Jakku has very few major settlements, and only one place advertising itself as a 'spaceport' - though obviously you can put a ship down elsewhere. No one claims most of the sands. Even the Star Destroyers, fallen decades ago with enough salvage to fund one of the many nations popping up like bubbles in tar, are only half stripped, the actual hulls - too bulky to move easily - still almost entirely intact.

Tiny settlements cluster around oases, along rivers. There's no defined paths between them. Anything would be swallowed. No functioning satellites in orbit, nothing for the cheap navigational aids to work off of - if you want to move across Jakku's surface, you either come extremely well prepared in a nice ship, or you travel at night in the wake of native guides, frog hopping between flecks of water in the desert.

If you want to know who's moving, what's around, what secrets lie buried - 

You talk to the scavengers, or you talk to the guides. Often the same people are both.

There's no guild or organization overseeing the guides and scavengers. Just word of mouth recommending this or that guide. Just a few merchants who act as point people for the salvage operations, collecting everything within a few days' travel into one location, then collecting it again at the planet's only spaceport. 

One name pops up - an elderly hermit, believed by some to be a reclusive mystic come to Jakku to meditate on the sands long ago. He's older than anyone here. He started guiding travelers across the sands a few years after the Empire's first shattering. He knows everything there is to know here - if you can find him, and the other guides are canny, with enough sense of loyalty among themselves to be cautious who they direct where.

Still - it's not impossible for her to navigate.

She hops from village to village, asking after guides, doing odd jobs to help out, gain some trust. Blasts some predators with her "military surplus" rifle, tow's some heavy salvage on her ship's repulsors. Someone will tell her, eventually.

And they do.

He's out pretty far in the wastes, right now, guiding people along a network of trails that're more dangerous this time of year and that've been having problems lately. No one wants to do those trails even if they weren't so harsh, too, other than the desperate wanderers who have to cut through - night's the only safe time to travel, but strange things happen out there in the dark. Odd lights. Sounds in the wind.

They wish her well and guide her to the settlement on the edge of the old hermit's range, to wait for the next time he cycles by.

She parks on the outskirts and settles in to wait. Throws some camo netting over the ship and takes to patrolling along the water after dark.

The strange things don't manifest themselves while she's waiting.

But the old hermit does, a group of four hollow-eyed women trailing in his wake. He gets them settled in the village, gets water into them, and tells them who to follow for their next leg.

And then he goes to find Ellaita, the only traveler who's washed up to this shore. "Greetings, wanderer," he says. His voice is rough and deep, and his skin looks dry and cracked - what little of it's visible under his deep hood.

"Ellaita Dameron. I hear you know just about everything of interest on this planet."

He smiles a little. "Not everything. There's much mystery in the galaxy yet, even in places like here."

"What knowledge do you seek then, wanderer?"

"Something that would bring the First Order here."

His smile slips away. "Not much here other than the ruins of the past," he says. "What is your interest in the movements of the First Order?"

"Finding the best way to oppose them."

He inclines his head a little. "There are things in these sands that do not wish to be unburied," he says, voice low. "What would you do, if you found what the First Order wants before they can?"

"Use it against them, if I can. Hide it away or destroy it, otherwise."

"And if it wants simply to be left alone?"

"...Implying it's a person?"

"One can have wants without full personhood," he says, sounding amused, then - "But, the First Order, nor any of the many faces of the enemy, have hardly bothered with the ruins here before."

"There is only one thing someone like the First Order's leader would be after, I think."

"Now, tell me, what if they want simply to be left alone?"

"They may not get the option. I'd like to at least offer an alternative."

"And what would your alternative be?"

"Dunno yet. Depends on- what they are."

He hums. "Reasonable enough."

"Would you walk with me? A short distance only," he says, nodding out to the dark sands around them.

(The village is in a little valley, protected by juts of stone, fed by an underground stream. They're far enough that their words aren't carrying, but - sound travels well, here, and some places have very keen ears.)

"Lead on."

He takes her out into the dunes, walking over warm sand as the cold air nips at their exposed skin. The sand's loose, prone to shifting - everywhere, it seems, but the path he leads her over.

They come to a hollow in the dunes, shielded from sight and sound. They shouldn't shout, still, but - no one will overhear them.

The old hermit sits cross-legged on one of the small boulders exposed by the ebbing sand, hands folded in his lap. "It's difficult to say when I first met her," he begins, examining Ellaita. "I felt her presence during the battle over Jakku, at the end of the Liberation War. What we all believed to be a last dying gasp of tyranny."

"It took quite a while before I saw her face, though. She wishes to be seen by few, and yet fewer can know her. She's the reason some believe this stretch of desert is haunted - not an inaccurate summary, in truth."

"She?"

He smiles a little. "A human woman." And, with a small chuckle: "One arguably older than me."

"And she's haunting the desert?"

"In a matter of speaking," he says, gaze going distant a bit. "'Haunting' implies a ghost with a bit more attachment than she has."

"...An actual ghost."

"Or so she claims," he says, agreeably. "She's rather translucent every time I've seen her, though, and I've never observed her interacting physically with the world of the living."

"Right," she says, voice full of skepticism. The old man's had his brains cooked by the sun. "Can I... meet her?"

"If she'll show herself," he says. "But if the two of us are traveling alone, and I call out to her - it seems likely to me that she'll at least investigate."

"All right. Can we leave tonight? Or do you want to wait for tomorrow evening?"

"We don't have much night left right now - we could get a short distance, perhaps, and return before the heat comes, but my old bones are tired, and the predators in this region are most active in the predawn hours. Tomorrow evening will give us enough time to travel, at least, and there's a cave a night's travel away that she frequents."

"All right. Tomorrow, then."

He nods. "I think anything else you should learn from her directly," he says, then yawns. "Now, though, I'd like to get these bones to a cool bed. I quite like this village. They actually build deep enough underground it's not baking inside..."

"I'll see you later, then." She stands to leave.

He does as well, leading her back to the village and to the house she's been rooming in. He greets the elderly woman who owns the house in a friendly manner, checking to make sure the women he led in earlier have settled alright into one of her rooms. She checks if Ellaita needs anything, then turns to the hermit, making sure he's fed and settling into teasing him about having to stay in her room today.

Eugh, old people flirting. She disappears into her room as quickly as possible.

The old hermit has a twinkle in his eye as she goes.

The rooms here are more pleasant than many she's been in during her wanderings - still fairly plain, of course, but the old widow apparently entertains herself with handicrafts, and her artwork decorates the walls, light quilts made from leftover fabric scraps or destroyed clothes on the beds. More importantly, the houses are deeper into the rock than most people bother with, only covered entry ports and some equipment shed entrances and exits and a few gardens or greenhouse tops protruding above ground, and there's vents descending from them deeper into the earth. It's actually cool down here, even in the heat of the day, and it doesn't even get freezing at night like some places do. The trade off is there's no sun light inside, just old lamps, but the locals have adapted. The rock muffles the sound of the machinery that keeps the village alive, though a deep rumble from the pumps still sometimes lurks at the edge of hearing. The food's actually food, not reconstituted powders and bars the villages closer to the towns exchange scrap for, and Ellaita doesn't even have to share a house with the livestock.

It's a good place to get a nice sleep while Jakku's day boils the ground above.

Which means waking up to a frantic siren is more unpleasant than it'd be elsewhere.

It doesn't sound like the gentler sandstorm or predator alarms. It's loud, pitch warbling and pulsing, impossible to sleep through.

She's up and out of bed, rifle in hands with the practiced efficiency of living on military bases since she was fifteen years old. Seeing nothing in her room that needs shooting, she pauses very briefly to get a blast vest on before heading out, bag over her shoulders and checking her corners before proceeding.

She may be a pilot, but everyone in the resistance needs infantry training.

The old woman and hermit have also responded pretty readily, though the women who came in last night aren't in the halls yet - the old woman has what looks like a pretty powerful if old rifle in her hands, and she's already swung herself up into the entry port, peering out at a flashing signal light.

"Air raid," she shouts down. "Ships're unidentified, a few minutes out." To the hermit: "Taeol, the passes - "

He nods, firmly. "I can lead." To Ellaita: "There's a hidden pass into the caves. We'll evacuate into those - people will gather here."

"I have a ship parked on the outskirts. I can get into the air, buy some time."

He nods and turns to jog into the house's common area, and the woman squints out - "It'll be faster overland than tunnels, but it's damn hot." Still, she moves aside if Ellaita wants to climb up. "We need two minutes from alarm start to get all entrances sealed proper, five for most kids, ten for everyone out and traps up, twenty for full evac of supplies and livestock."

(It sounds like the women are leaving their room, some kids already arriving at a run from elsewhere in the network.)

"See what I can do. What's your comm frequency?" She flips her hood up and sends the command to start up to her X-wing.

She relays it. "Comms don't work too well in the caves, but I'll be last out."

"All right." And she heads out onto the surface, making her way to her ship.

She pulls the camo netting off and hops in, firing up the engines and lifting off, scanning for the enemy approach vector.

They're spread out a bit, staying high initially but swooping in - not a bombing run, looks like they're trying to land troops -

Ellaita's ship's sensors are better than the local ones. Those are First Order type TIE fighters - too new to be salvage by a different power. There's possibly another type of ship following them at a short distance, but the air quality's crap between the intense heat and the fierce winds blowing sand laden with materials that interfere with most scanners every which way.

Hells.

She'll try to hit the troopship on her first pass, then peel off the TIEs so they don't just bomb the caves-

S-foils to attack position. Here she goes.

The TIEs don't seem to have been expecting resistance from her, and it seems they didn't spot her ship until she was already in the air - it gives her a tiny sliver of an advantage.

They're still obnoxiously agile, though the troopship is cumbersome - shielded but easy to hit, and there's plenty of weak spots someone daring with a keen eye can at least graze -

What's life without a bit of challenge? She lights the dropship up with her cannons then drops a torpedo on it-

-peels off sharply to dodge the TIEs, and then it's a dogfight. They're more maneuverable than she is, but she has the heavier weapons and only needs one good shot on each of them while they need to get her shields down first. TIEs are practically her specialty at this point.

She can get a good number down, get the dropship floundering, its maneuver jets pouring smoke - slow the entire group down -

Before her X-Wing alerts her the ship in the rear is in sensor range - which is currently shorter than torpedo range -

It's the sort of ship their leader's said to favor. Well armed, well armored, maneuverable for its size, immediately launching several torpedos at her ship.

She dumps some chaff, drops into a snap-roll and twist, trying to shake the missile lock.

They fly past her, slamming into the sand outside the village - an eerily accurate bolt from the larger ship's laser cannons clips her wing - and the TIEs are beginning to regroup.

"I'm breaking off to try to shake the fighters," she sends over the comm. "Dropship incoming."

"Got it. We're making good time here."

She slams a turn, screaming out over the open desert.

Several of the TIEs - and the larger ship - turn to harry her. Her shields are dropping pretty rapidly - the larger ship's torpedoes don't always land, their laser cannons hit her effectively every shot they get off - 

A torpedo comes screaming through her shields, at her wing - 

A hit, and she's going down!

Glance to the side, that entire wing's gone, no recovery-

She ejects.

The TIEs break off, back toward the village.

The large ship - likely the personal ship of an officer - zeroes in to follow her toward her landing point.

Hell.

Well, that's why she has a blaster. They won't take her without a fight.

They land a bit away, out of easy blaster range, and the ramp begins to lower - 

And a man in a black suit, black mask and cape, light saber in his hand but not yet ignited, descends, two red-armored guards following him, postures stiff.

There are quite a lot of Vader wannabes among the assorted dark side cults. Most of them have very particular ways of distinguishing themselves, though, and this one looks a lot like the briefings she's seen on Lord Inkil, leader of the First Order.

Poser.

She takes cover behind her crash seat and opens fire.

He in an entirely unnecessary move raises his hand and freezes the bolts mid-air - and the air around her's tight, her limbs locking - 

Gr. She attempts to struggle free, pushing-

She can wrest free, the bolts jumping toward the poser - he just deflects them, tilting his head, and keeps approaching her at a steady pace.

She starts shooting again.

He ignites his light saber - red, of course - and deflects the bolts.

He keeps advancing.

She shifts her aim to his feet, trying to slow him down.

His light saber is significantly less well designed for blocking things aimed at his feet. It slows him down a small amount, though not entirely, and while his face is obviously obscured and his body posture is hard to read he now seems extremely annoyed.

Bring it, bitch.

He gets within calmly enraged voice range - "I did not expect cockroaches out here, I must admit."

"And I didn't ask for stinkrats, so it looks like no one's getting what they want today."

"You think you can stop me?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. But someone will."

"Perhaps."

"It will be too late for you."

"Big talk, scary boy. Whatever."

He raises his hand again - and this time a band feels like it closes around her throat.

Grrkk!

She raises into the air, the pressure around her throat not yet quite enough to knock her out, and Lord Inkil approaches until he's nearly within saber-reach.

She struggles, fingers scrabbling against the unseen force constricting her neck.

And he drops her at his feet.

Gasping for breath, she tries to sweep his legs out from under him.

He steps over her leg. "What have you come here for?"

There's a pressure on her mind. An urge to tell him.

"Fuck off."

Pressing harder - "You seek the same ghost I do."

"Everyone knows ghosts aren't real."

Voice amused: "You know little of the Force. Its greatest wielders need not be confined to this thin flesh."

"What did the old hermit tell you?"

"Didn't tell me shit. His brain's been cooked by the sun."

He tilts his head. "Nothing at all? I'd expect him to have more opinions about the ghost of a Sith in his area."

"Sorry but out here in the real world, we have other things than fairy tales to worry about."

"Darth Vader is hardly a fairytale."

"Vader ain't coming back, dumbass. No matter how often you dress up like her."

"She is already back."

"But I see you lot remain as ignorant as ever."

"I doubt that will ever change."

He raises his hand again, an invisible fist around her throat - aiming to knock her unconscious this time.

Cheating... bullshit...

She passes out.

It's hard to say how long she's unconscious. She wakes up in a painfully bright room, strapped tightly to a hard chair or table. She can't see much, can't turn her head, but she also can't hear anyone else in the room with her. There's a low hum of an active ship.

Nnrr.

She blinks into consciousness. What can she see?

A very bright light immediately above her! Vaguely, at the edges of that, a smooth white ceiling.

Ugh. She closes her eyes again.

A door hisses open after a while.

"Enjoying your stay?"

"Didn't your mother ever teach you to buy a girl dinner before you tie her up?"

She doesn't open her eyes.

"I do apologize for the poor hospitality," he says. It's almost hard to tell that he's being sarcastic.

His footsteps come next to hers -

And she feels rather like she's being stabbed in the head.

"How's Jaina doing?" he asks, voice casual.

(Memories of the Dawn Resistance's diplomatic liason from the New Republic - one of their main intelligence officers - start trying to bubble up.)

Owowow purple nerfs purple nerf purple nerfs.

"The fuck is Jaina?"

Harder, her head's peeling itself apart, steel wool scraping over the inside of her skull...

"Who sent you?"

"Aah! I'm- ah - on shore leave."

"To Jakku?"

"Thought you'd stay away in case the sand scratched up all your nice shiny armor."

He hums.

Keeps pushing - keeps asking a littany of questions, repeating some - it isn't just her head, the rest of her body is starting to feel like it's being torn apart -

She'll be damned before she gives these bastards an inch. They'll have to kill her.

He leaves her after a time of her refusing to bend.

A loud, rippling static noise fills the air after the door hisses shut behind him. The light brightens. The room begins to chill rapidly.

Here we fucking go...

It's not long, at least, before the door hisses open again.

(Far too long, perhaps, for how much Ellaita's head hurts.)

The static cuts out immediately, the light dims, and the room begins to warm. The boots that enter are heavier than Inkil's. A stormtrooper's, likely.

"W-who's there?" She shivers, and cracks open her eyes.

"Don't make any sudden moves." The voice is mechanical, entirely indistinct from a stormtrooper's. "You are being transported."

Her bonds loosen and then retract.

Groan. She slides gracelessly down the table, almost not catching herself.

"Transported... where?"

Gaunleted hands steady her. "Lord Inkil has demanded your presence," she says, loud and clearly, and, voice so low it won't be heard by any guards outside the room, by any monitoring systems - "I'm getting you out of here," she murmurs. "Play along."

...She tries to fight, but weakly. "Fuck off."

"Objection noted."

She pulls Ellaita into a standing position, steadies her until her head stops swimming, then gently pulls her arms behind her back, attaching cuffs.

"There's an emergency unlock here," she murmurs, moving one of Ellaita's fingers to it. "Don't use it unless you have to."

"Where are we really going," she mutters.

"Off this ship, eventually. We need to make a stop first."

"Well that's just great."

Never heard of a stormtrooper defector. First time for everything, maybe.

"Start walking," she says more loudly, drawing her blaster and pointing it not quite at Ellaita, nodding toward the door. 

"All right, all right, I'm going."

Onward, through well lit halls, past other stormtroopers - some of whom nod very slightly at the one escorting Ellaita. Their uniforms aren't marked, but there's serial numbers on them.

Ellaita's rescuer's number is FA-11326. Most of the others she seems friendly with are also FAs.

Her rescuer takes them into a side room in a deserted hall, at a gap between monitoring cameras. It seems to be a break room of some kind, a small, spartan room with uncomfortable couches, bunks clearly visible along one wall. There's another stormtrooper there - FA-76470 - who nods to Ellaita's.

-  And Ellaita's stormtrooper undos her cuffs and lets go of her, before reaching up to take her own helmet off. She's pretty. Looks about Ellaita's age, maybe a bit younger. 

"We all set, Rocket?" she asks, voice far warmer and more melodic without the helmet's filters in the way. 

"Sure," the other stormtrooper says, removing her own helmet - her face is identical to Ellaita's stormtrooper's except for a thin scar on her cheek, though her voice is rougher, like she's breathed in more smoke than is healthy. "Couldn't get extra armor, but extra blacks are easy, and no one will question too much if they see me walking to the armory with an annoyed look on my face." She turns to Ellaita - "You guessed her size right, huh."

"First Order's really just doing galactic history's greatest evil hits, huh? Are you all clones?"

"Rank and file are, but we're not all the same line - they make some noise about specialties, but it also gives them a way to do collective punishment without relying on us making friends in our units," Ellaita's stormtrooper says, shrugging. "And that dick Inkil doesn't have an original thought in his head."

"Great." She rubs her wrists. "So am I an officer now, or are you stuffing me in one of those walking tin cans?"

She grins. "Tin can. Sadly, we need to hide your face."

Sigh. "Figures."

She laughs. "There's a small fresher through there," pointing to a tiny door, "And you'll want to wear the standard blacks under it. There's a set..." She looks at Rocket. 

"In the fresher already," Rocket says.

"Thanks." She goes to clean up and get changed.

The fresher is tiny but functional, and the uniform isn't at all complicated. 

The stormtroopers are talking in low voices when she emerges. Rocket has stripped out of her armor, which is in a tidy pile. They stop their conversation, looking over at her, and Ellaita's stormtrooper smiles. 

"Excellent. The armor can be kind of annoying your first few times in it, so I can help you get it on."

"Right. What's your name, anyway?"

"I'm Anathema Jedi," she says. "What's yours?"

Okay that's a name.

"Ellaita Dameron." She starts putting on the stormtrooper armor. "What's the next step?"

She helps with the trickier latches. 

"We head toward the main bay. I've got a set of orders for me and Rocket to go on a routine patrol, and we can use that to get you into a TIE, get it undocked - and while you're kicking up the engines and checking everything I'll give the signal for our little defectors' party."

"Stuff will get pretty chaotic after that, hopefully - ideally me and you both get on something with more range than a TIE, but if not I'll join you, we can grab a better ship planetside or lay low a bit, and if that doesn't work we'll have to split up. Don't worry about flying off without me in whatever ship you can grab. I can make my own way."

"Am I going to get shot at, in all this chaos?"

"Hope not, but it's fairly likely."

"Do I at least get a blaster?"

"Of course."

She hands one over.

She checks the safety and charge level before clipping it to her belt.

"Ready to go?"

"As I'll ever be." She picks up her helmet, sliding it back on - "I'll lead the way."

Helmet on.

"After you."

To the bay, then. There's an increasing level of tension in the halls - more stormtroopers with FA numbers - but their orders are accepted by the officer overseeing the launch deck, and Anathema leads Ellaita to one of the TIEs closest to the exit, gets her in, checks she can fly it, and - "Ready?"

"Ready."

She starts punching through the preflight checks.

And she steps out.

Ellaita's gotten the ship undocked and just about ready to fly - waiting for a go ahead that her path out is clear - when there's a weapon's discharge - another few - from near the officer's deck - 

Looks like the revolution is starting. There's a general rush to the other ships - the possibly loyal stormtroopers trying to shoot the rebels - a dull explosion, another, from elsewhere in the ship - 

And probably Anathema comes running straight for the TIE. Looks like there's not a clear path to a ship with a better range, right now.

Hopefully it is Anathema and not one of the others. She's taken her own helmet off, the visibility with it on is shit. She jams the hatch open and hovers just a bit off the ground.

Anathema rips her helmet off - looks like her, or else another of her clones with the same weathering and hair styling - and she jumps into the hatch, says, "It's Anathema, let's go," and moves to the gunner's seat.

Hatch closed, she guns the engines, rocketing around the hangar lineup and out into space.

"You any good on those guns?"

She shoots down one of the enemy TIEs - there's no identification codes being exchanged at this point, it's a huge mess, but she seems to know exactly which ones contain enemies, and their allied TIEs are coordinating bizarrely well - 

"Yes," she says, tightly. 

"Great. I prefer not getting glassed from orbit, so let's take out the turbolasers before we leave." She flips around to skim the tight to the hull of the carrier.

"Roger."

The ship's struggling to get point defense toward them - it's not a very coordinated response just yet - and there's a massive number of ships pouring out of assorted hangars - 

Anathema times all her shots apparently perfectly, so long as Ellaita can line them up, and they get covering fire from several other TIEs as enemies try to get on their tails. A few TIEs peel off to go after the turbolasers farther from them.

"Are you talking to them? I don't hear any chatter."

"Telepathic," she says, voice a bit tight, gaze darting around. "This's a bit more than I've done before."

"Shit, is everyone in this uniform superstitious? First you come to Jakku on a ghost hunt, now you're using telepathy."

She snorts. "Once we're clear I'll have some of my friends fly funny patterns for you," she says, cheerfully. Then a squint, and a cluster of allied TIEs breaks apart in a complicated maneuver, taking down several enemies that had been approaching them.

"You have got to be kidding me- I'm suddenly a lot more reluctant to go back to Jakku if Vader's ghost actually is hanging around down there."

"Oh, so that's who Lord Dumbass was after?"

"All he would talk about, really- Incoming at two-ten!"

She flips her guns over, shoots it down - "So were you trying - " another blast from her guns - "To beat us to her?"

"Beat you to whatever, really. Resistance didn't have much intel, just a location." She spins the TIE to line up another shot.

She fires again, and again - the other TIEs keep moving in their complicated patterns, assisting, and they're just about winning, have nearly entirely destroyed the ship's ability to trivially pursue them - 

"So I guess - " fire " - you wanna get that info back to them?"

"That'd be ideal. Also that, y'know, they're using clones."

"Mind if I come with?" she asks, sending off another quick burst of shots.

"I don't see why not. You're a fair shot."

"Been told I'm a good navigator, too." They have a clear stretch now, approaching the last turbolaser. 

"Think you can plot us a course down to that planet there?"

There's another wave of enemy ships - the response seems to be getting coordinated - Anathema shoots another ship, then: "I'll try."

"I can make it down on my own if you're busy..." She flips them out of the way of incoming fire.

"A bit."

The enemy ships seem to have somehow concluded they need to shoot down Ellaita and Anathema in particular. It's very obnoxious.

Just a bit.

But she has always wanted to put one of these things through their paces from the other side of the fight.

They get clear of the ship, winding toward the planet - Anathema seems to be focusing now on outright disabling the First Order's Star Destroyer, any ability to strike at Jakku, any ability to send pursuit after the fleeing stormtroopers - the two of them aren't the only ones who'll have to land and seek passage out, after all.

Explosions ripple along the Star Destroyer - Anathema flinches a few times, face drawn and unhappy, but she keeps shooting down any enemy TIEs with an almost nonchalant efficiency - their allied TIEs are breaking off with them, keeping near enough to defend, the handful of allied ships capable of jumping to hyperspace split between doing so and turning to join the TIEs in their descent (determined by how full they are, it'll be best if they can just regroup the TIE pilots - )

(Rocket dies, still on the Star Destroyer - she hadn't planned to leave, and a massive explosion tears out from the armory, from her body - )

Anathema flinches hard and misses her next shot.

Their enemy doesn't.

The bolt collides with their TIE - another, right at the weak points. Hull integrity isn't compromised, not yet, but steering to a graceful landing will be nearly impossible, and they need a few more seconds before it's safe to eject -

"Going down!" she snaps. "Helmets!" She grabs hers and jams it on. A second with her hands off the yoke isn't going to matter at this point.

She's gasping, shaking - her focus disrupts at several other points, she's scrambling to keep her people together, still coordinated, to keep the last dregs of rebellion on the ship alive as long as possible - doing as much damage as possible, they're going to die and they know it but she promised to make it worth it -

It almost doesn't occur to her that she needs to keep her usual body alive, too. Ellaita's words register in her brain shallowly - but just enough, and Anathema shoves her helmet on purely through muscle memory.

The altimeter dings, almost lost amid the general uproar as she attempts to wrestles the TIE onto a course that gives them the best of "soft" and "close to shelter" known as "survivable".

"Punch out!" she calls. "Punch out, punch out!"

It takes her a moment -

She reorients herself, gives a warning and then withdraws her mind from all but the most essential -

She punches out, feeling like she's in a dream.

Ellaita- discovers her seat is jammed. "Fuck fuck fuck." She grabs for her blaster, shoots out the canopy, feels along the back of the seat for the chute- which is integrated, damn.

Okay, explosive bolts should be... here and here, oh fuck this is going to suck-

Two rapid shots later, she's spinning through the air, away from the crashing ship.

It's two heart-pounding moments before the parachute deploys.

Elsewhere, Anathema hits sand.

It's mid-morning. The region's already scorching hot, and it's only going to get worse over the next few hours. Enough to overwhelm even the armor's climate control.

Her mind jars loose. She stumbles away from her eject seat, falls to her hands and knees, and tries not to vomit.

She'd been -

Leading a revolution.

She can't grab anyone now. Her head's pounding. It feels turned inside out. Scraped raw.

She was -

With Ellaita Dameron. Pretty, possibly Anathema's ticket into the Dawn Resistance - into punching Lord Asshat in the face, she doubts he had enough courtesy to go down with his ship. Important, Anathema had known that as soon as Lord Dickwad brought her on board. A key to her plans, maybe - Anathema's always getting gut feelings like that -

She didn't eject with Anathema. She's not in sight.

It's Anathema's fault they got shot down.

Anathema stumbles to her feet, head spinning, and tries to orient enough to say -

Where is she.

She always finds her way. Her head's killing her, every attempt to ask, to focus, sends her mind spinning dizzily -

No matter. She'll have to look the old fashioned way.

She pulls a map with her projected location off the eject seat's tiny computer. Orients herself to north, marks distance to the nearest village, nearest lookout point, nearest survivable shelter... Mentally reorients where they'd been when she ejected, where the ship had been going -

And she starts walking. Away from the village. She doesn't think Ellaita went that way.

The armor can keep her alive a hell of a lot longer than a human body can last alone out here, and Anathema's breathing steady - she's always been good at working through discomfort, pain, thirst -

She has to force herself to go curl up in a sand-croc's hole when the worst heat sweeps in shortly after noon, making her armor's monitoring systems start screaming at her about heat stroke. She keeps her blaster ready in case the beast comes back. Her head's fuzzy, her mouth's dry.

She waits just long enough her suit stops beeping at her, that the temperature drops to 'technically survivable' -

She keeps looking -

She doesn't find Ellaita Dameron. She does find a village near where several of her girls' TIEs landed - safely, thank fuck - and they're so glad to see her, they want to know what to do now.

Anathema's exhausted. Her mind feels turned inside out.

"We go to the Dawn Resistance," she says, voice distant from herself. "We have important information for them."

She leaves Jakku before the next morning.

Ellaita wakes up somewhere cool and not even particularly dry. It's kinda dark, but there's a soft breeze, and the fan responsible isn't obnoxiously loud. There's a goop of some kind on her shoulder, what feels like bandages wrapped around it.

There's also a soft sound of things rustling. Metal against metal. Something sliding against cloth.

And then a girl's voice, a bit soft: "You awake?"

"Mrm. Think so."

"Your shoulder's fucked," she says, "And I'm not allowed to try Force-healing people anymore. But I think it'll heal on its own if you keep it still. Got some stuff on it, though it's not as good as bacta. So you probably shouldn't thrash around a bunch or anything."

"Yeah, well, if you don't try to torture me I won't thrash around, how about that? Had enough of that for a while..."

"I won't."

"You'll be safe here, whatever you're running from. No one finds us who I don't lead over."

"Great." She groans. Shoulder does ache.

"You didn't see anyone else in the area?"

"Some ships flying overhead. No one landed near us, though."

She slumps a little.

"All right."

"Looking for someone?"

"There was another person in the ship. Hope she got out."

"Huh."

"My Master's really good at finding people. We can ask her to check around."

"That'd be good. But if she survived and didn't find the wreck, she's probably gone."

"Oh. She wouldn't have kept looking?"

"We only met about an hour before the crash. She had other things going on too."

She nods. "Well, my Master can probably at least figure out if she's alive."

Frown.

"...Didn't think there were slaves on Jakku."

"...Oh. I'm not a slave. She's my Master like - master of the craft, or headmaster of a school. But it's just us here, not a full school."

"Studying out here? What, desertcraft?"

"The Force! She's really good at it, even if she's a weird hermit. She says spaces without a lot of sapients around are a good place to learn to listen to yourself."

"I'd say there was something in the water if there wasn't such a distinct lack of it around here..." she mutters.

"What's so weird about it?"

"Of the last five people I've met on or around this planet, four have had some kind of tale to tell me about what the rest of the galaxy considers a mystical superstition."

She giggles.

...And several packages start floating in front of Ellaita's face.

"Can you put those down please."

"Sure. I don't drop things, though, even when doing silly obstacle courses."

Still, she floats the packages back to their resting places. They do little pirouettes on the way.

"Thanks."

"No problem."

She pauses then, looking up and making a curious noise.

"Oh, my Master's coming back already."

"How can you tell?"

Smirk. "The Force."

"That's not an answer."

"Maybe my Master will take you as a padawan too, then. Answer all your questions."

"I don't think I'll be sticking around that long."

Shrug. "Suit yourself."

And then the hairs on the back of Ellaita's neck raise, like something's watching her...

And a blue, glowing, translucent woman manifests in the middle of the room - looks at Ellaita, her eyes go wide, her expression shocked - it's not so much in her face, but she seems pained -

She vanishes.

"...Huh. Normally she doesn't pop right back out."

"What the hell was that!"

"My Master. She's a Force ghost."

...Fucking Vader.

She slumps back with a groan.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. I've, uh heard about your teacher. When she was alive."

"Oh."

"She's not Vader anymore. She really regrets having ever been that person."

"Great, that makes me feel a whole lot better."

"...I can tell her you're not comfortable with her coming back, though, and get you to a village myself."

"-The other thing is, I sort of came to this planet in the first place to find her. Before I knew she was... who I was looking for."

"So maybe you'll be okay talking to her if she doesn't surprise you, then?"

"Let's go with yes."

"Okay."

"You can tell me when you're ready to talk to her - she might not be ready right away though... She seemed really surprised even though I warned her you were here. Possibly your Force signature reminded her of someone, last time she really freaked out like that was when she met me..."

"Yeah..."

"Do you have anything to drink?"

"Yeah. Water, juice, tea..."

"And I guess I can actually properly explain stuff that's going on."

"Juice would be good, thanks."

Juice! In a bottle with a sipper tip. It's at least cool.

The girl also gets up and turns up some lamps so there's more light in the room as she gets Ellaita her juice. "So, uh, you asked how I knew she was coming earlier - I can actually explain that if you want to hear the answer? Or I could talk about my Master some, but... I don't know there's much to say that isn't private."

"How about the former?"

She nods and starts making herself tea while she talks. "So the Force isn't this weird mystical thing. We don't know a ton about it, but there's a lot of stuff about the universe we don't know yet. That just means we need to keep studying."

"It's hard to build machines that can sense it, though, and really hard to make anything inorganic interact with it, so that also keeps it from being really - in the common consciousness? Except as a religion thing. Like, humans can't sense electromagnetic fields either, but everyone can use magnets, so anyone with an education knows how magnets work."

"Feeling things in the Force and doing things with it isn't weird mystic mumbo-jumbo, either, though some people like to dress it up or are making things up because they don't really understand what they're doing. It's pretty much an energy field, though none of the books I have or that Master Anakin's ever read had mathematical models for it. It's really diffuse, and it's everywhere, even in a vacuum - some writers talk about it being stronger in some places, but I don't know if that's exactly the thing. There's definitely different qualities it can have, which can make it hard to feel sometimes."

"Some people can sense the Force, though usually only really weakly, and some people can manipulate it. Like those species that can see and interact with electromagnetic fields. Or like us - lots of species can't hear things. Sensing the Force isn't usually a species thing, though, or - almost all species have some ability to sense it, and how much you can feel it varies between individuals. And training can make you better at using the abilities you have, and can maybe also increase them."

"I'm one of the people who can affect things with the Force, and so's Master Anakin. People feel a certain way in the Force, like how they look and sound a certain way, and it's possible to recognize individuals - and some people resemble each other. Usually family members do a bit. Sometimes I guess you get weird coincidences? Like I feel almost exactly like someone Master Anakin used to know, minus the types of things that change over your life, even though we don't think I'm genetically related to him. It's possible how you feel in the Force is related to your personality or how you tend to think, but we're not sure of that. But because of the Force signatures, I can tell where Master Anakin is, roughly, especially if she's close or I'm focusing on her."

"And because the Force isn't limited to line of sight or anything, one of the things you can do if you can manipulate it is send messages to people. It's harder to send messages to just one person, but you don't have to actually interact with the conventional space between two points in the Force if you know what you're doing. So if you're careful, you can change the Force just around one person, and you can make a sort of resonance between two people - called a bond - which makes keeping an eye on and talking to each other easier."

"...A more coherent explanation than I was expecting."

"When we decide it's time to leave Jakku I'm going to join a university or something as a Force physicist. Or whatever we decide the correct term is for someone doing science to it."

"That'll turn some heads."

She laughs. "Might help me get funding. Or I might have to face down the ridicule of my colleagues with the power of a firm faith in the scientific method."

"Most likely that last, I have to be honest with you."

"I'll win them over eventually. Or just show them up."

"Bet you will."

She giggles a little. "Do you wanna know anything else?"

"How long have you been learning about this?"

"About a decade. So probably since I was like three or four? Though we're not sure how old I was when Master Anakin found me."

"But 'cause I was a kid for most of that I haven't been learning very efficiently. Had to learn to read and stuff before I could study the texts Master Anakin found, and I'm studying everything, not just the Force - only a really tiny handful of my books are about it, though that's also because Master Anakin had trouble finding a lot of the ones she's ever read..."

"Jakku isn't exactly a center of learning."

"Yeah. It's sometimes easier to feel small things in the Force when you're not around a lot of people - even people who aren't very Force sensitive can make, like, noise in it. But it'd be nice to be somewhere quiet with a big library."

"Master Anakin says we're not ready to leave just yet, though, so I'm also learning about patience."

"Right."

She drinks the rest of her juice.

"...Think I'm ready to see her again."

She nods. "I'll let her know."

And then her gaze goes distant a bit, her expression focused like she's listening to something very faint and far away.

And the Force ghost manifests again - farther away from Ellaita this time, posture still wary and unsure.

"...Good morning," she says.

Her voice doesn't sound a lot like what you'd expect Darth Vader to sound like. Smoother, more pleasant, more quiet.

"Is it morning? I'm a bit disconnected from the local diurnal rhythm."

"More or less, though we'll tip over into the afternoon soon enough."

"Good morning to you, then."

She nods, slowly. "What's your name?"

"Ellaita Dameron."

"I'm Anakin Skywalker."

She glances at her apprentice, and - "This is Lily."

"...Nice to meet you."

She nods.

"It's - nice to meet you, too."

"The First Order is looking for you. They think you're a weapon."

"...I'm not. And I never will be again."

"You should go tell your cosplaying fanboy that, then."

"My grandson isn't inclined to listen to me."

"Your gr- Oh this week just gets better and better."

"They do that."

"Fucking hell."

"Did he hurt you?"

"It was only a couple hours of trying to scoop my brain out through my ears with his mind. No big deal."

"I'm sorry."

"There's ways you can keep him even farther out, if you want to learn."

"How could you teach me, I don't have your Force talent or whatever."

"It's very rare for humans to have no Force talent at all - sapients who entirely lack an ability to connect to the Force are also usually significantly harder to mentally affect with it. And a lot of keeping someone out would just involve mental exercises - organizing, refining, and strengthening your will."

"Also... I think you're capable of far more, especially with some training. Not just explicitly sensing things in the Force, but even manipulating it."

If skepticism had a face, it would be Ellaita's.

"You don't believe me?"

"Not really, no."

"Why not?"

"Because I have never before had cause to think that I had such power?"

"Some people process it only subconsciously, or only after they think to start looking, or only after significant effort, or when they're in great distress."

"Our minds are constantly gathering and analyzing information that doesn't come into our knowing focus, except as a gut feeling if a pattern seems to be emerging. This goes for all senses, of which feeling the Force is just one. And even just a mild sense of the Force can help boost that tremendously. Better reflexes, a concept of those around you, where they are, what they feel... More intuition for things you can't consciously perceive. Good instincts. Good guesses."

"So luck is Force sensitivity?"

"Depends on what you mean by luck. Some lucky things are other people making their own decisions, or are the result of complex processes you don't have enough information to predict. Some are your own ability to spot opportunities or how the world shifts - and Force sensitivity is one of many things that helps that."

"Uh-huh. Well, I don't have ten years to sit around and listen to animals breathing, so it's a moot question anyway. I need to find a way offplanet, or at least get a message out."

"I can help, then. And..." She glances at Lily. "I think it might be time for us to make our own way off planet."

"Wicked! Finally."

"Where are you planning on going?"

"I'm not entirely sure, yet. It depends on what's going on in the wider galaxy."

"But Jacen - Lord Inkil, I think he's calling himself - can't be allowed to carry on like this."

"The resistance can use whatever information you have about him."

She nods. "It - might not be much. I died before he was born, and I've been leery of trying to spy on him."

"I know far more about anything that happened during my life, but - that does include some of the powers and artifacts he's grasping for."

"That would help, if we can get a step ahead of him."

She nods. (She doesn't seem very happy.)

Plausibly the only thing worse than having to work with the actual ghost of the most infamous mass murderer in recent galactic history is having to be the actual ghost of the most infamous mass murderer in recent galactic history, so like, fair enough.

"Is it alright if we accompany you back?"

"To the resistance?"

"Yes. Wherever you're going."

"...Sure, I guess." Half her original mission done, anyway. Get to the weapon before the First Order.

"Thank you."

"I can encourage your shoulder to heal at least a little with the Force, and we can brace it regardless. I can go now and get us a ship capable of hyperspace travel and bring it here, if you trust my judgement on which and don't mind theft, or we can wait until nightfall to travel."

"If I'm going to be flying a ship, I want to see it first."

Small smile. "Very reasonably so - we have a speeder, so we can cover the distance better than on foot, at least, but it's not climate controlled."

"Oh good."

"If you can scout unobtrusively, it'd be a good idea to do that."

"I can, though it's a bit harder if there's anyone around who's trained in the Force."

"The person I'm most concerned about is apparently trained in the Force, so."

"He never bothers to hide himself, and - I'm very familiar with him. I can avoid anywhere he's at."

"Just finding out if he's around or not would be enough."

She hums, gaze going distant, and - "He's not in this solar system, though I think some of his officers still are."

"That's some range."

"Force powers can act at a distance. The main barrier to making that a nearly arbitrary distance is mental."

"That sounds like some serious bullshit."

She definitely looks amused.

"The Force isn't the only thing in the universe that can produce information and effects regardless of distance, though at least we have decent mathematical models for the other things that do - mostly admittedly 'entangled particles.'"

"You can't use other effects just by thinking about them."

"Using the Force is an action, not very different from moving limbs to press a button - they're exactly the same to me, nowadays."

"Still no external apparatus."

"It's part of the universe we exist in. That means things within the universe influence it - including living beings, directly and intentionally so if their biology supports it."

"Okay? That doesn't really change my point. You could scan a system with a hyperwave pulse or whatever, but you'd have to have a broadcaster and a receiver and a computer to analyze the signal. That's not just built into the way people are."

Nod. "We don't know yet what part of biology actually allows us to interface with the Force - or why I can exist and have internal experiences despite being probably only composed of whatever makes up the Force. Lily has some conjectures, but - they're directions to research in. Nothing conclusive."

Shrug.

Then a wince for her injured shoulder.

She gives Ellaita a moderately concerned look. "Is it alright if I heal your shoulder with the Force?"

"Go for it."

She steps closer, hand drifting to hover over Ellaita's hurt shoulder. "This might feel a bit strange," she says, and -

Closes her eyes, focusing. Breathing deeply, though it's extremely unlikely she actually needs oxygen.

Ellaita feels -

Warm. Seen. Appreciated. (There's something reserved, tightly leashed behind that - )

It's a really nice, cozy feeling, and her shoulder doesn't hurt at all, even though it's clearly still injured. Then -

It's not. The wound knits together and smooths over. Ellaita feels excellent, all her exhaustion gone, all her lingering physical discomfort lifted - sores, bruises, scraps that hadn't really kept her from functioning but sure had been unpleasant. The persistent headache that's been threatening since Inkil invaded her mind is removed with barely a whisper - the assorted mental side effects, too, though her memories are entirely untouched. Just... No echoes of what happened. She isn't thirsty anymore, or suffering from lingering heat exhaustion, or even hungry.

It's better than having just woken up after a good night's sleep and a lovely vacation. It's like the best energetic high she's ever gotten from a dogfight, minus the weird things adrenaline can do to her body.

And then Anakin withdraws from her. Some of the warmth dissipates. The emotional bits, at least. Ellaita still feels better than she ever has.

"Shit, if you could bottle that, you'd make millions."

"Maybe make that a stretch goal," she says with a broad smile. 

She peels off the bandage to take a look.

"That feels... really good, wow."

There's still some crusted gunk and dried blood, which itches a little when she moves and which mostly peels away with the bandage. The skin under is whole - not even shiny and new. Just healthy. 

"I'm glad."

She prods at the skin.

"Very slick."

Skin feels normal and has normal sensation. 

"It's possible to do that for yourself, too."

"If one is Force sensitive."

"Some of the basics should be learnable at least."

"I guess we're waiting for nightfall anyway."

She nods. "There's not even opportunity costs."

Sigh. "Fine."

"Do you know how to meditate?"

She shakes her head.

"That's the first step then."

She sets Lily to working on her centering exercises again, then walks Ellaita through instructions on how to meditate. The basics at first, of course. Correct posture. Leveled breathing. Awareness and then relaxation of your muscles. Quieting the jumbled noise in your mind. Existing as yourself, right now, firmly in your body. 

(She explains the angles for approaching it she knows Elesse favored, even though that hurts.)

Ellaita seems to be having trouble with the quieting her mind part. Elesse's approaches aren't helping.

Hm.

That... Helps a bizarre amount. Helps Anakin feel less like she's dissociating while talking to a ghost.

...Well.

Anakin is a ghost.

Actual ghost Elesse would be - more straightforward. More devastating.

Ellaita thinking differently from Elesse helps Anakin stop feeling like she's hallucinating.

She pauses the teaching very early, as soon as she can tell Ellaita's struggling. "Do you like being active?" she asks. "I was - using the method I was taught, but there's other ways. Working with machines. Fighting. Exercising. Focusing on - any task at all. Examining something and filling your mind with that, rather than with just yourself."

"...I always did best while I was fighting or flying. The important thing is - focus. Clarity."

"...I guess my head always feels clearest when I'm flying."

"Does anything else get you close? - I might be able to keep you comfortable for a bit on the speeder, even in the heat..."

"That works too, usually, but it's literally the hottest part of the day right now."

"Fair. One thing I don't miss about being made of flesh and blood."

She hums. "Flying's out until we have the ship, then, and that might not be the safest time to start experimenting anyways... What part of flying helps you focus?"

"Dunno. The whole thing?"

Hum.

"I can explain some things to pay attention to next time we get you in a pilot's seat... But for now - some other things we can try are you sparring hand to hand or with a weapon against Lily, you sparring with a weapon with me, practing shooting on a range... We could work on a project - there's some minor things that could use fixing. Or..."

"An option that's usually very fast is directly guided meditation. It'd involve mental communication. I could show you my mind, if you don't want me more than brushing against yours, to demonstrate the ideal mindset. I could monitor the broad shape of your mind and try to tell which parts you're having trouble on. That wouldn't give me access to any memories or thoughts."

"Or I could guide your mind directly, though fewer people are comfortable with that."

"Let's try some of the first options."

"Do you already know any martial arts?"

"No, but I'm pretty good with a blaster."

"I can try to teach you to use a staff or a knife, if you want more options in a fight, or we can work with meditative aiming."

"Don't think I want to get all the way into that today, so just aiming."

She nods. "Since you already know how to focus while aiming... Why don't we see if you can shoot me with your eyes closed."

"...Perhaps in a different room, though."

"Good idea." She gets up.

She tells Lily to call if she needs anything, then leads Ellaita into a long open room - by the shielded weapon racks on the walls and assortment of old targets set up at one end, it seems to be a training room. Albeit a fairly low-tech one.

"Choose whichever blaster you're most comfortable with and stand in the middle of the room," Anakin says.

She grabs one of the familiar older models and goes to the center of the room.

"A good choice," she murmurs, and - "You won't be able to hurt me, even if you hit me."

"Close your eyes and then take aim. Try to use your other senses."

She shuts her eyes and fires in the direction the ghost's voice came from.

"Hit," she says, "You have good spatial memory."

And then her voice is coming from behind and to the right of Ellaita. A bit farther away. "But I won't always,"

To her left, slightly ahead, "Stay in one place."

There's no sound of her moving.

She pauses a moment, then fires in a random direction.

"Close," comes the ghost's voice from near where she fired. "Try to anticipate where - "

And her voice moves, "I'll be next."

'Anticipate where I'm going to be next' yeah that's both helpful advice and totally possible.

She takes a guess based on how the voice has been moving.

"Close, but not quite."

The hairs on the back of Ellaita's neck stand on end. 

She whips around and fires a shot.

"Hit!"

And it's almost like the final pop on the 't' is coming from a little bit to Ellaita's left -

Blam!

"Hit."

There's - probably not a sound of air displacing, Anakin's a ghost - a bit behind and to Ellaita's left, a bit far from her -

Shot.

She might be getting the hang of this.

"Hit!"

And -

Not quite so many clues, next, but Ellaita's focused, and - this is almost like feeling the flow of a dogfight around her, Vader's ghost starts dodging her shots but -

She's about to be over there - there's no evidence just the flow of her motions -

She starts to lose herself in the rhythm of spin-shoot-hit.

The difficulty slowly escalates, keeping up just barely ahead of Ellaita's current instincts - Ellaita usually gets a few hits before the difficulty escalates again. (She gets into 'ridiculous' levels when she starts giving Ellaita a dual sensation, someone in both locations at once - then Anakin after that has the same pair of sensations and her own signature muffled - )

Anakin seems content to do this as long as Ellaita wants.

She starts getting a bit tired after an hour or two.

She winds the session to a halt then. "You did very well."

"Thanks." She puts the borrowed blaster back.

"Do you have a sense of what I meant earlier?"

"...Maybe a bit."

"Those same instincts can be worked on. Expanded. Just that is enough for many people, though as you push at and develop your senses you'll be able to manipulate things as well."

"Right."

"It's also significantly easier if you already believe you can."

"Uh-huh."