A/N: Hello. I hope you enjoy reading the story. I'm hoping to weave various characters and storylines as the Resistance and the First Order clash over control of the galaxy. Please enjoy!
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
After turmoil, Luke Skywalker has left. The NEW REPUBLIC
struggles to counter the actions of the FIRST ORDER who
follow the way of the former GALACTIC EMPIRE.
General Leia Organa leads the RESISTANCE,
a group dedicated to opposing the FIRST ORDER and
their ruthless practice. She hopes to find her brother, Luke,
and together they can restore the galaxy and democracy.
The landscape was dry, but the air was cool in the night. The sun had set a few hours ago on Jakku, providing some relief to the inhabitants of the desert planet. The planet was considered a wasteland. Though located in the Inner Rim of the galaxy it was not frequented by casual travelers.
Poe Dameron, a Resistance pilot, had arrived just as the sun set. His contact, Lor San Tekka, was a keeper of Jedi knowledge of lore. Few knew of Tekka's existence, which is how the man had lived for so long. It was why he resided on Jakku.
A small, sphere shaped robot followed closely on Poe's heels, his domed head turning back and forth to examine the surroundings. The orange and white robot made a series of soft beeps at Poe, assessing the environment as they climbed a dune to see a small village.
"I know, BB-8," Poe nodded at him, and gave him a pat on the head. He pushed dark curly hair out of his eyes as he assessed the landscape himself. The village was small, and a few villagers were finishing up their day's work. Lights were beginning to be switched on as Poe and BB-8 crested the dune and made their way down towards a small, unassuming hut. "Wait here. I won't be long," Poe promised. BB-8 beeped at him again, and Poe grinned, "You're keeping watch. Let me know if you see anything." Poe's eyes flicked up to examine the village in the dying light before regarding the robot again. He kept his voice low, "They shouldn't know we're here."
He stepped inside the hut after knocking and hearing a voice call out to him to enter. Tekka looked the same as the Rebellion intel had described him, if only a few years older, and a few more white hairs, Poe noted as he greeted the older man. The man wore loose flowing robes, common desert garba against the harsh sun and fierce winds. They were patched and worn, but Tekka looked healthy despite being in hiding from the First Order. Poe wished he could say the same about himself. His own clothes were grimy from the desert already.
Tekka sat him down with an offering of tea, and they sat at low chairs and a low table. Poe accepted gratefully, trying to remove the gritty feel of sand in his mouth.
The old man grinned as Poe choked down his first sip. "It is made from the flowers I find in the dunes here. It is an acquired taste." Tekka took a sip from his own cup, seemingly immune to the bitter taste.
Poe nodded with a veiled grimace and took another small sip to swish out any remaining sand. He had been on the planet for only an hour or so, but wasn't sure if he'd ever get all the sand off him. "Thank you," he said finally, raising his cup to Tekka before gently setting it down on the table. "I assume you've received our transmissions then?" he asked. At Tekka's nod, he continued, "Do you have the map?"
Tekka nodded without hesitation and drew out a battered pouch from a pocket in his robes.
BB-8 had begun patrolling around the hut, but drew too many stares from the passing villagers. He moved away, to begin assessing the village in case Poe wanted to know more about the makeup of the place. His internal temperature receptors told him that it was beginning to get near to freezing, not unusual for a desert planet.
It was the small streak of light that flashed in the night sky that caught BB-8's attention. The village produced nearly no light, and with BB-8's scanning abilities, he could pick out the incoming First Order ships with ease among the starry night.
Stormtrooper transporters. His head made a 180 degree turn and he sped back to Poe to warn him. There was no time for a greeting as he burst through the wooden slats in the doorway.
As Tekka ushered them out, Poe saw the incoming ships flying over the dunes. BB-8 had already informed him that they were transports. "You have to hide," he said to Tekka.
"You have to leave," the old man said grimly. Poe paused, then nodded before beginning to run towards his X-wing. BB-8 beeped hurriedly as they moved towards the ship.
Poe hauled himself into the craft as BB-8 was pulled in. It was crucial to begin the take off sequence before the stormtroopers caught sight of the craft. BB-8 let out a long wailing sound as the stormtroopers caught sight of them though, and a lucky shot struck the back engine.
Poe cursed as the dash in front of him lit up with warning signals. He pressed the distress signal, hoping the craft would last long enough to alert the Resistance of what happened. Poe engaged the Stormtroopers with his weapon system before bailing out. BB-8 dropped out and Poe crouched under the X-wing with the robot. A glance told him the engine was fried unless he could get help.
"You take this. It's safer with you than it is with me," he said firmly. BB-8 complied and a holding dock slid out of his round body. Poe pulled out the map chip and tucked it inside. "You get as far away as you can, you hear me? I'll come back for you," he promised. "It'll be alright," he reassured him as the robot beeped sadly. The two paused before BB-8 began to roll away from the fray, and Poe readied his blaster before striking down Stormtroopers as they passed by.
"It'll be a few more hours." Jodar Madel, captain of the freighter Bishop, relaxed after doubling checking his calculations. "How's she looking?" he asked the crew member sitting in the co-pilot's chair.
Ashe Capens sat in the copilot's chair, studiously taking it all in. Her clothing was loose and comfortable, a dark blue wraparound sleeveless tunic and tan pants that tucked into her boots. Her pale blonde hair was bound back in a thick braid, keeping errant strands away from her face. Smaller braids wound in and out, a style that was common on her home planet. A braid with a pale blue ribbon intertwined swung loose as she examined the dashboard in front of her, recalling the different meanings of the systems represented before her. "Everything looks fine..." she said slowly, her blue eyes looking to her captain and mentor. He nodded in encouragement. "I know we have enough fuel to make it to Rakata Prime," she said, naming their destination. Jodar nodded, waiting to see what she would say next. "However, I know we'll need to empty and clean the tank before we refuel."
Jodar looked pleased at her assessment but frowned nonetheless. "How did you know that? Our fuel gauge doesn't indicate we need a cleaning." His hand, a deep purple colour, tapped the gauge in question. The fuel needle was dropping slowly towards the quarter full symbol. A small sensor with a clumsily hand drawn broom next to it was unlit. His black eyes met Ashe's pale blue eyes.
Ashe smiled slightly. "I overhead you and Amelea talking about it in the break room," she said, turning back towards the console. Despite working with Jodar for a few years, it was hard to look away sometimes. She had heard of the Keshiri people, known their purple skin and vibrant coloured hair and eyes, but Jodar had been the first Keshiri she'd ever met.
Luckily, Jodar had a sense of humour about her method. "If Amelea ever steps down from co-pilot…" He teased her. "We can look into a higher pay when we land on Rakata. After we land and unload, talk to me after your day off."
Ashe shrugged off his offer. Ever since Jodar has discovered she was a reliable crew hand, he'd begun training her to different stations on the ship, finding her to be a quick learner. "Maybe," she said, non-committal. "I don't really need a day off though. Are you sure you don't need help looking for a new generator?" Jodar shook off her offer.
"I told you, you need a day off," he reminded her.
She shook her head, seeing it was a lost cause. Jodar always insisted that the crew take a day off while he and Amelea looked into the next shipments. "Anyways, I was thinking-" There was a sudden series of beeps from the communications panel behind them, and Ashe swivelled her chair to look, taking advantage of the co-pilot's chair proximity to the panel. "Were we expecting a message?" she said, peering at the panel.
Jodar frowned. "No. We weren't."
"RS-XWB1," Ashe noted the call sign. "There's no name, or message." She looked over her shoulder at Jodar, who had paused mid air getting out of his chair. "Do we know them?"
He sat back in his chair, but perched on the edge rather than sitting back in relaxation as he had before. His hand tapped at the ship's intercom while his eyes remained on the communications panel. "Amelea, come to the bridge."
"Jodar, is there something I should know about…" Ashe's voice trailed off as Jodar appeared to ignore her. He had turned to the navigation panel and begun to fiddle with the coordinates.
"Ashe, why don't you take a break?" Jodar said. Ashe nodded and stepped out as Amelea entered the cockpit. "Amelea, we've received a distress signal-" he said before the door shut in Ashe's face.
FN-2187 crouched over the body of his fallen comrade, sweating. His fellow trooper had passed his ungloved and bloody hand over FN-2187's helmet leaving a bloody streak that he could see on his visor. FN-2817 blinked and stumbled away, trying to keep from vomiting.
The environment around his was loud and chaotic. Fire was beginning to spread from a stormtrooper and their flamethrower. A villager ran by him, screaming, and another squad of troopers marched past him, firing at anything that moved. His vision showed various statistics, and the glowing numbers seem to blur in his vision. A rainbow of blaster bolts flying by distracted him, further obscuring his vision.
He leaned by a tall structure, trying to still his spinning his head. His vision still spun, but his hearing began to pick apart the jumble of noise around him. Shots firing, people screaming, the shriek of a First Order ship descending on the chaos.
Orders were being barked through the transmission communications in his helmet, and FN-2187 straightened, hesitantly holding his blaster up in the firing position. The gun felt heavy, as if it were a chore to hold. He regarded the other stormtroopers as they closed in on a group of villagers, guns ready to fire. His own hands was too far up the barrel of the blaster, and one slowly slid down towards the trigger. A commander barked at him to follow then to stand ready. FN-2187 nodded slowly, trying to breathe.
The First Order ship had landed and the door opened to reveal a black clad figure striding down the ramp. Light from the fires glinted off the silver metal of his helmet as the figure strode forward and FN-2187 locked his knees to keep from stumbling back.
Kylo Ren regarded the situation with disdain. The new intelligence had been correct. He could see the old Jedi curator was alive and well in front of him. However, it wasn't known that the villagers would be so well equipped to defend themselves. The villagers were surrounded by a group of stormtroopers, finally contained. He would have to speak with General Hux about the lack of reconnaissance that was happening even in in the most miserable planets. Jakku was far too central to have the Rebellion, or rebellious sects, be present in it.
"Look how old you've become," he sneered as the old man was brought to him, his helmet altering his voice to be deeper, more robotic.
The man looked him up and down, "Something far worse has happened to you," he said slowly.
Kylo Ren's hand tightened into a fist. He didn't want to play games. "You know what I've come for." He demanded the map, but the man refused to speak on the matter, and only called back to Kylo's past. He was done with his games and didn't want to have the stormtroopers listen to the filth the man said. There was no need for gossip about his own past to become commonplace. Unsheathing his lightsaber, he cut down the old man with ease. There was no resistance there.
There was the harsh sound as a blaster fired, and he turned, reaching with the force to feel the laser blast crackling through the air. It was child's play to stop it and the blue light shivered to a standstill mid air. The pilot was easy to see in the open space and he was frozen by the force binding him.
Kylo relaxed his posture as two stormtroopers disarmed the shooter and hauled him over. They forced him to his knees as he looked on. The man was easily identified as Resistance, from his roguish demeanor to his scruffy clothes. He had looked in wonder at the blast beam in the air, and Kylo examined his sweating face as he knelt down. What had the Resistance told their people about the famous Kylo Ren, he wondered as he examined the pilot.
"So, who talks first? You talk first, I talk first?" The pilot was trying to be glib, he thought, and glanced sideways at the fallen body of Tekka.
"The old man gave it to you," he murmured, his mask giving his words a robotic drone. The pilot tried to continue his act of verbal sidestepping, and Kylo ordered him searched. "Put him onboard."
Two stormtroopers hauled the stuttering pilot away and their captain asked him for furthers orders about the villagers. Kylo glanced at the silverplated stormtrooper before facing the group of traitors who harboured a Jedi sympathizer. "Kill them all."
He gazed past the writhing bodies as the screams barely distracted his mind as he turned over the situation. The First Order's spies had tracked the lone x-wing, but it was a fluke that they had discovered it in the first place. They had no knowledge of Tekka being located here, and who knew how long he had been here, poisoning the inhabitants' minds. Their death would be like salting the ground. No more sympathizers would live here.
The stormtroopers' blasting ended and Kylo glanced at them as they marched back to the transports. One trooper, with a bloody handprint smeared across his white helmet stood with his gun lowered, watching the villagers, and Kylo.
Kylo's gaze slid over the stormtrooper and he loosed the blaster bolt as he turned back towards his ship.
Ashe lingered outside the closed door to the bridge, straining to hear the conversation inside. There was the jolt as the ship left lightspeed and a shudder as Ashe presumed the Bishop was turning. A crackle alerted the crew to turn their gazes towards the speakers of the ship's intercom.
"We are making a temporary detour. We will be arriving in a few hours." The intercom crackled once more and fell silent.
