New story! This is something I've been working on in my free time just for fun. I don't plan to take the plot too seriously; that being said, I'm sure some details about the Star Wars universe are wrong - if so, you can just correct it in your mind and move on.

The main character's name is pronounced "Nem-uh-see," but she goes by "Sully."

Nemesi "Sully" Sullivan was going to kill Poe Dameron. She banished the thought as soon as it crossed her mind, not wanting it to bring bad luck on him. They were, after all, in imminent danger - as per usual.

So, she wasn't going to kill Poe, but she was going to give him a tongue lashing after this was over. It had been his idea to requisition black market weapons from a First Order-occupied planet.

"It's a quiet occupation" He'd insisted, "They won't have more than 200 stormtroopers on planet. And the population on Shaksari is huge. We'll easily slip under the radar."

And perhaps he would've been right...except that it had also been his idea to start prying for information that could help the resistance. Sully had a suspicion that he had been planning it all along and that the 'requisitioning of new supplies' had been his way of getting permission from General Organa to land on Shaksari.

And this was the short version of the story of how she found herself weaving through crowded souks with a gaggle of white helmets bobbing through the crowd close behind her.

"Halt!" The continued to command her. She pushed forward even harder, knowing that they wouldn't open fire into a crowd full of people on a planet that had been submissive in their occupation. They wouldn't want to risk causing riots.

Sully could use a good riot at the moment. A couple of dutiful citizens had attempted to stop her, but she easily slipped under their arms or out of their reach. She ducked particularly low, darting to the right, and by the time her head appeared in the crowd again, she was donning a headscarf, like nearly every other woman standing by. The stormtroopers continued to press forward, and, thankful that nobody nearby had sold her out, she nodded at a few civilians as she ducked into a side alley and took off in a sprint again.

There was an unexpectedly large First Order presence here on Shaksari today. She'd even caught glimpse of what looked to be a general when they were first confronted by their forces. Either something big was happening, or they'd known the resistance was coming. Or, perhaps, Poe had known they'd be here and had planned to be here at the same time. She found that unlikely, though. Poe wouldn't have her unknowingly risk her life. He was impulsive, but he wasn't manipulative. She reached their shuttle and peered around to make sure nobody had found it. When it appeared to be clear, she ran forward and opened the door, quickly sealing herself inside.

"Sully, do you read me? Sully, come in. Sully!" A staticky voice was calling. The woman rushed into the cockpit, pulled on a headset and started flicking switches on the console in front of her.

"Sully here." She intoned calmly. "I'm back at the shuttle and ready to depart. Where are you, Dameron?"

There was a long pause.

"Took you long enough." Poe replied, relief flooding his voice.

"Lost my earpiece," Sully replied simply. "Where are you?"

"On the outskirts of Tiksa. The western-most corner." He replied. He'd gotten far. He must've stolen a speeder.

"On my way." She replied, starting up the thrusters.

"They're expecting us to hit the skies, Sul - you'll be shot down." He insisted. Sully rolled her eyes.

"You just don't want me doing anything cool while you're not in the cockpit to take credit for it." She retorted, lifting the shuttle deftly up into the planet's atmosphere.

"Just be careful. Please." He told her, and she could sense the nerves underpinning his tone.

"Copy that."

Sully wasn't exactly being careful, but she was surviving. She'd been pursued by TIE fighters that she'd ultimately slipped away from and she was now circling around the outskirts of western Tiksa, looking for any sign of Poe.

"Dameron, come in." She growled into her headset for the third time. Now he was the one MIA and she gritted her teeth at the sight of all of the Stormtroopers and First Order officers that seemed to now be in the era. Maybe he'd already run from here, but it looked like a scuffle was happening below, so she doubted it. She landed the shuttle and grabbed her wan-shen, snapping the two pieces of the pole weapon together. She spun it in her hand for a moment, testing the weight and watching the blade shine in the dim lighting. She closed her eyes for a few moments and took a deep breath through her nose, trying to reach a meditative state despite the chaos she was about to enter. Eyes still closed, she reached out and hit the button that released the ramp of the shuttle. When her eyes finally snapped open, the suns of Shaksari were blinding, bouncing off the armor of the approaching storm troopers.

"Long live the resistance." She said clearly and calmly, as had become her custom, before leaping off the ramp and into the fray.

Poe Dameron hadn't been expecting the First Order at to have this many soldiers on the ground. He saw Sully in the distance -he saw telltale signs of the ordered chaos that always ensued whenever she was engaging in combat. She was working her way closer to him, easily cutting down stormtroopers in her path. As she got closer, her calm features came into focus. She went to another place when she was fighting - all of her combat took place in a meditative state - and while she was most lethal in that state, he sometimes worried about how well her self-preservation worked in that mode. He pulled his eyes away from his friend to focus on his own battles, but even just a moment's distraction had been too much. Something made hard contact with the back of his head and everything went black.

Sully's focus was unbreakable - it had to be unbreakable if she wanted to be unbreakable. She barely registered the glancing blows of phaser blasts off her limbs and abdomen as she fought, swinging the wan-shen around with inhuman speed. The phaser blasts wouldn't be lethal as the Force strengthened her body to help her absorb them, but they would leave nasty bruises.

Her focus did break, though, when she saw Poe hit the ground, face-first.

"Poe!" She shouted, knocking down a stormtrooper in her path and rushing to close the distance between her and her friend. The two that had snuck up on him seemed to be the last ones around, but surely there'd be more coming. She took the two stormtroopers down, though not as easily, as her movements had become sloppy in her haste. She dropped to her knees next to Poe and placed two fingers to his pulse, sighing in relief.

"Get up, Dameron. We have to go." She told him, slapping his cheek lightly. "How did you manage to get yourself knocked out? You're above this." She then added, rolling her eyes. Realizing that he wasn't going to come around any time soon and could be in need of real medical help, she summoned as much strength through the force as she could.

"Let's go to Shaksari." She murmured mockingly as she heaved the man over her shoulder. She still stumbled when began to carry him, despite the extra strength the force provided. "It'll be fine. It'll be great."

It took a few minutes to get her partner onto the shuttle, and when she did, she dropped him unceremoniously onto the floor, not having the time to make him comfortable. She stumbled over to the console and switched it into flight mode, initiating autopilot and selecting the destination. She'd have to switch to manual if they were pursued by any more TIE fighters, but she'd deal with that later. She needed to try and wake Poe up. Seeing the reminder light flickering on the console, she hit the button to raise the ramp and seal the shuttle closed. She turned and returned to Poe's prone form, kneeling next to him as the ramp began to raise.

"Come on," she murmured, turning his head gently to feel the back of his head. No blood. That had to be a good sign, right?

Sully fell back onto her butt as the shuttle suddenly jolted.

"What the-" She murmured to herself, watching as the ramp door seemed to stall. She rushed back to the console and slammed her hand down on the button, holding it down. The ramp was clearly attempting to raise, but something was holding it open.

Sully's blood ran cold.

She stepped over Poe's body slowly, scooping her wan-shen back up off the floor. Through the opening of the frozen ramp, she could see a figure cloaked in black standing in the distance, right hand raised in her direction. She immediately began to channel the force, attempting to calm her nerves. She knew that mask. She'd never encountered Kylo Ren before, but she knew enough to know what to expect. She glanced back at the console and then down at Poe, thinking.

If Ren would just let up control of the shuttle, it would still seal and take off, having been set to auto-pilot. Of course, if it auto-piloted all the way back to the resistance base in a straight line, it could lead the First Order back to the others. She'd be banking on the hope that Poe would wake up soon after lift-off and take control of the ship. But it could work.

She just needed Ren to let go.

"Long live the resistance," she whispered to Poe, though her voice was lacking the conviction it'd carried before.

She stepped back out of the shuttle, squinting under the Shaksari suns.

Sully wasn't sure how her Wan-Shen would hold up against a lightsaber. She'd never actually wielded it against one. She'd crafted it using the force, however, as that was the way of the Matukai, so theoretically, it should hold up against the plasma of a lightsaber. She wasn't eager to try it out but Kylo Ren was closing the distance between them and she'd be damned if she wasn't going to meet him in the middle like a real contender.

"Resistance scum," was all that he deigned to say to her before he took the first swing. His lightsaber was red and distinctive with two smaller blades jutting sideways from the hilt. She wondered briefly how he managed to wield it without hurting himself, and then that was the last musing she allowed herself before she turned her focus completely to the Force. She anticipated his swing and leaned smoothly out of its path.

Her relationship with the Force dealt mostly with combat. There wasn't much she could do that dealt with the mind, but she had an increased intuition that helped her to bond with her opponents enough to predict the moves they were planning to make in the moments before they actually moved. Anyone who didn't know she was a Matukai would just think she was a skilled fighter with quick reflexes.

Ren had stepped forward in his first swing, which meant that when he followed through with a second one, she couldn't outstep it - she held her wan-shen up in a defensive position and prepared herself not to flinch as the lightsaber came down on it. When the two weapons locked, the world went quiet for a moment and Sully stared into the dark visor of his mask, muscles tensed to continue meeting the force he was exerting. It took a few seconds for him to conceive of his next move, which was how she knew he was surprised.

The corners of her mouth turned up in the barest of smirks.

He spun his lightsaber out of the lock and swung down on her harder. In the distance, she heard the clunk sound of the shuttle ramp closing and the whoosh of the thrusters.

It took Kylo Ren about twenty minutes to best Sully, and when he did, it was partly because she saw the arrival of reinforcement stormtroopers behind him and had become resigned to her fate. When he finally knocked the wan-shen out of her hands, she fell to her knees and stared straight up into his mask as he pointed the blade of his lightsaber just under her chin. She could feel the energy rolling off of it in waves.

"Long live the resistance." She said as the reinforcement troops gathered around them, her voice strong. She marveled for a moment at all the opportunities she'd had to say those words today. Then she marveled at the fact that it was going to be her last time uttering it. She pictured Poe waking up in the shuttle and discovering that he'd made it off the planet as the sole survivor of their mission. She felt a sharp pang at the pain he would feel - how guilty he would feel for dragging her along. She regretted giving him a hard time about it.

But he would live. And that was enough. She inhaled deeply, trying hard to focus on the Force.

"Get her onto the ship." The staticky voice commanded, pulling her from her meditation. She couldn't school her expression quickly enough to hide her widening eyes and a dark chuckle filtered through the mask. She dove for her wan-shen and was immediately grabbed by two stormtroopers. She struggled anyway, part of her hoping that they would just execute her - it was not doubt better than whatever awaited her on the Finalizer. It didn't take long for someone to club her in the back of the head and knock her unconscious.

Sully knew where she was before she opened her eyes. She'd never been one to lose her bearings while sleeping - and, then, of course, there was the fact that she wasn't lying down. When she did open her eyes, she saw what she expected to: she was strapped to some kind of slanted interrogation slab in a room full of tools that would make her wish she was dead soon enough. What she hadn't been expecting was to see the figure of Kylo Ren standing in the corner, watching her (presumably) through the visor of his mask. Didn't he have someone to do this for him?

"Ah, you didn't have to wait up for me." She announced, her voice rasping.

The commander didn't respond; didn't even move. He was trying to intimidate her. No-she realized, a strange sensation washing over her - he was trying to probe her mind. Her mental defenses immediately went up. She hoped that nothing compromising had been pulled from her head when she was unconscious. Likely her mind hadn't been of any use to him once it was 'lights out.' Kylo Ren took a slow step toward her and she followed the movement with her eyes.

"Who are you?" The voice filtered through the mask, intrigued and perhaps a bit put off.

"Asks the man in the mask." Sully murmured, breathing through her nose and attempting to relax the tension in her muscles. It wasn't easy after waking up strapped to a torture board. He didn't respond for the longest time, now standing near her. She hid her surprise when he reached up and unlocked the mask with a click and a hiss.

She'd known Kylo Ren was young - she'd known his mother for years, after all. But she still hadn't expected what she saw. He looked so young. It wasn't physical, necessarily...it was more something in his expression. His face was supposed to be unreadable, but his eyes held universes in them. And a lot of pain.

"You can't keep me out of there." He said, his voice low and gravelly. She didn't know what he was talking about until a white hot pain erupted behind her eyes. Her face scrunched up in pain and she cried out, focusing every last bit of the Force she could on keeping her mind behinds walls. It hurt so badly - surprisingly, the pain helped her to focus. She wouldn't last forever, though. She reassured herself that this had to be as hard as he could push, otherwise he'd be pushing harder. If she could just keep an equilibrium until he got tired of trying, she would be okay.

Well, she wouldn't be okay. But the information nestled inside her mind would be. After what felt like an eternity, the pain stopped. She felt a head rush as she pulled back her defenses a bit, though not all the way. When she opened her eyes, she found a quiet rage glittering in his.

"You were trained by Skywalker." He said. Sully scoffed tiredly.

"Who?" She asked. He wasn't amused, judging by the sudden, though slight tightening of her windpipe. She'd been purposefully difficult - of course she knew of Skywalker - but now she was thinking she should try again.

"If I was trained by Skywalker, don't you think I would've beat you?"

Damn it. Her windpipe closed off completely and he stepped closer, practically snarling.

"If I were you, I would speak more carefully to the person who's going to choose the manner of your death." He spoke quickly, eying her as she struggled to take in a breath. The pressure released and she gasped loudly, angry that she couldn't control her body's response.

"Tell me how you became a Jedi." He demanded.

"I'm not a Jedi." She immediately retorted. It was so emphatic that his eyebrows shifted closer together a tiny bit, processing the denial. "A bunch of elitist pricks." She added, her throat still rasping from the assault. He leaned back a bit at that and she triumphed in the fact that she had so easily thrown him off.

"You're Force sensitive." He said. "And you've been trained to use it."

While telling him about herself wouldn't hurt the resistance, she wanted to play her cards close to her chest. She didn't have to tell him anything.

"If you were that strong, though, you'd use persuasion to escape." He continued to reason.

"Maybe I'm just waiting for you to leave so I can." She said, keeping unwavering eye contact with him to show that she wasn't going to be easy to crack. "There's more in this universe than Jedi and Sith. You should ask your master about it some time. You have one of those, right? A master?" She added, her tone dripping with condescension. She waited for him to lash out again - was so sure he would. The words clearly affected him. But he simply smirked after a moment.

"Phasma." He called out. Another masked figure covered in silver armor appeared behind him. "She's all yours."