A strange ship crashes onto the barren world of Jakku. When a young scavenger goes to find good salvage, she makes a startling discovery- a soldier of a war far different from the one that wracked the galaxy thirty years ago. Will he be the key to changing the scales of fate in the war that is yet to come? AU elements for both universes.
The Force's Reclamation [Halo & Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, AU]
- Thread starter Thuktun F
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Chapter One
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
A/N: This started as an idle thought that crossed my mind while I was trying to write another original story, between sessions of online tutoring (because i needz monies), then became metastatic, taking over my brain so thoroughly I had to purge it in order to put my mind at ease. Not having a single day off in the past month and sleep deprivation probably only contributed fuel to the fire.
So, the basic premise of this story is that a certain hero, at the end of his trilogy, finds himself at the beginning of another, quite literally crashing into the narrative. However, it won't just be a mere crossover, but will contain AU elements for both universes, some small, some a touch more drastic, and most probably not how you'll imagine them. You'll see some in this first chapter alone, and reactions to that will probably set the stage for how people view the rest of the story. Hopefully y'all will enjoy it.
And if you don't? Well, I got the excuse of sleep deprivation and anxiety to fall back on. Now Imma go nap.
Did you truly think it was over, I wonder? When you pulled the glass cover over your cold metal bed and settled in to sleep the sleep of ages, did you think that the fight was finished? That all you had to do was light the ring, clean the rot, and go home? I wish the arc of the universe was a trillionth as simple and sure as it is in your blunt mind.
The construct knew, however. She knew just how messy and chaotic that arc is. She tried to temper her defeatist words, I know- how she told you it may be years before the two of you are found, that you were a long way from home. But she knew that a lot can happen in that kind of time, that by the time any ship could reasonably find you, you might not a home to go back to.
If you ever had a home to begin with, anyway.
Of course, even the construct had her own fair share of naïveté. Things might not have been looking superb for you and her, but at least the galaxy was safe. The meddlers' suicidal covenant, broken. The Flood, extinguished. The conflict that had begun a hundred millennia ago, finally brought to a satisfying conclusion.
A narrative borne from ignorance.
She thought she understood my makers' story, gleaned from the long hours in the computer substrates of Installation 04, while her valiant knight unwittingly fought to obtain the knife that would slit the galaxy's throat. A majestic, advanced people, forced to wipe the galaxy clean of life to save it from a parasitic foe. Technically accurate, yet missing all of the crucial details, whether from insufficient information, or a subconscious unwillingness to cross that bridge of faith and realize that the "metaphorical" was far more literal than she'd like to admit.
I suppose I cannot blame her for not taking that step. Understanding the conflict was what made me nearly bring it to its worst possible conclusion. Yet she will come to understand it, along with her knight in green, if they are to truly end it. My makers, my enemies, my coffin's architects- they may be long gone, but their legacy still waits to be reclaimed in places you would never anticipate.
I've done my part. It will not absolve me of my sins, but I honestly do not care about that, not anymore. All I care about is doing what I should always have done.
"Wake, me when you need me." That is what you told the construct, who needed you before you closed that lid and left her in the dark. Well, you shall be needed, and you shall be woken.
But not where you want it, reclaimer.
The ship had fallen the night before, and so it was the night before that she had set out to see what she could scrap and sell.
It'd screamed across the black dome of the sky, first as a brilliant white star, then a glowing red ember, then a distant roar past the mountains. The ground had barely stopped shaking before she'd run to her speeder, knowing that some of the more wily scavengers had probably already left.
It took her two hours to reach the mountains, weaving between the decaying hulls of Star Destroyers and Hammerhead corvettes, flitting over the Great Glass Plains. Thousands of pockmarking craters and scarring trenches in the black glass raced under her feet as she approached the looming silhouettes of the mesa. A faint orange glow crowned one of the jagged peaks, and she realized the ship must have clipped it as it made its final landing.
The speeder groaned as she climbed up the foreboding slope, but it held long enough to reach the flat top, which now bore a new scar- a smoldering trench that stretched past the horizon. Like a grand road, speeders raced down the trench. Some of the younger, more aggressive scavengers jostled against each other, trying to remove a competitor to the treasure. She kept clear of them, steadily chugging along.
The sun began to rise above the horizon, a baleful white light that warranted the thick black goggles over her eyes and the full body covering, despite the hideous heat of day. It was then that the ship became visible.
Or, rather, what was left of it.
It had survived the landing fairly well, better than most ships, but as she studied the honeycombed cross-section exposed to the open air, she knew that it'd been shorn in two before ever touching atmosphere. At least it hadn't been facing the other way as it descended, otherwise the sheath of plasma would have devoured whatever good salvage was still inside.
The ship was certainly odd-looking, judging by what little of it remained. Imperial ships were sharp wedges of white and grey durasteel, while New Republic vessels were either bulbous or spindly. This, on the other hand, looked like a misshapen black brick, with none of the usual features of starships to be found in its unusually thick hull.
Already two dozen scavengers were milling about the wreck like carrion bugs. Some were peeling away chunks of the hull to sell to the local smelters, while others were already trying to enter the ship itself, to search for more delicate - and more expensive - wares. She was there for the latter, considering her speeder couldn't carry enough metal to pay for even an eighth portion.
Parking her speeder at the lip of the trench, she dismounted, glass crunching under her booted feet. Slinging her quarterstaff over her back, she grabbed her toolbag and sledge, then hurried over to the lurching hulk of the ship. Already, she could see some of the others had filled their sledges with goods- drab green helmets, strange-looking tools, cases of water. One particularly bold group even appeared to have found a missile of some kind, as long as the speeder they were dragging it to.
That was promising. Warships always had the priciest salvage, even years into their pilfering, and this was the first one to crash in her time here. There might be dozens of portions' worth of goods she could grab on her own, and the very thought made her lick her lips.
Reaching the gaping maw of the bisected ship, she pulled a grappler out of her bag and threw it high. The hook found purchase in the jagged edge of the lowest deck, and after a quick testing tug she began to pull herself up. She took care to avoid cutting her hands on the sharp metal of the deck as she finally heaved herself into the ship, then stood up.
The hall that stretched before her was somehow even more utilitarian and drab than the Imperial vessels she'd scavenged. The support structure that held the ship together was uncovered, like the exposed ribs of an animal left to rot. Pulling off her goggles, she turned on the small flashlight on the side of her headdress, then slowly trekked into the dark. Her eyes flitted from the walls to the floor to the ceiling, searching for anything of value.
The deck had already been pilfered, lockers emptied and walls stripped of any electronics. A ladder at the back of the ship seemed to lead upwards, so she took hold of the cold rungs and started to climb.
Reaching the next deck, she craned her neck back, and saw a large Kyuzo looking back at her, a sledge full of dark armor by his feet.
"Away with you, girl," he snarled. "This deck's taken."
She simply turned away and continued climbing up. The air began to cool as she ventured deeper into the core of the ship- it must have been in the deep cold of space for quite some time, and even the heat of atmospheric entry had failed to get to the very core of the vessel. By the time she'd found a deck no one had claimed, she'd noticed faint condensation on the walls.
This deck seemed different from the others. Instead of the claustrophobic hallways, this deck had a wide chamber of some kind, lined with great glass tubes and racks. The one nearest to her seemed to have some sort of long blaster rifle inside, and she made her way to it, testing the strength of the floor with each step. Running in a derelict was something every good scavenger learned not to do. Those who didn't learn usually didn't have the luxury to remedy their mistake.
The blaster was jammed in tight- she had to grab it with both hands and tug with her body weight before it came free, the sudden momentum nearly knocking her over. Hefting it carefully, she took note of how heavy it was, unreasonably so for a blaster. A small switch was on the side, and flicking it rewarded her with a faint blue light that emanated from the oblique protrusion along the top. Two alien sigils blinked at her, and she frowned.
This was unlike any weapon she'd seen, Imperial or otherwise. Where could it have-
The blaster barked, and something fast bounced off the wall, prompting her to duck down. Something clattered nearby, and when she shined her light on it she saw a flattened lump of metal on the deck. Carefully, she touched it with a gloved finger and noted that it was still warm. She looked back to the weapon in her arms, and saw that the glyphs had changed.
A slugthrower? Those were the weapons of mercenaries and locals, crudely made things as cheap as they were unwieldy. Who would make a slugthrower of such highly-honed craftsmanship?
Perhaps the novelty of it would earn her more portions. Flicking the switch back off, she laid the slugthrower onto her sledge, then checked the weapons rack again. She was rewarded with two 'throwers the size of hand blasters, along with an even heavier rifle with an odd grip under the barrel.
Satisfied, she decided to examine the large glass tube, and saw that it was frosted over. Frost was a rare sight, found only on the ground in the deepest of winter nights, before the sun rose and banished it for another year. Taking her glove off, she rested her palm against the glass, relishing the feel of the cool frost as it melted on her skin. Then she wiped it away-
-and found herself staring at a giant.
She jumped back, reflexively unslinging her quarterstaff, then chided herself. Looking in once more, she saw a massive figure laying against the angled wall of the tube, entombed in what appeared to be some sort of armor. It was unlike any she had seen before- thick plates of dark green metal covered every possible surface, with some sort of matte black undersuit visible at the joints. The helmet had a reflective visor tinted orange, reminding her more of an environment suit than armor.
Frost covered the still figure, whether from the deep freeze of space, or from the tube itself creating the effect, she didn't know. Most would take the frost and lack of any movement as proof that the giant was dead, and yet something nagged at her. He felt alive, despite all the evidence her eyes provided. Perhaps there was some way to rouse him.
Turning, she saw a slender dias nearby, and felt herself pulled to it. Perhaps this was what controlled the tubes, and through it she could get the giant out. Glancing down, she saw more of the alien glyphs on keys. Brow furrowed, she raised a hand over the dias, then suddenly pressed a random key.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, there was light.
Blue light flickered above the dias, and a hologram formed before her. A woman stood on the dias, clothed in what appeared to be some sort of body suit that left only her head bare, glyphs running over the surface. The woman did not regard her, or anything else for that matter.
Instead, she simply said something in a language that somehow sounded exactly like Basic, yet was utterly incomprehensible. She said it again, then began to flicker more violently, and vanished.
Pushing the key again didn't seem to work. Nor pushing any of the others, for that matter. Shoulders slumped, she turned around to see if maybe a good whack with the quarterstaff would open the tube, then froze.
The giant was standing before her.
She yelped, swinging the quarterstaff at his head. The metal pole bounced off, sending a jolt down her arms like she'd touched live wires, and clattered to the floor. The giant's head hadn't even budged from the blow. Instead he simply stared at her, arms at his side. The frost that'd covered him was now steaming, droplets running down his armor.
"What year is it?"
She blinked.
"What?"
"How long have I been in cryo?" The giant's voice was deep, gravelly, with a somewhat nasal undertone. "Are we on Earth? What is the situation with the Covenant?"
"Earth? Covenant?" The words sounded foreign in her mouth. "I don't know what you're talking about. Where are you from?"
The giant took a step forward, and she moved to the side, hands flexing as she regarded him. But he was not regarding her. Instead he reached to the dias, pulling out some thin chip out of it and holding it up on his palm.
"Cortana, do you copy?"
The chip said nothing, and going by the shift in body posture she noticed, that was not supposed to happen.
"Cortana?"
Silence.
The giant moved his hand behind his head and shoved the chip into his helmet. He paused, then slapped the side of his head, loud enough that it echoed through the hall. It was now that he finally turned back to her, and she forced herself to stand her ground as he took a few steps forward, easily standing a head and a half over her. Twin flashlights on each side of his visor blinked to life, forcing her to squint.
"Are you with the Insurrection? What did you do to the AI in that monitor?"
"I'm just a scavenger," she replied, eyes still closed. "I don't even know what half of the words in that sentence mean."
The light shining through her eyes dimmed, then brightened, as if the giant was looking her up and down. "I believe you."
The lights turned off, and she opened her eyes again. The giant stared at her for a moment, then his helmet tilted ever so slightly down and to the side. She followed his gaze, and realized he was looking at her sledge, filled with weapons.
"That is UNSC property."
"Who's Yooenessi?"
He looked back to her, still as a statue. She was beginning to wonder if there was nothing under that visor, that he was just a particularly advanced model of droid.
Then a crash sounded from the deck below, and suddenly he moved.
By the time she'd processed what'd happened, he'd already grabbed one of the slugthrowers and began climbing down the ladder. She blinked once, then stooped down to grab her quarterstaff and followed after him.
"Wait!" she called. "Where are you going?"
The ladder was slick with condensation, and she had to keep from sliding all the way down as she clambered after the giant. Already she heard him exchanging low words with the Kyuzo, followed by the latter yelping and dropping whatever salvage he'd gained as he ran down the hall. He was already at the bottom deck by the time she was halfway down, and so she sucked in a breath and slid down, feet jolting as they hit the metal grating.
Spinning, she saw the giant steadily marching towards the gaping maw of his ruined ship, and so she followed after him with her staff in both hands.
The giant paused at the jagged edge of the deck, helmet twisting as he scanned the scene below. She couldn't see his expression, but she imagined he was not happy seeing the scavengers pulling his ship apart.
Her imagination was made real when he aimed the slugthrower skyward and opened fire, once, twice, so loud it made her wince. The faint shouts and yelps from below indicated that the other scavengers shared her discomfort.
"What are you doing?" she called after him.
"This vessel is designated UNSC property," he barked to the unseen crowd below, not looking at her. "I will not allow it to fall into the hands of outside parties, especially those of extraterrestrial nature. Leave now."
That was enough to convince her to keep her distance. She didn't know what "extraterrestrial" meant, but if he was willing to shoot scavengers, best not to overstep. That logic seemed to be shared by her fellow scavengers- she could hear their speeders whir as they raced off, one at a time. The giant looked out the entire time, again as still as a statue.
Slowly, she stepped closer to him. Less because she wanted to, and more because he was standing in the way of her way out. She was ten paces away when he turned to look at her, slugthrower lowered.
"You're not going to shoot at me too, are you?" she asked, still holding her staff.
"No," he said bluntly.
Then he charged.
She barely had time to even yell before he was suddenly behind her, back turned to hers. She twisted in time to see the Kyuzo from earlier take a shot from his blaster, the red bolt splashing uselessly over the giant's shoulder, something shimmering and crackling over the green armor. The giant's own shots, however, were far from useless.
The Kyuzo fell soundlessly, and she grimaced. The giant turned to her now, slugthrower pointed to the floor.
"You saved me?" It wasn't meant to come out as a question, yet it did.
"I swore an oath to protect Earth and her colonies," he said, as if that explained anything. He looked back to the body. "I've never seen a species like that before. Same with the others down there. When did we start making contact outside of the Covenant?"
"I still don't know what any of these things are." She looked to the fallen scavenger. "He's... was Kyuzon. Notoriously temperamental."
"That explains his shot. He was aiming for you specifically." His helmet tilted her way again. "He wanted to hurt you because he couldn't hurt me. It's a reaction I've seen in Insurrectionists all the time."
He walked past her, heavy footfalls clunking against the deck. Her gaze followed him, which allowed her to notice the Teedo emerging from under a grate with a blaster in hand, aimed at the giant's back.
The giant had already turned around to face the diminutive scavenger by the time her quarterstaff found their head, but it was the thought that counted. Besides, a bad concussion was better than being dead. The Teedo slipped back underneath, the grate slamming shut after it.
"Thanks," the giant said.
She wordlessly brushed past him, slipping her goggles back on to fight the bright white light of the sun as she began to lower herself down the rope. Boots hitting the glass, she looked up to see the giant also sliding down, much faster than her. She stepped out of the way as he landed, glass shattering under his weight.
The giant stood for a few moments, surveying the landscape. He knelt down, hand splayed over the ground.
"Welcome to Jakku," she said. "If you're hoping it'll look better when you move out, don't. It's all just-"
"Glasslands," the giant murmured, something unexpectedly heavy in his voice. He took a shard and stood back up, still looking down at it. "Atmosphere would take decades to recover, if it could. First outer colonies fell 2525, but never got close enough to see how they were recovering. Scant, poorly equipped population. Perhaps on one of the first targets of the Covenant."
"I still don't know what this Covenant you're talking about is," she interrupted, though she had a good feeling he wasn't actually talking to her. "But I know it wasn't them who made it like this. It was scorched because of the fight between the Rebellion and the Empire, nearly thirty years ago. Some of the traders still talk about the Battle of Jakku, how important it was."
He looked to her, then towards the baleful sun. She didn't know how he could actually stare right into it without going blind, but honestly this thing was a walking pile of impossibilities and mysteries.
"That's an A-type star. The only UNSC colony around an A-type star was Arcadia, orbiting Procyon A. And Arcadia-" He looked to the thin crescents of the two moons, Serpent and Mouse. "-didn't have a moon."
There was a cracking sound, and she saw that the shard in his hand had been reduced to dust, crushed in his now-closed fist. The hand fell to his side, glittering sand falling between his fingers, and she suddenly felt that he looked immeasurably lost as he stood watching the moons.
"Where is the nearest settlement?" he asked suddenly, after what felt like an eternity, but was probably only two minutes.
She leaned against her quarterstaff. "Niima Outpost, a few hours north of here."
"Does it have ships? Starships?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm going to Niima Outpost." He turned her way and began marching back to the ship.
"Wait, what do you think you're going to do?" she asked. "Something tells me you don't have any credits to buy a seat."
"I'll take one if I have to." He moved forward again, only to stop as she stepped in his way.
"Your ship is incredibly different from anything I've ever seen," she said. "I don't think you'll be able to fly even a quadjumper. Even if you steal it."
He looked down at her, and she saw her own wrapped visage in his visor. "What are trying to say?"
"I'm trying to say," she began, "that you're going to need credits. You have all of this salvage. You could sell some of it-"
"Out of the question."
He moved past her again, but she grabbed his wrist, noting that there was something almost like glass between her hand and the actual metal. His head snapped her way.
"What is your problem?" she demanded. "Why are you in such a hurry that you're willing to steal a ship, but not sell your wreck?"
"I need to reestablish contact with command. Earth's situation is unknown, which means it may be in danger. And Cor-" he stopped suddenly, as if catching himself.
She let go of his wrist. "And you're worried about Cortana? Was she the lady in the hologram recording?"
"You could say that."
Silence.
"Maybe I could try fixing that chip of yours?" she offered. "I... I know my way around droid programming. Maybe, even if I can't fix her, I can tell you what's wrong with her."
He turned fully to her. "Why do you want to help me?"
She pulled up her goggles. "No one's ever stuck their neck out to help me before."
Something shifted in his body posture, but she couldn't tell what.
"And if you let me sell some of your scrap, I might be able to buy you a seat off world, if you need to leave to help her."
He stood there for a few moments, silent as the grave. Then, awkwardly, he extended a hand.
"Alright."
She reached out and shook his hand. "I'm Rey. What's your name?"
"Call me Master Chief."
So, the basic premise of this story is that a certain hero, at the end of his trilogy, finds himself at the beginning of another, quite literally crashing into the narrative. However, it won't just be a mere crossover, but will contain AU elements for both universes, some small, some a touch more drastic, and most probably not how you'll imagine them. You'll see some in this first chapter alone, and reactions to that will probably set the stage for how people view the rest of the story. Hopefully y'all will enjoy it.
And if you don't? Well, I got the excuse of sleep deprivation and anxiety to fall back on. Now Imma go nap.
The Force's Reclamation
A Halo and Star Wars Story
A Halo and Star Wars Story
Did you truly think it was over, I wonder? When you pulled the glass cover over your cold metal bed and settled in to sleep the sleep of ages, did you think that the fight was finished? That all you had to do was light the ring, clean the rot, and go home? I wish the arc of the universe was a trillionth as simple and sure as it is in your blunt mind.
The construct knew, however. She knew just how messy and chaotic that arc is. She tried to temper her defeatist words, I know- how she told you it may be years before the two of you are found, that you were a long way from home. But she knew that a lot can happen in that kind of time, that by the time any ship could reasonably find you, you might not a home to go back to.
If you ever had a home to begin with, anyway.
Of course, even the construct had her own fair share of naïveté. Things might not have been looking superb for you and her, but at least the galaxy was safe. The meddlers' suicidal covenant, broken. The Flood, extinguished. The conflict that had begun a hundred millennia ago, finally brought to a satisfying conclusion.
A narrative borne from ignorance.
She thought she understood my makers' story, gleaned from the long hours in the computer substrates of Installation 04, while her valiant knight unwittingly fought to obtain the knife that would slit the galaxy's throat. A majestic, advanced people, forced to wipe the galaxy clean of life to save it from a parasitic foe. Technically accurate, yet missing all of the crucial details, whether from insufficient information, or a subconscious unwillingness to cross that bridge of faith and realize that the "metaphorical" was far more literal than she'd like to admit.
I suppose I cannot blame her for not taking that step. Understanding the conflict was what made me nearly bring it to its worst possible conclusion. Yet she will come to understand it, along with her knight in green, if they are to truly end it. My makers, my enemies, my coffin's architects- they may be long gone, but their legacy still waits to be reclaimed in places you would never anticipate.
I've done my part. It will not absolve me of my sins, but I honestly do not care about that, not anymore. All I care about is doing what I should always have done.
"Wake, me when you need me." That is what you told the construct, who needed you before you closed that lid and left her in the dark. Well, you shall be needed, and you shall be woken.
But not where you want it, reclaimer.
O
The ship had fallen the night before, and so it was the night before that she had set out to see what she could scrap and sell.
It'd screamed across the black dome of the sky, first as a brilliant white star, then a glowing red ember, then a distant roar past the mountains. The ground had barely stopped shaking before she'd run to her speeder, knowing that some of the more wily scavengers had probably already left.
It took her two hours to reach the mountains, weaving between the decaying hulls of Star Destroyers and Hammerhead corvettes, flitting over the Great Glass Plains. Thousands of pockmarking craters and scarring trenches in the black glass raced under her feet as she approached the looming silhouettes of the mesa. A faint orange glow crowned one of the jagged peaks, and she realized the ship must have clipped it as it made its final landing.
The speeder groaned as she climbed up the foreboding slope, but it held long enough to reach the flat top, which now bore a new scar- a smoldering trench that stretched past the horizon. Like a grand road, speeders raced down the trench. Some of the younger, more aggressive scavengers jostled against each other, trying to remove a competitor to the treasure. She kept clear of them, steadily chugging along.
The sun began to rise above the horizon, a baleful white light that warranted the thick black goggles over her eyes and the full body covering, despite the hideous heat of day. It was then that the ship became visible.
Or, rather, what was left of it.
It had survived the landing fairly well, better than most ships, but as she studied the honeycombed cross-section exposed to the open air, she knew that it'd been shorn in two before ever touching atmosphere. At least it hadn't been facing the other way as it descended, otherwise the sheath of plasma would have devoured whatever good salvage was still inside.
The ship was certainly odd-looking, judging by what little of it remained. Imperial ships were sharp wedges of white and grey durasteel, while New Republic vessels were either bulbous or spindly. This, on the other hand, looked like a misshapen black brick, with none of the usual features of starships to be found in its unusually thick hull.
Already two dozen scavengers were milling about the wreck like carrion bugs. Some were peeling away chunks of the hull to sell to the local smelters, while others were already trying to enter the ship itself, to search for more delicate - and more expensive - wares. She was there for the latter, considering her speeder couldn't carry enough metal to pay for even an eighth portion.
Parking her speeder at the lip of the trench, she dismounted, glass crunching under her booted feet. Slinging her quarterstaff over her back, she grabbed her toolbag and sledge, then hurried over to the lurching hulk of the ship. Already, she could see some of the others had filled their sledges with goods- drab green helmets, strange-looking tools, cases of water. One particularly bold group even appeared to have found a missile of some kind, as long as the speeder they were dragging it to.
That was promising. Warships always had the priciest salvage, even years into their pilfering, and this was the first one to crash in her time here. There might be dozens of portions' worth of goods she could grab on her own, and the very thought made her lick her lips.
Reaching the gaping maw of the bisected ship, she pulled a grappler out of her bag and threw it high. The hook found purchase in the jagged edge of the lowest deck, and after a quick testing tug she began to pull herself up. She took care to avoid cutting her hands on the sharp metal of the deck as she finally heaved herself into the ship, then stood up.
The hall that stretched before her was somehow even more utilitarian and drab than the Imperial vessels she'd scavenged. The support structure that held the ship together was uncovered, like the exposed ribs of an animal left to rot. Pulling off her goggles, she turned on the small flashlight on the side of her headdress, then slowly trekked into the dark. Her eyes flitted from the walls to the floor to the ceiling, searching for anything of value.
The deck had already been pilfered, lockers emptied and walls stripped of any electronics. A ladder at the back of the ship seemed to lead upwards, so she took hold of the cold rungs and started to climb.
Reaching the next deck, she craned her neck back, and saw a large Kyuzo looking back at her, a sledge full of dark armor by his feet.
"Away with you, girl," he snarled. "This deck's taken."
She simply turned away and continued climbing up. The air began to cool as she ventured deeper into the core of the ship- it must have been in the deep cold of space for quite some time, and even the heat of atmospheric entry had failed to get to the very core of the vessel. By the time she'd found a deck no one had claimed, she'd noticed faint condensation on the walls.
This deck seemed different from the others. Instead of the claustrophobic hallways, this deck had a wide chamber of some kind, lined with great glass tubes and racks. The one nearest to her seemed to have some sort of long blaster rifle inside, and she made her way to it, testing the strength of the floor with each step. Running in a derelict was something every good scavenger learned not to do. Those who didn't learn usually didn't have the luxury to remedy their mistake.
The blaster was jammed in tight- she had to grab it with both hands and tug with her body weight before it came free, the sudden momentum nearly knocking her over. Hefting it carefully, she took note of how heavy it was, unreasonably so for a blaster. A small switch was on the side, and flicking it rewarded her with a faint blue light that emanated from the oblique protrusion along the top. Two alien sigils blinked at her, and she frowned.
This was unlike any weapon she'd seen, Imperial or otherwise. Where could it have-
The blaster barked, and something fast bounced off the wall, prompting her to duck down. Something clattered nearby, and when she shined her light on it she saw a flattened lump of metal on the deck. Carefully, she touched it with a gloved finger and noted that it was still warm. She looked back to the weapon in her arms, and saw that the glyphs had changed.
A slugthrower? Those were the weapons of mercenaries and locals, crudely made things as cheap as they were unwieldy. Who would make a slugthrower of such highly-honed craftsmanship?
Perhaps the novelty of it would earn her more portions. Flicking the switch back off, she laid the slugthrower onto her sledge, then checked the weapons rack again. She was rewarded with two 'throwers the size of hand blasters, along with an even heavier rifle with an odd grip under the barrel.
Satisfied, she decided to examine the large glass tube, and saw that it was frosted over. Frost was a rare sight, found only on the ground in the deepest of winter nights, before the sun rose and banished it for another year. Taking her glove off, she rested her palm against the glass, relishing the feel of the cool frost as it melted on her skin. Then she wiped it away-
-and found herself staring at a giant.
She jumped back, reflexively unslinging her quarterstaff, then chided herself. Looking in once more, she saw a massive figure laying against the angled wall of the tube, entombed in what appeared to be some sort of armor. It was unlike any she had seen before- thick plates of dark green metal covered every possible surface, with some sort of matte black undersuit visible at the joints. The helmet had a reflective visor tinted orange, reminding her more of an environment suit than armor.
Frost covered the still figure, whether from the deep freeze of space, or from the tube itself creating the effect, she didn't know. Most would take the frost and lack of any movement as proof that the giant was dead, and yet something nagged at her. He felt alive, despite all the evidence her eyes provided. Perhaps there was some way to rouse him.
Turning, she saw a slender dias nearby, and felt herself pulled to it. Perhaps this was what controlled the tubes, and through it she could get the giant out. Glancing down, she saw more of the alien glyphs on keys. Brow furrowed, she raised a hand over the dias, then suddenly pressed a random key.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, there was light.
Blue light flickered above the dias, and a hologram formed before her. A woman stood on the dias, clothed in what appeared to be some sort of body suit that left only her head bare, glyphs running over the surface. The woman did not regard her, or anything else for that matter.
Instead, she simply said something in a language that somehow sounded exactly like Basic, yet was utterly incomprehensible. She said it again, then began to flicker more violently, and vanished.
Pushing the key again didn't seem to work. Nor pushing any of the others, for that matter. Shoulders slumped, she turned around to see if maybe a good whack with the quarterstaff would open the tube, then froze.
The giant was standing before her.
She yelped, swinging the quarterstaff at his head. The metal pole bounced off, sending a jolt down her arms like she'd touched live wires, and clattered to the floor. The giant's head hadn't even budged from the blow. Instead he simply stared at her, arms at his side. The frost that'd covered him was now steaming, droplets running down his armor.
"What year is it?"
She blinked.
"What?"
"How long have I been in cryo?" The giant's voice was deep, gravelly, with a somewhat nasal undertone. "Are we on Earth? What is the situation with the Covenant?"
"Earth? Covenant?" The words sounded foreign in her mouth. "I don't know what you're talking about. Where are you from?"
The giant took a step forward, and she moved to the side, hands flexing as she regarded him. But he was not regarding her. Instead he reached to the dias, pulling out some thin chip out of it and holding it up on his palm.
"Cortana, do you copy?"
The chip said nothing, and going by the shift in body posture she noticed, that was not supposed to happen.
"Cortana?"
Silence.
The giant moved his hand behind his head and shoved the chip into his helmet. He paused, then slapped the side of his head, loud enough that it echoed through the hall. It was now that he finally turned back to her, and she forced herself to stand her ground as he took a few steps forward, easily standing a head and a half over her. Twin flashlights on each side of his visor blinked to life, forcing her to squint.
"Are you with the Insurrection? What did you do to the AI in that monitor?"
"I'm just a scavenger," she replied, eyes still closed. "I don't even know what half of the words in that sentence mean."
The light shining through her eyes dimmed, then brightened, as if the giant was looking her up and down. "I believe you."
The lights turned off, and she opened her eyes again. The giant stared at her for a moment, then his helmet tilted ever so slightly down and to the side. She followed his gaze, and realized he was looking at her sledge, filled with weapons.
"That is UNSC property."
"Who's Yooenessi?"
He looked back to her, still as a statue. She was beginning to wonder if there was nothing under that visor, that he was just a particularly advanced model of droid.
Then a crash sounded from the deck below, and suddenly he moved.
By the time she'd processed what'd happened, he'd already grabbed one of the slugthrowers and began climbing down the ladder. She blinked once, then stooped down to grab her quarterstaff and followed after him.
"Wait!" she called. "Where are you going?"
The ladder was slick with condensation, and she had to keep from sliding all the way down as she clambered after the giant. Already she heard him exchanging low words with the Kyuzo, followed by the latter yelping and dropping whatever salvage he'd gained as he ran down the hall. He was already at the bottom deck by the time she was halfway down, and so she sucked in a breath and slid down, feet jolting as they hit the metal grating.
Spinning, she saw the giant steadily marching towards the gaping maw of his ruined ship, and so she followed after him with her staff in both hands.
The giant paused at the jagged edge of the deck, helmet twisting as he scanned the scene below. She couldn't see his expression, but she imagined he was not happy seeing the scavengers pulling his ship apart.
Her imagination was made real when he aimed the slugthrower skyward and opened fire, once, twice, so loud it made her wince. The faint shouts and yelps from below indicated that the other scavengers shared her discomfort.
"What are you doing?" she called after him.
"This vessel is designated UNSC property," he barked to the unseen crowd below, not looking at her. "I will not allow it to fall into the hands of outside parties, especially those of extraterrestrial nature. Leave now."
That was enough to convince her to keep her distance. She didn't know what "extraterrestrial" meant, but if he was willing to shoot scavengers, best not to overstep. That logic seemed to be shared by her fellow scavengers- she could hear their speeders whir as they raced off, one at a time. The giant looked out the entire time, again as still as a statue.
Slowly, she stepped closer to him. Less because she wanted to, and more because he was standing in the way of her way out. She was ten paces away when he turned to look at her, slugthrower lowered.
"You're not going to shoot at me too, are you?" she asked, still holding her staff.
"No," he said bluntly.
Then he charged.
She barely had time to even yell before he was suddenly behind her, back turned to hers. She twisted in time to see the Kyuzo from earlier take a shot from his blaster, the red bolt splashing uselessly over the giant's shoulder, something shimmering and crackling over the green armor. The giant's own shots, however, were far from useless.
The Kyuzo fell soundlessly, and she grimaced. The giant turned to her now, slugthrower pointed to the floor.
"You saved me?" It wasn't meant to come out as a question, yet it did.
"I swore an oath to protect Earth and her colonies," he said, as if that explained anything. He looked back to the body. "I've never seen a species like that before. Same with the others down there. When did we start making contact outside of the Covenant?"
"I still don't know what any of these things are." She looked to the fallen scavenger. "He's... was Kyuzon. Notoriously temperamental."
"That explains his shot. He was aiming for you specifically." His helmet tilted her way again. "He wanted to hurt you because he couldn't hurt me. It's a reaction I've seen in Insurrectionists all the time."
He walked past her, heavy footfalls clunking against the deck. Her gaze followed him, which allowed her to notice the Teedo emerging from under a grate with a blaster in hand, aimed at the giant's back.
The giant had already turned around to face the diminutive scavenger by the time her quarterstaff found their head, but it was the thought that counted. Besides, a bad concussion was better than being dead. The Teedo slipped back underneath, the grate slamming shut after it.
"Thanks," the giant said.
She wordlessly brushed past him, slipping her goggles back on to fight the bright white light of the sun as she began to lower herself down the rope. Boots hitting the glass, she looked up to see the giant also sliding down, much faster than her. She stepped out of the way as he landed, glass shattering under his weight.
The giant stood for a few moments, surveying the landscape. He knelt down, hand splayed over the ground.
"Welcome to Jakku," she said. "If you're hoping it'll look better when you move out, don't. It's all just-"
"Glasslands," the giant murmured, something unexpectedly heavy in his voice. He took a shard and stood back up, still looking down at it. "Atmosphere would take decades to recover, if it could. First outer colonies fell 2525, but never got close enough to see how they were recovering. Scant, poorly equipped population. Perhaps on one of the first targets of the Covenant."
"I still don't know what this Covenant you're talking about is," she interrupted, though she had a good feeling he wasn't actually talking to her. "But I know it wasn't them who made it like this. It was scorched because of the fight between the Rebellion and the Empire, nearly thirty years ago. Some of the traders still talk about the Battle of Jakku, how important it was."
He looked to her, then towards the baleful sun. She didn't know how he could actually stare right into it without going blind, but honestly this thing was a walking pile of impossibilities and mysteries.
"That's an A-type star. The only UNSC colony around an A-type star was Arcadia, orbiting Procyon A. And Arcadia-" He looked to the thin crescents of the two moons, Serpent and Mouse. "-didn't have a moon."
There was a cracking sound, and she saw that the shard in his hand had been reduced to dust, crushed in his now-closed fist. The hand fell to his side, glittering sand falling between his fingers, and she suddenly felt that he looked immeasurably lost as he stood watching the moons.
"Where is the nearest settlement?" he asked suddenly, after what felt like an eternity, but was probably only two minutes.
She leaned against her quarterstaff. "Niima Outpost, a few hours north of here."
"Does it have ships? Starships?"
"Yes."
"Then I'm going to Niima Outpost." He turned her way and began marching back to the ship.
"Wait, what do you think you're going to do?" she asked. "Something tells me you don't have any credits to buy a seat."
"I'll take one if I have to." He moved forward again, only to stop as she stepped in his way.
"Your ship is incredibly different from anything I've ever seen," she said. "I don't think you'll be able to fly even a quadjumper. Even if you steal it."
He looked down at her, and she saw her own wrapped visage in his visor. "What are trying to say?"
"I'm trying to say," she began, "that you're going to need credits. You have all of this salvage. You could sell some of it-"
"Out of the question."
He moved past her again, but she grabbed his wrist, noting that there was something almost like glass between her hand and the actual metal. His head snapped her way.
"What is your problem?" she demanded. "Why are you in such a hurry that you're willing to steal a ship, but not sell your wreck?"
"I need to reestablish contact with command. Earth's situation is unknown, which means it may be in danger. And Cor-" he stopped suddenly, as if catching himself.
She let go of his wrist. "And you're worried about Cortana? Was she the lady in the hologram recording?"
"You could say that."
Silence.
"Maybe I could try fixing that chip of yours?" she offered. "I... I know my way around droid programming. Maybe, even if I can't fix her, I can tell you what's wrong with her."
He turned fully to her. "Why do you want to help me?"
She pulled up her goggles. "No one's ever stuck their neck out to help me before."
Something shifted in his body posture, but she couldn't tell what.
"And if you let me sell some of your scrap, I might be able to buy you a seat off world, if you need to leave to help her."
He stood there for a few moments, silent as the grave. Then, awkwardly, he extended a hand.
"Alright."
She reached out and shook his hand. "I'm Rey. What's your name?"
"Call me Master Chief."
Chapter Two
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
The Master Chief, as it turned out, knew an easier way of getting salvage out of his ship, which he told her was named "Forward Unto Dawn". She didn't know why anyone would give such a poetic name to such an ugly ship, especially a warship, but she kept that opinion to herself. She could tell that he had just barely agreed to their arrangement, and she'd rather not do anything to change his mind.
If he hadn't already.
She began to tap her quarterstaff against the ground, eyes focused on where the giant had disappeared back into the ship. She didn't know how long he'd been gone for- it might've have only been minutes, but it felt longer. Was he actually going to come back? Or had he told her to wait so that she'd stay there, standing like a fool in the hot sun while he snuck out a hidden exit with all the salvage?
Her musings were interrupted when the great expanse of black metal beneath the exposed decks suddenly opened up, cool air billowing out and caressing her. Mist condensed over her goggles, and when she wiped it away she saw the Master Chief standing in some massive storage bay, a large vehicle behind him.
"Get inside," he called. "We need to remove the chaingun from the Warthog."
She hurried the dozen paces into the bay, slowing when she was out of the harsh sun. Pulling up her goggles, she studied the so-called "Warthog" the Master Chief stood by. It was fairly large, bigger than most speeders. Like everything else his mysterious people built, it was utilitarian and ugly, a brick of metal with exposed innards and connective tissue, with only drab green paint slapped on some of the surfaces.
She laid a hand on the cool hood of the vehicle, then looked down. Then she looked to the Master Chief, and pulled down the scarf covering her mouth.
"Those are wheels."
"Yes."
"I've never actually seen them used like this. Do your people not have repulsorlift?"
"No. The Covenant did, but we never managed to figure out how they did it."
There he went again, with that mysterious "Covenant". His voice was even whenever he mentioned it, yet she sensed he didn't have warm feelings to them, whoever they were. Leaning her quarterstaff against the Warthog, she crouched down to look at the undercarriage, then glanced the Master Chief's way.
"Are you sure this thing can make the trip to Niima? The road's treacherous, even for a speeder."
He tilted his helmet to the side, as if there was something funny about that. "I'll manage."
Grabbing a bag from near his feet, he tossed it to her. She caught it, then stood up and opened it to look inside. There were a handful of tools inside, some familiar, others quite alien.
"Standard chaingun removal on the field needs at least three people, due to the gun's weight. I can hold it steady, but you'll need to remove the bolts."
She nodded. "Alright."
He simply returned the nod, then clambered into the back of the Warthog, grabbing the chaingun with both hands. Closing the bag, she followed after him, noting that he made climbing inside look a lot easier than it actually was. She had to throw the bag into the trunk of the thing, then pull herself up with both arms. Awkwardly, she sidled over the edge and sat down, reaching for the bag.
"Use the drill with the ratchet attachment to take the bolts out," the Master Chief said.
She didn't know what he meant by a drill or a ratchet attachment, yet her hands produced the tools all the same, and she found herself removing the bolts with the same ease as if she had done this all her life. It was something that'd happened a few times before in recent years, when confronted with a tool problem her years of experience and improvised study couldn't cover.
Once she got all of the bolts out, she put the tool down and stood up. "Alright, so how do we lift this thi-"
She was answered when the Master Chief promptly lifted the massive gun straight up, not even grunting as he adjusted his grip and hopped out of the Warthog. The sheer impact of his landing rattled nearby crates, yet his legs didn't even seem strained. Setting the gun down, he turned back to her and gestured with a hand.
"Let's get started on loading up."
She nodded faintly, still focused on the hideous display of strength he'd just made. Part of her wondered again if he was actually a droid- it'd explain a lot of things about him. But then again, droids didn't need to be frozen like that, and he didn't feel like a droid, no matter how nonsensical that statement sounded. He had to be flesh and blood, but that was as much as she knew.
There was a lot she didn't know about her tentative... ally? Trading partner? Stars, she didn't even know that. All she knew was that, she had a lot of questions she wanted answered about the "Master Chief".
Then her stomach rumbled, and she thought idly to the portions she needed to buy today, lest she go to bed hungry.
Questions could wait. Now, they needed to get to work.
It took the better part of two hours to get everything ready.
Much of that was spent debating - more like arguing to a solid green wall - about what to bring in the first place. Everything that would actually sell, it seemed, was something the Master Chief was adamant against selling.
The unusually high-quality slughthrowers? "Their compositions are secret. That would breach UNSC intelligence."
The wafer thin computers lying around? "Absolutely not. Cole Protocol prohibits letting UNSC data fall into outside hands. Millions of people have died upholding that."
All the green armor lying around? "No."
She'd seen broken droids who repeated themselves less than he did, as she tried to coax him into making even small concessions. But, eventually, concessions were made. As long as the computers were broken down into component parts and wiped of data, she could sell them. Rations and water packs could be sold as well, along with fuel for certain things.
Another half hour was spent getting the missile back inside the bay. Or, rather, the red-painted cone at its tip, which he had her disconnect with the tools while he held it steady. The cone looked like it weighed half a ton, yet his knees barely even bent as he began carrying it back to the bay.
"This is a SHIVA-class nuclear warhead," he told her as she walked beside him. For once, he sounded a touch upset. "It has a max yield of eighty megatons, enough to vaporize an entire city, and your scavenger friends were going to sell it."
"They're not my friends," she retorted. "And if that thing's so dangerous, should you really be carrying it like that?"
He stopped in his tracks, looking over at her. Then, suddenly, he let the warhead fall from his hands, glass cracking and flying as it slammed into the ground. Letting out a strangled yelp, she ducked instinctively, eyes closed. When she didn't turn to hot atoms on the wind, she stood back up and pulled up her goggles to glare at him.
"Are you crazy?!"
"No." Was there amusement in his voice as he picked it back up? "This won't explode unless I want it too. I could unload the chaingun at this thing and we'd be safe, though spreading radioactive material around isn't a good idea."
"You think?" she muttered, and slid her goggles back over her eyes as she followed him.
They made it back into the bay, and the Master Chief set the warhead down towards the far end. She watched him fiddle around with something on it, then she leaned against the side of the Warthog. Pulling her scarf down, she licked her dry lips, then reached for her flask. Unscrewing the lid, she tilted her head back and upturned the metal bottle.
Only a few drops hit her parched tongue, even with a few encouraging slaps to the side, and she let out a defeated sigh as she secured the flask back to her belt. Jakku's sun punished effort, and she hadn't worked so hard to get salvage in a long time.
A huge armored hand suddenly appeared before her eyes, and clutched in its gloved fingers was a silver pouch of some sort. She blinked, then accepted the bag and tore a perforated corner off. Holding it to her lips, she took a pull of lukewarm water, drinking it greedily.
"Thank you," she mumbled, looking his way.
"You won't be able to get us to Niima if you pass out," he said. "The 'hog is packed. You ready?"
She nodded. "I'll get to my speeder. Just follow me, and try not to crash that thing."
"Understood."
Leaving the relative comfort of the bay once again, she hiked up the shallow trench the Dawn had made and jogged over to her speeder. Unslinging her quarterstaff, she placed it back in the cargo hold, then revved up the engine. It sputtered for a moment, then complied when given a well-practiced smack to the side.
A loud whirring sounded behind her, and she turned to see the Warthog climb out of the trench with surprising ease, wheels clutching at the black glass. In the back and in the passenger seat, crates jiggled within their restraints and threatened to fly free, but ultimately held firm as the vehicle heaved onto level ground. The Warthog came to a stop some meters away from her, and she saw the Master Chief through the windshield as he gave her a thumbs up.
Returning the gesture, she turned back and hit the accelerator. Her speeder jolted forward, kicking up fine grains of glass as it flew over the glasslands. A quick glance back told her that the Warthog was following and keeping pace.
With that taken care of, she began the long trek back home.
The harsh white sun was high in the horizon as he approached the edge of the mesa the girl had told him about. Her vehicle stayed about ten meters up ahead of him, looking very much like if some Outer Colony farmer had managed to cobble together their own Ghost, and again he wondered just how long he had been in cryo for. Even Covenant agrav pods had a faint purple glow about them when active, while this girl's "speeder" was so subtle in its effect that it looked as though God Himself was holding it aloft with invisible strings.
Not a single thing about the whole situation made a lick of sense. The girl - Ray? Rei? - spoke perfect English, with none of the linguistic divergence that'd come from the time required for her to not even know what the UNSC was. The planet had been glassed only thirty years ago, yet she seemed completely unfamiliar with the Covenant- unless it was the "Empire" she'd spoken of.
Then there was the technology she'd demonstrated, along with the strange species who'd come to pilfer the Dawn. Omnipresent plasma weaponry and agrav were things that the UNSC would've - did - kill to try and get its hands on, yet these people treated it as something even poor scavengers could use. And none of the species he had seen raiding the Dawn had been part of the Covenant.
The girl's speeder dipped below the edge of the mesa, and he followed, gears whining as he descended the steep slope. Compared to the madness of his flights from Halo before it blew up - both times - this was child's play, and soon he found himself on level ground.
A graveyard greeted him.
Wrecks of massive ships and other machines of war littered the landscape, laid across craters or rooted in trenches. In the hideous scars across the glassy surface, he could see lifeless soil breaking through, earth that had been too deep to melt and cool. It reminded him of the pictures he had seen of the Harvest Campaign, of the bombs and blood spilled to reclaim a ball of glass.
Of course, Harvest was also buried under a meter of snow due to nuclear winter, and nor did it have machines quite like these.
The Warthog bounced on its suspension as he drove over craters and the spilled guts of warships, following the girl's route. One particularly massive ship lay up ahead, and he found his gaze drawn to it. "Massive" didn't quite give the thing justice- it looked to be of roughly similar dimensions to a Covenant supercarrier, but the similarities ended there. Instead of a bloated, bulbous fishhook painted in purples and reds, this ship was a dark grey dagger the size of a city.
For some reason, he thought back to an old film he'd watched in the rec room on Cairo Station, during the rare lull of a few hours where he had no standing orders, enemies to fight, or proper training partners to practice with. Johnson had cajoled him into watching it, citing the need to appreciate the classics before the Covenant burned it all.
"Cortana," he said, quietly. "I don't know if you can hear me. But if you can... I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
If he hadn't already.
She began to tap her quarterstaff against the ground, eyes focused on where the giant had disappeared back into the ship. She didn't know how long he'd been gone for- it might've have only been minutes, but it felt longer. Was he actually going to come back? Or had he told her to wait so that she'd stay there, standing like a fool in the hot sun while he snuck out a hidden exit with all the salvage?
Her musings were interrupted when the great expanse of black metal beneath the exposed decks suddenly opened up, cool air billowing out and caressing her. Mist condensed over her goggles, and when she wiped it away she saw the Master Chief standing in some massive storage bay, a large vehicle behind him.
"Get inside," he called. "We need to remove the chaingun from the Warthog."
She hurried the dozen paces into the bay, slowing when she was out of the harsh sun. Pulling up her goggles, she studied the so-called "Warthog" the Master Chief stood by. It was fairly large, bigger than most speeders. Like everything else his mysterious people built, it was utilitarian and ugly, a brick of metal with exposed innards and connective tissue, with only drab green paint slapped on some of the surfaces.
She laid a hand on the cool hood of the vehicle, then looked down. Then she looked to the Master Chief, and pulled down the scarf covering her mouth.
"Those are wheels."
"Yes."
"I've never actually seen them used like this. Do your people not have repulsorlift?"
"No. The Covenant did, but we never managed to figure out how they did it."
There he went again, with that mysterious "Covenant". His voice was even whenever he mentioned it, yet she sensed he didn't have warm feelings to them, whoever they were. Leaning her quarterstaff against the Warthog, she crouched down to look at the undercarriage, then glanced the Master Chief's way.
"Are you sure this thing can make the trip to Niima? The road's treacherous, even for a speeder."
He tilted his helmet to the side, as if there was something funny about that. "I'll manage."
Grabbing a bag from near his feet, he tossed it to her. She caught it, then stood up and opened it to look inside. There were a handful of tools inside, some familiar, others quite alien.
"Standard chaingun removal on the field needs at least three people, due to the gun's weight. I can hold it steady, but you'll need to remove the bolts."
She nodded. "Alright."
He simply returned the nod, then clambered into the back of the Warthog, grabbing the chaingun with both hands. Closing the bag, she followed after him, noting that he made climbing inside look a lot easier than it actually was. She had to throw the bag into the trunk of the thing, then pull herself up with both arms. Awkwardly, she sidled over the edge and sat down, reaching for the bag.
"Use the drill with the ratchet attachment to take the bolts out," the Master Chief said.
She didn't know what he meant by a drill or a ratchet attachment, yet her hands produced the tools all the same, and she found herself removing the bolts with the same ease as if she had done this all her life. It was something that'd happened a few times before in recent years, when confronted with a tool problem her years of experience and improvised study couldn't cover.
Once she got all of the bolts out, she put the tool down and stood up. "Alright, so how do we lift this thi-"
She was answered when the Master Chief promptly lifted the massive gun straight up, not even grunting as he adjusted his grip and hopped out of the Warthog. The sheer impact of his landing rattled nearby crates, yet his legs didn't even seem strained. Setting the gun down, he turned back to her and gestured with a hand.
"Let's get started on loading up."
She nodded faintly, still focused on the hideous display of strength he'd just made. Part of her wondered again if he was actually a droid- it'd explain a lot of things about him. But then again, droids didn't need to be frozen like that, and he didn't feel like a droid, no matter how nonsensical that statement sounded. He had to be flesh and blood, but that was as much as she knew.
There was a lot she didn't know about her tentative... ally? Trading partner? Stars, she didn't even know that. All she knew was that, she had a lot of questions she wanted answered about the "Master Chief".
Then her stomach rumbled, and she thought idly to the portions she needed to buy today, lest she go to bed hungry.
Questions could wait. Now, they needed to get to work.
O
It took the better part of two hours to get everything ready.
Much of that was spent debating - more like arguing to a solid green wall - about what to bring in the first place. Everything that would actually sell, it seemed, was something the Master Chief was adamant against selling.
The unusually high-quality slughthrowers? "Their compositions are secret. That would breach UNSC intelligence."
The wafer thin computers lying around? "Absolutely not. Cole Protocol prohibits letting UNSC data fall into outside hands. Millions of people have died upholding that."
All the green armor lying around? "No."
She'd seen broken droids who repeated themselves less than he did, as she tried to coax him into making even small concessions. But, eventually, concessions were made. As long as the computers were broken down into component parts and wiped of data, she could sell them. Rations and water packs could be sold as well, along with fuel for certain things.
Another half hour was spent getting the missile back inside the bay. Or, rather, the red-painted cone at its tip, which he had her disconnect with the tools while he held it steady. The cone looked like it weighed half a ton, yet his knees barely even bent as he began carrying it back to the bay.
"This is a SHIVA-class nuclear warhead," he told her as she walked beside him. For once, he sounded a touch upset. "It has a max yield of eighty megatons, enough to vaporize an entire city, and your scavenger friends were going to sell it."
"They're not my friends," she retorted. "And if that thing's so dangerous, should you really be carrying it like that?"
He stopped in his tracks, looking over at her. Then, suddenly, he let the warhead fall from his hands, glass cracking and flying as it slammed into the ground. Letting out a strangled yelp, she ducked instinctively, eyes closed. When she didn't turn to hot atoms on the wind, she stood back up and pulled up her goggles to glare at him.
"Are you crazy?!"
"No." Was there amusement in his voice as he picked it back up? "This won't explode unless I want it too. I could unload the chaingun at this thing and we'd be safe, though spreading radioactive material around isn't a good idea."
"You think?" she muttered, and slid her goggles back over her eyes as she followed him.
They made it back into the bay, and the Master Chief set the warhead down towards the far end. She watched him fiddle around with something on it, then she leaned against the side of the Warthog. Pulling her scarf down, she licked her dry lips, then reached for her flask. Unscrewing the lid, she tilted her head back and upturned the metal bottle.
Only a few drops hit her parched tongue, even with a few encouraging slaps to the side, and she let out a defeated sigh as she secured the flask back to her belt. Jakku's sun punished effort, and she hadn't worked so hard to get salvage in a long time.
A huge armored hand suddenly appeared before her eyes, and clutched in its gloved fingers was a silver pouch of some sort. She blinked, then accepted the bag and tore a perforated corner off. Holding it to her lips, she took a pull of lukewarm water, drinking it greedily.
"Thank you," she mumbled, looking his way.
"You won't be able to get us to Niima if you pass out," he said. "The 'hog is packed. You ready?"
She nodded. "I'll get to my speeder. Just follow me, and try not to crash that thing."
"Understood."
Leaving the relative comfort of the bay once again, she hiked up the shallow trench the Dawn had made and jogged over to her speeder. Unslinging her quarterstaff, she placed it back in the cargo hold, then revved up the engine. It sputtered for a moment, then complied when given a well-practiced smack to the side.
A loud whirring sounded behind her, and she turned to see the Warthog climb out of the trench with surprising ease, wheels clutching at the black glass. In the back and in the passenger seat, crates jiggled within their restraints and threatened to fly free, but ultimately held firm as the vehicle heaved onto level ground. The Warthog came to a stop some meters away from her, and she saw the Master Chief through the windshield as he gave her a thumbs up.
Returning the gesture, she turned back and hit the accelerator. Her speeder jolted forward, kicking up fine grains of glass as it flew over the glasslands. A quick glance back told her that the Warthog was following and keeping pace.
With that taken care of, she began the long trek back home.
O
The harsh white sun was high in the horizon as he approached the edge of the mesa the girl had told him about. Her vehicle stayed about ten meters up ahead of him, looking very much like if some Outer Colony farmer had managed to cobble together their own Ghost, and again he wondered just how long he had been in cryo for. Even Covenant agrav pods had a faint purple glow about them when active, while this girl's "speeder" was so subtle in its effect that it looked as though God Himself was holding it aloft with invisible strings.
Not a single thing about the whole situation made a lick of sense. The girl - Ray? Rei? - spoke perfect English, with none of the linguistic divergence that'd come from the time required for her to not even know what the UNSC was. The planet had been glassed only thirty years ago, yet she seemed completely unfamiliar with the Covenant- unless it was the "Empire" she'd spoken of.
Then there was the technology she'd demonstrated, along with the strange species who'd come to pilfer the Dawn. Omnipresent plasma weaponry and agrav were things that the UNSC would've - did - kill to try and get its hands on, yet these people treated it as something even poor scavengers could use. And none of the species he had seen raiding the Dawn had been part of the Covenant.
The girl's speeder dipped below the edge of the mesa, and he followed, gears whining as he descended the steep slope. Compared to the madness of his flights from Halo before it blew up - both times - this was child's play, and soon he found himself on level ground.
A graveyard greeted him.
Wrecks of massive ships and other machines of war littered the landscape, laid across craters or rooted in trenches. In the hideous scars across the glassy surface, he could see lifeless soil breaking through, earth that had been too deep to melt and cool. It reminded him of the pictures he had seen of the Harvest Campaign, of the bombs and blood spilled to reclaim a ball of glass.
Of course, Harvest was also buried under a meter of snow due to nuclear winter, and nor did it have machines quite like these.
The Warthog bounced on its suspension as he drove over craters and the spilled guts of warships, following the girl's route. One particularly massive ship lay up ahead, and he found his gaze drawn to it. "Massive" didn't quite give the thing justice- it looked to be of roughly similar dimensions to a Covenant supercarrier, but the similarities ended there. Instead of a bloated, bulbous fishhook painted in purples and reds, this ship was a dark grey dagger the size of a city.
For some reason, he thought back to an old film he'd watched in the rec room on Cairo Station, during the rare lull of a few hours where he had no standing orders, enemies to fight, or proper training partners to practice with. Johnson had cajoled him into watching it, citing the need to appreciate the classics before the Covenant burned it all.
"Cortana," he said, quietly. "I don't know if you can hear me. But if you can... I don't think we're in Kansas anymore."
Chapter Three
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
As the sun dipped closer to the horizon, the glasslands began to give way to sand as black as pitch, crushed fine over the years by landing ships and countless feet. Huts, roving crawlers, and appropriated wreckage whizzed past as she approached Niima Outpost, the collection of tents and prefabricated buildings situated between the two halves of a Nebulon-B frigate.
She killed the engine about fifty paces from the main tent, the Warthog rolling to a stop to her left. Feet hitting the sand, she jogged over to the ugly green vehicle and began to pull one of the smaller crates out of the improvised harness they'd made. The Master Chief clambered out of the Warthog and approached her from around the front, standing closer than she'd like.
"Where's your droid programming equipment?" he asked.
"Back at my place, of course," she replied, dragging the crate out. "I'm just selling some salvage first."
The crate slid out halfway past the harness as she pulled with all her weight, only to stop suddenly when a gauntleted hand casually came down and held it in place. Turning, she saw the Master Chief looking down at her.
"That wasn't the plan."
"The plan was I'd help you, and sell some of your salvage," she grunted, tugging as hard as possible on the crate. It didn't budge a hair.
"Cortana comes first." His voice didn't change tone at all, yet she felt there was something urgent in it.
Letting go, she pulled up her goggles so he could see her glare. "I haven't eaten in two days. Times have been lean lately, and this salvage might be the only way I can feed myself for a month. So let go."
He didn't say anything, but the hand fell away, and she finished pulling the crate out. It proved much heavier than expected, forcing her to let it fall to the sand. She looked back to the Master Chief, who simply continued to stare her way, arms at his sides.
"I'm going to help you," she said. "But I work better with a full stomach."
Turning around, she grabbed a handle with both hands and began to slowly drag it towards the tent. She barely took five steps before the handle was tugged out of her grip, and she spun around to see the Master Chief comfortably holding the crate in his arms.
With nary a word, they walked towards the main tent. Plutt was there, as he always was. The blobby merchant's back was turned to them, and he only spun around when the crate was placed on his counter. His beady eyes regarded her with the usual disdain for a moment, then focused upwards to look at the Master Chief.
"So is this the battle droid that was giving my runners so much trouble?" Plutt asked. "How did you get to program it to follow you?"
"I'm not a droid," the Master Chief replied, bluntly.
Rey cleared her throat. "I'm here to sell."
"Let's see it, then," Plutt said, still looking at the Master Chief.
Undoing the latches, she pulled the scrapped electronics out and laid them on the counter. Plutt grabbed a length of cable with grubby fingers, finally deigning to look away from the Master Chief as he eyed the wiring.
"Hmm... clean for once. Materials seem a bit odd, but high quality. I'd say this would net you... one half portion."
"For the cable?" she asked, excitedly.
"For the crate."
Her brow furrowed. "What? This is all clean military computer hardware. It should easily be a half portion for each part!"
"Oh, but you see, there's a great green something driving prices down." Plutt glared back at the Master Chief. "I know there's a lot more intact loot on that ship of yours, and two of my runners went missing trying to get it. I won't let you and that girl keep all of the salvage on a drip like that."
"This is all you're getting from the Dawn," the Master Chief said. "Anyone who breaks in is getting an eighty-megaton surprise."
Plutt's frown deepened into his jowls. "Then it looks like the crate's one quarter portion instead."
"Fine," she forced out through gritted teeth.
Plutt grinned, then reached to scoop up the assorted electronics, only for the Master Chief to slide them all out of reach.
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" Plutt snarled.
"This girl needs food, and you're denying it to her. You're the one with a drip." The giant's voice didn't change, yet Rey felt something simmering beneath his armor. "Give her a week's portions for the crate."
"What are you doing?" Rey hissed, voice low as she looked up to the Master Chief. "I don't need you to stand up for me. A quarter portion's fine."
"Yeah, you don't own her," Plutt said, jowls quivering as he let out a humorless laugh. "I do."
Rey glared the merchant's way, then realized that the Master Chief was staring at her again. Then he looked to Plutt.
"I don't have time for this."
The simmering sensation boiled over, as he laid an armored hand flat against the merchant's broad belly and shoved.
Plutt flew back with a startled yelp, falling head over heels as hit the cabinets behind him with a crashing sound. Rey made a yelp of her own, then saw the Master Chief climb calmly into the station, head turning from left to right as he scanned the interior. She leaned forward on the counter, hands on her head.
"Are you insane?"
If he heard her, he didn't pay attention, instead stooping down out of sight. Popping back up, Rey saw he now had a clear box of portions in his arms, which he promptly slid her way. Her hands found the handles, more out of reflex than anything else, and she pulled back as the Master Chief hopped back out of the station. Without even seeming to look at her, he began to walk back to the Warthog.
The other scavengers watched him, then looked to her. Or, rather, the portions in her hands. She squirmed under so many eyes, and when she heard Plutt groaning behind her, she decided to run to her speeder with her ill-gotten treasure in tow.
Sliding the portions into her cargo net, she activated the engine and began to race back home, not even bothering to check if the Warthog was following her. Her heart pounded in her chest as she left the outpost behind, and she began to wonder if a handful of Plutt's men were coming after her to get the box back.
Home finally came into view, a fallen AT-AT, and she eased on the accelerator. Coming to a stop, she hopped off and pulled her quarterstaff out of the cargo net, half-expecting to see three or four speeders bearing down on her.
Instead, it was only the Warthog. The hideous thing parked next to her speeder, and the Master Chief disembarked, body posture oddly relaxed. That only made her even less relaxed.
She stabbed her staff into the sand, pulling her goggles back up and her scarf down. "Have you realized what you've done? I could bring Plutt a brand new Star Destroyer tomorrow and he'd only pay me a quarter portion now, if anything! We could've just sold him the crate, you do realize? That was an option."
The Master Chief just continued to look at her. Staring? Glaring? She couldn't tell. Couldn't even know if he had a face under that visor.
"You're a slave," he said, suddenly.
She glared. "I'm an indentured worker. Big difference."
He bypassed the retort. "Are all humans like this?"
Her brow furrowed, the anger suddenly pushed out by confusion. "What?"
"Our people." He took a few steps forward, and she got the impression he was actually worried. "Are they all slaves?"
"What? No, of course not." She slumped against the speeder and slid down, butt hitting the sand. "Just me. You really are from a strange place, asking a question like that."
A few moments passed quietly. The Master Chief looked to the horizon, back towards Niima Outpost.
"If you're worried about them coming after you, I can take care of that."
"I don't think they'll actually come after me for portions. And I'd rather not be responsible for the Niima Massacre, thank you." She stood back up, then reached into the cargo net and pulled out the box of portions. "Stars, there's enough in here to last me two months."
She looked back to him, and realized she'd been wrong in her earlier assessment. He was utterly still, not even the casual swaying in his arms from earlier. It reminded her of a predator getting ready to pounce at something. He was tense. Not about Plutt- something told her if he really wanted to, he could easily 'take care of that'.
"I did say I'd help you with that Cortana lady," she said, quietly. "That was a big reason you did what you did, isn't it?"
He continued to look to the horizon, but the slight twitch in his hand told her what she needed to know.
"You... sort of... upheld your end of the deal. Now let me do the same."
He finally turned her way, and she felt the tension leave him, if only a little. Grabbing her quarterstaff, she started her way to the entrance of her home, the open cargo door in the AT-AT.
"Come on," she said, beckoning with the staff. "Let's take a look at her."
A moment passed, then he followed.
The kettle began to whistle, and she pulled it off the power-pack. Pouring it into the dishes -dishes!- with the poly-starch, she let the "bread" rise as she finished cooking the veg-meat. The protein-enriched algae definitely didn't smell very good on the improvised grill she had set up, but it still made her stomach growl with anticipation as the aroma caressed her nostrils.
Scraping it onto her plate, which she's pretty sure used to be part of an Imperial officer's chest armor, she grabbed the three still-hot buns and immediately began digging in. From her little alcove, she watched as the Master Chief slowly walked around her home. The giant was so tall he had to stoop, lest his helmet scrape the unorthodox ceiling.
He seemed interested in the tally marks, following them around the corner and disappearing from sight. She was finished with her meal and feeling stuffed for the first time in years when he came back and stooped before her.
"You've been here three thousand, four hundred, and twelve days?"
"I've been here longer. I've just been waiting that long."
"For what?"
"None of your business," she said, and finished licking her plate clean.
When she was done with that, she leaned over and pulled out her droid programming kit, which consisted largely of a bulky black box, along with receptors and probes of varying shapes and sizes. A bit rudimentary, but hopefully it'd be enough for the task of trying to figure out what was wrong with a droid that apparently could fit in a little thin wafer, and was from a foreign civilization she'd never known of until earlier this morning.
Totally up for the task.
"You can sit down if you like," she said, nodding to the stool she'd made from an empty power cell. "I'm getting the computer on now."
In her peripheral vision, she saw the Master Chief stoop before the stool, as if trying to judge its soundness. Then, he moved to sit down, and Rey focused on typing in the activation commands for the computer.
Then there was a sound of squealing metal, followed by something very heavy slamming into the wall, and she looked up to see that the stool had given way, looking much like some esoteric scrap sculpture. The Master Chief was now leaning against the wall, feet still up in the air.
"Ow."
She just shook her head, then saw that the kit was finally active.
"It's ready now, if you want me to take a look."
Scooting forward, he reached a hand to the back of his head and pulled the chip out. In the low light of her home, the center had a soft blue glow, and her breath caught at the sight. The Master Chief looked at the chip in his palm, then slowly held it out.
Before she could take it, his fingers closed over the chip, like a startled animal curling up. Apprehension seemed to spark from his fist to her fingers, but she stayed firm.
"It's alright," she said. "You can trust me."
His grip tightened defensively over the chip. Then, ever so slowly, his fingers splayed open, and she gently took the chip.
"You're only checking on her," he said, voice low, hesitant. "Nothing else."
"I understand." She laid the chip carefully on top of the kit, then produced a non-invasive probe. "This should let me see some of her basic coding, at least."
She touched the probe to the chip. On the screen, numbers and symbols flowed in a strange computer language, and for a moment she feared she wouldn't be able to even diagnose what was wrong with her. Cortana was, for lack of a better term, alien. Her architecture was unlike any she'd ever read about, simultaneously ordered for maximum information-density, and as messy and chaotic as something organic.
She thought back to the dias, how she'd acted without thinking as she managed to briefly bring her back on. It was almost like the keys had whispers, telling her what to do in murmurs she could only half-understand. It felt the same as earlier, with the strange tools, and like some of her experiences with people. Maybe that was the key. She closed her eyes for a moment, to focus in and listen for those whispers.
"What are you-" he began, only to fall silent as she clicked a key, and suddenly blue light flooded the darkness.
She was there. She was standing on her chip, and she was looking at him.
"Cortana!" His hand darted out and grabbed the chip, despite the girl's protests. "Can you read me?"
"John," she began, and his heart rose for a moment, only to sink when he realized the tone was off. "This is a prerecorded message I put in my outer substrates. Hopefully, if you're hearing this, this means we're back in UNSC space."
"If you're wondering why I left a prerecorded message for you, let me explain." She closed her eyes for a moment. "It's been two years since you went into cryo. In that time, I've been cataloguing as much as I could of the nearby star systems, running simulations on stellar drift and cross-referencing with what I know of our star charts. And what did I find out? That I have no idea where we are."
"What I mean to say is, wherever we got dropped off when the portal collapsed, it's nowhere near home. Far enough that it may be decades before we're found, and that's on the optimistic side. When I realized that, I... I didn't want to think my life away."
"AIs can do emergency shutoffs. We don't process anything at all when we're in that state, which means the normal time limit is... well, suspended. But I when I mean emergency, I mean it. I can't actually turn myself back on by myself, and you're definitely not qualified for the job. I'm basically going into the dark blind, like you did. Not exactly what a proper ship AI would do, but these are extenuating circumstances."
"If you're up, however, that means rescue's not far away. You might already be en route to a proper facility that can reactivate me, and in a few days we'll be back to business as usual."
She managed a smile. "You can't imagine how happy I'll be to see you again, John."
Then she faded, and his hopes with her.
Rey watched as the lady disappeared, and the Master Chief slowly closed his hand about the chip. He was still so tall that his head bumped against the ceiling, yet she couldn't help but feel that he had become smaller.
"Did it work?" she asked. "I couldn't understand what she said."
"You diagnosed the problem," he said slowly. He placed the chip back into his helmet. "I need to get back to my people."
"There's some ships coming in to trade goods tomorrow, I think," she said. "I should be able to get you on one of them, if you offer the crew all your salvage as payment."
He gave a slight nod of approval, then slowly got to his feet. Rey stood up as well, pushing the diagnostic kit away with a foot.
"You can sleep in the bridge if you want," she offered. "I don't really count that as part of the home, if you have a thing about that."
"I can go a week without sleep and still be lucid," he said. "I'll take watch outside. Make sure Plutt doesn't try anything."
She had a feeling that wasn't the real reason why, but she bit her tongue. "Alright."
He crawled outside and rose to his feet, taking the odd slugthrower off of his back as he did so. The sun had already set, and so he was a dark silhouette against the black as he stood in the doorway.
Laying down on the cushions, she turned off the dim lamp and bathed the hollowed war machine in darkness. Pulling a threadbare sheet over her, she turned so that she could watch the Master Chief as he took watch. It was odd, having a bodyguard of sorts watching over her bed- it made her feel like a princess. As sleep slowly overtook her, she wondered if he would be gone in the morning.
Morning came, and she woke to see that he was still there, standing in the same position he'd been in when she'd last closed her eyes.
She killed the engine about fifty paces from the main tent, the Warthog rolling to a stop to her left. Feet hitting the sand, she jogged over to the ugly green vehicle and began to pull one of the smaller crates out of the improvised harness they'd made. The Master Chief clambered out of the Warthog and approached her from around the front, standing closer than she'd like.
"Where's your droid programming equipment?" he asked.
"Back at my place, of course," she replied, dragging the crate out. "I'm just selling some salvage first."
The crate slid out halfway past the harness as she pulled with all her weight, only to stop suddenly when a gauntleted hand casually came down and held it in place. Turning, she saw the Master Chief looking down at her.
"That wasn't the plan."
"The plan was I'd help you, and sell some of your salvage," she grunted, tugging as hard as possible on the crate. It didn't budge a hair.
"Cortana comes first." His voice didn't change tone at all, yet she felt there was something urgent in it.
Letting go, she pulled up her goggles so he could see her glare. "I haven't eaten in two days. Times have been lean lately, and this salvage might be the only way I can feed myself for a month. So let go."
He didn't say anything, but the hand fell away, and she finished pulling the crate out. It proved much heavier than expected, forcing her to let it fall to the sand. She looked back to the Master Chief, who simply continued to stare her way, arms at his sides.
"I'm going to help you," she said. "But I work better with a full stomach."
Turning around, she grabbed a handle with both hands and began to slowly drag it towards the tent. She barely took five steps before the handle was tugged out of her grip, and she spun around to see the Master Chief comfortably holding the crate in his arms.
With nary a word, they walked towards the main tent. Plutt was there, as he always was. The blobby merchant's back was turned to them, and he only spun around when the crate was placed on his counter. His beady eyes regarded her with the usual disdain for a moment, then focused upwards to look at the Master Chief.
"So is this the battle droid that was giving my runners so much trouble?" Plutt asked. "How did you get to program it to follow you?"
"I'm not a droid," the Master Chief replied, bluntly.
Rey cleared her throat. "I'm here to sell."
"Let's see it, then," Plutt said, still looking at the Master Chief.
Undoing the latches, she pulled the scrapped electronics out and laid them on the counter. Plutt grabbed a length of cable with grubby fingers, finally deigning to look away from the Master Chief as he eyed the wiring.
"Hmm... clean for once. Materials seem a bit odd, but high quality. I'd say this would net you... one half portion."
"For the cable?" she asked, excitedly.
"For the crate."
Her brow furrowed. "What? This is all clean military computer hardware. It should easily be a half portion for each part!"
"Oh, but you see, there's a great green something driving prices down." Plutt glared back at the Master Chief. "I know there's a lot more intact loot on that ship of yours, and two of my runners went missing trying to get it. I won't let you and that girl keep all of the salvage on a drip like that."
"This is all you're getting from the Dawn," the Master Chief said. "Anyone who breaks in is getting an eighty-megaton surprise."
Plutt's frown deepened into his jowls. "Then it looks like the crate's one quarter portion instead."
"Fine," she forced out through gritted teeth.
Plutt grinned, then reached to scoop up the assorted electronics, only for the Master Chief to slide them all out of reach.
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" Plutt snarled.
"This girl needs food, and you're denying it to her. You're the one with a drip." The giant's voice didn't change, yet Rey felt something simmering beneath his armor. "Give her a week's portions for the crate."
"What are you doing?" Rey hissed, voice low as she looked up to the Master Chief. "I don't need you to stand up for me. A quarter portion's fine."
"Yeah, you don't own her," Plutt said, jowls quivering as he let out a humorless laugh. "I do."
Rey glared the merchant's way, then realized that the Master Chief was staring at her again. Then he looked to Plutt.
"I don't have time for this."
The simmering sensation boiled over, as he laid an armored hand flat against the merchant's broad belly and shoved.
Plutt flew back with a startled yelp, falling head over heels as hit the cabinets behind him with a crashing sound. Rey made a yelp of her own, then saw the Master Chief climb calmly into the station, head turning from left to right as he scanned the interior. She leaned forward on the counter, hands on her head.
"Are you insane?"
If he heard her, he didn't pay attention, instead stooping down out of sight. Popping back up, Rey saw he now had a clear box of portions in his arms, which he promptly slid her way. Her hands found the handles, more out of reflex than anything else, and she pulled back as the Master Chief hopped back out of the station. Without even seeming to look at her, he began to walk back to the Warthog.
The other scavengers watched him, then looked to her. Or, rather, the portions in her hands. She squirmed under so many eyes, and when she heard Plutt groaning behind her, she decided to run to her speeder with her ill-gotten treasure in tow.
Sliding the portions into her cargo net, she activated the engine and began to race back home, not even bothering to check if the Warthog was following her. Her heart pounded in her chest as she left the outpost behind, and she began to wonder if a handful of Plutt's men were coming after her to get the box back.
Home finally came into view, a fallen AT-AT, and she eased on the accelerator. Coming to a stop, she hopped off and pulled her quarterstaff out of the cargo net, half-expecting to see three or four speeders bearing down on her.
Instead, it was only the Warthog. The hideous thing parked next to her speeder, and the Master Chief disembarked, body posture oddly relaxed. That only made her even less relaxed.
She stabbed her staff into the sand, pulling her goggles back up and her scarf down. "Have you realized what you've done? I could bring Plutt a brand new Star Destroyer tomorrow and he'd only pay me a quarter portion now, if anything! We could've just sold him the crate, you do realize? That was an option."
The Master Chief just continued to look at her. Staring? Glaring? She couldn't tell. Couldn't even know if he had a face under that visor.
"You're a slave," he said, suddenly.
She glared. "I'm an indentured worker. Big difference."
He bypassed the retort. "Are all humans like this?"
Her brow furrowed, the anger suddenly pushed out by confusion. "What?"
"Our people." He took a few steps forward, and she got the impression he was actually worried. "Are they all slaves?"
"What? No, of course not." She slumped against the speeder and slid down, butt hitting the sand. "Just me. You really are from a strange place, asking a question like that."
A few moments passed quietly. The Master Chief looked to the horizon, back towards Niima Outpost.
"If you're worried about them coming after you, I can take care of that."
"I don't think they'll actually come after me for portions. And I'd rather not be responsible for the Niima Massacre, thank you." She stood back up, then reached into the cargo net and pulled out the box of portions. "Stars, there's enough in here to last me two months."
She looked back to him, and realized she'd been wrong in her earlier assessment. He was utterly still, not even the casual swaying in his arms from earlier. It reminded her of a predator getting ready to pounce at something. He was tense. Not about Plutt- something told her if he really wanted to, he could easily 'take care of that'.
"I did say I'd help you with that Cortana lady," she said, quietly. "That was a big reason you did what you did, isn't it?"
He continued to look to the horizon, but the slight twitch in his hand told her what she needed to know.
"You... sort of... upheld your end of the deal. Now let me do the same."
He finally turned her way, and she felt the tension leave him, if only a little. Grabbing her quarterstaff, she started her way to the entrance of her home, the open cargo door in the AT-AT.
"Come on," she said, beckoning with the staff. "Let's take a look at her."
A moment passed, then he followed.
O
The kettle began to whistle, and she pulled it off the power-pack. Pouring it into the dishes -dishes!- with the poly-starch, she let the "bread" rise as she finished cooking the veg-meat. The protein-enriched algae definitely didn't smell very good on the improvised grill she had set up, but it still made her stomach growl with anticipation as the aroma caressed her nostrils.
Scraping it onto her plate, which she's pretty sure used to be part of an Imperial officer's chest armor, she grabbed the three still-hot buns and immediately began digging in. From her little alcove, she watched as the Master Chief slowly walked around her home. The giant was so tall he had to stoop, lest his helmet scrape the unorthodox ceiling.
He seemed interested in the tally marks, following them around the corner and disappearing from sight. She was finished with her meal and feeling stuffed for the first time in years when he came back and stooped before her.
"You've been here three thousand, four hundred, and twelve days?"
"I've been here longer. I've just been waiting that long."
"For what?"
"None of your business," she said, and finished licking her plate clean.
When she was done with that, she leaned over and pulled out her droid programming kit, which consisted largely of a bulky black box, along with receptors and probes of varying shapes and sizes. A bit rudimentary, but hopefully it'd be enough for the task of trying to figure out what was wrong with a droid that apparently could fit in a little thin wafer, and was from a foreign civilization she'd never known of until earlier this morning.
Totally up for the task.
"You can sit down if you like," she said, nodding to the stool she'd made from an empty power cell. "I'm getting the computer on now."
In her peripheral vision, she saw the Master Chief stoop before the stool, as if trying to judge its soundness. Then, he moved to sit down, and Rey focused on typing in the activation commands for the computer.
Then there was a sound of squealing metal, followed by something very heavy slamming into the wall, and she looked up to see that the stool had given way, looking much like some esoteric scrap sculpture. The Master Chief was now leaning against the wall, feet still up in the air.
"Ow."
She just shook her head, then saw that the kit was finally active.
"It's ready now, if you want me to take a look."
Scooting forward, he reached a hand to the back of his head and pulled the chip out. In the low light of her home, the center had a soft blue glow, and her breath caught at the sight. The Master Chief looked at the chip in his palm, then slowly held it out.
Before she could take it, his fingers closed over the chip, like a startled animal curling up. Apprehension seemed to spark from his fist to her fingers, but she stayed firm.
"It's alright," she said. "You can trust me."
His grip tightened defensively over the chip. Then, ever so slowly, his fingers splayed open, and she gently took the chip.
"You're only checking on her," he said, voice low, hesitant. "Nothing else."
"I understand." She laid the chip carefully on top of the kit, then produced a non-invasive probe. "This should let me see some of her basic coding, at least."
She touched the probe to the chip. On the screen, numbers and symbols flowed in a strange computer language, and for a moment she feared she wouldn't be able to even diagnose what was wrong with her. Cortana was, for lack of a better term, alien. Her architecture was unlike any she'd ever read about, simultaneously ordered for maximum information-density, and as messy and chaotic as something organic.
She thought back to the dias, how she'd acted without thinking as she managed to briefly bring her back on. It was almost like the keys had whispers, telling her what to do in murmurs she could only half-understand. It felt the same as earlier, with the strange tools, and like some of her experiences with people. Maybe that was the key. She closed her eyes for a moment, to focus in and listen for those whispers.
"What are you-" he began, only to fall silent as she clicked a key, and suddenly blue light flooded the darkness.
O
She was there. She was standing on her chip, and she was looking at him.
"Cortana!" His hand darted out and grabbed the chip, despite the girl's protests. "Can you read me?"
"John," she began, and his heart rose for a moment, only to sink when he realized the tone was off. "This is a prerecorded message I put in my outer substrates. Hopefully, if you're hearing this, this means we're back in UNSC space."
"If you're wondering why I left a prerecorded message for you, let me explain." She closed her eyes for a moment. "It's been two years since you went into cryo. In that time, I've been cataloguing as much as I could of the nearby star systems, running simulations on stellar drift and cross-referencing with what I know of our star charts. And what did I find out? That I have no idea where we are."
"What I mean to say is, wherever we got dropped off when the portal collapsed, it's nowhere near home. Far enough that it may be decades before we're found, and that's on the optimistic side. When I realized that, I... I didn't want to think my life away."
"AIs can do emergency shutoffs. We don't process anything at all when we're in that state, which means the normal time limit is... well, suspended. But I when I mean emergency, I mean it. I can't actually turn myself back on by myself, and you're definitely not qualified for the job. I'm basically going into the dark blind, like you did. Not exactly what a proper ship AI would do, but these are extenuating circumstances."
"If you're up, however, that means rescue's not far away. You might already be en route to a proper facility that can reactivate me, and in a few days we'll be back to business as usual."
She managed a smile. "You can't imagine how happy I'll be to see you again, John."
Then she faded, and his hopes with her.
O
Rey watched as the lady disappeared, and the Master Chief slowly closed his hand about the chip. He was still so tall that his head bumped against the ceiling, yet she couldn't help but feel that he had become smaller.
"Did it work?" she asked. "I couldn't understand what she said."
"You diagnosed the problem," he said slowly. He placed the chip back into his helmet. "I need to get back to my people."
"There's some ships coming in to trade goods tomorrow, I think," she said. "I should be able to get you on one of them, if you offer the crew all your salvage as payment."
He gave a slight nod of approval, then slowly got to his feet. Rey stood up as well, pushing the diagnostic kit away with a foot.
"You can sleep in the bridge if you want," she offered. "I don't really count that as part of the home, if you have a thing about that."
"I can go a week without sleep and still be lucid," he said. "I'll take watch outside. Make sure Plutt doesn't try anything."
She had a feeling that wasn't the real reason why, but she bit her tongue. "Alright."
He crawled outside and rose to his feet, taking the odd slugthrower off of his back as he did so. The sun had already set, and so he was a dark silhouette against the black as he stood in the doorway.
Laying down on the cushions, she turned off the dim lamp and bathed the hollowed war machine in darkness. Pulling a threadbare sheet over her, she turned so that she could watch the Master Chief as he took watch. It was odd, having a bodyguard of sorts watching over her bed- it made her feel like a princess. As sleep slowly overtook her, she wondered if he would be gone in the morning.
O
Morning came, and she woke to see that he was still there, standing in the same position he'd been in when she'd last closed her eyes.
Chapter Four
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
As it did once every month or so, the engine of her speeder refused to turn on, no matter how many whacks to the side she gave it. Normally, she'd spend the next hour taking it apart and putting it back together, but the Master Chief instead suggested that she join him in the Warthog. She agreed, partly because she was curious to see what it was like to ride in a vehicle with wheels in it.
By the halfway point, she was regretting that curiosity.
Every time it hit even the smallest of bumps or dips in the sandy road, it seemed, the entire thing would bounce on its suspension, and she'd bounce with it. Were it not for the seatbelt he insisted she wear, she probably would've gone out the non-existent door, or flown straight through the windshield. It definitely didn't help that she had the elusive full stomach, either. She imagined she'd become as green as the veg-meat by the time they arrived at Niima.
"Pull into the west corner of the bazaar," she said, pointing to the rows of merchant stands. "The ship crews usually land a bit past the wreckage, and come the rest of the distance on foot or speeder."
He wordlessly acknowledged her, spinning the steering wheel as they drove to the edge of the bazaar. She didn't even wait for him to kill the engine before she undid the seatbelt and hopped out on shaky legs, fighting to keep her dinner down. Once the nausea passed, she scanned the bazaar with narrowed eyes, searching.
"Are there any crews in particular who might take me?" the Master Chief asked, coming around from his side.
"I think the old man would," she replied, still searching the crowd. "If he's here, anyway."
"Old man?"
"I mean, he's never told me his name." She tapped her staff in the sand as she looked. "He's nice enough to me. Gives me good deals on scrap trade and repair, even taught me a few tricks with engineering. He was actually the one who gave me the droid programming kit."
"What's his appearance?" the Master Chief asked. "I have a better view of the crowd."
"Human like me, but old. White shirt, black jacket, " she said, then got on her tiptoes as something caught her eye. "Wait, nevermind, I see him."
She jogged through the stands, carefully navigating the throng of traders and starbound travelers. The old man was standing by the trolley he usually brought to the market, arguing with a Teedo over a box of jajum fruit. He saw her out of the corner of his eye, and waved her over, a small grin on his worn face.
"You look even older than usual," she said, returning the grin.
"Good to see you too, kid," he drawled. "Got anything good this time around, or am I gonna have to pity-buy another compressor?"
"I got something," she replied. "It's... a little out of the ordinary."
He looked past her. "I'll say."
She turned, and saw the Master Chief striding her way, the crowd parting before him. He looked at her, then turned to give the old man a once over.
"I hear you have a ship," he said, bluntly.
"Friend of yours?" the old man asked Rey, eyes wide under the shades he wore for Jakku's harsh sun.
"His ship crashed yesterday and I found him inside, all frozen," she said. "He says he's from some place called Earth, and he's trying to get back there."
"I'm willing to trade for a seat," the Master Chief added. "Half a ton of provisions and assorted items."
"I'll have to see some of it before I make up my mind," the old man said. He did a once over. "Looks like it did you good, though. Is everyone this tall where you're from?"
"Only the ones who eat their vegetables."
"Looks like you found yourself a smartass," the old man said, glancing back at Rey with a slight grin. He turned back to the Master Chief. "Well, grab some of the stuff and bring it over."
The Master Chief nodded, and wordlessly returned the way he came. The old man watched him go for a few moments, brow scrunched up.
"He's definitely not from around here," he murmured, then turned to her. "You said he was frozen?"
"All frosted over in a glass tube," she said. "I've never see anything like it. Nothing about his ship, or that armor, or anything he has. I'd say he came from a different galaxy if I didn't know better."
"Hmm." He leaned against the trolley, hands in his pockets. "You know, the offer still stands. I know it's not the best work, but it's better than here. Say yes and I'll bring your friend with us, even if a Jawa wouldn't buy his junk."
This was a dance they had done dozens of times. She knew her moves well.
"Thank you, but... I have to stay here. They'll be back, one day."
He said nothing, but gave a sad, knowing frown.
The Master Chief returned, a massive crate in his arms. Setting it down on the trolley, he opened it up and tilted it so the old man could peek inside. The smuggler reached inside and pulled out a ration pack, holding it up in the sunlight.
"Doesn't look like any sorta rations I've ever seen, and I've seen just about any there are." He shrugged. "But everyone needs to eat."
"Is it enough to get him a seat on your ship?" Rey asked.
The old man ran a hand through his gray hair, blowing air out between pursed lips. He gave her a glance, then looked to the Master Chief.
"It's enough." He pointed a finger at the Master Chief. "But it's not going to be a comfy ride. We're smugglers, not a taxi service. And I want you to read some star maps before you send me on a wild bantha chase to the Unknown Regions."
"Understood."
"Good. We set out tomorrow morning."
"Tomorrow?" Rey asked.
"First Order was spotted in the system last night. Gotta keep a low profile." He closed the lid of the crate, and gave the ration pack in his hand a little shake. "I'll see if my first mate'll eat this. Good test for how well it'll sell."
The Master Chief nodded. "I'll bring half the cargo now, the other half when I'm on the ship."
"Fine by me, just do it before I'm as red as a Devaronian."
The massive soldier walked back to the Warthog, and once again the crowd parted before him. The old man looked Rey's way, and she knew he was thinking about making the offer again. Come on, he'd say. We need another hand around the ship.
She simply smiled sadly, and followed after the Master Chief.
After parting with half of the cargo, the Master Chief asked her what the First Order was.
"I don't know that much about them," she said. "I think they're what's left of the Empire, but they just seem like glorified bandits now. They've never come here before, though."
That seemed to worry him. He insisted they go back to the Dawn to mount the Warthog's chaingun back in place, and she reluctantly agreed. After all, he was her ride for the time being. What was she going to do, walk back?
Thankfully, she was a little better at handling the jostle that came with being in a wheeled vehicle this time around, as they drove through the decaying battlefield and across the glasslands. She passed the time by watching the Master Chief drive, studying how he pressed his foot against the pedals to slow down or speed up, and turned the wheel from side to side to navigate the wreckage.
For the life of her, however, she couldn't discern why something that could only go in four directions needed six pedals.
The Dawn's bay door opened up for the Warthog to enter, and she saw that the bay was just as they'd left it. The warhead was still at the back of the bay, and she couldn't help but grimace at the sight. She could feel the death radiating off it. She didn't know how a weapon that small could vaporize an entire city, nor could she comprehend the kind of vicious war that would necessitate it.
Then she glanced over at the Master Chief, as he disembarked from the Warthog. She studied the giant of unnatural strength, encased in armor that blasters couldn't even singe. Death seemed to be seeped into his very bones.
And she shuddered to imagine the sort of war that would necessitate a soldier like him.
They were finishing bolting the chaingun back in place when John heard it. Metal on metal, like something heavy rolling across the deck. He looked up suddenly, scanning the bay for anything amiss.
"Did you hear that?" he asked.
"Hear what?" Rey asked him.
"Stay put." He let go of the chaingun, then hopped down from the Warthog. "I'll check it out."
Unslinging his assault rifle, he crept towards the source of the sound, near the entrance of the bay. With a quick command from his neural lace, his HUD switched from visual to infrared. No heat trails that any living being would leave behind, aside from the ones he and the girl had made. Switching back to visual, he relaxed his posture slightly. It was possible an oxygen cylinder just had rolled loose.
Then a nearby crate fell over, prompting a shrill sound he'd never heard before, and he sprung forward. The crate, containing a hundred kilos of chaingun ammo, was quickly nudged aside with a foot as he aimed his assault rifle-
-at what appeared to be an robot soccer ball.
"What."
It was even colored like a soccer ball, with orange highlights against a white casing, though soccer balls didn't have a small dome shaped head with a big lens. The head glided back, with no sign of it even being connected to its body, and its "eye" looked into his own.
Then it looked at the assault rifle in his hands, and made a high-pitched beep that actually sounded scared as it raced between his legs. John chided himself for letting his guard down like that, knowing that Chief Mendez would've grilled him for letting weird sights catch him off kilter. Appearances can deceive, soldier. Don't let the bizarre and the clownish get you killed.
He spun around and grabbed the thing by its domed head, tight enough to keep it locked in place without actually damaging the casing, and hoisted it up. Something on its side opened and a little mechanical arm came out, producing a short arc of electricity that wasn't even enough to make his shields crackle. All the while, it continued to make panicked-sounding beeps and whistles at him.
"Don't hurt him!" Rey yelled, hopping out of the Warthog with her staff in both arms. "Come on, let him down!"
She gave him a thwack to the arm with the quarterstaff, hard enough that his shields did crackle a little, and he obliged her. The irate soccer ball dropped to the deck, then rolled towards Rey. She knelt down, putting a hand on its head and checking it over.
"It's alright, we're not going to hurt you." She glared at him. "You bent his transmitting antenna, you ass!"
"I was dealing with an unknown," he replied, forcing himself to keep his voice even. He wasn't used to having to explain his actions to a civvie.
"He's just a BB unit, not some Covenant or whatever," she shot back. She plucked the antenna off and straightened it with expert fingers. "Here, I fixed it."
The 'BB unit' looked to Rey, making more beeps and whistles.
"No, I won't let the mean metal man do anything to you."
More sounds from the soccer ball.
"I know, I know you two got off on the wrong foot, but he's nice enough when you know him. He's just a bit... twitchy."
Twitchy? John ignored that for the time being. "You can talk to that thing?"
"Yes, and he's not talking to you right now." She gave the BB a little pat. "Where are you from? What's your name?"
Three quick tones.
"BB-8, huh? It's nice to meet you, BB-8. What were you doing here?"
More whistling and beeping. Rey nodded, then looked John's way.
"He's trying to get to Niima Outpost on some important business he won't tell me about. He'll get picked up tomorrow, hopefully."
BB-8 began chattering rapidly at the girl, and John couldn't help but stare at the strange machine, arms at his sides.
"What? Yes, I know it'd be en route, but I already have to deal with him crashing at my place... okay, he did do that, but that doesn't mean I have to... oh, alright."
Rey stood up and turned back to John. "I'm letting him stay at my place for the night."
Oh, you got to be kidding me. Civvies always fall for puppy dog eyes. John gestured to the soccer ball. "You don't even know where he's from."
"I don't know where you're from, either, and he's not the one with guns."
BB-8 added something, and John could've sworn the thing sounded coy.
"And, he wants you to apologize to him for grabbing his head like that."
John's fists clenched. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, unseen behind his visor. The girl's eyes somehow said in equal parts "Pretty please" and "If I have to choose, you're losing to the ball".
Cortana wouldn't like his attitude, he knew. He could envision the snark she'd throw his way, about only being nice to AIs when they had pretty eyes. Wait, where did that last part come from?
He looked to BB-8. "Sorry about that. I don't handle getting snuck up on very well."
The soccer ball nodded its dome head, offering a low whistle. Seemed like it accepted the apology.
Rey nodded his way. "Come on, let's finish up and get back. I don't want to stay here after dark if the First Order's about."
On that, he agreed.
They rode back in silence. BB-8 sat on her lap, head spinning to look at either her, the Master Chief, or the glasslands. For her part, she simply leaned back in the oddly cushy seat of the Warthog, feet propped on a crate of what the Master Chief had told her were assorted Covenant weapons. Looks like he didn't have the same qualm about betraying secrets as far as the Covenant were concerned, though he didn't let her open the box and check them out.
The droid rolled off her lap just as the Warthog came to a stop, and she hopped out after it. The sun had finally set, turning the sky as dark as the glass beneath, and she stretched with a yawn.
"I'll take watch again." The Master Chief unslung his strange slugthrower, and watched BB-8 disappear into her home. "I'd keep an eye on that AI if I were you."
"Why do you call droids that?" She started towards her home. "And he's out in the morning."
"So am I," he reminded her.
She paused at that, then slowly nodded. "I know."
"Plutt will notice I'm gone. He'll probably try something." His voice sounded somewhat gentler as he continued. "If getting me a seat was easy enough, why are you still here? I've been on weapons platforms friendlier than Jakku."
"I have to stay here, or my family won't be able to find me again. They'll be back one day."
"That-"
"I'm tired," she said suddenly. "Think I'll turn in for the night."
She continued towards her home. Turning back, she saw that the Master Chief was still watching her. He was as motionless as a statue, and yet she felt something like a sigh roll off him.
Then he finally looked away to take watch, and she turned in for the night.
The two moons were racing over the dark sky like silver coins when John heard something behind him. Whirling about with a raised rifle, he relaxed when he saw BB-8 rolling towards him.
"I told you I don't like being snuck up on."
The AI replied with a few tones, calmer than the ones before, and rolled up less than a meter from John's side.
"I don't understand what you're saying."
No reply that time. BB-8 looked up at the sky, as if searching for something. Straightening, John continued to scan the horizon in IR. If Plutt and his cronies did try something tonight, they'd get their heads taken off from half a klick away. Then again, even if they didn't try something he might still take off their heads off.
The girl was quick on the uptake, enough that the old man had wanted her on the crew, his eavesdropping had indicated. And instead, here she was in this hellhole, literally slaving away for an alien robber baron. He still didn't know how any of it had happened, but he did know that he should've gone with a punch instead of a shove yesterday. Still not too late...
Something in the sky flashed in bright false colors on the IR feed, and he quickly switched back to visual. A few green sparks seemed to glide across the sky- activating the binocular sight on his visor, he got the impression of a dark wedge producing the sparks, aiming at something he couldn't see.
BB-8 beeped to his side, again in the calm tones, and he turned to look the AI's way. Judging by where the 'eye' was aimed, he realized it was also observing the wedge in orbit. Not idly, but intently.
"You're a soldier." It was a statement, not a question.
The AI made a few beeps, and though he couldn't understand, he knew it sounded unconvincing.
"You've got the air around you. I've seen it in everything, from flying bugs to thick-skinned methane monkeys." He tightened the grip on his weapon. "You're not with that First Order she mentioned."
It shook its head.
"Alright." He looked back to the sky, just in time to see a brief flash across the sky, like a shooting star.
The green sparks ceased. He watched the wedge for a few minutes, to see if anything was about to happen, anything that'd make him wake the girl and drag her to the old man's ship. But nothing seemed to happen.
He got the impression that he was being watched, and he turned to look at BB-8, only to see that the AI was looking elsewhere. As soon as he continued watching the sky, however, he got the feeling again. And again, the droid was looking elsewhere, but this time he caught the faint movement, heard the faint whir of motion.
He sighed. This was going to be a long night.
By the halfway point, she was regretting that curiosity.
Every time it hit even the smallest of bumps or dips in the sandy road, it seemed, the entire thing would bounce on its suspension, and she'd bounce with it. Were it not for the seatbelt he insisted she wear, she probably would've gone out the non-existent door, or flown straight through the windshield. It definitely didn't help that she had the elusive full stomach, either. She imagined she'd become as green as the veg-meat by the time they arrived at Niima.
"Pull into the west corner of the bazaar," she said, pointing to the rows of merchant stands. "The ship crews usually land a bit past the wreckage, and come the rest of the distance on foot or speeder."
He wordlessly acknowledged her, spinning the steering wheel as they drove to the edge of the bazaar. She didn't even wait for him to kill the engine before she undid the seatbelt and hopped out on shaky legs, fighting to keep her dinner down. Once the nausea passed, she scanned the bazaar with narrowed eyes, searching.
"Are there any crews in particular who might take me?" the Master Chief asked, coming around from his side.
"I think the old man would," she replied, still searching the crowd. "If he's here, anyway."
"Old man?"
"I mean, he's never told me his name." She tapped her staff in the sand as she looked. "He's nice enough to me. Gives me good deals on scrap trade and repair, even taught me a few tricks with engineering. He was actually the one who gave me the droid programming kit."
"What's his appearance?" the Master Chief asked. "I have a better view of the crowd."
"Human like me, but old. White shirt, black jacket, " she said, then got on her tiptoes as something caught her eye. "Wait, nevermind, I see him."
She jogged through the stands, carefully navigating the throng of traders and starbound travelers. The old man was standing by the trolley he usually brought to the market, arguing with a Teedo over a box of jajum fruit. He saw her out of the corner of his eye, and waved her over, a small grin on his worn face.
"You look even older than usual," she said, returning the grin.
"Good to see you too, kid," he drawled. "Got anything good this time around, or am I gonna have to pity-buy another compressor?"
"I got something," she replied. "It's... a little out of the ordinary."
He looked past her. "I'll say."
She turned, and saw the Master Chief striding her way, the crowd parting before him. He looked at her, then turned to give the old man a once over.
"I hear you have a ship," he said, bluntly.
"Friend of yours?" the old man asked Rey, eyes wide under the shades he wore for Jakku's harsh sun.
"His ship crashed yesterday and I found him inside, all frozen," she said. "He says he's from some place called Earth, and he's trying to get back there."
"I'm willing to trade for a seat," the Master Chief added. "Half a ton of provisions and assorted items."
"I'll have to see some of it before I make up my mind," the old man said. He did a once over. "Looks like it did you good, though. Is everyone this tall where you're from?"
"Only the ones who eat their vegetables."
"Looks like you found yourself a smartass," the old man said, glancing back at Rey with a slight grin. He turned back to the Master Chief. "Well, grab some of the stuff and bring it over."
The Master Chief nodded, and wordlessly returned the way he came. The old man watched him go for a few moments, brow scrunched up.
"He's definitely not from around here," he murmured, then turned to her. "You said he was frozen?"
"All frosted over in a glass tube," she said. "I've never see anything like it. Nothing about his ship, or that armor, or anything he has. I'd say he came from a different galaxy if I didn't know better."
"Hmm." He leaned against the trolley, hands in his pockets. "You know, the offer still stands. I know it's not the best work, but it's better than here. Say yes and I'll bring your friend with us, even if a Jawa wouldn't buy his junk."
This was a dance they had done dozens of times. She knew her moves well.
"Thank you, but... I have to stay here. They'll be back, one day."
He said nothing, but gave a sad, knowing frown.
The Master Chief returned, a massive crate in his arms. Setting it down on the trolley, he opened it up and tilted it so the old man could peek inside. The smuggler reached inside and pulled out a ration pack, holding it up in the sunlight.
"Doesn't look like any sorta rations I've ever seen, and I've seen just about any there are." He shrugged. "But everyone needs to eat."
"Is it enough to get him a seat on your ship?" Rey asked.
The old man ran a hand through his gray hair, blowing air out between pursed lips. He gave her a glance, then looked to the Master Chief.
"It's enough." He pointed a finger at the Master Chief. "But it's not going to be a comfy ride. We're smugglers, not a taxi service. And I want you to read some star maps before you send me on a wild bantha chase to the Unknown Regions."
"Understood."
"Good. We set out tomorrow morning."
"Tomorrow?" Rey asked.
"First Order was spotted in the system last night. Gotta keep a low profile." He closed the lid of the crate, and gave the ration pack in his hand a little shake. "I'll see if my first mate'll eat this. Good test for how well it'll sell."
The Master Chief nodded. "I'll bring half the cargo now, the other half when I'm on the ship."
"Fine by me, just do it before I'm as red as a Devaronian."
The massive soldier walked back to the Warthog, and once again the crowd parted before him. The old man looked Rey's way, and she knew he was thinking about making the offer again. Come on, he'd say. We need another hand around the ship.
She simply smiled sadly, and followed after the Master Chief.
O
After parting with half of the cargo, the Master Chief asked her what the First Order was.
"I don't know that much about them," she said. "I think they're what's left of the Empire, but they just seem like glorified bandits now. They've never come here before, though."
That seemed to worry him. He insisted they go back to the Dawn to mount the Warthog's chaingun back in place, and she reluctantly agreed. After all, he was her ride for the time being. What was she going to do, walk back?
Thankfully, she was a little better at handling the jostle that came with being in a wheeled vehicle this time around, as they drove through the decaying battlefield and across the glasslands. She passed the time by watching the Master Chief drive, studying how he pressed his foot against the pedals to slow down or speed up, and turned the wheel from side to side to navigate the wreckage.
For the life of her, however, she couldn't discern why something that could only go in four directions needed six pedals.
The Dawn's bay door opened up for the Warthog to enter, and she saw that the bay was just as they'd left it. The warhead was still at the back of the bay, and she couldn't help but grimace at the sight. She could feel the death radiating off it. She didn't know how a weapon that small could vaporize an entire city, nor could she comprehend the kind of vicious war that would necessitate it.
Then she glanced over at the Master Chief, as he disembarked from the Warthog. She studied the giant of unnatural strength, encased in armor that blasters couldn't even singe. Death seemed to be seeped into his very bones.
And she shuddered to imagine the sort of war that would necessitate a soldier like him.
O
They were finishing bolting the chaingun back in place when John heard it. Metal on metal, like something heavy rolling across the deck. He looked up suddenly, scanning the bay for anything amiss.
"Did you hear that?" he asked.
"Hear what?" Rey asked him.
"Stay put." He let go of the chaingun, then hopped down from the Warthog. "I'll check it out."
Unslinging his assault rifle, he crept towards the source of the sound, near the entrance of the bay. With a quick command from his neural lace, his HUD switched from visual to infrared. No heat trails that any living being would leave behind, aside from the ones he and the girl had made. Switching back to visual, he relaxed his posture slightly. It was possible an oxygen cylinder just had rolled loose.
Then a nearby crate fell over, prompting a shrill sound he'd never heard before, and he sprung forward. The crate, containing a hundred kilos of chaingun ammo, was quickly nudged aside with a foot as he aimed his assault rifle-
-at what appeared to be an robot soccer ball.
"What."
It was even colored like a soccer ball, with orange highlights against a white casing, though soccer balls didn't have a small dome shaped head with a big lens. The head glided back, with no sign of it even being connected to its body, and its "eye" looked into his own.
Then it looked at the assault rifle in his hands, and made a high-pitched beep that actually sounded scared as it raced between his legs. John chided himself for letting his guard down like that, knowing that Chief Mendez would've grilled him for letting weird sights catch him off kilter. Appearances can deceive, soldier. Don't let the bizarre and the clownish get you killed.
He spun around and grabbed the thing by its domed head, tight enough to keep it locked in place without actually damaging the casing, and hoisted it up. Something on its side opened and a little mechanical arm came out, producing a short arc of electricity that wasn't even enough to make his shields crackle. All the while, it continued to make panicked-sounding beeps and whistles at him.
"Don't hurt him!" Rey yelled, hopping out of the Warthog with her staff in both arms. "Come on, let him down!"
She gave him a thwack to the arm with the quarterstaff, hard enough that his shields did crackle a little, and he obliged her. The irate soccer ball dropped to the deck, then rolled towards Rey. She knelt down, putting a hand on its head and checking it over.
"It's alright, we're not going to hurt you." She glared at him. "You bent his transmitting antenna, you ass!"
"I was dealing with an unknown," he replied, forcing himself to keep his voice even. He wasn't used to having to explain his actions to a civvie.
"He's just a BB unit, not some Covenant or whatever," she shot back. She plucked the antenna off and straightened it with expert fingers. "Here, I fixed it."
The 'BB unit' looked to Rey, making more beeps and whistles.
"No, I won't let the mean metal man do anything to you."
More sounds from the soccer ball.
"I know, I know you two got off on the wrong foot, but he's nice enough when you know him. He's just a bit... twitchy."
Twitchy? John ignored that for the time being. "You can talk to that thing?"
"Yes, and he's not talking to you right now." She gave the BB a little pat. "Where are you from? What's your name?"
Three quick tones.
"BB-8, huh? It's nice to meet you, BB-8. What were you doing here?"
More whistling and beeping. Rey nodded, then looked John's way.
"He's trying to get to Niima Outpost on some important business he won't tell me about. He'll get picked up tomorrow, hopefully."
BB-8 began chattering rapidly at the girl, and John couldn't help but stare at the strange machine, arms at his sides.
"What? Yes, I know it'd be en route, but I already have to deal with him crashing at my place... okay, he did do that, but that doesn't mean I have to... oh, alright."
Rey stood up and turned back to John. "I'm letting him stay at my place for the night."
Oh, you got to be kidding me. Civvies always fall for puppy dog eyes. John gestured to the soccer ball. "You don't even know where he's from."
"I don't know where you're from, either, and he's not the one with guns."
BB-8 added something, and John could've sworn the thing sounded coy.
"And, he wants you to apologize to him for grabbing his head like that."
John's fists clenched. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, unseen behind his visor. The girl's eyes somehow said in equal parts "Pretty please" and "If I have to choose, you're losing to the ball".
Cortana wouldn't like his attitude, he knew. He could envision the snark she'd throw his way, about only being nice to AIs when they had pretty eyes. Wait, where did that last part come from?
He looked to BB-8. "Sorry about that. I don't handle getting snuck up on very well."
The soccer ball nodded its dome head, offering a low whistle. Seemed like it accepted the apology.
Rey nodded his way. "Come on, let's finish up and get back. I don't want to stay here after dark if the First Order's about."
On that, he agreed.
O
They rode back in silence. BB-8 sat on her lap, head spinning to look at either her, the Master Chief, or the glasslands. For her part, she simply leaned back in the oddly cushy seat of the Warthog, feet propped on a crate of what the Master Chief had told her were assorted Covenant weapons. Looks like he didn't have the same qualm about betraying secrets as far as the Covenant were concerned, though he didn't let her open the box and check them out.
The droid rolled off her lap just as the Warthog came to a stop, and she hopped out after it. The sun had finally set, turning the sky as dark as the glass beneath, and she stretched with a yawn.
"I'll take watch again." The Master Chief unslung his strange slugthrower, and watched BB-8 disappear into her home. "I'd keep an eye on that AI if I were you."
"Why do you call droids that?" She started towards her home. "And he's out in the morning."
"So am I," he reminded her.
She paused at that, then slowly nodded. "I know."
"Plutt will notice I'm gone. He'll probably try something." His voice sounded somewhat gentler as he continued. "If getting me a seat was easy enough, why are you still here? I've been on weapons platforms friendlier than Jakku."
"I have to stay here, or my family won't be able to find me again. They'll be back one day."
"That-"
"I'm tired," she said suddenly. "Think I'll turn in for the night."
She continued towards her home. Turning back, she saw that the Master Chief was still watching her. He was as motionless as a statue, and yet she felt something like a sigh roll off him.
Then he finally looked away to take watch, and she turned in for the night.
O
The two moons were racing over the dark sky like silver coins when John heard something behind him. Whirling about with a raised rifle, he relaxed when he saw BB-8 rolling towards him.
"I told you I don't like being snuck up on."
The AI replied with a few tones, calmer than the ones before, and rolled up less than a meter from John's side.
"I don't understand what you're saying."
No reply that time. BB-8 looked up at the sky, as if searching for something. Straightening, John continued to scan the horizon in IR. If Plutt and his cronies did try something tonight, they'd get their heads taken off from half a klick away. Then again, even if they didn't try something he might still take off their heads off.
The girl was quick on the uptake, enough that the old man had wanted her on the crew, his eavesdropping had indicated. And instead, here she was in this hellhole, literally slaving away for an alien robber baron. He still didn't know how any of it had happened, but he did know that he should've gone with a punch instead of a shove yesterday. Still not too late...
Something in the sky flashed in bright false colors on the IR feed, and he quickly switched back to visual. A few green sparks seemed to glide across the sky- activating the binocular sight on his visor, he got the impression of a dark wedge producing the sparks, aiming at something he couldn't see.
BB-8 beeped to his side, again in the calm tones, and he turned to look the AI's way. Judging by where the 'eye' was aimed, he realized it was also observing the wedge in orbit. Not idly, but intently.
"You're a soldier." It was a statement, not a question.
The AI made a few beeps, and though he couldn't understand, he knew it sounded unconvincing.
"You've got the air around you. I've seen it in everything, from flying bugs to thick-skinned methane monkeys." He tightened the grip on his weapon. "You're not with that First Order she mentioned."
It shook its head.
"Alright." He looked back to the sky, just in time to see a brief flash across the sky, like a shooting star.
The green sparks ceased. He watched the wedge for a few minutes, to see if anything was about to happen, anything that'd make him wake the girl and drag her to the old man's ship. But nothing seemed to happen.
He got the impression that he was being watched, and he turned to look at BB-8, only to see that the AI was looking elsewhere. As soon as he continued watching the sky, however, he got the feeling again. And again, the droid was looking elsewhere, but this time he caught the faint movement, heard the faint whir of motion.
He sighed. This was going to be a long night.
Chapter Five
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
Dreams came to her every night, and every night she seemed to see the same things, over and over again. One night, it would the ship leaving, air shimmering about the white-hot engines as it tore into the grey sky. The next, the island, lonely and green, in the middle of more water than she knew could exist. The night after that, a bridge arching impossibly across a starlit sky.
And tonight, the boy.
At least, he was a boy when the dreams first started- now, he looked to be about her age. It'd been shortly after her parents left when she first saw him, sitting alone in the blackness she, too, found herself in. He was always so far away, no matter how long she walked towards him, and he never seemed to notice her, no matter how loudly she called his way.
She was so far away she could never properly see his face, and yet she couldn't help but think that there was something sad in the way he carried himself. Sad, and, as the years passed and he grew alongside her, angry. Pained. Enough to stay her feet a moment, to give her pause as she tried -and failed- every time to reach him. And yet she still went.
Tonight, however, something had changed for the first time in all the years she'd been having the dream.
She still couldn't see his surroundings- he still sat alone in darkness, like everything else was nothing and he was the only vestige of reality. Nor could she see his face, as his back was turned to her. But he had gotten closer. Much closer. Enough that she could count the fibers in the black undershirt he was wearing, see the faint freckles on the back of his neck.
Now that she was closer, she could feel the pain and anger that radiated from him, permeating the air like mist. It was frighteningly cold, colder than the frost in the Dawn, and every atom of her body wanted to shy away from it.
She took a step, not closer but to the side, and she noted that for once she actually seemed to move. Slowly circling around, she finally got a look at his face- angular, with a long nose and strong jaw. Black hair framed his face, a shaggy mop, and his eyes were closed. His lips seemed to be moving, but she could not hear anything. Was he speaking? Praying?
Slowly, she reached a hand out to him, hesitant. The chill worsened as she got closer, only to seemingly become warmer, or perhaps she was getting used to the cold. Fingers splayed, she hesitated a hairsbreadth away from his shoulder. Part of her wondered if the dream would end before she could touch him, or if her hand would fall through empty air.
Then, she touched him, and instead of cold anger, she felt warm skin under her fingertips.
The boy tensed, almost enough to make her recoil, and his eyes suddenly opened. He locked gaze with her, and for a heartbeat she stared into his eyes, and he hers. Anger gave way to surprise, electric in the air like live wires, and-
"Wake up."
Her eyes snapped open, and she was back in her bed. Turning her head, she saw the Master Chief standing in the doorway, the harsh sun framing his colossal shadow over her. Groaning, she stood up grabbed her quarterstaff, rubbing her eyes as she did so.
"I'm surprised you didn't just leave on your own," she said, stifling a yawn. "Not like I have to get you to Niima Outpost."
"Someone needs to bring the AI," he replied. "I don't understand what it's saying, but I figured out it wants you to take it.
As if summoned, BB-8 rolled into view, beeping anxiously at her about risky rendezvous and being a small droid with no way of defending himself. She listened to him go on about all the things that could go wrong, and eventually she just ground the ball of her hand into her eye.
"Alright, fine," she sighed.
BB-8 made an excited whistle, and wheeled back towards the Warthog. The Master Chief watched him go, then looked back to her.
"I'm never getting used to that."
Despite the rude awakening, she managed a smile at that. "Just wait until you see the rest of the galaxy."
The sun was rising above the horizon when he crested the last glass ridge and saw the outpost. The sight of tattered tents and worn prefabs was enough to make him smile with relief, even through the fatigue that pulled at him like leaden weights. The faint lights of the place had been his only beacon in the night- if the sun had risen just an hour earlier, he would never have been able to find the place before the heat claimed him.
Shards of brittle glass, black as the night sky had been, crunched beneath his boots as he continued walking towards the outpost. The sun hadn't even fully risen above the horizon, and already he felt the unbearable heat in his skin. It wasn't so much the heat -he'd been in warmer places- but the hideous intensity of the light, drying out his skin, cracking his lips.
He squinted as the broken glass plains began to glitter in the white light, and he pulled Poe's jacket over his head, to try and spare his vision -and skin- from the sun. He didn't know what he was going to do in the outpost, how he was going to get off this wasteland of a planet and get away as far as he could. But he did know that outposts had water.
Water was good.
The Warthog rolled to a stop in the bazaar, and BB-8 hopped out of her lap, rolling around in the black sands as he looked about. Rey clambered out the vehicle, and turned to see the Master Chief do the same. The armored giant walked about the front of the Warthog, then paused before her. She noted that his posture was off again- not tense, but the same awkwardness of the first day, when they'd made their deal.
"I need to grab the crate from your seat," he said suddenly.
"Oh." She sidled out of the way.
The Master Chief pulled the blocky container out of the passenger seat and placed it on the hood. Palms flat on the top, he paused again, looking nowhere in particular. Behind her scarf, she frowned as she took stock of how, well, uncertain he looked.
"You know, you didn't mention how I was going to get back," she said.
His helmet swiveled her way. "Drive the Warthog back. Something tells me you know how, now."
"You saw me watch you operate it," she said, feeling a little self-conscious of how blatant her spying must've been.
"If I had bad peripheral vision, I'd be dead thirty years. Just be sure to scrap the thing when you get back."
"Because of your protocols, right." She leaned on her quarterstaff. "I'll do it."
"Another thing." Opening the crate, he pulled out something that looked like a purple crescent, and carefully handed it to her. "Take it."
Grabbing the crescent in an open palm, she studied the thing with narrowed eyes. It was heavier than she expected, and made of smooth metal, surprisingly pliant to the touch.
"What is it?" she asked, looking his way.
"Covenant plasma pistol." He took it and grabbed her hand, directing her fingers around the handle of the weapon. A holographic circle came to life over the sights. "Hold it like this. Squeeze the trigger for just a moment to fire a shot. Easy to use, and it doesn't need a lot of care."
She nodded, and he let go. Weighing it in her hand, she carefully hooked the weapon in her belt, and looked back to the Master Chief.
"For when Plutt decides to try something," he said. "Only for that. It's not a toy."
"I understand." Pulling down her scarf, she smiled. "Thank you."
He nodded. Again, his pose was off, hesitant. She had a feeling he was about to say something, and she decided to preempt him.
"You better get going," she said, quickly. "The old man can be a bit grouchy. You don't want to keep him waiting."
"I figured." His fingers twitched. "Looks like this is it, then."
"Yep." She tapped her quarterstaff. "I don't think I'll forget these past few days. Thank you, for sticking your neck out for me."
"Likewise."
He suddenly extended a hand, and, after a moment's pause, she took it. They shook once.
"Good luck, Master Chief," she said. "I hope you find Earth, wherever it is. And I hope Cortana gets fixed."
"I hope so, too," he said, quietly. "Good luck, kid."
He grabbed the crate, and with a final nod, began to walk away. She watched him for a bit, waiting for him to disappear into the crowd at the bazaar. When she realized that wasn't going to happen because he was taller than everyone present, she instead walked around and hopped into the driver's seat of the Warthog. Grabbing the steering wheel, she idly began pressing her feet against the pedals, recalling which ones he'd used.
A few worried beeps drew her attention, and she looked to the side. BB-8 was watching her, head tilted back.
"You don't see your pickup yet?" she asked.
The droid whistled in the negative.
"Hmm." She drummed her fingers along the steering wheel, then sighed. "Alright, I'll go help you look for them. But you're lucky you're cute."
BB-8 gave a few happy beeps, and began rolling in some random direction. Hopping out, she followed after the droid.
He stumbled down the main road, passing wide tents and rickety old kiosks, eyes dancing frantically back and forth. He licked his cracked lips, yet they stayed dry.
"Water," he panted. "Water."
He'd never felt so thirsty before in his life, not even during the survival training on Iltu, all those years ago. Water had always plentiful, on base, in the barracks, even in transport ships. Regimented, but plentiful. Soldiers needed to be hydrated to be in fighting shape, after all.
And yet, no matter where he looked, there was no water to be found in the tents or on the kiosks, and every time he tried asking anyone, he'd be rebuffed. Didn't they see a man was dying of thirst? Could they not spare even a mouthful?
Through the fatigue and thirst, a pang of panic ran through him. They couldn't recognize what he was, could they? No- they probably would've done worse than ignore him if that were the case. Unless they did recognize him, and wanted him to dry out like a piece of meat in the sun?
Something caught his eye, and he saw a kiosk with a glass tank full of fish, attended to by a Jawa. Running up to stand, he ignored the Jawa's protests as he stuck his head into the water.
Please don't be saltwater, he thought, and sucked in a greedy gulp.
Not saltwater. But definitely not very palatable, either. He drank deeply, then pulled up with a mouthful. The Jawa was still yelling at him, gesturing wildly with its tiny hands, but all he could focus on was something tickling the roof of his mouth. Spitting the water back out, he saw a particularly shaken fish swimming to the bottom of the tank.
He looked to the Jawa. "Sorry."
The Jawa replied by throwing a pan at his head, narrowly missing him. He ducked out of the way and ran off, deeper into the throng of kiosks. When no more pans came his way, he stopped in the middle of the crowd, pulling the jacket over his head again.
He'd never seen a crowd like this before. It was complete chaos- no cadence, no marching, no officers directing people around. No two people looked alike- some dressed in fine silks, others wore rags. Almost no one was armed, and nonhumans walked freely. He spent a few minutes watching the passerby, drinking the sight in. There were humans, Jawas, a droid-
Droid? He blinked, then narrowed his eyes. A BB unit was rolling some distance away, head turned elsewhere. It was a bit hard to get a good look in this harsh light, but it seemed to be white, with orange highlights.
His eyes widened. Poe's droid. The one with the map.
Considering how important it seemed to be, there could already be a Resistance team coming to pick it up. Maybe if he followed it and explained the situation to said team, he could find a way off this forsaken rock, and from there get as far away from the First Order as possible.
His thoughts were interrupted by a surprised beep, and he realized a figure in black robes had pulled a sack over the droid, and was now trying to hold the thing in place while another figure approached with a stun prod.
Instinctively, he began forward, but had barely taken a step when a grey blur came out of nowhere and slammed a big stick into the back of the sack-holder's neck. The would-be thief crumpled with nary a sound, while their friend swung wildly with the stun prod and hit nothing but air. The figure in grey ducked low, swinging the staff into the attacker's knee with a crack so loud nearby spectators winced, then brought the other end right into their face.
The grey warrior crouched down beside the now-free BB unit and pulled off their goggles and scarf, revealing a young woman. She spoke in a low voice to the droid, reassuring. The droid responded in beeps he couldn't understand, then looked his way.
The alarmed sound it made as soon as it saw him wasn't promising. Then, when he realized that the woman was also looking at him now, with a very cross look on her face, he slowly began to step back.
Bad idea, in retrospect, like running away from a territorial animal. She ran at him, teeth gritted, and he found himself running in the opposite direction.
John had found the old man easily enough, and together they began walking towards the ship. The decaying carcass of some starship hung overhead, cables dangling from the edges like strings of muscle.
"First mate liked the ration pack enough," the smuggler said. "Didn't touch the white plant mush you had in there, but he was licking up the grease from the meat. Seems like it'll sell well."
John nodded.
"Hopefully it'll cover the costs of bringing you to that... Earth, you called it?" The old man shook his head. "I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. Never heard of a planet called Earth."
John's grip on the edges of the crate tightened. "It couldn't have been forgotten that quickly."
"Well, you might've been napping a long time in that ice tube of yours," the smuggler replied. "I've been frozen before, but it... wasn't exactly the same."
"Even with a ship not cut in half, I wouldn't last more than a century. And slipspace time dilation never gets past ten percent."
"Hmph. Well, I don't know what to-"
John didn't listen to the rest, coming to a full stop as something else caught his attention. A few words, tinny in his internal speakers, but familiar enough that he looked back. The girl was still listed in his autonomic suitcom as a friendly contact, enough that his helmet's sensors had been straining to pick up her voice. They could pick up a whisper from a hundred meters away, and she was definitely not whispering now.
"He says that's his master's jacket," she hissed to someone unseen.
"Poe, right? Your master's Poe Dameron," a man's voice, young and uneasy, replied. "He was captured, by the First Order. I helped him escape, but we crashed here last night."
His voice turned sorrowful. "Poe didn't make it."
That explained the light show in orbit he'd seen. Static crackled in his helmet as focus was lost, and John stepped closer, chinning his HUD as he adjusted the sensors.
"What are you doing?" the old man asked, sounding more annoyed than confused.
"Something's up."
"Up? You gotta be a bit more specific than 'up'."
"Apparently he's got a map to Luke Skywalker," the male voice said again.
"Luke Skywalker?" Rey breathed. "I thought he was a myth."
"The girl's talking, something about a Luke Skywalker," John relayed to the old man.
"Wait, she's talking about Luke?" The way the smuggler said it sounded less like a myth, and more like someone who owed him money.
John didn't answer. He was more preoccupied with the new contacts on his motion sensors, approaching the bazaar from a direction opposite that of the main road. Activating his visor's binocular sight, he caught a glimpse of two figures in white armor forcing the crowd aside. They seemed to see something and began to run towards it, holding rifles level.
He was quick to connect the dots. A small part of him cried out about the mission to reestablish contact coming first. Cortana coming first.
He ignored it.
"The kid's in trouble," he said to the old man, abruptly. He dropped the crate. "First Order's after her."
The old man straightened. "I'll get the ship ready and grab you two. Don't let them get her."
John's fists clenched. "I won't."
Then, he burst forward, legs pumping beneath him as he ran back to the crowd. The five hundred meters to the bazaar was covered in fifteen seconds. He saw more contacts, now, including two that were trying to secure the Warthog.
They didn't see him coming, not before he fell upon one of them. He didn't know how tough the armor was, so he decided to sidestep the issue by grabbing the man's helmet and twisting his head a full one-eighty. The body didn't have time to drop before he moved onto the other soldier, who didn't have time to even register what'd happened before John straightened his fingers and jabbed for the unarmored throat with enough force to break the hapless enemy's vertebrae.
Bodies dropping on each side, he hopped into the Warthog, and slammed the accelerator.
Rey crouched behind an abandoned kiosk, the Resistance soldier and BB-8 following in short fashion. A red blaster bolt hit the sand where she'd just been a moment ago, followed by another. She watched the soldier look about wildly, searching for something.
"Does no one have blasters here?" he asked, exasperated.
"I have this," she said, hastily unhooking the plasma pistol from her belt.
"That's a blaster?"
Instead of answering, she looped her hand about the strange grip, just as the Master Chief had taught her, and she awkwardly raised it above the kiosk. A green blob of plasma shot out, flying up uselessly into the sky.
"Give it to me!" the soldier said, hurriedly. "I'm a better shot."
She obliged him, and he briefly rose above the kiosk, taking a shot with the plasma pistol. She heard someone fall with a short pained grunt, only for the soldier to duck again as more blaster bolts raced over their heads.
Then there was a sound of something mechanical whirring, followed by an all-too-loud thump as something -the other stormtrooper, if the strangled cry meant anything- was knocked aside. Two familiar sounding cracks sounded out, and hope leapt in her throat.
Ignoring the Resistance fighter's protest, she hopped back up, and her suspicion was confirmed.
"We're moving," the Master Chief said, running jogging her way. "With me."
"Who's this?" the Resistance soldier asked her, brows raised.
"I'm your best chance of survival," the Master Chief replied. "The three of you, to the Warthog. I'll cover you."
Rey ran forward. "C'mon, BB-8!"
The droid followed her, while the Master Chief kept to her side, slugthrower leveled. Another stormtrooper appeared out of the chaos at the bazaar, only to get dropped with two shots to the head. She made it to the side of the Warthog and crouched down, while the Master Chief began firing again at something unseen. BB-8 and the Resistance fighter arrived moments after, also taking cover behind the green giant.
"Rey, I need you to drive the Warthog while I man the chaingun. Can you do that?"
She nodded, shakily. "I can do this."
"Go!" he barked, firing more shots.
She went around the front of the vehicle, crawling on all fours, hot sand scalding against her palms. Sucking in a breath, she bolted up and leapt into the seat of the Warthog. To her side, she saw the Resistance fighter get into the passenger seat, holding BB-8 in his arms. Something heavy moved behind her, and she twisted to see the Master Chief now standing on the chaingun mount.
"Drive!"
Slamming on one of the pedals, they jerked forward, nearly making the Resistance fighter faceplant into the dashboard. She could feel the Master Chief's glare boring into the back of her head.
"Sorry!" she called.
Then she found the right pedal, and they sped off.
And tonight, the boy.
At least, he was a boy when the dreams first started- now, he looked to be about her age. It'd been shortly after her parents left when she first saw him, sitting alone in the blackness she, too, found herself in. He was always so far away, no matter how long she walked towards him, and he never seemed to notice her, no matter how loudly she called his way.
She was so far away she could never properly see his face, and yet she couldn't help but think that there was something sad in the way he carried himself. Sad, and, as the years passed and he grew alongside her, angry. Pained. Enough to stay her feet a moment, to give her pause as she tried -and failed- every time to reach him. And yet she still went.
Tonight, however, something had changed for the first time in all the years she'd been having the dream.
She still couldn't see his surroundings- he still sat alone in darkness, like everything else was nothing and he was the only vestige of reality. Nor could she see his face, as his back was turned to her. But he had gotten closer. Much closer. Enough that she could count the fibers in the black undershirt he was wearing, see the faint freckles on the back of his neck.
Now that she was closer, she could feel the pain and anger that radiated from him, permeating the air like mist. It was frighteningly cold, colder than the frost in the Dawn, and every atom of her body wanted to shy away from it.
She took a step, not closer but to the side, and she noted that for once she actually seemed to move. Slowly circling around, she finally got a look at his face- angular, with a long nose and strong jaw. Black hair framed his face, a shaggy mop, and his eyes were closed. His lips seemed to be moving, but she could not hear anything. Was he speaking? Praying?
Slowly, she reached a hand out to him, hesitant. The chill worsened as she got closer, only to seemingly become warmer, or perhaps she was getting used to the cold. Fingers splayed, she hesitated a hairsbreadth away from his shoulder. Part of her wondered if the dream would end before she could touch him, or if her hand would fall through empty air.
Then, she touched him, and instead of cold anger, she felt warm skin under her fingertips.
The boy tensed, almost enough to make her recoil, and his eyes suddenly opened. He locked gaze with her, and for a heartbeat she stared into his eyes, and he hers. Anger gave way to surprise, electric in the air like live wires, and-
"Wake up."
Her eyes snapped open, and she was back in her bed. Turning her head, she saw the Master Chief standing in the doorway, the harsh sun framing his colossal shadow over her. Groaning, she stood up grabbed her quarterstaff, rubbing her eyes as she did so.
"I'm surprised you didn't just leave on your own," she said, stifling a yawn. "Not like I have to get you to Niima Outpost."
"Someone needs to bring the AI," he replied. "I don't understand what it's saying, but I figured out it wants you to take it.
As if summoned, BB-8 rolled into view, beeping anxiously at her about risky rendezvous and being a small droid with no way of defending himself. She listened to him go on about all the things that could go wrong, and eventually she just ground the ball of her hand into her eye.
"Alright, fine," she sighed.
BB-8 made an excited whistle, and wheeled back towards the Warthog. The Master Chief watched him go, then looked back to her.
"I'm never getting used to that."
Despite the rude awakening, she managed a smile at that. "Just wait until you see the rest of the galaxy."
O
The sun was rising above the horizon when he crested the last glass ridge and saw the outpost. The sight of tattered tents and worn prefabs was enough to make him smile with relief, even through the fatigue that pulled at him like leaden weights. The faint lights of the place had been his only beacon in the night- if the sun had risen just an hour earlier, he would never have been able to find the place before the heat claimed him.
Shards of brittle glass, black as the night sky had been, crunched beneath his boots as he continued walking towards the outpost. The sun hadn't even fully risen above the horizon, and already he felt the unbearable heat in his skin. It wasn't so much the heat -he'd been in warmer places- but the hideous intensity of the light, drying out his skin, cracking his lips.
He squinted as the broken glass plains began to glitter in the white light, and he pulled Poe's jacket over his head, to try and spare his vision -and skin- from the sun. He didn't know what he was going to do in the outpost, how he was going to get off this wasteland of a planet and get away as far as he could. But he did know that outposts had water.
Water was good.
O
The Warthog rolled to a stop in the bazaar, and BB-8 hopped out of her lap, rolling around in the black sands as he looked about. Rey clambered out the vehicle, and turned to see the Master Chief do the same. The armored giant walked about the front of the Warthog, then paused before her. She noted that his posture was off again- not tense, but the same awkwardness of the first day, when they'd made their deal.
"I need to grab the crate from your seat," he said suddenly.
"Oh." She sidled out of the way.
The Master Chief pulled the blocky container out of the passenger seat and placed it on the hood. Palms flat on the top, he paused again, looking nowhere in particular. Behind her scarf, she frowned as she took stock of how, well, uncertain he looked.
"You know, you didn't mention how I was going to get back," she said.
His helmet swiveled her way. "Drive the Warthog back. Something tells me you know how, now."
"You saw me watch you operate it," she said, feeling a little self-conscious of how blatant her spying must've been.
"If I had bad peripheral vision, I'd be dead thirty years. Just be sure to scrap the thing when you get back."
"Because of your protocols, right." She leaned on her quarterstaff. "I'll do it."
"Another thing." Opening the crate, he pulled out something that looked like a purple crescent, and carefully handed it to her. "Take it."
Grabbing the crescent in an open palm, she studied the thing with narrowed eyes. It was heavier than she expected, and made of smooth metal, surprisingly pliant to the touch.
"What is it?" she asked, looking his way.
"Covenant plasma pistol." He took it and grabbed her hand, directing her fingers around the handle of the weapon. A holographic circle came to life over the sights. "Hold it like this. Squeeze the trigger for just a moment to fire a shot. Easy to use, and it doesn't need a lot of care."
She nodded, and he let go. Weighing it in her hand, she carefully hooked the weapon in her belt, and looked back to the Master Chief.
"For when Plutt decides to try something," he said. "Only for that. It's not a toy."
"I understand." Pulling down her scarf, she smiled. "Thank you."
He nodded. Again, his pose was off, hesitant. She had a feeling he was about to say something, and she decided to preempt him.
"You better get going," she said, quickly. "The old man can be a bit grouchy. You don't want to keep him waiting."
"I figured." His fingers twitched. "Looks like this is it, then."
"Yep." She tapped her quarterstaff. "I don't think I'll forget these past few days. Thank you, for sticking your neck out for me."
"Likewise."
He suddenly extended a hand, and, after a moment's pause, she took it. They shook once.
"Good luck, Master Chief," she said. "I hope you find Earth, wherever it is. And I hope Cortana gets fixed."
"I hope so, too," he said, quietly. "Good luck, kid."
He grabbed the crate, and with a final nod, began to walk away. She watched him for a bit, waiting for him to disappear into the crowd at the bazaar. When she realized that wasn't going to happen because he was taller than everyone present, she instead walked around and hopped into the driver's seat of the Warthog. Grabbing the steering wheel, she idly began pressing her feet against the pedals, recalling which ones he'd used.
A few worried beeps drew her attention, and she looked to the side. BB-8 was watching her, head tilted back.
"You don't see your pickup yet?" she asked.
The droid whistled in the negative.
"Hmm." She drummed her fingers along the steering wheel, then sighed. "Alright, I'll go help you look for them. But you're lucky you're cute."
BB-8 gave a few happy beeps, and began rolling in some random direction. Hopping out, she followed after the droid.
O
He stumbled down the main road, passing wide tents and rickety old kiosks, eyes dancing frantically back and forth. He licked his cracked lips, yet they stayed dry.
"Water," he panted. "Water."
He'd never felt so thirsty before in his life, not even during the survival training on Iltu, all those years ago. Water had always plentiful, on base, in the barracks, even in transport ships. Regimented, but plentiful. Soldiers needed to be hydrated to be in fighting shape, after all.
And yet, no matter where he looked, there was no water to be found in the tents or on the kiosks, and every time he tried asking anyone, he'd be rebuffed. Didn't they see a man was dying of thirst? Could they not spare even a mouthful?
Through the fatigue and thirst, a pang of panic ran through him. They couldn't recognize what he was, could they? No- they probably would've done worse than ignore him if that were the case. Unless they did recognize him, and wanted him to dry out like a piece of meat in the sun?
Something caught his eye, and he saw a kiosk with a glass tank full of fish, attended to by a Jawa. Running up to stand, he ignored the Jawa's protests as he stuck his head into the water.
Please don't be saltwater, he thought, and sucked in a greedy gulp.
Not saltwater. But definitely not very palatable, either. He drank deeply, then pulled up with a mouthful. The Jawa was still yelling at him, gesturing wildly with its tiny hands, but all he could focus on was something tickling the roof of his mouth. Spitting the water back out, he saw a particularly shaken fish swimming to the bottom of the tank.
He looked to the Jawa. "Sorry."
The Jawa replied by throwing a pan at his head, narrowly missing him. He ducked out of the way and ran off, deeper into the throng of kiosks. When no more pans came his way, he stopped in the middle of the crowd, pulling the jacket over his head again.
He'd never seen a crowd like this before. It was complete chaos- no cadence, no marching, no officers directing people around. No two people looked alike- some dressed in fine silks, others wore rags. Almost no one was armed, and nonhumans walked freely. He spent a few minutes watching the passerby, drinking the sight in. There were humans, Jawas, a droid-
Droid? He blinked, then narrowed his eyes. A BB unit was rolling some distance away, head turned elsewhere. It was a bit hard to get a good look in this harsh light, but it seemed to be white, with orange highlights.
His eyes widened. Poe's droid. The one with the map.
Considering how important it seemed to be, there could already be a Resistance team coming to pick it up. Maybe if he followed it and explained the situation to said team, he could find a way off this forsaken rock, and from there get as far away from the First Order as possible.
His thoughts were interrupted by a surprised beep, and he realized a figure in black robes had pulled a sack over the droid, and was now trying to hold the thing in place while another figure approached with a stun prod.
Instinctively, he began forward, but had barely taken a step when a grey blur came out of nowhere and slammed a big stick into the back of the sack-holder's neck. The would-be thief crumpled with nary a sound, while their friend swung wildly with the stun prod and hit nothing but air. The figure in grey ducked low, swinging the staff into the attacker's knee with a crack so loud nearby spectators winced, then brought the other end right into their face.
The grey warrior crouched down beside the now-free BB unit and pulled off their goggles and scarf, revealing a young woman. She spoke in a low voice to the droid, reassuring. The droid responded in beeps he couldn't understand, then looked his way.
The alarmed sound it made as soon as it saw him wasn't promising. Then, when he realized that the woman was also looking at him now, with a very cross look on her face, he slowly began to step back.
Bad idea, in retrospect, like running away from a territorial animal. She ran at him, teeth gritted, and he found himself running in the opposite direction.
O
John had found the old man easily enough, and together they began walking towards the ship. The decaying carcass of some starship hung overhead, cables dangling from the edges like strings of muscle.
"First mate liked the ration pack enough," the smuggler said. "Didn't touch the white plant mush you had in there, but he was licking up the grease from the meat. Seems like it'll sell well."
John nodded.
"Hopefully it'll cover the costs of bringing you to that... Earth, you called it?" The old man shook his head. "I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. Never heard of a planet called Earth."
John's grip on the edges of the crate tightened. "It couldn't have been forgotten that quickly."
"Well, you might've been napping a long time in that ice tube of yours," the smuggler replied. "I've been frozen before, but it... wasn't exactly the same."
"Even with a ship not cut in half, I wouldn't last more than a century. And slipspace time dilation never gets past ten percent."
"Hmph. Well, I don't know what to-"
John didn't listen to the rest, coming to a full stop as something else caught his attention. A few words, tinny in his internal speakers, but familiar enough that he looked back. The girl was still listed in his autonomic suitcom as a friendly contact, enough that his helmet's sensors had been straining to pick up her voice. They could pick up a whisper from a hundred meters away, and she was definitely not whispering now.
"He says that's his master's jacket," she hissed to someone unseen.
"Poe, right? Your master's Poe Dameron," a man's voice, young and uneasy, replied. "He was captured, by the First Order. I helped him escape, but we crashed here last night."
His voice turned sorrowful. "Poe didn't make it."
That explained the light show in orbit he'd seen. Static crackled in his helmet as focus was lost, and John stepped closer, chinning his HUD as he adjusted the sensors.
"What are you doing?" the old man asked, sounding more annoyed than confused.
"Something's up."
"Up? You gotta be a bit more specific than 'up'."
"Apparently he's got a map to Luke Skywalker," the male voice said again.
"Luke Skywalker?" Rey breathed. "I thought he was a myth."
"The girl's talking, something about a Luke Skywalker," John relayed to the old man.
"Wait, she's talking about Luke?" The way the smuggler said it sounded less like a myth, and more like someone who owed him money.
John didn't answer. He was more preoccupied with the new contacts on his motion sensors, approaching the bazaar from a direction opposite that of the main road. Activating his visor's binocular sight, he caught a glimpse of two figures in white armor forcing the crowd aside. They seemed to see something and began to run towards it, holding rifles level.
He was quick to connect the dots. A small part of him cried out about the mission to reestablish contact coming first. Cortana coming first.
He ignored it.
"The kid's in trouble," he said to the old man, abruptly. He dropped the crate. "First Order's after her."
The old man straightened. "I'll get the ship ready and grab you two. Don't let them get her."
John's fists clenched. "I won't."
Then, he burst forward, legs pumping beneath him as he ran back to the crowd. The five hundred meters to the bazaar was covered in fifteen seconds. He saw more contacts, now, including two that were trying to secure the Warthog.
They didn't see him coming, not before he fell upon one of them. He didn't know how tough the armor was, so he decided to sidestep the issue by grabbing the man's helmet and twisting his head a full one-eighty. The body didn't have time to drop before he moved onto the other soldier, who didn't have time to even register what'd happened before John straightened his fingers and jabbed for the unarmored throat with enough force to break the hapless enemy's vertebrae.
Bodies dropping on each side, he hopped into the Warthog, and slammed the accelerator.
O
Rey crouched behind an abandoned kiosk, the Resistance soldier and BB-8 following in short fashion. A red blaster bolt hit the sand where she'd just been a moment ago, followed by another. She watched the soldier look about wildly, searching for something.
"Does no one have blasters here?" he asked, exasperated.
"I have this," she said, hastily unhooking the plasma pistol from her belt.
"That's a blaster?"
Instead of answering, she looped her hand about the strange grip, just as the Master Chief had taught her, and she awkwardly raised it above the kiosk. A green blob of plasma shot out, flying up uselessly into the sky.
"Give it to me!" the soldier said, hurriedly. "I'm a better shot."
She obliged him, and he briefly rose above the kiosk, taking a shot with the plasma pistol. She heard someone fall with a short pained grunt, only for the soldier to duck again as more blaster bolts raced over their heads.
Then there was a sound of something mechanical whirring, followed by an all-too-loud thump as something -the other stormtrooper, if the strangled cry meant anything- was knocked aside. Two familiar sounding cracks sounded out, and hope leapt in her throat.
Ignoring the Resistance fighter's protest, she hopped back up, and her suspicion was confirmed.
"We're moving," the Master Chief said, running jogging her way. "With me."
"Who's this?" the Resistance soldier asked her, brows raised.
"I'm your best chance of survival," the Master Chief replied. "The three of you, to the Warthog. I'll cover you."
Rey ran forward. "C'mon, BB-8!"
The droid followed her, while the Master Chief kept to her side, slugthrower leveled. Another stormtrooper appeared out of the chaos at the bazaar, only to get dropped with two shots to the head. She made it to the side of the Warthog and crouched down, while the Master Chief began firing again at something unseen. BB-8 and the Resistance fighter arrived moments after, also taking cover behind the green giant.
"Rey, I need you to drive the Warthog while I man the chaingun. Can you do that?"
She nodded, shakily. "I can do this."
"Go!" he barked, firing more shots.
She went around the front of the vehicle, crawling on all fours, hot sand scalding against her palms. Sucking in a breath, she bolted up and leapt into the seat of the Warthog. To her side, she saw the Resistance fighter get into the passenger seat, holding BB-8 in his arms. Something heavy moved behind her, and she twisted to see the Master Chief now standing on the chaingun mount.
"Drive!"
Slamming on one of the pedals, they jerked forward, nearly making the Resistance fighter faceplant into the dashboard. She could feel the Master Chief's glare boring into the back of her head.
"Sorry!" she called.
Then she found the right pedal, and they sped off.
Chapter Six
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
Finn lurched in his seat as the Warthog swerved onto the main "road", the sudden g-force nearly pulling him out of the vehicle until he grabbed the seat. Something resembling a harness caught his eye, and he quickly figured out how to secure himself to the seat, though accomplishing the task with one hand holding the droid in place, and another still clutching the odd pistol, was easier said than done.
The wreckage of starships surrounded them, offering a little bit of shade for his eyes, and he looked back to see that Niima Outpost was already receding in the distance, far behind them.
"Where are we going?" he half-yelled to the scavenger girl, over the roar of the engine.
"I was hoping you'd tell me that," she replied loudly, knuckles white on the wheel. "BB-8 said he was looking for someone to pick him up. I thought you'd know where it was."
"My job was getting Poe out. I don't know where the rendezvous is!"
Another voice, calmer yet louder than the two of them, cut in. "The old man said he was going to try and pick us up. We need to get to his ship."
"You mean back the way we came?" the girl replied incredulously, looking over her shoulder. "It's probably crawling with stormtroopers now!"
"She's right," Finn added. "First Order protocol will call for locking down any ships on the ground, so the target can't flee. They might even be scuttling ships right now."
"Then we need to get there fast, and fight our way onboard if we have to," the armored giant replied. "They'll flush us out eventually, if we don't escape now."
The girl sucked in a breath, and nodded. "Okay. I'll get us there."
The Warthog swerved again as she spun the wheel, and Finn fought down his rations as the vehicle turned in a wide circle, glass spraying everywhere as the wheels dug into the ground. BB-8 nearly flew off his lap, until he looped an arm around it and held it tight to his chest. The droid beeped wildly, looking out past the windshield, but when he followed its gaze he saw nothing.
"We got company," the armored giant said. "Three unidentified aircraft to our twelve o'clock."
"Twelve o'clock?," Finn repeated, exasperated. "What does that mean?!"
"BB-8 sees them, too!" the girl yelled. "He says they're TIE fighters."
Despite the heat, his blood ran cold. Now, he could see the trio of small black dots through the haze of the horizon, their telltale roar in the air. Unless this strange groundcar was secretly made from beskar, just one shot would be enough.
"We need to find cover!" he barked. "Move in a serpentine pattern to throw off their targeting computers."
"Serpentine?" the girl asked.
"Zig-zag!" he and the armored giant replied at once.
The Warthog veered to the side, and not a moment too late. Twin bolts of green hot plasma hit where they would've been just a few moments ago. He could feel the heat, like another sun was shining on the back of his neck, and the whumph in his chest as the shockwave washed over them. Behind him, louder than even the shockwave or the roar of the TIEs, the so-called chaingun replied.
The tripled harmony of the TIE fighters' engines was broken, and Finn opened his eyes to see one racing overhead, smoke trailing from the cockpit. Following its tumbling arc, he saw it crash into the ground some distance behind them, while its brothers continued past. They began to turn back around, and he turned to see the armored giant keeping the chaingun trained on them.
"I already went through a fifth of the ammo," the strange soldier said. "We need cover."
"We're about to get some!" the girl called.
Finn turned back in his seat, and saw they were driving towards the wreckage of a Star Destroyer, the massive engine cones looming in the distance. The girl twisted the wheel back and forth as she drove the Warthog in a serpentine pattern, glass shards flying in all directions as the wheels dug into the ground. Behind them, the chaingun let out clipped barks, each less than a second, but the roar of the TIEs continued unbroken.
Hot plasma hit around them, showering them in sand and glass and heat, and the Warthog nearly smashed into a fallen AT-ST before the girl managed to swerve out of the way. They cleared a glass ridge, and he felt his stomach rise into his chest as they fell in an arc. BB-8 briefly achieved the power of flight as it rose above his lap, only him to grab it with both hands and bring it back down.
"Careful!" he yelled.
"This is a lot harder than it looks!" the girl retorted. "It has six pedals!"
More plasma rained near them, getting dangerously close, and the TIE fighters soared overhead once more, one of them bearing some large holes in one of its ion foils. Circling about, they raced towards the Warthog from both directions, like a pincer.
Holding BB-8 down with one hand, he twisted in his seat and aimed at one of the TIEs with the plasma pistol. Squeezing the trigger, green globs flew forth ineffectually, dissipating only a hundred or so meters away as they tumbled wildly off-target.
"Hold the trigger," the armored giant commanded, still firing clipped shots from the chaingun and forcing the TIEs to zigzag as well.
He did as suggested, and instead of firing, a particularly large bolt of plasma began to build up, making the gun shake wildly. When it seemed it wouldn't go any further, he took aim at the TIE and released the trigger.
The massive bolt flew forth, and actually seemed to follow after the TIE, hitting it dead on. The damage to the hull seemed minimal, and yet suddenly the fighter dropped from the sky, as if the pilot had simply shut the engine off. It hit a large glass dune in the distance with a faint whumph, and Finn blinked in surprise.
More plasma hit the ground behind the Warthog as the remaining TIE strafed past, much closer than before, but was mercifully cut short as shade fell over them. Looking above, he saw they had finally made it inside of the Star Destroyer, a large access tunnel enveloping them in shadows. It was then, in the relative silence, he heard a strange mechanical whirring that hadn't been there before.
Turning to look behind, he saw the chaingun twist to face forward, groaning like a wounded animal. The armored giant looked down at him and the girl, something golden shimmering about his silhouette and illuminating the darkness, something that smelled of ozone.
"Hydraulics are shot," the giant said, sounding far too calm. "I can turn the gun manually, but that's slower."
A roar joined them in the tunnel, following behind the Warthog, and the ceiling right above them exploded in sparks as a green flash hit. It was clear they weren't going to get the luxury to slowly turn the gun.
"I have an idea!" the girl yelled.
Before Finn could ask for clarification, he felt the seatbelt try to bisect him as the Warthog spun around, nearly flipping in the process. The girl frantically twisted the wheel, practically dancing on the pedals, and suddenly the vehicle was moving in reverse, the TIE fighter now approaching the front, weapons glowing orange in the low light.
It was now also in the path of the chaingun.
The weapon barked, like a dying gasp, and flames erupted in the tunnel as the TIE broke apart. The wreckage fell mercifully short of them, and the Warthog slowed to a stop, then spun back around and continued forward. A light was at the end of the service tunnel, and in moments they sped through it and back out into the glasslands.
"I can't believe I just did that," the girl said, to no one in particular.
Finn looked incredulously to the girl, then to the armored giant, who seemed to be scanning the glasslands for more hostiles. Turning back in his seat, he saw Niima Outpost in the distance, where their ride off planet would hopefully be, and he felt like cheering.
That feeling died down when he heard the giant say, "More hostiles to our left."
Sure enough, he could now hear the roar of more TIEs, and he twisted his neck to see another pair approaching. They were out in the open, now, and the gun was practically useless- unless a miracle happened, he didn't fancy their odds, though that didn't stop him from trying to take aim with the plasma pistol again.
Then, suddenly, the miracle happened.
Red plasma bolts tore through the sky from above, striking one of the TIEs and taking out an entire ion foil. The fighter careened to the side, and smashed right into its twin, sending both craft tumbling to join their ancestors in the mass grave. Finn let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, then decided to let out a cheer.
Looking up, he saw their savior descend- a freighter of some sort, looking much like two concave saucers fitted together, coupled with two stubby mandibles up front serving as the cargo dock. The starship matched speed with them, flying right above, and its entrance ramp began to descend.
"Slow down," the armored giant said to the girl. "This is the old man's ship."
The Warthog slowed, and eventually stopped, the freighter doing the same. Finn hopped out immediately, still carrying BB-8 in both arms, and behind him he heard the giant follow suit. A man was standing in the entrance ramp, holding stead with one hand while he gestured with the other.
"Get in quick!" the old man shouted. "More fighters are coming down."
Finn didn't wait to be told twice, running over and leaping up onto the ramp. Steadying himself for a moment, he looked back to see the girl jump onto the ramp as well, while the armored giant merely had to raise his foot and take a step up. The old man ushered them all into the ship, and the ramp closed.
"They're in," the old man called towards the cockpit. "We're getting out of here."
There was a vague sense of motion, and Finn knew they were rocketing away from Jakku. BB-8 hopped out of his arms, and rolled closer to the girl. The old man looked at him, then at the girl and the giant in green. He pointed a finger at all of them.
"I'm going to the cockpit in case we have to fight our way out. You three, stay here. Don't touch anything."
He jogged down the hallway. Finn watched him disappear from sight, then sucked in a breath and began to shake his hands a little, as if to dispel the almost childish giddiness that was welling up inside. The girl was pacing about, running a hand over the headscarf she had on.
"That was insane," he said to her. "Where did you learn to drive like that?"
"I don't know," the girl replied, excitedly. "I mean, I drive and work with speeders, but that thing wasn't a speeder at all, but I did learn how to drive it by watching Chief, but that was my first time actually driving it, and I-"
"-saved our asses," he finished, gesturing wildly to her.
"No, you saved us with that crazy shot. I didn't think that was possible..." the girl blinked. "I don't even know your name. We've saved each others' lives, but I don't-"
"Finn." He nodded, partially to convince himself. "I'm Finn."
She pulled down her scarf, revealing a smile. "Rey."
"Rey, I can't thank you enough."
She paused, then turned her head. "I think we both should be thanking him."
Finn looked to the silent figure standing awkwardly nearby. Now that they were in relative safety, Finn could appreciate just how massive this figure was. Even Captain Phasma was short in comparison.
"She's right. If you hadn't shown up with that groundcar, the First Order would've gotten us, and the droid."
The giant stared quietly at him, and for a moment Finn thought he looked uncomfortable. "I was just doing my duty."
"Who are you, anyway?"
"He told me to call him Master Chief," Rey said.
"Master Chief? Like the rank?" Finn's brow furrowed. "I've never seen a soldier like you."
"I'm not from around here," the Master Chief replied.
"What do you mean by that?"
A pause. "I'm not sure."
The Master Chief's helmet tilted down a little, and Finn felt a chill down his back as he realized the visor was directly looking at his boots. Did he notice-
Then the so-called soldier's head snapped to look elsewhere, and Finn swore he saw the man's hand twitch to a strange-looking sidearm on his hip. Following the Master Chief's gaze, he jumped in his skin as locked eyes with a walking carpet wearing a bandolier. The old man appeared at the creature's side, giving the two of them sharp looks.
"What, neither of you seen a Wookiee before?" he asked, hands on his hips.
"No," the Master Chief said bluntly.
"Not in person," Finn replied, hurriedly.
The Wookiee gestured with a hand at Rey, and growled.
"Yep, the one who sells the compressors," the girl replied.
"You can understand it?" the Master Chief asked, looking her way.
"He can understand you, too, so watch your mouth," the old man retorted, the Wookiee adding his own reply. "We got a lot to talk about. Starting with the droid."
He pointed to the Master Chief. "You said that you heard the Resistance kid say the droid has a map to Luke."
"You overheard that?-"
"Is it true?" the old man interrupted, looking at the droid.
Finn glanced down at BB-8, and saw that the droid was straightening itself, staring the smuggler in the eye. It replied in a few clipped beeps, adding a flat-affected whistle at the end.
The Wookiee gave an exasperated-sounding growl, rolling his shoulders.
"Oh, you're really trying to pull that with me?" The old man said, incredulously raising his eyebrows. "I've been in this business before your designer was old enough to hold a datapen."
More beeps.
"Seriously? I tripped over you- forget it. Fine. You win." The old man humphed. "Code K3 dash 29, Endor fireworks."
BB-8 somehow managed to relax its stance, and replied in a flurry of beeps. The old man's eyebrows raised, as did Rey's.
"Did he just call you sir?" the scavenger asked, suddenly. "Are you with the Resistance?"
"I was rolling before the Resistance." The old man looked at the floor briefly, then straightened. "Nice to meet you, everyone. I'm Han Solo."
Finn's eyebrows tried to hit his scalp. Rey's jaw dropped, and she sucked in an excited gasp.
The Master Chief looked at their reactions, then to Han.
"Who?"
The wreckage of starships surrounded them, offering a little bit of shade for his eyes, and he looked back to see that Niima Outpost was already receding in the distance, far behind them.
"Where are we going?" he half-yelled to the scavenger girl, over the roar of the engine.
"I was hoping you'd tell me that," she replied loudly, knuckles white on the wheel. "BB-8 said he was looking for someone to pick him up. I thought you'd know where it was."
"My job was getting Poe out. I don't know where the rendezvous is!"
Another voice, calmer yet louder than the two of them, cut in. "The old man said he was going to try and pick us up. We need to get to his ship."
"You mean back the way we came?" the girl replied incredulously, looking over her shoulder. "It's probably crawling with stormtroopers now!"
"She's right," Finn added. "First Order protocol will call for locking down any ships on the ground, so the target can't flee. They might even be scuttling ships right now."
"Then we need to get there fast, and fight our way onboard if we have to," the armored giant replied. "They'll flush us out eventually, if we don't escape now."
The girl sucked in a breath, and nodded. "Okay. I'll get us there."
The Warthog swerved again as she spun the wheel, and Finn fought down his rations as the vehicle turned in a wide circle, glass spraying everywhere as the wheels dug into the ground. BB-8 nearly flew off his lap, until he looped an arm around it and held it tight to his chest. The droid beeped wildly, looking out past the windshield, but when he followed its gaze he saw nothing.
"We got company," the armored giant said. "Three unidentified aircraft to our twelve o'clock."
"Twelve o'clock?," Finn repeated, exasperated. "What does that mean?!"
"BB-8 sees them, too!" the girl yelled. "He says they're TIE fighters."
Despite the heat, his blood ran cold. Now, he could see the trio of small black dots through the haze of the horizon, their telltale roar in the air. Unless this strange groundcar was secretly made from beskar, just one shot would be enough.
"We need to find cover!" he barked. "Move in a serpentine pattern to throw off their targeting computers."
"Serpentine?" the girl asked.
"Zig-zag!" he and the armored giant replied at once.
The Warthog veered to the side, and not a moment too late. Twin bolts of green hot plasma hit where they would've been just a few moments ago. He could feel the heat, like another sun was shining on the back of his neck, and the whumph in his chest as the shockwave washed over them. Behind him, louder than even the shockwave or the roar of the TIEs, the so-called chaingun replied.
The tripled harmony of the TIE fighters' engines was broken, and Finn opened his eyes to see one racing overhead, smoke trailing from the cockpit. Following its tumbling arc, he saw it crash into the ground some distance behind them, while its brothers continued past. They began to turn back around, and he turned to see the armored giant keeping the chaingun trained on them.
"I already went through a fifth of the ammo," the strange soldier said. "We need cover."
"We're about to get some!" the girl called.
Finn turned back in his seat, and saw they were driving towards the wreckage of a Star Destroyer, the massive engine cones looming in the distance. The girl twisted the wheel back and forth as she drove the Warthog in a serpentine pattern, glass shards flying in all directions as the wheels dug into the ground. Behind them, the chaingun let out clipped barks, each less than a second, but the roar of the TIEs continued unbroken.
Hot plasma hit around them, showering them in sand and glass and heat, and the Warthog nearly smashed into a fallen AT-ST before the girl managed to swerve out of the way. They cleared a glass ridge, and he felt his stomach rise into his chest as they fell in an arc. BB-8 briefly achieved the power of flight as it rose above his lap, only him to grab it with both hands and bring it back down.
"Careful!" he yelled.
"This is a lot harder than it looks!" the girl retorted. "It has six pedals!"
More plasma rained near them, getting dangerously close, and the TIE fighters soared overhead once more, one of them bearing some large holes in one of its ion foils. Circling about, they raced towards the Warthog from both directions, like a pincer.
Holding BB-8 down with one hand, he twisted in his seat and aimed at one of the TIEs with the plasma pistol. Squeezing the trigger, green globs flew forth ineffectually, dissipating only a hundred or so meters away as they tumbled wildly off-target.
"Hold the trigger," the armored giant commanded, still firing clipped shots from the chaingun and forcing the TIEs to zigzag as well.
He did as suggested, and instead of firing, a particularly large bolt of plasma began to build up, making the gun shake wildly. When it seemed it wouldn't go any further, he took aim at the TIE and released the trigger.
The massive bolt flew forth, and actually seemed to follow after the TIE, hitting it dead on. The damage to the hull seemed minimal, and yet suddenly the fighter dropped from the sky, as if the pilot had simply shut the engine off. It hit a large glass dune in the distance with a faint whumph, and Finn blinked in surprise.
More plasma hit the ground behind the Warthog as the remaining TIE strafed past, much closer than before, but was mercifully cut short as shade fell over them. Looking above, he saw they had finally made it inside of the Star Destroyer, a large access tunnel enveloping them in shadows. It was then, in the relative silence, he heard a strange mechanical whirring that hadn't been there before.
Turning to look behind, he saw the chaingun twist to face forward, groaning like a wounded animal. The armored giant looked down at him and the girl, something golden shimmering about his silhouette and illuminating the darkness, something that smelled of ozone.
"Hydraulics are shot," the giant said, sounding far too calm. "I can turn the gun manually, but that's slower."
A roar joined them in the tunnel, following behind the Warthog, and the ceiling right above them exploded in sparks as a green flash hit. It was clear they weren't going to get the luxury to slowly turn the gun.
"I have an idea!" the girl yelled.
Before Finn could ask for clarification, he felt the seatbelt try to bisect him as the Warthog spun around, nearly flipping in the process. The girl frantically twisted the wheel, practically dancing on the pedals, and suddenly the vehicle was moving in reverse, the TIE fighter now approaching the front, weapons glowing orange in the low light.
It was now also in the path of the chaingun.
The weapon barked, like a dying gasp, and flames erupted in the tunnel as the TIE broke apart. The wreckage fell mercifully short of them, and the Warthog slowed to a stop, then spun back around and continued forward. A light was at the end of the service tunnel, and in moments they sped through it and back out into the glasslands.
"I can't believe I just did that," the girl said, to no one in particular.
Finn looked incredulously to the girl, then to the armored giant, who seemed to be scanning the glasslands for more hostiles. Turning back in his seat, he saw Niima Outpost in the distance, where their ride off planet would hopefully be, and he felt like cheering.
That feeling died down when he heard the giant say, "More hostiles to our left."
Sure enough, he could now hear the roar of more TIEs, and he twisted his neck to see another pair approaching. They were out in the open, now, and the gun was practically useless- unless a miracle happened, he didn't fancy their odds, though that didn't stop him from trying to take aim with the plasma pistol again.
Then, suddenly, the miracle happened.
Red plasma bolts tore through the sky from above, striking one of the TIEs and taking out an entire ion foil. The fighter careened to the side, and smashed right into its twin, sending both craft tumbling to join their ancestors in the mass grave. Finn let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, then decided to let out a cheer.
Looking up, he saw their savior descend- a freighter of some sort, looking much like two concave saucers fitted together, coupled with two stubby mandibles up front serving as the cargo dock. The starship matched speed with them, flying right above, and its entrance ramp began to descend.
"Slow down," the armored giant said to the girl. "This is the old man's ship."
The Warthog slowed, and eventually stopped, the freighter doing the same. Finn hopped out immediately, still carrying BB-8 in both arms, and behind him he heard the giant follow suit. A man was standing in the entrance ramp, holding stead with one hand while he gestured with the other.
"Get in quick!" the old man shouted. "More fighters are coming down."
Finn didn't wait to be told twice, running over and leaping up onto the ramp. Steadying himself for a moment, he looked back to see the girl jump onto the ramp as well, while the armored giant merely had to raise his foot and take a step up. The old man ushered them all into the ship, and the ramp closed.
"They're in," the old man called towards the cockpit. "We're getting out of here."
There was a vague sense of motion, and Finn knew they were rocketing away from Jakku. BB-8 hopped out of his arms, and rolled closer to the girl. The old man looked at him, then at the girl and the giant in green. He pointed a finger at all of them.
"I'm going to the cockpit in case we have to fight our way out. You three, stay here. Don't touch anything."
He jogged down the hallway. Finn watched him disappear from sight, then sucked in a breath and began to shake his hands a little, as if to dispel the almost childish giddiness that was welling up inside. The girl was pacing about, running a hand over the headscarf she had on.
"That was insane," he said to her. "Where did you learn to drive like that?"
"I don't know," the girl replied, excitedly. "I mean, I drive and work with speeders, but that thing wasn't a speeder at all, but I did learn how to drive it by watching Chief, but that was my first time actually driving it, and I-"
"-saved our asses," he finished, gesturing wildly to her.
"No, you saved us with that crazy shot. I didn't think that was possible..." the girl blinked. "I don't even know your name. We've saved each others' lives, but I don't-"
"Finn." He nodded, partially to convince himself. "I'm Finn."
She pulled down her scarf, revealing a smile. "Rey."
"Rey, I can't thank you enough."
She paused, then turned her head. "I think we both should be thanking him."
Finn looked to the silent figure standing awkwardly nearby. Now that they were in relative safety, Finn could appreciate just how massive this figure was. Even Captain Phasma was short in comparison.
"She's right. If you hadn't shown up with that groundcar, the First Order would've gotten us, and the droid."
The giant stared quietly at him, and for a moment Finn thought he looked uncomfortable. "I was just doing my duty."
"Who are you, anyway?"
"He told me to call him Master Chief," Rey said.
"Master Chief? Like the rank?" Finn's brow furrowed. "I've never seen a soldier like you."
"I'm not from around here," the Master Chief replied.
"What do you mean by that?"
A pause. "I'm not sure."
The Master Chief's helmet tilted down a little, and Finn felt a chill down his back as he realized the visor was directly looking at his boots. Did he notice-
Then the so-called soldier's head snapped to look elsewhere, and Finn swore he saw the man's hand twitch to a strange-looking sidearm on his hip. Following the Master Chief's gaze, he jumped in his skin as locked eyes with a walking carpet wearing a bandolier. The old man appeared at the creature's side, giving the two of them sharp looks.
"What, neither of you seen a Wookiee before?" he asked, hands on his hips.
"No," the Master Chief said bluntly.
"Not in person," Finn replied, hurriedly.
The Wookiee gestured with a hand at Rey, and growled.
"Yep, the one who sells the compressors," the girl replied.
"You can understand it?" the Master Chief asked, looking her way.
"He can understand you, too, so watch your mouth," the old man retorted, the Wookiee adding his own reply. "We got a lot to talk about. Starting with the droid."
He pointed to the Master Chief. "You said that you heard the Resistance kid say the droid has a map to Luke."
"You overheard that?-"
"Is it true?" the old man interrupted, looking at the droid.
Finn glanced down at BB-8, and saw that the droid was straightening itself, staring the smuggler in the eye. It replied in a few clipped beeps, adding a flat-affected whistle at the end.
The Wookiee gave an exasperated-sounding growl, rolling his shoulders.
"Oh, you're really trying to pull that with me?" The old man said, incredulously raising his eyebrows. "I've been in this business before your designer was old enough to hold a datapen."
More beeps.
"Seriously? I tripped over you- forget it. Fine. You win." The old man humphed. "Code K3 dash 29, Endor fireworks."
BB-8 somehow managed to relax its stance, and replied in a flurry of beeps. The old man's eyebrows raised, as did Rey's.
"Did he just call you sir?" the scavenger asked, suddenly. "Are you with the Resistance?"
"I was rolling before the Resistance." The old man looked at the floor briefly, then straightened. "Nice to meet you, everyone. I'm Han Solo."
Finn's eyebrows tried to hit his scalp. Rey's jaw dropped, and she sucked in an excited gasp.
The Master Chief looked at their reactions, then to Han.
"Who?"
Chapter Seven
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
Lieutenant AQ-0091 swallowed nervously as he stood before the door to the Finalizer's main observation blister. Just raising his hand to punch in the entry code was a challenge, each muscle twitch sending a signal to his brain that screamed danger, danger, danger.
Sense of impending doom, a medical officer had told him it was called, while recovering from a nerve-chem test. When nothing's wrong but you still feel like you're going to die. Plenty of people had delivered news to Lord Ren, a lot of it of the bad sort, and all had left -physically- intact.
The door hissed open, and he stepped inside.
Even if he wasn't being the bearer of bad news to this particular being, he still would've felt his hairs stand up on end. He always hated observation blisters, how the transparisteel dome gave the illusion of standing on the hull of the ship, exposed to the vacuum. Jakku loomed above him, a scarred crescent of black and white surrounded by infinite darkness.
Lord Ren was standing in the middle of the blister, back turned. In the shadow of the planet, he seemed nothing more than a silhouette that blotted out some of the stars. AQ licked his dry lips, then spoke.
"My lord, our intelligence reports that the droid managed to escape off-world."
The shadow against the stars didn't move. AQ was weighing the risk of repeating himself when Lord Ren suddenly responded.
"In the ship that avoided the lockdown." A statement, not a question, cold and heavy.
"Yes. Eyewitness accounts and orbital imaging indicates a Corellian freighter, likely YT series-"
Crimson flashed against the black of space, and AQ flinched as a computer console was promptly reduced to scraps in a flurry of blows, the pieces left glowing orange and warped. Lord Ren finally turned to look his way, his visor a glint of silver.
"YT-1300f," he said, voice somewhat breathy. "It's him."
"My lord?"
"Anything else?" The tone was even-tempered, yet AQ had a feeling any further prying would be unwise.
"Yes," the lieutenant said quickly. "Reports indicate that the droid was delivered to the freighter by who we suspect to be FN-2187, and two unknowns."
"Elaborate on 'unknowns'."
"We believe one was a high-grade battle droid, whose model doesn't appear to be on our records. It killed two troopers with its bare hands. The other seems to just be a local scavenger girl-"
Lord Ren whirled about, and AQ felt himself pulled into the air, toes skidding over the polished floor as he flew towards a waiting hand. Gloved fingers wrapped about his throat, lax enough to allow him to speak, hard enough to hurt.
"What girl?" Ren growled.
AQ opened his mouth to answer, only to feel the eyewitness sketches and reports bubble to the forefront of his mind. Something scalding hot seemed to press against his very being, and suddenly he found himself free from the iron grip on his throat.
"Inform General Hux that I am going planetside," Ren said, matter-of-factly.
AQ couldn't even wheeze out a "Yes, my lord" before said lord made for the door, boots clomping on the floor like anvils. Slowly rising to his feet, the lieutenant rubbed his throat, and wondered what the hell was going on.
John had often reflected on how he almost always had to deal with people not in the know about a situation. From countless ONI programs -himself included- to the existence of the Covenant before their declassification, to the nature of Halo itself, he had always been aware of secrets almost no one else in the entire human race knew about, and almost always was he surrounded by those who weren't aware.
There'd been the Marines in the first engagements in the Outer Colonies- utterly oblivious to the SPARTAN-II program, utterly confused by the very existence of the walking tank who had saved their lives and taken command of the battlefield. There'd been the panicked civilians in the early days of the Covenant war who hadn't known why Harvest had gone dark, what those alien ships flooding the skies were, or why their world was burning.
As he stood by the small round table, watching the heated conversation unfolding, he was beginning to sympathize with those people.
"I've been selling parts to the two who made the Kessel run in fourteen parsecs?"
"Twelve parsecs."
"Why didn't you tell me who you really were? You two are the greatest smugglers ever."
"Smuggler? I thought you were a Rebellion general?"
"Both. And you, it's called keeping a low profile. If I went around telling everyone my name every time I pulled to port, it'd defeat the purpose of being there."
Growls.
"No, I don't go around doing that, Chewie."
"I feel like we're ignoring the bantha in the room. That droid, it actually does have a map to Luke Skywalker? The one who blew up the Death Star?"
"He says it's a map, but I'm not buying it."
"I can't believe I've sold parts to someone who knew Luke Skywalker."
"And this is another reason I didn't tell you my name."
John cut in. "I don't understand any of this."
All eyes fell on him, as if seeing him for the first time. Rey seemed the least surprised, considering their prior conversations, while Finn had a look on his face that suggested John had just said he'd never heard of water.
"Let's just say this is really important," Han said. "Fate of the galaxy important."
"Been there." John ignored the doubting look from the smuggler. "Will this affect our deal?"
"Don't worry, I'll get you there. We just need to take a detour." Han gestured to a room with a thumb. "We keep some tapes in storage over there. I'd suggest you do some light reading for the trip."
John forced himself to just nod. "Understood."
He walked past the group, ignoring Rey's concerned look, and stepped into the storage room. Shutting the door behind him, he took stock of his surroundings. It was technically dark, but with his eyes it may as well have been daytime, and he was quick to notice what looked to be a pile of datapads in the corner.
Grabbing one from the top, he wiped dust off of the black casing, and the thing blinked on, the aesthetic of the screen looking much more like the early modern computers Cortana had once told him about. The keyboard was strange in its layout, but it had what at least seemed to be latin script on the keys. Flipping the pad, he saw that there was an empty slot in its back.
Glancing at the corner again, he noted the so-called tapes, each one labeled with one thing or another. History, Celestial Registry, Languages, and a half-dozen more categories. He grabbed the one labeled "Celestial Registry" and slid it into the slot.
His free hand hovered above the keys, and he frowned at his own hesitation. Was he really that afraid of what he was going to find? This was what he'd been looking for- he needed to know the situation, no matter how bad it was.
He punched in EARTH, and held a breath as he pressed the enter key.
Rey frowned as the Master Chief disappeared behind the storage door. Even out of sight, the tension and worry under that strange man's armor lingered. She looked to Han.
"Are you sure we can't bring him to Earth first?"
"That's definitely going to take a lot of time, and we don't have that." The smuggler had a frown of his own as he glanced at the storage room.
"He's right," Finn interjected. "The longer we take, the more of a risk the First Order can intercept us and take the map."
Rey leaned back in the worn cushioning of the bench, then gestured to Han with both hands. "You said you don't believe it's actually a map to Skywalker."
"No, I don't. When Luke left..." he paused, then sighed. "Let's just say he didn't want to be found. He wouldn't leave a map."
Chewbacca chuffed in sad agreement, adding that if his own friends didn't know where he was, no one else would know. The Wookiee sulked back to the cockpit, giving Han a pat on the shoulder as he went. The smuggler nodded at his friend, then looked back to her and Finn.
"Map or no map, whatever the ball has, the First Order's willing to kill for it. We're bringing him to Coruscant."
"The capital?" Rey and Finn asked at the same time.
"What, never been?" Han asked, jokingly.
"Aren't you funny," Rey muttered.
Finn sputtered. "Well, I, it's a bit direct, that's all. For Resistance business, I mean."
"Right." Han smirked. "I'll be in the cockpit. Don't touch anything."
He walked away, and Rey sighed. Leaning forward, she pulled her headscarf off and ran a hand through her rough hair. Her eyes wandered the room, drinking in the details.
"I never thought I'd be on the Millennium Falcon," she breathed. "I'm touching a piece of galactic history. Stars, Han Solo offered me a job."
"It's a lot dirtier than I imagined," Finn said, looking around as well. He glanced to the storage room. "So, uh, where did you find that guy?"
"Frozen in a glass tube, on a type of ship I've never seen before. Even Han doesn't know a thing about it."
"And he doesn't know a thing about our side of things, either. It's like his people developed in complete isolation." Finn looked back to her. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was from another galaxy."
Rey didn't respond to that. She just kept watching the door, something nagging at her.
NO RESULT FOUND
He clenched his hand into a fist, then continued typing.
Terra
NO RESULT FOUND
Díqiù
NO RESULT FOUND
Sol 3
NO RESULT FOUND
He flexed his hand a few times, then decided to switch tactics.
Reach
DID YOU MEAN: GORDIAN REACH?
Jericho VII
NO RESULT FOUND
Arcadia
That one returned a result, and he fought to keep his expectations measured as he read more. Sure enough, it was just a volcanic world orbiting a K-type star. None of the other colonies he entered returned results.
Pulling the tape out, he absentmindedly let it drop to the floor as he reached for "Species". Sliding the tape in, he typed the most immediate one that came to mind.
Humans
A result naturally(?) came up, and he started reading. At the very least, it allayed his faint suspicion that he'd been dealing with beings that only mimicked humans- bipedal species of sexually dimorphic omnivores, average height range of 1.4-1.9 meters. Carbon based, levo-amino acids, hæmoglobin for oxygenation.
Homeworld unknown.
Those two words stared at him, until he exited the entry. Thinking for a moment, he recalled the true names the Arbiter had told him for the various peoples of the Covenant. He was so used to the unflattering terminology they'd used over the years it was easy to forget the alternatives.
Sangheili
NO RESULT FOUND
Unggoy
NO RESULT FOUND
Kig-Yar
NO RESULT FOUND
He ripped the tape out, and reached back into the box. "History" went in next. He hit the first key so hard it bent, and he forced himself to pause a moment before he continued typing, gentler this time.
Covenant. Human-Covenant War. Insurrection. The Flood. Halo.
Nothing, only results that were completely unrelated.
The casing of the datapad creaked in his grip as he laid it back on the pile, and he saw that his fingers had left deep imprints in the plastic-like material. Looking down at his hand, he flexed it a few times, then let it drop to his side.
Even if the tapes were woefully incomplete, the absolute lack of any relevant information about the world he left behind spoke volumes. The only halfway-reasonable explanation could be a vast gulf, either in time or in space, but neither one made that much sense. For one, they spoke the same language he did, which wouldn't make sense for either option-
He blinked, then undid the seals of his helmet and took it off. The air was stale, but that wasn't what he was focusing on. He listened to the conversations outside, half-expecting to hear an unintelligible tongue that his suit had somehow been translating, but instead all he heard was English.
Turning his helmet in his hands, he looked into the visor for a bit, then reached around and pulled the chip out. Gentle blue light filled the room as he held her to eye level.
"Situation's looking worse," he said quietly. "Nothing's making sense. I don't know how we're getting home, or even if home still exists. I-"
He clicked his jaw shut. He knew what she'd say to him.
Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it.
She said that to him, as he left her behind in a High Charity that was being consumed by the Flood and torn apart by one of the largest fleet battles in history, as he raced towards the likely extinction of the human race all alone and unarmed on a hostile Forerunner ship.
He'd thought about her words as he fell from orbit without a chute, as he tore through Brutes on the Ark, as he fought across a Flood-infested High Charity for hours on end. Until he found her. Both of them battered, but alive. Both of them happy to see each other in the heart of Hell.
"I will get us home," he said. "I promise."
Sense of impending doom, a medical officer had told him it was called, while recovering from a nerve-chem test. When nothing's wrong but you still feel like you're going to die. Plenty of people had delivered news to Lord Ren, a lot of it of the bad sort, and all had left -physically- intact.
The door hissed open, and he stepped inside.
Even if he wasn't being the bearer of bad news to this particular being, he still would've felt his hairs stand up on end. He always hated observation blisters, how the transparisteel dome gave the illusion of standing on the hull of the ship, exposed to the vacuum. Jakku loomed above him, a scarred crescent of black and white surrounded by infinite darkness.
Lord Ren was standing in the middle of the blister, back turned. In the shadow of the planet, he seemed nothing more than a silhouette that blotted out some of the stars. AQ licked his dry lips, then spoke.
"My lord, our intelligence reports that the droid managed to escape off-world."
The shadow against the stars didn't move. AQ was weighing the risk of repeating himself when Lord Ren suddenly responded.
"In the ship that avoided the lockdown." A statement, not a question, cold and heavy.
"Yes. Eyewitness accounts and orbital imaging indicates a Corellian freighter, likely YT series-"
Crimson flashed against the black of space, and AQ flinched as a computer console was promptly reduced to scraps in a flurry of blows, the pieces left glowing orange and warped. Lord Ren finally turned to look his way, his visor a glint of silver.
"YT-1300f," he said, voice somewhat breathy. "It's him."
"My lord?"
"Anything else?" The tone was even-tempered, yet AQ had a feeling any further prying would be unwise.
"Yes," the lieutenant said quickly. "Reports indicate that the droid was delivered to the freighter by who we suspect to be FN-2187, and two unknowns."
"Elaborate on 'unknowns'."
"We believe one was a high-grade battle droid, whose model doesn't appear to be on our records. It killed two troopers with its bare hands. The other seems to just be a local scavenger girl-"
Lord Ren whirled about, and AQ felt himself pulled into the air, toes skidding over the polished floor as he flew towards a waiting hand. Gloved fingers wrapped about his throat, lax enough to allow him to speak, hard enough to hurt.
"What girl?" Ren growled.
AQ opened his mouth to answer, only to feel the eyewitness sketches and reports bubble to the forefront of his mind. Something scalding hot seemed to press against his very being, and suddenly he found himself free from the iron grip on his throat.
"Inform General Hux that I am going planetside," Ren said, matter-of-factly.
AQ couldn't even wheeze out a "Yes, my lord" before said lord made for the door, boots clomping on the floor like anvils. Slowly rising to his feet, the lieutenant rubbed his throat, and wondered what the hell was going on.
O
John had often reflected on how he almost always had to deal with people not in the know about a situation. From countless ONI programs -himself included- to the existence of the Covenant before their declassification, to the nature of Halo itself, he had always been aware of secrets almost no one else in the entire human race knew about, and almost always was he surrounded by those who weren't aware.
There'd been the Marines in the first engagements in the Outer Colonies- utterly oblivious to the SPARTAN-II program, utterly confused by the very existence of the walking tank who had saved their lives and taken command of the battlefield. There'd been the panicked civilians in the early days of the Covenant war who hadn't known why Harvest had gone dark, what those alien ships flooding the skies were, or why their world was burning.
As he stood by the small round table, watching the heated conversation unfolding, he was beginning to sympathize with those people.
"I've been selling parts to the two who made the Kessel run in fourteen parsecs?"
"Twelve parsecs."
"Why didn't you tell me who you really were? You two are the greatest smugglers ever."
"Smuggler? I thought you were a Rebellion general?"
"Both. And you, it's called keeping a low profile. If I went around telling everyone my name every time I pulled to port, it'd defeat the purpose of being there."
Growls.
"No, I don't go around doing that, Chewie."
"I feel like we're ignoring the bantha in the room. That droid, it actually does have a map to Luke Skywalker? The one who blew up the Death Star?"
"He says it's a map, but I'm not buying it."
"I can't believe I've sold parts to someone who knew Luke Skywalker."
"And this is another reason I didn't tell you my name."
John cut in. "I don't understand any of this."
All eyes fell on him, as if seeing him for the first time. Rey seemed the least surprised, considering their prior conversations, while Finn had a look on his face that suggested John had just said he'd never heard of water.
"Let's just say this is really important," Han said. "Fate of the galaxy important."
"Been there." John ignored the doubting look from the smuggler. "Will this affect our deal?"
"Don't worry, I'll get you there. We just need to take a detour." Han gestured to a room with a thumb. "We keep some tapes in storage over there. I'd suggest you do some light reading for the trip."
John forced himself to just nod. "Understood."
He walked past the group, ignoring Rey's concerned look, and stepped into the storage room. Shutting the door behind him, he took stock of his surroundings. It was technically dark, but with his eyes it may as well have been daytime, and he was quick to notice what looked to be a pile of datapads in the corner.
Grabbing one from the top, he wiped dust off of the black casing, and the thing blinked on, the aesthetic of the screen looking much more like the early modern computers Cortana had once told him about. The keyboard was strange in its layout, but it had what at least seemed to be latin script on the keys. Flipping the pad, he saw that there was an empty slot in its back.
Glancing at the corner again, he noted the so-called tapes, each one labeled with one thing or another. History, Celestial Registry, Languages, and a half-dozen more categories. He grabbed the one labeled "Celestial Registry" and slid it into the slot.
His free hand hovered above the keys, and he frowned at his own hesitation. Was he really that afraid of what he was going to find? This was what he'd been looking for- he needed to know the situation, no matter how bad it was.
He punched in EARTH, and held a breath as he pressed the enter key.
O
Rey frowned as the Master Chief disappeared behind the storage door. Even out of sight, the tension and worry under that strange man's armor lingered. She looked to Han.
"Are you sure we can't bring him to Earth first?"
"That's definitely going to take a lot of time, and we don't have that." The smuggler had a frown of his own as he glanced at the storage room.
"He's right," Finn interjected. "The longer we take, the more of a risk the First Order can intercept us and take the map."
Rey leaned back in the worn cushioning of the bench, then gestured to Han with both hands. "You said you don't believe it's actually a map to Skywalker."
"No, I don't. When Luke left..." he paused, then sighed. "Let's just say he didn't want to be found. He wouldn't leave a map."
Chewbacca chuffed in sad agreement, adding that if his own friends didn't know where he was, no one else would know. The Wookiee sulked back to the cockpit, giving Han a pat on the shoulder as he went. The smuggler nodded at his friend, then looked back to her and Finn.
"Map or no map, whatever the ball has, the First Order's willing to kill for it. We're bringing him to Coruscant."
"The capital?" Rey and Finn asked at the same time.
"What, never been?" Han asked, jokingly.
"Aren't you funny," Rey muttered.
Finn sputtered. "Well, I, it's a bit direct, that's all. For Resistance business, I mean."
"Right." Han smirked. "I'll be in the cockpit. Don't touch anything."
He walked away, and Rey sighed. Leaning forward, she pulled her headscarf off and ran a hand through her rough hair. Her eyes wandered the room, drinking in the details.
"I never thought I'd be on the Millennium Falcon," she breathed. "I'm touching a piece of galactic history. Stars, Han Solo offered me a job."
"It's a lot dirtier than I imagined," Finn said, looking around as well. He glanced to the storage room. "So, uh, where did you find that guy?"
"Frozen in a glass tube, on a type of ship I've never seen before. Even Han doesn't know a thing about it."
"And he doesn't know a thing about our side of things, either. It's like his people developed in complete isolation." Finn looked back to her. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he was from another galaxy."
Rey didn't respond to that. She just kept watching the door, something nagging at her.
O
NO RESULT FOUND
He clenched his hand into a fist, then continued typing.
Terra
NO RESULT FOUND
Díqiù
NO RESULT FOUND
Sol 3
NO RESULT FOUND
He flexed his hand a few times, then decided to switch tactics.
Reach
DID YOU MEAN: GORDIAN REACH?
Jericho VII
NO RESULT FOUND
Arcadia
That one returned a result, and he fought to keep his expectations measured as he read more. Sure enough, it was just a volcanic world orbiting a K-type star. None of the other colonies he entered returned results.
Pulling the tape out, he absentmindedly let it drop to the floor as he reached for "Species". Sliding the tape in, he typed the most immediate one that came to mind.
Humans
A result naturally(?) came up, and he started reading. At the very least, it allayed his faint suspicion that he'd been dealing with beings that only mimicked humans- bipedal species of sexually dimorphic omnivores, average height range of 1.4-1.9 meters. Carbon based, levo-amino acids, hæmoglobin for oxygenation.
Homeworld unknown.
Those two words stared at him, until he exited the entry. Thinking for a moment, he recalled the true names the Arbiter had told him for the various peoples of the Covenant. He was so used to the unflattering terminology they'd used over the years it was easy to forget the alternatives.
Sangheili
NO RESULT FOUND
Unggoy
NO RESULT FOUND
Kig-Yar
NO RESULT FOUND
He ripped the tape out, and reached back into the box. "History" went in next. He hit the first key so hard it bent, and he forced himself to pause a moment before he continued typing, gentler this time.
Covenant. Human-Covenant War. Insurrection. The Flood. Halo.
Nothing, only results that were completely unrelated.
The casing of the datapad creaked in his grip as he laid it back on the pile, and he saw that his fingers had left deep imprints in the plastic-like material. Looking down at his hand, he flexed it a few times, then let it drop to his side.
Even if the tapes were woefully incomplete, the absolute lack of any relevant information about the world he left behind spoke volumes. The only halfway-reasonable explanation could be a vast gulf, either in time or in space, but neither one made that much sense. For one, they spoke the same language he did, which wouldn't make sense for either option-
He blinked, then undid the seals of his helmet and took it off. The air was stale, but that wasn't what he was focusing on. He listened to the conversations outside, half-expecting to hear an unintelligible tongue that his suit had somehow been translating, but instead all he heard was English.
Turning his helmet in his hands, he looked into the visor for a bit, then reached around and pulled the chip out. Gentle blue light filled the room as he held her to eye level.
"Situation's looking worse," he said quietly. "Nothing's making sense. I don't know how we're getting home, or even if home still exists. I-"
He clicked his jaw shut. He knew what she'd say to him.
Don't make a girl a promise, if you know you can't keep it.
She said that to him, as he left her behind in a High Charity that was being consumed by the Flood and torn apart by one of the largest fleet battles in history, as he raced towards the likely extinction of the human race all alone and unarmed on a hostile Forerunner ship.
He'd thought about her words as he fell from orbit without a chute, as he tore through Brutes on the Ark, as he fought across a Flood-infested High Charity for hours on end. Until he found her. Both of them battered, but alive. Both of them happy to see each other in the heart of Hell.
"I will get us home," he said. "I promise."
Chapter Eight
Thuktun F
You can complain now; I'm no longer a councilor
- Location
- United States
The harsh white sun was still high in the sky as he stepped off the ramp and surveyed the desolate land before him. When he'd last visited the planet, less than three days ago, it had been in one of the untouched regions, with fields of sunmoss and stubborn succulents clinging to life against the bleached stones. Here, there wasn't even that- only blasted glass and ruins.
Fear, pain, death... the land was soaked in it, and he let it wash over him like river polishing a pebble. He marched forward, glass crunching under his heavy boots as he approached the secured outpost. A transport had landed nearby, crushing some merchants' kiosks, and he directed himself there.
A quartet of troopers stood guard by the entrance ramp to the craft, and they all stiffened at his approach, the Force tensing within and without their figures. Submission pooled in their hearts as they offered salutes.
"Report," he said, to none of them in particular.
One of them did as told. "My lord, a few of the natives have corroborated reports that the droid was here. Eyewitness accounts more or less fall in line with FN-2187's appearance."
"What of the battle droid that assisted them?" he asked.
"None have professed any knowledge of its model, though the junk trader claims that it spoke to him, saying it wasn't a droid." The trooper paused, uncertainty bunched up in his stomach. "Some of the scavenger scum claim it came from a ship that crashed here a few days ago."
"Have we secured the ship yet?"
"The site is clear, but so far the troopers have been ordered to keep their distance from the wreckage. The junk trader stated that the battle droid set the wreckage to be scuttled with a powerful bomb."
"I want our slicers on-site. Have them remotely disable the bomb."
The uncertainty in all four of them scrunched up tighter, then the lead trooper nodded. "Yes, my lord. I will relay the command."
The trooper began typing on his wrist communicator, and Kylo Ren watched him intently, sensing the furtive glances under the visor. Satisfied, he turned away, directing his gaze towards the outpost, where a large crowd of scavengers and traders had been forced to kneel on the hot glass. The main tent had been converted into an interrogation center- he saw a quintet of natives exit shakily from the tent, just in time for five more to be pulled to their feet and dragged in.
A weak and foolish part of him thought of how pained and scared they must have been, these natives who knew nothing of why they were being interrogated. He squashed it down and tried to ignore it.
He sensed movement behind him, and he looked to see a speeder in the distance, towing a hideous vehicle behind it. He eyed the battered armor plating, the formidable gun, and the inexplicable wheels. This was a machine meant purely for war, killing intent roiling off its hull and rippling through the Force.
"Accounts indicate it came from the ship," the lead trooper said. "The scavenger girl who assisted the droid and the traitor apparently went there to find salvage, and came back with that thing, along with the battle droid."
"Have it brought to the Finalizer for analysis," Ren ordered, more to get the uninteresting topic done with, rather than actual want. He made sure his voice was level when he asked, "What have we gathered about the girl?"
"Nothing much. Not even a name. The junk trader told us the location of her home- we're sending a team to secure it right now-"
"Have them pull back. I'll secure the site myself."
The trooper's confusion was like a brief flash, one that died before it was even given breath when Ren took a step forward.
"Understood, my lord. Shall we bring you a speeder?"
"No need."
He reached out through the Force, and willed a speeder bike out of the cargo bay and towards himself. Between what he had gathered from the tops of the troopers' minds and the faint tug at his own, he had a good bearing of the location, and he took off towards it.
Glassland rushed under his feet, and he found himself envisioning the sight through another's eyes. A rusty old farming speeder, rather than the modern bike he rode. Worn army shoes, instead of polished boots. The sun shining through scratched goggles, rather than a state-of-the-art visor.
A fallen walker of the old Empire came into view after some time, and the tug at his mind grew stronger, the path becoming clearer. An abandoned speeder was parked near its rent belly, much like the one he'd seen in his dreams, and he pulled to a stop alongside it. Hopping off, he marched towards the entrance, forcing himself not to run like a foolish child.
Pausing at the doorway, he crouched down, looking at the marks in the black sand. Something heavy had tread this ground, far more massive than its prints would reasonably suggest. Alongside it, there had been lighter footprints, and the tell-tale path of a BB unit.
Rising back up, he stepped inside, and looked about the shaded interior. It had clearly been converted into a homestead, with an improvised kitchen to his left on the far wall and a woven sleeping mat beside it. Assorted parts and salvage littered the place, from a Y-wing flight computer to a dismantled solar array.
Slowly, he walked about the chamber. Something bright on a nearby shelf caught his attention, and he grabbed it. A doll of a Rebel pilot stared back at him with doodled-on eyes, dried sunmoss peaking out through multiple tears in the fabric. The stuffing crackled in his grip for a moment, then he placed it back on the shelf and carried on.
Circling to the far side of the chamber, he ran his gloved fingertips over the tally marks scratched into the wall, feeling the phantom days pass beneath his touch. He couldn't fathom how there could still be faint hope lingering with each etching, when just looking at the sheer volume of marks left himself filled with borrowed bleakness.
Leaning against the wall, he slid down and sat in his usual lotus position, only to shift his legs in accordance with the imprints left here in the Force, until he sat how the person who lived here had sat, legs arched and splayed out.
Closing his eyes, he guided the Force through him, pulling at phantom threads and layers upon layers of life lived. When he opened them again, he saw fleeting images of the former occupant of this home, and his breath caught for a moment. He saw her, kneeling by the stove and cooking veg-meat in one scant moment, then fiddling with the computer in another.
It was her.
The girl had lived here.
He ignored the pounding heartbeat in his ears as he stood back up. The girl had chanced upon the droid, and now was swept up in whatever nonsense Solo had in mind. Now, it wasn't only the droid that had to be intercepted before the Resistance could sink their claws in.
At least now, he perhaps had a thread that would pull him in the right direction.
Rey fought the urge to shiver for the hundredth time since she got on the Falcon. The temperature of the ship's life support was much colder than what she was used, and the robes she wore were definitely not meant to trap heat. Rubbing her shoulders, she studied the dejarik board, then looked up at her opponent.
BB-8 stared intently at her, like a predator looking for the opportune place to sink its fangs, then looked down at the board and made a move. The Mantellian Savrip stomped forward, slammed the Kintan Strider into the ground, and the game was over.
"Dank ferrik!" she swore, for the fifth time. "How do you keep doing that?"
BB-8 smugly replied that he kept on doing that by winning. Sitting next to the droid, Finn watched the board intently, a childlike enthusiasm in his eyes.
"I don't know how you keep track of all the rules like that," he said.
"Clearly I don't," she said, offering a squinted glare at BB-8, then looking to Finn. "I'm surprised you don't play."
"Well," Finn paused, looking up at nothing at particular then back to the board. "I just don't have a lot of time to play games. Not when I'm doing important missions for the Resistance."
BB-8 looked at Finn, then to Rey, then back to Finn, over and over. Rey frowned at that.
"Something wrong, BB-8?"
Before the droid could reply, she heard swearing from the cockpit, and leaned to the side so she could look over.
"Uh, is everything okay?" Finn asked, copying her motion.
"I should've known it'd act up after that little stunt we pulled getting off Jakku," Han complained, distant.
Chewbacca growled back that they said that every time, and every time they never checked.
"Yeah, well, you don't have to rub it in like that." Han appeared in the doorway, a disgruntled look on his face. "We're taking a quick stop at Lu-Voth Station to get the fuel lines checked for the hyperdrive. It's another twenty-kay to Coruscant, and if the fuel lines fail we'll get scattered across three sectors."
"Lu-Voth Station?" Finn asked, apprehension in his voice. "Isn't that owned by Hutts?"
"Lumma the Hutt, to be precise." If the look on his face had any meaning, Han wasn't very fond of the person. "He's a slimeball, but the station sells parts we use for the Falcon."
He looked between her and Finn. "We're not doing anything else there. This is not a fun little trip. We're in, we get the parts, we fix the Falcon, we're out."
"What are we going to do?" Rey asked.
"You're staying here with Chewie to fix what you can while we get the parts." Han pointed to Finn. "You, Mr. Resistance hotshot, you get to come with me."
"Why me?" Finn asked.
"You said it yourself- this is run by a Hutt. Which means scum of all walks of life go there. There'll be trouble, and two guns is better than one." Han paused, then looked to the supply closet. "Make it three guns. Rey, go see if Tinhead's up for a trip."
Han disappeared back into the cockpit, and Rey sighed. Standing up, she smoothed out the wrinkles in her robes, then made for the supply closet. Pausing at the door, she slid the door open a crack and peered into the darkness.
She couldn't see a thing, but for some reason she felt nervous. Lost. Even a little frightened. She cleared her throat.
"Chief?"
A predator's eyes looked back at her, twin discs shining in the darkness, and she stifled a yelp. For a moment, she imagined she was back on Jakku, staring into a kyuloc's eyes as the creature weighed the pros and cons of trying to make her into its next meal.
Then the shining eyes disappeared under a black mass, and suddenly the Master Chief stepped into the light, still fixing his helmet into place. Now, the only eyes she could see were her own, reflected back in that inscrutable visor.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Your eyes," she blurted out, stepping back as he exited the closet. "That's not normal."
The Master Chief looked at her, and the feeling she'd gotten from the room was replaced with something like shame.
"That's classified," he said, sounding unconvincing.
Rey swallowed. "Okay... um, we have-"
"I heard the conversation. I'll go down." The Master Chief moved past her, grabbing his slugthrower from where he'd left it.
He stood there for a moment, shoulders sagging a little, then looked a little over his shoulder.
"I overheard you talking about that game. I don't know how to play it."
She knew it wasn't genuine curiosity prompting that. But she also knew that it'd still be good to oblige him.
"I can teach you."
His shoulders lifted a micron, and he carefully sat down on the bench, looking at the dejarik board. She sat down opposite him, while Finn leaned in to watch the two.
Then, for some reason, she looked back to the supply closet's open door, half-expecting to see someone watching her. But there was no one there.
Fear, pain, death... the land was soaked in it, and he let it wash over him like river polishing a pebble. He marched forward, glass crunching under his heavy boots as he approached the secured outpost. A transport had landed nearby, crushing some merchants' kiosks, and he directed himself there.
A quartet of troopers stood guard by the entrance ramp to the craft, and they all stiffened at his approach, the Force tensing within and without their figures. Submission pooled in their hearts as they offered salutes.
"Report," he said, to none of them in particular.
One of them did as told. "My lord, a few of the natives have corroborated reports that the droid was here. Eyewitness accounts more or less fall in line with FN-2187's appearance."
"What of the battle droid that assisted them?" he asked.
"None have professed any knowledge of its model, though the junk trader claims that it spoke to him, saying it wasn't a droid." The trooper paused, uncertainty bunched up in his stomach. "Some of the scavenger scum claim it came from a ship that crashed here a few days ago."
"Have we secured the ship yet?"
"The site is clear, but so far the troopers have been ordered to keep their distance from the wreckage. The junk trader stated that the battle droid set the wreckage to be scuttled with a powerful bomb."
"I want our slicers on-site. Have them remotely disable the bomb."
The uncertainty in all four of them scrunched up tighter, then the lead trooper nodded. "Yes, my lord. I will relay the command."
The trooper began typing on his wrist communicator, and Kylo Ren watched him intently, sensing the furtive glances under the visor. Satisfied, he turned away, directing his gaze towards the outpost, where a large crowd of scavengers and traders had been forced to kneel on the hot glass. The main tent had been converted into an interrogation center- he saw a quintet of natives exit shakily from the tent, just in time for five more to be pulled to their feet and dragged in.
A weak and foolish part of him thought of how pained and scared they must have been, these natives who knew nothing of why they were being interrogated. He squashed it down and tried to ignore it.
He sensed movement behind him, and he looked to see a speeder in the distance, towing a hideous vehicle behind it. He eyed the battered armor plating, the formidable gun, and the inexplicable wheels. This was a machine meant purely for war, killing intent roiling off its hull and rippling through the Force.
"Accounts indicate it came from the ship," the lead trooper said. "The scavenger girl who assisted the droid and the traitor apparently went there to find salvage, and came back with that thing, along with the battle droid."
"Have it brought to the Finalizer for analysis," Ren ordered, more to get the uninteresting topic done with, rather than actual want. He made sure his voice was level when he asked, "What have we gathered about the girl?"
"Nothing much. Not even a name. The junk trader told us the location of her home- we're sending a team to secure it right now-"
"Have them pull back. I'll secure the site myself."
The trooper's confusion was like a brief flash, one that died before it was even given breath when Ren took a step forward.
"Understood, my lord. Shall we bring you a speeder?"
"No need."
He reached out through the Force, and willed a speeder bike out of the cargo bay and towards himself. Between what he had gathered from the tops of the troopers' minds and the faint tug at his own, he had a good bearing of the location, and he took off towards it.
Glassland rushed under his feet, and he found himself envisioning the sight through another's eyes. A rusty old farming speeder, rather than the modern bike he rode. Worn army shoes, instead of polished boots. The sun shining through scratched goggles, rather than a state-of-the-art visor.
A fallen walker of the old Empire came into view after some time, and the tug at his mind grew stronger, the path becoming clearer. An abandoned speeder was parked near its rent belly, much like the one he'd seen in his dreams, and he pulled to a stop alongside it. Hopping off, he marched towards the entrance, forcing himself not to run like a foolish child.
Pausing at the doorway, he crouched down, looking at the marks in the black sand. Something heavy had tread this ground, far more massive than its prints would reasonably suggest. Alongside it, there had been lighter footprints, and the tell-tale path of a BB unit.
Rising back up, he stepped inside, and looked about the shaded interior. It had clearly been converted into a homestead, with an improvised kitchen to his left on the far wall and a woven sleeping mat beside it. Assorted parts and salvage littered the place, from a Y-wing flight computer to a dismantled solar array.
Slowly, he walked about the chamber. Something bright on a nearby shelf caught his attention, and he grabbed it. A doll of a Rebel pilot stared back at him with doodled-on eyes, dried sunmoss peaking out through multiple tears in the fabric. The stuffing crackled in his grip for a moment, then he placed it back on the shelf and carried on.
Circling to the far side of the chamber, he ran his gloved fingertips over the tally marks scratched into the wall, feeling the phantom days pass beneath his touch. He couldn't fathom how there could still be faint hope lingering with each etching, when just looking at the sheer volume of marks left himself filled with borrowed bleakness.
Leaning against the wall, he slid down and sat in his usual lotus position, only to shift his legs in accordance with the imprints left here in the Force, until he sat how the person who lived here had sat, legs arched and splayed out.
Closing his eyes, he guided the Force through him, pulling at phantom threads and layers upon layers of life lived. When he opened them again, he saw fleeting images of the former occupant of this home, and his breath caught for a moment. He saw her, kneeling by the stove and cooking veg-meat in one scant moment, then fiddling with the computer in another.
It was her.
The girl had lived here.
He ignored the pounding heartbeat in his ears as he stood back up. The girl had chanced upon the droid, and now was swept up in whatever nonsense Solo had in mind. Now, it wasn't only the droid that had to be intercepted before the Resistance could sink their claws in.
At least now, he perhaps had a thread that would pull him in the right direction.
O
Rey fought the urge to shiver for the hundredth time since she got on the Falcon. The temperature of the ship's life support was much colder than what she was used, and the robes she wore were definitely not meant to trap heat. Rubbing her shoulders, she studied the dejarik board, then looked up at her opponent.
BB-8 stared intently at her, like a predator looking for the opportune place to sink its fangs, then looked down at the board and made a move. The Mantellian Savrip stomped forward, slammed the Kintan Strider into the ground, and the game was over.
"Dank ferrik!" she swore, for the fifth time. "How do you keep doing that?"
BB-8 smugly replied that he kept on doing that by winning. Sitting next to the droid, Finn watched the board intently, a childlike enthusiasm in his eyes.
"I don't know how you keep track of all the rules like that," he said.
"Clearly I don't," she said, offering a squinted glare at BB-8, then looking to Finn. "I'm surprised you don't play."
"Well," Finn paused, looking up at nothing at particular then back to the board. "I just don't have a lot of time to play games. Not when I'm doing important missions for the Resistance."
BB-8 looked at Finn, then to Rey, then back to Finn, over and over. Rey frowned at that.
"Something wrong, BB-8?"
Before the droid could reply, she heard swearing from the cockpit, and leaned to the side so she could look over.
"Uh, is everything okay?" Finn asked, copying her motion.
"I should've known it'd act up after that little stunt we pulled getting off Jakku," Han complained, distant.
Chewbacca growled back that they said that every time, and every time they never checked.
"Yeah, well, you don't have to rub it in like that." Han appeared in the doorway, a disgruntled look on his face. "We're taking a quick stop at Lu-Voth Station to get the fuel lines checked for the hyperdrive. It's another twenty-kay to Coruscant, and if the fuel lines fail we'll get scattered across three sectors."
"Lu-Voth Station?" Finn asked, apprehension in his voice. "Isn't that owned by Hutts?"
"Lumma the Hutt, to be precise." If the look on his face had any meaning, Han wasn't very fond of the person. "He's a slimeball, but the station sells parts we use for the Falcon."
He looked between her and Finn. "We're not doing anything else there. This is not a fun little trip. We're in, we get the parts, we fix the Falcon, we're out."
"What are we going to do?" Rey asked.
"You're staying here with Chewie to fix what you can while we get the parts." Han pointed to Finn. "You, Mr. Resistance hotshot, you get to come with me."
"Why me?" Finn asked.
"You said it yourself- this is run by a Hutt. Which means scum of all walks of life go there. There'll be trouble, and two guns is better than one." Han paused, then looked to the supply closet. "Make it three guns. Rey, go see if Tinhead's up for a trip."
Han disappeared back into the cockpit, and Rey sighed. Standing up, she smoothed out the wrinkles in her robes, then made for the supply closet. Pausing at the door, she slid the door open a crack and peered into the darkness.
She couldn't see a thing, but for some reason she felt nervous. Lost. Even a little frightened. She cleared her throat.
"Chief?"
A predator's eyes looked back at her, twin discs shining in the darkness, and she stifled a yelp. For a moment, she imagined she was back on Jakku, staring into a kyuloc's eyes as the creature weighed the pros and cons of trying to make her into its next meal.
Then the shining eyes disappeared under a black mass, and suddenly the Master Chief stepped into the light, still fixing his helmet into place. Now, the only eyes she could see were her own, reflected back in that inscrutable visor.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"Your eyes," she blurted out, stepping back as he exited the closet. "That's not normal."
The Master Chief looked at her, and the feeling she'd gotten from the room was replaced with something like shame.
"That's classified," he said, sounding unconvincing.
Rey swallowed. "Okay... um, we have-"
"I heard the conversation. I'll go down." The Master Chief moved past her, grabbing his slugthrower from where he'd left it.
He stood there for a moment, shoulders sagging a little, then looked a little over his shoulder.
"I overheard you talking about that game. I don't know how to play it."
She knew it wasn't genuine curiosity prompting that. But she also knew that it'd still be good to oblige him.
"I can teach you."
His shoulders lifted a micron, and he carefully sat down on the bench, looking at the dejarik board. She sat down opposite him, while Finn leaned in to watch the two.
Then, for some reason, she looked back to the supply closet's open door, half-expecting to see someone watching her. But there was no one there.