Author's Note: finally, I have finished this chapter after struggling for a while to know exactly what it would contain. This is not the full Chapter V. I cut a whole planned section from it because I still haven't finished it and I really want to share this latest part of The Rewrite with you. Thanks to all who have stayed faithful to this story. I hope you enjoy this chapter. The next one will come along very soon.

34 ABY
Jakku, The Western Reaches, Inner Rim
Niima Outpost

The heat of the desert day weighed down on the small settlement lost in the endless desert sands. Of the few villages and constructions to have been built on Jakku, Niima Outpost was the closest the desert world had to a hub. The others had been built in places where living was less likely to pose a threat in such a dangerous environment, locations spared the worse of the day's heat and the night's cold, shielded as best was possible from nocturnal and daily predators. Such settlements were few and far between, the number of people choosing to remain on Jakku limited to outcasts, worshipers of forgotten or forbidden faiths, scavengers and those unlucky enough to be stranded on such a forbidding world. The population of the world had increased thirty years prior as surviving soldiers from both sides of the battle that had littered Jakku's surface with casualties, both living and mechanical, had been marooned in the sands. Some had managed to repair ships or found ways to escape when visiting vessels had come from the sky, but many had remained behind, victims of circumstance and infortune. But even with the arrival of these unwitting settlers, the overall population of this backwater world had never exceeded that of a small city on a sparsely-populated Outer Rim word.

Niima Outpost was also born as a result of this battle, made to profit from and destined to grow because of the one resource that the galactic war had gifted to this world: the carcasses of the ships and war machines that had died there. The junk and valuable pieces they still held provided the one possibility of enrichment on Jakku. Niima the Hutt had understood that and decided that she would be the one who should benefit the most from such a trade. She had made sure to build her outpost close enough to the scrapyards to attract the scavengers who wished to sell their wares. And she had brought in smugglers to ferry the goods off world, reaping profits from all sides and dominating the scrap trade that proved the best way to survive on Jakku if one chose to remain there.

None knew what plans Niima had had for her outpost, if she planned to have a castle built in the sands of the desert world or if she merely wanted to guarantee her control over the scrap trade. Some even went as far to say that, with the gradual decline of the Hutt powers in the aftermath of the war, she planned to build her own city, one she hoped would rival Nal Hutta's and allow her to reign supreme over Huttkind. But such ideas were common hear-and-say, and Niima Outpost was no more than a collection of less than a dozen true buildings and various stands belonging to merchants of strange goods.

The only two places known throughout Jakku were located in the Outpost: the Concession Stand, a sheltered-blockhouse where all the junk was brought to be traded, and the Constabulary, a small shack at the Outpost's periphery where the only form of law enforcement present on Jakku was located.

When the day's heat started to turn with the course of the sun, scavengers from all parts converged on Niima, using the last hours of daylight to conduct trade and secure the only currency known to this world: supplies of food and water. Some of the smaller stands provided such things, but none could equal the Concession Stand's dominion of the trade. As such, Niima the Hutt's legacy was preserved. In more ways than one.

-0-

A speeder coursed along the sands, blurred in the distance by the heat rising from the desert bed and a trail of sand following it.

It passed through the archway that was the only attempt Niima Outpost had had at an artistic construction. A visiting scholar, a specialist of Hutt culture, had once explained that such construction could also be found on Hutt-dominated worlds throughout the galaxy, such as Teth, Tatooine and the Hutt world of Nal Hutta. The construction was the starting point for the fence that surrounded the Outpost and was rarely barred, but always guarded. Several militiamen were joined by thugs for hire, and they kept a close watch on the gate. Not for attacks from beyond the boundaries, but from within.

The speeder's rider didn't even bother to stop or even acknowledge the presence of the guards, just as they seemed not to notice or care that someone was entering the Outpost.

Parking the speeder close to the Concession Stand, the figure dismounted. Clad in beige strips of cloth that did not absorb heat, dark goggles and wrapping made-up a mask that shielded skin from sun and sand. The mask came away as the figure landed on flat-booted feet and revealed the face of a young woman, reddened and sweating from the heat. Strips of dark brown hair stuck to her face and she was panting. The rest of the mask came off as she no longer required its protection.

Rey's day had been long but fruitful: she had been scouring several of the big shipwrecks of the Graveyard of Giants, scaling into the confines of corridors and rafters to find the pieces that others either did not know about or were not confident enough to try and claim.

Rey had no such worries. Years of labouring in the scrapfields had made her sure-footed and she knew that nothing was impossible when one was willing to risk everything for it. She had no fear of pain or death. She had long gone beyond such concerns. She did not survive for her own sake, but for that of the people who had come to depend on her.

For the past few weeks, she had been working on the mammoth ship that locals had called the Mandallian. Far larger than several of the other ships put together, it was a beast that had been named for a giant of the wider galaxy and known to any who had survived in the galactic underworld. It would take several days to cross in its entirety by foot and had become a home to forgotten communities of hermits and predators who did not take kindly to outsiders. But Rey had long since learnt to avoid them. If they found her one day, it would be because she wanted them to.

Today, she had scavenged several parts that she knew would gain her a fair amount of supplies from Unkar Plutt, Niima Outpost's junk boss. Even so, the idea of dealing with the Crolute still made her sick. But he had dominated the scrap trade since Niima's death. Many had tried to kill him to claim his position but he had survived them all. Many preferred to stick with Unkar rather than let someone worse take over his business.

Rey unlocked the straps keeping her net in place and it fell to the grounds, the valuables she had collected cradled within. She pulled the net towards the Stand, where several tables were available for cleaning the items the scavengers collected. Unkar was capable of rejecting a piece, or even lowering the price, if he was given an unclean part. Rey would not give him the satisfaction of rejecting her.

After cleaning her parts for more than one hot hour, the young woman took her wears to the Stand's centre, where Unkar conducted his business from within a metallic stand that would protect him from attack by unhappy scavengers. And allow his thugs to take out the attacker before they could cause him harm.

Unkar looked over her pieces, as if appraising their worth. It was a little game that he enjoyed playing, to flout his domination over everyone who came to him for supplies. Rey stood patiently as he pretended to determine whether he would pay her for her wares. They both knew he would, the quality of her findings could not be dismissed.

'These pieces you brought me,' he said in a slow drone. '...are worth…'

He looked at her almost disdainfully before delivering his verdict: '…five portions'.

Rey had expected it as well. It was not as much as she had hoped, but she knew she was lucky. Many would be fortunate if they got even a whole portion for their finds.

Unkar slammed the promised pay on the shack's counter and Rey took it, turning away without a word. She was aware that the Crolute's eyes would be following her with distaste, as they always did. He had hated her since she had arrived to Jakku and she had hated him too. But they were both too useful to the other for them to act out.

Returning to her speeder, Rey was eager to return home for the night before another day of scavenging would force her up, a repetition that hadn't ended since she had come to this world. Not that she tried to escape this cycle. Coming to Jakku had allowed her to escape a life she no longer wanted to live. The one she had found in the desert may not be much, but it was the life she had chosen and she would live as long as she could, not for herself, but for those who were counting on her for survival.

As she reached her speeder, she heard a sound coming from nearby. Someone was whispering her name. She turned to see a child, dressed in filthy rags, beckoning to her. Recognizing him, she turned to follow him as he led her away from the Stand and closer to the makeshift huts of the merchants. Once they had reached cover from prying eyes, the boy turned to her.

'The Anchorites send their greetings,' he said, as subservient to her as he was to his masters.

'What do they want?' Rey asked, not unkindly. She knew many children such as this boy, taken into the orphanages of the desert by the hermits known as the Anchorites and made to live their lives in servitude to their strange religion.

'Nothing. But they want you to know before anyone else. A ship has come to Jakku.'

Rey almost sighed in exasperation. The Anchorites had always been strange, from the moment she had met them upon first coming to the desert. And their requests had always been strange. This one was no different.

'Ships come to Jakku every day, to collect the junk Unkar sells them. What do the Anchorites want me to do with this one?'

She doubted it was to steal it. The Anchorites had no need for ships; they did not intend to leave Jakku.

But the boy continued. 'This one is different. A fighter, similar to the ones who fought in the Great War of Times Past. And it has been shot down into the Goazon.'

This caught Rey's attention. A working fighter on Jakku! That was news that would attract attention. While the X-Wings and the TIEs of the "Great War of Times Past" had already provided countless parts to the junk trade, none of them were recent and their value even in the underworld was limited. Rey knew that a recent fighter's parts would have even Unkar giving away untold quantities of supplies so that he could sell them to visiting smugglers.

'Do the Anchorites know where in the Goazon this fighter was shot down?' she asked the boy.

'It was coming from Kelvin Ridge, that's all they know. They pray to the Consecrated that you will get to it first.'

Rey smirked. 'How kind of them. What do the Anchorites want in exchange for this information?'

The boy looked her in the eyes, as his masters insisted they do when delivering messages of upmost importance. 'The fighter will have a pilot. If he lives, the Anchorites want him to be delivered to them. Alive.'

Rey did not know what the Anchorites might want with this pilot, whether they intended to kill him or convert him to their faith. But she didn't even know whether there was a pilot. Most likely, but the odds of surviving a crash were second to none.

'Tell them I will check the fighter and let them know what I find. If I find anything.'

The boy bowed his head in submission. Pity welled in Rey at the fate of this young child forced against his will into a religion he never would have heard off had he not been born an orphan. She reached into her pack and handed him one of the rations she had gotten from Unkar. 'Take this,' she said kindly, a smile starting to tug at her lips, lighting up her soft features. 'You need to eat before you return to the Anchorites.'

The boy's eyes shone for the briefest of instants as he looked at the offered food but they steeled before he answered. 'The Anchorites will feed me when I return… if I return.' And he turned away from her, disappearing among the shacks.

Rey put the ration back into her pack. She had seen many children like this one, and she knew that they knew nothing except servitude to the Anchorites. But she had seen something else shine in the eyes of the boy as she had offered the food, and heard the doubt in his words about the odds of his return to the orphanage. He would return she knew, and maybe he would start asking himself questions. It was a dangerous path, but so was the life that the Anchorites forced on their orphans. Maybe her generosity would allow the boy to see that he didn't have to be the indentured servant he had been brought up to be.

Turning away, she made for her speeder. She needed to find the fighter before anyone else did. The Goazon was large and the odds of finding it were slim. But she suspected the damage would allow her to find it and she had an idea on where she needed to look.

That was more than enough to find it.