Bonded

Chapter 3: Junk

CHAPTER SUMMARY: Rey tries to fix a speeder brought in by a scavenging team.

"Hey Chewie, could you hand me the half-sized torque wrench, the one with the red hilt?"

Chewie baws back, asking Rey to hold on a minute.

"Take your time," She replies absently, examining the inner workings of the speeder.

She's lying flat on her back on a creeper, the gritty floor crackling under the wheels as she moves further under the vehicle.

This thing is old, older than her by several years. It's an FX-40 combat speeder, made to traverse rocky terrain. A scavenging team just brought it and a couple of land cruisers from Tatooine. None of them work properly, which is a problem considering that no one's produced parts for these models in over a decade. But the Resistance is in no position to be picky...

She'll just have to get creative.

Rey squints, scanning the engine.

To most people, the tangle of tubes and wires would be inscrutable, but Rey reads it like a native speaker of the language. Not only does she understand how the parts work together to form a whole but she has an instinctive sense of the different ways they could be taken apart and put back together, endless options for modifying, tweaking, enhancing.

Chewie clinks a wench on the side of the speeder, interrupting her thoughts.

She rolls closer to him, only his hairy ankles visible from under the vehicle.

"Thanks, Chewie." She grabs the tool.

The Wookie baws mournfully, complaining about his empty stomach.

"Don't feel like you have to stick around on my account." Rey slides back under the speeder. "Go. Get yourself a second lunch."

Chewie agrees readily, asking if she'd like a snack as he shuffles away.

"No, thanks. Take your time. I'm gonna need a while with these thrusters."

A few seconds later, she hears a door whir shut.

Rey sighs, looking up at the engine.

She knows what she has to do. Two of the three thrusters are beyond repair. It's possible she could get them working again if she replaced the motors, but the problem is that their connection to the repulsorlift is completely shot.

Rey's learned the hard way that's the death knell for a thruster. The connection has to be precise or else the thrusters will randomly cut in and out. If you're just hauling finds from a scavenging mission, that's an inconvenience. But if you're trying to outrun First Order speeder bikes...?

No. She can't risk a Resistance fighter's life for the sake of saving resources. The thrusters have to go.

She brings the wrench up and begins removing the bolts from one of them. As she works, she considers her options.

But try as she might, she can only see one. With any other vehicle, the solution would be simple— replace the thrusters. But this thing is so old that it's nearly impossible to find replacements compatible with the repulsorlift. Speeder parts are so much smaller these days. There's just no way to get the newer models to connect with these old, clumsy ones.

So, she'll have to replace the whole engine— install a new repulsorlift and new thrusters. And at that point, she might as well call it quits and label this whole thing junk to be ripped up for parts.

Rey shifts to the side, making space for the thruster she just detached. She shoves it to the end of the speeder and starts working on the other one.