Entry # 6

Pliers and screwdriver in hand, Greyer squared up the offending panel. Years of grime, dust and basic entropy took their toll on Greyer's ship. This particular panel covered wiring that Greyer needed to get at. Conventional means hadn't given her access, so unconventional it was.

She jimmied the screwdriver under the panel's lip, and gently applied force, but it didn't budge. She used the plier to pinch the panel and raise it a little more, so her screwdriver could have more leverage.

"Don't make me hurt you," Greyer growled at it as if the problematic panel had sentience. She huffed and applied her full weight to the screwdriver. Nothing. "You know I'm trying to help you, right?"

The panel made no discernible attempt to answer. It remained attached to the wall, unmoving.

"Fine," Greyer admitted defeat. "Have it your way."

She put her tools back in her belt and took a step back. She cleared her mind, raised her hand, and gently applied Force powers, wrapping her mind and will around the offender.

The panel started to come loose slowly. Years of trapped sands trickled from the openings she'd created. A quiet pop signaled that she'd pulled it off. It hung there, suspended above the floor by the Force. She summoned it to her open hand, and set it aside for later.

It was a mundane use for something so powerful. Not to mention, a risk, but Greyer knew she was safe. There was no one besides her in the freighter. No one was around to see her use the Force here.

Layers and layers of sand were on the floor from when the panel was pulled free, and it looked like Greyer had even more to remove if she even hoped to work on the wiring.

"That explains why you were so stubborn. Poor thing has more sand than wiring."

Greyer began to dust off her work area. It could easily take a few hours for her to clear all the built-up grime simply to work on the wiring, and for all she knew, it'd be even longer before she found her problem.

But grime, gunk, and sand didn't bother Greyer any more. It hadn't for a while.

She'd spent what little free time she had over her two years on Jakku fixing this ship. The built-up grit in the systems wasn't about to stop her. It'd slow progress down, sure, but that never stopped it.

Greyer was determined to have a flight-worthy ship sooner or later. It'd been too long since she'd been among the stars above.

Her already dirty rag became dirtier, collecting dust as best it could, but it wasn't much good. She'd need years to clear Jakku's sands from the internal workings of her ship.

Greyer nodded after a while. Satisfied with her cleaning, she felt ready to tackle the wiring issue.

It wouldn't be easy. Removing the grime and dust hadn't revealed her problem. All the wires looked to be intact. Nothing disconnected, nothing cut, nothing obviously problematic.

"I'll have to turn off the power connectors, and test all of them, won't I?" Greyer muttered, starting to feel this was more time than it's worth.

Greyer pulled out a power reader, hoping that would divine out her problem.

It didn't.

Admitting defeat, Greyer reached for the connector and flipped it and waited.

She was looking for whichever wire was degraded, and the computer from talking to the hyperdrive. That was kind of important to becoming space-worthy.

"Let's see," Greyer hummed to herself, and so began her long task.

The power reader was useless without power circulating through the panel, so Greyer set it aside for the time being. A controlled battery and a wire with an attachment clamp served her better.

Attaching the battery to each individual wire was a slow process, but Greyer saw no other way around it.

Greyer hummed a half-forgotten melody from years ago as she went through the wires one by one. There must have been a few hundred wires to go through and eliminate the good from the bad. A green marker held between her teeth would be the only way she could denote the ones she'd need to replace.

One wire after another passed through her fingers and was adequately marked, but a bad one hadn't come up just yet. She was starting to wonder if she'd be forced to replace the whole thing. How was she supposed to find something like that around Niima Outpost?

Maybe Rey would find something that would work, but Greyer doubted it. She doubted that anything scrapped from Empire ships would work, even Rebel Alliance parts were dubious. Parts from downed X-Wings or Y-Wings would work in a pinch, but she didn't want to be in a pinch if she could help it. Spacefaring could be a real bitch when things weren't done correctly.

Eventually, Greyer got in a flow. Attaching, testing, detaching and repeating the process over and over. Humming to herself as she went. It could have been minutes or hours before Greyer came out of her thoughtful, deep work.

Greyer sensed something. Her eyes narrowed and her shoulders tensed. She knew she wasn't alone on her ship.

She set the battery pack on the inside lip of the paneling and reached for her lightsaber on her belt. The durasteel casing was cool to the touch, the familiar feeling reassuring.

With quiet steps, Greyer moved through her ship. She sensed that the intruder hadn't ventured farther in, but Greyer wasn't about to greet them. She'd rather hide in her ship's innards than deal with a thief or attacker.

If someone were looking around for anything more than a score, Greyer would rather be unseen. The smuggler's hidden compartments could serve her well.

"Hey?" the intruder called from somewhere near the back of her ship. "Off-Worlder, you in there?"

Greyer breathed a sigh of relief. She recognized that unpleasant voice.

"What do you want, Plutt?" she demanded. She walked slowly towards the ship's entrance and kept a hand on her lightsaber.

She'd distrusted Unkar Plutt since their first meeting. He'd made her pay out the wazoo for her ship and for any additional parts. Greyer also felt jealousy and contempt towards her whenever they spoke.

Greyer suspected that the Crolute would have happily gotten rid of her and taken over her moisture farm and take back her ship if he could. But fighting off the Veni gang proved she wasn't to be messed with.

Labored breathing could be easily heard from Plutt as she approached. He was waiting for her. At least he was being somewhat polite.

"What do you want?" Greyer repeated. She kept a cold shoulder towards the junk boss, weakness wasn't an option around Plutt.

"Have you seen Rey recently?" Plutt bellowed too loudly for Greyer's comfort.

She shook her head. "No, I haven't. Has something happened to her?"

"I dunno," the junk boss bellowed. "Probably fell or something. It happens to junkers."

Her hazel eyes narrowed. "Then why come to see me?"

That made Plutt hesitate. He shifted from one foot to another and looked anywhere on Jakku but Greyer. The junk boss finally settled on some star just above her.

"I dunno," he finally responded. "Thought she might have come seen you, or somethin'."

"I haven't."

"Well, if you do see, lemme know."

With that, the Crolute walked off into Jakku's evening.

Greyer watched him go with suspicion. Once he was out of sight, she moved her hand away from her lightsaber.

"What was that about?" she thought, scanning the horizon towards Rey's home.

Greyer thought for a moment, and it did not take long for her to become worried. While Greyer might see Rey two or three times a week, just like any other resident of Niima Outpost, Plutt should be seeing Rey far more than Greyer. But if he hadn't seen Rey in a while that concern Greyer.

"Hmm…"

One maternal instinctual decision later, Greyer closed up her ship and hopped on her speeder bike. She knew where Rey's home was. She passed it daily on her way to the vaporators, but she'd never had a reason to visit until now.

The outline of an AT-AT on its side came into view, dark, against the clear night sky. There was no light to be seen from inside the husk of a former warm machine. That shouldn't have worried Greyer, but it did. No smart scavenger would have had lights on for long, and Rey was smart.

Greyer reached out and into the Force. She easily sensed the life force of everything around her. The spider-like gnaw-jaws and rodent scittermice passed around her speeder bike.

But Greyer extended her senses reach as far as she could, consequences be damned. To her relief, she felt a human's life force in the AT-AT's husk.

"Good, good," Greyer murmured and increased her speed. She was almost there.

Relief washed over Greyer as she pulled her speeder between the legs of Rey's home.

"Rey?" Greyer called up. The presence Greyer sensed from inside felt like a contradiction. Rey was strong in the Force but physically weak. That worried Greyer more than anything else.

"Rey?" she called again. No response.

Greyer leaped from her speeder, pulled her flashlight to her open hand with the Force, and rushed to find the entrance. The shifting sands impeded her quick movements, and she almost slipped down a dune in her impatience.

"How the kriff do you get in here, Rey?" the former Padawan swore, hurrying towards the head of the AT-AT and she found it. "Finally!"

It was a secondary entrance that finally let Greyer in. She knocked but got no answer because she didn't wait for one.

Greyer all but crawled her way into the AT-AT's husk and shone her flashlight around. She called out again, "Rey!"

A weak moan commanded Greyer's attention. She wanted to reach for her lightsaber as she went, but decided against it. Igniting it in such a tight space was never a good idea.

"Rey," Greyer said once again.

"I'm here," Rey responded weakly. Greyer's light finally fell on a mass of rags and blankets full of holes. She spotted movement underneath within.

Crawling over uneven metal and hurried to Rey's sleeping area. Greyer gently pulled blankets and rags and miscellaneous scraps of cloth off Rey's form. She moved the flashlight to the crook of her neck and held it there, so she could use both hands to get to Rey.

When she'd pulled enough away to see Rey's form, Greyer forced herself to take a deep breath. The younger girl was unmoving and her eyes barely opened despite Greyer's light shining in her face.

"It's going to be alright, Rey," she murmured. She raised the back of her hand to Rey's forehead, and it confirmed her suspicions. "Kriff! You're burning up, but I've got you."

Greyer checked Rey's pulse and breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn't too weak yet.

"It's going to be okay."

Rey only moaned in response.

With a deep huff, Greyer pulled the younger onto her shoulders. Careful not to hurt Rey as she went, Greyer moved through the AT-AT back towards her speeder bike. She did, at least, turn off the flashlight. She was certain that light would only attract more attention than she already had.

Entry # 7

It'd been three days since Greyer brought Rey to her ship. Three days that she hadn't slept or eaten or done any work at all. She'd stayed by Rey's side, and kept a damp rag on the younger girl's forehead, hoping for Rey's fever to break.

But, Rey didn't appear to be getting better.

Greyer thought the fever broke when Rey woke on the second day, long enough to eat whatever Greyer prepared. But wakefulness was deceiving. Rey's eyes hardly tracked the spoon Greyer used to feed her, and she'd gone back to sleep as soon as she'd had her fill.

Day four dawned in the east, and Greyer knew she had to do something different. She replaced the damp rag on Rey's forehead with a new one and tucked her in the ship's bunk before quietly heading deeper into her ship.

When Greyer had come to Jakku, she hadn't brought much with her. Though, she hadn't owned much to begin with. Being trained as a Jedi Padawan and working for years as a Resistance reconnaissance officer didn't bring in much money or personal possessions. It was unsurprising, then, that she hadn't brought much with her.

What she had brought with her were essential supplies and what few personal possessions that could fit in a small bag.

The best supplies were used to buy her ship and those leftovers ran out long ago, but her personal effects were well hidden. There were plenty of secret spaces in her ship, and one of those smuggler's compartments kept her treasures safe.

Mostly, she kept things that others wouldn't value. Holo-pictures of her mother, father, brother, uncle, and godfather. A piece of her mother's jewelry she'd like as a child. Even a hard copy of a sonogram Greyer preferred not to look at was hidden away there.

But as Greyer removed the false paneling that wasn't what she was after. In amongst the strongbox of personal treasures were some actual treasures.

"Where'd I put that bag?" She rummaged through her the strongbox, shifting through forged documents and false identities she also kept on hand. Just under those were her sentimental items, and in the corner under everything else was her prize. "There it is!"

Greyer pulled out a small pouch, weighed down by everything it contained. She opened the drawstring pouch and felt around.

A shiver ran through her hand and down her spine the moment her fingers touched the cold crystals within. A responsive hum reverberated through the Force. She pulled one of the small, pointed crystals out.

Between her fingers was a thin, elongated pure white crystal. Kyber. This was one of her treasures.

In all her strange adventures through the galaxy, she'd found several kyber crystals and collected them. Even if she felt no response from the crystals, Greyer took it with her, hoping to one day find someone the crystal might choose, someone who she could teach to use the Force.

But, kyber was valuable.

Greyer didn't like her prospects, but it was her best option. She didn't like parting with it, but she'd do what she needed to do.

"I'm sorry," she whispered.

Greyer put the single crystal in a pouch on her belt and returned her collection to the safety of the strongbox. She hid it away again behind the false paneling.

"Stay safe," Greyer muttered, patting the panel.

A soft moaning summoned her back to the bunks. Rey had rolled over in her bunk. Greyer put a hand to the younger girl's forehead, she was still burning up.

"It's going to be okay, Rey," Greyer whispered, patting Rey's hand gently.

Greyer was the first one at Plutt's stand, the Concession Stand as everyone but Plutt called it. She'd bet all of her kyber crystals and her lightsaber that Plutt would have medicine for a hefty ransom.

"What are you doing here, Off-Worlder?" Plutt barked. "I buy your water, what do you want from me?"

She returned his remarks with a cold stare, making him wait for her response.

"I have business with you," the former Padawan finally said in her coldest tone. "Do you know what this is?"

She held the crystal aloft with the points of it between her index finger and thumb.

Plutt reacted instantly. His recognition was so powerful that Greyer didn't need to clear her mind to sense it through the Force.

But the junk boss kept his thoughts from his features. Greed overpowered the sense of recognition, he wanted her crystal and he wanted it for the cheapest he could get it.

"It's junk," the junk boss said with a straight face. "One-quarter portion."

He reached for the dehydrated food pack.

"I know what this is worth," Greyer stated, graduating her gaze to a glare. "If you're ignorant, then let me enlighten you."

That made the junk boss hesitate.

"This is a kyber crystal. Pure. Uncut. Untainted. But if it's really worth nothing to you, I'm sure I can find someone who knows what it's worth."

Greyer started to retract her hand to put it in her belt pouches. If Plutt wouldn't have it, someone on Jakku would want it.

"Wait!" Plutt barked. It didn't take a genius to see that Greyer wasn't to be swindled out of her kyber. "I can offer you eighty portions."

"Eighty portions is a helluva difference," Greyer said slowly. She could still mess this negotiation up. "But I don't want your portions. I'll give you my kyber crystal for all the medicine you can give me."

"Half!" the Crolute doomed.

Greyer maintained her glare, trying her best to make Plutt squirm. She sensed it working to some degree. The junk boss was very aware that he couldn't intimidate her.

"Half of you best," she said. Greyer stilled her thoughts and listened to the Force. She needed to know how honest the Crulute was being. Her kyber crystals would not be sold for fake or defective medicine.

Greed, frustration, anger, and general pettiness exuded from Plutt. Generally, decent people called it assholery, and Greyer agreed.

But, even assholes can be honest when forced to, and that was the position Plutt was in.

"Only the best."

Plutt began putting dark glass bottles, bottles of pills, and other miscellaneous medical supplies on the counter. Even basic feminine products were placed there for her taking.

Greyer delicately her placed the kyber down and waited.

"There." The supplies were pushed forward. Greyer slid the crystal to Plutt's side of the Concession Stand.

She took her sweet time placing the medicine in her satchel. It wasn't her goal to make Plutt squirm even longer. Greyer didn't want to damage anything because she was hasty. It was just an added bonus that the junk boss didn't like it.

Author Note:

I hope you enjoy this chapter. More to come later on!

~Rayner out