Chapter two:

Don't look down. Jaina 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, Jaina reached down to a swallow overhang, looking around for a safe place to move her feet. The harsh wind of Tantooine pulled at her clothes, but Jaina held on tightly, slowly moving closer and closer to the solid ground.

With every move, Jaina's prizes clanked inside her satchel. The spare parts she had found aboard the crashing ship would earn her at least one portion of food from Ukar Plutt, the salvage trader. Jaina could stretch that to a few days worth of meals. That was how Jaina spent every day on Tantooine. She would wake up every 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. But the end of the day, she had usually found enough salvage to trade for a portion of 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 of about the galaxy outside of Tantooine. The dimly glowing words would conjure images of places Jaina 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 Tantooine.

All she saw was the same dessert that had stretched before her every day as far back as she could remember.

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

Jaina leaped onto the sandboard and rolled it down the dune and turned 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 Jaina's speeder. She tied her salvage and the board to the speeder and zoomed toward the setting sun of the horizon. As Niima Outpost slid into view, Jaina 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 Melitto's sightless faces were turned skyward as they ran their supersentive cilia across the panel. Even without eyes, the alien's could clean and repair technology as well as any other 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. Jaina hoped off her speeder and took a place near the exicted 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.

Jaina was eavesdropping on a particularity interesting conversation about a new Teedo settlement when she saw him. A boy, no younger than seven or eight cycles old, was exciting a nearby ship.

Holding the 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 then. He must have had millions of questions about the new planet. His mother reached down and playfully ran her hand through the boy's hair. Absentmindedly, Jaina mimicked the mother's loving gesture, softly stroking the salvage in her hand. Jaina had no memory of her parents. She didn't know why they had taken her to Tantooine, or why they had left her there. For all she knew, they were long dead. Yet Jaina 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. Jaina looked down at the power cells she was washing. It had been clean for good five minutes.

Jaina 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 Jaina presented. Why the blobfish- like brute had chosen to make his home on a dry desert planet, Jaina would never know. Nor did she care to find out. Jaina tried to keep her conversation 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 Jaina's lips. One quarter portion? Her salvage was at least a full, if not more! But the thought of arguing with Unkar died almost immediately. Jaina needed food, and there was no one else to trade with at the small outpost.

Unkar had seen that personally. Jaina nodded and accepted the small packet of dried veg- meat and polystarch powder. It would have to do. Next! Unkar called out as Jaina walked back to her speeder.

That night, Jaina 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 veg- meat and polystarch rations. Technology was not the only thing that had survived in the starship graveyard. Most people on Tantooine had grown used to eating the old Imperial rations for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Jaina didn't mind the representative meals, she just wished she could earn a share portion.

Jaina's stomach growled as she poured the polystarch into a bowl, activating it with a splash of water. The powder quickly growed into a bread- like loaf. Dinner was ready. Jaina went outside, sat against the foot of the walker, and put on a 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. Jaina tried to make the food last for as many minutes as possible, savoring each bite until there was nothing left. Tomorrow, she 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?

Jaina took off her helmet and heard the cry again, only this time it sounded softer and farther away. If Jaina 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.