Chapter Text
Finn stood in the middle of the bustling marketplace at Niima Outpost. It was warm and dry, hot like a fryer, and the whirling sand from the streets got stuck in his throat whenever he opened his mouth to speak. The dusty streets around him were filled with merchants selling everything from dried fruit to ration packages and engine oils from small stands. Customers circulated the stands like animals huddling around a watering hole, a blend of locals, migrant workers, scavengers, and off-world smugglers, all too busy to even notice the robe-clad padawan.
It was just past nine in the morning, and the heat was already relentless.
Jakku lived up to its reputation, Finn mused. A poor hellhole under a scorching sun with a small population. Many were without means and lived from day to day by scavenging the metal skeletons of the Galactic Empire’s fallen star destroyers and the Rebellion’s crashed battleships.
From where Finn stood, he could see the new concession stand on the outskirts of the outpost. The new owners had rebuilt it in exactly the same spot as the old one. A few meters away, out in the desert, he spotted the remains of the deformed, unusable pieces from the old stand. It seemed like the new owners hadn’t even been bothered to have the debris removed.
Two years ago, there was a massacre at Niima Outpost. Unkar Plutt, a local junk boss, was deemed by the local militia to be the target of the attack. Plutt was killed along with several of his men, but while the cold-hearted crolute might have been the primary target, he wasn’t the only one who died. Several independent scavengers, militiamen, local civilians, and unfortunate bystanders had also fallen victim to the merciless perpetrator.
An eye witness had said the perpetrator was a single cloaked figure who had approached the junk boss’ heavily armed stand from the desert. The stranger had set the building on fire and slaughtered everybody in sight.
Finn closed his eyes and took a deep breath to calm his mind and tune in with the Force.
As he searched in the echo of the past through the Force, he sensed a mixture of different emotions; despair, sorrow, and anger, but first and foremost, fear. The fear and panic of all those innocent people who were killed during the attack felt in their last moments.
Finn shuddered unwillingly, despite the heat. The massacre had truly been a horrible bloodshed. While there was nothing he could do to prevent the victim’s unfortunate death, he could at least try to bring them justice.
“I’ll do my best,” Finn silently vowed as he gazed out over the desert behind the concession stand. “For all of you”.
“Hey, you’re Finn, the Jedi right?” a voice spoke out behind him.
Finn turned around and was met by a young man with blonde hair, dressed in a mismatched outfit composed of beige linen rags, leather scraps, and sturdy cloth.
“I’m Sam, the guide,” the man said with a polite smile. “Hsu from the Church of the Force reached out to me, said you guys could use some help”.
“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied with a nod. “You can take me to Cratertown, right?”
“Yep,” Sam replied, making a gesture to a well-used green speeder with four seats. “Just hop on and we’ll get going! Better hurry, ‘cause I hear a sandstorm is on its way”.
“Right”. Finn tossed his backpack into the backseat before he climbed into the dented speeder. On the dashboard, he spotted a small bobblehead figure that looked suspiciously like Master Luke’s famous brother-in-law.
“Han Solo?” Finn asked with a nod to the figure.
“Yeah. I made it myself,” Sam said with a proud grin as he sat down in the driver’s seat and tapped the figure, making its head bobble. “I’m a big fan”.
“Yeah, I heard he’s popular around here,” Finn chuckled.
“You bet! He’s a legend among the smugglers”.
Sam then pushed the throttle, and the speeder took off with a roar. It was surprisingly swift and Finn had to use the seatbelt to keep himself from bouncing around in the backseat.
While he drove, Sam talked constantly. He told Finn about his parents, two migrant workers coming to Jakku to set up moisture collectors on the behalf of the local clan. After the job was done, they started working in the recycling business and they now worked for a junk trader in Niima Outpost, exporting spare parts and valuable materials to the core worlds.
Sam also revealed that there was an enormous demand on the black market in the core worlds for war memorabilia; things like insignias, officer’s uniforms, and helmets from special forces.
“A regular stormtrooper helmet isn’t worth anything. But, say you get your hands on a helmet from a Death Trooper or even a Purge Trooper, then we’re talking big money! I know a guy who sold one of those for like thirty-thousand credits to some high roller on Corelia, can you believe that?”
“I don’t see why anyone would want to have that kind of thing at home,” Finn muttered.
The Galactic Empire had brought so much suffering to the galaxy. His stomach turned when he thought about how the Purge Troopers had hunted down the Jedi in the past. Killing the defenseless younglings, the padawans and the remaining Knights in cold blood, and then, almost thirty years later, some people bought the weapons and the equipment of those killers and put it on display like it was a statue or a piece of art?
Macabre. That was what it was, he thought to himself.
“So, is there anything special you hope to find out in the desert?”
“I don’t know,” Finn replied, and it was not a lie. He didn’t know what he was looking for. Anything, anything at all that could help him answer why the massacre occurred and, most importantly, who committed it, and could the killer pose a threat to the revived Jedi Order?
Did Unkar Plutt meet his fate by bad luck, or design?
Was it a Sith, a bloodthirsty darksider, or just a regular madman?
“Hsu said you guys were investigating the massacre at the Concession Stand”.
Finn nodded. “We do. Do you know anything about the massacre?”.
“I didn’t see it myself,” Sam said. “I arrived at Niima Outpost late in the afternoon, and I almost got a heart attack when I saw the destruction, and all the… blood.” He swallowed as he gave Finn an uneasy gaze. “There were still some… body parts lying on the street”.
“It was just awful,” he continued. ”I thought to myself, this can’t be real. I must be dehydrated and hallucinating...”.
Finn nodded in silence as he listened to Sam’s story. Everybody he had spoken to since he arrived on Jakku said the same thing; a dark phantom came from the desert and slaughtered everyone in sight.
Even the Hutt clan that ruled Jakku was worried. His mentor, Jedi Knight Voe, had managed to get an audience with the leader of the clan earlier in the week and although they couldn’t give her any straightforward answers, they said they would have known if the murder belonged to one of their rivals.
Niima Outpost hadn’t seen such violence since the war, people said. Many still remembered the Battle of Jakku. It was the reason why the planet was littered with the wreckages of star destroyers, corvettes, fighter ships, transport vehicles, and bomber ships. They laid halfway burrowed into the sand, some fanned open like carcasses.
As they entered the Goazon Badlands, Finn caught sight of three thin figures making their way into the open wreckage of a lone fallen destroyer.
”Scavengers,” Sam said with a nod to the children. ”Many of them live in makeshift houses in the desert. It barely pays enough to stay alive these days, but it’s better than being a slave for the hutts”.
After nearly thirty years of scavenging, most of the valuable materials and parts had already been taken. It pushed the remaining junk pickers and scavengers deeper and deeper into the most dangerous areas of the wreckages in search of anything sellable.
Finn shook his head. ”It’s horrible”.
It made him sad to see such poverty.
Although Jakku often was referred to as a ’backwater planet in the middle of nowhere’, it was actually located in the Western Reaches, a region that belonged to the Inner Rim. While there was poverty on Coruscant, Corellia, Hosnian Prime, and the other core worlds, too, it wasn’t like this; whole families living in make-shift homes out in the open desert without water, electricity, and proper sanitary provisions.
The uneasy feeling followed Finn as they reached their first stop; Cratertown. It was one of Jakku’s oldest settings and the home of both scavengers, miners, and migrant workers employed in the metal industry. The town mainly consisted of rectangular buildings in a cluster, made of clay and sandstone. Above the rooftops, weather-beaten red banners fluttered in the air.
Just like Niima Outpost, the inhabitants of Cratertown had a ‘mind-your-own-business‘ mindset, and few were willing to speak to strangers. Finn and Sam wandered around the city, stopping at the marketplace, the local cantina, and a few shops. They also visited the newly built kelsium gas refinery just outside the town.
But no matter where they went, the answers remained the same and as the hours went by, Finn grew increasingly frustrated.
Eventually, they ended up at Ergel’s bar, a place frequented by miners, mostly humans and uthuthmas, a native sentient species. The bar was like a dark cave. Its walls were made of some kind of material similar to concrete and the furniture reminded Finn of an ancient factory with old, scratchy metal chairs and tables illuminated by weak, industrial lighting. Instead of glasses, they served the drinks in metal jugs and there was only one kind of beverage on the menu; Knockback Nectar.
The bartender was an old man in his middle sixties, clad in a white linen shirt, brown cargo pants, and an old, stained leather apron. He had a weary expression on his face and when Finn and Sam entered the bar, he raised an eyebrow and gave them a skeptical gaze. It was obvious that off-worlders didn’t come often to Cratertown.
“Have you heard anything about the massacre at Niima Outpost?” Finn asked.
“I thought after the war ended, Jakku had seen enough senseless violence,” he said in a tired voice. “Unless you boys are going to buy a drink, I have nothing else to say”.
The young Jedi sighed within. The galaxy would be a much better place if people were a little more cooperative and helpful to each other... Fortunately, he was a warrior of the light and if he could use his power to make other people do good, he would do so without hesitation.
“You feel helpful today,” Finn said as he pinned his gaze on the bartender, channeling the force into every single word. “Tell me what you heard”.
The older man blinked. For a split second, it looked like he was about to object, and Finn felt how his shoulders tensed. But then the man put down the rag and spoke again.
“The massacre was nothing but the deed of a lone madman. An outsider coming here, looking for blood”.
Sam sat down at one of the metal chairs at the bar desk, his gaze alternating between Finn and the barkeep.
“Do strangers often come here?”.
“Other than you?” the man replied, and Finn’s already thin patience dwindled further.
“I’m here to help make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he explained in a calm voice. “Help me find answers”.
“Strangers come and go on Jakku all the time,” the bartender continued. “Most of the off-worlders who come all the way out here are treasure seekers”.
“Treasure seekers?” Finn inquired.
“Yes. It’s said that the Emperor’s most valuable treasure was stolen and hidden on Jakku after the war”.
Finn was baffled; this was completely new information to him. He turned his gaze to Sam, who just shook his head.
“That’s just crazy rumors,” he said, waving his hand in the air as if to illustrate just how far-fetched the idea was.
Finn was inclined to believe him. It was known that the Emperor had secret stashes of valuable objects. Master Luke himself had discovered one on Pillio, for example. But that someone had stolen and buried his ‘most valuable treasure’ on Jakku?
It didn’t seem plausible.
“Like I said. Treasure hunters have come here for over ten years, searching through all the old bases and settlements from the war”, the bartender grunted and returned to wiping the bar counter with the old rag. “But as far as I know, nobody has found anything yet”.
“What did you do to him?” Sam asked as soon as they stepped out of the bar. “I’ve seen nothing like that before!”.
“It’s the Force,” Finn revealed. “He just needed a little nudge in the right direction”.
Sam looked at the Jedi as if he just had revealed that magic existed.
“Wow, that’s just….”.
“I wished it could have been more helpful,” the padawan sighed. “I didn’t find out anything I didn’t already know. Well, except the treasure rumors, but that’s not what I’m here for”.
“How about Constable Zuvio?,” Sam suggested as they made their way back to the speeder. “Have you talked to him?”
“Spoke to him the first day we arrived here,” Finn replied in a tired voice.
Constable Zuvio was a kyuzo who kept order in Niima Outpost on behalf of the Hutt Clan. He had a strong sense of justice and he tried to help the two Jedis the best he could, but like the other settlers of the outpost, the massacre had severely shocked him and Zuvio didn’t have a clear memory of the timeline.
Afterward, the kyuzo had done his own investigation, trying to understand why such a disaster had occurred. Unkar Plutt had enemies, but none of them were capable of such violence. He also mentioned that neither Plutt’s rivals nor a regular bounty hunter would have killed both the guards from the militia and the civilians.
The perpetrator had been familiar with the outpost, but despite that, Zuvio was convinced that he, or possibly she, had been an outsider.
Just like the bartender at Ergel’s thought.
The sun stood low on the horizon. It was getting dark, and the wind was picking up. Small groups of miners in dirty overalls and workers from the refinery passed them on their way out of the town and the shops closed up one after another and the owners started boarding the windows.
“We better hurry back,” Sam said as he looked out over the desert with a troublesome look on his face. “It’s just a matter of time before we get sandblasted if we stay here”.
“Fine by me,” Finn said. “Just drop me off at Clinkenbeard’s Inn”.
Sam drove even faster on the way back and the small bobblehead figure wobbled furiously on the dash pad as he crossed between sand dunes and wreckages at a breathtaking speed. It was almost as bad as that one time when Finn flew with his friend Poe through the Shosho Belt.
While Finn was a man of many skills, there were two things he never had much luck with; The first one was flying. He had never gotten the hang of piloting, despite countless hours in different flight simulators. Well, he could fly freighter through a hyper-road from point A to B with the help of a good droid, but that was pretty much it.
The second was fencing. He trained and trained, but his skills improved hopelessly slowly despite his strength and excellent knowledge of the Force. Truth to tell, Finn thought his modest fencing skills were the only thing that kept Voe from letting him undertake the Trials of Knighthood and finally become a knight himself.
“Look,” Sam suddenly said, pointing his fingers at a collapsed AT-AT walker in the sand. “Many years ago, there lived a little girl there. An orphan. She used to work for Unkar Plutt”.
“That’s awful,” Finn replied as he peered at the fallen walker. It hardly seemed like an appropriate home for a child, or any other human, for that matter. “Where is she now?”
“Now?” the other man shrugged his shoulders. “Dead, most likely. She was just gone one day. Probably died while trying to extract rare metals from one of the destroyer’s engines. Still a lot of live wires down there...”.
Exhausted, Finn leaned back onto the passenger seat. He felt miserable just thinking about the little girl and the other children he had seen scavenging earlier in the day. The galaxy had certainly a big problem with inequality, Finn thought bitterly. While some people starved in the fruitless badlands of Jakku, others bought useless memorabilia for ridiculous amounts of credits.
He had certainly had his fill of hopelessness and misery for today.
When Sam dropped Finn off outside the inn, it was almost completely dark outside and the wind had picked up significantly since they left Cratertown.
The inn’s small cantina was old and rustic, decorated with recycled furniture and materials from the wreckages in the desert. Its walls and floor were made from cut sandstone and the floor was covered with old rugs that were so worn out that Finn could count the few threads that kept them together. The cantina was lit up by soft yellow lights in the ceiling and heavy red curtains made from repurposed imperial banners hung from the ceiling.
It was almost empty, except for an iktotchi and a quarren sitting at the bar counter, murmuring something to each other when Finn passed them by.
His mentor Voe waited for him in one of the booths. She seemed lost in her own thoughts where she sits, reading through a report on her holopad. At the small table in front of her, there was a metal tray with an untouched glass kettle of redbush tea and two small cups.
“How did it go?” she asked without looking up from the reports.
Finn let out a sigh as he slumped down onto the sturdy seat. “My local guide was very chatty. After two hours, I knew his complete life story. But, he couldn’t tell me something I didn’t already know about the massacre”.
Voe looked up and gave him a knowingly gaze. “I see”.
“What about you?”
While Finn had spent his day traveling the desert, Voe had visited Lor San Tekka and the Church of the Force at their settlement, a small village called Tuanul, at the ridge of the Kelvin Ravine. The members of the church lived a simple life; they rejected modern technology and sought to live a life close to nature, in harmony with the force. They lived in clay huts and practiced a gatherer-peasant lifestyle, growing cassava roots and white yams.
“A handful of them are mildly force sensitive,” Voe revealed. “They said they had a sense of ‘something being wrong’ and one boy described it as if a ‘cold hand’ grabbed his heart. But other than that, they knew nothing. San Tekka himself visited Niima Outpost two days after the attack, and by that point, the corpses had been removed and the locals had already begun to rebuild the destroyed buildings”.
Finn nodded. He had hoped that his mentor would return with more useful knowledge, but it seemed like they both had been unlucky.
“I wonder what more Master Skywalker expects us to discover here,” he sighed. “I’ve talked to at least twenty different people today and yet, I haven’t found out anything new”.
“Master Luke sent us here to determine if the perpetrator might pose a threat to the New Jedi Order,” Voe reminded him. “It could be a darksider”.
“From what I’ve seen on Jakku, the locals and the Hutt clans’ guards are ill-equipped and most of their weapons are over two decades old. A well-geared bounty hunter could probably have done the same damage to Niima Outpost with a flamethrower as our perpetrator did,” Finn argued.
“You’re not wrong”.
“But...?”.
“Our mission was to collect information,” Voe repeated.
“I know,” Finn nodded. “It just feels... like we failed if we don’t return with anything more than this”.
“Master Skywalker does not expect any miracle from us,” Voe said as she poured herself a cup of the rich, woody-smelling tea. “We do our best, and that’s it. If we find nothing here, we don’t”.
The next day, the sandstorm had reached full force. It ravaged the desert around the outpost, leaving them no choice but to stay inside.
“Well, we might as well start with the paperwork,” Voe said as she picked up her dicta-phone and recording while Finn slumped down on the lower bunk bed.
“Day five on Niima Outpost, Jakku. This is Jedi Knight Voe speaking. I and my padawan Finn were sent on a mission to locate traces of a possible dark force user who is believed to have committed the massacre in Niima Outpost two years ago. We know the perpetrator came from the desert in the evening, and that he attacked the owner of the concession stand. Once the stand was laid to ashes and its owner was dead, he worked his way to the center of the outpost and didn’t stop until he set everything on his way there to flames”.
Finn shifted on the uncomfortable bed as he listened to his mentor. When they had been given the mission, he had been excited, and anxious, to see if they could track down an actual darksider.
From the other Jedi Knights, Finn had heard stories about the Knights of Ren, a ruthless band of marauders who used the Dark Side of the force, and how Master Luke had single-handedly defeated all six of them on Elphrona.
The knights had been strong, yet their power in the force was nothing compared to the legendary Jedi Master. Still, Finn couldn’t help but wonder if they one day would run into a darksider who actually could pose a threat to the New Jedi Order. The Force always strived for balance, Master Luke said, and if so, didn’t it mean that the Dark Side of the Force eventually would conjure a warrior strong enough to rival the light?
“We have only found two eyewitnesses who survived the attack,” Voe continued, unconsciously playing with the end of one of her long braids. “They both say they saw a lone individual cloaked in black. The perpetrator was armed with…, and I quote, ‘a glowing, red spear’, according to the first witness”.
“I don’t think it’s a Sith,” Finn commented. “But whoever he, or she might be, that spear must have been a lightsaber”.
Voe shrugged.
“It could be,” she said, pressing pause on the recorder. “But it could also have been some kind of enchanted vibro-weapon, or maybe an electro-pike”.
“So, you don’t think it’s a Sith either?”.
His mentor sighed and gave the padawan a tired gaze. “Let’s say it was an actual Sith. Why would he attack a bunch of merchants and civilians but leave the members of the Church of the Force alone? Their alliance with the New Jedi Order is well-known, their location is no secret, and they are as good as unprotected. It makes little sense”.
“No, it doesn’t,” Finn agreed with a sigh as he sank deeper back onto the bunk bed, suddenly feeling frustrated. “What about a darksider who suddenly felt like using some bloodshed to channel the dark side?”.
“Why would he stop, then?” Voe challenged. “It’s been two years, and nothing like this has been reported since”.
Finn nodded again.
“I know, I know. There is no obvious logic behind the attack,” he groaned, pulling his hands through his crew cut.
In Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Order, apprentices didn’t need to wear the traditional Padawan cut, but Finn did so anyway. He even had the traditional single padawan braid at his left ear.
“I’m just as frustrated with the lack of answers as you are, Finn,” Voe offered, and a soft gaze briefly flashed in her vivid green eyes. “We can’t do anything more than we already have done”.
Finn nodded in silence. His mentor was right.
Again.
On the outside, the sandstorm raged on and the innkeeper, an old ithorian, came into their room to make sure the windows were still properly boarded. He left without saying anything and Finn wondered what it was with the people of Jakku and their unwillingness to talk to strangers.
In the afternoon, Voe and Finn went down to the cantina for dinner.
It was crowded with freighter pilots of various species who were waiting for the storm to clear up.
The cantina’s selection was meager; one dish with recycled protein and one vegetarian. As they stood in the line to order, Finn cast a gaze at the plates of the other guests and noticed the majority of the pilots had chosen the dish with recycled protein.
“We should take the other option,” Finn mumbled to Voe. “That protein looks like something a happabore coughed up”.
Finn and Voe sat down at a table in the back and a couple of minutes later, a serving droid arrived with two plates of pea fritters with green pepper and yogurt. Compared to the ration packs and the bars of recycled protein they have been living on the last weeks, it was pure luxury with real, fresh food.
“The first thing I’m going to do when we get back to Coruscant is to go out and eat,” Finn vowed. ”Even the sloppiest street food in the industrial district tastes far better than the ration packs here”.
Voe gave him a rare smile. “I’m sure that can be arranged”.
They ate in silence with a good appetite. Once their plates were empty, Voe ordered a big pot of tea and a small bowl of rice cakes as dessert.
“I think we deserve some sweets after what we’ve been through this week”.
“Agreed,” Finn said as he took a bite of a rice cake. It was just as dry as the desert, but with a mouthful of tea, it wasn’t so bad.
“By the way, have you heard anything about the Emperor’s treasure?”.
Voe nodded as she followed Finn’s example and soaked a rice cake into her own cup.
“I heard a couple of treasure hunters outside Old Meru’s shop at the pilgrim road talk about it. I asked them what kind of treasure it was and they told me it was a chest full of flawless Ghostfire crystals,” she chuckled. “On my way back from Tuanul, I spoke to two scavengers. They were also familiar with the treasure, but they said it was a crate filled with credit ingots”.
“Oh...”.
Voe tilted her head to the side as she looked at the younger Jedi. “It’s just a tale, Finn. If the Emperor actually had been robbed of something utterly precious of actual value for us, we would have known. Master Skywalker would have told us”.
“You’re right,” Finn agreed. “I guess I’m gripping after straws”.
Despite the lack of physical activity during the day, Finn fell asleep at once when the night came, lulled to sleep by the subsiding sandstorm. He slept like a rock through the night and didn’t wake up until a voice called out his name in the morning.
“Finn! Time to get up!”
Once Finn had rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, he saw that Voe was already dressed, her belongings were packed and her sleeping mat was rolled up and tied to her backpack.
Voe stood in front of the scratched mirror in the tiny bathroom and braided her silvery hair into multiple cornrows.
“What’s going on?”.
“I spoke to Master Luke,” she replied, eyes still peeled on the mirror as she started working on a new section in her hair.
“A transmission from Master Luke? Why didn’t you wake me up?” Finn groaned with disappointment.
“Relax,” Voe gave her padawan a slight, apologetic grin. “I have good news; our mission here is complete”.
“Already?” he frowned. “What did he say?”.
“There had been a breach on Kef Bir. The forbidden sanctuary moon. Apparently, one warden is slightly force-sensitive and said she had felt something. A disturbance in the force. It could be our lost killer”.
The eagerness in her voice was almost palpable, and Finn recalled they said that Voe always had been one of the most ambitious among the new generation of Jedi Knights.
“Great!” Finn pushed himself off the bed and straightened his tunic. “When do we leave for Kef Bir?”.
“You and I are going back to Coruscant,” Voe said with a displeased grimace. “Master Luke has already sent Solo to the Endor system”.
“Solo, as in Ben Solo?” Finn frowned. “Why?” .
Voe scoffed softly as she finished braiding her hair. She stepped out of the bathroom and sat down on the chair in front of the small desk in the middle of the room.
“Master Luke said Solo would already be in the Mayagil Sector by now,” Voe explained with a nod to the chronometer on the desk. “It’s close to the Sanctuary Pipeline. They can use it to reach the Modell Sector faster than us”.
“Huh?” Finn looked at his mentor with a puzzled gaze. “But isn’t he…. Isn’t he still, you know, crazy?”.
Voe grimaced slightly and gave the younger Jedi a tired gaze.
Ben Solo had once been the most prized student in the revived Jedi Order, always exceeding all his peers, no matter the subject. In the past, the two of them had always competed, though it didn’t matter how hard Voe fought, or how much she trained ― she could never beat him.
But, it was as the saying went; the higher the fall, the harder the crash.
It had certainly been true for Ben Solo.
He went from being an extraordinary young Jedi to a severe mental case within a day. After that gruesome day on Ossus, when Ben attacked Master Skywalker and his sister had stopped Ben before he could flee. Only the maker knows how they managed to get him to the psychiatric clinic in Polis Massa. After that, it took almost a year before he came back again.
Ben was out for four months until he got a relapse, and they sent him back for another six months. The next time, he lasted almost a year until he became so unstable that Master Luke thought it was time again and they placed Ben Solo under custodial care for the third time.
“He’s still struggling with mental health illness, if that’s what you mean”.
“Yeah. Wasn’t he dispatched to the Service Corps?”.
“He was supposed to, I think,” Voe replied. “But the revival of the Service Corps has been postponed yet another year. At least that’s what Hennix said”.
Hennix was a tall male quarren, a species that reminded Finn of a humanoid with the face of some sort of octopus. He, along with Tai, another human Knight, was Voe’s best friend in the Jedi Order. The trio had initially been friends with Solo, but after the incident on Ossus where one of Solo’s outbursts resulted in Hennix being impaled by a sharp piece of wood, the three friends kept their distance from Master Skywalker’s nephew.
“Anyway, let’s not dwell here any longer,” Voe said as she rose from the chair. “Start packing your things, I’ll go get Verity ready”.
Verity was their ship, a prototype of a T-wing model that never went into serial production. It was clumsier with poorer aerodynamic qualities than a regular T-wing interceptor, but on the other hand, it had bigger fuel capacity and could be used for long-distance travels.
“You got it”, he replied with a nod, eager to get going.
It relieved Finn to hear they would finally leave. Out of all the different systems he had visited, Jakku was definitely one of his least favorite planets.