Chapter 1

Stanley Pines glanced out the viewport at the dusty planet below. All he could see was the entire surface covered in tans and browns, not a smidge of hospitable life visible, and he knew this was the place.

Jakku.

He pitied whoever called the miserable dustball home…

"Yeesh, what a dump," he muttered.

"Isn't that the reason we're here?" a young voice spoke from behind.

He jumped, eyes darting quickly back to the doorway of the cockpit. A brunet of 19 stared back him with hazel eyes, his gaze being uncomfortably familiar as always.

"Kid, what'd I tell ya about sneakin' up on me?" he asked the young man.

"Sorry, Grunkle Stan."

Dipper Pines, as the young man was named, might not have been as gifted as a certain other someone he'd known (no, don't think about that right now) but the kid sure knew how to be quiet when he wanted to be. Nevertheless, he was right.

Jakku was a vast junkyard and they were in need of some spare parts fast. Their cargo for this run had rather nasty tempers and their borrowed freighter could only handle so much. Probably should've known better than to buy one so cheap, but he wasn't made out of credits.

Stan took one last look out at the planet below before rising from the pilot's seat, his joints popping as he did so, and made his way out of the cockpit.

"Is Soos done warmin' her up?"

"Yeah, he's finishing the last pre-flight check now," Dipper replied, falling into step next to him.

The plan was simple. The kid would take a transport ship down to the planet, find the nearest junk shop and pick up the parts they needed. Normally, Stan or Soos would accompany him, but again, real nasty tempers. It was gonna be at least a two-man job keeping an eye on the cargo, and the few spare crewman they'd hired on were long gone.

Besides, the kid was 19 years old now. It was high time he did a solo run.

Stan fished out his purse of credits and tossed it over to the young man. "You're gonna need this."

Dipper was silent for a moment while he checked the contents. "Are you sure this is going to be enough?"

"Yeesh, kid. I taught ya how to barter, didn't I?"

"Oh, so that's what you call it when you throw a flash bomb in their faces and run?" Dipper huffed. "Funny, I thought that was called swindling."

"Thanks for remindin' me." Stan smirked and pulled a few flashes out of his pocket. "You're gonna need these too."

Dipper groaned but took the small bombs anyway. If only to appease his uncle, Stan would take what he could get.

"Relax, kid. Flash 'em those pretty-boy eyes of yours and you won't have a problem. Simple."

Yeah, too bad 'simple' doesn't always mean 'easy', his inner voice sneered. He soundly told his inner voice to shut the hell up.

The kid didn't look all that convinced either. The sound of a primed engine greeted them when they entered the yawning hangar bay.

"Look, with all the holes they've been punchin' in the walls, this ship ain't gonna make it back without those parts. Our buyer has us on a tight schedule and we're wastin' time yammerin' about it here."

"I know that," Dipper mumbled. His head was ducked down, not meeting Stan's eyes as he picked imaginary lint from his tunic. "It's just..."

"Just what?"

The young man continued avoiding his gaze. He mumbled something under his breath about the Kanji Klub and flushed. Stan sighed heavily before resting his hand on the boy's shoulder. The kid really needed to work on his self-esteem issues. And wasn't that just the wookiee calling the bantha hairy, He thought to himself.

"Hey, none of that now," Stan cut him off. "Let me worry about Rico's goons and just focus on the job, okay? You're gonna be fine out there."

The soft growl of their wookiee first mate informed them that the transport was ready to go. Stan clapped his hand on the boy's shoulder one more time, flashing him an easy smile that didn't quite make it to his eyes, and gently pushed him in the direction of the ship.

"Knock 'em dead, kiddo," he said, and that was that.

Before long, the transport was growing smaller in the distance and Stan could feel a twisting bout of anxiety pooling in his stomach. He'd already lost two from his family already, and he'd almost lost this kid once too, so maybe it was natural for that to settle in his gut, but this still felt different somehow…

He shook his head to clear those thoughts. This was stupid. The kid was going to be just fine. He was worrying over nothing.

The inhabitants of Tuanul were slowly starting to rise and prepare for the day ahead. Daybreak was still about an hour away, but it was prudent to get started now before the oppressive heat of Jakku's day cycle arrived. The village was comprised of several different species, from humans to twi'leks to ithorians to togrutas. Some were more suited to the desert environment, but nevertheless they managed to thrive.

On the outskirts of the village stood a lone X-Wing class fighter ship. It was heavily modified, the least of which, not being that it was painted a dull black with a single red stripe running along its flank as opposed to most models sporting beige and orange. It was instantly recognizable, nonetheless.

Fiddleford McGucket found it somewhat irritating as that hardly made the Resistance contact's presence subtle. No matter; time was of the essence and there was no use crying about it now. The hut was mostly silent save for the low hum of the dim lanterns around them.

By most outward appearances, the small maroon-and-gold cube he held in his hands was unassuming. It appeared to serve no functional purpose aside from decoration. It had no seams and no hinges, it held no energy input or output. The only defining feature of it was a six-fingered gold hand with a black number 3 etched into its face. Yes, to many it would appear to be a trinket of a time long past.

Fiddleford knew better though.

"What exactly does it do?"

He glanced back up to the woman sitting across from him. Pale freckled skin, long auburn hair, and a rigid posture trying perhaps a little too hard to disguise itself as relaxed. She was most definitely not from the desert wasteland.

And she was young. Very young. She probably wasn't much older than 20. He wondered when exactly the Resistance had started sending children to fight their battles.

Perhaps, he mused, it was when old cowards like himself had run away.

"No one knows for certain," he said after a moment's pause. "Even I don't quite know."

"Weren't you friends with him, though?" the girl – Wanda? No, Wendy. – responded with a tilting of her head and a skeptical eyebrow cocked.

Fiddleford chuckled, sounding somewhat ruefully.

"Oh, yes," he said, "we were friends. Don't mean I know everything about Jedi relics, though. There was a lot even he didn't know about the Jedi. Y'have to understand, so much of their culture was lost to time, long before the First Order had any say in the matter."

He paused once more, turning the cube over in his hands before continuing.

"This is a holocron. As I said, no one knows what exactly they used them for. They can only be accessed using the Force. But legends say the Jedi once used these to store ancient records. Histories, sciences, literature…"

He trailed off, reaching out to the girl. Wendy held her hand out and he gently placed the holocron in her palm, curling her fingers around it.

"…or perhaps in our case, a map."

The ginger woman's eyes widened fractionally as she met his gaze.

"You're sure?" she asked.

Fiddleford shrugged his slumped shoulders.

"I don't know," he said. "But if there was one thing I know for certain about Stanford. It's that he took note of everyone and everything he encountered. And I can't blame him none for that. He had a near impossible task on his shoulders."

Wendy nodded as she studied the holocron in her hands now. "Well, now I understand why the General's been after this for so-"

The conversation was cut off then, just as an excitable droid burst into the hut and made Fiddleford jump in his seat. It was the droid his young contact had arrived with and it was a curious model. He had to wonder if it was somewhat modified itself. Most astromechs he'd seen only possessed one optic, whereas this one possessed two, as well as some sort of snout-like characteristic on the face of its dome. It rolled its spherical body in place as it warbled anxiously. Wendy's eyes widened.

"We've got company," the girl announced, grimly.

She swiftly rose to her feet and marched outside with Fiddleford and the droid at her heels. Two pinpricks of artificial light could be seen just above the navy-blue horizon. Wendy pulled out a pair of macrobinoculars and Fiddleford waited silently, anxious to know what she saw. Her shoulders tensed and Fiddleford's heart sank. He knew what she saw without needing to ask.

"You have to hide," she said, still facing the horizon.

"You need to leave," he retorted.

Wendy turned back to face him, a vehement protest on her tongue. He already knew the argument that she would make, and he cut her off before she could even speak.

"Don't worry about us here," he said. "We know how to defend ourselves. Go."

The girl grimaced and for a moment he was sure she was still going to argue with him. Instead, she nodded, gestured for the droid to follow her, and took off as fast as she could for her ship.

Fiddleford heaved a small sigh of relief. He'd been running for so long, but now he could face anything, perhaps, even death. With the knowledge that just once he'd stood up and done the right thing, a loud warning bell began to blare through the village.

The First Order transport ships touched down on the sand and within seconds the village erupted into chaos. Stormtroopers pooled out of the ships by the dozen, the floodlights gleaming off their pristine white armor, followed swiftly by the sounds of multiple blasters firing.

Wendy Corduroy cursed to herself as she saw the high-tech artillery the First Order troops were carrying, in stark contrast to the beaten-up, patched-together blasters the villagers were firing back. The old man had overestimated their chances of survival and it was going to get the whole village killed. That wasn't something that was going to rest easily on her conscience, but the old man was right; she needed to get out of here as fast as possible.

Just for a moment a lone stormtrooper stepped in her path, attempting to cut her off. He soon found that was a bad decision; almost without thought she unsheathed the vibroblade strapped to her calf and buried it in her opponent's heart. A blaster bolt went streaking past her head, close enough that she could feel the top of her hair singe a little. Quickly, she fired her own blast back and it hit her mark right through the knee.

Finally, her ship came within reach and Wendy nearly jumped the remaining distance up the ladder and into the cockpit. The instrumentation flared to life and her droid assumed his position in the co-pilot slot behind her.

Suddenly the ship around her gave a mighty shudder and warning alarms began blaring. Someone had hit her rear. She pulled up a rearview display. 3 stormies were behind her and closing in. Flipping a few switches, she flipped one of her cannons around fired. All three of the enemy troops fell to the sands.

Her feet made a gentle whumph! as she landed back in the sand and scrambled her way back to assess the damage on the engines.

Please, please, please, she pleaded silently, just let me get away one more time

She saw the smoking, blackened wreckage of what used to be her engines and cussed. She wasn't going anywhere with this ship and she needed to get out of here fast.

"Aydee! I need you down here!"

The little droid, named AD-14, quickly complied and rolled up to his mistress. Ducking from a stray blaster bolt, Wendy pulled the holocron out of her pouch and placed in inside one of the droid's several hidden compartments.

"I need you to take this and get as far away from here as you can! I'll distract them."

The droid trilled out a series of terrified arguments in its binary code as she stood back up.

"I promise I'll come back for you! Now go! Get out of here!"

As the droid began rolling towards the west, a plan started to form in Wendy's mind as she scanned her surroundings. All she would need… There!

Firing a few shots towards the enemy, she sprinted in the direction of a worn down speeder bike resting miraculously untouched by the carnage around it.

The battle was over before it ever truly began. The village was all but up in flames, their livestock was slaughtered and their precious water supply overturned into the sand. Several of his neighbors and close friends lay dead at his feet.

He had no time to mourn, however, as the stormtroopers flanking him pulled him roughly into the village center. The surviving villagers were gathered into the square and guarded, stripped of their weapons. A massive, jet-black transport ship was setting down in the sand before them. It's giant, pointed wings made it look like a predatory bird.

The maw of the ship opened and extended its ramp, and Fiddleford saw three things. First, a new platoon of stormtroopers came pouring out and stood to attention in two-single file lines. Next, a massive figure in silver-chrome armor and a blood red cape marched down the ramp and the other troopers stood a little taller as they passed by. This, Fiddleford reasoned, must be their captain.

Finally, a figure clothed head-to-toe in rick black robes emerged, his gait far more fluid and almost predatory. He was tall, hooded, and broad-shouldered. His face was hidden by a skull-like mask decorated around the eye sockets with gold bands, and his gauntlets featured a singular slit-pupiled eye. He came to stand in front of Fiddleford.

"So," said Fiddleford, "you're the one they call Cipher."

The taller man's stance changed and without even seeing his face, Fiddleford could tell he must have been smirking. Cipher held his hands behind his back as he prowled in a circle around him.

"Well, well, well!" he cackled.

His voice was warbled and deep as if speaking through a vocoder, but at the same time still held something of a nasally quality to it. Fiddleford couldn't suppress a shudder. He'd never met the mysterious Cipher before now, but he'd heard stories of his insane and erratic temperament. A hand gripped him by the jaw and the mask came uncomfortably close to his own face.

"You've gotten old," he sneered.

Fiddleford just barely managed to keep his expression in a tight glare and said nothing. When exactly had this man known him enough to make remarks about his age?

"You're aware of why I'm here. Where is it?"

If anything, Fiddleford clamped his lips shut a little tighter.

"Going to play the silent game, are we?"

The hand released him and Cipher resumed his pacing. A sort of tension was building in his shoulders, indicating he was becoming agitated. Fiddleford couldn't be sure, but it sounded like a mocking, thoughtful hum escaped his mask.

"Perhaps you'll loosen your lips if we -"

Whatever the man had been about to say, it was drowned out by the sound of a speederbike's engine roaring to life. A series of blaster shots tore through the air, a few stormtroopers fell to the ground, and Fiddleford's heart sank when he saw a flash of auburn hair. What in the blazes did she think she was doing?!

"HEY BUCKETHEADS!" Wendy called out. "THIS WAY!"

Wth that, she sped off to the east, and Cipher glanced back at his silver-plated captain but for a moment with a single nod. The captain turned to the squad of troopers that had accompanied them in the command ship.

"Squad 618, send a team after her." As the troopers hustled to obey their commands, the captain turned back. "TK-938, FN-823, escort the prisoner onboard."

His two stormtrooper escorts gripped his biceps tighter and began herding him roughly towards the ramp. As he passed by, he heard the captain speak once more with their commander.

"And the villagers?"

"Kill them all."

NO! Fiddleford began struggling violently in his captors' grip, fighting desperately for one last view of his home. The sound of screams graced the dawn-light air as the numerous blaster bolts found their marks.

"What's the codeword I'm supposed to shout when I see a Star Destroyer again?"

Stan wasn't always the best at translating wookiee-speak, but he was pretty sure that's what Soos had said. His head snapped up and he shut off the small blowtorch in his hands.

"What?!"

He immediately dropped his tools, ripped the protective goggles away from his face, and ran for the nearest planet-side viewport. His eyes widened in horror. A massive, triangular navy ship was emerging from the far side of the planet.

No no no no NO! Not again!

His aging knees creaked as he sprinted for the cockpit.

"Soos!" he barked into the commlink at his wrist. "Patch me into the kid's frequency!"

"You got it, boss!"

Stan felt like punching something when he deemed his first mate's tone far too cheerful. He only just managed to avoid crashing into the pilot's seat as the two ship's commlinks made a connection.

"Kid! Get out of there now!" Stan yelled before Dipper had a chance to greet him.

"Grunkle Stan? But I haven't even -"

"I SAID NOW!" The Star Destroyer was getting closer and it wouldn't be long at all before they picked him up on their scanners. "There's a Star Destroyer in orbit, we can't stick around!"

"What?! But what about our -" Dipper's voice was cut off with a crackle and a buzz.

"Kid?! KID!" Stan swore up a storm and punched the console. The Destroyer was jamming their signals.

"Boss, we gotta go. They're firing up their cannons."

Stan's breath hitched. Whatever the First Order was here for, they clearly didn't want anyone knowing they were here at all. His hands flew over the controls, preparing the ship for hyperspace. He knew it was unlikely Dipper would hear him at all by now, but he still had to try.

"Dipper, we gotta go," he echoed. "We're gonna jump to the next system over, but I swear we'll come back for you. Do you copy?"

Nothing but static.

"I swear we'll come back."

He pulled the lever and felt the familiar tug as the ship entered hyperspace and left the dusty planet behind.

And so it begins! Just to clear up some confusion I had with my friend while we were talking about this, Wendy is aged up as well. She was about 15 in the show where the twins were 12, so since they've been aged up to 19, she's about 23 or 24.

Thanks again to my awesome friend and beta reader violetlolitapop! Lola, without you, this chapter would've been a goddamned mess.

Reviews are always appreciated!