"Excuse me," says the young woman. Off-worlder by the looks of her, human, and coursing with the kind of nervous energy Aaron hasn't seen in—well, a long time, anyway. "Burr?"
"Who wants to know?" he snaps.
"I'm Rey," she says. "I'm no one."
"If you're no one," he challenges, "why are you looking for me?"
"So you're him."
Aaron gives a brief smile. "How can I help?"
"I'm from Jakku." Aaron racks his brain, trying to remember everything he's heard about the planet. There isn't much. "A friend of yours got in trouble with the First Order. I tried to help, but I mostly wound up throwing him across the room."
A friend of his? The First Order? "Across the room?"
"I don't know what happened. He wanted me to run, to get out, but he looked like he was in trouble. I tried to take his hand, and then he flew across the room. I hope it gave him a head start, but there were a bunch of them closing in. I ran and hid, then I found a spaceship and got off-planet."
Aaron tries to think through the list of his acquaintances who would go picking a fight with the First Order, and can't imagine the circumstances in which any of them would be in the Western Reaches. Not even the First Order would want to plan an excursion there. "And you just happened to find me."
"He said you'd be here. He wanted me to give you some of his data. For safekeeping. Or to give it to your allies." She produces a thick digital archive.
Aaron doesn't take it. "And who exactly was this Jakkuite?"
"Lore something. Technic?"
"Tekka," he says, grabbing the archive.
"Good friend?"
"He was close to my parents," Aaron explains. "I guess you probably heard him go on about the Force. It gets a little over-the-top."
Rey shrugs. "I'd take some preaching if it meant I had someone who knew my parents."
Aaron sighs. "Can I buy you a drink?"
"Is that what you ask everyone who stops by?"
"Only the ones from desert worlds."
"We're not isolated, you know. We have heard of alcohol."
"Sure," Aaron nods, leading her onward. "And I'm sure your life affords you lots of opportunities to acquire some."
She glares. Well, she hasn't said so in as many words, and presumably the plain robes keep one cool no matter what their walk of life, but she has the look of a scavenger. Not anyone can "find" a spaceship, never mind one as old and cobbled-together as the Corellian freighter in the distance.
"Maz's is a watering hole for lots of people," Aaron notes as they walk inside. "Including several regulars dumb enough to tell tales about the Force and mess around with the First Order on a frequent basis. I don't recommend joining them."
"Why not?"
"Because you're going to get yourself killed like San Tekka probably just did, that's why not."
"Oh. I mean, does something happen if we join them for a drink?"
"Not immediately," says Aaron.
"That's good," says Rey, and takes a seat next to Chewbacca the Wookiee at the bar.
Aaron joins her. Assuming the desert winds haven't warped her brains, there isn't really a better object lesson than Chewie and his co-pilot. "Chewbacca, Han, this is Rey, from Jakku. Rey—Chewbacca, Han."
Rey shakes Chewie's paw, then Han's hand, and to Aaron's astonishment, when Chewbacca growls something at her in Shyriiwook, she lights up. "You're Han Solo?"
"Something like that," he says.
Well, if the man's in the middle of another hopeless business trip anyway, Aaron figures he might as well foist the archive on him, and he can find an excuse to drop by his partisan buddies. "Funny thing," Solo had told him once, "you'd think it was the other way around—kids start out with faith in some power bigger than themselves, then time wears it down. For me, it grew."
Somehow they wind up jawing about spaceships and Rey leads Solo out to inspect her ride. Aaron takes advantage of the break to order a couple of drinks. Maz corners him. "Aaron. Nice to meet your friend."
"We're, um—we're not—this is just my meeting place."
"Of course," she says, "and you are welcome to return here as often as you like. A very convenient meeting place, though, for a man who claims the Republic can endure, and there is no need to choose a side."
He ignores the rebuke. "You just like me because I tip well."
She fidgets with her glasses. "If you live long enough, you see the same eyes in different people."
"Well, uh, I'm afraid you'd know more about that than I would." He's a young man, barely out of university on Coruscant, but sometimes in his dreams he sees faces and worlds that should not be and wakes in terror.
"There are more powers than one that shape our paths. I see she burns with the Force. And you, when you look at the narrative that flows around her, what do you see?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." Aaron takes a long swig of his drink.
Maz fixes him with his glasses again. "Of course."
"Wait!" he calls, before she can start roaming, and she turns. "Don't let Solo go just yet? I, er, have a message for him."
"Don't worry," Maz smiles. "He has quite the tab to settle."
When Rey comes back, she gulps back some of the drink in frustration, then another sip, more calmly. "You knew that was the Han Solo?"
"Yeah," says Aaron. "Getting drunk with a Wookiee again."
"He wants to repossess my ship."
"It's your ship now?"
"Apparently not," says Rey. "I just wanted to go back to Jakku, but I guess I'm stuck here."
So instead he's managed to introduce her to a legendary war hero. Nice going, Aaron. "Lots of people pass through Maz's. I'm sure someone will be happy to drop you off on a ship the First Order isn't tracking."
"'Someone'?" Rey echoes. She takes another swig, and then—buoyed by the drink, Aaron tells himself—gives him a swift kiss.
"If you really want to put up with me," he says, "you just have to ask nicely."
"I'll think about it," she says, waving to Maz.
Solo, who's made his way back in as well, nods to Aaron. "What's the word?"
"Your guess is as good as mine," says Burr, reaching for the archive. "This is from—uh—old friend of my family. Worshipped the Force. She brought it from her homeworld."
"And you don't know what it is?"
"Just that he cared enough to pass it off before the First Order came for him. Figured some of your friends might be interested."
Solo sighs, pocketing it. "Find my ship and maybe lose it all in one day. You keep odd company, Burr."
"You're telling me," says Aaron. "What do you do when you meet a woman who—" Who doesn't wait? Who comes from nothing and wraps time around her, urging him to follow?
"In my experience," Han says, "either you kill her or you start to like her."
Aaron gulps. "Right."
Rey is still talking with Maz. "So what's downstairs?"
There's a downstairs at Maz's? Aaron supposes it makes sense—the pirate has to keep her haul somewhere—but has never thought to ask.
Maz does that thing with her glasses again, and for some reason Rey isn't creeped out. "Come and see."
She finishes her drink and bounds up from her stool.
Aaron, who has barely touched his, slowly follows after. "Hold on," he says, and Rey brightens. "I mean, someone's gotta stop you from falling downstairs in the dark, yeah?"
"I can look after myself," she says.
Chewbacca growls something at her, and she smiles. Aaron glances back at forth at Han's all-too-knowing grin. The Hosnian university system was very good, yes, but lacking a knowledge of Shyriiwook he suddenly feels out of his depth.
"Of course," he merely says, and follows Maz towards the stairs.