Chapter Text
The freighter came to an abrupt halt, and Pasha’s father seemed distressed.
“Papa, what’s wrong?” Pasha asked as she approached from the hold where she’d taken a nap while her father flew them to the Western Reaches on a smuggling job.
Tadd obscured his countenance in front of his daughter so as not to worry her.
“Nothing I can’t handle, Poppy,” her father reassured her, the sweet nickname sounding comforting coming from his lips. He was wearing a headset over his mussed salt and pepper mane which matched his grizzled beard. Pasha could hear chatter in the earpiece, but she couldn’t discern what was being said.
“I’ve told you,” he hollered into the mic, “those are the coordinates I was given, and that is the correct clearance code!” Whispering to Pasha, he said, “Get your bag together.”
“But we haven’t landed yet, Papa,” she reminded him.
“Don’t argue, Pasha,” he said, now looking serious. “Get your things, and get back in your bunk!”
Pasha backed slowly out of the cockpit, preferring to stay and see what had gotten her father riled up but she obeyed him nonetheless. Tadd was normally cool and collected with nerves of steel and a gentle demeanor, and it was one of the many things Pasha loved about her father. However, this was not one of those moments, and Pasha was beginning to think something very serious was going wrong for him to react this way. Regardless, she did as she was told, following her father’s admonition to round up her things into her knapsack in preparation for whatever had rattled him so. Things didn’t always go smoothly on these runs, and Tadd had drilled into his daughter’s head the need to stay vigilant and do what he told her, when he told her to do it.
Ever since her mother had passed several years ago, Tadd had spent less time working as a common freighter and more time as a smuggler. He said that’s where the money was to be had now that the First Order had gained hegemony in the Outer Rim, their tightening grasp making regular commerce more difficult and less lucrative. Although he loved Pasha, Tadd felt he had little to lose without her mother and the home they’d made together. He sold it and bought a larger ship, one he and his daughter could comfortably live on, their current ship the Endurance able to take them on supply runs wherever they could find work. In the meantime, Tadd was stashing the credits away until they found a better plan.
Unfortunately, it looked like their plans had hit a snag. Pasha felt a sudden impact jolt the ship, the walls shuddering with creaking groans before the door of her cabin flew open and her father’s flustered face appeared in the doorway.
“Get in the hold,” he ordered her, pulling her out by her arm and dragging her down the hallway, the bag she’d slung over her shoulder now banging along the lockers until they reached the power plant.
“Stay put until I come for you, not a whisper!” he shouted at her as he slid aside the false front on the power coupling cage. “The First Order’s boarding us, the codes Han gave me were no good!”
Pasha chilled at the betrayal of the old smuggler who’d often helped her father find jobs. This must have been one he hadn’t wanted to take because it was too risky even for him.
“Papa, what will they do?” she asked as she began shimmying down the shaft that ducked into a small hiding hole below.
Tadd looked down at his daughter, for what he knew may be the last time, his face paling. “What they always do, Poppy. Perpetuate evil.”
Her father slammed the door shut over her with a clang, the sound echoing around her in the tiny chamber as she heard his footfalls receding rapidly above her. The space was close and choking, heat and the smell of burnt hydraulic fluid filling her nostrils while she could feel vibrations shuddering through the ship above and below her until all had gone quiet.
Though she was tense, Pasha wriggled down to the floor where she could sit, hunching over her sack and listening raptly for the sound of her father’s voice or footsteps returning to let her out. She’d only needed to use this spot one other time, several years ago, when a renegade band of pirates tried boarding them. Pasha and her father had found their way into the hiding spot and waited until the trap he’d sprung on them did the trick. Pasha never knew what it was, for he was very protective of his daughter and had not allowed her to come out until he’d disposed of all the bodies, and she never asked. She could tell from the look on his face afterward that it had greatly disturbed him to be forced to such lengths, but he would do anything to protect his daughter, including taking a man’s life.
But this time, she was alone in their concealed cubbyhole. The time stretched on for what felt like hours, although her father was only gone several minutes, until above her she heard many loud feet stomping through the hold as one, followed by measured footsteps. Marching, she realized - the First Order had brought troops on the ship.
Pasha waited, breathing slowly, deeply, trying to remain calm and bide her time until her father managed to smooth things over the way he always did. Tadd was even-tempered, diplomatic, and cool as a Hothnian snowflake. He didn’t pick fights with people, but if they picked one with him, he often found a way to defuse the situation. Pasha had every confidence in her father’s abilities to—
A rattling noise sounded from overhead as someone jostled the wiring cabinet above, Pasha pressing her back against the shaft and trying to make herself as small as possible while she pulled her hood down over her head to hide her dark hair. The air grew stale and she was terrified as she heard angry voices and banging from overhead. The voices were coming faster, the conversation intensifying, the shouts becoming angrier until she heard only one deep, booming, angry voice and a brief silence before a loud thud echoed overhead, something heavy falling against the floor above her.
There was quiet in the hold, and as the silence lingered, Pasha had confidence that her father had succeeded in getting them out of a tight spot once again, leading her to relax.
She was wrong.
The sound of a laser bolt shearing through metal screamed at the top of the shaft as dazzling sparks flew down on her, causing her to shriek in fear. She cursed herself for her flighty nerves, hoping the noises overhead drowned out her outburst. Once again, she heard shouting.
“Go down and fish ‘em out, ‘Eights,” a ‘trooper’s voice clicked over his helmet mic.
“Yessir,” his man replied without hesitation, swinging his legs over the makeshift ladder and descending until he almost stepped on Pasha. She yelped in surprise.
“It’s a girl, Sarge!” he yelled up to his C.O.
“I don’t give a damn who it is, get ‘em up here,” he replied.
There wasn’t enough room in the small cubbyhole for two people to stand in the shaft at once, so the soldier reached down and grabbed Pasha by the hair, wrenching her up behind him as she cried out in pain and indignation.
“I’ll come!” she begged him, “let me go!”
But the trooper ignored her entreaties, maintaining his grip on her silky strands until he’d dragged her from the small entranceway and thrown her to the deck of the corridor where he pulled her arms behind her and clasped manacles on her tiny wrists, cursing as he tried in vain to make them small enough to encircle her securely.
“Do her arms instead,” the sergeant advised him, showing his subordinate how to apply the wrist manacles to her forearms, standing on her back and wrenching her arms back so tightly she cried out in pain.
“Stop, please!” she begged, the strain on her shoulders sending burning sensations down her arms. When he pulled her to a standing position, her breasts were thrust out in front of her in a lewd display. When she looked down, Pasha discovered her blouse had been ripped on something in the shaft and as they pulled her around to observe their handiwork, the two troopers sniggered at her state of undress, one of her nipples escaping from the tear through her shirt and bra. She was angry and ashamed, and the thought suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t want her father to see her this way. He hadn’t seen her naked since she was very small; he had no idea what she looked like under her clothes anymore, and she wanted to keep it that way.
But as she looked around among the crowd of people surrounding her in the small space, she saw only a handful of troopers. Had they arrested her father and taken him somewhere? Were they interrogating him in the cockpit, demanding his identification chits?
The troopers continued leering at her, and she could do nothing to cover herself with her arms pinned brutally behind her. Instead, she sought to turn her back to them, but they wouldn’t have it.
“No, you don’t, girlie. We’re enjoying the show!” one of them taunted her, grabbing the manacles and spinning her back towards them, the jerking motion setting off another bolt of pain through her shoulders as she whined in response.
“Awww… does it hurt?” another teased as his comrades chortled at his jibe.
Pasha was becoming frightened at their tone, the scene reminding her of how she’d been bullied when she was younger, the kids ganging up on her in the schoolyard and intimidating her before they became violent. Seeking to avoid a confrontation, she kept her mouth shut and her gaze down, not wanting to make eye contact with them.
“Look at me when I talk to you, girl!” he demanded, jerking her head up by her bangs and forcing her to face the clouded black visor of his shiny helmet. She was so close to him she could see nothing else, including the fact that his comrades had backed away and that a very tall man in a very black helmet was stalking up behind him.
“I take it you have secured the prisoner?” the deep, staticky voice vibrated from behind Pasha’s tormenter.
The trooper dropped Pasha’s head and whipped around to find himself staring up at the intimidating figure at his heels.
“Y-yes, sir,” he replied, stepping aside to allow the leader full access to Pasha. It also allowed Pasha full access to view the figure of her father lying sprawled on the deck of the ship, rivulets of blood draining from his ears, nose and mouth, his face pale and still.
“PAPA!” Pasha screamed, launching herself towards his body before the black-clad arm of the leader shot out and stopped her, pulling her tightly to him. His arm was like an iron band, and when he pulled her back against him, the pain in her shoulders intensified, her limbs pressed between herself and his strong, hard chest as he easily restrained her with only one of his arms. Even worse was seeing his grasp on her had landed at such an angle that his fingers were cupping her breast, the pale pink nipple peeking between the tips of his fingers, and as he moved, his hand tightened, squeezing her breast so that the soft fleshed swelled around his harsh leather gloves as he turned to his men.
“Take her and put her in the hold,” he commanded the guards surrounding her, “and tractor this piece of garbage back to the Finalizer. We have yet to find Solo, but I know we’re close.” His voice sounded more natural at this close proximity since some of the words managed to escape from around the edge of the mask, confirming for Pasha that he was human and not a droid.
~~~~~~
As Pasha sat in her detention cell, she ran the last few moments aboard the Endurance back over in her mind repeatedly, piecing together her experience in her hiding spot with with had happened above her - realizing that the loud thud had to have been her father’s body slumping to the deck of the ship, the shouting probably him arguing with The Man in Black. The mention of Solo had also played over and over and Pasha became convinced he could only mean Han Solo, a man she would tear apart with her bare hands if she could find him, for she knew without a doubt that his recklessness had led to the death of her father on their ill-fated smuggling run. For now, she tucked away that piece of information in the back of her mind, instead focusing on the predicament she’d found herself in.
Tadd had never prepared Pasha for this contingency - he’d never warned her what might happen if they would actually be arrested, only if they’d be boarded. She supposed he’d had such faith in himself that things would never come to this, and they shouldn’t have. The hidden compartment in which she’d concealed herself was soundproof, airtight and shielded to obscure heat signatures, while the edges of the hatch were carefully crafted to blend seamlessly into the other components. No one should have been able to detect noise, temperature, light, or anything else that would have given her away. Yet somehow, she’d been found. She had to have been betrayed, but the only person who knew about the alcove were her and her father. Unless he’d told them, there’s no way anyone should have known she was in there. But would he have done it? She couldn’t imagine The Man in Black had managed to torture her father into revealing her hiding spot.
The stormtroopers had taken her shoes and belongings from her, and she was clad in only her pants and the shredded blouse and bra. Thankfully, though, they had also removed the manacles, although they’d been just as harsh taking them off as they had been putting them on, and Pasha rubbed her arms and shoulders, trying to work out the discomfort.
The door to her cell abruptly whisked aside to reveal two more troopers, and Pasha was roughly manhandled as they dragged her from the cell without a word. They pulled her briskly into the hallway and down several corridors until they arrived at a wide doorway, the portal retracting to reveal The Man in Black awaiting her as he stood next to a table.
When they dragged her inside, Pasha noticed there were no chairs next to the table, nor any other furniture in the entire room; just computer terminals on the walls, their readouts foreign to her. But what the table lacked in seating, it made up for in complexity, for she realized in horror as she saw some of the accoutrements attached to its side that it wasn’t meant to be used for anything but torture. She began screaming as she tried backing away, her bare feet squeaking against the tile floor as they sought to gain purchase on the slick surface.
“NOOOO!!!” she screamed as she struggled against her captors, the doors sliding closed to hide her protests from passersby. The Man in Black crossed his arms in front of him as he let the troopers wrestle with her, and Pasha was wondering if he wasn’t getting some perverse pleasure out of watching her be roughed up by his men while they worked to yank her towards the table.
“Enough,” he declared, waving the men aside, the troopers turning to take up positions on either side of the doorway.
Pasha knew it was futile, she knew she was wasting her time, but pure animalistic instinct drove her to throw herself at the doors, her fingertips uselessly pulling at the separation between the panels and blood creeping from underneath her nails as she clawed desperately at the sleek, gunmetal panels.
“LET ME OUT!” she screamed pathetically, unwilling to turn back to her captor, afraid of what would happen to her, but she didn’t have to turn. The Man in Black turned her himself.
Or rather, some power he possessed did. She was facing him now, his hand directed at her and his fingers arched as if clasping an invisible sphere. She was somehow frozen, and she knew it was him controlling her inexorable slide toward the dark, menacing slab. She was terrified of what was going to happen when he was finally able to bring her to heel and confine her in its menacing shackles.
“Please!” she begged, tears streaming down her face. “I’ll tell you anything! Anything! Please don’t hurt me! Don’t do this!”
As he held her in place against the surface of the table through some supernatural force, the troopers came to lock the shackles around her, these more flexible and better able to restrain her petite limbs without any trouble. Despite this, Pasha continued to put up a fight against her restraints, more from pure panic than any true plan to escape, for she knew she’d never get past any of them without being caught or shot, and she wore herself out in her struggles while her captor stood back and watched patiently.
Pasha thought with regret that, aside from the death of her mother, and despite her father’s recent foray into smuggling, the last few years of which had afforded her some harrowing experiences, Pasha had lived an easy life as the daughter of a merchant. She’d never broken a bone, had a surgery, or even needed stitches. She was soft and weak and spoiled, and she was wholly unprepared for whatever was about to happen to her, and she was as aware of the fact as a rabbit who is staring into the eyes of a very large lothwolf. Whatever this man was going to do to her was going to change all that. It was going to change her forever.