left behind and more about making certain the concussion missiles are fitted with the proper warheads, okay, buddy?”

  The droid did as asked, but Poe had the unmistakable sense that BB-8 was sulking. There was no other word for it.

  “I’m going to come back,” Poe said. “I always do.”

  They’d been on station for just under seven hours, floating in the cold silence of the Uvoss system. The reason the Republic had no patrols in the area was evident. Of the three planets in the system, two were gas giants so enormous they’d barely missed out on becoming stars in their own right, massive enough that their gravity wells created a distinct, if minor, hazard for hyperspace travel. The third planet was, charitably, a bulbous chunk of iron that whirred in an ever-tightening orbit around the Uvoss sun, itself an unremarkable standard yellow star. Given a couple of thousand more years, the planet rock would be turned into a light snack for the star.

  That was it; there was nothing else. Just the silence, the cold, and the need to be patient. Poe, Karé, and Iolo couldn’t even speak to one another, forced to maintain radio silence. Even for Poe, who had long before come to terms with the boredom of space travel and the patience required to combat it, the wait was particularly grueling. The Z-95 cockpit was small to begin with—Karé had complained endlessly about the lack of legroom—but with the addition of the EVA suit Poe was wearing, there was almost no room to move at all. To save time, he’d sealed the suit on takeoff, which meant he was entirely enclosed, helmet and all. While still aboard the fighter he could connect to the ship’s environmental controls via a hose in the side of the space suit, but the air he was breathing had long before begun to taste like stale sweat and plastic. Poe had never in all his life wanted so much to brush his teeth.

  It occurred to him that he, Karé, and Iolo were going to do to the Hevurion Grace exactly what the First Order had done to the Yissira Zyde.

  It’s one thing to be bored and patient. It’s another thing to be bored, patient, and have to remain alert, and that was truly the hardest part of it all. The pilots floated, each alone with their thoughts, fighting the inevitable drowsiness, struggling to keep one eye on where they expected Senator Ro-Kiintor to burst back into realspace and the other on their controls. Poe grew so bored, he actually began to count how many yawns he’d stifled.

  Then Iolo’s engines pulsed, powering up, and Poe knew that the Keshian had seen with his specialized vision what Poe and Karé couldn’t. A ripple in the fabric of realspace perhaps, or a swell in the UV or infrared spectrum. Poe forced his heavily gloved thumb down on the activator and wrapped his other hand, just as heavily gauntleted, around the yoke and felt his Z-95 come back to life just as the Hevurion Grace seemed to stretch into reality from nothingness. The ship wasn’t there, and then it was, and all at once Iolo and Karé were hurtling forward in the darkness and Poe was on their tails, following their attack.

  It went perfectly at first.

  Predictably, the Hevurion Grace broadcast its distress signal even as it attempted to come about, and in response Poe keyed a control on the arm of his suit. An illuminated timer popped into view inside his helmet, easily readable from the corner of one eye, counting down from eight minutes.

  The clock was now running.

  Iolo launched first, two modified concussion missiles that streaked toward the yacht, Karé’s chasing after them. The Hevurion Grace tried to roll into an evasive maneuver, managed even to launch its countermeasures, a burst of flares designed to force the incoming missiles to explode prematurely, but despite its best efforts, two got through. The first impacted high on the yacht’s stern, the second detonating on proximity, perhaps a kilometer off the bow. Bolts of energy exploded and blue tendrils raced over the hull of the ship, dancing and sparking, flowing into every seam of the vessel.

  The Hevurion Grace went dead in space, power flickering out as the ionization took hold of its controls.

  Poe throttled up, his fighter slipping between Karé’s and Iolo’s as each peeled off, starboard and port. He keyed the autopilot, the nose of the fighter now pointed some dozen meters beneath the belly of the yacht, in line with the looming gas giant beyond it. He fumbled with the quick release on his chest, his fingers clumsy in the oversized gloves, the timer still counting down with just over seven and a half minutes left. Hevurion Grace was coming quickly closer. The harness broke apart around him, and Poe slammed his left fist on the ejector plate, snapping it open and taking hold of the handle. He wrenched it and even through the helmet heard the screams of the ship’s alarms, questioning the wisdom of leaving the fighter at this point in time, in this place, at this speed. He yanked again and the explosive bolts on the canopy detonated, sending it up and over the tail of the Z-95, and almost as quickly Poe felt himself slipping free from the flight couch, weightless and untethered, as the micro-repulsorlift field spat him out of the fighter.

  Then he was in space, still being carried forward by the momentum of the Z-95, still hurtling toward the Hevurion Grace far, far too quickly. At this speed, a collision with the hull of the yacht would be fatal, would turn Poe to a smear of jelly inside the EVA suit. Beneath his feet, he could see the Z-95 keeping pace, an optical illusion that made it seem that both he and the fighter were motionless, that it was the yacht approaching them, rather than the other way around. The range finder in the HUD of his helmet was counting down the distance rapidly, faster than the clock inexorably running down.

  Poe waited for as long as he could, longer than he should’ve, before activating the maneuver jets on the space suit, a full-burst deceleration firing from the chest piece, boots, and helmet at once. The yacht was still approaching fast, and he had a moment of near panic when he thought the maneuver wouldn’t work at all, and then he glanced down and the Z-95 had vanished, and when he raised his eyes he could see the glow of its engines, already past the Hevurion Grace and disappearing toward the gas giant. The fighter would never reach the surface, crushed into its components by the tremendous pressure of the planet’s atmosphere.

  Poe slammed into the yacht hard enough that his head snapped forward in his helmet, hard enough that he felt the impact run through his body, hard enough that his breath exploded out of him, made a film of condensation on the inside of his visor. He tasted blood, scrabbled for a handhold, and finding one began pulling himself, hand over hand, along the hull of the yacht. His head was ringing, and he felt disembodied, and it wasn’t until his vision had cleared that he realized he’d managed to reach the access port and was already using the fusion torch from his belt to break the seals.

  The timer was down to six minutes, forty-seven seconds.

  One of the Z-95s crossed his vision, Iolo visible for an instant as he rocked the fighter, waving with its wings. Karé crossed in the other direction, each of them now flying a limited patrol around the vessel.

  The last seal popped, the hatch parting enough for Poe to get his gloved hands into the opening. He was fighting his own weightlessness as much as the yacht, and even with his gloves and boots magnetized to the hull there was a limit to how much strength he could exert. He pushed and pulled, and the timer was down to six minutes and three seconds before he managed to force the opening wide enough to squeeze himself inside. He lost another seventeen seconds resealing it behind him. With the power disabled on the yacht, the gravity emulators had gone offline, as well, and he had to pull himself hand over hand down the ladder and into the ship itself, the path illuminated only by the floodlight on his helmet.

  He’d just hit the bottom when the lights, and the gravity, came back, and Poe spared an instant to thank whoever or whatever it was that watched out for reckless, foolish pilots. A few seconds earlier, he’d have landed headfirst on the deck and possibly broken his neck.

  Poe righted himself, reached around to his back, and freed the blaster carbine strapped there. He slapped the door release, raised the weapon to his shoulder, and switched on the speakers on his sui
t as he stepped forward.

  “This vessel is now the property of the Irving Boys!” The speakers distorted Poe’s voice, made it seem more droid than human, amplified and reverberating.

  It got the desired result.

  Three beings stood in the hall when Poe emerged, one of them presumably the pilot judging by how he was dressed, another a servant, and Senator Ro-Kiintor himself. All turned and stared at Poe, hidden in his space suit, taken utterly by surprise by the boarding. They gaped at him, motionless, and Poe could only imagine what they were seeing, this oversized figure in his bulky EVA suit, face hidden behind the tinted visor of his helmet, the blaster carbine in his hands looking comically small.

  The senator spluttered. “Do you know who I am? How dare—”

  Poe fired a shot at the deck, sending sparks into the air.

  “Mine!” Poe roared. “You’re good stock! You’ll make a fine slave!”

  The senator blanched, recoiling to hide behind his servant.

  “Now…now let’s not do anything hasty….”

  “You have ten seconds to leave my ship!” Poe said. “Or else you’ll be mine, too!”

  He fired a second shot into the deck for emphasis.

  The senator, the pilot, and the servant practically trampled one another running for the escape pods.

  With three minutes and twenty-nine seconds left on the timer, everything went wrong.

  Poe was in the cockpit, helmet and gloves now unceremoniously dumped on the floor, the data chip with the hyperspace coordinates plugged into the navicomputer. He was working on restarting the Hevurion Grace’s main engines when Iolo’s voice came over the comm.

  “Uh-oh.”

  Just that, and it was enough for Poe to snap his head up from his work and search the empty space beyond the cockpit canopy. It was just possible—barely possible—that they’d miscalculated and the Republic had managed a speedier response than anticipated. But even as he thought that, Poe knew he was wrong. Iolo’s Keshian eyes had seen trouble coming, but not soon enough to do anything about it, and what had been an empty view suddenly filled with one ship, then another, then another as vessels snapped back into realspace.