THE PLANET OF JAKKU was, putting it lightly, a wasteland. In other words, it was the perfect place for a man like Lor San Tekka to be hiding out, away from the First Order. 

And it was also a hell of an inconvenience to find him.

Flying into the atmosphere and landing on the planet were no trouble at all, but when it came down to finding where his village was, Poe and Kilian were no help. 

"I mean we have the coordinates," Poe explained through our ship's communication system. He was flying in his X-Wing while Kilian and I flew in my ship, an old YT-1250 freighter that I named the Marchana. 

"Then why don't we bother to use them?" I grumbled, glancing over at Kilian who occupied the co-pilot seat next to me. Because I flew solo as part of my career, I fixed up the ship to only need one pilot, so the co-pilot seat was more for show. I removed the gunner seat in favor of allowing the on-ship droid, R5-D8, to use his mechanical arm to access the panel in case of emergency. 

"My signal is spotty, smartass, otherwise we'd be there by now," Poe returned and I could feel the sneer plastered across his face. 

Kilian sighed for the millionth time this trip. "Could you two quit bickering? We'll get there when we get there."

Rolling my eyes I returned to scanning the horizon. There was nothing but sand, sand, and more sand. Everywhere. No water, no oases, nothing. "What a miserable place."

"We didn't grow up on one much better," Kilian admitted while turning the transmitter on his headset upwards so Poe couldn't hear. I copied his movements and settled back in my seat. 

"At least we had an ocean, some springs here and there. Verna may have been half-desert but so far I'm not seeing anything but desert on this wasteland of a planet," I said. I looked at him, his face unreadable, before continuing, "and we had cities, and towns, and schools, and, well..."

"People?" Kilian finished, turning to me with a childish look in his deep brown eyes. We both sputtered out a laugh, grinning like children at one another. 

"Yeah," I breathed, "people. Something like that." Kilian grinned at me and my smile faded as I turned from him. There was a pause between us before I muttered, "who knew we'd end up like this?" I felt his eyes fall on my face, but I didn't return his look. 

"How... do you mean?" he asked.

"This. Me, a bounty hunter, and you," it took a moment for my gaze to find him, "a Resistance Captain desperate enough for my help."

He rubbed his neck and let out a forced chuckle. "It kind of makes sense though if you think about it. You were always such a troublemaker, a bully I could even call you."

"Hey-!" I reached out to swat his arm, but he grabbed my wrist mid-air and a devilish grin spread across his face. He pointed to my hand in his and raised his eyebrows, proving his point. My cheeks heated up and I felt heat swirl around my wrist where his hand was. I snatched it out of his grasp. "Jerk."

"As if to prove my point further. I'm wounded," he put a hand to his chest and fell back dramatically in his seat. "You were destined to do something dangerous, Thiff, you're too much of a rebel to do otherwise." The words struck me for a moment, and I crossed my arms, shaking my head. 

"What about you? You were always the one breaking up the fights. I figured you'd be the last person to join the Resistance because you couldn't handle all the fighting," I returned back to him. 

He took a pause, breathing in before saying with a slight scoff, "Blaize, you know I joined the Resistance because-"

A voice in our headsets made us both jump. Poe's slightly static voice came in from the other end of the communication system, saying: "Hey, hey, I got a signal, finally. I found him." I sat up from my seat, reaching to change the controls while lowering my voice transmitter to talk to him. 

"Alright. Send out a signal and we'll meet you there." I glanced over my dashboard, awaiting a ping on the locater. I chewed my lip in focus, then turned my attention to Kilian. "You weren't finished with your story, why did you-" Ping! Ping! The raised screen on my dashboard pinged with a red light, slowly getting closer to the large white dot in the center, representing the Marchana. If it was picking up on the radar, we were close. I stuttered for a moment, telling Poe, "hey-hey, yeah, I got it. Should be there shortly. Do you need a babysitter to go in with you to talk to him or do you got it, Dameron?"

"Ha, ha, very funny. I'll remember that one," he said, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "I'll start the talking, you two sit outside and wait for us to be finished."

"Don't wait up," I rolled my eyes, flipping up the transmitter once more. Slumping my shoulders, I rolled my neck. "I'm sorry, you didn't get to finish. What's the story?"

"Hm?" Kilian began to stand up from his seat, stretching his legs out and reaching his arms as far above his head as he could, his fingertips grazing the ceiling long before his arms were fully extended. "Oh, well," he groaned, rolling his shoulders then starting to walk back towards the rest of the ship. He looked back around the cockpit for a moment and then shook his head before he was fully out of the door. "Y'know what, I'll keep you in suspense. Once this mission goes off without a hitch, I'll let you know." He winked, grinned, then pivoted on his heel and left the cockpit, likely preparing his stuff to land. We had been flying for several hours now and the sky had begun to change into a deep sapphire color ahead of us. Relieved we were landing soon, I crossed my legs in my chair with me and let out a deep breath.

It didn't take more than half an hour for us to reach the landing site, and by then the night had completely covered the sky in an arm of deep blue azure. 

R5-D8 beeped angrily at us as we lowered the boarding ramps, no doubt fussing in droid about the state of the ship, or the fact that I let a stranger on board, or how dirty our shoes were, and on and on and on. I've learned to tune him out, he was a good-for-nothing droid anyhow. Part of me wishes that I could afford a better one, but he's the best that I can get. R5 sped around Kilian, almost running over his feet multiple times as he whirred at him.

"I get the feeling he doesn't like me," Kilian huffed as the boarding ramps found solid ground and we made our way down them. We both had our bags across our shoulders, and the second Kilian's foot left the ramp R5 was already lifting the ramps back into place. 

"He doesn't like anybody," I swerved out of the way of the lifting ramp, heading towards the dim light of the village dancing about three hundred yards ahead of us. Poe's X-Wing was on the outskirts. "You ready?"

Kilian shrugged, and began the trek towards the village, "as I'll ever be."

The sand was like tar against our feet, sucking us down with every excruciating step towards the village. "I should've landed closer," I huffed, cautiously slipping down a small sand dune, holding onto Kilian's arm. He gripped my forearm, trying not to slide down too fast himself. We steadied each other as the sand leveled out and we continued further toward the village.

"We all make mistakes sometimes," Kilian nudged me with his elbow, not breathing as heavily as I was. "Poe had the right idea," he said as we walked further towards the village, giving his X-Wing a pat as we crossed by it. The sand began to harden into solid rock as we progressed into the threshold of the village.

The village had no more than twenty separate huts in a ring around the town square. The huts were all made of clay and the only lights came from small fires inside the huts or outside in a fire pit. There were a few people gathered here and there in groups, all dressed in loose clothing, no doubt to protect from the sweltering sun during the day. In the middle of the town square stood a large and horribly out-of-date communication tower, emitting a soft red flash from the top every few seconds. Around the tower was a short stone wall formed around the middle in a circle formation with a wooden gate connecting to it, and around it was where most of the people stood. 

We continued into the village when something dawned on me: "We don't know which hut is his."

"Hm? Oh..." Kilian paused mid-stride, settling back then scanning the village. "Well, shoot, uh. Oh!" Something caught his eye on the other side of the town square, and he pointed at a specific hut. "Look!"

"At what?" I walked to stand beside him to see what caught his eye, when a small BB unit with white and orange detail work emerged from a smaller hut with a beaded entrance. "A BB unit?"

"That's Poe's. Did you not see it earlier?" he began heading towards the hut in a slow jog, and the small droid began to zoom past us, beeping quietly. 

"No..." my eyes followed the droid. What was he chasing-? My eyes began to trail to the sky before-

"-Hey! You coming or what?" Killian called, making my head snap forward. He was already across the town square, standing outside the hut. I nodded and jogged over to him. 

"Where was Poe's droid going?" I asked, catching my breath from the jog over and standing beside the entrance to Lor San Tekka's home. 

Kilian began taking out a canteen of water from his bag and undoing the cap. "BB-8? Oh, um," he looked out towards where the droid had sped off to, "he does that. Speeds off a lot, it's nothing to worry about." He handed me the canteen and I took a sip of the surprisingly icy water inside. I thanked him and gave it back, to which he took a swig of it as well and stuffed it back inside his bag. We stood there for a moment, before my eyes travelled up towards the night sky, stars twinkling like gemstones. 

"Jakku might be a wasteland but at least we can see the stars," I murmured, finding something to pass the time. Poe did like to run his mouth, so we could be standing out for a while. Kilian looked up as well, and my shoulder brushed against his arm for just a moment. 

"Maybe I decided to leave Verna because I wanted to see the stars," he said, a softness in his voice. He looked down at me. The twinkle in his eye could be seen even in the almost pitch-dark. 

I met his gaze, and I suppressed my own grin, "I think that's why anybody leaves. Why see the stars from out here when you can see them up there?" I looked up towards the sky once more. Kilian followed me and we stood there for a few quiet moments, scanning the neverending midnight sky. 

"You know... I always thought that-" Kilian began, before getting cut off by BB-8, zooming down past us in a flurry of bleeps. He crashed into the beaded entrance of Lor San Tekka's hut.

"BB-8?" I called, rushing after him into the home, Kilian in close pursuit behind me. 

Inside sat Poe and an old man with a withering face and grey hair and beard, who I assumed to be Lor San Tekka. Poe was looking adamantly down at the frantically beeping droid, his brows furrowed. I stole a glance at Kilian who looked just as concerned as the Commander and the old man, and I felt my stomach begin to churn, my palms turn sweaty. Poe's face fell into a veil of severity and he looked up at the three remaining people in the room. 

"We've got company."