Chapter 5

Jakku

The chrono at the wall told him that the time allotted for hyperspace travel was almost up. They'd be arriving on Jakku very soon and he was ready. Ready to make investigations and ready to face whatever was waiting for him. He looked at his reflection in the mirror one more time, thinking that maybe letting his hair grow out a little might work to his advantage. The curls were only barely visible and he had refrained from shaving the whole trip.

It didn't help much. He still looked too clean in his civilian clothes; remnants of the time when he had gone on undercover missions more often. He still looked like an officer of the First Order in a well-chosen costume. The beige shirt was a loose fit and immaculately cleaned and pressed, the pants stiff and they looked like they weren't worn out enough for his purpose. The only thing he could hope for was for the wind on the speeder to roughen up his appearance on the short trip from the landing site to the spaceport they were going to first. Morap had always been good at actually making him look like a civilian, or at least Poe had thought so and the missions he hadn't gone on with Morap at his side, he had always felt a bit insecure about his looks. Maybe he was imagining things. Maybe he was too nervous. He had never been found out and he had always achieved the mission's objective. If San Tekka actually was on Jakku, Poe would find him with the help of the information he already had and the intel he'd gather at Niima Outpost.

Sighing, Poe turned away from the mirror. His uniform, the one thing he was truly comfortable wearing, was hanging neatly over the chair. Going to Niima without it was essential however. He was fully aware of the fact that most people were not only highly suspicious of the Order, thanks to Resistance propaganda, but also of the fact that people on backward worlds such as Jakku didn't exactly like talking to people in uniform period.

As he entered the main part of the cabin, he saw that two of the Stormtroopers were sleeping on the narrow bunks which had been set up for them for the duration of the flight, while the other two were up in the cockpit. Not wanting to disturb the soldiers, Poe walked up the ramp to stand behind the pilot's chair. The blue whirlwind of hyperspace was still seemingly dragging them along, though Poe could read off the instruments that they only had roughly half a minute left before they dropped out very close to Jakku.

"We're close, Sir," the one in the pilot's chair said and Poe nodded, recognising the voice as belonging to FN-2199. It wasn't the first time on this trip that he wished for the Stormtroopers to have some sort of outward signature so they could be told apart by someone not using battlefield equipment to distinguish them. It wasn't as if he had spent his time with the Stormtroopers exactly, but contact between them had been established occasionally and Poe had been able to tell that certain characteristics could be applied to each and every one of them, though it was hard to link those characteristics to the numbers provided to him by the screen of his pad. All he could say was that one of them, the one called Slip, was the outsider, someone who could easily get in trouble if not taken care of by the others, while either FN-2199 or FN-2000 were overly eager to point out Slip's shortcomings. The apparent leader, the one who had also scored highest in each and every test according to Poe's file, was FN-2187. A great shot, and determined to keep his team safe and sound if possible.

"So I see," he murmured and held on tight to the co-pilot's seat in front of him as the ship slowed down and behind him a soft alarm sounded, waking the Troopers sleeping in the back. Their shuffling and low voiced talk could be heard if not understood in the cockpit. The shuttle's scans on the surface of the desert planet came up immediately. The only settlement distinguishable as such by the sensors was indeed Niima Outpost. Even that place was barely more than a village settled near a miniature space port near the place where so many ships had crashed during that last fateful battle of the last war. How fitting that the First Order was going to announce its presence to the galaxy; to declare war on the New Republic in the same place where the Empire had perished… Hux wanted witnesses for what Poe was here to do. That not only meant that this mission was highly dangerous, but also that Hux was done playing games. Poe getting here would mean that the First Order was operating in the open now and casually at that. Not sending a whole company of Stormtroopers accompanied by several TIE fighters meant that the Order was sure of itself and its mission as long as the officer showing up to claim the map piece acted his part. The fact that Hux had entrusted him with this mission did indeed tell Poe more than Hux had told him. They couldn't stand each other, but Hux was confident that Poe would indeed not perish in this mission, rendering the Order's first open steps in the galaxy a total disaster. "Can the sensors pick up any other villages or settlements?" he asked. Maybe his map was outdated, but he didn't think it was. He just had to make sure.

"No, Sir." The one in the co-pilot's seat had spoken up. FN-2000.

"Just Niima Outpost then…" Poe murmured. "I want you to take us down about ten kilometres to the east of the spaceport. We don't want to draw too much attention to us right away."

The approach through the cloudless atmosphere didn't take too long, but it was obvious that the Stormtrooper piloting the shuttle didn't have too much experience actually steering or landing a ship. Poe however didn't speak up, not wanting to disrupt the Trooper's concentration or diminish his confidence in his abilities. He himself would have done an even poorer job and the bumpy landing was safe enough. Poe turned around, walking down the ramp, just as the Stormtroopers down there put on their helmets. Poe didn't even get a chance at glimpsing their faces so he had to resort to trying to tell them apart by their voices again. At least he knew that these two must be the leader FN-2187 and the one called Slip.

At the push of a button the loading ramp was lowered by one of the two and Poe went over to the speeder bike standing in the corner. "I will be back before sunset. Stay out of sight, unless something goes really wrong," he told them.

"Yes, Sir. Good luck."

Poe was standing at the top of the ramp, the speeder to his right, the sunlight harshly reflected by the mountains of sand all around them as the burning heat of Jakku drifted into inside of the shuttle. The Trooper who had spoken up was on his other side. Poe turned is head, looking at the soldier whose facial expression would have been nice to see, even if it had been nothing but a mere impassive glance. Being around people whose faces were indiscernible was disconcerting. Like being around droids for a whole day. Except that these soldiers weren't droids, but living human beings capable of thinking further than their circuits permitted them to. Or at least that was the idea. Stormtroopers obeyed just like droids did, but it had become clear to Poe that these men were indeed individuals and not being able to tell them apart properly was making interaction in these close quarters very hard indeed. "You're Eight-Seven, right?" he asked, using the strange nickname which was nothing but a shortened version of the Trooper's signature. Why had they never given him one? Was he too aloof? Too authoritative? Poe didn't think so, but he wouldn't ask.

The soldier seemed surprised, turning his head towards Poe abruptly. "Yes, Sir." His voice betrayed what Poe had already suspected. Eight-Seven clearly hadn't expected him to use the nickname.

Poe managed a smile. "I might need that luck," he announced. Talking like this in uniform would have been unthinkable, but the civilian clothes, this costume, somehow made it possible. "Thank you, Eight-Seven." Using this name was easier he realised. Much easier. Not only because it wasn't such a mouthful. With another nod, he put up the scarf he had brought along so that it covered the lower section of his face and put on a pair of tinted goggles. He had been on Tatooine once and he wouldn't soon forget the excruciating ride on a hijacked speeder, riding behind Morap, and being hit in the face by sand again and again until his entire face was raw.

He got onto the speeder, starting the engine. He didn't look back again, as the machine beneath him came to life and he headed off in the direction of the town. The wind rushing through his hair and the sand crashing violently against the scarf. The fact that he had never flown a starship of any kind didn't diminish the joy he got out of steering a speeder. The acceleration and the light pull of the G-forces made his heart race and he smiled beneath the scarf despite himself. It had always been like this, though he had to admit that without proper training he wouldn't have gotten on a speeder in the first place. Morap had been the one to teach him all those years ago. Flying in simulations was one thing, being faced with the instruments directly, something else entirely.

It didn't take him long to reach the spaceport which barely could be called even that. The few ships sitting there weren't standing on anything that could even remotely be called landing pads, the marketplace right next to the half dozen freighters consisted of nothing but tents. But at least this place was big enough so that a stranger like him wouldn't immediately be recognised as such. The port status of the place would give him the advantage of the doubt. At least until he started asking questions.

Poe decelerated as he passed over the invisible line dividing the town from the rest of the desert. All he could see before him was a forest of semi stable structures of tents, which might very well be blown away at the first sign of a sand storm. Getting off his speeder and keying in the correct lockdown code to make sure it wasn't stolen, Poe pulled the scarf and goggles from his face, breathing in the stiflingly hot desert air once again. Looking around, Poe took in the people and creatures around him. Most of them humanoid, but only very few humans, almost all of them looking shady. He could see a couple of humans, probably a family consisting of a man, a woman and two children, working at one of the workstations beneath a canopy of faded fabric, busily cleaning away at some metal objects. Scavengers, Poe realised, remembering the information he had gotten on his datapad. Jakku's main industry was the recovery and selling of still usable parts found on ships which had crashed during the battle. This family was obviously trying to make a living with that.

Shuddering, Poe turned away from them, not wanting to think about the idea of this becoming his life. Who could have said where his parents had gone with him eventually? His mother had been irresponsible, dragging him along on her mindless hunt for the person responsible for killing her husband. Had Kafr not found him in time, this place, or something like it, might very well have become his permanent home! He really could call himself lucky… Heading into the settlement, Poe felt safer just knowing that he had his blaster strapped to his leg. Visible to all intending to attack him unawares. He looked around, scanning the area for some kind of cantina, usually always a good start for a quest on information.

From the corner of his eye he registered a movement, something stirring behind a curtain of dirty rags. He had the hand on his blaster and spun around on his heal, in one quick motion pulling aside the rags, only to reveal nothing but empty air and a couple of banged up canisters. Was he being too obvious? Too suspicious? Poe looked back over his shoulder. Nothing. His speeder bike was still standing in place.

Poe took another deep breath, then started making his way further into the encampment. Was he being followed? How? Had someone seen the shuttle landing? Possible. But the sensors hadn't picked up a life form in a five-mile radius, so it was very unlikely anyone had seen him standing at the top of the ramp with Eight-Seven. For now, he'd just have to pay even closer attention to his surroundings and keep an eye out for anyone following him.

Spotting one of the few structures that seemed like permanent buildings, Poe stopped in his tracks. All the outward signs pointed to the fact that this was very likely the cantina he had been looking for, though not a lot of people seemed to frequent it. This place, Niima Outpost, didn't look like it was inhabited by a lot of people who could even afford the occasional drink. But he still had to try. He must look like an outsider and an outsider would always walk up to the first bar to make contacts. Were he a smuggler this would be the first place he'd go.

As he walked up to the one storey building, a young woman who couldn't be older than twenty, walked out of it, her cream coloured utility jacket almost as clean and as obviously alien to this place as were Poe's own clothes. Their eyes met for a second and Poe couldn't help but nod at her in greeting. Two strangers meeting in a place foreign to both of them might do that. "Not a great place for encountering the locals?" he asked, assuming his best well-travelled explorer tone of voice.

She eyed him suspiciously, her brown irises flashing in the sunlight. So she wasn't the trusting type. Good enough. At least her lips started forming a smile as she put her hand on her hip. "Not really", she answered, pushing back a strand of hair that had worked its way out of her ponytail. "Are you looking for anything in particular? Plutt has all the spare parts you might need."

Smiling vaguely. "Thanks, my ship has had some problems with the motivator. That's why I'm stranded here. Do you know where this Plutt person is?"

She didn't hesitate to point at a point over Poe's shoulder, who turned around to look at the metal container in front of which a line of people was forming already. "Shady guy?" he guessed.

"He's definitely going to rip you off, but if you need a motivator, he's the one you have to go see."

"Fine…" he heaved a heavy, fake sigh. "I'll talk to him, but I'm going to need a drink first. Or would the one and only expert on Jakku I know advice against it?"

She laughed. Heartily. She looked indeed like the type of person who liked doing just that. Not like someone as familiar with this place as she obviously was. "Not really," she grinned. "The beer is not as cold as you're used to probably, but drinkable."

"Just what I wanted to hear. You want to join me?"

"No, I'm done. But thanks. See you around, flyboy." And with that she turned to walk away. He hadn't gotten her name, but as she walked off, he realised that a standard issue New Republic blaster was strapped to her right leg. An outdated model, but still. As far as he knew the Republic didn't go handing those around. So she was either a pirate who had stolen the blaster or someone else entirely. Someone he had to look out for. But then again he should do so either way. She was an off-worlder just like him and it was obvious that people only came to Jakku for very specific reasons. This mission was already proving to be risky.

The few dozen people in the cantina hadn't been much help. In fact, his suspicions that only people not living here could actually afford a drink other than water were people not living on Jakku. The population here barely managed to scrape by, nothing more. He didn't dare talk to a whole lot of people either in case he arose suspicions. He chose three people to approach carefully and didn't get anything. Not a bit of information about the location of the village he was looking for. He needed its location, nothing more, but even that seemed hard to get. At least from the people in the cantina.

Leaving the pint of beer he had barely even touched, standing on the counter, he got up again, sliding a couple of credits over to the barkeeper, a Mon Calamari who was bound to be suffering immensely in Jakku's desert atmosphere. His skin at least looked parched, even cracked in places. As an afterthought, he added a couple of more credits. Mon Calamari weren't exactly among his favourite species, but looking at the dried-up skin of the alien, made his insides squirm and the First Order would never know that he had given in to sentiment and provided a non-human with the means to buy some extra water.

The sun had moved considerably, Poe realised as he stepped out of the almost empty cantina. When he had arrived here at Niima Outpost, it was high up in the sky, almost reaching the zenith, but now it had sunk fairly low. Soon he'd have to leave to get back to the shuttle, but he still had one last chance to find out where San Tekka might be hiding. Seemingly heading off in the direction of his speeder, he kept looking around inconspicuously and stopped dead in his tracks, when he saw the young woman he had met earlier, speaking to an elderly woman sitting at one of the work stations, her cleaning work forgotten. The old woman was laughing, pulling at the other woman's hair and patting her shoulder.

"Thanks again!" he heard her say and Poe quickly made to hide behind a wide pole, holding up the fabric providing the poor excuse for shadow in this place.

"Take care, Rey. It's good to see you've made something of yourself."

The girl laughed again. "We'll see. You watch out for yourself as well, okay?"

"You know me."

"Yes, I do." Another laugh. "Thank you again. Goodbye!"

"Bye..."

Retreating steps. Poe closed his eyes. Had she realised who she was talking to back there in front of the cantina? He had of course removed all kinds of giveaways identifying him as an officer of the First Order, but still it was clear that the woman, obviously going by the name of Rey, was here on Jakku looking for something. It couldn't be said if she was looking for the same thing as him, but he couldn't wave off the notion that maybe she was.

Poe peeked around the tentpole, taking a closer look at the woman this Rey girl had just talked to. Her eyes were following the girl. They at least seemed to know each other, which only raised more questions than it answered. Was the girl a local after all? He had already gotten the impression than she knew her way around the place, though she didn't look like one of the scavengers making up the main part of Jakku's population. On the contrary. She didn't look malnourished or like she spent all day working hard in the wrecked Star Destroyers out there in the dunes. What the girl was looking for, or who she was, Poe didn't know and he got the feeling that maybe he didn't have time to find out, when he scanned the immediate vicinity for her and saw her vanish among a couple of tents to his far right.

Making a mental note to come back here and ask the woman for the information he needed, he pushed away from the tentpole and made to follow the woman. She wasn't exactly hard to miss exactly. She stood out somehow and he only had to follow her around one corner to see where she was headed. He stood in his tracks as he spotted the ship she was aiming for and felt his heart drop. An X-Wing… not the newest model by a long shot and utterly distinguishable from all others he had ever seen by its black and orange coating, but still… Poe swallowed hard and turned around on the spot, quickly hurrying off in the opposite direction before she spotted him. The black paint, obviously a coating to protect the X-Wing from most scanners, and the fact that it was an outdated model told Poe all he really needed to know about Rey. The Resistance used older models of the starships which had fought in the war of the Rebel Alliance against the Empire back in the day. Time was of the essence now. If the Restistance had started making a move on Jakku, then it was high time the Order started doing so as well.

Without further hesitation, Poe headed off in the direction of the woman he had talked to before. She was old. Fragile… no one seemed to pay too much attention to her and from what he knew of backwater worlds such as Jakku, no one would miss her. If no one was there to take care of a person of her age, letting her work as a scavenger, then she was utterly alone and out here everyone only cared for himself. He took one deep breath to clear his head. This was it… it had to be done… no other road left for him to take. The mission's outcome was relying on it.

Fingering the blaster's hilt, Poe strode over to the workstation, where the old woman was sitting, busily scrapping away at a metallic cylinder. He sat down across from her without a moment's hesitation, blaster pointed right under the table. She looked up at him, eyebrows raised.

"And who might you be?" she asked, seemingly unafraid of the stranger sitting opposite her. She had seen the blaster, knew he was aiming for her.

"What did you just tell that girl?" He wasn't good at this. He already knew it, but there was no time to waste. He had to try. He had to know. No one was paying attention to them.

"Who wants to know?" She smiled slightly, then turned her attention back to the cylinder, working away at the metal with a stiff looking brush and scraping away at it.

"I'm asking questions a-"

"You certainly are, sonny. But you should know that I'm an old woman and if you're intending on shooting me, let me tell you that I don't mind. I've been on this rock for sixty years and believe me, I wouldn't mind ending it here. Easier than starving to death."

Poe was taken aback. Not necessarily at her declaration about not caring what happened to her, but at the name she had called him. No one had ever called him that. Never. He blinked, staring at her, while she picked up another object and started cleaning this one.

"Things out here work a bit differently," she continued, putting down the rag she was using on the metal and looking him directly in the eye, her blue ones piercing and cold.

"Wha-" Poe started and then broke off. He had interacted with people outside the Order of course. He had been in fights with some of them, but thus far negotiation had been his safest bet. He had never, not once lost his nerve. Not until today. Not until this very moment. He had only ever killed one informant. One. The one back on Corouscant. The one who had threatened to blow Poe's cover. That had happened years and years ago and back then Poe had acted out of self defence more than anything else. Leaving behind a body was never a good idea. His palm was slick with sweat, as he put the blaster back in its holster.

"There you go." She looked him over. "Give me enough credits to quit this job and I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

Poe hesitated. He wasn't sure he had as much money on him as she was asking for. "How do I know you're going to answer the right question? You don't know what I'm looking for." He should have asked that, he realised now, cursing himself quietly. That had really gone well.

"You said you wanted to know what I told the girl? Isn't that what you said?" Her voice was sweet now and the smile made Poe's fingers itch towards his blaster again. He didn't have time for games!

"I need information on a village called Tuanul," he answered. "I can't find it on maps and I need to get there as quickly as possible and I know that its location is a well-kept secret." That was why he hadn't been able to just go up to people and ask. That was why the information hadn't been provided on the data card Hux had given him. That was why he was in this miserable situation now.

She smirked, all of a sudden she didn't look old anymore.