Rey and Bee Bee continued onward for several hours. The little gyromech had recognized a couple smaller landmarks, confirming that whatever impulse had led the duo in this direction had indeed been right. They were still quite a distance away, however.
Rey had forgotten how to question her sense of direction, in much the same way she had forgotten her ability to thirst or hunger, or to question where she came from. It was a very special kind of delirium, the Jakkui Focus; that was what those few who discussed it would call the phenomenon, anyway. A trance which disregards all other mental faculties as if they did not exist.
Her eyes acknowledged the insectlike vehicles in the air without a first thought, much less a second. And any fellow junkers they passed, few though they were estimated to be. She didn't think of the fact that at least one among these was mounted, nor the weapons they all carried, nor anything of that sort. Just keep moving, don't stop, don't look back. Just forward.
Eventually, she registered enough of her face was sweating to warrant she take the time to put on her bandanna and goggles. Just this simple motion broke her of the Focus. She finally saw the world around her as if for the first time. Not much wreckage in her vicinity, but…
In the distance, a Star Destroyer. Through the lenses of her goggles, she picked out a similar capitalship a little father off. Both had stabbed their noses to the ground as if it would pass around them like so many obedient little children. Something about this image made her scoff, bouncing the burning air off the sandcloth and back into her mouth and nose.
Maybe there'd be pieces of these that had not yet been stripped. Fat chance, but very possible. Or maybe she'd find these had been deposited more recently. Fat chance of that, too, but the battle overhead could not stagnate without a steady stream of losses.
This had her looking up—it really was much the same. But… larger now, as if—!
"I believe we're coming closer," she commented to Bee Bee. "That is, if…?" Beep. "Then I've done something to help cross the land. We're not done yet." This last bit wasn't quite directed to anyone outside herself.
After finishing her little monologue, she continued on her way. Bee Bee matched her pace with her step for step, revolution for revolution.
She found that this verbosity had contaminated her focus. She could not voice her thoughts to her own brain anymore. They just came out.
"I hope my family do everything they can to find me. I hope they turn up empty. That Unkar bakes in Hel. Wiles falls to his death. The Teedos are shot off the skiff with their heads gone." Bee Bee took this in, noting pragmatically how day-to-day survival requirements affect a person's state of mind. And it did not affect her sense of direction in the slightest. Besides, what could he do to stop her? Beep twice? Beep three times?
"Whatever it is you need, I'm not just doing this for you. I'm doing it because I needed away from there. You'll help me escape this place." Again, Bee Bee considered this as making a decent amount of sense. He turned his attention to the world around them: much the same assessment as Rey. Something she could not (consciously) sense, however, was the magnetic potency of this region. As Poe and Finn had both mentioned many times, this world had Net Station for a legitimate reason.
"…And I… It'll be the dirtiest, saddest pile of junk you can conjure, but it'll have speed unlike any other. Once we reach space, I'll…" She trailed off, suddenly remembering what she did not know. Space. She knew nothing of the World Up There. Obviously, since the fighting had started some time after her earliest memories, it had not always been there. There had to be something more, yet…
It would not be this world, all she could ever remember. It would be unlike even her wildest dreams and fantasies, for better or worse. And that was exactly how she wanted it. No matter what, she would win.
"Except, of course, if it's all just Jakku—dirt and wreckage and distant giants you can't touch." She chuckled humorlessly. "That'd make this all for nothing, wouldn't it?" Beep. Staccato beep. One and a half? "That wasn't a yes or a no, was it?" Beep. Beep.
They just kept walking. Slowly, something crept up inside Rey. Some feeling that she would be wise to prepare for the worst. That the worst was still to come. And it was, she had reasoned logically.
Bee Bee pointed out a First Order ornithopter to her as it flew overhead. Hurriedly, she thought of it as a gigantic, lumbering beast with hundreds of eyes but terribly poor vision. She gathered the little droid under herself and crouched over him, letting her sunbaked sandcloth become the surface of the changing desert. She remained there as it passed overhead, breathing calmly until its engine's register was long gone in another direction. Then she gathered herself on her feet, let the droid roll his sphere till its little body was stretched out, or however droids themselves thought of it.
Soon she passed under the shadow of the nearer Star Destroyer. It was even taller in person—one of the tallest she'd ever seen. It was a newer design, or else a far older one, although that was far less likely. It was thicker around the middle, squatter, honestly uglier. Made all the Star Destroyers she'd seen in the past look shapely. The faded emblem on its hull was distinct, too: a hexagonal shell around a ring of inward spikes. New Republic, perhaps? No, that seemed unlikely. She'd seen the New Republic emblem before, this was completely separate.
The First Order.
That was indeed what it was.
"Hopefully there's more variety in the coming days," she rambled. "If the debris is all like this, they won't be too pleased." Again, no response from Bee Bee, none needed.
The next Star Destroyer, unfortunately, was the same model, but out of their way. All the better for it, Rey decided.
Something hot whizzed past her; the report of the blaster it was fired from came chasing after.
"Get behind me," Rey said calmly.
Another shot. Another. Both little red sparks given direction, given purpose. She could follow it—opposite direction from what she'd expected.
"Other 'behind me'," she corrected. Her staff was out, crackling. Her eyes were sharp. Ahead of her, stretching indefinitely, was a glassy mirage which must've been infected with some sort of black fog. Another blood-red blaster bolt reflected and refracted off every molecule of disturbed air, emerging to streak past her again. The black virus became smaller, condensed, focused. She gripped her staff even tighter, planting her feet in a fighting stance. And again, the report came far too late.
She had some distant, tongue-in-cheek thought of catching and deflecting those blaster bolts with her staff itself, arms and hands circling almost at the speed of light. Funny thought, wouldn't help her now.
But another funny thought: they would die if they stayed here. Another rule of Jakkui Economy: You stay there, you die there.
A hoarse whisper: "New plan: run." The droid did. More blaster fire behind them, now assuming some kind of constant rhythm, perhaps some musical motif—she didn't know much of music, but the grasping of an idea is still there. She ran for all she could, like a bug in the dirt, and Bee Bee was an even smaller bug. If a bolt went right and the next went left, she leaned her orientation to the right, and vice versa. Exactly as the Hunter wanted.
He had dismounted, Sensing his quarry would play into his hands on foot. He drew the square hilt—a blastersaber, raised it to chest-level, fired off at them. Not shooting directly, but dictating the path in which they would run. Coolly, with all the ease of shooting big game since childhood, he measured his steps forward. He could feel the rising panic in his target's protector. She would breathe heavily, sweat uncontrollably to have the fluids cycled through back into her system. She would run herself to hysteria and exhaustion if only he kept on her.
Rey knew both of those things would happen to her, too. She still had her staff. Recognizing this mistake, she took a blink to reprimand herself, and turn to face her opponent. The pale monster's mask popped against the cloudy black garb. The glare off his weapon was just as ferocious and painful as those blasts.
"Bee Bee, keep going. I'll catch up if I can!" She didn't stop to see if he acknowledged
She dug her feet. Again decided against that, ran at him. The steady wump-woomf-wampf of her staff swaying in her left hand was perhaps the most reassuring thing her senses were telling her.
The Hunter saw this change, although to Rey he seemed to have no reaction. Like he'd wanted her to act like this. His shooting arm came down. He has another weapon—in his other hand. Yet…
Neither hand moved. She was within thirty feet of him. Twenty. Still nothing. Fifteen. Twelve. Ten. Eight. Seven. Six.
His red lightsaber emerged once she reached five feet. This caught Rey offguard, though letting herself become shocked was not permitted. She raised her staff to cross the blade. The Knight of Ren was ready. His blade twisted and was pointed down, ready to catch her as she charged him.
She tilted her staff to knock the saber upward, shoving down to buzz him in the leg. She heard a hardly-whispered grunt of pain, but no more. She couldn't keep track of that blade on her own, heard a blaster much closer this time, something searing through her flesh, sending a poot noise through her cyclesuit over the hum of the two melee weapons. They held there, clashing for a moment, then the Ren deactivated his saber. Somehow she caught the trick, again getting under the blade and catching it as it reactivated, using her weight to throw the enemy backwards.
He slid a little, caught his balance, started forward as if running without moving. His saber was extended straight forward, burning like the flames of Hel. Thankfully, she also had the reach advantage. Remembering some old Holo of a solid-weapon joust, she slammed her staff directly into him. Later, she would realize she had no idea how this could've worked.
Now Rey started running, before even seeing him double over. Bee Bee must've been a ways off, she couldn't see him up ahead. But she knew he was out there, just waiting for her to catch up. She kept her staff active as she ran.
Behind her, Serbris Ren made some internal swear. But his Sense told him that he had indeed trapped her. A perspective outside his own would see her helpless. But he would need to follow through on his part in it.
He walked back to his speeder with a gimp in his leg. That weapon really packed a wallop. And something had flowed through her as well… Survivors on this world needed every advantage they could get, after all. If he caught his prey again, he would make it a victory to saver.
Rey was panting by the time she found Bee Bee. A glance at the ground where she stood told her the leak in her cyclesuit was very bad. A steady drip of recycled fluids—and some extra—colored the brown sands grey.
"I'll need to fix that. Soon. How close are we to your destination?" Beep. Beep. She sighed with some withheld anger. Quietly, then (almost) screaming to herself. "Within. A day's. Walk?" Beep. "Good! Forget the stupid cyclesuit!" She resumed walking, panting. A lifetime of various injuries could make a junker forget the danger of pain.
And painless wounds.
Ahead, another junker party. One large vessel's silhouette split in two. Then three. It found its final shape as four forms approaching from her horizon. Her staff was still activated.
In all this time trusting the weapon as a tool she could not live without, Rey'd never questioned how it did not lose charge. Its manufacturer, whose logo had long since faded and been scratched to oblivion, would say this: "Focusing crystals and some self-sustaining circuitry—just like the lightsabers your droids will take for you!"
But compared to whatever that black figure had been, she could handle a few unruly neighbors. That was, if they approached them at all.
No need to question that possibility; they never once broke away. Just kept coming for her. As was the Jakkui way, approach is a declaration of war.
"I suppose I'm ready to kill. Again." Her first time killing, she'd been unable to count her years. It was foggy, but it had been a wild animal. Or an aggressive junker, maybe both. She'd used something sharp, had held the thing inside the creature until it stopped moving. After that, she couldn't remember whether she'd started giggling or crying.
One speeder approached before the others—a big one hiding a big rider behind a big grille.
"Be ready to run. Not yet, though." Jakkui instinct. Instinct could be wrong, however, or otherwise influenced.
"Pwazhka zhoh'do krii'keé!" The rider started laughing, swinging the larger speeder 'round so he could face Rey. Tailed, fangs fighting to escape his mouth. Forked tongue. He laughed and said some other things Rey would never claim she could understand.
She ran at him, staff raised but not extended. That tail caught her before she could remember that appendage was more than just a balancing piece. It slammed the staff from her hand, knocked it to the ground. She herself was thrown against the hull of the ship, the heat coming off its engines making her more than just wince. Again with the syllables she could not understand. She tried using her arms, her legs, anything to push herself free. No use. She stopped flailing. If there were opportunities later, there'd be opportunities later.
The heat from the metal hull of this speeder was not even enough to cause a first-degree burn in the medical sense, but it hurt. Scalding. She wanted to get the words out to tell Bee Bee to run, but her jaw was pinned by a jutting cube of metal. This brill's made a routine of this, hasn't he?
The other three vehicles approached. The tail's pin against her back fluctuated; never enough to let her free. Talking in what sounded like several different languages, or else just mismatched accents. Fast talking. Cackling. Heavy breathing.
Droid noises. Whirring of servomotors. Rapid beeping. Other noises Rey didn't have a name for.
Finally, she heard something in a tongue she could understand.
"A human! We could use a human. Young, in decent shape, nothing undesirable except maybe that she's not one of us."
"That's the way it goes, isn't it?" She replied. First mistake, wasn't it? The tail released its grip on her, spilling her to the ground. She tried getting to her feet, was slammed down again.
She tried getting up one more time, this time not getting to her feet but simply to her knees. She was not denied this.
In front of her were two other speeders and the main barge. Every thug in front of her had a bladed weapon in their hand—claw, forepaw, talons, she couldn't keep track of all of them. Eight total—two on other speederbikes, six on or around the main barge. Everything was Franksterred together in that way only the Jakkui can Frankster anything.
The leader emerged as the skinny, tall one with the white hair, porcine face and blood-red lips, parting the crowd on the barge to make way for him. Tusks were never a good sign, either. But it was the leader who had spoken to her.
"Human. Traveling alone. Except…" A snap of clawed fingers had the speeder rider on Rey's left bringing out a net. Same trick she—and the Teedo before her—had used.
"Smoerlzo-Jakkuj'ii! Today is a good day!" His thugs momentarily echoed the statement as a cheer—whoops, hollers, ululations.
They dragged both the droid and the girl to the main barge.