ABOARD THE MALACHOR , 40 YEARS ABE:
Poe Dameron pounded at the door of his cell, first with fists and then with feet. The flat gray durastreel didn't so much as tremble. He scowled at all four walls of the tiny room, down at the useless dress boots on his feet, and up at the too-small-to-squirm-through air vents overhead. He returned his desperate attention to the door, shouting, "Rey! Kid! Hang on!" He punched, kicked, slapped, and slammed his shoulder against the door. It didn't move. "Hey! Hey, Imperial scum! Hey you listen to me! You want to torture somebody then you start with me, dammit! I'm the commander, you go through me! Leave her alone, you hear me? Hey! Breha! HEY!"
The door abruptly shot open, staggering Poe; a heavy gauntleted hand slapped him in the chest and propelled him backwards almost as quickly. The back of his legs collided with the edge of the cell's sparse bunk and the only reason he didn't go sprawling was because there wasn't enough room for him to do more than sit, abruptly and unintentionally, in a sort of breathless collapse.
The chrome-clad stormtrooper commander- Phasma, Poe remembered, she was called Phasma -had to bend low to step through the door into his cell. She handed her blaster backwards and Poe caught a glimpse of two regular stormtroopers waiting in the hallway outside. One of them took her blaster and slung both it and his own weapon back against his white-armored shoulders.
Poe wondered why Phasma had divested herself of her weapon before entering a prisoner's cell-and then he looked at her again, looked up at her again, and realized that his best chance of overpowering her would have been to try and grab the blaster. Unarmed, even his Rogue's confidence didn't let him think he had much of a chance against this mountain of a soldier.
Right now the thinking part of Poe's brain wasn't in charge, though, so he launched himself off his feet and came in swinging.
Phasma caught his arm, swung him around like a ragdoll, and pinned him backwards against her broad and shiny chest. Poe tried to elbow her in the side and she laced her free arm through his, holding him up so that his toes barely brushed the ground. He took advantage of that to try kicking her in the knee but she rearranged her grip so her gauntleted forearm was pressed across his windpipe.
He gagged and swore, his cheeks going red as his body tried desperately to compensate for his suddenly reduced oxygen intake.
"Be quiet," Phasma said. Even accounting for the emotion-leeching quality of her helmet's filter, she sounded unmoved.
"Nnnn," Poe grunted. "Br-haaa…"
Phasma gave him a gentle shake, like one might use to get a naughty child's attention before they ran out into speeder traffic.
"Be grateful that the Dark Lord has not turned to you yet, pilot...and even more grateful that we haven't simply been told to space you." She didn't so much release him as fling him away from her.
Poe hit the bunk and the sloping wall behind it in something that was half-roll and half-tumble. He scrambled on hands and knees, panting hard, spinning back around to face her.
Phasma was staring down at him, blank-faced behind her helmet but somehow giving off the impression of a curious sentient studying a very strange, very small new bug. "I suppose Revan thinks you could have some value," she mused, sounding unconvinced even with her own words.
Outrage restored Poe's voice. "I'm the commander of Rogue Squadron!" he yelped. "I'm an extremely valuable and important prisoner!"
Phasma snorted.
Poe's cheeks colored. "And I'm the ranking New Republic officer on this ship, so if you scumsucking Huttspawn want to torture anybody, you start with me."
"You?" Phasma barked a laugh. "What good are you?"
"I-"
Phasma didn't let him answer; it hadn't been a question. "You don't have the Force. Your little pilot there does. She matters to Lord Revan. You?" The shiny helmet tilted sideways, as though Phasma was studying him from a fresh angle in hopes of seeing something better, then it shook side-to-side dismissively. "You don't have anything Revan wants."
She turned to go, all stiff chrome armor and heavy black cloak, reeking of confident disinterest; Poe Dameron dismissed from her mind as an inconsequential annoyance.
That was a mistake. "You don't have the Force either, do you?" Poe's words were also not a question. Phasma stopped, one hand on the edge of the open doorframe, her head already bowed in mid-exit, her shoulders going stiff beneath their heavy chrome cuirass.
Poe lounged back on the bunk as though it were a plush couch in a pirate's pleasure palace. The smirk on his face was the sly, triumphant expression of a snubjockey who knows his shot just hit home. "Jealous?" he asked lightly.
For a long, tight moment Phasma didn't move; didn't even seem to breathe. When she finally released her grip on the doorframe and turned back around to face him, the impression of her fingers remained dug into the durasteel. She stared down at Poe from behind her featureless black visor and said, her voice dripping with calm, "I rarely find myself jealous of tools, no. Especially knowing how quickly my Master tends to break them."
Poe's dark eyes flashed and his grin turned sharp and toothy. "Gonna find that hard to do with us," he retorted.
Phasma chuckled, a soft and chilling sound that seemed to crawl straight up Poe's spine and leave a coating of ice behind. "Darth Revan has been walking this path for thousands of years. Your little Jedi toy in there won't last a week."
"Thousands of years, sure." Poe rolled his eyes. "Maybe you should dial-down the brainwashing regimen; it sounds like you swallowed a little too much propaganda-punch there, Shiny."
"Hmm," was Phasma's only response-noncommittal, unimpressed, bored. A muffled buzz of communication passed between the two stormtroopers on guard duty and Phasma's head raised as though listening to something Poe couldn't hear. Without another word she turned and left the cell. The door swished shut behind her, leaving Poe alone in his solitary confinement.
As he stared after the wake of the departing troopers, his cocky smirk faded. He could no longer hear Breha screaming, but the silence still seemed to pulse with the echoes of her cries. Poe sat back gingerly on the flat black bunk, wincing at his fresh bruises, the defiant energy that had carried him through the confrontation with Phasma leeching away. In its wake he was left looking worried...and, somehow, old.
