The Force Awakens (Star Wars), Page 2

  The older man cut him off. “But I do mind, Poe Dameron. You spoke of your mission.” Both his gaze and his tone hardened. “Now fulfill it. Compared to what is stirring in the galaxy, you and I are little more than motes of dust.”

  Still, Poe demurred. “With all due respect, some motes are of more importance than others…sir.”

  “If you wish to flatter something, flatter my memory. Go. Now! I must see to the defense of the village.” Turning, Tekka headed off, not looking back.

  Poe hesitated a moment longer, then whirled and raced toward the far end of the village, BB-8 pacing him effortlessly. As he ran, he was passed by armed, stern-visaged villagers. How the alarm had been raised he did not know, just as he did not pause to wonder at how or why such seemingly simple folk had come into possession of so many weapons. Doubtless Lor San Tekka would know. Poe resolved to ask him—one day.

  The ship that was parked some distance from the village was well hidden beneath a high rock outcropping. That wouldn’t shield the X-wing from sophisticated search gear, Poe knew. He needed to exit the atmosphere, and fast. Hurrying to the cockpit as BB-8 rolled into the copiloting position, he hurriedly activated the controls. Instrumentation flared to life. In the distance a swarm of bipedal shapes in glistening white armor could be seen approaching the village. Stormtroopers. The weaponry they unleashed confirmed their identification.

  Those villagers who had armed themselves attempted to mount a defense. In this, bravery was a poor match for training and advanced equipment. As more and more of their number went down, the defenders had no choice but to pull back.

  It was over almost before it began. Seeing the hopelessness of further resistance, the villagers began to give themselves up, surrendering in twos and threes. As penned animals panicked and broke free, several of the specially equipped flame troopers began setting chosen structures afire. To an outraged Poe there seemed no reason for it. But then, to those behind the First Order, sowing fear and terror was merely politics by another means.

  His angry thoughts were interrupted by a stream of electronic anxiety from the droid. “We’re going, Beebee-Ate, we’re going! Almost there…” He thumbed another control.

  Landing lights snapped on as engines whined to life. Roll clear of the overhang and then punch it, he told himself.

  He was a second from doing just that when the ship was hit.

  The pair of stormtroopers had come up on him unseen. Whoever had planned the attack was too smart to rely on a simple frontal assault. Perhaps these two were part of a preceding suit drop or had used a vehicle to circle around behind the village. If one of their bursts connected with the cockpit, their origin wouldn’t matter.

  On the other hand, they were either angling for a commendation or just plain stupid, because their line of approach put them right in front of the X-wing’s weapons. Poe hit the control that deployed the drop-down pivoting gun from the belly of his X-wing, then fired. The resulting blasts cleared the ground of the enemy and every other living thing that had been unfortunate enough to have been in their immediate vicinity.

  Having dealt succinctly with the momentary interruption, Poe returned his attention to the X-wing’s instrumentation. An ascending whine rose from the rear of the ship. Shuddering slightly, it started to move out from beneath the protective rock. Strapped into the pilot’s seat, Poe flinched in response to the unexpected vibration. There shouldn’t be any shuddering.

  The X-wing stopped, but the rising whine did not. After quickly shutting down to prevent any further damage to the engines, Poe popped the canopy and climbed out. Moving to the back of the ship, he stared hard at the now inert engines. The two stormtroopers might not have been tactically sophisticated, but they had been good shots. The damage to the engines was severe.

  BB-8 rolled up beside him. Nothing was said. Nothing needed to be said. Both man and droid could see that they were in big trouble.

  —

  In the village the fight continued as a die-hard group of its inhabitants, perhaps knowing all too well what the representatives of the First Order had in mind for them if they surrendered, refused to give up their weapons. While the battle was a mismatch, it was not a slaughter, and those villagers who continued to resist gave as good as they got.

  Shot straight on, a trooper went down in a mass of shattered armor, shredded flesh, and blood. One of his companions immediately rushed to his side and knelt to render assistance. A torn, bloody glove lifted toward the would-be rescuer, shockingly bare fingers protruding from the torn protective covering.

  Faces behind helmets stared at one another. With a shock, the trooper who had arrived to render aid to his fallen comrade recognized the one whose life was now bleeding out inside his armor. They had trained together. Shared meals, stories, experiences together. Now they were sharing death together.

  Combat was not at all like the would-be rescuer had envisioned it.

  A brief, final flailing by the downed trooper splattered the newcomer’s face mask with blood. Then hand and arm fell, and movement ceased.

  There was no assistance to be rendered here, the second trooper realized. Straightening, he surveyed the hell in which he found himself. His weapon hung at his side—unfired. He stumbled off, away from his dead comrade and that exposed, pale, pleading hand.

  As madness ebbed and surged around him, he wandered through the village, feeling himself more a participant in a historical drama than in an actual battle. The horrific and all too common red stains on the ground contradicted his denial. This wasn’t like his training at all, he told himself numbly. Unlike in simulations, reality bled.

  Smoke and dust rose from the devastated buildings around him. His helmet’s aural receptors picked up the sounds of distant explosions as well as those close at hand. Crackling flames did not rise from burning sand; they rose from homes, small workshops, storage buildings.

  As he turned the still-standing corner of a building, movement caused him to raise his weapon reflexively. Frightened and unarmed, the woman he found himself confronting inhaled sharply and froze. The expression on her face was one the trooper would never forget: It was the look of someone still alive who realizes she’s already dead. For an instant they remained like that: predator and prey, each fully cognizant of their respective status. When he finally lowered the blaster’s muzzle, she clearly couldn’t believe it; she continued to stare at him for a long moment.

  What could only be described as a thunderous hiss caused them to turn away from each other. When the trooper turned in the direction of the sound, his movement broke the woman’s terrified paralysis. She whirled and fled.

  The shuttle that was descending was far more imposing than those with which the trooper was familiar, boasting exceptionally high folding wings and a raptorish silhouette. When the bay door opened, it was to allow a single figure to exit. Tall, dark, cloaked, with its face hidden behind a metal mask, it ignored the still-swirling chaos of the battle to head unerringly in the direction of Lor San Tekka.

  Struck by the new arrival’s apparent indifference to the enveloping fray, the trooper was startled when a sharp nudge from behind momentarily threw him off balance. A glance found him locking gazes with a superior. The noncom’s voice was curt.

  “Back to your team. This isn’t over yet.”

  The subject of his ire nodded in recognition and hurried off, wondering what the arrival of that singular figure might portend but not daring to inquire.

  For an ordinary trooper like him, ignorance was not simply an abstract value. It was in the manual.

  —

  At least for now, Poe realized, the X-wing was not flyable. If he could scrounge certain critical components, find a machine-grade cutter, then maybe, just maybe…But first there was a far more important matter to attend to.

  From within the leather bag he had received from Tekka, he removed an artifact. Its significance fa
r exceeded its size. After a moment of fumbling with BB-8’s exterior, the pilot inserted the artifact into the droid. A confirming beep indicated that it was securely lodged. Satisfied, he stood to eye the glow of the burning village.

  “Get as far away from here as you can,” he ordered his mechanical companion. “Any direction, so long as it’s away from this place.” When the droid’s anxious electronic response indicated it was hesitant to comply with the command, Poe added emphasis to his voice.

  “Yeah, I’m gonna take out as many of those bucketheads as I can. Beebee-Ate, I’ll come back for you. Go! Don’t worry—it’ll be all right. Wherever you end up, I’ll find you.”

  BB-8 continued to hesitate. But when the pilot remained indifferent to repeated queries, the droid finally turned and rolled off, accelerating across the sand and away from the village. It looked back only once, its head swiveling around to regard the X-wing and pilot rapidly fading from view even as it increased its speed in the opposite direction. Much to BB-8’s regret, it could only protest a direct order, not reject it.

  —

  The tall, hooded figure whose arrival had so transfixed the shell-shocked trooper made his way directly to Lor San Tekka. He did not waver in his course or objective, ignoring startled stormtroopers and armed villagers alike. Seeing him approach, Tekka halted and waited: The village elder recognized who was coming toward him and knew there was no point in running. Resignation slid over him like a cloud.

  The passenger from the shuttle stared at Tekka, examining him from head to foot much as one would a relic in a museum. Tekka gazed back evenly. The black mask, with its slitted forehead and thick, snoutlike breathing apparatus, covered the face of the man he knew as Kylo Ren. Once, he had known the face behind the mask. Once, he had known the man himself. Now, to San Tekka, only the mask was left. Metal instead of man.

  Ren spoke first, without hesitation, as if he had anticipated this meeting for some time. “The great soldier of fortune. Captured at last.” Though emanating from a human throat, the voice that was distorted by the mask had the sick flavor of the disembodied.

  Tekka had expected no less. “Whereas something far worse has happened to you.”

  Words had no effect on the mask or, so far as Tekka could tell, what lay behind it. There was no reaction, no outrage. Only impatience.

  “You know what I’ve come for.”

  “I know where you come from.” For all the concern he displayed, Lor San Tekka might as well have been sitting atop a mountain ridge, meditating on the sunset over the Sko’rraq Mountains. “From a time before you called yourself Kylo Ren.”

  From behind the mask, a growl: feral, but still human. “Careful. The map to Skywalker. We understand you’ve acquired it. And now you’re going to give it to the First Order.”

  At the point where he had entered the village, moving cautiously and keeping to what cover was available, Poe could now observe the confrontation. Tekka he recognized even from behind and in bad light. The tall, masked visitor was unknown to him. He strained to overhear what they were talking about, but without edging closer and exposing himself to wandering stormtroopers, he could only look on.

  “You don’t belong with them.” Tekka spoke calmly, in matter-of-fact tones, and without any fear. Speaking truth to the lie that stood before him, striving to bring light to darkness. The hope was a faint one, but he had to try. “The First Order arose from the dark side. You did not.”

  Impatience on the part of the visitor gave way to exasperation. “How is it possible that a conversation becomes so tedious, so quickly?” A sweep of one long arm encompassed the boundaries of the village. “Don’t turn a simple transaction into a tragedy for these people.” A tincture of undiluted sadism stained the voice behind the mask. “Hasn’t your presence here done enough for them already?”

  “I made my peace with these folk and this place long ago. As to the other, to turn away from your heritage is the true tragedy.”

  Ren stiffened ever so slightly as he leaned forward. “Enough witless banter.” He held out a hand. “Old man, give it to me.”

  From his vantage point nearby, analyzing the movements and gestures of both men, Poe could divine enough to guess what was being discussed. And to envision the eventual, inevitable conclusion.

  “No,” he muttered under his breath. “No, no, no…” Foregoing any further effort at concealment and disregarding his own safety, he broke from cover and started toward the pair.

  “You may try,” Tekka responded with quiet defiance, “but you cannot deny the truth that is your family.”

  Kylo Ren seemed to grow before him. Rage flared behind the mask as reason gave way to fury. A lightsaber appeared in one hand, flaring to life, a barely stable crimson shaft notable for two smaller projections at the hilt: a killer’s weapon, an executioner’s fetish of choice. “So true.”

  Light, refulgent and cutting, ripped across and through the figure of Lor San Tekka.

  II

  POE SAW THE saber come to life. Saw it start to describe its lethal arc. Time seemed to slow as he watched it descend. Thoughts raced through his mind, half crazed, wholly powerless. He heard himself yelling, sensed himself raising his blaster and firing. Too late, too slow, he told himself despondently even as he continued to fire.

  Perceiving the threat, Kylo Ren reacted immediately. A hand rose sharply, palm facing toward the unknown assailant. The gesture was merely the physical manifestation of something infinitely more powerful and entirely unseen. It intercepted the discharge from the pilot’s weapon, freezing it in midair as effectively as any solid barrier. From behind the mask, eyes of preternatural intensity tracked the attack to its source.

  Initially driven by pure rage, Poe now found that he could not move. His heart pounded, his lungs heaved, but his voluntary muscles refused to respond. He was paralyzed as effectively as the blast from his blaster.

  A pair of stormtroopers took hold of him and dragged him forward until he stood helpless before the impassive Ren. Had they not held on to him, Poe would simply have fallen over. He attempted bravado even so. “Who talks first?” Poe asked, making his voice light. “Do you talk first? Do I talk first?”

  Having deactivated his lightsaber and returned it to his belt, Lor San Tekka’s murderer casually scrutinized the prisoner. Poe’s nerves twanged as feeling slowly began to return to his arms and legs. Ren’s gaze settled on the details of the pilot’s clothing.

  “A Resistance pilot, by the looks of him.” He nodded curtly. “Search him. Thoroughly.”

  One of the troopers who had dragged Poe forward commenced a detailed and none too gentle pat down. Pulling a small device from his service belt, the other trooper slowly passed it the length of the prisoner’s body, beginning at the pilot’s head and ending at his feet. The examination did not take long.

  “Nothing,” declared the first stormtrooper, standing at attention.

  Poe winked up at the trooper who had used his hands. “Good job.”

  Forgetting himself for a moment, the goaded trooper kicked the prisoner’s legs out from under him. Poe went down hard on his knees, still defiant.

  The other trooper gestured with the handheld instrument. “Same here, sir. Internally, this one is clean. Nothing but the expected food residue.” He didn’t hesitate. “Terminate him?”

  Kylo Ren did not let his disappointment show. At such times momentary delays were not unexpected. All would be satisfactorily resolved, in good time.

  “No. Keep him.” A brief pause, then, “Intact and functioning.”

  Plainly disappointed, the two troopers dragged Poe away. Ren watched them for a moment, contemplating possibilities. Later, he told himself. For now, there were other details to attend to. He allowed his thoughts to be briefly diverted, regretting the time that had been wasting in dealing with necessary inconsequentialities.

  Awaiting his pleasu
re, the senior officer in overall charge of the special squadrons drew herself up at his approach, her black cape of rank hanging loose around her. It stood in startling contrast to her armor, which even in the poor light shone like polished silver.

  “Your orders, sir?” she murmured.

  Kylo Ren surveyed his blazing surroundings. He had already spent too much time here, to only partial satisfaction. He disliked such delays. “Kill them all, Captain Phasma, and search the village. Every building, every possible storage facility and place of concealment. When your troops have razed it to the ground, search the ground. Scanners, perceptors. You know what to look for.”

  A single nod and she turned. A line of troopers stood before the assembled surviving villagers. “On my command!” Weapons were raised. The reactions of the villagers were typical. Some stepped forward, insolent to the last. Others fell to their knees. There was whimpering and crying and shouts of defiance. None of it lasted very long.

  “Fire!”

  It wasn’t a massacre. In the lexicon of the First Order it was nothing more than a prescribed chastisement. Appropriate retribution for harboring a fugitive of note. It was the nature of the tutorial that was important, not the numbers involved. It took less than a minute.

  When it was over, and the only sounds were methodical chatter among the troopers mixed with a variety of unholy crackling, they dispersed to carry out a final survey and scan of the debris—inorganic and otherwise. Standing by himself, one trooper with a bloody face mask was startled when a hand came down on his shoulder. Though the hand belonged to a comrade, the first trooper did not relax.

  “Notice you didn’t fire. Blaster jam?”

  Automatically, the trooper being questioned nodded in response. His comrade gestured knowingly and clapped him on the shoulder. “Turn it in when we get back to base. Let the tech boys deal with it and get yourself a new one.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  No sooner had his helpful colleague departed to rejoin his own unit than the trooper found himself gaping at the tall, dark-clad figure striding purposefully toward the singular shuttle that had set down in the midst of battle. Though he willed himself to move, to turn away, he found he could not. He remained rooted in place, clutching his unfired weapon, staring despite himself.