Rey dropped into the pilot's chair and let out a frustrated sigh. Chewie didn't bother to look up as he gave a low moan of inquiry.
"No," she answered. "The t-joint was rusted through, so I replaced it, but we're still not getting juice, and I'm almost out of ideas."
Chewie growled.
"No, I haven't tried THAT yet," she admitted.
Chewie growled again.
"Because it could kill the back-up hyperdrive and then where would we be?" she argued. "Fine! FINE! I'll maroon us if that's what you want."
If Rey had thought her grudging agreement would spare her any further argument from the wookie, she soon realized her mistake. Chewie grumbled about 'some people' thinking they know everything, when clearly they don't, before launching into a mostly muttered rant about how he was kriffing tired of being ordered around by just about everyone in the Resistance and then continued on to one of his favorite complaints—how younglings these days are the worst he's ever seen and have no respect left for their elders.
Rey only half-listened at first, but as he went on, her mild irritation began to grow into concern. Chewie was famously laconic. As Master Luke was wont to say, "Chewie will tell you more in two words than Han will in two hundred." Something was bothering her friend, and more than likely it wasn't how disrespectful younglings were nowadays. She wondered if it had anything to do with his most recent mission.
Rey waited for him to finish, and then counted off a full two minutes of silence so that when she did speak, she would sound off-hand.
"I heard you went to Nal Hutta," she said and yawned. "Unkar Plutt—that blobfish that ran Niima outpost—he went there once. He said the entire planet smelled like bantha farts."
Chewie guffawed at this and enthusiastically agreed.
"I don't know any Hutts personally or anything, but I was always told never to get mixed up with them. The other scavengers used to tell stories about Niima the Hutt. From the way they told it, she was so horrible, she would have made Plutt seem like a joy to be around," Rey confided.
Chewie snorted at this and gave a few low whines and growls.
"In carbonite?" Rey repeated, not even having to feign surprise, "No, I hadn't heard that one before! After all that, you'd think the General wouldn't want to have anything to do with—"
Chewie growled.
They lapsed into silence again, Rey smarting from his reprimand. He wouldn't tolerate her questioning the General's orders.
Attempting to make amends, Rey stood and removed the panel behind the co-pilot's chair. In silence, she crouched down and began to rewire the calcinator. Chewie gave a long, low moan.
"Yeah, right," she muttered. "I... should've killed him when I had the chance? What about you? You had a clear shot on Starkiller base, and instead of going for it, you winged him. So don't go telling me that—"
Chewie growled.
"Ha! Emotional duress- what a load of bantha fodder," she grumbled, slamming the panel back in place. "There. Let it power back up and we can try it again."
The wookie began the power-up sequence and when the engines hummed smoothly in response, Rey smirked and shook her head. Chewbacca didn't bother rubbing it in with words, but even if she lived to be a hundred, she doubted that she'd ever see a wookie with as smug a look on his face as he had at that moment.
Exiting hyperspace above Jakku, Rey stretched and leaned forward in her chair. She wasn't sure what she expected to see—maybe a blackened crater on the face of the planet, or maybe tiny mushroom clouds blossoming up from the surface. Jakku glowed brightly, from a distance appearing quite peaceful.
"Are you picking up on any other ships in the area?" Rey asked.
Chewie growled in response.
"That doesn't mean they're not there," Master Luke replied, his voice coming from directly behind her.
Rey jumped. She hadn't heard his footsteps.
"We'll start at Niima Outpost and then do a fly-over at Cratertown," Master Luke ordered.
Rey switched over to manual piloting and brought the ship down near Carbon Ridge. She followed the Ridge until she found Pilgrim's road, marked by the sitter's pillar. Though they were moving too fast for her to see, she knew the sitter was still there—ancient, silent, and unchanged. Nothing on Jakku had changed, and Kylo Ren was not there. She would know, she would feel him—but there was something. Some sort of energy left behind. He had been there, and not very long ago.
She glanced over her shoulder at Master Luke for confirmation of what she was feeling. He frowned, but gave a very slight nod.
Rey set the ship down near to where it had rested for so long. Unkar Plutt's stand had been rebuilt from salvaged scrap in the time since the First Order had attacked, as had most of the dwellings. The shape of the settlement had changed. Scavengers were mostly solitary and distrustful by nature. They liked their space, and why not? They had a whole desert to themselves. Community facilities had always been grouped together close to Plutt's stand, but the domiciles were spread out. Now it seemed, tents, and make-shift shelters were crowded together, much nearer to the public facilities, and stranger still the communal facilities appeared deserted—even Plutt's stand. There should be at least a few salvagers grouped around the washing basin given the time of day.
She noted this with growing concern before leaving the cockpit. Finn had lowered the entry ramp and was already outside. He grinned at her and squinting, turned his face toward the sun.
"Never thought I'd miss Jakku," he said as she approached.
"You and me both," she agreed as the two fell behind Master Luke.
"I can finally feel my toes again, and look—no wampas!"
"I think I'd take a wampa or two over Plutt any day," she snorted.
"That's only because you've never met a wampa," he assured her.
The inside of the stand was as empty as she'd feared—not a body to be seen, except for behind the counter. Rey stopped short and did a double take.
Unkar Plutt was not there. In his place stood Fa-Lun-Daski, an elderly Cerean with a long scar across his tall and tapering forehead. If he was surprised to see her, he did not show it.
"Where's Plutt?" she asked, approaching the counter.
"Gone," he answered mildly.
"Where?"
"Who can say?" Fa-Lun-Daski scratched his nose in a bored way and glanced speculatively toward Master Luke.
Rey felt her Master's annoyance. She was supposed to fall back and let him approach first unless otherwise instructed, but this was her home. There was no way that Master Luke could know that Unkar Plutt and Fa-Lun-Daski had long been rivals, and to see the latter behind Plutt's counter likely meant that Plutt had gone somewhere he would not be returning from.
Master Luke strode calmly past her.
"Perhaps you could say," Master Luke began, "If you were properly motivated."
In answer, the Cerean brought the security gate crashing down over the window and disappeared from behind it.
"That was… strange," Finn volunteered.
"He thought you were threatening him!" Rey accused.
"I was going to offer him credit reimbursement for information!" Master Luke growled.
"Not taking sides, but I can see how 'properly motivated' can sound like a threat," Finn soothed. "Doesn't it seem like this place is kind of empty—I mean, compared to last time?"
"Yeah," Rey agreed quickly, glancing around.
"Not as empty as it looks. There is nervous energy here and fear," Master Luke ascertained. "They're watching us."
"Kylo Ren was here, wasn't he?" Rey demanded.
Master Luke eyed her warily.
"Perhaps. Though I don't have any sense of this massacre you were describing."
"What about Plutt? Something definitely happened to him," Rey pointed out.
"Hmm," Master Luke said, which she knew very well was not an agreement. It was a noise he made when he thought she was incorrect about something. "I'll see if I can get the Cerean to speak with me. You know this place. Perhaps you would have an easier time of it on your own."
He was right, of course. On her own, one of the other scavengers might recognize her and give an accounting without any motivation. She nodded her understanding and slipped away from them.
Outside, she could feel eyes on her, though she did not see anyone. She walked slowly past the wash stand and through the main grouping of huts. Her feet knew where she was going before her head did. She began to walk faster and faster and then to run.
A ways outside the settlement, partially buried in sands, lay the toppled AT-AT walker she had called home for so long. When she had first scavenged it for parts, she had found a flower growing near the hull, and it had occurred to her that if something so small and fragile could cling to life in that spot—so too could she.
Rey ducked her head as she went inside.
Her manuals and schematics were gone, as was her hammock. Even the little doll she had fashioned from an old flight suit had vanished. Yet traces of her life there still remained. The helmet of the rebel Captain Raeh lay on the ground partially filled with sand, and beyond that was the wall, scored with hundreds and hundreds of the pathetic little scratches which numbered all the days of her childhood.
She studied it curiously for a moment and then reached out to run her fingers lightly over the etchings
Her fingers burned and her vision clouded.
She saw his hand where her own had been—his black gloved fingers gently tracing over the marks on the wall—the hem of his cloak trailing across the sand—his silhouette framed by the entryway to the AT-AT.
Rey fell to her knees breathing heavily. He had been there. He had been in that place, standing where she now crouched. Not looking for her there, surely, but why then? Some sadistic form of tourism? Could it be that he felt the same emptiness at the severing of their bond—the same sense of loss that she could barely admit to herself?
A faint shifting of sand—the tell-tale sound of a stealthy footstep—and she was on her feet, lightsaber in hand, but the profile in the doorway did not belong to him.
A high-pitched shriek came from the creature, who stumbled backwards, fell, flipped over and scurried up the wall to the ceiling.
Rey backed away and raised her blade slowly, so as not to frighten it further. The glow of her blade revealed a familiar shape clinging to the ceiling. Four black eyes blinked at her- though not all at the same time—and she could see the light of her saber reflected in them.
"Turk-Mau?" she asked, though she knew it was him.
The creature watched her for a few seconds and then, unexpectedly enough to make her jump, he shot down the wall, skittered through the doorway, and disappeared.
She knew him. There were some species in the galaxy that should never be combined, and Turk-Mau was proof of this. Though no one was certain of the exact coupling which had brought such an unfortunate creature into being, it was generally agreed upon that he had the blood of both the reptilian Ssi-ruu, and some unknown humanoid species. Turk-Mau could walk on two feet, but only slowly and with a lumbering, unsteady gait. He preferred to run on four legs when he was frightened, or thought that no one was watching.
The others did not call him 'Turk-Mau', the name given to him by the anchorite who discovered him newly hatched and abandoned near the Graveyard of Giants. The others called him 'Hiss' because it was not believed that he could speak.
But he could- somewhat.
Whatever birthed him, had immediately dropped him onto Jakku like a piece of trash into a garbage can. For years, it was assumed that he was non-sentient, and little more than an animal. Turk-Mau spent most of his days perched atop the Niima gate, basking in the heat, but also intently watching everything the other scavengers did with all four eyes. At night, he would circle nervously around the fires, perhaps drawn to the heat. If he came too close, the others would drive him off by throwing scrap or shouting at him. He learned to never to come too close.
He had learned his first word from her.
By then he had begun to mimic what he saw, but only when he thought he was alone. At first, it was walking on two feet by using his tail to balance. Then it was picking up random pieces of scrap and pretending to wash them with sand. At some point, he had found some old, sun-bleached rags and wore them draped around his neck and across his back. His adeptness at mimicry was a little unnerving. It suggested that he was slightly more sentient than they had first assumed.
For some unknown reason, he developed the habit of perching atop the knee joint of her AT-AT in the late afternoons and watching her work. If she called out to him, or made any sign that she noticed him in any way, he was quick to vanish. It was perhaps a year or more until he was comfortable enough with her to come down to the ground while she was there, and longer still until he would sit within a few feet. Once, she had come across a rather large piece of canvas in an old fighter she was scavenging, and it occurred to her that Turk-Mau could use it to shelter under at night. He was likely cold-blooded, after all, and the nights seemed to make him restless.
Upon presenting it to him, he has immediately hissed and run away. He had returned the next day, and she had tried again, and though he would not take it from her, he had at least not run. She had tried to explain it to him many times that day: "You take this from me. It is for you. It is a present. See? I give. You take. Present."
She had given up and left the folded square of canvas on the ground. The next day, it was gone.
And then came the night when the squatters had dropped her mostly lifeless body on the dunes just beyond Niima Outpost. Turk-Mau was the first to discover her there. She remembered looking up into two of his black eyes and trying to find the strength to ask for help, but he disappeared. The next time she awoke, it was daylight and when she opened her eyes, she found that she was staring directly at a water pouch. Beyond that, curled up on the ground, lay Turk-Mau. When he saw that she was awake, he lifted his head and hissed one word: "Pres-s-s-s-en"
'Present'- and still one of the best she had ever received, for who knows if she would have lived without it.
"Turk-Mau?" she repeated, following him outside. The creature had stopped at the top of a low sand dune and was watching her intently. She took a few more steps towards him, and he rose to stand on his back legs—eyeing her warily.
"You remember me, don't you?" she asked. Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you." She moved as slowly as possible while she spoke, coming nearer to him. "I'm looking for someone, Turk-Mau. I'm looking for a tall man," she held her hand over her head to mark Kylo's height. "He wears black clothing. Black like the night sky. He came here—" She pointed towards the AT-AT. "Have you seen him, Turk-Mau? Have you seen the tall man?"
The creature shifted uneasily, his eyes moving between her and the horizon beyond. Rey took one more step, but the creature dropped back to all fours and shot past her, running up the leg of AT-AT. He stopped at the knee joint and glanced back at her before dashing across the vehicle bay and leaping off the boarding hatch, disappearing over the rise.
Rey sighed dejectedly, and was about to turn away when Turk-Mau reappeared at the top of the dune. He stared directly at her and then disappeared again. Suddenly, she understood him. He wanted her to follow.
She jogged after him, cresting the dune to see that he was climbing a second, higher rise beyond the first. She was not as fast on two legs as he was on four, but once he reached the top he waited.
As she finally approached, he rose to stand on two legs and turned his face away from her—to the west. Panting, Rey reached his side.
"Wha—what is it?" she asked, following his eyes to where the sand met the sky. A smudge of black marred the perfect line between the two.
"Oh…" she whispered. "It's smoke, and that's…. that's… it's coming from the Graveyard of Ships, isn't it? What's happened there? Is it him, Turk-Mau? Did the tall man in the black cloak do something there?" she asked.
Turk-Mau blinked three of his eyes as he watched her. His lipless mouth curved awkwardly upward in what she realized was his best attempt at a smile.
"Pres-s-s-s-en," he hissed.
With Niima Outpost seemingly abandoned, it took Rey only a few minutes to locate a speeder, and liberate it from its clamps. She did not look for Master Luke or Finn—and though she realized, while shooting down Pilgrim's Road, that it was probably wrong of her to go alone, she could not risk Master Luke ordering her to stay with the ship, or even Finn tagging along. Kylo Ren was already gone, but whatever disaster he had left behind, it had something to do with her. Maybe it was a message for her.
Distracted, she realized only after passing the pillar that she had not glanced up to look for the sitter. She had always looked for the sitter, every single trip to the Graveyard of Ships, even when she was little.
The smoke was heavier just past Kelvin Ravine, and then finally, she was able to discern exactly where it was coming from.
The massive, old, star-destroyer known as the Inflictor was burning, and looked as though it had been burning for some time. The conning towers appeared to have been blow apart, and were now nothing more than charred remains scattered about the sands for miles. But burnt scrap was not the only thing strewn across the desert.
She passed the first body not long after that, and almost did not recognize it for what it was—small wonder as it was missing a head and both of its arms. There were more bodies. Some which had been burnt almost to ashes, others missing limbs, or twisted and contorted in horrible ways. She had to stop the speeder when the stench and smoke became too much for her, and still everywhere she looked—bodies.
They were men mostly, and many appeared to have been executed in horrible fashion. Very few had been cleanly beheaded. There were bodies with their legs cut off at the knees, and one could see where they had dragged themselves through the sand until their strength gave out. There were blackened bodies with their limbs twisted in agony as though they died fully conscious and thrashing as they burned.
They were squatters, she realized, all of them.
And then she saw him. The man from her nightmare. He lay on his side, curled in the fetal position, his arms wrapped protectively around himself. Cautiously she prodded him with her foot, and his arm fell away. His innards spilled from his split-open abdomen, stinking and filled with maggots. He had died trying to hold in his own intestines.
Rey fell to her knees and vomited.
Notes: I know all my fellow Reylos read 'rewire the calcinator' and immediately went: I haven't had my muffin yet, REY! lol... and then they read all the way to the bottom and went, 'welllll, that got dark quick."
