Star Wars: Before the Awakening (17 page)

“Go get cleaned up,” Poe said. “We’ll have a toast to Muran.”

Leia waited until they were gone before approaching Poe. “Threepio, go aboard please and see what you can get from the flight computers.”

“Of course, Princess Leia,” the droid said.
He nodded to Poe in a stilted approximation of a human acknowledgement, then made his way up the ramp.

Leia was looking up at Poe, smiling ever so slightly. “Flyboys. You’re all the same.”

“Some of us are flygirls,” Poe said.

“Captain Kun is an exceptional pilot, without question, as is Captain Arana, for that matter. But it’s a rare pilot who engages one frigate and two Star Destroyers and
lives to tell the tale.”

“Word travels fast.”

“Yes,” Leia said. “It does.”

“Princess Leia?” the protocol droid called from the top of the ramp. “I think perhaps you better see this.”

“It’s never anything good when he says that,” Leia told Poe.

It was the next morning, before Poe had even managed to make it to breakfast when he learned how right she was.

He’d had difficulty sleeping, the
elation of the mission’s success fading as the hours had lengthened into night, his mind turning to dark and, frankly, depressing thoughts. When he finally did manage to sleep, it was restless and unsatisfying, and when he awoke it was with the sense that he’d had no rest at all.

As soon as Poe switched the lights on in his quarters BB-8 rolled forward, chirping softly and directing Poe’s attention
to the blinking message light on his console. It was from the general, asking that he come and see her right away. He took her literally, dressed without bothering to run through the refresher and made his way through the corridor to her office.

General Organa met him at the door and shut it behind him. Her movements were deliberate and slow, as if she was lost in thought, her manner markedly
subdued compared to the day before, as if she was wrestling with some dilemma deep within herself. She pointed Poe to one of the chairs but didn’t sit herself, instead pacing the length of the room for several seconds, her chin against her chest, her brow furrowed.

“How are you feeling?” she asked abruptly. She was staring at him.

“I’m…I’m fine, General.”

She arched an eyebrow. “I’ll rephrase.
What
are you feeling?”

He wondered if it was on his face, the thoughts that had kept him up half the night. He wondered, for a moment, if her night hadn’t been similarly rough.

“I’m angry,” Poe admitted. “And I’m worried, General. A member of the Republic Senate was in so deep with the First Order that when he put out a distress call
they
came to try and rescue him, and when they did it, they
pulled out all the stops. Two Star Destroyers and I couldn’t count how many TIEs, and maybe they knew he was no longer aboard but maybe they didn’t, but they wanted
Hevurion Grace
destroyed. They were willing to kill their man to keep us from taking that vessel.”

He paused, cautious that he’d said too much, perhaps, but Leia was listening to him exactly as she had back on Mirrin Prime, and after
a second he continued.

“I keep thinking, this man, Ro-Kiintor, he’s a
senator
. He’s in the heart of the Republic,
our
Republic. And he was a traitor. And I’m wondering how many more are just like him, how many more are working for the First Order, how many more have sold us out.”

“Yet you still believe in the Republic, Poe.”

“Absolutely, yes.” Poe spoke without hesitation. “I remember how my
parents spoke about life under the Empire, General. The fear, they said it was like a cloud everywhere you went, that it was so thick you could…you could breathe it. They used to say, until the Rebellion…they said you could see hopelessness in the eyes of everyone you met.”

“That’s the word,” Leia said, as much to herself as to Poe. “Without hope.”

“Where did it go?” he asked, and the question
seemed so much more important than he meant it to be, but as he asked he was thinking of his father, and his mother, of everything they had sacrificed and fought for. Thinking of Leia Organa, one of the last survivors of Alderaan standing before him—of everything she had lost, both what Poe knew and what was rumored.

“I don’t know,” she said. “But I know we have to find it again.”

She drew herself
up, her shoulders squaring, her jaw setting, the determination she was known for once again fully apparent. Whatever her internal debate, she had reached a conclusion. Poe watched her turn to her desk and key a sequence into the small safe built in its side. A drawer popped open, and her hand went in, then emerged with a data chip, slender and blue tinted.

“We obtained a lot of information from
the computers aboard
Hevurion Grace
,” Leia said, looking at the chip. “A wealth of information. But there was something else, something that…others may have missed. A piece of a puzzle I’ve been working for…for a long time to solve.”

She set the data chip in Poe’s palm.

“I think the First Order is trying to solve it, too, Poe. We have to solve it first. We have to find
him
first.”

“Who?”

“His name is Lor San Tekka.”

“Lor San Tekka,” Poe repeated. “Why’s the First Order so desperate to find him?”

“They think he knows something. I’m hoping he does, too.” Leia took his hand and folded his fingers closed over the data chip. She met his eyes. “I’m hoping Lor San Tekka knows where to find my brother, Poe. And Luke Skywalker may be the only hope we have left.”

GREG RUCKA

Greg Rucka is an award-winning
New York Times
best-selling writer of several hundred comic books and over two dozen novels. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife, author Jennifer Van Meter, and their two children, Elliot and Dashiell. He first visited a galaxy far, far away when he was seven years old. He has yet to return.

PHIL NOTO

Phil Noto began his career at Walt Disney
Feature Animation, where he worked on such films as
The Lion King
,
Pocahontas
,
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
,
Mulan
, and
Lilo & Stitch
. In 2001, Phil started his comic career as the cover artist for DC Comics’ Birds of Prey. Since then he has worked on numerous projects, such as Danger Girl, Jonah Hex, Avengers, Uncanny X-Force, X-23, The Infinite Horizon, and most recently, Marvel’s Black Widow.