All the Stars in the Galaxy

1

The scavenger opened a metal box in the old, crashed Star Destroyer. She looked from the left to the right as her little lamp shined brightly so she could see all the rusty parts.
    Nothing she could use and she frowned underneath her mask. The heat was crushing her and she sweated so much she was afraid that the drought would knock her out.
    Hands that were covered by fabric gloves she looked and pressed herself almost into the metal box.
    She needed that component. Well, her father needed it. He was asking for it for days now and no matter how hard she had searched, she wasn't able to find it. Until now.
    With a brief smile she pulled out, with the metal component shining in her hand. She put it into her bag and pushed herself out. With steady steps she walked over the iron beams that were holding everything together.
    She grabbed the cable and slid easily down - it had been a horrible job to climb up. The early morning almost was turning into midday - she needed to go to town, sell the parts her dad didn't need her, get food. And, of course, turn her book in by her favourite man in town.
    As she landed on the metal ground beneath her she took a deep breath. The air on Jakku was dry and warm. For a seconds she coughed because the sand came in her throat.
    Fast she put a hand over her bag - she couldn't lose any parts. Her dad needed them and she needed to sell them for food.
    With a hand she felt for her staff. Good, she did not lose it. Her only weapon, except from her bare hands. With calm steps she walked to the entrance of the old Star Destroyer.
    The young light of the sun shone through the dark glasses of her mask. With her hands she searched for the water bottle.
    She pulled it out immediately when she felt it. Quickly she took off her mask. The sun burned her skin right away, just like the warm wind and the sand that blew in her face.
    Longing for the cold liquid she brought the iron bottle to her mouth... but only a few drops landed on her tongue. Frustrated she knocked on the iron -there had to be more. There must be more.
    Nothing.
    She had drank everything already when she came here as the two moons were making their way down.
    A little bit disappointed and still thirsty she took a plate of iron, sat on it and slid down the hill of sand. She could see the heat coming up from the sand.
    As soon as she came down she set everything on her red, old speeder. "Time to go the village," she mumbled to herself as she got up an the speeder and drove away.

                              * * *

The sun came up. The morning had arisen. She got off the speeder as soon she got to the village. It had grown the last few years. It wasn't just a town of scavengers - there were real people and creatures who had shops and sold things. There were even buildings were people lived.
    But the scavenger girl with that big, heavy bag over her shoulder... she lived outside the village. And she liked that a lot.
    The metal staff on her other shoulder felt comforting as she walked into the village.
    "Little town, it's a quiet village.
    Every day like the one before.
    Little town, full of little people,
    waking up to say..." she mumbled in herself, the melody stuck in her head.
    "Good day!" Five different people said out loud as they woke up and hung out of their windows, while they knocked on clothes where sand had come.
    "There goes the baker with his tray
    like always, the same old bread and  
    rolls to sell," she said in herself again, watching the grumpy purple alien with his squeaky metal tray, indeed loaded with the dry bread and rolls that he made all night to sell in the morning.
    "Every morning just the same, since
    the morning that we came, to this poor
    provincial town." She shook her head and walked further, clutching to her bag as the wind blew in her face.
    "Good morning, Rey," an old man said nicely as she walked by. With a smile she turned to him - getting bold, with wrinkles in his face but still full of life.
    "Good morning, Mr. Danry. Have you lost something again?" she asked him with a frown.
    "I believe I have," he said, Rey could see the radars in his head running at full speed as he thought and thought, "Problem is I-I can't remember what!"
    Rey giggled - the same old Mr. Danry. Almost every morning the same story with this man. "Well, I'm sure it will come to me. Where are you off to?"
    With a happy smile she pulled out the little metal hologram book - if you pushed a little button a hologram of the pages of the book were projected.
    "To return this book to book keeper Jeax. It's about two lovers in fair Ferona."
    "Sounds boring," the younger man next to Mr. Danry said, his son.
    Rolling with her eyes she walked further. As she came across the stairs that led to the little school that was build a bit higher than the ground, all the children turned their heads to her, all saying:
    "Look there she goes, that girl is
    strange, no question."
    Their teacher gave them a little hit on their head because they stopped walking for a moment. "Dazed and distracted, can't you tell?"
    She ignored it.
    A few woman's were washing their clothes in the round, stone tank with spring water that they had discovered.
    "'Cause her head's up on some cloud," they said to each other.
    "No denying she's a funny girl, that
     Rey," whispered the last children's that fast walked into the little school.
She was going to book keeper Jeax - she hoped fiercely that he had new books to read. She loved to read.
     With a frown she looked at the young man that was buying some meat by the woman that was behind the stone desk.
    "Hello, good day! How is your
    family?" he asked her with a glamorous smile. Rey raised her eyebrows highly - he didn't stood a change.
    "Hello, good day! How is your wife?" With a mischievous smile she turned away. Rey tried to suppress a grin.
    She tried to shut the people out who were talking and talking, complaining and trading. "I need six eggs!"
    "That's too expensive."
    Rey looked at the sky, at the stars, planets, at the Galaxy that she would never see, because she was stuck here.
    "There must be more than this
     provincial life!" she asked herself. Relieved that she could walk off the streets. Right into the store of the book keeper.
    "Ah, if it isn't the only bookworm in town!" Book keeper Jeax said with a smile on his face that was covered with wrinkles. "So, where did you run off this week?"
    "Two planets in the Maryan System. I didn't want to come back. Have you got any new places to go?" Rey asked him as she looked at all the book projectors - she had read them all, some twice, others even trice. But it was never enough. She needed to run off of this planet. And the sentences, the planets and worlds that the authors had created for her... it wasn't enough. It was never enough.
    And the problem was that the book keeper only had a couple dozen books in total. But Rey reminded hopeful.
    Book keeper Jeax sighed. "I'm afraid not. But you maybe re-read one of the other ones that you like," he said as he gestured at the many, many book projectors. With a sigh she looked at them. Rey took one of the many books that she loved - also a story of a brave girl that went away, discovering new worlds... finding love.
    She put it back. No, instead of that she took 'Romeo and Juliet', one of the oldest stories in the whole Galaxy. But it was so beautiful. Rey loved it and she always cried. It was stupid, but she always smiled when she felt the cold tears in her face after finishing the book. It was a sad smile.
    But she really needed to go, she needed to sell parts, get the money and get out of here as fast as she could. Her dad needed the parts as fast as possible.
    "Your library makes our small corner of the Galaxy feel big," she said to him as she opened walked outside.
    "Have a nice day, Rey," he said before she stepped outside. When the sunlight touched her warm cheeks she opened the book, reading the electric pages she had read a hundred times. Without any hesitation she walked through the village - she didn't need to look around to see where she was going. Sometimes she saw the streets in her dreams, so many times she had walked through them.
    "Look there she goes, that girl is so   
     peculiar," men said to each other as she walked by, still reading the words that led her away from the desert planet. The oldest man said to his mate: "I wonder if she's feeling well."
    But the story swallowed her whole, she didn't hear it, see it. When she drowned in those words, in those worlds and in the minds of the characters, no one could hurt her.
    "With a dreamy far-off look, and her
     nose stuck in a book," a lady whispered to her friend. The other woman nodded fiercely and looked at Rey, whom was still stuck in her book.
    "What a puzzle to the rest of is this
     Rey," she said back.
    Rey jumped over a running creature and avoided dirty falling water that someone threw away from his window.
    She ignored it all and sat down at the edge of the stone tank. Beings who were cattle here for the people on Jakku walked past or stood by her for a moment to lick the water with their blue tongues.
    "O, isn't this amazing?" she asked one of those beings that looked at her with its purple eyes. "It's my favourite part, because you'll see..." She turned a page and with a finger she pointed at the words, the sentences. "Here is where she meets Prince Charming. But she won't discover that 'til Chapter Three!"
    The being growled at her and licked the water up again. Rey just held up her shoulders and kept reading as the dry wind went through her hair, pushing sand in it.
    After a moment she remembered that she needed to go home, to her father who was waiting. And she still needed to sell the parts. Fast she got up, but didn't put the book away. She needed it, she drank every word and thought of the character that was now talking to the man that was her true love.
    "Now it's no wonder that her name
     means beauty," the stylist said to her three students who were needling beautiful clothes. All three beautiful. All three jealous at Rey, who thought she looked very normal. "Her looks have got no parallels."
    "But behind that fair facade, I'm afraid
     she rather odd," one of the girls said to her friends, who started giggling at the insult.
    "Very different from the rest of us..." The woman sighed.
    "She's nothing like the rest of us." The girls shook their heads as the first one said that. "Yes diff'rent from the rest of us this Rey."
    At the end of the street, a tall, pale man with fire red hair looked at the reading Rey. He wasn't ugly - not at all. He had a short beard what gave him a manly look that no other man in the village had. His soul was scarred by wars, huntings and his ego. Especially the last one.
    Oh, the one thing that was bigger than his muscles was his ego.
    "Look at her, Phasma," Hux said as he looked at Rey. Phasma, who always wore an iron helmet to hide the scars that made her beautiful face one of the ugliest. But she always stood Hux' side - only because he kinda looked after her, sort of. "My future wife." Even no one could see it, she raised an eyebrow.
    "Rey is the most beautiful girl in the village. That makes her the best," Hux followed as he placed his hands in his side.
    "But she's so... well-read!" Phasma said to him. "And you're so... athletically inclined."
    "I know. Rey can be as argumentative as she it beautiful," Hux said and he smiled at Phasma. 
    "Exactly, who needs her, when you've got us!" Hux felt she was smiling at him after she said those words.
    Hux frowned and nodded as he thought about Phasma's words.
    "Yes... But ever since the war, I've felt like I've been missing something. And she's the only girl that gives me that sense of..."
    "Mmm... je ne sais quoi?" Phasma asked - she came from a planet with a very fancy langue and she never doubted to use it.
    Hux looked at her with furrowed brows. "I don't know what that means..."
    He shook his head and kept looking at Rey, who was still walking and reading at the same time. He knew where she was going. To sell parts the had taken from the old crashed Star Destroyer. If she married him, she didn't need to live like a scavenger ever again. He was the richest man in town - of whole Jakku.
    "Right from the moment when I met
     her, saw her, I said 'she's gorgeous'
     and I fell. Here in town, there's only
     she, who is as beautiful as me. So I'm
     making plans to woo and marry Rey," he told Phasma. He went with a hair through his hair, it looked like fire in the hot sun of Jakku.
    With confident steps he started to walk to her, but Rey didn't notice him. Slowly she disappeared in the busy streets and he started walking faster, passing three young woman who looked at him like he was a God. "Look there he goes, isn't he dreamy?" One of them said.
    "Mr. Hux, oh he's so cute!" They squeaked. "Be still my heart, I'm hardly breathing."
    "He's such a tall, red, strong and handsome brute!"
    Phasma looked at them and beneath her chrome helmet. "It's never going to happen, ladies."
    Rey kept walking, not noticing all people, all the creatures around her who were trading, talking, buying and selling.
    "Good day!" People said to each other as Hux tried to reach Rey, who was out of his reach. Far out of his reach.
    "Pardon," he murmured as politely as he could with his eyes fixed on the girl with the three buns of hair, an iron staff, a bag with components and walking through to busy street while reading.
    "Good day," Rey said polite to people she knew who passed her. Many voices talked and talked, but she didn't hear them.
    "You call this bacon?" People also said, "What lovely flowers!" And, "Some cheese!" Or, "Ten yards!" Also this, "One pound!"
    "Excuse me!" Hux said loudly, hoping people would make a path for him so he could reach her, Rey.
    A butcher at the end of the street said: "I'll get the knife."
    "Please let me through!" Hux started to get irritated. If it really was impossible, he would climb up the walls so he could reach her, talk to her.
   "There must be more than this
    provincial life!" Rey asked herself when the sounds reached her, the people and the life she was stuck in.
    "Just watch, I'm going to make Rey my
    wife!" Hux told everyone around him when they finally noticed the tall, red man.
    "Look there she goes that girl is
     strange, but special. A most peculiar
     mademoiselle!" People said, whispered and murmured to each other. "It's a pity and a sin, she doesn't quite fit in. 'Cause she really is a funny girl..."
    The butcher nodded as Rey walked by. "A beauty buy a funny girl."
    "She really is a funny girl, that Rey!"
    Finally, like someone had shaken her, Rey looked up, turning and facing all the villagers. But it felt like nothing happened - the day was just going like always. She raised her shoulders and turned around again...
    ... To bump into a strong chest. She stepped back fast and looked up.
   "Good morning, Rey! Wonderful book you have there," he said as she turned off the hologram of the pages of the book. He smiled at her, his teeth reflected the sunlight.
    Armitage Hux.
    "Have you read it?" she asked. He talked like they were best friends. Maybe even more than that. She got disgusted by the idea, but she stayed polite. Always stay polite. Always stay positive.
    "Well, not that one. But, you know, books..." Then, suddenly he took out some flowers out of his bag. Well, flowers... One of the only planets that grew in the village - grey and brown twigs with, well... dead little white flowers. But still... it was a nice gesture.  "For your dinner table. Shall I join you this evening?" he asked with a glamorous smile.
No. "Sorry, not this evening."
    "Busy?" he asked.
    "No," she said honestly. "Excuse me." She ran away, fast.
    Hux growled and made his hand into a fist. Again. She did it again.
    "No... So moving on?" Phasma asked carefully.
    "No, Phasma. It's the one who play hard to get that are always the sweetest prey. That's what makes Rey so appealing. She hasn't made a fool of herself just to gain my favour," he told her calmly.
    She nodded, not convinced. "What would you call that?"
    "Dignity?" Phasma asked. Hux sniffed.
    "It's outrageously attractive, isn't it?"
    Rey had jumped around a corner, still running while holding onto everything she had hanging over her shoulder.
   After a few seconds she pressed herself against a wall, rough and warm beneath her back. She took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes - the dry air burned her lungs and the sand sanded against her throat.
    When she opened her eyes she got blinded by the fierce sun. She blinked and walked out of the street, right to the component shop.
    A bell rang when she walked in. Inside there were no lamps standing on - the shining light of the sun was enough. All around her were shelves full of parts that scavengers had collected and sold here for the scare money.
    Sometimes she bought something here - a part or took her father needed. But it only happened three times. Rey walked over to the counter and tapped onto the bell.
    Unkar Plutt came back from storage and looked at her irritated.
    "You again," he said with a growl. Rey stood strong and began to display all the parts on the metal desk.
    "I've come to sell these," she said. Unkar took some of the old parts in his hands, studying them.
    "What you've brought me today is worth... Hmmm... Three silver coins and one quarter portion."
    Disappointed she nodded, but she barely showed it. Unkar pushed a sealed package with with dried green meat in one section, beige powder in another. Rey swallowed, took the coins and walked out of the store fast.
    Ignoring everyone and everything again, Rey walked as fast as she could to her old speeder. She started the old, rusty thing and headed back home.