A long time ago, in a galaxy far,

far away….

Episode VII

DREAMS OF THE FORCE

Luke Skywalker has vanished.

Chaos runs rampant in the NEW

REPUBLIC. Remnants of the

overturned Empire have broken off

into various small factions. Many

seek retribution against the legacy

of Skywalker.

General LEIA ORGANA, president

of the Galactic Senate, is running

for reelection. In an effort to restore

peace and justice to the fractured

galaxy, she has formed a union between

the democratic planets. Leia's opponent,

Senator Tyk Zyr, has begun a clandestine plan

to discredit her.

En route from Coruscant,

one of the Coalition's starships finds

itself pursued by sinister agents of

the SITH IMPERIALISTS, lingering

shadows of the past….

CHAPTER I

The vastness of space stretched out as far as the eye could see.

Then several shots were fired.

The Finalizer was an Imperial-class Star Destroyer; it had existed since the days of the Empire before the Sith Imperialists had found it and revamped it. It ran just as perfectly now as it did in the days when it had been a military weapon, run by officers. Now it was no longer run by officers but by insurgents. A crew of eleven manned the entire vessel with ease. Ten of them, all powerful members of the Sith in their own right, followed the orders of their master. He stood behind them, slowly watching. The blue planet Naragna appeared closer through their windows.

They were closing in on their target. Eu IV was a small starship, similar to the ones originally manufactured on Alderaan. Not that any of the Sith Imperialists had been alive to see Alderaan, or knew much of that fabled planet that had been destroyed over thirty years ago. No, this crew was young and quite willing to ignore history.

More shots were fired, and Eu IV took heavy damage. How many passengers could be onboard such a tiny vessel? Certainly no match for Sith Lords. With another shot, the starship began to go down. It had started to fall towards Naragna's orbit.

The Finalizer began to make a descent towards the planet's surface. If a crash landing was going to be needed to finish the job, then so be it.

Naragna was a planet consisting entirely of ocean. It contained no islands or land-masses; only a few dwellings and huts that had been built years later by the the human population that had emigrated. Its planet-wide ocean was tumultuous, full of various ships and battle droids that had sunk into the waters, raining down from the sky from the battles of long ago.

Eu IV landed, predictably, in the middle of the ocean. The vessel submerged for a second, then began to float. The Finalizer soon arrived not too far behind it. Most Imperial-class Star Destroyers had had landing capabilities when entering planet orbits, and this one was no different. It landed just over the downed starship, and the Sith Imperialists began to drop down. Each one landed in the ocean with a splash, and then began to board Eu IV.

Ten of the Sith Imperialists awaited orders, and then their master spoke. Wearing a mask that obscured his face and modified his voice, Kylo Ren spoke: "Take them all."

The Sith Imperialists each lit up their lightsabers and blasted through, massacring everyone inside. As expected, a Coalition ship consisted entirely of politicians and ambassadors. Few knew how to defend themselves and barely any fight was put up. A few shots were fired, but it was nothing few swings from a lightsaber could not take care of.

One woman, a former member of the Senate, attempted to swim out of wreckage, but she did not get far.

"Don't move, Coalition scum!" came the familiar voice of Kylo Ren.

The former senator looked up at him as she floated in the waves.

"I remember you. And who you really are. Before you started calling yourself Kylo Ren-"

She was not able to finish the sentence before Ren had started to Force choke her. She gasped for air, squirming wildly, before Ren released her and then slaughtered her with his lightsaber.

At that very moment, an unseen ambassador fired his blaster at Ren, but Ren had immediately turned around, waved his hand, and frozen the blast in mid-air. With another turn of the head, the ambassador was Force-choked to death as well.

After a few more minutes, the massacre was complete and the Sith Imperialists all regrouped aboard the Finalizer.

"The Coalition have been stopped for now," Kylo Ren said. "We have a meeting with Sen. Zyr."

And within a few minutes, the Finalizer had taken off once more into space, while the remnants of Eu IV began to sink to the ocean floor.

SNAP!

It was morning, and Rey was looking out on the bright sunrise, reflected against the ocean. A young woman with dark auburn hair, Rey knew the sight and smell of the ocean well. While she couldn't tell you her exact age, she could tell you, with the utmost certainty, that she had spent the majority of her life on this forsaken planet, and this ocean was the home of far too many broken memories.

Being a planet entirely of ocean, Naragna's population was mostly aquatic. It only had a mammal population of about eleven hundred. Their dwellings and raft-cities had been built at random and were very sparse; most mammals who found themselves on Naragna were there because the world had spat them out. Rey's dwelling was a tiny, dingy home built on a sturdy beam, and it was the furthest away from any other human.

This morning, she had awoken early in her tiny dwelling, and now was ready to put on her helmet for a deep sea dive. She was one of Naragna's many scavengers. She prepared for the long day ahead by diving into the ocean.

Throughout the morning, she swam through the ocean, collecting various bits of scrap, with the occasional dislocated weapon. Some of her findings led her to swim deeper down than ever before. By midday, she had collected enough supplies to make a stop at Niima Outpost, the main "raft-city," if you could call it that. Naragna only had three cities, and they were ramshackle, floating communities. Once there, she stopped at Unkar Plutt's concession stand. A large member of the Crolute species, Unkar was coarse and unpleasant. He inspected her findings and remarked:

"What you've brought me today is worth one quarter-portion."

The Battle of Naragna had happened nearly thirty years ago, and to this day, scavengers still found remnants in the ocean, some of which were worth a fortune.

Rey knew better than to argue with him, and so took her portion without saying anything. She ate quietly in a corner of Niima Outpost, not talking to anyone.

As she swam back, her eye caught something. There was a small vessel that had sunk to the bottom of the ocean. She swam down.

A lifetime's worth of swimming had prepared Rey for the deepest dives, and so she made it to the bottom of the surface in no time. Sure enough, she found the remains of the vessel. It was marked Eu IV and it had been very badly destroyed. It didn't take much to see this was no relic of the old battles; this wreckage had only landed within the last day at most. She raided through the shipwreck, then returned to the surface.

By the time Rey returned home to her dwelling, it was nighttime. She climbed up inside, dropped her afternoon's worth of plunder on the floor, then removed her wet scavenger suit. She entered her dwelling's Turbo Dryer and less than a minute later was completely dry. She took some chalk and made another mark on her wall; yet another day of being alone, all by herself on this dismal, forsaken planet to live a dismal, forsaken existence.

She looked through the many plunders she had taken from Eu IV: scrap, weapons, and a few mechanical devices. She would be certain to get a good portion for them from Unkar first thing in the morning. She could smell a slight bit of mildew on one of the devices; she hoped it wasn't damaged.

It was a flat, rectangular device, likely a small computer. She ran her fingers past its surface; it hadn't been too beat up. She then sniffed her fingers and grimaced a bit at the stench of mildew and oil.

And then, to her surprise, the device lit up:

"Well, that was rather rude."

Rey jolted forward, suddenly realizing that this wasn't just a device; it was an astromech droid. She had known of R2 units and BB units and the ways they bleeped. This was one of the few astromech droids capable of human speech. It began to slowly rolls towards her.

"Come now, aren't you going to offer any assistance?"

"You're a VP series droid," Rey realized out loud, "I thought they only used you on Coruscant."

"Very much true," the droid replied, drolly, "I am VP-3, and I am one of the official administrative droids used by Senator-"

"You're a long way away from any senators," Rey said, "No one on this planet knows what a government even looks like."

"Maybe not," a new voice said, "But I know where that droid was going."

Rey turned to see someone else had entered her dwelling, a young black man in a soldier's uniform. For someone who had spent years keeping to herself, Rey was beyond flabbergasted to have two visitors in her dwelling in one day. She had no intention of waiting to see if this visitor was hostile; she immediately grabbed her staff and ran at him, knocking him over.

"Hey, that hurt!" he said, "Relax, I'm not here to hurt anyone."

"I don't believe you," Rey said.

"This poor gentleman you assaulted is a clone," the droid said dryly with a sigh, "He possesses no danger."

"Thanks, Veep," the man said with a grunt, "Look, I'm here to collect the droid. He has information from Sen. Zyr that could be damaging to Gen. Organa."

"All this talk about senators," Rey said dismissively, "There are no politics here."

"Maybe not, but you are aware that there's an election going on, aren't you? And that Gen. Organa is facing a lot of threats?"

Rey shrugged, having heard the name Leia Organa spoken many times over the years and knew it was someone important, but having never given much thought to who she was.

"I was bred in a lab," the young man explained, "I was created to be a soldier and assassin against the Coalition, but I escaped. And the information I need now is on the droid."

Rey was taken aback a bit at this, feeling for this stranger who had never known any parents or love. Watching him tend to the droid, she was impressed that someone could have such confidence, could be so dedicated to a movement bigger than themselves.

"Hey, what's your name?"

"FN-2187."

Rey winced.

"FN what?"

"That's the only name they ever gave me."

"Well, I most certainly am not using it," Rey said with a mischievous smile, "FN, was it? Finn. I'm going to call you Finn, is that alright?"

He thought about it for a second, all of this being new to him.

"Finn? Yeah. Finn. I like that."

"I'm Rey."

"Good to meet you, Rey."

"Good to meet you too, Finn."

Suddenly loud blasting was heard outside, and Finn looked scared.

"They've come! They're here to take Veep. We need to run!"