Chapter Text
Amaxine Station, 28 ABY
After days in hyperspace, Ben Solo finally disengages the Grimtaash’s hyperdrive and there it is, Amaxine Station, a rotted mass filling his viewports as it orbits its dying star, a dark, filthy blot in the Force. He’s filled with anticipation at the sight of it, a little thrill that overwhelms the sick dread he’d felt since he left the temple in flames. After he engages the auto-docking sequence, he checks his weapons -a blaster and his lightsaber, both holstered over the dark spacer’s clothes he’d swapped for the ascetic robes he would never, ever put on again- though he’s pretty sure they’d be useless against the man he’s come to meet. With a thump and a hiss, the airlock extends and seals, flashing green to show that it's now safe to proceed. He summons a bitter little scoff at that thought -at safety- but punches the button to open the doors anyway.
He didn’t expect a welcoming party, but there is someone standing in the airlock, tall and deeply hooded to obscure their face. He can feel their gaze, but nothing of them in the Force. Nervously, he calls out, “Master Snoke?”
The voice that replies is older, but still melodious as it laughs, “no.” He rests his right hand on his blaster and she continues, “but unlike the undercooked tuberroot waiting for you in there, I actually knew your grandfather.”
His eyes fly open. “Who are you,” he gasps.
The mysterious stranger does not answer, grabbing his arm urgently. “He’s already on his way. We need to leave.” Ben, whether from shock or from relief, allows himself to be hustled back aboard the Grimtaash and away from Amaxine. Away from Snoke.
Jakku, 34 ABY
Rey can feel the eyes on her, or more specifically, on her and BB-8, as soon as she pulls her speeder to a stop at Niima Outpost. She knows better than to be cowed by their covetous gazes, though. She wouldn’t have survived this long showing weakness so easily. To her surprise, it’s not a local that approaches her first, but a stranger. Everything about him screams offworlder. He’s tall, for one, and where the scavengers of this planet are wiry and dehydrated, he’s thick with the kind of muscle that only comes from good nutrition. Add to that the pallor of a life spent in space and his dark clothes that provide no protection from the sun or the heat and it’s clear he’s an entirely different kind of creature.
Without preamble, he sidles up to her and offers to buy the droid. In credits.
“He’s not for sale,” she glares at him, then flicks her eyes to BB-8 as he warbles out a blue streak of binary. “And he doesn’t want to go with you, anyway.”
The man cuts his eyes to the droid. “Come on, BB, I said I was sorry.” More indignant warbling follows, and he replies, “it was one time. You know you can’t stay here.” BB-8 makes a rude noise reminiscent of another infamous astromech and the man lowers his voice to answer. “I found the wreckage of Black One outside a burned village. Poe wasn’t there.” The little droid lets out a series of sad beeps and Rey’s steps forward brandishing her staff under his chin.
“You heard the droid, now leave him alone.”
The man starts to reply when suddenly BB-8’s photoreceptor swivels to lock onto another strange, improperly dressed man, and the droid emits an alarmed stream of binary.
Rey’s eyes cut swiftly between the new stranger and the droid. “Who? Him?” She asks sharply before taking off running. The first stranger has no choice but to follow as Rey and BB-8 take off after the hapless man, who the girl easily lays out on the sand with her staff. She’s interrogating him about his jacket when the unmistakable sound of TIE fighters seems to reach the ears of every being in the outpost at once.
“We have company!” The tall man shouts as sentients begin to scatter. Rey doesn’t move. The man on the ground shouts that he knows what happened to Poe before the first shots start ripping the outpost apart.
“Follow me!” The tall man shouts. Without any better options, the other two humans and the droid follow. “My ship is this way!” He calls as the TIEs are coming around for another pass.
“That one’s closer!” The shorter man yells back, indicating an ancient tarp-swathed freighter beside Plutt’s concession stand.
“That one’s garbage!” The tall man and Rey shout simultaneously as the TIEs roar overhead, unleashing a stream of fire that clips the engine of the ship they’d been running for, setting it alight.
“Oh come on!” The tall man cries in dismay, slowing momentarily to mourn his damaged ship.
“The garbage will do!” Rey calls back, never slowing as she pounds up the boarding ramp and makes for the cockpit. The two men and the droid charge after her.
She’s already in the pilot’s seat and flipping switches when they pile into the cockpit behind her and the tall man snaps “move, sweetheart, we need to get out of here, fast.”
“What do you think I’m doing?!” She roars back, simultaneously working the yoke and shrugging into her flight harness. “There’s no time!” With a growl of frustration, the man throws himself into the co-pilot’s seat and straps in while she calls to the second man, “gunner’s position is down there!”
With the sublight throttles pushed forward, the starship graveyard is upon them in moments and the girl is plunging into the carcass of a downed destroyer over the screamed objections of both of her companions. Despite their misgivings, they seamlessly work together to navigate the wrecked ship and destroy the TIEs, culminating in a spectacular looping maneuver to bring their jammed belly gun to bear on the last fighter. Minutes later, they’re safely in space.
***
Well, safely might be an exaggeration, but at least now they’re only in danger of being blown up by the decrepit freighter and not a hostile military force. Alarms are howling and steam is billowing up into the ship from a floor panel. The girl, with the strength of a desert survivor, hauls the floor grate up and dives into the maintenance space, calling out for tools. “Grab me a Harris wrench!” The tall man jumps in after her, attempting to elbow her out of the way, but she elbows back, not to be removed so easily.
“It’s the motivator,” he bellows, still trying to reach past her, but she’s like an Ardennian, able to squeeze into the tiniest space and with more than enough arms to start accessing the broken part and keep him at bay.
“That’s what I’m trying to fix, so if you want to live get out of my way!” She catches the tool that the second man tosses to her, immediately detecting it’s the wrong one. “No, the Harris wrench!” She and the first man shout at the same time. The second man is casting about in vain for the correct tool so she growls at the first “could you?” He nods tightly and leaps out of the maintenance space, quickly passing her the correct wrench. A moment later she calls for the pilex driver and is surprised to see it drop into her hand almost before she’s done asking. Either the tall man is a good mechanic or some kind of telepath, because he’s already bellowing at the other man for the bonding tape just as she’s realizing she’s going to need it.
“No, that one! NO! The one I’m pointing to!” The poor second man is clearly not a mechanic or a telepath.
“Come on! If we don’t patch up it up, the propulsion tank will overflow and flood the ship with poisonous gas!” she warns.
BB-8 shrieks in alarm, shocks the hapless second man out of the way with his electro-prod and grabs the correct tape with his pincher arm. Bypassing the tall man altogether, the little droid slings it in a clean arc toward the girl, who snags it deftly out of the air with her left hand before ducking back down under the floor. A few moments later, the alarms stop and she climbs back onto the deck, wiping her forehead. BB-8 rolls up to her and starts bleeping urgently, she listens before patting the droid on his dome and looking up at the two haggard men.
“Which one of you is with the Resistance?” She asks, pointedly.
The tall man remains stubbornly silent, and after an awkward beat the smaller man stammers, “uh… I am.”
The tall man scoffs, “no he’s not,” but the girl ignores him, turning to the self-proclaimed Resistance member with a smile. “Good shooting! What’s your name?”
“Finn. What’s yours? And where’d you learn to fly like that?”
“I’m Rey. I, uh, learned on Jakku. I’ve got to get back there, so I guess I can drop you and BB-8 off at Ponemah Terminal.”
The tall man cuts in, “I can’t let that happen. I’m taking the droid and leaving as soon as I can repair my ship.”
Rey raises her brow at him. “And exactly who are you?”
The man’s glower intensifies, but finally he bites out a single word, “Kylo.”
“Kylo,” she repeats back flatly, accompanied by what sounds suspiciously like a snicker from BB-8.
“I’m an independent shipping contractor.”
Rey’s eyes flick to the DL-44 blaster pistol holstered on Kylo’s thigh. “You’re a smuggler. A smuggler who seems pretty certain that Finn here is not with the Resistance.” Kylo does not respond, crossing his huge arms defensively. “Ok, well it’s going to take several hours at sublight to reach Ponemah Station,” she continues, “so I’m going to set a course.” She makes her way to the cockpit with Finn, Kylo, and BB-8 trailing her anxiously.
“The First Order is hunting for us now! We have to get out of this system!”
Kylo mutters darkly, “I concur with Finn. We can’t risk several minutes at sublight, let alone several hours.”
“I need to get this ship,” she gestures around the cockpit, “back to Jakku. I need to go back. I’ve already been gone too long.”
Finn is not pleased by this pronouncement. “Rey, you’re a pilot. You could go anywhere. Why go back? You got a family? You got a boyfriend? Cute boyfriend?”
Kylo’s face blackens further, as if such a thing was possible.
“None of your business, that’s why!” Rey plops into the captain’s chair, “and I’m the Captain, so I’m setting the course.”
“Since when are you the Captain?!” Kylo yelps.
“I’m in the Captain’s chair, aren’t I?” She challenges.
“The chair doesn’t make you the Captain…” Kylo begins, and then the power cuts out. BB-8 trills nervously.