A Beacon for Drifters

Chapter 1

"Bright Suns, Travelers! what brings you to Black Spire Outpost?"

"A job," my mum, Tessaline Dovaia replies.

A job that my parents never would've taken if I hadn't spent hours convincing them to- they generally don't take 'no questions asked' jobs. Especially because these days, 'no questions asked' almost always means 'the First Order will probably kill you if they find you with this'.

"Enjoy your stay in Black Spire! May the Spires Keep You!" the cheery girl walks off, her long black hair waving in the breeze.

My dad, Roy Hesel, turns back to look at my brother and I, "Holly, Reo, stay on the FireHawk. We'll be back in a few hours."

"Why can't I-" this is probably the five-hundred millionth time I've objected to being left on the ship to watch my little brother.

"Stay with the ship."

"Fine!" I turn on my heel and stomp back up the ship's ramp, "Come on Reo!"

Back in the ship, I turn to Reo, "I need to fix...something! You go... do a flight simulation or... whatever it is boys do in their free time."

He rolls his eyes and huffs, "Girls!" before going off, his scruffy mop of light brown hair flopping to-and-fro. He's probably going to make a huge mess somewhere, but as long as it's away from me and my stuff... what do I care?

"Boo!" I shout at the back of the ship. Boo is our astromech, 13-00, who's sole purpose seems to be to complain while I do all the actually work, "Get out here you rolling tin can!" If it were ever up to Boo to fix the ship in an emergency, we'd all be dead.

I made Boo from a mix of a BB unit, BD unit and random parts I thought would be useful.

She has a round base half the size of a standard BB unit and the head of a BD unit so she's about knee height. The thing I'm most proud about is the four little, retractable, grabby arms that let her turn into a sort of backpack. It's very useful, even if having her beep suggestions into my ear gets irritating after about point-five seconds.

Boo rolls into the hallway burbling wildly.

"Come on, Rustbucket, the rear repulsor array needs tuning," Really, it's then a tenth off- well within safety parameters- but I just need to fix something. Grabbing the tool kit off a crate, I head back outside.

Rustbucket follows me out of the ship, whining constantly.

"I know we just fixed it! It's not my fault they let Reo fly instead of me!" I blame any problems with the FireHawk on my nine-year-old brother's piloting ability, or lack thereof. Honestly, he never really does that much damage, but it's nice having someone to blame.

It only takes a few minutes to get the array recalibrated- not surprising given that it didn't need to be fixed. It would've been finished even quicker if Boo hadn't screwed up and accidentally made it worse before remembering which way's right.

Boo-Boo burbles as we walk back to the access ramp.

"I know, sorry Boo. I just needed something to fix, it makes me feel better."

It seems that 'feeling better' has a very short life-span, because by the time I've reached my room, I'm just as annoyed- if not more- than I was before I spent five minutes uselessly tweaking something.

Punching the door controls, I stomp into my closet-like room near the back of the ship. The room is slightly bigger than the cockpit and it's crammed against the shield generator. Definitely not the quietest area of the ship. But I like the near-constant hum- it's better than the pressing silence of space.

The walls and ceiling are plastered with old flimisplast blueprints and diagrams of rebel ships from the Galactic Civil War. Mom calls them 'impractically dangerous' and I call them 'cool'. Despite her concerns I really don't see how some outdated blueprints in a teenaged girl's room are of any interest to the First Order.

I grab one of my holonovels from the bin under my bed and climb up to the topside gun turret. For someone who's never allowed to use it, I come up here a lot. It's a good place to be alone; no one ever come here, and most importantly, no one would think to look for me here. As a bonus it has an amazing view whether we're on or off-planet.

Speaking of the view... All the stories I've heard about this place don't do it justice. None of them mentioned how... picturesque it is. It's like something out of history, before all the wars and fighting. the rounded colourful and modern buildings somehow blend perfectly with the old buildings hollowed out of the towering, jagged spires. I remember hearing something about how the spires are really fossilized trees or something, but nothing about them seems particularly tree-like.

PLEASE COMMENT AND VOTE!