"You haven't been home in over twenty years, why do you want to go back?"
It was late, her friends were leaving in the morning. Poe's question didn't surprise her, but the almost vulnerable tone in which he asked was surprising.
She grabbed his face, "This is my home, you are my home. That is just a place I used to run from. I don't want to go back to go back, I want to go back to have your back."
His smile was one of those smiles that filled her with warmth and hope. Your fate is sealed. She didn't mean to jerk away from him but the whispers had taken her by surprise. She hadn't thought they could reach her here, she was supposed to be safe with Poe.
"Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to bring it up." He grabbed her hand and ran his fingers over her knuckles, stopping at her ring, "I don't suppose you're ever going to tell me everything?"
"Maybe I'll float to the surface and talk to you someday flybird, but not today."
"That's all I ask." He leaned over and kissed her and she almost felt bad about what she was planning on doing.
Tel had fixed up a cargo ship and loaded it with a few crates of blasters and explosives and various supplies for the trip. He said they could land in the port near his family's house and go from there. Rey asked if she could fly and Poe almost let her, but pulled rank because it had been awhile since he had flown anything successfully and he wanted to prove that he could.
Rey seemed to understand, but she also seemed a little nervous. He clapped her on the shoulder, "Everything will be fine Rey, this will be easy."
She nodded, but didn't say anything. BB-8 beeped at him from down the ramp, he was being left behind because he would stick out too much at the trading post. "Bye buddy, we'll be back before you know it." BB-8 still beeped worriedly, Poe rubbed his little head affectionately and walked up the ramp to the cockpit. Maia said she wasn't coming to see them off and had already said her goodbyes in private the night before. He did take one look back to see if he could see a mop of golden hair, but he didn't.
"Bring everyone back Dameron." Leia said as soon as he put on the communication headset.
"Don't worry General Organa, I've got a good feeling about this."
It would take about five hours to get all the way to Terenai 5. Rey sat in the co-pilot seat and studied the controls for a moment before she started helping out. They talked about this model and how silly they thought the capacitors on the hyperdrive seemed to put a strain on the cooling system for some reason. Rey had some ideas about that and said when they got back she wanted to take a closer look at it.
She looked back at the cargo hold where their other three companions were chatting happily. Rose and Finn seemed to be teasing Tel about something to do with his family. She smiled softly and turned back around, "I'm glad Finn's happy."
"They all do seem pretty happy. They've found their place here and so have you."
Rey looked out the window forlornly, "Jedi training is, isolating, but I'm glad to be here with my friends. It makes me feel like I can actually do some good besides just being a Jedi."
This was getting more personal than their conversations had ever been. Poe shifted in his seat and got up, "Let's go talk to them and see if we can come up with a plan. I want to be as prepared as possible."
Tel gave them the basic layout of the town through a holo he had brought with him. Poe was surprised at the size of the trading post. He had always imagined it was more like the small towns on Yavin 4, but Tel explained there had been some new growth in the last ten years.
"About 50,000 people live in the main port, maybe 5,000 more in the surrounding area." Tel pointed out the warehouse they were meeting in in the west of the town and the areas they needed to avoid.
"Maybe someone should go around the back?" A quiet voice said. Everyone jumped away from the sound. Maia had stood up from behind a crate and was looking at the holo with a thoughtful look. Everyone started yelling that she shouldn't surprise people like that, what was she doing here, how long had she been there, ect. Except Rey, she didn't seem surprised at all.
'So that's why she was nervous.' Poe thought before stepping forward, cursing himself for not seeing this coming, "I should have known you were going to do this."
"Probably. You've known me a long time Flybird, did you really think I wouldn't do something like this."
They were too far out to turn around and fuel was something they couldn't waste and Maia knew that. He decided he would be angry later, it's not like he could officially reprimand her or demote her. For now, he would use her skills and yell later. They worked out a plan, Maia not contributing any input, just studying the map intently.
The proximity alert beeped and Rey and Poe went to the cockpit before they could come out of hyperspace. Everyone filed into the cockpit to get a look at the planet. They dropped out of hyperspace a distance away. There was a collective intake of breath, none of them had seen a planet quite like this before.
"It's very. . . red." Rose observed.
The planet was covered in red, clay-like dirt, large cracks on the surface made the entire planet look like it was on the verge of breaking into pieces. The large ocean on one side of the planet was also a reddish-brown color close to the shore but blended out into a blue far out to sea.
"I'd go mad looking at this much red." Finn said.
"A lot of people do go crazy here." Tel grumbled. "You'll see a lot of people suffering on the streets. It's best to ignore them.
The red dirt that covered the planet covered everything in a layer of red dust. The buildings blended in with the landscape making them nearly invisible in the glare of the sun. As they landed, Maia and Tel helped everyone wrap clothes around their heads and the bottom half of their faces. In the red light of the sun, their blonde hair turned scarlet and their skin took on a ruddy complexion. They all looked dirty despite having been on the planet for all of ten minutes.
Maia wrapped a hand around Poe's bicep, "Don't let go." She whispered.
The city was tightly packed despite the large open areas surrounding it. It rested on the shores of the murky brown sea. It smelled of rust and humans and something sickly sweet none of the visitors could place.
"What is that smell?" Rey asked.
"The algae farms. The red algae that turns the sea to blood smells like this while it's being fermented into Dennon Wine." Maia's grip on his arm tightened, "We called it sweet blood."
Poe winced, "Cheerful."
"I've heard of that." Finn spoke up, "It's illegal in the core worlds because of its addictiveness."
This place, with its red dirt and sweet smell was enough to make an entire population notoriously eccentric and criminals. The distribution of Dennon Wine was highly lucrative and illegal throughout the galaxy. Gangs ruled this place and he doubted even the First Order would be able to control such a place. But a spark of the Resistance was breeding here and they had to check it out.
In a crowded marketplace, music from street performers and the voices of traders blended cacophonously. Music seemed to imbibe the city and he could see why Maia and Tel were so attached to it. Beyond the dirt was beauty, you just had to listen for it.
Children covered in red dirt weaved in and out of the crowd, Tel waved them all off with a few choice words. In the shadows, people drank out of small bottles or whispered, their hair in patches and their eyes far away.
Poe locked eyes with a middle aged woman who's skin was so dirty she looked like she had been born with red skin. She had golden eyes like Maia, with the same far away look Maia had sometimes. It struck him that maybe Maia herself had suffered from this insanity before she had left.
Maia's hand slipped from his arm and he went to grab her but she was already off, headed down an alley. She stopped in front of a rusty door and kept going. Poe knew they should get back, but he promised he wouldn't let her go and so he just followed, wondering where she was leading him. They had talked about someone going around the back but had decided it would be too suspicious and could make it seem like an ambush.
She kept going through a winding series of alleys until she hit a dead end. He thought that would be the end of it but she quickly scrambled up a wall to the roof.
"I can't do that." He called up to her.
She sat on the edge of the roof, "I can wait."
He felt around, there were a few handholds in the brick that would help him up. "We should stay with the others."
"We're scouting."
He hauled himself up, she had made it look much easier than it was. She kept going and he couldn't order her to do what he said so he just went with her. He wondered if she had listened at all to their discussions on the ship or she had just been coming up with her own plan the whole time.
Maia led him across roofs, knowing exactly where it was easy to jump across. She stopped on a particular roof with a small shed on top near in one corner. She went around the back and squeezed herself between the wall and ledge. She reached down in a hidden space and pulled out a small bundle.
"What's this?"
She unwrapped it revealing several small rocks in a variety of colors. "My rocks."
"Are they valuable?"
"They are to me." She handed him the bundle and reached back in. He could see Maia as a child, holding these rocks and wondering where they came from. They were probably one of the few non-red things she had seen in her childhood. Under a few of the rocks was a gold chain with a red stone attached, one that matched the ring she wore.
Maia turned back around, he saw her pocket something small, "This was your secret hiding spot?" He asked.
"I slept here some nights, when I thought it was safe. This was home."
He reached out with his free hand and grabbed hers. She knew she had bad memories of this place. But he also remembered her saying he was her home. Her admission of that had made his heart leap. He had always considered Yavin 4 home but maybe he could change his position on that.
"We need to get back to the others." He gave her the small package.
Maia led them along more roofs until they got to the warehouse. They pried open a window and slipped in quietly. They were on a small platform about the main floor of the warehouse. Tel, Finn, Rose and Rey were talking to a small group of natives armed with a variety of blasters. The leader had a defensive posture and Tel looked like he was pleading with him.
"This isn't good." Maia murmured close to his ear. "That's Tel's ex-boyfriend, they don't get along."
"How do you know that?" He asked.
"Force stuff. Also, Tel used to have a picture of them but I helped him burn it a few years ago." She whispered back.
Someone in the other group looked up and saw Maia and Poe crouching above them and pulled their blaster. In the span of a breath, everyone pulled a weapon and Rey turned on her new lightsaber that crackled blue with the broken crystal. There was yelling and Tel was desperately trying to diffuse the situation.
They clambered down awkwardly from the platform, Poe's blaster still trained on them. Maia was the only one without a weapon and she approached cautiously, hands up. The same man who had spotted them earlier exclaimed, "You!" And retrained his weapon on Maia. "We all thought you were dead!"
"Nice to see you again Jak."
"You owe me money."
Her hands went palm up, "It's been like twenty years Jak, can't we just forget about it?"
Jak pulled down on the collar of his shirt, revealing an ugly scar on his collarbone that continued under his shirt, "You might want to forget, but I can't and neither do the Dennon Collective. You show your face around here and they might kill you before I do."
She lowered her hands, "I was a child, I didn't mean to steal from you. I wanted off the planet and that was the only way I knew how."
The leader spoke up, "This is who the Resistance works with, someone who steals from their friends?"
"Technically, she's not part of the Resistance." Finn spoke up, "Technically, she's a Jedi."
Their guns lowered a fraction and the all looked between Rey, who was still threatening them with her lightsaber and Maia, weaponless and pleading.
"A. . . Jedi?" Jak sounded unconvinced.
"Remember that old man who caught me and you kept running? That man, was Luke Skywalker. I trained as a Jedi for ten years, I survived the Jedi Massascre and I have fought Kylo Ren on multiple occasions and survived." She exaggerated a little bit, knowing they wouldn't know the difference. "Rey had defeated Kylo Ren in battle twice now. If you want help defeating the First Order here, then you can have no better help than us."
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her small cloth with the rocks, "I can give you this." She offered out the necklace with the red stone.
Jak lowered his gun completely and took the dangling necklace in his hand, "And you have the ring."
She conceded, "And I have the ring." She let go of the necklace and worked the ring off her finger. "I would give everything up to defeat the First Order, what are you willing to give up?"
He pocketed the jewelry. "This doesn't make us even Maia. But it will do for now."
She nodded and backed up to Poe again. The leader turned back to the others, gave Tel a look up and down and then jerked his head towards the back of the room, "Come with us."