Chapter Text
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
(William Shakespeare, Sonnet 116)
Poe is nine years old when his mark first appears. As Forcemarks go, his is fairly innocuous -- a small cluster of dark swirls nestled into the soft inner curve of his right elbow. He might have had it for days before he finally notices and takes off running to show his papa.
"What's it say, though?" he demands, sticking his arm right in his papa's face, nearly hopping from one foot to the other in excitement.
Kes Dameron examines the mark contemplatively. "This isn't any script I can read, mijo. But it looks vaguely familiar. Let me think on it." He presses a kiss to Poe's head. "Don't worry, Poe. You'll have plenty of time to find them."
In Poe's opinion, he's waited quite long enough already. Nine whole years! It's not terribly unusual -- markmates are rarely exactly the same age, and your mark doesn't appear until they're born. So Poe has always known he'll be older than his markmate, whoever they are, since he wasn't born with a mark. And even though nine years feels like an awful lot to him, it isn't too bad. Poe's abuela is a full twenty years younger than her husband, and they're markmates. And Lida Kanter down the street was only marked when her daughter was born, so of course that's always been a possibility, too. Familial marks are not uncommon -- Kes Dameron's own mark had been his brother's name, not his wife's.
But Poe at least expected to be able to read the name marked on his own skin!
"I don't know why," Kes laughs, when Poe complains about it. "You were never meant to stay on one planet your whole life, mijo. You have too much of your mother in you. Of course your markmate would be from some distant star system!"
They eventually go into the city to use the university databanks, which scan his mark and match the script on it. Apparently it's in the alphabet of a language primarily spoken in the Jinata system. That makes his papa go quiet and distant.
"Those used to be Imperial planets," is all Kes will tell him. He smiles gently. "But that's all over now, don't you fret. I hear the cities on Vardos are beautiful. We'll have to visit someday."
They never do.
When Poe is twelve, his mark…blurs. Like someone took an eraser to an old chalkboard, but couldn't quite scrub it out. It looks like ink smudged faintly across his skin, only the vaguest suggestion of the original script remaining.
He's too old to let himself cry easily by then. But he knows what it must mean. Kes has a faded scar on his inner wrist where his brother's name used to be.
Kes's face pales when he sees Poe's mark, and he closes his eyes.
"Sometimes," Kes says, some time later, "I believe the marks are just one way the Force guides you to the right people. It's not about having your true love's name tattooed onto your skin. It's just a nudge in the right direction. Did I ever tell you about your mother's mark?"
Shara Bey had died unexpectedly when Poe was eight, before he even had a mark of his own. He only knew that she and Kes weren't markmates. As far as Poe was aware, she'd never had any mark at all.
"She was born with a mark on her shoulder," Kes tells him. His voice is quiet, but calm. "I never asked what name it was. All she said was that her mark vanished completely when the planet Alderaan was destroyed, as though it had never been there at all. And she joined the Rebel Alliance the very next day." He lifts his own shoulder in a lopsided shrug. "That was how we met. If the Death Star hadn't targeted Alderaan, perhaps her markmate would have become the love of her life, and I would have met some other hotshot pilot to make a baby with. Who knows? But this is what happened. And your mother didn't love either of us any less for not having her name on my skin."
"I know, Papa," Poe says, and he does. But he's only twelve years old, and he used to have a name written inside his elbow in a script he hadn't yet taught himself to read, and now he'll never learn how to pronounce it. And...he never met them, he can't possibly be mourning them, but there's an empty space inside of him now that he doesn't know how to fill.
But his mom's death left an empty space in his heart, too, a gap much bigger and far more tangible, and he learned how to live with that, so. A smudge on his skin that used to be a word is nothing next to that.
He doesn't let himself think about it much. But the mark never scars over, like Kes's or most of the other people he knows whose markmates have died. Nor does it ever disappear completely, like Shara's supposedly did. It's just...a smudge. A blur.
Sometimes, over the years, he thinks maybe the shape of it is slowly changing. But that must just be his mind playing tricks on him. He doesn't mention it to anyone else.
When he's around fifteen, it feels like suddenly all his friends at school become kriffing obsessed with Forcemarks. Which, okay, they're a bunch of hormonal teenagers trying to figure shit out, of course they're gonna latch onto the promise of a markmate who'll love them forever. Some spend hours at the library, poring through databanks of languages and etymology of names and stuff like that. A handful have already met their markmates -- there's always gonna be a few around the same age who are born in the same general area -- and they become truly insufferable. Poe's friend Ady swears she'll never even kiss anyone before she meets her markmate; a few of the others take the opposite approach, desperate to get in as much practice beforehand as possible, either because they really, really want to impress their future markmates with their physical prowess, or because...well, teenagers.
Poe's no better than any of them, he supposes. With no markmate of his own waiting for him, he's happy to be "practice" for his more attractive friends. But mostly he just spends more and more of his time in his mom's old A-wing, both on the ground and in the sky, restless to go further, faster, to get off this rock for good.
There are a handful of others among his cohort who are equally unimpressed with the newfound obsession with Forcemarks. Poe's first real boyfriend, Niko, has a familial mark; it's refreshing to hook up with someone else who isn't waiting for any kind of Force-destined romance.
"It's all bantha shit anyway," Niko remarks once, when they're fooling around in Poe's bedroom while Kes is out working. "I mean, the data clearly shows that something like a quarter to a third of all Forcemarks wind up being non-romantic in nature. Blood kin, or best friends, or whatnot. I read sometimes they're even between members of species that can't interbreed at all, though that's gotta be freaky as all get-out."
"Oh, my papa knew someone like that once," Poe says idly. He traces invisible constellations across Niko's back. "His general back during the war. Han Solo."
Niko frowns, propping himself up on one elbow. "I thought Solo was married to Senator Organa."
"Yeah, but they aren't markmates, not according to my papa. Supposedly Solo shares a mark with his co-pilot. A Wookiee." Poe shrugs. "I mean, it just goes to show, like you said. Marks aren't the be-all and end-all."
"No," Niko agrees, with a very particular grin. "So kriff 'em."
Poe has a good time with Niko for a few months there. But he's never comfortable letting Niko touch his mark. Not that it's a thing, really, but he shies away whenever Niko gets too close to it. Niko learns quickly and doesn't push it. He's just as weird about Poe touching the back of his neck, where his cousin's name is written in tidy, feminine cursive. "It's, like, the opposite of sexy," he explains once with a shudder. "I mean, I love Mima to death, she's my best friend in the galaxy, but...ew, no. Whatever the antithesis of an erogenous zone is, that's her mark."
So Poe figures they're even. Even though that's not quite the way he feels when Niko accidentally touches his inner right elbow. The blurred mark is…sensitive. Like a sunburn, when someone else touches it. Clothing doesn't affect it, and Poe can poke at it himself without really feeling much, but when Niko accidentally brushes against it, it feels wrong.
But whatever. It doesn't have to mean anything. Niko avoids his arm, Poe avoids Niko's neck, it's all fine. Who needs some invisible Force pushing him around, anyway?
He's accepted into the New Republic Fleet Academy a few weeks after his seventeenth birthday. Yavin IV has been feeling smaller and smaller with every passing month; it's like Kes said, Poe's got too much of his mother in him to be happy staying dirtside forever. And by joining the Fleet, he'll be able to really flex his wings, and feel like he's maybe doing some good in the galaxy while he's at it.
"Poe Dameron, patriot," Niko scoffs when Poe tells him. They broke things off a while back, but Niko's still one of his closest friends. "What's the New Republic ever done for us, huh?"
Poe shoves at his shoulder. "Hey, don't knock it, we'd all still be crushed under the Empire's jackboots if it weren't for people like my parents."
"Those were the Rebels, not the Republic," Niko retorts. "And don't tell me it's the same thing, you know it's not, even if Leia Organa is a senator now."
"Well, it's people like her who'll make sure the Empire never comes back," Poe says. "And they're gonna let me fly, which is what matters."
"Let you?" Niko laughs. "Buddy, I'd like to see them try and stop you."
He does give Poe a farewell blowjob, which Poe thinks is a pretty good sendoff.
His first day at the Academy starts off with a battery of tests and a full physical examination. The doctor pauses at the blurred mark on Poe's arm. "Forcemark?" she asks.
Poe shrugs, hiding a wince as she runs her gloved finger gently over it. "Used to be."
She hums noncommittally and continues on with the exam.
As he's getting his clothes back on, Poe can't help but ask, "You ever seen a mark like mine before?"
The doctor takes a little too long to reply. "No two Forcemarks are exactly alike."
"Yeah, but. Blurred like that? Because, I mean, it used to be normal, but..." Poe trails off, feeling intensely self-conscious all at once.
There's pity in the doctor's eyes when she looks back up at him, exactly like when anyone else notices his faded smudge of a mark, and this is why Poe should learn to just keep his damn mouth shut about it. "The Force isn't always strictly quantifiable, Cadet. Like I said, no two marks are alike. And the marks themselves can have any number of different physical reactions to the loss of one's markmate. I'm sorry if that's not the answer you were hoping for."
Poe hunches his shoulders forward, looking anywhere but at that pathetic, pitying expression on her face. "Don't worry about it. You're not telling me anything I didn't already know."
He's issued his first set of ID tags at the end of the day. The fronts have his name, species, and serial number engraved into the metal. The backs are marked with a single letter U.
"Hey," he asks his new roommate, a friendly guy named Wexley. "What's the back of your tag supposed to mean?"
Wexley snorts. "Uh, is that like a trick question or something? It's the name on your mark, isn't it? So that if the worst happens, you know, they can get sent back to your markmate."
Something sour settles into the pit of Poe's stomach. He's pretty sure he can guess what the U stands for. "Right," is all he says aloud. "Obviously. Sorry, dumb question."
In the Fleet, he quickly learns that the Unmarked have a reputation for recklessness. They have a higher rate of volunteering for more dangerous assignments or longer-term missions. The first time Poe gets chewed out by a superior officer (for attempting a torque roll in a malfunctioning T-70 during a training drill), the sergeant's high-decibel monologue includes a number of expletive-laden invocations regarding Poe's Unmarked status and how it does and does not relate to his imminent mortality.
Given some of the stunts his fellow cadets pull, Poe is inclined to think his recklessness has a lot more to do with youthful hormones than the lack of a markmate. Anyone who willingly signs up to be a fighter pilot is probably gonna be a bit of an adrenaline junkie. So he just shrugs off the dressing-down like he does anything else relating to his mark. But it itches under his skin anyway, angry and restless.
He starts wearing sleeveless shirts whenever he can get away with it, leaving his blurred mark exposed to the open air, teaching himself not to care who notices or what they think about it.
His first year out of the Academy as a newly-minted Lieutenant in the New Republic Fleet, Poe's squadron runs across some spice runners on the outskirts of the Bryx sector during what was supposed to be a routine patrol. The admiralty is notoriously slow in responding to Mid Rim postings (which is still a step up from duty in the Outer Rim, when you're lucky to ever get any kind of response at all), so rather than wait for permission to engage, Poe splits off from the rest of his squadron in the hopes of tracking the smugglers back to their base of operations.
This winds up being more complicated than he'd originally anticipated, especially since he can't risk actually firing on the ship -- a Ghtroc light freighter that's much nimbler than it has any right to be -- without giving away his position or, you know, getting court-martialed for it later. The smugglers lead him on a merry chase through hyperspace halfway to Kessel, and while he certainly doesn't set any records, the Kessel Run has been on Poe's bucket list for years and he enjoys himself a lot more than he probably should in the process.
He finally runs them to ground near a New Republic outpost at Formos. Of course, by the time he's convinced the local Fleet representative that it's worth boarding them, they've long since dumped the worst of their cargo and will likely get off with a slap on the wrist at best.
The captain of the smuggling freighter never bothers removing her helmet during the boarding process, but Poe gets the distinct impression that she's smirking at him the whole time. "Congrats, Lieutenant," she says mockingly, while the outpost guards perform their desultory search and Poe does his best not to roll his eyes. "All that for, what, a few hundred credits' fine? You must be very proud."
Poe shrugs. "It's the principle of the thing."
"Yeah, that's real convincing." She tilts her head to one side. "Where'd you start tracking us, may I ask?"
"What's it matter?"
"Professional curiosity. It was at Junkfort Station, right? I knew we were burning too hot--"
"Bryx."
That shuts her up. Hard to read a helmet, but her body language goes still and contemplative, and she doesn't say another word for the rest of the inspection.
But Poe's the last one out the hatch after the smugglers have paid the requisite fine, and the captain stops him there with a gloved hand on his bicep. "That was some impressive flying," she says in a low tone, with a purr to it that definitely gets Poe's attention. "Whenever you get tired of doing the New Republic's scut work, look me up. We could always use a good pilot."
Her hand slips down his arm to his elbow, and though there's no way she could possibly know it, she's pressing the pad of her index finger right against his blurred mark. Even through the layers of fabric, it stings like a bruise. Poe jerks out of her grip. "I'm no spicer."
"Perish the thought." She sounds amused. "But our flight path is a lot more interesting than a Fleet patrol, that I can guarantee. When you get bored, just head on over to Kijimi and ask for Zorii. I'll let you finally spread those wings of yours."
He just turns on his heel and steps off the freighter. But when he's stuck on endless routine patrol runs over the next few months, he can't help but remember dodging and spinning his way through the Corkscrew, the adrenaline singing through his veins, and his fingers twitch on the controls of his Starhopper.
It's not all scut work. He's too talented a pilot to be wasted entirely on patrols, and the higher-ups figure that out eventually.
"Heard you somehow managed the Kessel Run in an HH-87," Colonel Keranti remarks, flipping through Poe's file. "Didn't think those buckets were agile enough to pull that off."
Poe stands at ease, hands tucked neatly behind his back. "Wasn't the full run, sir. Only got about halfway to Kessel before the ship I was tracking pulled out of hyperspace, so I followed."
The Colonel lifts an eyebrow. "Learn how to take a compliment, Lieutenant. Starhoppers weren't built for those kinds of acrobatics, so the fact you survived a jaunt through the Akkadese Maelstrom is impressive enough, full run or no."
The Maelstrom sounds a lot more ominous than what Poe actually experienced, but he keeps his mouth shut. At least this doesn't feel like a reprimand.
"Now, normally I don't make recommendations based on hearsay, but your instructors' notes from the Academy back it up, as does your current commanding officer. You're rated on more than a dozen different classes of starfighters -- looks like you got top ranking on pretty much every ship the Fleet currently operates, even the RZ-2 A-wing, and she's a stroppy little bird."
Poe allows himself a faint smile. "Quicker than sin, though, sir." His mom had first taught him how to fly on the RZ-1 model, which was nearly as temperamental as its successor, but you never forget your first love.
The Colonel looks Poe over with dark, shrewd eyes. "Ever tried one of the stealth Corvettes?"
"I thought those had been discontinued, sir. After the Clone Wars."
"Well, the Corellians figured out there was more money in their consular line of vessels, and the Empire strongly discouraged independent production. So in a way, yes." He drums his fingers against the file. "Think you could fly something a little subtler than a starfighter, son?"
Poe grins outright. "I can fly anything. Sir."
"Glad to hear it." The Colonel flips back to a page near the front of the file and studies it for a long moment, eyes narrowed. It looks like Poe's enlistment paperwork from the Academy. He can't imagine anything particularly noteworthy there, but who is he to question a colonel? Finally, the Colonel snaps the file shut and looks back up at Poe. "All right, Lieutenant. I'm pulling together a new squadron. Nothing too far beyond the pale, but there are a few sectors that have been getting a little hairy of late, and I need our best eyes in the skies. You'll occasionally be handling more sensitive missions, and you'll get to test out some of our experimental aircraft along the way. Sound interesting?"
"Absolutely, sir," Poe says. Anything to break up the monotony of Mid Rim patrols. "Who'll be our commanding officer, if I may ask?"
"You will." The Colonel stands, and Poe automatically snaps to attention before his brain can process the words. "You've just been promoted to Commander, son. Congratulations. Welcome to Rapier Squadron."
Rapier is the smallest squadron Poe's encountered in the Fleet -- just three lieutenants under his command. But they're all sharp as tacks and excellent pilots, with wicked senses of humor. Poe thinks they'll get along just fine.
It takes a few months before Poe figures out the other thing they all have in common, apart from their flight rankings, and then it's only because the left wing engine in Muran's new atmospheric C-1175 model eats a bird shortly after takeoff and promptly explodes. Muran manages to gently crash land before the fire spreads to the cockpit, and he emerges from the wreckage with only a sprained ankle to show for it, but Poe frogmarches him directly to the infirmary anyway. And that's how he happens to see Muran's medical file when the medic brings it up on their datapad.
At first, he thinks it must just be a coincidence. But it nags at him all the way back to the ready room, where Karé Kun and Iolo Arana are waiting to give Muran a cheerful round of razzing for his little accident. They've all bonded pretty quickly, and Poe already knows the names of all six of Kun's siblings and that she was born right smack in the middle, knows Arana's favorite food and that there's only one restaurant in the entire Mirrin sector that makes it, knows that Muran has a steadily shrinking bucket list of species he hasn't slept with yet.
But he doesn't know the name of a single one of his squadron's markmates.
"Hey," he says abruptly, once they've reassured themselves that Muran hasn't been permanently scarred by his little misadventure. "This is gonna sound weird, but...do any of you have Forcemarks?"
"Why?" Kun teases, batting her eyelashes at him. "You think one of us might be a match?"
Poe rolls his eyes. "You should be so lucky. But seriously. Any of you?"
"Nope," Muran says. "Always seemed like a waste of time to me. Why does anyone wanna shackle themselves to just one other person for their entire lives? The galaxy is way too big for that shit."
Kun props her chin up in her hands, her amusement fading into contemplation. "I don't, either. Just figured it hadn't come in yet. I mean, maybe I'm a bit old for it, but it's not exactly unheard of, you know? Besides, I'm too kriffing busy to deal with a markmate right now."
"Mine was familial -- my grandfather," Arana says quietly. "He died a few years before I started at the Academy." He hikes up his pant leg, and they can all see the puckered scar just above his ankle.
Three pairs of eyes turn slowly to Poe. He shrugs off his flight jacket and rolls up his sleeve past his elbow to show them his strange, faded blur of a mark.
"All right," Kun says, after a long moment. "So we're all Unmarked. So what?"
Arana's frowning. "That's...not statistically likely, though."
"I don't think statistics have anything to do with it," Poe says slowly. "We were each handpicked specifically for this squadron."
"You're the Commander," Kun points out. "So you tell us, Dameron. Why would the Fleet need an exclusive squadron of Unmarked pilots?"
Poe just shakes his head and says nothing. But from then on, whenever the Colonel gives them a new mission, he wonders if this is the one that Rapier is not expected to come back from.
They're all very good at their jobs. No one ever mentions Forcemarks again, and as time passes and they continue their patrols and test flights and special missions without incident, Poe tries to make himself relax. Maybe it's just the old aptitude bias at work, that the best pilots have to fly like they've got nothing to lose. Maybe this is standard operating procedure for elite squads.
But just 'cause none of them have markmates out there waiting for them to come home doesn't mean they've got nothing to lose. Poe would kill and die for any one of his team, and knows that they'd all do the same for him, and for each other. Maybe that's why, he thinks. Build a team of people who will always put each other first, before anyone else in the galaxy.
Poe wants to believe that. But he can't help waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Sometimes, Rapier still gets sent on routine patrols. The Mirrin sector hosts a number of key trade lanes, and they're vulnerable to the crime syndicates that have been growing increasingly powerful in its neighboring sectors, which technically lie outside of New Republic jurisdiction.
After a minor skirmish between a trading freighter and several Kanjiklub harriers, Poe directs the freighter in to the Fleet docks at Mirrin Prime in order to smooth things over with her crew personally. The captain's voice had sounded borderline hysterical over the comms, which seems a bit disproportionate for the situation -- although stars know the Kanjiklub have a nasty reputation -- so Poe wants to make sure everyone's all right.
"Yissira Zyde, this is Rapier Leader, requesting permission to board."
"Permission granted."
It's all fairly routine, just checking in on their cargo manifest to see if there's any further cause for concern, and calming down the crew. The captain is an older, anxious-looking Twi'lek, her green skin sallower than healthy. "Point of origin?" Poe asks, as gently as he can.
Her lekku flick at her shoulders, but she meets his eyes evenly and her voice sounds much calmer than it had over the comm. "Vardos, in the Jinata system. We're currently transporting textiles."
Something in Poe's memory gives a determined twitch. "I hear the cities on Vardos are beautiful," Poe says without really thinking about it, hearing the same words echo in his father's voice. He shakes it off. "Just textiles? You list a passenger manifest of fifteen -- that's more than a ship of this size normally carries."
"The artisans who crafted them as well," the captain says steadily. "There's a galactic trade expo on Hosnian Prime."
Poe smiles. "Sounds like fun." He can't imagine what the Kanjiklub would want with a freighter full of artists and their tapestries, though. Something feels off here, but he can't put his finger on it.
He runs down through the usual questions, keeping an eye out for anything out of place. A few of the passengers are hovering around the edges of the cargo hold, probably shaken up by their close encounter with the harriers, but they seem harmless enough. He notes one human, a couple more Twi'leks, and a Mirialan. Pretty diverse bunch, but not unusual. One of the other Twi'leks has what looks like a bruise staining her purple-tinged cheekbone.
Not a bruise, Poe abruptly realizes, all his senses zeroing in on the Twi'lek woman. A Forcemark. But faded and blurred beyond legibility.
"Excuse me," he tells the captain distractedly. "I'm sorry, I need to just--"
The other Twi'lek doesn't shrink away at his approach. She meets his eyes with something like resignation, a reluctant sort of recognition there.
"I'm really sorry, I don't mean to be rude," Poe tells her, already fumbling with the sleeve of his flight suit. "But your cheek -- your mark -- I've never seen another one like mine."
She puts out her hand, stopping him. "You do not need to show me," she says wearily. He can't place her accent. "It is not a mate to mine, if that is what you are thinking."
He isn't. Or, well, he doesn't really know what he's thinking, but that possibility hadn't actually entered his mind yet. "No," he says helplessly. "But..."
"It is not uncommon, where I come from."
His stomach plummets as he makes the connection. "The Jinata system. That's -- before it blurred, the script mine was written in, it matched to a language--"
She nods slowly, like it costs her a great deal of energy to do so. "Yes, I believe you."
"But why?" Poe asks, hating how helpless he sounds. He's not used to being caught off his guard like this. He thought he'd gotten over the hurt of his faded mark years ago.
"Because this is what the First Order leaves behind," she replies heavily. "Blurred marks and empty hearts."
It's not the first time Poe has heard mention of this so-called First Order, some kind of supposed resurgence of Imperial sympathizers. His superiors brush aside such rumors. Poe's wondered about it, but never enough to push the subject.
The Twi'lek clasps his arm, near to his own blurred mark. "I am sorry for your loss. But if your Fleet does not take action, and soon, there will be many more such in your future."
He blinks at her, taken aback. "What do you--"
But the captain pushes between them, then. "Are we done here, Commander?" she asks, and some of the anxiety has crept back into her tone. "I do thank you for your intervention with those pirates, but I have a schedule to meet."
Dazed and wrong-footed, he lets the freighter go.
Ten hours later, the New Republic base at Mirrin Prime receives an urgent distress signal. It's from the Yissira Zyde, again. This time, Rapier Squadron arrives too late. The freighter has been hijacked by First Order forces, which Poe's superiors categorically deny. Disobeying direct orders, Poe leads his pilots on an unsanctioned mission to track them down, desperate to save a Twi'lek woman with a blurred mark on her cheek and a trading ship full of textiles.
Instead, they land in the middle of a dogfight with a full squadron of TIE fighters, and Muran's ship is destroyed when the stolen freighter jumps to hyperspace.
Poe is formally reprimanded by the admiralty and stripped of his command, demoted back down to Lieutenant. Kun and Arana both resign in protest, and Poe quits the Fleet with them. Less than seventy-two hours after first encountering the trading freighter from the Jinata system, Rapier Squadron has officially ceased to exist.
The Twi'lek's words haunt him -- this is what the First Order leaves behind, blurred marks and empty hearts.
It is not uncommon, where I come from.
Poe never even knew her name.
"I think they were refugees, asylum-seekers," he tells Kun and Arana grimly, in their passenger compartment on a transport out of Mirrin. He can't even remember where they're heading. All any of them currently care about is getting as far away from the Fleet base as possible. "They were fleeing the Jinata system. The old Empire had an iron grip on Vardos and a couple other planets in that sector -- it used to be called the 'Imperial utopia' -- so if the First Order is trying to pick up where the Empire left off, it makes sense that would be one of their strongholds. But they're getting bolder, if they're willing to infringe directly into New Republic space." He frowns, considering it. "Do we know if the Kanjiklub syndicate has any ties to the First Order?"
Arana shifts restlessly on his bunk. "I've certainly heard rumors to that effect. The Hutts, too."
"That would explain the harriers, I guess," Kun says. "Seemed like an awful lot of fuss for a cargo of textiles. But if that was just a cover story to get those passengers to Hosnian Prime..."
Blurred marks and empty hearts.
"I need to get to Vardos," Poe says abruptly. He rubs at his arm, his mark itching like a sunburn when it peels. "Get eyes on the ground, figure out what they're actually up to. We can't afford to deal in rumors and hearsay, not anymore. We need hard evidence."
"Like a kriffing squadron of TIEs?" Arana snaps. "'Cause buddy, that was all the evidence I needed. Never thought I'd see one of those outside a history holovid."
"And it's not like evidence is gonna change anything," Kun adds bitterly. "The admiralty have their heads stuck so far up their own asses--"
Poe shakes his head. "They're just scared, and they don't want to admit that the bad old days could ever come back. They'll do the right thing once it's staring them in the face. They'll have to." He forces himself to stop itching at his mark, shoves his hands deep in his jacket pockets instead. "Anyway, I've got some personal business to attend to in the Jinata system, too."
He should have made this trip years ago.