STARS ABOVE ↝ P. DAMERON

[1]

Twenty Years Later

The sound of clanging chimes sounded through the Thorne family hut, pulling the young woman from her slumber and forcing her eyes open as she attempted to collect her bearings. Tera sat up quickly, pushing stray strands of hair out of her face as she jumped out of bed, eyes plastered to the time reading on the chronometer on the wall, the source of the noise, as her vision finally began to focus.

"Shit," she muttered as she registered the numbers on the chronometer, moving quickly through the room to get dressed and tying her hair into a ponytail before reaching down to pull on her boots. "I know, I know, I'm late, Dad." she said apologetically, eyes in the direction of where a lone candle sat on top of a small table, next to what had been Daris Thorne's favorite wrench, rusted from so many years of use.

Tera burst into the bright Jakku sunlight, already feeling the warmth of the desert heat on her skin as she powered up her old speeder, the rusty engine noisily clanging to life as she hopped onboard. She rode quickly through the desert, the only sound that of the speeder's roaring motor on the trek to Niima Outpost, the small tents of vendors selling their wares vaguely visible in the distance. While Tera usually preferred to arrive early in the day, before the spare parts all worth a damn were already sold to the quickest bidder, she was also no stranger to a slip-up here and there, and left with the outpost's leftovers.

"You're late." a gruff, yet all too familiar voice greeted Tera as she arrived, having parked the speeder at the edge of the junkyard that called Niima Outpost home before making her way through the various vendor stalls.

She slung her bag over her shoulder and looked up at the gruesome face of Unkar Plutt, who watched her with an irritated expression. The junk boss who ran Niima Outpost, Unkar Plutt usually had the primary say of the happenings that went on on this side of Jakku, overseeing the scavenger trades, which usually resulted in the parts Tera needed for her repairs. She usually looked forward to the rare days she hadn't needed to make the trek into town, if not for the sole purpose of not having to see the creature the scavengers of Jakku so unlovingly referred to as 'The Blobfish.'

"I'm looking for a compressor." Tera stated, ignoring his words. "What've you got for me?"

Tera watched as Unkar disappeared briefly into the back of his stall, accompanied by the clangs of metal on metal as he sifted through his supplies, only to return with the part a moment later. He set it down on the counter that divided him from the woman, her eyes falling on the compressor before looking back up at him. It was a bit rusted, not quite up to her usual standards, but the young woman could make it work.

She was a Thorne, after all, and a Thorne could fix anything.

"Thirty units," he spoke gruffly, and she furrowed her eyebrows in response.

"Twenty," she replied in her attempt to barter with the junk boss, and he scoffed.

"Twenty-five." he insisted. "Take it or get out, sweetheart."

Tera sighed, knowing that, while she had gotten a compressor in much better condition weeks ago for a lower price, her options were next to nothing after her morning sleeping in. She reached into her bag for the credits, placing them down in front of him and picking up the part. She turned away from the stand to allow the scavenger behind her access to the counter to drop off her daily findings and browsed a few of the tents before making her way back to the speeder.

When Tera returned home, she parked the speeder, making a beeline for the shed in the backyard where her work awaited. She pulled back the small curtain in the doorway to allow herself to enter, and crossed the small room to where a speeder engine currently lay dismantled on the table, the machine belonging to her current client. She placed the compressor down on the table next to the engine, knowing that, with a little bit of tinkering and some love and willpower, the part would work good as new.

However, she still had the rest of the engine to put back together first.

Tera worked diligently, allowing herself to get lost in the machinery as the hours began to pass. Fixing machines was like a dance to the young mechanic, with a set rhythm and pace, and the longer she worked, the more she allowed herself to forget about the deserted wasteland around her, and instead be inside her own oasis. Her hands worked almost quicker than her brain, maneuvering through the various parts and tools before she even had a moment to think about what she was doing.

"There we go," she mused as she screwed two of the parts back together, placing her screwdriver back into the same metal toolbox she'd been reaching into for the past twenty-nine years and grabbing her wrench, eyes scanning her workspace for the next part she needed to reattach. "Now where are you..?"

Tera's thoughts were interrupted by a loud crash from outside, causing her to jump away from the engine, the wrench clanging to the floor beneath her. She quickly ran outside to find the source of the noise, seeing plume after plume of smoke pour into the sky in the distance from what appeared to be a ship crash-landing in the middle of the desert, far from Tera's home, as well as the outpost. Closer to the house, however, a figure lay motionless in the sand, nearly tangled up in a parachute. A casualty from the crash, no doubt, though how he'd managed to land so far from his ship she couldn't be sure.

Tera's hand flew to her open mouth in shock as she cautiously approached the body on the ground, kneeling down in front of it. It was a man, appearing to be similar in age to Tera if not older, with a head of dark curly hair. As she looked closely, trying to search for any visible sign of life, a pained groan escaped the man's throat, startling her as she jumped back a bit. 

He was still alive.