I race after the droid as he chases a woman who is chasing a man that is raising the ire of more than several merchants in his mad dash to get away from the local woman pursuing him. He ducks into a tent but he's cut off as she enters the other side.
Neither come out and BB8 enters the tent.
I enter the tent catching up to the faster-than-he-looks droid and I see the man on the floor and the woman holding up her staff threateningly at him.
She is wearing lightweight breathable fabric that offers protection from the sand and easy manoeuvrability.
Where she looks very agile he looks more bulky and built for strength.
He is wearing a matching thick black shirt and trousers with white boots that look like Stormtrooper footwear, with a leather jacket that looks oddly firmiliar. I raise an eyebrow curiously but don't think too much of it. This is a scavenger town after
all.
I'm surprised at the little robot when he gives the man a sharp electric shock to the leg.
"Ow! Hey! What?" He says in pain and sounding confused.
"BB8?" I say causing the three of them to look at me, the woman turns slightly, defensively but BB8 beeps happy to see me so she relaxes and focuses on her runner.
"What's going on here?" I ask looking between the man and the woman. BB8 beeps again.
"The jacket, this droid says you stole it" The woman says to the man. I look at him not sure what is going on. All this over his jacket?
"I've had a pretty messed up day alright, so I would appreciate it if you would stop accusing me-" he says annoyed but seemingly trying to be polite.
"Ow! Stop it!" the man shouts at the droid who shocks him again.
"Where did you get it? It belongs to his master" she states.
He looks at the droid and sighs.
"It belonged to Poe Dameron, that was his name right?"
I tense and freeze at the mention of Poe and I hope that he's alright, if this man knows him, where is he? Who is he? And how does he know Poe? BB8's head looked between the three of us.
"He was captured, by The First Order, I helped him to escape, but our ship crashed" The First Order? I knew something wasn't right, I knew it, but no one believed me.
"Where is he?" I ask not sure I want to know the answer.
He looks at me and the droid apologetically before continuing "Poe didn't make it"
BB8 whines and his head droops slightly. I shake my head as a wave of unease washes over me. No, I can't loose him too, not like I lost my sister.
"He can't be dead..." I say not wanting to believe it.
"I tried to help him I'm sorry" he says regretfully.
BB8 rolls away. To make sure he doesn't go too far I follow him.
"He's not dead BB8, I refuse to believe it" I say simply, it's the only thing keeping me together at this point, not believing it. If he is dead... I don't want to think about it until I get back to base... BB8 starts beeping erraticly shouting about
the First Order and racing back into the tent. I look straight ahead and see what he saw, Stormtroopers have just landed I turn to run to join BB8 but I'm joined by BB8 followed by the two civilians.
A few locals point at us and the stormtroopers start shooting while running towards us.
"Run" I say at the same time the man says "Come on"
"What are you doing?" I turn to see the man has grabbed the woman's hand
"Run, go!" I say and start shooting back at the troopers as the two start running.
"Come on BB8" the woman shouts. The troopers take cover and I turn and run after the droid. Explosions go off behind us as we are narrowly missed by the bolts. I get scraped in the arm by a blast my jacket taking the most of the damage.
"Come on we've gotta' move" The man says not looking back
"I know how to run without you holding my hand" She says and yanks her hand from his grip.
"Good run faster, both of you" I shout as I catch up to them.
"BB8 stay close" She says before suddenly turning "This way" she leads us into a tent where we take cover. I stay close to the door flap keeping an eye out for the troopers, I can't remember why but I know the bucket heads don't like me or those I associate
with.
"They're shooting at all of us" I feel my head throbbing painfully and I can't focus on anything other than that and my wounds. I close my eyes hissing a little at my hand which is causing the most bother.
"Dosen't anyone have blasters around here?!" I hear the man yell, as I refocus. I look at them curiously, since they've seen us all together it's not safe for them to stay anymore.
"They're not following us" I say looking outside wondering what they're up to since it seems like they've stopped following us.
"We've got to get away from here" I state "they've probably sent word back to their command ship, they may have reinforcements on the way"
"Are you okay?" I hear her ask, I turn around and notice she's talking to BB8, he shakes his head beeping and then the man moves over to them.
"Shh" he says listening.
There's a slight whirring sound getting closer.
"Or an air strike..." I say sarcastically knowing what I'm hearing. "Time to go!" I say feeling like this is calm compared to my usual days.
"Stop taking my hand" the woman complains as the man again grabs her hand and drags her out of the tent. We get blown forward as the tent we were in explodes behind us. TIE Fighters swoop overhead and I watch as they circle back around and I grumble painfully.
"Everyone okay?" I ask as I lie on my back "It'd be nice not to get shot at for once" I say to myself.. My ears are ringing from the explosion so I don't hear any replies, as I start to get up my ears pop and I can hear what's going on
"Follow me" I hear the woman say as she helps up the man before starting to run, he then helps me up and we rush after the woman, BB8 close behind us.
Sand explodes covering us in hot showers of dust, I wince as the hot grains land all over me as the blasts almost hit me as they fly overhead again.
"Come on BB8" I call looking back at the droid as we run to where the ships and speeders are parked.
"we can't outrun them!" the man says.
"We might, in that quad jumper" she says pointing to a small ship with four engines. It's the best plan we've got at the moment, the four of us would t for on the speeder I arrived on.
"We need a pilot!"
"We've got one" she says meaning herself.
"You" he says surprised
"What about that ship?" He says pointing to a much larger ship off to the side. I don't look? I concentrate on running straight ahead.
"That one's garbage" she replies.
We abruptly stop as the ship we were heading for gets blown up
"We don't have a choice!" I say stating the obvious
"The Garbage will do" We turn and run to an old ship that looks badly aged and not very well looked after. Tarps are covering most parts of the ship and draped over it, but it still looks like a rust bucket. Despite that, it's our only option now.
We run aboard and she tells us where the guns are, once on-board this seems oddly familiar. I press a few buttons on a control panel by the door and the ramp starts lifting then I press another button and the door shuts.
Noticing the lower gun is occupied I climb up the ladders to the upper cannon. I get into the seat and look up, looks like there are only two TIE fighters, perhaps we're not too unlucky.
"You ever fly this thing?" I hear him call from his lower cannon. asks
"No, this ship hasn't flown in years" she calls back
"How do you know it will fly?" I ask as we take off on a bumpy start.
"I know" she calls back simply.
We bank right and slide along the ground on the ship's edge.
"How much pilot training have you had?" I ask just as we break through the arch
"None" She shouts back
"What?!"I say concerned for our lives "how are you a pilot then?" I ask feeling like I should have flown this hunk of junk. We start to fly into the atmosphere.
"Wait, hold on, stay low" I hear him shout
"What?" She shouts back
"Stay low, It confuses their tracking"
"BB8 Hold on, I'm going low" she calls to the droid.
"We're going to die..." I mumble to myself as I realise my cannon isn't starting up.
"Great..." I mumble as I try to get the gun working but it doesn't seem to be powered. All the switches are on but the weapon is none functional.
"My controls aren't working" I say still trying to get it started up. I curse under my breath "I'm coming to the cockpit" I say and get out of my seat, I can be more use there than in a broken turret if this woman who has had no flying experience is in
control of the ship.
I slide down the ladders and start making my way to the cockpit. We loop around causing me to loose my footing and then slide around the hallway bashing against the walls a little. It might be fun if a more experienced pilot was at the helm. I get back
to my feet when the ship levels out just to get knocked off them again as a blast hits the hull of the ship.
"What are you doing back there? Are you ever going to fire back?" She calls to the gunner.
"I'm working on it, are the shields up?"
"Not so easy without a co pilot"
I get up and quickly get to the cockpit and put the shields up before sitting in the seat.
"Shields up" I say as we're hit again, this time the impact is not as bad thanks to the shields, but it still shakes us around a bit.
I press several buttons, re routing power to shields from all un-essential sources and angling deflectors.
"We need cover, quick" I hear over the coms.
"We're about to get some" She replies to the gunner "I hope" I give her a look and she glances at me.
"You're not serious are you?" I ask as I look straight ahead to the wreckage of a star destroyer She manoeuvres through the debris, hitting the occasional bit of rubble.
"Turn, turn, turn, TURN!" I say seeing us heading straight for a wall of scrap metal.
"Nice shot" she shouts to the gunner who's just taken down one of the TIE's that rolls along the sand.
We keep weaving in and out of the debris, making it harder for the remaining fighter to get a lock on us. We get hit again causing a few sparks from one of the panels.
"The cannon is stuck in forward position I can't move it you're gonna' have to loose them" comes the worried response from the gunner.
"Get ready" she says looking like she's contemplating something silly.
"You're not seriously considering-"
"Okay. For what?" The gunner asks unable to see what she's planning.
We go inside one of the engines of the downed starship.
"Are we really doing this?" He asks as we go down a narrow tunnel with little room to move.
"They've almost got a lock" I state trying not to look out of the window so I can't see how narrow the passage is getting. We bump around on the sides a little bit, today has turned out to be one hell of a day, if we survive this I am never getting in
a ship this large again unless I'm piloting it.
I look up as I hear her say "Oh no" I can't help but stare at the small passage we're flying directly towards. There's some light shining in from the side of the wreck and she pulls out, but so does the fighter who keeps shooting at us. Suddenly she cuts
all power, the ship teeters forward giving the gunner a good angle to shoot from, taking the opportunity he shoots down the TIE.
The pilot pushes the throttle to full and we pull up almost hitting the ground.
"Woah!" The gunner shouts in joyful surprise.
"Okay, I'll admit, that was some great flying" I say feeling quite relieved that we're not dead or captives. "You really know how to manoeuvre in tight spaces" I say impressed
"I've walked those passageways all my life, I know them like the back of my hand" she says smiling "but I wasn't so sure we'd actually be able to pull it off" she says excitedly.
"Okay, things like that last part are better kept to yourself" I say in a friendly way while smiling "I think I'll take over from here?" I half ask. She seems too excited to concentrate on flying right now.
She nods and gets up as she hears the gunner cheering as he's getting closer. I sit in the pilots seat and take us out of the planet's atmosphere.