There's a new ship standing in Unkar Plutt's shipyard, a YT-1300 light freighter. Like all the other ships in the yard, no one is allowed to go near it without the Crolute's permission. Like all the other ships in the yard, Rey finds her way inside it anyway.
This model is new to her, but she knows how to speak ship. This one is a blabbering jumble of dialects. Modifications to the quadex power core. Modifications to the auxiliary cooling system. Modifications to the hydraulics. Modifications everywhere! Through her modified goggles she finds parts that belongs to other ships, and some parts that she's never seen at all. They're unique; one of a kind. Rey wrinkles her nose. It's a wonder this thing hasn't fallen apart yet.
She plops into the pilot's seat, her short arms just barely reaching the controls, even when she scoots to the edge of the chair. Watch out! They're coming up behind us. Take out those turrets! We need cover! Pew, pew, got them! Yeah! She does a little victory cheer, turning towards her copilot.
The chair is empty, of course. She's the only child around for miles. Dispirited, she lets her hands fall back to the controls, but her smile lingers. It'll still be a year or two before that quirk of her mouth succumbs to the endless grind that is her young life. Right now it is still sweet, yet cautious, as if a single word could make it either disappear forever, or lure it out in its full sunshine glory.
The young girl's face turns to the stars, the glittering tiny diamonds on the other side of the viewport. A Teedo once told her that they're all giants, not simply specks of light decorating the heavens. He'd said that many of them are a hundredfold, even a thousandfold, bigger than the sun that bakes the endless desert of Jakku. One day she'll go out there and see them. She'll travel to every single star and see their worlds.
One day.
Her sigh whispers through the dark cockpit. She pushes herself off the pilot's seat, reaching for the floor, toes first. As she turns to walk back to the dead war machine she calls home, a nick in the side of the doorway stops her in her tracks. The frame is lined with them, all the way from her midriff to a place half-a-head above her own. One word marks each line, always the same, as if there was a possibility of another word claiming others. They're all accompanied by a number, but it's always a different one. They speak an unfamiliar, but much longed for language to Rey. They say we'll come back for you, sweetheart. They say family.
Unkar Plutt warned her not to take up reading, but she did it anyway. Now Rey finds herself going over each line again and again. Ben 1. Ben 2. Ben 3. All the way up until it stops at eleven. She's eleven. Or at least she thinks she is.
Rey bolts out of the cockpit. Racing into the main hold, she looks around wildly for further traces of the other child, not knowing or caring that they're separated by lightyears as well as a decade. Her little feet traces the footsteps of the ghost of a boy who right now walks the path of the Jedi, but will soon go off road into darkness.
The hunt ends in the crew quarters; a fruitless endeavor. Young Rey flops on her back onto one of the cots and sulks up at the ceiling. All the traces of the former owners of this ship have been scoured away, the scratches on the doorframe being the only remains of a young Ben that couldn't be carried out. For the first time in a long time, there are actual tears threatening to fall from her eyes.
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry.
In an unusual fit of anger Rey hits the bulkhead. Then, for good measure, she kicks it too.
CLANG!
A shrill cry leaves her as she rolls onto the floor. She covers her mouth with a small hand, frightened that the sound will have alerted someone outside of her presence here. Her eyes dart up to the ceiling hatch that came loose when she kicked the bulkhead. It swings on its hinges, revealing a space as dark as a grave inside.
But what is she if not a grave robber of sorts? Rey has seen more corpses within the bellies of crashed ships than most warriors have seen their entire lives. It's a long way up, but if she can climb star destroyers, she can climb a simple wall. She threads her fingers through the holes in the hatch and pulls herself up.
The small room proves to be disappointingly empty, as if someone had found this place before her and ransacked it. She can stand up if she bends at the waist, but a grown human would have had to crawl. The flashlight attached to her goggles reveals nothing more than dark walls. Rey bites the inside of her lip and lets out a small, forlorn breath. It's getting late, and she needs to be up at daylight if she wants her rations. She turns back to the hatch in the floor and puts her legs through it to jump to the cot below, when her flashlight catches a protrusion in the corner. It's a switch, small and insignificant, but Rey's curiosity gets the better of her. She abandons all thought of leaving and shuffles over to activate it.
The space above her head comes alive with constellations. They litter the ceiling, like the stars outside litter the sky. Rey takes of her goggles so she can see them with her own eyes. She reaches up and touches her fingertips to the tiny bulbs that someone embedded into the durasteel. They shine brightly, but not bright enough to hurt her eyes in the darkness. It's not as intricate or as beautiful as the galaxy outside, but they create a certain atmosphere in this small space, like her own little universe set apart from the rest. She can imagine a thin mattress in the middle of the room and a child her own age gazing up at this miniature galaxy as they wait for sleep to overcome them.
Who are they? Do they travel the galaxy with their family like she soon will? Will they come to Jakku to get their ship back? What could they tell her about the stars and their planets?
There's just so many questions!
Rey lies down on her back and folds her hands underneath her head. Maybe they could help her find her family. Then she wouldn't have to stay here and wait, and she could travel to them instead of the other way around. Before she knows it her eyelids slide shut and sleep embraces her. Slumbering underneath Ben Organa Solo's own personal night sky, Rey dreams of a boy who grows up to become a nightmare.