Chapter 5: Poe Dameron III
Pain and noise. He lay on the ground, his mouth and nose full of dirt.
After what could have been three seconds or three days, he managed to roll onto his back. The stars were gone overhead, obscured by smoke.
Nothing felt broken inside him and he sat up, feeling a sharp pain in the back of his head. Fighting back a wave of numbness that tried to pull him back into darkness, he spat and looked around.
The village was gone, reduced to rubble and fire. There were corpses everywhere, First Order troopers and villagers. There were about an even number of each. There were three huge, black dropships on the outskirts of the village, one on fire, looming like obelisks.
First Order. I had no idea they were even in this sector. He thought.
He found that his small collapsible carbine was still on its sling around his neck. Unfolding it, he thumbed the power button and tried to stand.
Finding his feet, he saw his X-Wing, torn apart and on fire. The astromount was destroyed, no sign of BB-8. He had time for a moment of dread before several blaster bolts scorched the air around him. He dropped low and ran, limping for cover. Behind a ruined transport, he saw a trooper, armoured in white like they all were and fired.
The figure wasn't a person to Poe, just a destroyer. It fell.
In the distance, at the other end of the village, another dropship landed in the darkness.
Poe knelt back down being the wrecked transport and realised that it wasn't a dropship. The engine report was wrong and the shape, while unfamiliar, looked more like an attack craft than a dropper.
He rose just enough to see over the wreckage in time to see the craft settle on the sand and deploy a ramp.
The lights inside were red to avoid fouling up humans' night vision and revealed three figures waiting to disembark.
One, the tallest stepped out and it seemed that the darkness coalesced around him.
Wearing black from head to food, the figure was plainly male, almost certainly human, with a long stride and its face hidden by a deep hood.
Something about the man – and Poe somehow knew then that it was a man – locked his muscles and froze him in place.
He strode through the darkness and out of sight. As soon as he passed out of Poe's view, he found he could move again, like waking up from some too-real nightmare.
He stood and moved as quietly as he could, stepping over dead troopers and villagers alike toward the sound of voices.
The figure had stopped and was kneeling before Lor San Tekka who looked like he was already dead.
Fire played off a mask beneath the man's hood and it seemed that the darkness withdrew from around him.
'Look how old you've become.' He said, his voice tinny and distorted through a vox-speaker built into his mask.
Why didn't you run, you old fool? Poe thought, trying to remain hidden in the rubble.
'Something far worse has happened to you.' Tekka said, his voice still strong and carrying across the ruined village.
'You know what I've come for.'
'I know what you came from. Long before you called yourself Kylo Ren you were...'
'The map to Skywalker. We know you know where he is.' The man – Kylo Ren – interrupted Tekka. 'We came here, we destroyed you and your… charges. You will give it to me.'
The old man looked Kylo Ren over, disgust crossing his ancient features. 'I will not. Had you not wreaked such havoc, you might've had a chance of forcing the information from me, but as you say: you've destroyed everything that meant anything to me.'
'There are worse things than death, old man.'
'And I've seen more of them than you, in my time. You forget that I saw both the rise and fall of the empire. I was an old man when we first met.'
'I was just a boy then, now I am the master.' Ren said, standing up.
Tekka laughed, a short, bitter bark. 'You are the master of nothing but lies and broken promises. I've heard of you, a new monster in the dark, claiming to be a new Darth-'
The old man's words were cut off by a savage backhand from Ren that sent him sprawling on the floor. It took troopers a few seconds to drag him back to his knees, blood running from his mouth.
He was mumbling something through a mouth of broken teeth as Ren paced back and forth like some great beast behind bars barely strong enough to hold it back.
'…passion, there is serenity.' Poe was able to make out.
'That old prayer won't save you, you pathetic fossil.' Ren said.
Tekka shrugged then, and the troopers holding him were thrown backward and off their feet. He stood and for a moment it looked as if he was haloed in a kind of faint silvery light. 'There is no death; there is the Force!' he shouted through bloody lips.
'I'll show you the force!' Ren bellowed, turning to Tekka. In his hand was a short rod.
Poe saw it coming without knowing what it was. He leapt up, raising his carbine to fire.
Red light burst from the rod in Ren's hand, a bright beam more solid than steel. Two smaller beams, like exhaust ports blazed just above his hand.
The old man closed his eyes, his face serene.
The blade fell and Poe fired.
But the blade stopped short of the old man's throat. The bolt stopped in mid-air: a cracking, writhing snake of energy that shouldn't have been possible. Poe's breath caught in his throat, every tendon, muscle and sinew became locked tight.
Ren turned around, his right hand clenched in a fist pointed at Poe. 'Take the old man on board. If we don't find the map, he's the next best thing.'
His troopers jumped to obey, hooding and shackling the old man before dragging him away.
Unable to move so much as his eyeballs, Poe felt strong arms grab him and drag him toward Ren.
He fought with every fibre of his being. Every screed of effort that he could muster went into resisting whatever was happening to him.
This must be the force. He's the Sith Lord they've been talking about. I won't be put in the dark again. He thought, his mind sharpened beyond belief in absence of control of his body.
They stopped and held him up while they patted him down. Ren went back to the pacing animal thing, walking out of his sight, his lightsabre deactivated.
Then the guards were gone and he fell to the floor, his muscles released.
From the dirt he saw black boots step into his view.
Just don't let them take you alive.
'I recognise your insignia, Commander.' Ren said.
There's the knife in your boot. Even if that's the last chance you have.
'I'm afraid there's been some misunderstanding here, commander. Perhaps you can be of assistance?'
Don't let them see you afraid. Poe looked up, gazing into the expressionless black mask. 'No, there's no misunderstanding. You came here and murdered a couple of hundred people for no reason at all.'
'That's where you're mistaken, I'm afraid. I came here to ensure the continuance of the whole galaxy. To prevent the Jedi from rising again to enslave all thinking beings.'
His voice was smooth, even through the distortion of the mask. He seemed reasonable. Poe remembered people talking about the Jedi like they were heroes, everyone in the galaxy knew the name Luke Skywalker: the hero that destroyed the Emperor.
'Make our friend here more comfortable.' Ren said, gesturing to the troopers. They picked Poe up, not roughly this time, but with care, and set him back down on his backside. Ren squatted down a few feet in front of him.
'Do you know anything about the location of Luke Skywalker?' Ren asked, his words cool and calm and reasonable.
Images flashed unbidden through Poe's mind: leaving the general a little over one standard week ago, arriving on the giant moon and the boy bringing him to Jakku.
No. No, that's not for you!
With an act of desperate willpower, Poe dragged himself back to the present. The mask stared at him. 'So you came here, to find… what?'
The voice wasn't so smooth anymore. Poe remembered the things that the general had taught him: how to close his mind. Apparently it had worked.
'Get out of my head.' Poe managed to say through gritted teeth.
A distorted chuckle seeped through the mask. 'Impressive. Your mind is well trained for one like you. You were sent here to find the old man, that much I know. What did he tell you?'
He almost told Ren everything, wanted to, but didn't. 'I… I'm not telling y-you anything.'
The world fell into near silence around him, like someone had put a flight helmet over his head. There was pressure – in his ears, on his eyes.
'I think you will. You're well trained, commander, but every man has limits.'
The pressure grew, a pain like cramp prickling up the backs of his legs and down his arms.
'This can stop at any point, commander.'
His mind returned to the dark place – the wet walls, the droids with their sharp blades and the eyeless, grinning men. It's nothing like that, this is nothing.
'Yes… I can feel your strength, Commander. Your resolve is impressive. For what it is worth, I applaud your loyalty to that old crone.'
The prickling became a burning; the pressure crushing.
'What is your name.'
Poe clenched his teeth, squeezing his eyes – his agonised, crushed eyes – shut. He tried to think, tried to remember his training, but nothing would come.
'Dameron, Poe Dameron. Get out of my head!' he groaned.
'Good. I hope you're ready, commander Dameron, because this is really going to hurt.'
Poe screamed.