Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“A long time ago, many things happened.”

She couldn’t be too sure if that’s the right way to start, it’d been too long since someone had told her a proper bedtime story, but she thought that was the way she remembered. Anyway, the little sand lizard before her didn’t seem to mind, he looked like he was listening. Or maybe he was hoping for some scraps of food from her. Well, he was out of luck on that one tonight. She promptly ignored the groaning of her own stomach and continued.

“They say it all started with someone called The Sky-Walker. A mysterious person who wandered the stars and discovered the galaxy. Some people say he even created the galaxy! That’s just wizard, don’t you think?”

The lizard blinked its glowing red eyes slowly. She took that as confirmation.

“He was the first Jedi. At least, that’s what Lee told me when I was little. He traveled all around, discovering new planets and teaching every culture how to fly and wander the stars like him, so he wouldn’t be lonely anymore!”

She couldn’t remember if that was part of the original story her friends told her, but it made sense to her. She knew a lot about loneliness. She’d grown familiar with it.

“And of course, he taught them how to be Jedi like him. He created the Jedi Order and together they kept the galaxy safe. Soon, it was all united into one big Republic and everyone lived in peace and happiness.”

She undid her hair as she spoke and let the curly, chocolate locks pool down her shoulders; combing her fingers through in search of leftover tangles. It was necessary to keep her hair up during the day, but at night when the desert heat cooled to something more bearable, she could let it out free. The night air was silent, save for the clunky but steady hum of her patched-together moisture vaporator nearby. She glanced back down to the sand, checking that her attentive audience hadn’t scurried away. He hadn’t.

“Centuries later, after the Sky-Walker’s death, some of the Jedi started to turn bad and left the Order to make their own. Nobody knows why. Some people say there was political disagreement between the Jedi Council, other people say an outside, evil force slithered into their minds and twisted their souls.”

She made sure to dramatically wiggle her fingers appropriately. The lizard before her didn’t seem that impressed. She decided she was going to name him Craz. He looked like a Craz.  

“There was a huge war between the Jedi and the Dark Jedi, one that nearly tore the galaxy apart! A lot of people thought that the war would never end! Many Jedi died, but in the end, they won the battle and defeated the Dark Jedi.

“The Jedi never did recover from the war. Not really. Too many of their own died. They tried to rebuild and they still protected the Republic as best they could, but the glory days were gone and a lot of the Sky-Walker’s teachings were lost. Eventually, the Jedi Order broke apart and faded away. Some say that there’s still small groups of them out there, still trying to pass on their knowledge. Maybe one day, they’ll rise again to become the protectors of the galaxy once more! The End!”

She finished with a flourish, gazing down at her audience expectantly. He simply blinked at her.

“What?” she pouted. “Didn’t like that story?”

Craz flicked his forked tongue at her. She shrugged back at him.

“Yeah, it’s not really a happy one. So. I’m gonna tell you another one!” She exclaimed, picking the lizard up out of the sand. “No getting out of it, little buddy!”

He squirmed for a few seconds but soon quieted when she placed him atop her hair, running a soothing finger down his spine.

“A long time ago -well actually, not that long ago- there was a little girl named Mabel. She had an amazing, loving family who traveled the stars. She loved them all very much, but her favorite person in the galaxy was her brother! They were twins, you know.

 “One day, they were flying out on an adventure -their first one!- when their ship was caught by bad men. People who wanted to take the twins away from their family. I guess they kinda did. The twins were put in an escape pod, but Mabel’s brother ran back onto the ship before the pod could take off. You see, he wanted to help fight the bad men…”

“No! Don’t leave me!”

“We’ll come back for you, Mabel! I promise!”

She shook her head, coming back to herself. She winced as Craz dug his claws into her scalp at the motion, but she didn’t mind that much. It helped her from getting too lost in those memories.

“Mabel drifted through space for a little while before landing on a desert planet called Jakku.” Grinning, she tilted her gaze up in the direction of the reptile currently occupying her hair. “I have a feeling you’ve heard of it.”

Craz blinked back.

“She was found by a group of older kids, but not much older than her. Lee, Nate, Robbie, and Tambry. They were scavengers and they didn’t have much food or water, but they still took her in and treated her like their own. And they only complained a little about it.” She paused before shrugging her shoulders.

“Well, okay, Robbie did most of the complaining.” She amended. “Anyway, Mabel really didn’t like the desert and she missed her brother terribly. But it wasn’t all bad. She had new friends that gave her a home inside an old walker, and clothes and food. They taught her how to work a moisture vaporator, how to scavenge, and told her stories like the one you just heard…”

Her voice trailed off. Her eyes burned and her vision blurred, but she forced herself to keep the tears at bay.

Hey, kid, don’t get all weepy on us, Robbie had told her once. You can’t afford to lose that water.

“You’re probably wondering why Mabel’s all alone now, huh? Well, the others had the chance to leave Jakku. They had the chance to fly away, to work on a cargo ship or fight in the war, or whatever else they wanted. They tried to take Mabel with them, but…she said no. She…she couldn’t just leave.”

“We’ll come back for you…”

She wiped at her face and put on a watery smile for her captive audience. “It’ll all be okay!” she reassured Craz. “Her family promised they’d come back for her. All she has to do is wait for them and they’ll take her home.”

Her gut gurgled unhappily again, and she clutched at her too-thin stomach as she gazed back up at the night sky. Her eyes scanned the heavens hopefully.

“They’ll be back,” she insisted, more to herself than to her little friend. “One day.”

Many miles away in that same desert, another young woman trudged across the sand as swiftly as her feet could carry her, her faithful droid rolling by her side. Not a sound passed between them, save for the gentle hum of the droid’s servos, as they made their way towards the small settlement.

Far up in the skies above the planet, a man clad in black smiled darkly to himself behind his mask as his transport full of soldiers prepared for combat on the planet’s surface.

And many lightyears away, another man gazed out at the starscape himself, occasionally flickering his gaze back to his young charge who was sleeping fitfully in the co-pilot seat next to him. He sighed heavily into the quiet air of the cockpit, his many failures weighing down his aging shoulders. Slowly, he reached for the control panel and prepared the ship for hyperspace.

The very stars themselves seemed to hum with the promise of change.

Chapter Text

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

Jakku.

He pitied whoever called the miserable dustball home…

“Yeesh, what a dump,” he muttered.

“Isn’t that the reason we’re here?” a young voice spoke from behind.

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

“Kid, what’d I tell ya about sneakin’ up on me?” he asked the young man.

“Sorry, Grunkle Stan.”

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

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

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

“Is Soos done warmin’ her up?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeesh, kid. I taught ya how to barter, didn’t I?”

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

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

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

“Relax, kid. Flash ‘em those pretty-boy eyes of yours and you won’t have a problem. Simple.”

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

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

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

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

“Just what?”

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

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

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

“Knock ‘em dead, kiddo,” he said, and that was that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fiddleford knew better though.

“What exactly does it do?”

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

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

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

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

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

Fiddleford chuckled, sounding somewhat ruefully.

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

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

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

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

“…or perhaps in our case, a map.”

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

“You’re sure?” she asked.

Fiddleford shrugged his slumped shoulders.

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

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

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

“We’ve got company,” the girl announced, grimly.

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

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

“You need to leave,” he retorted.

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

“Don’t worry about us here,” he said. “We know how to defend ourselves. Go.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Aydee! I need you down here!”

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

“I need you to take this and get as far away from here as you can! I’ll distract them.”

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

“I promise I’ll come back for you! Now go! Get out of here!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So,” said Fiddleford, “you’re the one they call Cipher.”

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

“Well, well, well!” he cackled.

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

“You’ve gotten old,” he sneered.

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

“You’re aware of why I’m here. Where is it?”

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

“Going to play the silent game, are we?”

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

“Perhaps you’ll loosen your lips if we -”

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

“HEY BUCKETHEADS!” Wendy called out. “THIS WAY!”

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

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

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

“And the villagers?”

“Kill them all.”

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

“What’s the codeword I’m supposed to shout when I see a Star Destroyer again?”

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

“What?!”

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

No no no no NO! Not again!

His aging knees creaked as he sprinted for the cockpit.

“Soos!” he barked into the commlink at his wrist. “Patch me into the kid’s frequency!”

“You got it, boss!”

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

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

“Grunkle Stan? But I haven’t even -”

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

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

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

“Boss, we gotta go. They’re firing up their cannons.”

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

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

Nothing but static.

“I swear we’ll come back.”

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

Chapter Text

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today was shaping up to be a good day.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surely the Blind Eye couldn’t be here for him, right?

Once, when Dipper had just been a child, he’d been captured by the Blind Eye. It had been the most horrific time of his life. They’d tried to recondition him, make him a Stormtrooper, had put him through intense physical and psychological training.

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

You are MN-0618…No, I’m Dipper.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today was not a good day.

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

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

“That was last week, darlin’, but I’m afraid there’s not a demand for these anymore.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Don’t worry, my dumpling.” Gideon crooned. “You’ll get paid once you’re done.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We’ll come back for you, Mabel! I promise!”

She had to stay put. She had to.

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

“Hello?” She called out.

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

…Ma…

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

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

…Ma…el…

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

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

Mabel

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mabel, darlin’! Where’d you go?”

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

“What’re you doing in here, dumpling?”

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

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

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

Well, three quarter portions was better than nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, come on,” she prompted it. “Do something.”

Silence.

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

Still nothing.

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

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

She sighed and dropped the cube back into her lap. Maybe…she was just trying too hard? The cube had made her feel calm and peaceful earlier. Maybe she needed to be calm too. Gently, her eyes slipped shut and she just tried to empty her thoughts. Just clear your mind, she thought to herself. She pushed away any errant thoughts, using her own breath as a focusing point…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you alright??”

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

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