The heat was enough to give one a choking sensation and the sun caused Rosh's eyes to ache as she exited the ship. Jakku was about ten times more miserable than even she had prepared herself for. Inside her jacket, her sweat glands exploded - hopefully refreshers were plentiful here, but Rosh wasn't going to hold out hope. The sparse tent settlement was supposed to be the hopping place to be on Jakku, but there couldn't have been more than a hundred beings shuffling from tent to tent.
"So much brown…," Rosh commented to the Duros woman getting off the freight with her. She was tall and solemn looking even for a Duros. When Rosh looked at her she felt a pull - they needed to be acquainted.
"It's a desert," the woman said with a tired monotone.
"Ah, yes - I see now!" The Duros grunted at the attempt at humor before slumping away from Rosh and the departing freighter. Rosh watched the ship leave with a lump of remorse swelling in her stomach. Let's hope my instincts aren't a load of shit, she thought as she ran to catch up with the departing Duros woman.
"So," she began as she fell in stride next to her prospective companion, "where does a hand get work around here?"
"Why would I tell you?"
"Goodwill?"
"You won't find any of that here," the Duros woman adjusted her bags and began to walk at a faster pace, but Rosh wasn't going to let her get away.
"Well, what about a place to rest your head? Does a girl just grab a tent or…?"
The Duros woman stopped and turned to fully face Rosh with intense, sharp eyes. "Your coming here without being prepared is not my problem, girl. My advice is that you keep to yourself, keep your head down, and pray that the next freighter doesn't take long to get here."
Rosh cracked a grin that seemed to catch the woman off guard. "We're gonna be good friends. You seem like a good woman. We should get a meal together sometime," the woman scoffed, offended. "Not like that! You know just to celebrate our new friendship."
The woman began to gaze at Rosh with exasperation and then amusement. "That attitude is either gonna make you rich or get you killed, young one."
"Well, maybe with your help it can be the latter?"
The Duros woman regarded her, the wheels obviously turning in her mind. Rosh just kept her look of innocent confidence, but never broke their line of direct eye contact.
"Fine," the woman grunted. "Meet me here tomorrow at dawn, ready to work. You had better be here first or you're getting left. I will not tolerate any slack behavior, understand?"
"Of course," Rosh responded.
"Outside of business we do needn't have anything to do with each other."
"Okay. Deal," Rosh stuck out her hand. The woman gave it a firm, quick shake and continued to the tent city ahead of them. Rosh fell in line behind her.
"Stop following me," the woman snarled.
"This is the only direction we can go!"
"Then just stand there until I'm gone."
Rosh chuckled and came to a halt, letting the woman continue. "Oh, what's your name," Rosh called.
"None of your damn business," the woman shouted back without turning.
How could a planet so hot be so cold when the sun went down? Rosh had nearly every article of clothing she had brought with her on and still she shivered in the tiny canvass tent. The rest of the day had been uneventful - she had managed to trade the her inherited pocket watch for a nice little life-on-Jakku starter kit. Admittedly, the speeder bike could have waited, but it had been too cool for Rosh to let pass. She had also procured a decent amount of portions that tasted like paste, the tent, a sizeable knife and some equipment to protect her from the sand storms.
A blanket would have been nice. Should have gone for a blanket.
In addition to the cold, the silence made it impossible for her to sleep. Back on Naboo she had been able to listen to the laughter of the other hands well into the night. After that a chorus of wildlife would lull her to sleep. Here though, it was worse than the freighter. At least on the ship they were in the vacuum of space. Shouldn't there be some kind of noise on a planet?
Rosh tried to just think about taking that bike out to meet the Duros woman soon. What would the look on her face even be when Rosh rode up on her sleek speeder? It was going to make work so much easier...probably.
Suddenly, the silence was broken by what sounded like a speeder bike being switched on. Rosh shot up inside the tent.
"Hey," she shouted, struggling in her panic to get the tent door unzipped. "Hey, that's my bike!"
Finally she was able to stumble out into the open. For a moment the scene seem to go in slow motion. The three traders Rosh had gotten her supplies from were in a semicircle around her tent, basking in the moonlight and not looking very friendly. One of them, the leader, was sitting on the speeder, looking smug with Rosh's watch. He was broad and muscular with tattoos all over his hairless body. His yellow eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight. The others were smaller, but similarly tattooed and yellow eyed. Their clothes seemed to be scraps of other clothes, rags.
"Word of advice, girl," the leader said, resetting the watch. "Don't be so flashy in the future." He snapped the watch shut. That's when the others pounced. The last thing Rosh remembered was a heavy fist coming right for her eye.