Rey had known it was going to bad week by the simple fact that it was
always
a bad week on Jakku -- but emerging from a crippled hammerhead destroyer with a sack full of busted power couplers to find that three sand-scutters were sprinting towards a pair of speeders with at least two days worth of back breaking labor on their scrawny backs.
"Hey!" Rey shouted, dropping the couplers and sprinting -- her feet pounding across the rough, blaster and sand scarred hull plating that served as the ramp from the desert floor to the bridge of the long dead Republic starship. Her feet hit the sand and she felt the familiar shifting, swallowing motion beneath her feet, which made walking or running anywhere that wasn't trampled flat by hundreds of other people feel like running in a nightmare. But this nightmare was real: Every sprinting stride she took left her father behind the scutters, who had scrambled onto the speeder. They jabbered at one another in Huttese, and one actually turned back to give her a jaunty wave as the engines kicked on and the speeds shot away, throwing up a spray of white sand.
Rey growled as she hurled her junk staff like a spear. It landed in the sands about ten meters away, thumping down point first before slumping, defeated into the desert. She panted, slowly, as the sound of the speeders and the laughing scutters faded. She turned back and saw that the power couplers had also stopped moving: They had spilled down the destroyer, leaving their glass and electrical components smeared along the hull like stains of blood.
Rey picked one up and winced as only half of the coupler came off the ground -- the rest remained sitting in the desert. She looked down the jagged pipe at the snarled guts, and then scowled to herself.
She would not scream.
It wouldn't be dignified.
But she
dearly
wanted too.
The speeder ride back to Plutt's junkyard was spent with Rey's head ducked forward and her eyes narrowed behind her goggles. She craned herself left and right, taking every chance to skim along dunes rather than between them. It was a risk -- it left her more visible, and on Jakku, there was nothing to stop some low down crook from shooting someone off their bike. Often times, a bike was more valuable than even a slave. After all, a slave you need to feed and water. But soaring along the ridges of the dunes let her see if there was any scrap she had missed. But while there were distant, triangular mountains of metal -- ancient Imperial Star Destroyers, each one holding riches enough to make her wealthy beyond her wildest dreams -- all of them were false hope.
She didn't have the team of fifteen thousand engineers, nor the plasma cutters and gravity-manipulators and cargo ships it'd take to wring profit out of
those
hulks. And she definitely didn't have the three days it'd take to roam their guts for smaller salvage.
But maybe -- maybe she'd...
No.
She saw the junkyard far before she saw anything of value. Rey kicked out the stand to her speeder and slid off of the red bike. Her hand rested along the side, feeling the thrum of the machine. She started to remove the components that'd keep thieves from being able to simply steal it. Even so, she parked it where she'd be able to keep her eye on it while she waited for her chance to...turn in what she had and to hope. It was a grim, pathetic hope. But it was hope.
Her plan ran into a sang.
That snag was two and a half meters tall, nearly a meter wide, and made entirely out of fur and exquisite muscle. Thick, slab like muscle beneath thick, curly golden fur. Rey's eyes widened as she slowly traced the lines of those muscles in that bared back. She had never seen anything that radiated pure strength like this...wall that stood before her. Not even large ore haulers made her feel quite the same mixture of wary respect and faint awe. As she looked at the creature's chest, she heard a faint shifting sound -- the sound of feet on the sand -- and Rey forced herself to look up and saw that the creature had turned back and looked over his shoulder at her.
His face was broad, with a pair of thick, saber sharp tusks, and his eyes were black and filled with an intelligence that made Rey reconsider her first impression -- she had thought this might have been some beast of burden or something. No. No, that was foolish. He was wearing
pants
. With a tool belt. And a chest as muscular as his shoulders and back. He looked down at her, then grunted. "What are you looking at, girl?"
Rey lifted her chin. Never show weakness. Never. She looked him square in his eyes and said: "Just waiting to drop off my load."
The alien grunted.
He began to dicker with Plott. The bloated, fishy-like creature who had been the central axis that Rey's life had orbited for far, far,
far
too long started to dicker right back. Rey perked up her ear, but her head kept getting distracted by wondering about this furred beast. What had brought him to this particular spec of nowhere? ...was his fur soft. Was his voice really as deep as it sounded or...was it just his size that was misleading her. She shook her head, clenching her jaw -- and managed to actually hear: "You don't expect us to only take ten thousand credits?"
"I don't expect you to think you can squeeze blood from a stone," Plott said, his thick, gloppy voice sending Rey's hackles rising up. "If you think that you can extort money from me, you can leave. Thank you. Good day."
The furred wall snorted, then turned. As the immense alien walked past Rey, she heard him growling: "Fucking asshole."
She stepped forward as Plott turned to face her. He smirked that ugly little smirk that showed he knew that she had had a bad day. She set down what little bits hadn't been stolen, opening up the bag to show Plott. She looked at him. Plott's entire face seemed to swell up ever so slightly, his eyes narrowing. He leaned forward, then glared at her. "Is this a joke?" he asked, his voice low.
"It's what I found," Rey said, clenching her jaw. She wouldn't beg. She wouldn't grovel.
Plott shook his head. "One tenth."
"One
tenth
!?" Rey exploded. "That won't be enough for a day, let-"
Plott waved his hand. "Be happy it's
anything
at all, you useless jetsam. Now leave. Go!"
He slapped down the pitiful single ration pack, which skidded across the counter to her. Rey snatched it up, half tempted to throw it into his face. Her hands clenched into fists, to hide their shaking. She turned and stalked off, her head held high. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She wouldn't. She would-
A furred wall blocked her way again.
"Human," the alien from before said.
Rey nearly walked into that barrel chest. She forced herself to take a step back, blinking as she actually had to crane her head backwards to look into those dark eyes. "Rey," she said. "My name is Rey. Yours?"
"Baktet," the alien rumbled. "I'm a freight captain and it looks like our ship's going to be stuck here haggling with that bloated mound of fat" He grinned, toothily. "I hear that you and he had an argument about payment. He clearly doesn't pay you nearly enough. And definitely not for the right job." He chuckled, quietly.
Rey rolled one of her shoulders, slowly, measuring her response. Part of her wondered if...maybe...no. Even if he was offering a position on his ship, as a mechanic, well...how would he know she was a good mechanic? Even if he saw her fiddling with her bike. And if he wasn't interested in her mechanical skills, what in the universe could he be thinking of. She tried an ever so slight smile. "And what job is that?"
Baktet chuckled. "On your back, with your legs spread and your panties in
