Chapter Eight
Leia Organa sat at an empty computer station, poring over the contents of the box retrieved from Naboo. She had gone to great lengths to acquire such an item. The mansion itself had been plundered of many of its luxuries, but the servants pledged to the family vowed to stay behind to guard what remained. The old man had handed the box over to Leia, "as a means of atonement for the deeds of the past," he had said. "My mistress would have wished you to have it."
So, Leia sat, drinking her third cup of caf in the night, reading over the journals. She felt as if remnants of the Dark clung to the pages. It made her hands feel dirty. But in them she found a wealth of knowledge that Luke himself probably did not have. It would create a tactical advantage for them.
Ysalamir. The word came up again and again. The more Leia read, the more confused she had become. They were animals. But by her interpretation, the Emperor both feared the ysalamiri, and considered them valuable.
"… Repels the Light and Dark alike… must be prudent and careful…" The handwriting was nearly illegible. "Transportation beyond Myrkr unsuccessful."
Myrkr. Leia had never heard of it. That didn't mean that no one else in the Resistance hadn't. But with the possibility of information reaching the First Order, Leia would have to exercise extreme caution in her search for information. She needed someone she could trust. She needed someone who she could rely on. Aside from Han, she could only think of one person. Poe Dameron.
To say that Supreme Leader Snoke was not kind to Kylo Ren after Starkiller would be an understatement. Kylo Ren withstood his punishment impressively. His body was already broken by the Resistance scum, so Snoke didn't bother. It was his mind that he had to break now. Snoke tore through Kylo's thoughts with reckless abandon, and left no thought or memory unchecked.
"Your weakness for the girl is what cost us our final victory," he had said, bearing down on Kylo, who knelt on the ground in front of him, unable to stand any longer. The throne room was completely empty, a black marble mausoleum with ceilings three stories high. Snoke rarely left his crypt-like court. There would be no witnesses to the torture Kylo Ren would undergo.
"She could have been an asset, Supreme Leader," Kylo managed to say through clenched jaws. His words came in bursts, punctuated by his heavy breathing.
"You will tell me why you treated her as you did, or I will tear it from your mind," Snoke warned, his crooked fingers curled and pointed at him.
"She…" Kylo panted. He was desperate for the intrusion to stop. "I knew of a girl when I was with Luke Skywalker. A girl whose family was strong with the Force. She never made it to the academy. I thought…" Kylo looked up at the Supreme Leader. "I thought she might be that girl."
Snoke grew quiet. His cloudy eyes widened in knowing realization.
"It can't be," he said. He turned away slightly, releasing Kylo fully from his interrogation. Kylo heaved in relief. "They were supposed to be dead."
"I thought so too, Master," Kylo shook his head. "But it makes sense. It all makes sense. She couldn't be just some scavenger from a wasteland planet. Not with power like that."
"If what you say is true, Kylo," Snoke groused, "then I must have her. At all costs."
"Yes, Supreme Leader," he said. Kylo stood, legs shaking. He had healed in a bacta tank for a few days, but still wore the scar that Rey gave him, which stretched from his chest, across his face, and up to his hairline. He no longer felt physical pain, but the intrusions would leave him weak and shaky.
He always waited until he was in his own quarters before he vomited. No one else in he First Order was able to withstand the Supreme Leader's mental probes as Kylo Ren was. Even still, it left him weak for hours.
He laid there on his bed, his outer layers stripped off, leaving him in his undershirt and pants. Once his shaking stopped, he sat up, calmly giving orders into a comlink. He was going to do as the Supreme Leader instructed. But he had been going about it all wrong the last time. He couldn't trap the girl and take her back to a First Order base like a rabbit. No, he would have to be smarter this time.
"Where?" Poe nearly coughed as he drank his caf in the morning on Felucia, an hour before the sun rose. General Organa and Admiral Akbar stood in front of him, their arms crossed.
"Myrkr," Leia repeated. "Have you heard of it?"
"I…" Poe hesitated. He had heard of it. But it was the stuff of nightmares. The worst of the crime element in the galaxy sometimes used the planet for smuggling, but since the First Order rose to power, and since trade regulations were lifted under the New Republic, it had largely disappeared from the conversation of pirates and smugglers.
"I have," he said. He pushed his own reservations aside, and let the general continue.
"We think there's something there. Something that could be used against the First Order. And Snoke."
"A weapon? On Myrkr?"
"Not quite, Commander." Leia shook her head. "Frankly, we don't know exactly what it is. The Emperor wrote about something quiet extensively in one of his journals. Something called an ysalamir. If he feared it, and also revered it, so much, it must be looked into. Until we hear from Luke and Rey… We must proceed as if they aren't coming back."
A pit grew inside Poe's stomach. He didn't want to entertain the idea that Rey would not be coming back. But the general had a point.
"I'll do what ever you need me to, General, and Admiral."
Admiral Akbar spoke, his tone raspy. "Excellent. Put together a team and go to Myrkr to find these ysalamiri. Find out what they are, and what they do."
Poe put his team together fairly quickly, and quietly. The first person he went to was Finn, who was walking as if nothing had ever happened to him on Starkiller.
"I wouldn't ask just anyone," Poe said. He hated to put people in dangerous situations, but he couldn't think of a single person whose loyalty hadn't been proven quite like Finn's. Sure, there were plenty of good fighters, pilots, and soldiers who could fill his shoes, but Finn brought something else to the table that couldn't be taught.
"And I wouldn't let you go alone," Finn added with a smirk.
Poe Dameron walked into Mos Eisley Cantina looking for one person. He knew that she would be there. Known only as Lazara, the woman who ran the black market on Mos Eisley looked just about as out of place as a wampa in the desert. She was glamorous and polished. She looked as if she'd never even seen the harsh daylight of Tatooine.
Her porcelain skin contrasted sharply with her black hair and blue eyes that only slightly betrayed her age. Only a few men had made the unwise decision to try to win her over. She'd been known to break a man's hand just for complimenting her beauty. She knew exactly how beautiful she was, but she wasn't out to find love. Years as a slave had hardened her, and she had no interest in gaining power through her beauty.
All of this would have scared most men off from approaching Lazara in such dangerous times. The criminals in the galaxy were getting twitchy. They no longer wanted to deal with the Resistance. With the New Republic eliminated, they were back to their old tricks, but fearful of punishment from the New Order. But since Poe had singlehandedly saved her from the slave trade, he figured she would be willing to hear him out.
She caught sight of him the moment he walked into the Cantina. Her icy exterior seemed to crack for a moment as Poe caught her eye. She nodded to her burly henchmen as Poe and a dark-skinned man approached her table. They let them pass. Everyone in the Cantina pretended not to watch as Lazara stood, and walked over to Poe to meet him.
She shocked the entire room by greeting him with a kiss on the lips, as if she had done it a million times, and it meant nothing. Poe knew better than to read into it romantically—she was marking him, so that all in the Cantina would know that this one, this man was not to be harmed or messed with. Or they would have Lazara to deal with.
"I never thought I'd see you back here," Lazara said quietly. She would not be using Poe's name tonight. She respected him too much to let anyone in the Cantina know that Poe was worth a high bounty.
They sat, and Lazara turned to Finn, her blue eyes sparking with curiosity. "I won't ask your name dear, but who are you? And how do you know my dear friend here?"
"We crossed paths a while back," Finn said, picking up the cue. "I helped him out of a jam."
"He tends to get into those, doesn't he?" she purred, stirring her drink with her well manicured finger, the ice tinkling around in the glass. She drank from it, and set it down with measured movements.
"I won't keep you here longer than you need to be," she said. "What can I do for you?"
Poe leaned forward, and spoke low. "Myrkr. I need to get there. I need the coordinates."
Lazara stopped stirring her drink. "Why do you want to go there?" she said, nearly frozen.
"Our business is our own," Poe said. Only he could speak with Lazara that way. "I swear to you it will not interfere with your business, nor will it come back to you."
"I shouldn't think so," she said. "Practically every smuggler knows where it is… only no one ever wants to go there anymore." She looked back and forth from Poe to his unidentified friend. She shot them a skeptical look. "There's only one reason someone like you would want to go to Myrkr."
"What reason is that, Lazara?" Poe asked, guiding her.
"The ysalamiri," she said, nearly a whisper. "You foolish boy… Pretty, but so foolish."
"What can you tell me about them?" Poe asked eagerly.
For the first time in a long time, Poe could see fear register in Lazara's face. "Those stories about Myrkr… most of them are tall-tales. Scary stories to tell your children so they don't get any ideas of running off and becoming a pirate." She paused to take a long swig of her drink. "They were carefully orchestrated to keep the truth from circulating. You see, the Emperor knew of a great weapon on the planet that could singlehandedly wipe out the Jedi. It would render them powerless to fight back."
"It was Vader who helped execute Order 66. He and the clones… I've never heard of any weapon."
"That's because they couldn't figure out how to get it off the planet. I think that even if the Emperor had gotten the ysalamiri off Myrkr, it would have rendered him powerless too."
"How?" Poe couldn't believe his ears.
"The ysalamiri are tree creatures that repel the Force. Some sort of evolutionary process. But if someone with Force sensitivity gets within twenty feet of one of them, it's like turning off the switch. The Emperor couldn't risk losing his powers, or Vader losing his. So he created the lore so the Jedi wouldn't be able to use them either."
"But if the Emperor isn't a factor anymore… why are you acting like you're so afraid of it?"
"Do you think that Snoke doesn't know they exist? He knows, but he's never needed to use them because there were no Jedi. Kylo Ren saw to that. And if he finds out that you're trying to get ysalamiri off the planet, you can bet that it will bring the entire First Order down on you."
"And you." Poe understood.
"Yes. If I tell you how to get them off that planet, that leaves about five people who actually know how. It wouldn't be hard for him to pick us off."
"Lazara, I wouldn't come to you if it wasn't important."
Lazara clicked her fingers on the table nervously. She sucked her teeth a moment, and looked around the Cantina. Suddenly she stood up and looked down at Poe and Finn, taking on an offended air. "I'm afraid I can't help you. You'll just have to ask someone else." Then she made to leave, making sure to subtly squeeze Poe's shoulder as she left.
Poe smiled to himself.
"Great," Finn huffed. "You wouldn't happen to have any other crime lord friends, would you?"
Poe dropped his voice. "We won't need any. Let's get to the ship. She'll be there."
AN: Oh my, what thoughtful and flattering reviews! 'onmytoes', you really have made me feel great! In a perfect world I would be hired on as a writer for Star Wars universe books, but alas, my foray into FanFiction hasn't quite paid off yet. I'm glad that you're settling into it easy, and buying into my little story. It means I'm doing something right.
Ok, a word about Myrkr and the ysalamiri. They actually are canon, in the EU books. If you have read the Thrawn trilogy, there will obviously be some inconsistencies and deviances, but I really liked the idea of the ysalamiri, so I just had to include them.
And yes, I'm publishing quite quickly, but I've been fairly motivated and inspired. Your reviews, follows and favorites are just so great, and I read each one of them, so thank you.