Chapter 2: Rey I
She shivered in the dark despite the sweat running down her arms. The panel had come away from the housing easily, but the master routing switch refused to come free from its assembly.
It was her last target of the day. Day six-thousand, nine hundred and seventy-two local, or fourteen standard years since she had come to Jakku.
Arms burning, her waist chafed by her hanging harness, she reached deeper into the service hatch, her patience running out.
"Drown this." She growled to herself, ripping the least accessible cable from the router, freeing the unit. It would mean more time spent cleaning it up before her trip to Unkar Plutt. Freeing her arm, she dropped the unit into her bag and sagged back into the harness to catch her breath.
Overhead the sky was turning from bright blue to the bruise purple of late afternoon. She had been out since before dawn.
Exhausted, she decided to make her life easier that day in exchange for more work the next and lowered herself down toward the starboard side of the vast, ruined Star Destroyer which sat as it had crashed decades ago.
Rey knew the stories but didn't care. She hated Jakku, but she couldn't leave. They could come back at any time for her. She had to be ready.
She emerged from the wrecked Star Destroyer dragging her days plunder, a little over thirty kilograms of salvage. A good day's work.
Outside, the sun cast long shadows across the almost endless desert, and she shielded her eyes against the glare. Her speeder sat where she had left it, tethered down with a sand anchor at the bottom of the dune that had been created when the Star Destroyer had fallen.
The dry heat outside was welcome after the cold of the wreckage and she rubbed goosebumps from her arms before choosing a sheet of panelling for a sled to save her scrambling down the slope.
Her speeder was, like everything else on Jakku, a salvage. Its frame was something centuries old from Calando, its reactor something purchased from Jawas three years earlier and its main drive a Dantooine trailblazer. After a quick inspection, she noticed that the primary coolant interchange would need overhauling or replacing before the year was out.
But it would be good for the twenty-kilometre trip back to Niima at the very least.
The long evening was just beginning when she entered the outpost. The dusty collection of shacks had been her home for more than five years.
Old Arashnie was already at the scrubbing table when she dragged her wares over for cleaning. Rey settled across the table from her and held up two chits, inviting Parr the waterseller over.
"Two buys one today." The Devaronian grumbled, reaching for the scraps of tungsten.
"As long as it's cold and purified." She replied, stifiling a yawn and snatching away the chits. The summer had been unusually harsh, lasting two whole standard years and driving the price of water to unprecedentedly high levels.
"Cold enough." Parr said.
"Purified?"
"Filtered. Take or leave it."
She looked up at him. He was ugly even by the standards of his own species, his skin loose and dessicated and missing one horn.
"Are you trying to rob me, Parr?" She asked, hotly. The desert that held Niima outpost in its grasp was cruel, even compared to Blowback Town, the only major settlement on the whole wretched planet. It tended to dry out the kindness of its inhabitants hearts as it did their hides.
"It's just the price, princess."
"You're a monster. Three chits for two cups of purified. Final offer." She said, biting the inside of her lower lip to keep her frustration from boiling over.
The Devaronian half shook his massive head, stopped, blinked twice and swallowed. His right hand, the one holding the water dispenser clenched for a moment, squirting a drop of water onto the tabletop.
"Be careful, that's probably an eighth's worth right there." She said, causing old Arashnie to bark a ripping paper sound in place of a laugh.
Parr didn't reply but held out his free hand.
She dropped three chits into his calloused palm then held out her cup which she kept fastened to her tool belt.
Flicking a switch on the dispenser, he filled the cup which she drained in one long gulp, then held it out again. Parr grimaced and filled it before stalking off.
"Well done." Arashnie said, without pausing in her scrubbing of a three-fifths torque adapter. "He's been overcharging all day. Where have you been?"
"Camping out at the wrecked destroyer, down near the long drag. I was there three days."
"You've got a good haul with you. I'll warn you though, Unkar's feeling cheap today. I wouldn't take him more than you need."
Rey smiled, feeling the dryness of her skin and how foreign the sensation was on her cheeks. "Thank you."
She sipped her water, feeling the moisture soak into her, then noticed Arashnie's darting eye taking in the cup. The old woman, one of the few other humans in the settlement looked more drawn and desiccated than ever.
Rey put the cup down on the table and slid it across to Arashnie. "On me." She said, smiling.
The old woman took the cup and nursed it for the half hour that it took Rey to clean some of her salvaged components. She gave up as the sun touched the horizon at Blackened Ridge and stood. Arashnie handed her back the cup.
Unkar Plutt was a Crolute, and ridiculously out of place in the desert. He maintained the most decadent item Rey had ever seen on Jakku, a bathtub large enough to fully immerse himself. Despite his wasteful efforts in such a parched landscape, his once gelatinous body had turned doughy and sagging.
She could see that he was in a bad mood from thirty paces as she dragged her haul over to him, her one-time guardian and surrogate parent. She loathed the greedy junklord.
She joined the three-deep queue in front of his trading post and sorted through her clean wares, knowing that she wouldn't be going to bed with a full belly that night.
Tabarim the Zealot, the last in line before her embarked on a several minute long haggling with Unkar, which resulted in the Crolute losing his temper and rejecting the sale. Tabarim, knowing his mistake stalked away, probably to find someone else that could provide him with a measure of aminowash to stave off starvation.
"Rey." Unkar said as she approached. "You've been away a long time."
"Four days."
"You'd better have something worth my time. You're looking very thin." He grumbled.
"I do, and more for tomorrow when I've had chance to clean them up." She said, reaching down and taking the items from her bag and placing them carefully on the counter.
He took his time, sucking air through his teeth and examining each piece in detail, looking up at her from time to time.
"What you've brought me today is worth... Hmmm... One quarter-portion." He said, grumbling.
It took a conscious effort for Rey to not react. If she haggled, she might get up to one half portion, but having heard how he treated the Zealot, she might get nothing. The things in her bag were worth at least two full portions, but only if cleaned up properly. She was hungry, hadn't eaten all day.
She looked up at him again. He twisted his face into a grimace that approximated a smile then slapped down a one quarter-portion onto the counter. She took it and left, folding the wrapper of polystarch and amino-protein gel beneath her shirt.