Rey clung to the dark metal interior of a long-dead old-model Imperial Star Destroyer. Her satchel was nearly full, enough to ensure she would eat tonight. She headed towards a distant slit of sunlight that led to the world outside the metal caverns. Outside, she removed her goggles and squinted at the blasted terrain; it was not yet midday, and much work still needed to be done. She pulled a canteen from her belt, draining the contents and banging out the last few drops. She fastened her salvage to a large sheet of metal and sitting upon it as a sledge, she slid down the dune to where her speeder lay waiting. Like everything she owned, it wasn't lovely but practical. She hauled her load onto her trusted transport and sped across the sand. The speeder never faltered in the challenging terrain. She made sure of that through a daily routine of checking and cleaning the parts. Her staff and reputation ensured some Teedo would not steal it; she would never be stranded in the Jakku desert.
On arrival at Nima Outpost, she dragged her stash of components under the communal tent and began scrubbing. Despite the morning being far more difficult, cleaning her cache of components was the part of her day Rey liked least, well, except for when she placed those cleaned parts in front of Plutt. If there was ever a being that represented a sack of slime, he was it. Vile to look at with a similarly repulsive personality. A lumpy, fleshy, hairless shape. Barely humanoid, Unkarr was bipedal, but that was where human similarities ended. He seemed full and flat, like a taller creature had squashed him into his current blubbery form. She suppressed a giggle as she imagined him being trodden on. Sadly, nothing about Plutt was actually comical; he was detestable, and the worst part of her day was yet to come when she waited for him to examine her offering in exchange for food. He would make her wait while he also examined her; she shuddered to herself and tried to think of something else. There must be a better way of living than this, she thought and not for the first time.
A young man stumbling around with a brown leather jacket over his dusty head caught her eye. She absently wondered, could that be Ben? He'd asked her where she was, told him he would come for her, but he never had, and every dark stranger she saw at Nima, she wondered if it was him. It had been so long since she'd seen him, but she already knew the man flailing about was not the young man she'd known. The manner in which he held himself, he wasn't tall enough and the eyes, his eyes weren't right; it wasn't Ben. Rey didn't know what had happened to Ben. She'd felt things that night after their argument, and since she'd often felt cold or she'd felt him, his feelings. Whenever their connection sparked, she'd see him bruised, bloody, shaking in pain or anger, but if he'd seen or felt her, he hadn't acknowledged it, ignoring her presence until the connection ended. Then, the masked monster had come to her instead. A dark-cloaked creature all in black with a shiny chrome mask and a blazing red laser sword. The moments she'd seen of this menace had never been the long conversations she'd had with Ben, just fleeting images of freezing terror before they thankfully disappeared. Her friend was gone, where she wasn't sure.
The man staggering about begging for water was a stranger here, completely unprepared for any amount of time spent on Jakku. Ben would have known better. She pulled a face of revulsion as she watched the desperate man plunge his upper body into the filthy water trough next to a drinking Happabore. He pulled his head out, the stagnant brown water dripping down his shirt from his dark hair, then proceeded to cup his hands and drink the tepid, filthy water as though it were clean and cool. One of Unkar's thugs tapped her with his rod on her shoulder, and she returned to her scrubbing, having become completely lost in her thoughts while watching the stranger. Her scrubbing complete, she took a cleansing breath to compose herself for the inevitable encounter with Plutt. The young, now less dusty but damp man was standing next to Plutt's little business cabin, imploring him for help with promises of Republic credits.
"Credits are no good here, especially promises of ones," Plutt was answering as Rey approached his hut and laid her scrubbed components out for him to see.
"I need to get off-planet. I'm with the Resistance. My mission on Kelvin Ridge was compromised, and my ship was taken. I have vital information. You'll be greatly rewarded for helping me," the young man answered.
Rey found herself staring at him, a pleasant change from being stared at in this daily ritual. He was older than her; though she wasn't entirely sure how old she was, she could tell he was older. He was confident, despite his current conditions, easily conversing with Plutt. His dark wavy hair had minute flecks of grey throughout, and his jaw was shadowed with stubble that, by the end of the day, might be a beard. He was intense, handsome and intriguing. At his feet, a little white and orange BB unit spun agitatedly.
"I'll help you," Plutt began, and Rey saw a relieved smile on the man's face- too soon, she thought, Plutt wanted something, and she thought she knew what.
"In exchange for your droid."
The man's face fell, and at his feet, the astromech squealed, its little head moving erratically back and forth on his spherical body.
"BB8? No deal."
"What you brought me today is worth one portion," Plutt said, ignoring the man and returning to Rey. She allowed the breath she'd been holding onto out as she took her portion, pleased with her earnings.
As she walked away from the tented area back to her speeder, a pair of white armoured stormtroopers caught her eye. Walking casually, inspecting the local population, questioning people but with blasters in their hands. She'd heard of the massacre on Kelvin Ridge. The young man from the Resistance must have been involved. He'd said himself that his mission there had been compromised. She turned back, took him by the arm without a word and began dragging him into a nearby covered market, away from both prying eyes and ears, the BB unit spinning after them.
"Hey, watch it," the young man exclaimed.
"Are you really with the Resistance?" she asked.
He gave her a wry look considering before he answered.
"Yes, I'm commander Poe Dameron of the Resistance," the final part, he said a little smugly.
She grinned broadly and wondered to herself if he knew Leia, Luke or Han from the stories she'd enjoyed that Ben had told her when she was younger.
"I've never met a member of the Resistance before."
At the sight of her wide grin, he gave her a charming smirk and relaxed a little.
"Well, this is what we look like," he motioned at his damp shirt and dust-covered trousers, and the smirk turned into a warm smile flashing straight white teeth with a wink for good measure, and Rey felt herself blush a little. She'd never really communicated with another person before, other than Ben, and that was years ago, let alone a handsome Resistance pilot.
"I can help you; there are a couple of ships out on the landing area. No one's used them in years; I can show you. You'll have to steal one. No one here is going to give you one willingly or sell you one for credit. Can you fly?"
"Can I fly?" He leaned in like he was about to tell her a secret, "I can fly anything. I'm the best pilot in the Resistance."
She smiled at him again, he was cocky, and she imagined in someone less handsome, it might be annoying, but on him, she gave her head a little shake to focus.
"If you can't get off-planet in one, you should at least be able to make contact with the Resistance and stay hidden from the First Order till they come."
"Why are you helping me?" he asked.
She momentarily considered the stories Ben had told her that she loved: the hero Luke Skywalker and the heroine Princess Leia.
"It's the right thing to do."
She peered out from the sheets that made the tent that gently shifted in the breeze, looking for the stormtroopers. They were occupied with Teedo and some of Unkarr's hired thugs.
"This way, follow me," she whispered as she headed briskly from the tent.
There were several ships that Plutt owned that lay rusting under protective tarps. Why he bothered to cover them, she had no idea; he didn't bother to do any maintenance, just liked that they belonged to him. One was commonly referred to as garbage, a large cargo ship of some description, a worn-out junker. Another was a quad jumper and would neither help the pilot off Jakku nor make contact with the Resistance. Rey made for the final ship a Corellian VCX light freighter.
"Stay calm, don't run. You'll only draw attention to yourself," she murmured.
"I am calm. What about that one?" Poe answered, looking at the large freighter.
"That's one's garbage," she replied disdainfully.
However, the decision of which ship to steal was suddenly taken from their hands as, in front of them, another pair of stormtroopers appeared behind the ship she'd been heading for.
"The garbage will do. Go," she motioned to him as they hurried back towards the covered junk freighter.
He paused at the tarp, "You wanna come with me? We're always looking for good people to join the fight," he offered as his little spherical droid whizzed ahead of him.
She smiled sadly; it was sweet of him to ask, "I can't. I'm waiting for someone."
The troopers hadn't spotted them yet; they were currently busy inspecting the other craft.
"Go quickly," she said, turning from him. She headed straight for the armour-clad troopers and distracted them till Poe was hidden. Trusty staff at her side, Rey walked towards the First Order soldiers.
"You there," one hollered. "Stop."
Rey walked towards them, ignoring their instructions. They didn't raise their blasters. A young girl with a staff seemed of little consequence to them, but they'd be wrong.
"Stop," one held a hand out as if that would create her compliance. He didn't have time for further instructions; she swung her staff off her shoulder and whacked him around the head with it, and he instantly crumpled. The other barely had time to register what had happened before she struck him in the chest, knocking the wind from him, then flicked her staff upwards, hitting the other trooper in the front of the face and flinging him back into the sand.
That should give both her and Poe some time. The gangway to the freighter was already shut, and she could hear the low throbbing as the engines whirred back to life after so many years of rusting away. She did not want to be near here when it did. A blast to the side of her head shocked her, and turning, she saw another group of stormtroopers heading her way; she ran, she'd do a circle around the other cruiser and the landing area, back to her speeder, then she'd be long gone. No one would be any the wiser regarding her involvement.
She made far lighter work of the sand than the troopers did; her boots were made for the conditions, and her muscles well adjusted to the fluctuations underfoot. The ground shook and vibrated as she ducked under the Corellian light freighter and around it. Poe had successfully managed to get the cargo ship working; good for him. The cargo ship lifted surprisingly gracefully into the clear blue sky; a roar followed as the ship exited the atmosphere, and the tarp cover fell away onto the stormtroopers who'd been following her. She smiled as, under cover of the exiting sand cloud, she headed back to her speeder, confident she wasn't being pursued and that she would not gather the attention of any other First Order soldiers.
-X-
"Ventral canons hot!" Hux ordered.
"Is it the pilot?" Ren asked, looking out the observation deck of the Finalizer.
"Yes. Our ground forces intercepted him and his droid at some salvage yard, Nima Outpost. He managed to escape and get off-planet in a stolen freighter."
From the planet's surface, an old freighter was indeed coming towards them. Kylo surveyed it out the observation window; he knew that ship, he'd know it anywhere, but that wasn't possible.
"Fire at will," Hux shouted but then ducked as the cargo ship flew incredibly close to the bridge viewing window. Several techs closest to the portal did the same. Kylo didn't flinch; he merely watched the ship he knew intimately as if in slow motion as it shot overhead. The pieced-together hull fragments and discarded components. It looked exactly as he remembered- a beloved piece of junk. In his mind, he could see the pilot's next move within the cockpit and in the Force; he felt it.
"He's already jumped to lightspeed. Put the word out that the First Order is looking for an old YT model Freighter, the Millennium Falcon," Kylo said.
"The Millennium Falcon? Rebellion General Solo's ship? Are you certain?"
Kylo leered at Hux through his mask. The General had become rather good at reading his mood and meaning without seeing his face or hearing a word. Accepting this particular silence, Hux nodded, and Kylo listened to Hux relay the information to the deck officers. Memories were stirring: Jakku, Nima Outpost, the Millennium Falcon. Kylo clenched his hand tightly, willing the images of his past life to evaporate. It hadn't occurred to him which planet he was on at Tuanual; he had been so fixated on the task at hand and Lor San Tekka he'd been so blinded he hadn't remembered why it was familiar somehow.
"By all accounts, the pilot had help," Hux continued, not noticing Kylo was deep in thought. "Snoke wants them found and brought to him. They may have valuable information; some scavenger girl with a staff."
Kylo rounded on Hux then, his metallic visage centimetres from the General's face. He pointed his finger at him as he growled,
"What, girl?"
A flicker of alarm registered on Hux's face before his usual demeanour returned. Hux didn't fear Kylo; he believed they were equals. He straightened slightly, pulling his arms tight behind his back, before raising his chin to speak back in a chastising tone.
"Careful, Ren, that your personal feelings on this matter do not interfere with orders from Leader Snoke."
Hux misinterpreted Kylo's feeling on the matter to be regarding the information that the scavenger might know. He was wrong; it was the girl that caused this particular outburst. Kylo forced himself to calm down, and immediately, his cool exterior returned as if the encounter between them had been imagined.
"I'll see to it personally, prepare my ship."