Chapter 3- Freedom

Poe's POV

I woke up feeling very disorientated and with a horrible headache. As my eyes adjusted, realisation hit me. I had no idea where I was.

The last thing I remember was getting shot down in a TIE-fighter by a ship's plasma cannon.

I looked around and found myself to be in a small room, in which I was lying on the bed. I sat up, causing my head to spin, and found a couple of blankets and a pillow laid out on the floor by a cabinet. On top of the cabinet were two bowls of water. One of the bowls had a bloody rag hanging over it. That was when I caught my reflection in an old mirror.

My nose had a pink stain on it from bleeding; it was also swollen and bruised. That was when I remembered the ship crashing.

I was suddenly distracted from my memories by a crashing sound followed by beeping. I looked towards the sound and found a rotary droid. The droid reminded me of BB-8; however it was taller, wider and had an older look about it. This was probably due to the scratches, dents and mismatching panels that were probably covering holes in its shell. Its head was held on by to metal rods and a clamp on either side and was coloured white, blue and silver with panels in different shades of green and grey. There was a large blue grip track round the centre of the droid. It also had a cracked lens and bent two antennae. Footsteps followed the droid.

"C4, please be careful. I know you can't see too well at the moment but just go slow. Ok?" The blonde girl from Tuanul, I could recognise those bright blue eyes anywhere. She then looked at me, "Good to see someone's awake, and you had a nasty crash, nobody has managed to find you friend, Finn. A group found remains of the ship by a sink hole several hundred miles away but no body or injured being." She gave me a half hearted smile before handing me the tray she was carrying. "I made you breakfast and there's a bowl of clean water over there," She pointed to her rusted mirror. "There's a ship dock at Kelvin Ridge that should either be able to take you to wherever it is that you come from or offer communication." She stepped back, stumbling after knocking into her droid, who protested with a couple of loud bleeps. "Oh, god. Sorry C4."

"And what about you?" I asked. "It's obvious you're not from here." I spoke without thinking.

"What do you mean? How is someone from Jakku supposed to look?" She questioned, although hr expression as more of that of someone playing a game then trying to defend them self.

"I didn't mean that. I just saw that you have a Rebel Alliance badge by your wash bowls."

"You know what this is? I've had it for as long as I can remember." She said, looking at the badge in disbelief before going to retrieve it.

"Come with me. We could always use more help." I replied.

She pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. "Who are and where in hell do you come from?"

That changed quickly. I stood up and put my hands up in surrender.

"Wow, wow, wow. I'm Poe Dameron, Commander and Black Leader of the Resistance X-Wing Squadron." I held a hand out towards her.

She looked at the hand before looking back at me and lowering her gun. "You're a Resistance Pilot?" She asked.

"The best in the galaxy." I replied, amping up the charm and pride to try and make her laugh.

She giggled, putting a hand over her mouth and taking my hand with the other, shaking it. "Attora Ken, this is C4-F2." She pointed to the rotary droid."I've wanted nothing more than getting away from this death pit, the only thing is I have no way of getting off." She paused, thinking.

I looked at Attora, confused.

"I have little money. I have enough for some food for lunch before I have to go and either find some extra work or borrow." Her expression quickly changed from hope to panic. "I have a half working ship. The engine turns on; I just can't afford the parts to make it fly."

"How much does it cost?" I asked.

"1200 credits, I only have 500. Unless we find something to trade or you have another 700 credits."

I reached into the pocket of my trousers; the leather pouch General Leia had given me with a way out in case I got stuck on Jakku was still there. I emptied the contents into my hand.

"Where did you Kyber crystals?" Her eyes were staring at them, all wide eyed with excitement.

"Will they be enough? They're only fragments."

"One will be plenty to get 2nd hand hyper drive. New ones are too rare to even bother about." She replied.

"What ship do you have?" I asked. She smiled at me and led to the back of the sand hut.

"A really old one." She said, looking out of the window. "It's a T-47 Airspeeder. Or, the majority of it is."

"Can we get a hyperdrive that'll get us to D'Qar?"

"Almost certainly" She replied.

She grabbed a bag and I followed her and C4 out the front door and into the town.

I felt bad for Finn; I had no idea if he was dead or alive. There were no visible tracks and a search party had been looking for him all day. I also had no chance of finding BB-8, I had no idea where to start looking. For now, the most sensible thing to do would be to get back the Resistance, and Attora was the best bet I had.

Attora's POV

It didn't take that long to find the part. We found a fully functioning hyperdrive at Greggo's Engine Shack. He charged us three Kyber fragments for it, which was severely overpriced. C4 lugged the part back to my shack and only took another hour to fix it in. I checked it was working before causing C4 to pack. My droid had the ability to compact itself into a box, the poles holding is head detached and reconnected to form a handle.

I left Poe to find somewhere to store C4 while I packed the small amount of belongings I had, not forgetting the Rebel Alliance badge that Poe had pointed out this morning, I also had to drop the keys off at Pucko and Vara's.

When I got there, I knocked on the door. It was opened by a young Twi-Lek girl known as Shenti; she was adopted by Pucko and Vara after the Tuanul disaster. She was sweet, but very shy.

"Meme, Toro's here." Toro was what she called me. It meant strong sister in Twi-Lek, Meme was Twi-Lek for mother protector.

"Ok, darlin'. Hold on." With that, Shenti scarpered off. "Hello Attora, Pucko's in the kitchen." She hugged me, before then looking into my eyes. Her expression was sorrowful.

"Wash day by any chance?" I asked, trying to her cheer up.

"I knew the day would come where you'd leave. It was inevitable; you're too much of a free spirit to be trapped in a wasteland. You're mother's the same, or was the same. When she was-"

"Vara, please. Don't talk about my parent's if you're not going to tell me who they are." I begged her. I couldn't face any more sleepless nights wondering who they were and what they did.

I walked into the kitchen; the familiar smell of Pucko's cooking reminded me of coming home after a day of school at Cratertown's Youth Centre. Nothing but good memories there, it was where I had learned to fix and fly ships, fix various machinery. I learnt my trade there. Now I was leaving.

"I bought the keys and my last rent payment. I need to get back; Poe and I want to leave before nightfall." I told him.

"Keep the money. I don't need it. Just promise me you'll keep yourself as safe as possible and that you'll stay in contact?" He handed me an old metallic circular object. I looked at it, recognising what it was almost immediately. "It was left with you but was damaged. I've only just got it fixed as the parts are small and very fragile."

I smiled to myself, staring at the travel size hologram projector. I felt a single tear travel down my face and had no idea why.

"I need to go." I said, my voice breaking, as I whipped away the tear.

"Well hold on a second, we'll see you off." I nodded and the three of them followed me back down the road and round to the back of the hut I lived in.

I hugged the three of them goodbye before taking my place in the co pilot/gunman seat as Poe took the pilot seat. I was decent at flying but nowhere near Poe's level of expertise.

"You'll be fine. And you'll love it on D'Qar, no sand, no deadly heat and an engineer shack to die for." I know Poe was only trying to distract me, but I didn't need it.

"Thanks, but I'll be fine. I'm not nervous, I just don't fly much." I replied.

The feeling of leaving Jakku for the first time, possibly in my life, was amazing. Yes, I'd miss Pucko and Vara, they were as close to family as I'd probably ever get, and Shenti even though I didn't know her that well.

Seeing space for the first was even more amazing. The colours of the planets, the star systems, the different star ships flying around. The stories I'd been told over the years were nothing compared to the reality of it.

Landing on D'Qar blew my mind a third time. The people running around, the fact we had survived in a ship that hadn't flown since getting scrapped, the fact I was in another part of the galaxy.

Poe and I got out the ship and he smiled at me, it was a very cheeky smile but a smile none the less. My emotions took over and I hugged him, he hugged me back. I unloaded C4 and returned him to his normal slightly wonky and damaged state before Poe led me to the Base Hub to meet General Organa.

For the first time in my life, I felt free. And for the first time in my life, I was so nervous that I was on the border of shaking.

I stopped, hesitating. Poe looked back at me and I looked at him.

I took a deep breath to calm myself before I followed him into the Resistance Base.

And into my new life.