Finn staggered between the tents and denizens of Niima Outpost with mild heat delirium. Not a single one of the scavengers or militiamen paid him any attention besides the usual disdain they had for outsiders. His pleas for water were met with dismissive grunts at best, and threats of violence at worst.

Finn groaned weakly and leaned heavily against the support pole of a cookware stall's awning, drawing a rude look and grumble of annoyance from the owner. The sound of splashing water from somewhere behind him made immediately perk up and he spun around. A great beast known as a happabore was drinking from a sizeable water trough.

Happabores are the larger Devaronian cousins to the Jakku luggabeast and are found in many lands and climates as beasts of burden. While relatively patient and docile, they have been known to gore people with their assortment of tusks if provoked.

Finn ran towards the water trough at full speed, not caring that a large creature was drinking from it. He fell to his knees beside the trough and started scooping water into his mouth as quickly as he could. It wasn't until after the fourth mouthful that he realized just how foul the water tasted.

He sputtered and grimaced, but was too dehydrated to be picky about where he got the water from. Once more, Finn scooped up handfuls of water and sucked them down.

Rey was in the middle of perusing the offerings of a trinket stall when she felt a rough tap on her shoulder. She spun around to see one of Unkar Plutt's thugs, who seemed to be quite upset about something. While speaking with him, Rey saw another thug come up beside her with a hemp sack and throw it over Bibi-Eit.

"What? Oi! Get off of him!" Rey planted a kick straight to the second thug's jaw, knocking him away.

The first thug, taking advantage of Rey's back being turned towards him, put his arms under Rey's own and lifted her off the ground. Rey yelped and flailed her legs, requiring the thug to adjust his hold. Unfortunately for him, his forearm came up to mouth level and Rey sank her teeth deeply into his flesh.

The happabore grew tired of sharing its water and nudged Finn away with enough force to knock him onto his backside. For a moment, Finn was upset that he was deprived of more water, but a commotion nearby distracted him from the thought.

A woman wearing white robes befitting a desert dweller was fighting against a pair of rather rough looking attackers. Finn couldn't repay Poe for saving him, but he could pay it forward. He clambered to his feet and sprinted towards the fray.

Rey swept the leg out from under one of the thugs with her staff. As he fell, Rey brought her knee up and planted it in his sternum. She jabbed the other thug in his gut with the end of her staff before whirling around and cracking him over the head as he reeled forward.

Finn slowed to a stop and stared at the woman and the two men groaning in pain at her feet. She pulled the sack off of a white and orange micronaut and knelt in front of it. Finn's jaw dropped. Could that be the micronaut that Poe was going back for?

Rey looked over Bibi-Eit. "Are you okay?"

Bibi-Eit chirped and warbled.

"They work for Unkar. That's the guy that wanted to buy you. He must have really wanted you for some reason."

Bibi-Eit noticed Finn slowly approaching and let out a trill of alarm. He beeped and chirped rapidly to Rey.

Rey's face hardened. "Who?"

Bibi-Eit turned and looked directly at Finn.

Rey's gaze followed. "Him?" She stood and took off towards Finn at a full sprint.

It took several crucial seconds for Finn to decide to start running. He weaved between stalls and market goers, his aching muscles protesting. Finn glanced back to find that the woman was no longer behind him.

Something hit him in the side of the knee and Finn dropped like a stone landing on his back. He grunted as a foot pinned him to the ground and looked up to see the woman baring her teeth with the end of her staff in his face.

"What's your hurry, thief?"

Finn winced as she leaned into the pin. "What? Thief?"

Bibi-Eit rolled up beside him and ignited his welding torch.

Finn panicked. "Whoa! What are you talking about?"

"The jacket you're wearing," Rey explained. "The automaton says you stole it."

Finn softly half laughed, half cried on the edge of a breakdown. "I've had a pretty messed up day, all right? So I'd appreciate it if you stop accusing me of-"

Bibi-Eit turned up the flame.

Finn yelped. "Wait!"

"Where did you get it? It belongs to his master."

Finn sighed. He was right. "It belonged to Poe Dameron. That was his name, right?"

Bibi-Eit extinguished his torch.

Finn continued. "He was captured by the First Order. I helped him escape, but our fighter crashed." He looked to Bibi-Eit apologetically. "Poe didn't make it..."

Bibi-Eit moaned sadly.

"I tried to help him. I'm sorry."

The little micronaut slowly rolled away.

Rey removed her foot from Finn's chest and her staff from his face. "So you're with the Resistance?"

Finn blinked. "Obviously." He hopped to his feet. "Yes, I am. I'm with the Resistance." He flinched and looked around to see if anyone had noticed his statement. "I am with the Resistance," he whispered.

Rey nodded imperceptibly. "I've never met a Resistance fighter before."

"Well this is what we look like. Some of us. Others look different."

Rey turned her head to look towards the morose micronaut. "Bibi-Eit says he's on a secret mission. He has to get back to your base."

Finn nodded. "Apparently, he has a map that leads to Luke Skywalker and everyone's after it."

Rey turned back to Finn with a twinkle in her eye. "Luke Skywalker? I thought he was a myth."

Any response Finn had was interrupted by Bibi-Eit rapidly chirping a warning.

Rey gasped. "What?" She followed the micronaut, and Finn followed her.

At the far end of the market, a pair of stormtroopers were speaking to one of Unkar Plutt's thugs. The thug pointed in the direction of Rey and Finn and the stormtroopers started running towards them with their guns at the ready.

Finn grabbed Rey's hand. She tried to pull it away. "What are you doing?"

"Come on!" Finn started running, leading Rey by the hand.

The stormtroopers opened fire, their bullets hitting the various pieces of junk on display. Yells and screams erupted from customer and vendor alike and panicked people scattered in every direction.

Finn and Rey ran as fast as they could, with Bibi-Eit following closely behind. Bullets whizzed past them, striking metal and wood. Clouds of sand dust kicked up by the stampede of people covered their escape for the time being, but they wouldn't last.

Rey tried to pull her hand back again. "Let go of me!"

Finn didn't listen. "Come on! We've got to move!"

"I know how to run without you holding my hand!" Rey successfully yanked her hand free.

There was a brief pause in the gunfire when the pursuing stormtroopers reloaded, but when it resumed, the shots started to land much closer.

"This way," Rey yelled, veering to the right. "Bibi-Eit, stay close!"

The stormtroopers lost sight of their quarry and came to a halt. One of them tapped the comm crystal on his vambrace. "Call in the bombers."

Finn beckoned Rey into a tent. She and Bibi-Eit followed and Rey took a moment to try to process what was happening. "They're shooting at both of us."

"Yeah," confirmed Finn as he pawed through the tent's assorted junk in search of a weapon. "They saw you with me. You're marked."

"Well, thanks for that," Rey huffed.

"Hey! I'm not the one who chased you down with a stick!" Finn roared in frustration. "Does anyone have guns around here?!"

Rey knelt down. "Are you okay, Bibi-Eit?"

The micronaut started to chirp in the affirmative, but was hushed by Finn. There was a deep droning sound that was just on the edge of hearing, but was definitely growing louder. Finn recognized it immediately. It was the sound of engines, but it was not from TIE fighters.

Finn grabbed Rey's hand again, and started running.

"Stop taking my hand!"

Finn glanced behind as he and Rey ran. Three enormous batwinged silhouettes were coming in from the sea.

These were First Order TIE bombers, massive flying machines that pushed the technology and materials to the limit. These beasts flew on two sets of wings, each twice as long as an old sailing caravel with an engine on each.

The bellies of the TIEs opened, revealing horizontal racks of round bombs. Rey and Finn watched in horror as the bombs started to slide off the racks and fall to the ground. Deafening blasts and balls of fire filled Niima Outpost.

For a second, Rey's vision was a mix of orange, blue, and tan as she was thrown by one of the blasts. She landed face down in the sand with a loud ringing in her ears. When she lifted her head, her surroundings were completely unrecognizable.

Tents and awnings burned in piles on the ground. Metal, salvaged artifacts, and bodies lay scattered everywhere. Everything that she had known Niima Outpost to be for as long as she had lived there was gone.

As Rey continued to look around, she saw Finn laying on his back nearby. The screams of injured civilians started to penetrate the fading ringing in her ears as she scrambled over to Finn.

She shook him. "Hey. Come on," she pleaded.

Finn grunted and winced as he sat up. He looked Rey up and down. "Are you okay?"

Rey looked down at herself. Her clothes had some tears, but she wasn't injured. "Yeah. I think so."

Bibi-Eit rolled over to them, undamaged aside from a scuff.

Rey offered Finn her hand. "Come on, follow me."

The TIEs circled around for another run while Rey, Finn, and Bibi-Eit darted through the craters and burning wreckage. Rey knew that their only chance to escape Niima Outpost alive was to get out to sea.

"We can't outrun them," Finn yelled.

"We might in that!" Rey pointed to the merchant ship on the far side of the docks.

"We need someone who can sail it!"

"We've got someone!"

"You?" Finn pointed to Unkar Plutt's junk tub, which was closer than the merchant ship. "What about that ship?"

"That one's garbage!"

A bomber passed over the harbor and two bombs fell on the merchant ship, instantly turning it to splinters. Finn and Rey skidded to a stop and stared at the now-burning hull.

"The garbage will do," Rey said, leading the way towards Plutt's seedy looking White Star light freighter.

The two humans and the automaton ran up the gangplank and onto the deck. Rey pointed to the port side Treeby as she ran to the bridge "Get on that gun!"

Finn looked at it. It was rusty, but at least it was in better shape than the starboard gun. "You ever sail this thing?"

"No," Rey replied, sitting in the dryrotted helm chair. "This thing hasn't moved in years."

"Great," said Finn. He charged the gun and tested the pintle's elevation and traverse. "I can do this. I can do this."

Rey tapped the startup runes on the console beside the wheel and heard the old steam engine cough to life. "I can do this. I can do this."

The engine reached its minimum operating temperature as the bombers came around for a third pass. Rey tapped the runes to haul in the anchor and let down the ratty sails and the ship pulled away from the dock.

The ship was far more responsive than Rey would have ever believed and in trying to steer it, she inadvertently scraped the side of the hull against the dock. The scrap metal hull plates screamed in protest, but their rivets held.

Unkar Plutt, who had been taking cover in his blockhouse, ran towards the harbor, unleashing a litany of swears. "Hey! That's mine!"

Finn tapped the comm crystal above the Treeby gun's thumb trigger. "Stay near the coast!"

Rey looked around, trying to find where his voice had come from. Once she pinpointed the source she tapped her own comm crystal to reply. "What?"

"Stay near the coast! Those bombers can't make sharp turns."

"What about those?" Rey pointed off the starboard side.

Finn turned his head around and saw a formation of TIE fighters coming in low over the sea. "Those can!"

Rey slapped the palm of her hand against the shield ward rune. A shimmering bubble appeared around the ship an instant before the first rounds from the TIEs hit. The wards shattered after the last shot impacted.

Rey swore. Jakku was too far from a leyline for the sigil block's magic to recharge.

She watched with clenched teeth as the TIE fighters came around for a pass from the port side. "What are you doing down there? Are you going to fire back?"

Finn pressed the thumb trigger and the gun's old ammunition misfired again. "I'm working on it! What's happening with the shield wards?"

"The magic's depleted!"

"Oh, of course it is!" Finn finally managed to get past the chambers with the flattened powder and send a round towards the TIEs.

Shots burst against the armor plates on the ship's hull and deck. One skipped off the birdlike figurehead. Below deck, Bibi-Eit hunkered down under the passenger cabin's Dejarik table.

Finn thumbed the comm crystal. "We need some kind of cover, quick!"

"We're about to get some! ...I hope..."

The ship's hull creaked as she sailed it towards the Jakku Graveyard. A gauge told Rey that the engine had reached operating pressure and she pressed the rune to engage the gears.

The Super Star Destroyer Ravager was the Imperial flagship during the Battle of Jakku. The enormous warship had suffered catastrophic structural damage when the engines and powder magazines had exploded, leaving it gutted and in pieces. Rey sailed directly towards the broken hulk, intending to use it as her cover.

The ship passed between the relatively small pieces that once formed the Ravager's bow. The four TIEs pursued, cracking off shots at their target. Finn jumped and swore in surprise when one of the rounds burst against the deck behind him.

Rey spun the wheel and brought the ship as close as she could to the side of the wreck. This forced the TIEs to stay towards the ship's port side.

Finn lined up the sights on the outermost TIE. "Come on... Come on..." He pressed the trigger and the ball hit the TIE fighter in the left side upper wing support.

"Nice shot," Rey called down.

"Thanks!" Finn smiled and nodded. "I'm getting pretty good at this."

The fighter spun out of control and crashed into a sandbar. Scavengers nearby immediately began heading towards it.

Finn fired again and hit the engine of another TIE. Flames engulfed the front of the fighter and the blinded sky pilot veered into the side of the Ravager. Finn winced at the snapping sound the TIE's wooden frame made as it crumpled against the hull.

The lead TIE maneuvered to line up its gun and fired a burst of rounds at Finn's Treeby gun. Most missed, but one struck the the gunner's shield with enough explosive force to bend the pintle. Finn tried to force the Treeby to move, but it refused to budge.

"Uh, the gun's stuck facing outwards. I can't move it. You've got to lose them."

Rey panted, adrenaline coursing through her veins. Up ahead was another fissure in the Ravager's hull, wide enough to accommodate the ship. "Get ready."

"Okay... For what?"

Rey hoped that she remembered the Ravager's layout correctly and turned the wheel hard to the right.

Finn was aghast at the thought that anyone would try to take a ship into the wreck of a Super Star Destroyer. "Are we really doing this?!"

The bowels of the Imperial flagship were a rusted maze of pipes, bulkheads, compartments, and ballast tanks, all torn open by the blasts that doomed it. Sunlight poured in through the gaping holes in the upper decks. Stagnant, rusty seawater parted before the bow of the ship that now sailed through the ruined hulk's deepest reaches.

The TIE pilots followed, undaunted. They stayed low, trying to avoid the hanging cables and fired their explosive rounds at the ship's stern. Makeshift armor plates broke away from the boards that covered the great cabin's windows.

Rey grunted as the ship shook under the barrage. It may have been a pile of junk, but at least it was holding together. Her relief faltered on seeing that one of the upper decks had collapsed since the last time she was in this part of the Ravager and the way forward was blocked. There was another hole in the hull leading back out, but Rey wasn't sure if the keel could clear it.

She chanced it, preferring scraping the keel to crashing headlong into jagged metal. Rey spun the wheel and the ship sailed towards the hole. Metal screeched against metal as it passed through and Rey said a silent prayer that the damage was limited to the barnacles.

The two remaining TIEs turned to pursue, but one misjudged the turn and caught his wingtips on the edge of the hole. The wings tore away and the TIE rolled over and crashed into the sea.

In the open, the now solitary lead TIE had a full advantage. Bullets tore new holes in the sails and took out a chunk of the mainmast.

Shots hit the deck and a large piece of shrapnel flew past Rey. She clenched her teeth. They couldn't lose the TIE and the ship's only functional gun was stuck facing outwards. A reckless idea came to Rey and she acted on it before she could second-guess it.

Rey pressed the rune that dropped the port side anchor and it plummeted to the bottom of the sea. It caught on a large section of hull and held fast. The ship lurched violently and the capstan groaned under the massive strain placed upon it. The patchwork railing and hawsehole splintered as the anchor chain pulled taught. Most importantly though, the ship's stern swung wide, lining up Finn's stuck gun with the TIE fighter before the sky pilot could react.

Finn put an explosive projectile straight into the sky pilot's chest. The blast not only killed the pilot but set off the Moze gun's ammo box. The flaming wreckage splashed into the sea. Finn let out a loud celebratory hoot.

Suddenly, a link in the anchor chain broke. Finn and Rey were both thrown to the deck, but they didn't care too much. They had succeeded.

Rey pointed the ship's bow towards the open sea with her heart in her throat.