Okay guys, just a warning, I'm posting this chapter un-beta'd, but I'll probably have it edited at a later date. I just wanted to get this chapter out before "The Last Jedi" was in theaters, because I know I haven't worked on this in months and even though I've got most of this fic planned out, TLJ is still bound to affect this fic going forward.

Also, I edited the prologue a bit to tweak Mabel's backstory and some of that will be mentioned in this chapter, so please go back and re-read the prologue if you haven't already. Otherwise, you're gonna be a little confused.

A piercing shriek of metal scraping against metal broke through the entombing silence of the wreck. Mabel tried not to wince at the sound grating against her eardrums as she slid the panel out. She made a mental note that she ought to add some sort of ear mufflers to her protective gear.

A gust of old stale air and dust followed in the wake of the newly opened panel, briefly clouding her goggles. But if confirmed that her suspicions were correct and excitement pooled in her chest. This section had somehow gone untouched until now. These panels were bound to be full of good, useable tech that could keep her fed for weeks! So long as she didn't blab about it to everyone and only took small bits of it at a time. Best not to draw suspicion from the other scavengers. The jagged scar on her calf bore testimony that she'd learned that lesson the hard way.

It was tempting to overstuff her bag, though. Grabbing only the pieces she'd need today, she carefully maneuvered the panel back into place, somewhat crookedly so it would look like someone had already disturbed it. Not many people ventured out this far into the Graveyard, believing these ruins to be picked clean ages ago. But you never knew who was desperate enough; who was hungry enough.

Sighing contentedly through her muffler, Mabel drew a grappling hook from her utility belt and secured her bag across her shoulder. She fired the hook across the gap and swung over, making her way back to the entrance that was spilling into harsh sunlight. She was almost reluctant to go back outside, as the gutted innards of the ship was marginally cooler than outside. But her parched throat and empty stomach demanded that she leave. She'd run her canteen dry a half hour earlier.

Her sled full of scrap greeted her as she removed her goggles and muffler. She was panting, but grinning. This was one of her favorite parts of the day. Placing her bag on the sled before her, she climbed on gingerly and then kicked herself down the dune, laughing giddily all the way down. Take pleasure in the little things, that was her motto.

The landscape around her was dotted with the effigies of long dead ships half buried in the sands. The Graveyard of Giants, they called it. It stood in testament to a grand battle that no one in Jakku's living memory could recall. And it was all being whittled away, bit by bit. The Graveyard had stood for decades, maybe even centuries as far as Mabel knew. But one day it would have no more scrap to give.

Mabel didn't think that even her grandchildren would live to see that, though.

Reaching the bottom of the dune with a dusty smile, she clambered to her feet and quickly piled her scrap into her speeder.

Today was shaping up to be a good day.

Dipper gave out a strangled scream of frustration as he tossed his wrench away, where it clattered across the deck. The engine, still emitting some waffty smoke, hissed silently back at him.

This was an absolute disaster. This was supposed to be a simple mission – just get the parts and get back to the freighter – Stan and Soos kept telling him there was nothing to worry about.

But then the First Order got involved. He'd gotten a harried, static-y message from Grunkle Stan about a Star Destroyer in orbit before it'd been cut off. And then soon after his ship's engine had started to sputter smoke.

Dammit, this was something Soos should've caught during pre-flight. He was no good with mechanics and they all knew it, but normally he had Soos with him so normally this wasn't a problem.

Now? He was stranded in the middle of the desert with an overheated engine (and nothing more, he hoped), only 3 days worth of food and water rations, and a Star Destroyer in orbit, which potentially meant Storm Troopers making their way to the planet's surface, if not landing already.

He didn't know for sure. The transmission between him and Grunkle Stan got jammed.

A shiver ran down his spine. His breath sped up and hitched. For all he knew, Stan and Soos might be dead now. For several minutes he knelt in the cockpit with his hand clamped over his mouth, trying to just calm down, dammit.

Surely the First Order couldn't be here for him, right?

Once, when Dipper had just been a child, he'd been captured by the First Order. It had been the most horrific time of his life. They'd tried to recondition him, make him a Storm Trooper, had put him through intense physical and psychological training.

By the time Grunkle Stan rescued him, he'd barely remembered his own name.

You are MN-0618…No, I'm Dipper.

His life before capture was a jumbled mess of flickered half memories. If he'd had parents once, he couldn't remember them. For as long as he could remember, Grunkle Stan and Soos were the only family he'd ever had.

Even so, there was an odd ache that didn't go away. There was a nagging thought that something was missing. Sometimes he had vague memories of a small girl; or rather impressions of her. He couldn't remember her face but he could just faintly remember the high-pitched sound of giggling or the smell of sugar. And it didn't help when Stan looked at him with a certain kind of pity. The kind one might give to someone missing a limb.

It did no good asking about her, though. Every time he asked, Stan would shrug it off, change the subject, or when that didn't work, he would just say "Some things are better left forgotten, kid."

He'd tried asking Soos as well, but the usually chatty wookiee was just as tight lipped as Stan.

It was frustrating, Dipper didn't like taking "no" for an answer, but the only two people who knew anything had sealed their mouths tighter than an air lock.

His head snapped up as he heard the sound of speeder bike engines. Or maybe just one? His hands fluttered anxiously as he wiped stray tears from his cheeks. He had to fight the urge to re-activate the cloaking shield – or the poor excuse of one anyway – while the engine was still recovering. He'd taken cover behind an old wreck of a Pelta-class frigate. If he was lucky, it would be enough.

Today was not a good day.

"What do you mean, a quarter-portion?!" Mabel screeched. "Last week these parts were a half-portion each!"

Gideon Gleeful's large, pudgy face twisted into a saccharine smile at her glare. As a child he had been tiny, smaller than Mabel even, but as the years had gone by he'd proven to be his father's son and he had grown significantly into a hulking, top-heavy figure. Even sitting in his seat behind the rations counter, he towered over her now.

"That was last week, darlin', but I'm afraid there's not a demand for these anymore."

Mabel scowled. That was the biggest load of bantha crap she'd ever heard. These couplers were always needed and she knew for a fact that no one had salvaged any in as good condition as hers. Not for at least a year.

Gideon rested his pale, freckled cheek into an equally pale hand, staring down at Mabel condescendingly. Her scowl only grew. Honestly, the Gleefuls had no right being so pale while living in the middle of a barren desert. Or so fat. (Perhaps that wasn't entirely fair of her; she knew that half of Gideon's pudge was pure muscle mass. Still it was no secret he was eating far better than anyone who worked for him, herself included.)

"I keep tellin' y'all, Mabel darlin'. If you want more to eat tonight, you can install that fuel pump on the ship for lil' old me."

The ship in question was a rotting old freighter that hadn't flown in years. It's exterior name plate had mostly faded away with nothing more than a few letters spelling out "Th My Sha". There was nothing wrong with wanting to get it running again, really. The problem was that Gideon was insistent on installing the stupidest modifications known to anyone. The ship, referred to by the locals as The Mysha for lack of it's full title, was full of an odd patchwork of mods and fixes, and Gideon's additions would do nothing to help. If anything, it would make the ship that much more likely to blow up on take-off. He apparently thought that, just because his father owned the scrap yard, he knew about ship maintenance better than anyone. Including those who spent their lives rooting through old ships instead of getting fat off of others' labor.

But she couldn't afford to go hungry again tonight. The last time Gideon tried to wheedle her into this and she'd refused, he'd thrown a fit and taken her rations away entirely. She needed to keep her strength up if she was going back for those other parts. "Fine." She growled.

She didn't like the way Gideon's face lit up at that. Ever since they'd met as children, he'd taken an intense and rather creepy infatuation with her. She supposed that that, more than anything else, was why he strong-armed her into working on that decrepit freighter. True, she did know her way around a ship, but certainly there were better mechanics at this outpost.

"Perfect!" Gideon exclaimed. "Go talk to Daddy, he'll give ya the parts y'all need. I'll come check on your progress in an hour."

Mabel made to grab the rations lying on the counter window between them, but Gideon got to them first, slapping a hand down on them just as her fingers brushed the rough plastic packaging.

"Don't worry, my dumpling." Gideon crooned. "You'll get paid once you're done."

Mabel drew her hand away dejectedly. She turned on her heel, her back facing Gideon and paused. She'd really like to have spat some choice words at him. Her shoulders tensed, the words rising in her throat like bile. But she couldn't. And he knew it. She could feel his smug gaze on her as she reluctantly walked away.

Well, there was something to be said for mechanics as a distraction. At least this way she wasn't paying as much attention on her desperately gurgling stomach. Mabel wiped the back of her hand across her brow and pulled a faded pink bandana from her belt. She tied it up into a makeshift headband, pulling her growing bangs out of her face, and continued with her work. Installing modifications that she knew would do no good and repairing any damage Gideon had done.

He certainly had been through here today, too. She found his shoddy repair work everywhere she turned, it seemed. Sometimes she wondered if he broke things just to have the excuse to make Mabel fix them.

Not that he would've found that task difficult. The Mysha was older than Mabel and Gideon combined, and at least twice as old as Gideon's father, Bud Gleeful. And it was showing its age, too. She surmised that very little of the freighter's original hull remained, the rest being a patchwork of scrap and questionably legal installations collected over the decades.

She rather liked it. It had a lot of personality.

Sometimes, Mabel thought about taking The Mysha for herself -it had a rather long and proud history of trading hands through theft – but she always stopped herself. She…she couldn't just leave.

"We'll come back for you, Mabel! I promise!"

She had to stay put. She had to.

That was when she heard it; just the faintest, indistinct whisper. Her head jerked up. The dimly lit corridor before her was empty and still.

"Hello?" She called out.

No one answered. Cautiously, Mabel directed her attention back to the power couplings before her. Now, she just had to rewire this one, maybe some electrical tape to hold over the other one. Bud hadn't given her enough couplings to replace this one…

…Ma…

There it was again. She pushed her goggles up to her head, trying to inspect the gloom before her, but again the hall was empty.

"Who's there?" Mabel called out again. Again, no one answered. But something felt…different. She couldn't describe it. The air was still and growing tense around her and yet at the same time…

…Ma…el…

There was a small, pinpricking sense of…light? Serenity?...coming from the passenger hold. She didn't even quite know how she knew which direction it was, she just did. Slowly, as if in a trance, she got to her feet, her tools lying on the deck forgotten.

The closer she got, the feeling got stronger by just the barest degrees.

Mabel

The passenger lounge was dim and empty when she reached it, and yet there was a small but strong hum of that peaceful feeling in the room. She took a small cursory glance around. Nothing seemed out of place; an old pilot's helmet here, some sort of training remote there…that hydrospanner she'd misplaced last month was on the dejarrik table. Huh. Other than that, nothing seemed really…

A small glint of metal met her eye from under the game table. Getting down on her hands and knees, she reached down underneath the table and pulled out a small object.

It was a strange little cube. She'd never seen anything like it; it was just a small, palm-sized cube, colored maroon and gold -was that real gold?- and as she turned it in her hands, she found a golden six-fingered hand on its face with a black number 2 etched into it.

This. This was what was emitting that weird feeling. She could practically feel it pulsing in her palms. But stranger still, she couldn't find any emitters or energy outputs on it. It was…just a pretty box.

She'd never seen it before; it certainly hadn't been here yesterday. She'd been through every cabinet and closet and compartment the old ship had to offer, and she was sure the Gleefuls had done the same before she'd ever set foot on the ship. So where had it come from?

The box was still humming in her hands, like it was waiting for her to do something. Slowly, almost unconsciously, her eyes began to flutter closed…

"Oh, Mabel!" Gideon's voice rang sharply through the corridor. Her eyes snapped back open. Her hands clenched around the box and it had stopped it's humming. The peaceful air that had been slowly enveloping her was now gone, as if shattered by the other's presence.

"Mabel, darlin'! Where'd you go?"

"I-I'm in here!" She called back automatically. She snapped the satchel on her belt open and quickly shoved the cube into it. She'd just barely managed to snap it back shut just as Gideon's towering form came in. Suspiciously, his eyes narrowed just a fraction, giving her a quick once-over.

"What're you doing in here, dumpling?"

"I…" Mabel's mind scrambled for an explanation. "I was – was short a few power couplings. Just trying to see if there were any spares in here. Yeah."

Gideon was silent for a few moments longer. "Daddy should've given you all the parts ya needed." He said finally. "I'll talk to him about getting you 'nother tomorrow."

She breathed a quiet sigh of relief and followed Gideon back down the corridor to inspect her work. He deemed it satisfactory despite being incomplete and within 30 minutes she was perched atop her speeder and headed home.

Well, three quarter portions was better than nothing.

Just as the sun began to set, the familiar sight of her shelter came into view. It was an old AT-AT walker that was laying on its side, half buried in the sand and hollowed out like the corpse of a long dead beast. A ratty tarp was spread across its sprawled limbs, shielding the entrance from the sun's harsh light. Nestled near the AT-AT's half buried head-shaped cockpit was her moisture vaporator, still clunking away despite all odds.

Quickly, she parked her speeder beneath the tarp and crawled through the passageway into a small living space. The walls were littered with tally marks counting her days on Jakku scratched into them, along with the occasional graffiti reading "Lee wuz here!" or the image of a muffin-shaped cloud; one which Robbie had insisted many times was meant to be an explosion. More than once, Mabel had wondered how she had once managed to share this space with four older and larger teens when she barely fit the space now on her own.

It was also short of one lizard by the name of Craz. Mabel tried not to be too disappointed by this, it was only natural for him to look for food elsewhere.

Silently, she prepared a make-shift pan and set to work. Two of the portions she received were placed in the pan to be cooked, but the third was stored away in what passed for a cupboard. Just in case she came home empty handed again. She poured some water from her canteen into her only plate and mixed in a beige powder. Her lips quirked up in a little smile as she watched the powder quickly form and rise into a small loaf of bread. It never tasted that great, but she couldn't deny it was just the tiniest bit cool to watch.

Soon she was outside, propped up against one of the walker's feet as she licked the last bit of her meal away from her plate. Stuffing the last bit of bread in her mouth, she tossed her plate in the sand beside her and gazed up at the sky. Today had been…well, it'd been weird. She hadn't gotten as much portions as she would've liked, and then there was that cube to consider.

Reaching into the satchel on her belt, she pulled the cube back out. She turned it over in her hands a few times as she considered it, but the weird peaceful energy it'd been giving off before didn't come back. Maybe she'd just imagined it?

She shook her head. There had to be something more to it. It couldn't just be a bit of décor.

"Well, come on," she prompted it. "Do something."

Silence.

Annoyed, Mabel shook it for emphasis. "What the hey-hey?! You were pretty chatty earlier!"

Still nothing.

Mabel groaned in frustration. What'd happened earlier that would make the thing call her name and make her feel calm but it wouldn't do it now? It'd stopped when Gideon barged in, so she knew she had to at least be alone. But she was alone now and it wasn't doing anything. Maybe there was something more on her part that she needed to do?

She brought the cube to eye level and tried to focus all her attention on it, willed it to open. When that didn't work, she clamped her eyes shut and focused harder. A few moments went by and she peeked one eye open. It still hadn't moved or done anything.

She sighed and dropped the cube back into her lap. Maybe…she was just trying too hard? The cube had made her feel calm and peaceful earlier. Maybe she needed to be calm too. Gently, her eyes slipped shut and she just tried to empty her thoughts. Just clear your mind, she thought to herself. Focus on your breathing…

Within a few minutes the peaceful energy creeped back into her awareness. She let it in and it slowly enveloped her body like a warm embrace.

As her eyes were shut, she didn't notice how the golden corners began to turn opened. The cube began to glow a gentle blue.

Suddenly a mechanic warbling broke out across the silence of the desert and Mabel's eyes snapped back open. She shot up, only barely remembering to shove the cube back into her pouch. The warbling noise sounded off again and this time she heard an aggravated voice following it. They were close by and whatever had made the noise sounded distressed.

Quickly, she grabbed her grappling hook in one hand and ran out across the dune towards the noise.

Several hundred miles away, a lone figure stumbled aimlessly across the barren dunes. Wendy Corduroy had finally shaken off her pursuers in what could only have been described as a ship graveyard, but her speeder had gotten destroyed in the process. And now she had been wandering all day, trying to find a settlement.

Her throat was parched and if it hadn't been for her hat, she was sure her face would've been sunburned to hell and back. Her knees were quaking, her legs threatening to give out from under her.

As she crested another dune, she came across the wreck of a Pelta-class freighter. And behind it…was that the wing of a shuttle? She squinted. Yes it was, and…there! There was someone trying to work on it!

"Hey!" She called out hoarsely. The figure's head turned in her direction and she shakily ran down the dune as fast as her aching legs would carry her. She waved her empty hands in the air. "Help!"

The figure – a brown-haired boy wearing a tan and red jacket, who looked to be only a few years younger than herself – hesitated for a moment, but seeing that she was unarmed, began to sprint towards her.

They reached each other at the bottom of the dune and she collapsed to her knees. He caught her before she could fall on her face.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm…" she rasped, trying in vain to wet her lips with saliva that just wasn't there. "W-water, pl…please."

The boy nodded, shrugged out of his coat and draped it across her shoulders. Helping her to her feet, he said, "Come on. I've got some rations on board."