This chapter is dedicated to a close friend of mine who spends a lot of time looking up Star Wars; The Force Awakens script exerts for me and very kindly reads the majority of my stories and updates. So, this chapter is for you Destiny's Avenger! Hope you enjoy it!
Chapter 2- A Double Rescue
Attora's POV
Mourning the loss of lives from the Tuanul massacre was killing everyone who knew about it, emotionally of course. Now that the threat of the First Order had reached Jakku, no one was really safe anymore. Every day for the week long mourning period ordered by the city council was like seeing everything in slow motion. The days were long; people moved around slowly with little expression on their faces. There were no longer young children running around screaming. Life was quieter then it had ever been here.
The two day long mourning period had been set in motion for longer than I could remember. It was put in place whenever a whole town was destroyed or if someone of political influence died, which hardly seemed fair to the destroyed towns. The way we mourned was odd. We didn't wear black, we didn't cry. Instead we carved the names of the deceased on a sand wall in the centre; we buried any bodies left in Tuanul. Any possessions they had were either buried with the bodies or taken by thieves and scavenger's
Scavenger's had already taken what they could by the time I visited and we had buried the bodies the night after the massacre. It horrified me to see the bodies just left there in a huge bundle, especially the bodies of several children. To harm a child or kill a child is to prove you have no heart and no ability to love. At least, that's my opinion.
The time I was called out to fix the fuel generator was the only other time I had been to Tuanul, but the people there had shown me so much kindness that I felt like I was being ripped apart. Vara had said that I had always been that and that my mother had had the same quality.
The central city, Cratertown, had been put on alert. The scanners were put into action as soon the news of what happened reached the city. The scanners reached just beyond the desert boundary, as the desert was mainly owned by the scavengers among other various tribes. We also have a defence patrol, which all able bodied civilians were forced to be a part of. However, nothing else has happened since the Tuanul massacre.
Cratertown was a larger settlement then Tuanul, with larger sand hut homes and more modern technology. Most civilians live in the huts, I was one of them. Most of the huts were between three and four stories high and existed of a small room with a kitchen and table, a bedroom with a small bed and then a bathroom. Mine was one of the exceptions as I was provided with a workshop due to my trade being an engineer/mechanic. There were no sources of running water except for a community tap for every three buildings, meaning three huts-all floors, and the water in the toilet. Each house was provided with a few plastic basins to fetch water with.
I woke up to the sound of bells being rung, the signal that the time for public mourning was over. Not that you could tell much. The risk of the First Order was still a prominent factor affecting the day to day life of Cratertown's people.
Today was the one day per week that I had off. I got out of bed to the protesting beeps of C4, he obviously wanted to sleep a bit longer but he also feels obligated to follow me everywhere. I washed my face in yesterday's water, it sounds grubby but it's not too bad. I got dressed into a pair of sand stained trousers that clung to my legs, a new long sleeved top the Vara had sent me last night and a pale blue sleeveless tunic. I pulled on one of three pairs of socks I owned and pulled on my knee high beige boots. I then put a knife garter on my leg before grabbing a random pear from the fruit bowl on my dining table.
Everyone in Cratertown now wore various weapons in case they had to defend themselves. This also brought the crime rate up, not that it was that low to begin with.
I went over to the council house. The council was a small group of self elected civilians put in place to keep order in Cratertown. The council house also had the daily patrol timetable on it. I would be on patrol tonight, luckily that meant I also had tomorrow off of work too as the night shifts are all night as opposed to being the few hours that the day shift was.
"Got the short straw, did ya'?" Trinton, a Twi-Lek who was my age, was always around when I had my days off it seemed.
Trinton was odd, to say the least. He had yellowy-orange skin and black eyes, but his smile was kind of comforting...
The majority of the time.
"At least I'm helping to protect the people. All you do is sit in your daddy's chair and order around your slaves." I replied.
Despite being kind of ok, Trinton wasn't opposed to social classes. He was also the son of one of the councillors and therefore didn't have to do any patrols.
"Someone got out of bed in the wrong side this morning." He stated.
"And the other one got out of someone else's bed this morning. Those are exactly the same clothes I saw you in when I got back from Grego's last night."
Trinton did sleep around, a lot.
"Well, good to see ya' anyway Tora."
He also liked trying to win one over me, even though I generally beat him.
I then decided to treat myself before my patrol. I went to Ergol's bar and sat at an empty table in the corner after getting a glass of watered down Knockback Nectar. It was the only decent drink other than water available on Jakku, although it's taste and alcohol content was a different story all together. Even though it tasted ok, the aftertaste was as bad as drinking motor oil. Drinking it diluted limited the strength of the after taste as well as limiting the side effects of drinking it.
"Hey kid." I looked up to see Pucko in all his slimy, bad smelling glory.
"What're you doing here?" I asked.
"I just closed on a new housing deal with Slooker. You?"
Slooker was a Dug; he was also as creepy and cruel as many of the others of his kind.
I smiled a Pucko. "I have absolutely nothing else to do except sit here until sunset." I replied, my voice dripping with sarcasm.
"Careful, girl." He warned, "You're clever, but your mouth isn't as smart as that brain of yours." We then both chuckled at his warning. "If Vara was here-"
"She would compare me to one of my so called 'parents' who are alive yet have no identity what so ever." We laughed again and clanked our glasses together.
Pucko and I spent that whole afternoon in the bar before my patrol. He bought me dinner then walked me to the scanners. The company made me less hurt and lonely then I would have felt if I'd been alone.
Ever since I went to Tuanul, I've felt less and less like myself. I don't feel like a belong here anymore, much less know anything about who I am anymore. It was horrible! It was like finding were you belong and having it ripped from you as soon as you find it. I have no idea who I am, who I'm supposed to be, where I am or where I'm supposed.
Just someone please give me a sign.
Anything.
Just...something...
Poe's POV
It was excruciating. The pain of having your mind attacked by the force, just because you have a small piece of information about what someone wanted.
I kept thinking about her, the girl I saw a glimpse of on Jakku. I kept thinking about how beautiful she was, how much freedom she must have.
I couldn't forget those blue eyes either. The colour was so pigmented you'd think they could glow in the dark. The colour matched that of the plasma bullets in the gun that was eventually turned against me, but I felt that if I were to try to forget them, I'd lose one of things keeping me alive right now. The only other thing keeping me alive was the hope that maybe I could survive this and maybe I could find BB-8 and that the Resistance would win this struggle between the Light and Dark sides of the force.
"I had no idea we had the best pilot of the Resistance on board." Kylo Ren's micking voice bought me out of my wishes and back into the excruciating pain that was my reality right now. "Comfortable?" He finished.
"Not really." I replied, returning his mocking tone with my sarcastic one.
"None of this unpleasantness need be necessary," He continued, "We both want the same thing from the old man."
"You may wanna rethink your technique." I replied, "Hard to get cooperation from a dead man."
Kylo Ren raised his right hand to be at my eye level. It always confused me how the force worked, how it was controlled by those who were force sensitive through a series of hand gestures.
"Where is it?" He asked, concentration and frustration were both evident in his voice.
"The resistance will not be intimidated by you." I replied, looking him dead in the eye, despite the pain and blood that was drying on my face.
"Where is it?" He replied, intensifying the amount of force he was using on me.
I saw a flash of those bright blue eyes looking back at me. I had to live, I had to get back.
A scream escaped me as the pain intensified again, most likely just for good measure on his part.
Then the events of Tuanul filled my head.
I'd lost. He'd won.
Kylo Ren then left the room. My head felt as light as air as it started to slowly heal itself. Then I felt the restraints, holding me to the torture chair I was strapped in, loosen. I was pulled from the chair by one of the Stormtroopers who served the First Order, and walked out. With a gun pointed at my chest.
Then I shoved into a small room just off of the main corridor.
"Listen to me." The Stormtrooper ordered. "You do exactly as I say and I get you out of here."
I had no idea what he was saying. Well, I did. I just didn't know why he was saying it. "What?" I asked.
The Stormtrooper removed his helmet. His face showed that he was excited, full of adrenaline and in a bit of a hurry.
"This is a rescue. I'm rescuing you." He told me, his breathing heavy. I'm not at all surprised by that, actually, considering the look of the guy's helmet.
"Are you with the Resistance?" I asked. It was a long shot, but still.
"What? No. Can you fly a TIE fighter?" He replied.
"I can fly anything." I stated, "Why are you helping me?" This was both odd and amusing.
"Because it's the right thing to do."
I looked at him, even more confused than my force force-vaporised brain already was, unconvinced.
"You need a pilot." It was becoming a bit more obvious now.
"I need a pilot." He confirmed.
I took a deep breath. "We're really gonna do this!" The prospect of escaping from the First Order was somewhat exciting.
The Stormtrooper replied with just a simple "Yeah".
We made a plan and stole one of the TIE fighters, by pretending I was being taken to Kylo Ren. It wasn't as smooth an operation as I had hoped it to be. We didn't exactly think about the fact that the fighters would be locked up.
As we tried to get away, we got shot at. That was to be expected, so the Stormtrooper shot back.
We escaped!
However the Stormtrooper, named FN-2187 and now Finn as I didn't want to call him by a code, wasn't too thrilled at the thought of going back to Jakku.
I wasn't too thrilled about the TIE fighter getting shot at. Now Jakku was our only choice.
We ejected our seats as soon as we went through the atmosphere. The ship crashed into the sand.
The rest is a blurry memory.
Attora's POV
Nothing had happened all night. Then, early in the morning, the alarms went off. The scanners had found something that didn't belong here, and it was a couple of hours before sunrise.
There was a scramble as I left my post for my speeder, leaving the others on the same patrol in the dust. There, apparently, was always a squabble to be the one to go and investigate of the scanners went off. They went off that rarely that any find was exciting.
My night vision goggles had the map already downloaded from the scanners showing on the visor for me to follow. Everyone on the patrol had goggles that downloaded the map as they were connected to the scanners anyway. I was the only one with a speeder, though. Or at least, with the fastest speeder in some cases.
I followed the map to find an unconscious, yet mumbling, man. I went over to the man, unbuckled him and rolled him over so that I could check for injuries and weapons.
As soon as I saw his face, I recognised who it was.
"Finn, where are you?" He asked.
I pulled him onto my speeder and made my way back to Jakku.
The man from Tuanul, I'd found him. And he was quite possibly dying.
A search party was sent out to find any sign of a wrecked ship and whoever this 'Finn' was.
The night air and the power of my speeder had hid any tracks made by the man.
'Finn' was never found.
But I had rescued the man who's face had been saved in the back of my mind.
And he saved me.
