Surprisingly, Nova's crash on Jakku could not be labelled as the worst landing she had made in her piloting career – that spot was still firmly held by the incident on Onderon with Karé after a run in with some particularly brutal First Order agents.
She had managed to break free of the ship before impact, but had cut it very fine. The body of her stolen TIE fighter lay a quarter of a mile south of where she currently rested. Other parts had broken off during the decent, and one unidentifiable part now held her leg hostage.
It did not feel like a break, but her drifting state made it hard to tell.
The sun beat down on her, hitting her face as she tried to open her eyes. She raised an arm to shield her eyes, groaning as her muscles objected. All she could feel was discomfort – there was sand in her hair and her boots, and something persistently pushing itself against her shoulder.
Only then did things start to come back to her: exactly why she had crashed a First Order TIE fighter, her escape with Poe and a now ex-stormtrooper, her imprisonment and torture.
She had no idea what had happened to her comrades in the crash – comms had been one of the first systems knocked offline. But she had faith in Poe's survival skills. Despite evidence to the contrary, he was a smart man.
She was sure he would be fine.
The prodding at her shoulder became more persistent, as did the beeping that came to accompany it.
Finally, she turned, detaching herself from her pilot's chair to fall fully onto the sand. Her throat emitted another groan. Raising her head, she was shocked to come face to face with an orange and white BB unit, leaning to look at her with concern – at least what could be read into as concern.
"Beebee-Ate! Thank the Force, you're still intact!" she gasped in relief.
The small droid circled her like a Loth-cat, beeping rapidly.
"Woah, woah. Slow down."
"Hey! You okay?"
The new voice made Nova jump, falling back onto her elbows. Reflexively she reached for her blaster, but found her holster empty, her weapon having been confiscated upon her capture. She was completely at this newcomer's mercy.
The person in question was a girl; tall and lean, dressed in clothes indicative of a scavenger. She was young, younger than Nova at least, her face still holding a certain innocence despite her circumstances.
She was not unlike Nova in appearance. Fair skin, brown eyes, brown hair tied up securely into three buns down the back of her head.
A quarterstaff was slung over her shoulder.
Nova forced herself to stand, visibly wincing at the pain it brought on. Eventually, she knew she could make it manageable, but her body was still waking up. She had no idea how long she had been out – it looked to be the middle of the day, but she did not know what time it had been when she crashed. It was doubtful she had lost more than a day.
BB-8 stayed beside her ankles, beeping an assurance of the newcomer's friendliness.
Nova looked between them with an uncertain frown – she would need to make her own judgements before easing up even a little.
But she seemed safe enough.
"The droid recognised you," the newcomer noted – she spoke with an accent Nova did not often hear, at least not on her side of the war. "Is he yours? He said he was with his masters before whatever happened... happened."
"He's my friend's," Nova answered shortly. "But yes, he's with me."
The girl frowned, waiting for her to elaborate.
"We were here on... business," she answered carefully.
"What business could you have on a planet like this?"
"That's need to know only."
"Are you with the Resistance?"
Her forwardness caught Nova off guard. She barely expected people to be aware of the cause this far out in the Western Reaches. And if they were aware, they were rarely friendly towards them.
"That depends," was her well-trained, diplomatic response.
"Beebee-Ate said he's on a secret mission. And you don't look like First Order."
"Looks can be misleading," she countered. "But, you're right."
If BB-8 had told her and was still intact with the information, Nova had little reason not to trust this girl. And if it turned out she turned on her, Nova was highly capable of putting up a fight.
"I'm Rey," she said, hoping the introduction would ease the hostility.
"Nova."
Rey smiled softly in appreciation. "I found him last night," she nodded towards BB-8. "Haven't been able to get rid of him."
Nova smirked knowingly. "Guess he thinks you're trustworthy then."
"And you?"
"There any reason I shouldn't?"
Rey went quiet, one hand fiddling with the strap of her quarterstaff. "Look, I can take you to Niima Outpost. If you've got credits you could try and get a ride out of here to wherever you need to get to."
Nova nodded. "I can figure something out."
She took a stumbling step, her leg threatening to give out under her weight entirely. She groaned, managing to catch herself on a piece of the debris before her knees could collide with the ground.
Rey came to her side, letting the older woman rest some of her weight on her as she helped her to her speeder parked close by. "Come on, it's not too far."
---
Niima Outpost did not defy expectations. In fact, it just about fulfilled every expectation Nova had for an outpost on a world such as Jakku.
It was a sizeable establishment, made up mostly of stable tent-like structures, much like those in the village she had been in barely two days prior. But these were not homes. This was not an outpost that many – if any – people lived in. Its sole purpose was for trade, and not trade for much.
A few ships were just about visible on the far side. They looked to be in useable condition, but barely touched. Obviously no one could afford it.
It seemed Jakku was not a planet easily left.
Nova did not exactly blend in well with the other patrons, and neither did BB-8 for that matter, but little attention was paid to them. All they were to them was a couple of new unfortunates.
The pain in her leg had started to become manageable by the time the speeder stopped outside the outpost's limits.
BB-8 was first off, hitting the ground with a ringing thud. Rey followed, steadying Nova as she was the last to disembark.
"This friend of yours..." the scavenger began carefully. "Were they with you too?"
Nova nodded. She had hoped to not think too much of Poe, as doing so made her anxious and hindered her ability to focus. She told herself it was irrational; there was no need to worry about Poe.
But despite her efforts, doubt was still clawing at the back of her mind.
"Do you know where they are?"
She shook her head. "We were on different ships. Everything, the escape, was happening so fast. I don't know where his fighter would have come down."
"Escape?"
"I don't steal First Order TIE fighters for fun," she quipped before going on to explain. "We were captured."
"I didn't think people escaped the First Order."
"They don't usually survive long enough to."
BB-8 beeped anxiously, butting into Nova's leg to seek reassurance.
"He'll be fine," she said. It could have sounded more convincing.
Rey nodded, making the decision to keep anymore questions to herself. While she had somewhat broken through with the new woman, she knew she had touched a nerve.
They continued their walk through the outpost in silence.
Nova was more than content to keep to herself, trying to concoct a plan for her next move. There was little hope of being able to legally acquire a ship, so her next best bet would be to try and find a way of getting a signal back to base.
BB-8's tracking system had been knocked out prior to the mission, and Poe had not had the foresight to repair it; there was no way of tracing them back to any specific location.
As far as the Resistance knew, she was dead to the galaxy.
Not exactly a new sensation for the sister of the newest apprentice of darkness.
Before Rey could query her strange companions any further, they were interrupted. Two unsavoury-looking individuals had approached them – covered head to toe in dark desert clothing and speaking in a dialect Nova could not place.
She did not need to know it to understand their intentions as aggressive.
Rey wheeled on the one who had spoken in indignation, having understood the details of what had been said. Almost as soon as she had turned, the second thug pulled a sack over BB-8, leading to many distressed beeps from the droid.
The first grabbed Nova; an action that garnered him her elbow to his face. He was forced to relinquish his grasp, but retaliated with a kick to her right leg.
She went down like a lead balloon with a cry, knees slamming into the sand. The pain from the crash returning to a nearly blinding degree.
Rey had started by kicking the second thug, knocking him back into some nearby urns. The first then wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the ground. She wriggled to get free, biting into his exposed wrist until he was once again forced to let go.
Nova did her best to assist her ally, using her unharmed leg to send a kick to their attacker's knee. He did not fall, but the hit was enough to knock him off balance.
Rey was then able to get a hold of her quarterstaff, using it to land blow after blow on the two thugs. And soon enough, she had them on the ground, knocked out cold.
"You all right?" she asked, holding out her hand to Nova.
The older woman accepted, groaning as she was pulled to her feet. "Yeah. Thanks."
Rey smiled. "No problem."
A series of scared and irritated beeps came from the sack.
Rey quickly removed the sack from BB-8, revealing the little droid to be a little shaken up from the whole ordeal.
Nova crouched down to his level, resting her hand on the dome of his head comfortingly. His protocols gave him a nervous and skittish disposition as it was, and being in a strange and desolate place separated from his master and closest friend was not helping.
He looked around nervously, then froze, becoming alert and beeping hurriedly.
The women frowned and followed his gaze, finding a man to be watching them from a distance.
He looked familiar to Nova, but the way her head was still spinning made him difficult to properly place. But one thing about his appearance was not.
The jacket. Poe's jacket. Except it was not Poe.
She frowned, wracking her brain for the answer.
Rey did not wait, jumping into action immediately. Picking up her staff, she sprinted right for him, causing him to back up and make a hasty retreat. Rey gave chase.
Nova followed with BB-8, pushing aside her own discomfort as she pushed her body to carry her forward through the maze of tents and scavengers.
Something was wrong about this, and she needed to know exactly what it was.