Star Wars: Awakening

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The Garbage Does

Rey hurtles up the landing ramp of the freighter (what was it called? The Hawk?) and turns a hard right into the cockpit access tunnel. “The gun port you want is down the ladder!” she shouts, and the stranger’s footsteps clunk in the right direction. Rey throws herself into the pilot’s seat. “I can do this,” she tells herself, as she flips switches and throws levers into position, the engine rumbling to life somewhere behind her. “I can do this.”

The ship trembles haphazardly, and for a horrible second Rey wonders if it is going to fly at all, but then her stomach jumps a little, and she knows that they’re airborne. The ground shifts beneath them. It slides down the windscreen until Rey can only see the cloudless sky above. They’re up. And then they bump back to the ground. Rey lets out a frightened noise as the cockpit tilts, dragging a deep groove into the sand below. The ship swings this way and that, as she grapples with the unfamiliar controls, though she is quickly attuning to their sensitivity. Levelling off, she turns the ship skyward, and speeds away, sending awnings and people alike tumbling around in the wind.

Meanwhile, Unkar Plutt barrels out of his Concession Stand. He runs out into the open, knocking several smaller people off of their feet. They stare, slack-jawed, after him – no one has ever seen him move so far, or so fast. Plutt raises his bulbous fists to the sky, opens his lop-sided mouth to curse. He doesn’t see the club that strikes his head, or the bag of components that comes crashing down upon him. The blows render him unconscious, as the scavengers of the Niima Outpost extract their vengeance. Constable Zuvio does not intervene. He could not stop them even if he tried.

Star Wars: Awakening

Imposition and Invention

It’s been six months, since the sparring match.

For six months, Kylo Ren and FN-2187 have been meeting in secrecy. It began with “training sessions” after dinner, every few days. Eight-Seven would finish his meal quickly, and make the short trip to Kylo Ren’s private quarters, and the pair would fill the brief minutes before Eight-Seven had to return to the barracks with quiet conversation and pleasant touches. Kylo rarely spoke of himself, at least at first, but he’d sometimes comment on the things Eight-Seven said. (He remembered Kade Genti, too; he used to read the comics with a friend he didn’t name). After a few weeks, Kylo had been able to secure longer meetings. Sometimes Eight-Seven would bring his dinner to Kylo’s quarters, and they would eat together. Kylo never ate as much as Eight-Seven, and he’d often let the latter hoover up the leftovers from his tray. Other days, Kylo would arrange for them to train together, in his private training rooms, of course. They would spar or wrestle, for as long as they could stand it before they collapsed into smiles and soft kisses.

Kylo never bared his teeth on the rare occasions that he smiled. Once he almost had, the tiniest sliver of white flashing between his lips. But he’d caught himself, it seemed. He’d forced his lips tightly closed. Like he was ashamed.

The Jedi-hunter training has also continued, with mixed success. Six-Four had been unceremoniously dropped from the training program, and replaced with Seven-One, much to Nines’ chagrin. Progress is slow, but the trainees are improving, in both technique and confidence. Nobody had been able to replicate Eight-Seven’s victory, not even Eight-Seven himself. Perhaps it really had been a stroke of pure luck that he’d been able to floor Kylo Ren. Perhaps it had been something more important.

They’d been happy, or so Eight-Seven thought. He hadn’t been truly content, but he couldn’t be, not here. This life isn’t his, just something he was choked and forced and sculpted into before he could understand why. But Eight-Seven had thought that he and Kylo had found some joy together. He’d thought they were building something, amidst the swathe of destruction that the First Order was cutting through the galaxy.

Maybe he’d been wrong. Kylo hasn’t spoken to him in weeks.