The Force Awakens (Star Wars)

by Alan Dean Foster

  The droid could take care of himself, he felt. Poe knew if he could just get offworld and reconnect with the Resistance, a way could be found to recover the droid. All he needed was a ship. He’d already stolen one. Could he steal another?

  First, he reminded himself, he would have to locate one. And before that, he would have to find water.

  Morning brought neither, only a relentless sun in a cloudless sky. He continued onward because, given his present situation, one direction was as good as another. The salt flat ran between high dunes. It was not a road, exactly, but it was a way, and the hard surface offered much easier footing than the soft, shifting sand that rose above him on either side.

  Keep low, he told himself, and you might come across a depression. Where there was a depression there might be dampness, and where there was dampness he could try to dig for water.

  He found neither depression nor dampness. Instead, someone found him.

  The whine of the approaching speeder was unmistakable. Squinting against the harsh light, he turned. A dark spot appeared between the dunes, expanding rapidly as it came toward him. Flat in front and bulging at the stern, the speeder was an unlovely construct, but to Poe at that moment it had lines as sweet as those of the fastest fighter in the Resistance fleet. Standing in the middle of the salt flat, he began jumping up and down and waving his arms.

  At first he thought the speeder was going to keep coming and run right over him. Then it began to slow rapidly, angling to the right. Instead of shooting past, it came to a halt. Emitting a descending whine, it dropped slowly to the ground. A figure little more than half Poe’s height promptly descended from the open cockpit.

  It was a Blarina. Mirrored eyeshades swept across the broad face above the short, wide snout, and a toothy grin appeared as the speeder’s scaly operator closely examined the lone human.

  “A bit warm to be out walking by oneself in this country, my friend.”

  Poe grunted acknowledgment. “It’s not by choice, I assure you.”

  “And where, then, have you come from?” The Blarina’s grin grew wider, showing far more teeth than a human mouth. “Or do you just enjoy Jakku’s gentle sunshine?”

  “I’m lost.” That much, at least, was not a lie, Poe knew. “I hit my head and I’m lost.”

  The Blarina let out a soft hiss. “Lost, indeed. Where’s your speeder, my friend?”

  Poe thought fast. “Same place I am. Lost.”

  “I’m Naka Iit. A scavenger of sorts.” Once again he looked Poe carefully up and down. “I might just scavenge you.”

  Poe tensed. He had no weapon, and in the event of a confrontation, he was hardly in any condition to offer much in the way of physical resistance, even to a Blarina who was half his size. The species to which the speeder operator belonged was not especially strong, but they were very, very quick. This one, he reflected, was also fast with words.

  Well, with words he could still defend himself.

  “It’s said that the Blarina are an exceptionally hospitable people.”

  Naka Iit’s grin gave way to a frown of astonishment. “You’ve heard that? That must be referring to some other Blarina. It certainly doesn’t sound like me.”

  Poe spread his hands wide. “You’d be wasting your time on me. I have nothing worth scavenging.”

  Raising his eyeshades, Naka stared hard at the pilot out of gold-hued eyes crossed with slitted pupils. “Then what, exactly, are you doing out in this wasteland, with ‘nothing’?”

  Poe felt himself swaying. He was hot, he was thirsty, he was exhausted, his head hurt, and except for this irritating Blarina he was alone in the middle of nowhere on a nowhere world. He was also possibly a little bit crazy from the heat. Otherwise he likely would not have said what he next said.

  “I just escaped from the First Order by stealing one of their advanced TIE fighters, used it to shoot up one of their Star Destroyers, and crash-landed somewhere near here.”

  Naka stared at the human for a long moment. Then his wide eyes squinted, his scaly cheeks caught the sun as they bunched up, and he burst out laughing. One five-fingered hand wiped at the tears that trickled from the corners of his eyes.

  “I’ll wet my zinz if you aren’t the most barefaced liar I’ve encountered in twenty years of scavenging on this sandbox!” He extended one lightly clothed arm. “Come with me, my friend. The Blarina do say that much good accrues to anyone who helps the mad. Liar or madman, whichever you may be, it amuses me to lend you assistance.” Lowering his eyeshades, he turned his gaze skyward. “The spirits have placed you here to alleviate my boredom. Come.”

  “If it’s all the same to you,” a sun-addled Poe mumbled as he fumbled his way aboard Naka’s battered speeder, “I’d be more than happy if you could just give me a drink of water.”

  Scrunched into a passenger seat designed to accommodate another Blarina, his knees pushed up against his chest, Poe gratefully accepted Naka’s offer of a slender metal drinking flask complete with sipping tube.

  “I need to get offworld.” He spoke between delicious swallows. “As quickly as possible.”

  “Of course you do,” Naka replied soothingly. “Jakku is no place for a madman.” He looked to his left. “We’re not far from Niima Outpost, but I’m not going to take you there. Local commerce is more or less run by a corpulent sack of slurge who goes by the name of Plutt. I’ve had words with him in the past and don’t wish to confront him again.”

  Feeling better now that he’d had something to drink, Poe felt that the least he could do was acknowledge his rescuer’s predilections. “You’re very fond of words.”

  “As are all Blarina.” Naka seemed to grow slightly in his seat. “I once finished fifth in a homeworld soliloquy competition. It is one of our most notable traits.”

  “Any others?” Poe inquired.

  Naka’s grin returned, his sharp teeth glistening in the bright sunlight. “We’re also famously accomplished liars.” He glanced once more at his passenger. “I’ll take you as far as Blowback Town. There’s a Blarina merchant there named Ohn Gos who is afflicted with the sorry habit of listening sympathetically. I’ll introduce you. After that, you’re on your own.”

  The light touch of a claw on a control caused the speeder to accelerate slightly. After that, Naka Iit went quiet. Poe was left to his thoughts—until a gout of sand exploded from the dune off to their left. Leaning out, Naka looked behind them, uttered a loud hiss, and tromped the speeder’s accelerator.

  Thrown back in his seat, Poe struggled to regain his balance. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Without turning, a now grim Naka gestured slightly with his head. “Look for yourself.”

  Leaning to his right and out, Poe peered behind them. Another, much larger speeder was there and gaining. A second shot from it blew a crater in the dune face on his side.

  “Strus clan.” Naka’s tone was bleak. “A motley collection of grunks who can’t do salvage, repair, trade, or anything else.” The speeder rocked from another near-miss. “So they steal from those who can.”

  “They’re not very good shots,” Poe pointed out.

  This time Naka did look over at him. “Idiot madman. If they blow us up, they acquire nothing but garbage. They shoot to disable, not to destroy.”

  “They’re catching up,” Poe told him. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”

  “I am a salvager, not a podracer! My craft is built for hauling, not speed!”

  Poe considered a moment. “Then let me drive.” He leaned over.

  “What! Are you insane?” Naka batted at the reaching hands. “No, wait—you are. Why should I let you take control of my only real asset?”

  “Because,” Poe told him as yet another burst slammed into the salt flat almost directly beneath them, “I am the best pilot you ever met.”

  They wrestled like that for a whi
le before Naka finally gave in. After all, with a Strus clan speeder closing on them, they had little chance of escape anyway. As soon as man and Blarina had switched positions, Poe turned the clumsy but sturdy craft sharply to the left—and began to slow.

  “Giving up already?” Naka’s words oozed sarcasm. “I could have done that much myself.”

  “Indicate that we’re going to surrender.” Poe was studying the speeder’s controls. They looked very straightforward.

  “Why not? Isn’t that what we are doing?” The salvager sighed. “I’ll have to ask Ohn for a loan. I hate starting over.” Rising, he began making gestures at the pursuing craft. No more shots were forthcoming.

  Watching the bigger speeder come up on them via the rearview, Poe continued to decelerate until their pursuer was near enough for him to make out the faces and assorted appendages of the now-triumphant thieves. When their larger vehicle was as close as he was willing to let it come, he tilted the nose of Naka’s speeder sharply upward and gave it full power. It promptly shot skyward.

  The sudden explosive burst kicked what seemed like half the dune beneath them upward and back, dumping the gritty shower atop the big speeder that had slowed almost to a stop behind them. Those Strus not wearing protective goggles received eyefuls of hot sand. The bulk of the grit storm instantly sank into every opening. While the Strus speeder’s main propulsion system was sealed against such intrusions, not every instrument, not every component, was.

  As Naka’s craft soared over the crest of the dune, a sharp grinding noise behind them indicated that the Strus craft had ingested just enough sand to render it at least temporarily inoperable. The sound, like the threatening speeder itself, faded rapidly astern.

  Beside him, a gleeful Naka was emitting a kind of cackling hiss. Alien though the exclamation was to Poe, the scavenger’s delight could not be denied.

  “Oh joy, oh pleasurable delight!” A hand reached over to clap Poe on the shoulder. “Saved by a madman!” The Blarina pointed. “Our destination lies that way. I find myself suddenly amenable to letting you drive. Are you really with the Resistance?”

  “Yes.” Compared to a stolen TIE fighter, the speeder was easy to operate.

  “Then you truly are crazy.”

  Poe glanced over at him. “We of the Resistance prefer the term ‘courageous.’ ”

  “I see little difference.” Leaning back in the passenger seat, Naka Iit picked at an incisor with one claw-tipped finger. “I owe you, my madman friend. Beyond just picking you out of the desert, I owe you most thankfully. I will intercede with Ohn Gos. One way or another, we will get you off Jakku!”

  “I’m grateful,” a relieved Poe told him simply.

  “Grateful! What matters the gratitude of a madman?” Naka replied.

  But he smiled as he hissed it.

  —

  Despite their escape, all was not tranquil aboard the Millennium Falcon. After having acquired it, Unkar Plutt had paid for only minimum maintenance, with the intention of preparing it fully for flight only if and when he found a buyer, so components that had worked immediately following lift-off from the surface of Jakku were now starting to show the lack of attention, and others were turning balky.

  The alarms, however, were functioning quite efficiently.

  Finn did his best to ignore them as he continued to work on Chewbacca’s injury. This was made difficult by the Wookiee’s habit of grabbing Finn by the neck or shoulder and shaking him violently every time a fresh spasm of pain shot through the hirsute shoulder. Each time, Finn managed to settle the patient down and continue his ministrations. But his neck was getting sore.

  Up in the cockpit, it seemed like every time Han and Rey managed to squelch one problem, a new one materialized to take its place. The present difficulty was a matter of degree. Or rather, degrees.

  Rey indicated a readout whose numbers were too high for comfort and rising steadily. “Drive containment torus is overheating.”

  “Yeah,” Han grunted. “You know why?”

  A second’s glance at the copilot’s console was sufficient to supply the answer. “Field instability.”

  “Yep.”

  He wasn’t going to elaborate for her, Rey realized. If this was some kind of test of her competence…No, she decided. What was occurring within the hyperdrive system was too dangerous for a test. She frowned at the controls.

  “Need to recalculate and readjust the relevant parameters.”

  “Recalculate?” He eyed his own instrumentation. “Yeah. Hold on—readjusting…” A number of telltales suddenly went to red. “Power overload!”

  “I can fix that!” Rey’s fingers flew over her controls.

  “Field instability is approaching critical! If it overshoots, we won’t be able to stabilize it!”

  She worked frantically. “Maybe there’s an auto-flux modulation system? That hasn’t been activated yet? If it hasn’t come online with everything else, try transferring auxiliary power to it.”

  “Auxiliary,” Han yelled at her. “I’m on it!”

  A moment later a deafening roar came from the vicinity of the lounge. Rising from the pilot’s seat, Han headed in its direction. “Be right back. You’ve got the con.”

  Utterly unaware of the tremendous compliment she had just been handed, she nodded absently while continuing to manipulate controls.

  In the lounge, Finn was finishing the bandaging of Chewbacca’s injured shoulder. For someone so big, he reflected as he ducked and dodged the bellowing Wookiee’s reactions, Chewie was proving to be an uncommonly difficult patient. As a huge, shaggy hand grabbed Finn yet again, BB-8 scurried clear. His voice muffled by an armful of fur, Finn tried to make the Wookiee appreciate the situation.

  “Chewie, you’ve got to let go of me, understand? I can’t secure this bandaging properly if I can’t see what I’m doing. Or move. Or breathe.”

  The Wookiee nodded apprehensively.

  “Okay then, help me out here. Let go.” Chewbacca promptly shook his head no. Exasperated—and by now more than just sore—Finn yelled toward the cockpit.

  “I need help with this giant fuzz ball!”

  As Chewbacca roared anew in pain, a grim-faced Han left what he had been doing and joined them. “You hurt Chewie,” he growled, “you deal with me!”

  “Hurt him?” Finn continued to struggle with Wookiee torso, shaggy arms, and bandaging. “He’s almost killed me six times!” Reaching out, a massive hand grabbed him by the collar. Finn responded with a hasty smile. “Which is fine. Really.”

  Han hesitated a moment, eyed his wounded copilot, and then headed back to the cockpit. Dropping back into his seat, he muttered unhappily as he scanned one readout after another.

  “The hyperdrive blows, and there’ll be pieces of us in three different systems.”

  Abruptly, all the alarms stopped. A satisfied Rey sat back in her seat. Confused, Han peered over at her.

  “What’d you do?”

  “Bypassed the auto-flux and recalibrated manually.” She nodded toward the console. “Field has stabilized. Toral containment temperature is dropping back toward normal.” She let out a long breath and glanced across at him. “Anything else?”

  He let out a short, appreciative laugh. “Yeah.” He rose once more from his seat and retraced his steps toward the access corridor. “Keep monitoring ship systems and give me a shout if it looks like anything’s likely to blow up in the next couple of minutes.”

  Back in the medbay, he knelt alongside the supine Chewbacca. The Wookiee was still moaning, but not as forcefully now that the analgesic Finn had administered was starting to work. Carefully, Han checked the bandaged wound while reassuring his copilot.

  “Nah,” he murmured, “don’t say that. You did great. They got you with a lucky shot.” He smiled. “Can’t look everywhere at once in a running fight. Kanjiklubbers, Gu
avians, rathtars—rathtars! Trying to hold ’em all off while covering for me and making it to the ship—I’m surprised any of us made it.” He rose. “You’re gonna be fine.”

  He turned to Finn, who, with BB-8 standing beside and watching, was trying to activate the holochess set. Looking on, Han hesitated. This was difficult for him, but it needed to be said. And he meant it.

  “Good job on Chewie. I— Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” Glancing toward the bed alcove, Finn addressed the patient. “Thanks for not breaking my neck.” The Wookiee replied with a guttural, modulated rumble. Finn chose to interpret it as an apology of sorts.

  Sliding a finger across a flush control brought the chess set to life. The pieces steadied themselves before gazing up at Finn. Then, in lieu of any forthcoming instructions, they started fighting among themselves. Annoyed by his lack of control, Finn tried to turn it off, but that apparently required finding and nudging a different control. Han suppressed a smile.

  Peculiar guy, this one, Han thought. He can deal with a battlefield wound but not an ordinary chess set. He shrugged. The man’s capabilities and lack thereof were none of his business. Instead, he asked: “So. Fugitives, huh?”

  Finn nodded and indicated BB-8. “It’s the map he’s storing. The First Order wants it, and they’ll kill anyone who tries to keep it from them.”

  Rey arrived to join them as Finn finally managed to deactivate the chess set. “Ship systems are stable. I made sure before I left everything on autopilot.” She indicated Finn and the droid. “They’re with the Resistance. And I was with them. So I guess now in the mind of the Order, I’m with the Resistance.”

  Resistance fighters? Han eyed Finn with new respect—and not a little skepticism. The younger man had handled himself well enough in the brawl on board the freighter, but that only proved he was a survivor: not a fighter. Further evaluation could wait until later, Han told himself. Right now…

  He looked to BB-8. “Let’s see whatcha got.”

  Dutifully, the droid rolled into a suitable position. A lens brightened, and abruptly the lounge was all but filled with an enormously detailed and complex star map. Nebulae, solo stars, translucent splashes of concentrated dark matter, and entire solar systems were displayed before them. Even Chewbacca sat up to have a better look. Finn was impressed and Rey in awe—but Han found himself frowning.