Star Wars: The Force Awakens: Rey’s Story Read online

  © & TM 2016 Lucasfilm Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Lucasfilm Press, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Lucasfilm Press, 1101 Flower Street, Glendale, California 91201.

  ISBN 978-1-4847-8108-1

  Cover and interior art by Brian Rood

  Visit the official Star Wars website at: www.starwars.com.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  To the next generation of Jedi

  —ES

  THE ASTEROID WAS QUIET. The great rocky mountains on its surface cast long shadows over high ridges and deep caves. Any sensors would bounce off the heavy metal ores that ran all the way through the floating rock.

  It was the perfect place to hide.

  Rey nudged her A-wing fighter forward. The ship lurched as the asteroid’s gravity pulled it down, but Rey quickly adjusted her course. This wasn’t her first time flying through an asteroid field. If she timed it just right, she could disappear into one of the caves below and—

  Blaster fire scorched the wing of Rey’s ship! It was too late. The TIE fighter had found her.

  Rey immediately fired her thrusters to their max and dove into the nearest cave. The enemy ship tried to follow, but it couldn’t make the turn in time. The TIE zoomed past the cave entrance before whipping back to track her down.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Rey mentally kicked herself for letting the enemy sneak up on her like that. Taking a deep breath, Rey refocused and flew farther into the branching cave. She was certain that one of the tunnels must lead back to the surface.

  She could hear the screech of the engines as the TIE closed in on her. If she didn’t come up with a plan soon, she was going to run out of cave. Her sensors bounced uselessly off the rocks around her. But even without their guidance, Rey could see the walls were getting closer and closer. The only way out now was behind her.

  Behind me…Rey smiled. She had a crazy idea.

  If her sensors were malfunctioning, there was a good chance the TIE fighter’s were, too. Slowly, Rey eased off her thrusters and took her ship as close to the cave floor as she could. She almost heard the pebbles vibrating beneath her as she skimmed along. One centimeter too low and her A-wing would be a pile of rubble.

  Rey heard the TIE’s engines grow louder and louder. Not yet.

  The cave began to rumble as the enemy ship drew closer. Almost there.

  The second she saw the TIE zoom out behind her, Rey slammed on her reverse thrusters. The TIE fired its blasters, but its targeting was completely off. The enemy ship clipped the top of her cockpit and blew past her. There was no way the TIE could slow down now. It sped out of control, deeper into the narrowing cave. A few seconds later, Rey saw the glow of an explosion as the TIE ran into the cave wall.

  “YES!” Rey whipped off her helmet and punched the air….

  But her excitement faded as soon as she looked around her.

  It had just been a flight simulator, after all, but every time she took off the helmet, a part of her hoped she would have miraculously teleported to where she really belonged, back with her family—wherever that may be. She was still sitting inside the Imperial walker shell she called home. The sun still loomed large as it sank beneath the horizon. The blistering desert wind still scratched at her door.

  It was an evening just like the countless others Rey had spent alone on the sandy planet of Jakku.

  But Rey wasn’t one to wallow. She shook off her disappointment and began preparing her pack for the next morning. There was a crashed Star Destroyer near the center of the starship graveyard she wanted to check out. Who knew what valuable salvage might be waiting inside?

  Rey filled one last canteen and stuffed it into her pack, next to her staff. If there were any dangers waiting for her, Rey would be ready. She had survived many battles, not just in the simulator.

  But that was a worry for the next day.

  The morning would come soon enough.

  DON’T LOOK DOWN.

  Rey repeated that over and over to herself as she climbed down the side of the giant starship. There were more than fifty meters of rusty metal between her and the sandy desert floor below. Carefully, Rey reached down to a shallow overhang, looking around for a safe place to move her feet. The harsh wind of Jakku pulled at her clothes, but Rey held on tightly, slowly moving closer and closer to the solid ground.

  With every move, Rey’s prizes clanked inside her satchel. The spare parts she had found aboard the crashed ship would earn her at least one portion of food from Unkar Plutt, the salvage trader. Rey could stretch that to a few days’ worth of meals.

  That was how Rey spent every day on Jakku. She would wake up early each morning and grab her satchel filled with water and supplies for the day. Then she would mount her speeder and head out into the vast starship graveyard. Valuable spare parts were scattered across the desert plains—if one knew where to look. By the end of the day, she had usually found enough salvage to trade for a portion or two of food. If she was really lucky, she’d find some spare parts that she could use to repair her speeder or patch up the traps protecting her home.

  On the best days, she would find old data chips that told stories about the galaxy outside Jakku. The dimly glowing words would conjure images of places Rey could only dream of. She would close her eyes and try to picture what the beautiful green forests or endless blue oceans on those distant planets looked like. But when she opened her eyes, she was still on Jakku. All she saw was the same desert that had stretched before her every day as far back as she remembered.

  Rey’s heavy boots thumped onto the burning sand when she finally reached the base of the ship. It was not the time for dreaming. She needed to carry her salvage back to Niima Outpost so she could trade it for supper and return home before sunset.

  She adjusted her goggles and rewrapped one of the loose, dingy cloths she used to keep the fierce sun off her arms and legs. Then she set her bag full of salvage on top of her sandboard. Rey had discovered the smooth metal sled as part of a Mon Calamari escape pod a few seasons back. After liberating it from the pod, Rey could use the sled to quickly descend the largest sand dunes. It was practical—and a whole lot of fun.

  Rey leaped onto the sandboard and rode it down the dune and toward her speeder. A smile threatened to reach her lips as the warm wind rushed past her. The sandboard didn’t have the same smooth handling as her speeder, but that lack of control was also part of the thrill.

  Soon the board skidded to a halt in front of Rey’s speeder. She tied her salvage and the board to the speeder and zoomed toward the setting sun on the horizon.

  As Niima Outpost slid into view, Rey could already see that the scattered tents and small spaceport were bustling with creatures of every shape and size. There was a long line of scavengers at the cleaning table. It had been a good day for many of them. Two Melittos hummed cheerfully as they cleaned off a massive panel from an old Trandoshan slave ship. The Melittos’ sightless faces were turned skyward as they ran their supersensitive cilia across the panel. Even without eyes, the aliens could clean and repair technology as well as any sighted race. Almost all the panel’s circuitry looked like it was in working order. Unkar would surely give them a week’s worth of portions for such a find.

  Rey hopped off her speeder and took a place near the excited Melittos at the cleaning table. The buzz of the marketplace pushed in around her as scavengers chatted about their finds, swapped tips about newly discovered wrecks, or shared news of explorers lost in the Sinking Fields.

  Rey was eavesdropping on a particularly interesting conversation about a new Teedo settlement when she saw him. A little boy, no more than seven or eight cycles old, was exiting a nearby ship. Holding the little boy’s hand was an older woman who, from the way she looked at the boy with such love and attention, must have been the boy’s mother. The boy pointed excitedly at the strange aliens who passed by them. He must have had a million questions about the new planet. His mother reached down and playfully ran her hand through the boy’s hair.

  Absentmindedly, Rey mimicked the mother’s loving gesture, softly stroking the salvage in her hand. Rey had no memory of her parents. She didn’t know why they had taken her to Jakku, or why they had left her there. For all she knew, they were long dead. Yet Rey couldn’t help hoping that one day a transport would arrive and her parents would walk down the ship’s ramp and back into her life.

  Rey looked down at the power cell she was washing. It had been clean for a good five minutes. Rey shook off her thoughts and carried her sparkling salvage over to Unkar’s window.

  The old Crolute’s saggy skin wobbled as he pawed through the spare parts Rey presented. Why the blobfish-like brute
had chosen to make his home on a dry desert planet, Rey would never know. Nor did she care to find out. Rey tried to keep her conversations with the repulsive junk lord as brief as possible.

  Leaning forward with a terrifying smile, Unkar made his offer. “Today you get…one quarter portion.”

  A protest immediately leaped to Rey’s lips. One quarter portion? Her salvage was worth at least a full portion, if not more! But the thought of arguing with Unkar died almost immediately. Rey needed the food, and there was no one else to trade with at the small outpost. Unkar had seen to that personally.

  Rey nodded and accepted the small packet of dried veg-meat and polystarch powder. It would have to do.

  “Next!” Unkar called out as Rey walked back to her speeder.

  That night, Rey took extra care as she cooked the veg-meat over the fire. She didn’t want a shred of it to go to waste.

  The smell of the sizzling food was comfortingly familiar. Every night she took home the same veg-meat and polystarch rations. Technology was not the only thing that had survived in the starship graveyard. Most people on Jakku had grown used to eating the old Imperial rations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Rey didn’t mind the repetitive meals; she just wished she could earn a fair portion. Rey’s stomach growled as she poured the polystarch into a bowl, activating it with a splash of water. The powder quickly grew into a bread-like loaf. Dinner was ready.

  Rey went outside, sat against the foot of the walker, and put on an old X-wing helmet. She had found the helmet ages before, and she liked the way it felt. Plus, the visor shielded her eyes from the glaring sun as she ate.

  Rey tried to make the food last for as many minutes as possible, savoring each bite until there was nothing left.

  Tomorrow, Rey reassured herself. She would find something so valuable that even Unkar would have to give her a fair price.

  Her simple dream was interrupted by a mechanical squeal. It sounded…scared? What kind of creature could make a noise like that?

  Rey took off her helmet and heard the cry again, only this time it sounded softer and farther away. If Rey didn’t act now…

  She quickly grabbed her quarterstaff and ran toward the mysterious noise. It looked like she wouldn’t be having a quiet evening at home after all.

  THE MECHANICAL SQUEALS were getting louder. Rey ran up one last dune and finally discovered the source of the noise.

  Far below her was a Teedo riding a luggabeast. Rey took a second look around her and realized she was in the Teedo’s territory. In reality, the small brutish scavenger had no more ownership of that stretch of desert than anyone else. But the Teedos insisted that they held sole claim to the lost technology scattered throughout the area.

  And that day the Teedo had found quite a prize. He had trapped a little orange-and-white droid inside a rough net. From what Rey could see, the droid was not only in perfect working condition but struggling desperately to escape, beeping as loudly as he could. The dome and sphere that made up his head and body were spinning quickly in every direction. But what was a perfectly good droid doing way out there? And all alone?

  There was only one way to find out. “Tal’ama parqual!” she shouted in the Teedo’s native language.

  The Teedo ignored her.

  Rey was starting to get angry. The droid clearly did not want to go with the Teedo. Rey shouted again, this time making a veiled threat. “Patqual! Zatana tappan-aboo!”

  The Teedo did not like that. He shouted back something quite insulting and adjusted his thick metal mask.

  Rey barely noticed. She marched forward and drew her knife. As the Teedo continued to hurl empty threats at her, she cut the little droid free from the netting. Then she turned to the Teedo and said fiercely, “Noma! Ano tamata, zatana.”

  The Teedo did a quick calculation and decided the droid wasn’t worth fighting Rey for. He raised a hand dismissively and turned his luggabeast toward the horizon.

  Rey shot one more glare at the Teedo and then leaned down to inspect the droid for damage. Except for a bent antenna, the droid appeared unharmed, and he had plenty of fight in him. He rolled after the departing Teedo, beeping furiously.

  To most people, the beeping would have sounded like mechanical gibberish. But Rey was good with technology and had studied the communication patterns of droids. And that droid was especially eloquent—particularly in his choice of insults toward the Teedo.

  Rey couldn’t help smiling at the droid’s indignation. “Shhhh,” she breathed soothingly, placing a hand on his curved head.

  The droid quieted down and then beeped inquiringly.

  “That’s just a Teedo. Wants you for parts,” Rey explained.

  The droid took that information in stride. He seemed used to being hunted down for one reason or another.

  Rey knelt beside the mysterious droid. “Where’d you come from?”

  He beeped an answer.

  “Oh, classified? Really,” Rey said incredulously. “Well, me too. Big secret.”

  If the droid wanted to keep to himself, Rey wasn’t going to pry. In her experience, getting involved with others’ problems only led to more trouble. She had saved the droid from being disassembled for spare parts. Her work there was done.

  “Niima Outpost is that way,” Rey said, pointing toward the settlement. “Stay off Carbon Ridge. Keep away from the Sinking Fields up north—you’ll drown in the sand.”

  When she finished her advice, Rey headed back up the dune toward home.

  But she soon heard the whir of the droid’s sphere moving across the sand behind her.

  “Don’t follow me,” Rey said firmly. “You can’t come with me.”

  The droid beeped again, pitifully.

  “No!”

  But the droid would not give up. He told her that he was alone and more than a little afraid. He had no one else.

  That made Rey stop. She knew what it was like to be alone on Jakku with no one for protection or even company. Reluctantly, she gestured for the droid to follow her.

  The droid beeped in happiness.

  “In the morning, you go,” Rey said firmly.

  But the droid didn’t seem to be listening. He continued beeping, commenting on the landscape.

  “Yes, there’s a lot of sand here,” Rey replied, only a little sarcastically.

  The droid rewarded that response with his name: BB-8.

  “‘Beebee-Ate’?” Rey asked. “Okay, hello, Beebee-Ate. My name’s Rey.”

  BB-8 began chirping again.

  “Look, you’re not going to talk all night, are you? Because that won’t work.”

  BB-8 beeped the shortest response possible.

  “Good,” Rey said. She didn’t know what to make of the strange droid and his “classified” mission. Still, it was nice to have some company for a change.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Rey helped BB-8 aboard her speeder and the pair flew off toward Niima Outpost. Along the way, she stopped to examine a few wrecks. She didn’t want the extra trip to be a complete waste of time. If she found something to trade with Unkar, maybe she could even take the afternoon off and practice with her flight simulator.

  To Rey’s delight, she uncovered a pair of inverterlifts amid a tangle of crashed speeder bikes. BB-8 kept offering to help her look, but Rey didn’t want to owe the droid anything. Even if BB-8 had helped, nothing else was salvageable from the speeders. Still, the inverterlifts would fetch a decent portion from Unkar. Her dinner plans secure, Rey raced toward Niima Outpost, with BB-8 beeping chattily behind her.

  The brown and gray structures of Niima began to grow on the horizon, until the outpost’s main archway loomed before them. Rey parked her speeder and set BB-8 gently on the ground.

  “All right,” Rey said. “This is where we say good-bye.” She grabbed her satchel with the inverterlifts inside and slung it over her shoulder. “There’s a trader in bay three who might be able to give you a lift…wherever you’re going.”

  BB-8 simply stared up at her with his single black eye.

  “So…good-bye.” Rey began walking toward Unkar’s stall.

  BB-8 beeped and Rey started to laugh.

  “Oh, really?” she asked. “Now you can’t leave? I thought you had somewhere special to be.”