albinomilksnake | STAR WARS: possible spoiler warning

[The collision is, all things considered, totally minor - at least half her own fault. Rey makes a short noise of surprise, throwing her hands out to catch the droid though he's already rolled back, twisting away to accodomate her presence (and Poe's) in the small space.]

Good work, BB-8. [She's stepping around him, climbing into the co-pilot's seat to access one of the secondary panels. The blasé way she pulls up the panel's facing has everything to do with being comfortable with the components and nothing to do with an eagerness to leave the subject of Kylo Ren behind.]

This will be easier with three pairs of hands anyway. [She pushes her hand into the exposed circuits and wiring, feeling around with a pinched look on her face that smooths when her hand closes on-- there. Rey drags a square box and its countless attachments out into the open.]

BB-8, you take that-- [and then she's climbing over to stand on the other seat, popping a panel overhead. Reaching in, she's barely tall enough to find what she needs to.] --Here. Poe, I need your hand there. There's a lever. BB-8 can tell you when to crank it.

[He's well clear of the doorway when the two collide, as mild as it is, and he's not surprised to find the Droid successful- excited in it. He was a good partner, after all.]

Knew you could handle it.

[praise comes easy to him, even now, smile genuine enough even for someone who knew him well, and BB-8 certainly did.]

Aye-aye captain. [He sidesteps the Droid, easing into the space beside her, arm high to catch his hand where she'd pointed. He was no mechanic, but he was used to being an extra hand. Helpful was his middle name, and the x-wings were part of his squad, their state part of his responsibility.

Maybe he was nosy.]

Found it.]

Edited 2015-12-28 20:10 (UTC)

[There is a brief moment after Rey says "three pairs of hands" when BB-8 tilts his head down, as if looking at the hands he doesn't have, but as soon as the secondary panel is off, the droid simply rolls over to it to do his job.

After setting himself up with the box that Rey had pulled out of the mass of wires and circuitry, BB-8 beeps and whistles, double-checking that Rey is where that third pair of hands would be needed before starting a countdown to when Poe has to pull the lever.]

[Once she's certain he has the right lever, she's hopping down from the chair and making her way to-- yes, there, the primary maintenance panel is just there. She levers it open as well as BB-8 begins the countdown, sorting through fuses and wiring and coordinator compression boxes. Somewhere in here there's...]

There you are.

[She wrenches free the component she's looking for, turning it out from under a nest of wiring so she can see what she's doing. There's some tuning she can do during the countdown to the lever pull, but once the moment nears she readjusts, finds the right switch and waits, waits, waits--

And throw it in time with the pair of them to very little fanfare. Which is, technically, a good sign.]

[He keeps his fingers on the lever but cranes his head to watch her progress and the Droid's, only wrangling his focus back down tight when BB-8 gets close to the final countdown. His timing doesn't suffer any, and he cranks it at just the right time, raising his eyebrows when, apparently, nothing happens.]

Is that good? That's good, right? Right lever?

[From her to BB-8 and back again, fingers still hurried in the panel above his head.]

[BB-8 takes the opportunity of being interfaced with the Falcon to double check that everything--or at least everything he could detect--is functional, letting Poe's question hang in the air unanswered for a moment.

Then, without preamble, the droid warbles: You want to go into hyperspace to test it?

That indelible lack of nuanced expression is what BB-8 is counting on for the joke to succeed. He stares at Poe blankly.]

[It's good. She knows it is exactly in the moment. There's no smoke or sparks, for one, but she can feel how the hum in the box component she has changed by a degree under her hands. It's subtle, small, but she knows in her gut that it's right. That she was right. That they're on track. That they all know what they're doing here--

More or less.

She breathes out a noise that isn't a laugh for the droid's sense of humor, but is close - her mouth going all pinched and crooked, smile lost somewhere out of habit and recent low spirits. Rey jams the component back under the wiring, secures it, and then flips the panel closed.]

It's good. Between this and clearing out all the junk Plutt stuffed in, there shouldn't be any trouble staying inside hyperspace for as long as necessary. Right, BB-8?

[His hand stays firmly where it is even as the Droid teases, but as soon as Rey gives him the go ahead he drops it to point, very straight, at BB-8.]

Don't tempt me. This is the Millennium Falcon. Made the Kessel run in under twelve Parsecs. She may be a bit big for my tastes but this girl can move.

[It is a small bit of hero worship on his part. What kid who grew up on the stories of the rebellion against the evil empire didn't dream about getting to see the Millennium Falcon? To meet the heroes of the rebellion? He's grown up knowing they were real, that his parents were a part of it, but he'd never seen the Falcon in person. A tree back home in the yard was the closest he got to the legends until he'd been old enough to sign on.

He tips his head back to her catching up with the rest.]

Junk?

[The droid makes a sound not unlike a digitized imitation of laughter before agreeing with Poe about the Falcon. BB-8 was in it during Finn and Rey's daring escape, and got a good sense of it both right side up and upside down...and sideways.

BB-8 then agrees with Rey, confirming the systems check was all green as far as he could tell, and the droid disconnects from the attachments hanging out of the secondary panel.]

[There, a burst of something like satisfaction to hear the Falcon talked about with such admiration, to hear the chirping slew of beeping from the droid. It isn't pride - this isn't her ship - except for how it absolutely is. Maybe it's because she got the ship off Jakku (it got them off it), or being elbow deep in its guts a handful of times now with generally good success, or maybe it's just that there is something bouyant and pleasant about loving the same thing as someone else--

But it's good. She can't help the pleased flush that passes through her. Like breathing in raw oxygen. Like adrenaline behind the pilot's console. A short burst, but there anyway and that counts for something.

She wipes her hands on her pants and rescrews the panel into place.]

When we picked her up off Jakku - there were all these useless modifications. Absolutely garbage, really, but they've mostly been stripped out and replaced now. She's almost back to normal.

[He grins, chin tipping for the easy eager agreement. Fast ships and fancy piloting might have been almost the only thing he cared about but it's not like he was alone in that.]

That's what I thought.

[And that's a new bit of information. Finn's story was rushed and half complete at best, and he'd been more interested in Rey than anything else, not like he could blame him.]

What kind of wampa-brained idiot messes with perfection? Still, you ended up with a better ride out of that joint than I did. How long were you stuck there?

[BB-8 chirps, answering the question, though not before beeping at length about how he would've been sold for scrap if Rey hadn't saved him.

The droid extends its grabber arm and--somewhat clumsily--tries to shove the wires, circuitry, and the little box back into the secondary panel. When it's clear that he's not really made to restore order to such a tangled mass, he abandons the effort, rolling back away from the panel.

On the subject of being stuck on Jakku, though...

BB-8's attention pivots towards Poe and the question of how Poe got off that sandy junk planet gets twittered out in melodic binary.]

[With her own panel secure, Rey moves around (crawling across the co-pilot chair) to help BB-8 put the wiring and components back to right there.] Don't be so dramatic. I didn't save you, I just helped you out of a net.

[It's mild, said absently as she resecures the panel here. How long had she been on Jakku? Forever. Which isn't right, but it felt that way sometimes when she'd sat in the shadow of an AT-AT and watched ships leaving, jumping into the stratosphere and then space beyond while she'd been down below - no one, nothing but a grain of sand in the planet's desert.

She looks over her shoulder to Poe as she rescrews the panel. There's something like raw curiosity in her expression that aligns with the droid's chirping. It's a fair question, actually. From the sound of things, he'd survived a rescue and wreck with little.more than the clothes on his back - less than, given Finn's possession of his jacket.]

How'd you pay your way off the planet?

[Even if she'd wanted to ditch Jakku, she never would've been able to afford it.]

[Poe laughs as he extricate himself from the hatch, carefully tucking everything back into place.]

I know how long you were there, I was talking to my new friend.

[He's heard part of the story before, in so many words, but he still agrees. A net was a mess to a BB unit.]

He can be dramatic, but in this case he's definitely right. You saved his metal skin a dozen times over.

[He hums quietly at the question, turning to face her, hip propped against the chair and arms crossing loosely.]

I didn't. Not with money, anyway. I was wandering around that big sandbox with my brains all rattled around when I got snatched up by a silver tongued Blarina named Naka lit. He wasn't all that impressed with me until after I managed to outmaneuver some pirate types, which I guess was enough to convince him I wasn't completely crazy. [Bad day. He still kept remembering random pieces of it, all his memories a little sideways after the crash. It hadn't interfered with his flying anyway, which was all that mattered.]

His good will got me to a friend of his, who was sympathetic enough to get a crazy Resistance pilot off planet.

[BB-8 beeps earnestly, the message being that he's glad Poe made it off Jakku safely.

Though BB-8 makes friends easily--he's amicable enough with the other Resistance droids and personnel, if a little feisty at times--his loyalty still lies primarily with Poe (and later, Rey and Finn), and as such it'd hit very hard to lose him.

The droid rolls around the cockpit, actively staying out of the way until he finds--or is given--a job to do.]

[Jobs, of which there are frankly plenty. Most of the work on the Falcon is minor corrections and patch jobs - at this point it'd honestly be hard to do any major overhauls when the freighter's inner workings were more scrap than original. Still for a moment, her thoughts are turned away from it, her attention sharp and focused on the pilot, squinting at him in a way that probably looks like she's doubting the validity of the story when really she's all but memorizing the details, slotting them into place with what she knows of Jakku, who she knows on Jakku. Of course it'd take the skills of a specialized pilot to magically get off the planet; you could close your eyes and throw a rock and still hit a scrapper there, but a pilot? A real, skilled one who knew how to fly in combat and not just in a straight line? That was rare.

Sure. She can see it.]

You're lucky. [She says it plain without any sense that it might be incredibly rude. Securing the last screw, Rey flicks her attention from Poe to the droid.] BB-8, can you run a diagnostic on the primary exhaust? There's still a leak there, I know it. [It'd be easier to repair if he cold narrow it down to a section of the grid.]

I know.

[There's no artifice in it, and nothing like exasperation. He was incredibly lucky. He'd known it then- surviving the crash, finding someone out there in that great empty desert before he lost his life to dehydration or the local wildlife- and he'd known it even more when he made it back to the resistance. When he found out BB-8 was still safe and alive. When he'd shown up with Finn in tow. That felt like more than luck. It felt like date. Destiny. The force. Something big he was a small part of. Something that wanted a change for good, something that favored hope.

He was lucky. They all were.

He tips his face down to the Droid, all ready for orders, eager to help. He'd made some good friends. Good friends who still hadn't answered his question.]

Go ahead. I got to borrow you for a few minutes, but it can wait.

[He had come looking, after all.]

[BB-8 beeps affirmatively, rolling himself over to the ship's computer interface that he'd used to run diagnostics before.

It took less than a minute to check the computer's status logs, after which the droid pinpoints the suspected leak to a set of coordinates. He relays them to Rey, doing what he can to remotely make the necessary repairs easier--such as routing any reserve power away from the primary exhaust to remove any risk of electrical mishap.]

[She responds with a nod and then rolls herself up off the deck and onto her feet.] You can have him now if you like. Not that you haven't been helpful, BB-8.

[But the astromech droid isn't really the right size or shape for doing repairs where she needs to go. The company's-- good. More than, really. With Finn on a cot in medical, it's very still and very quiet in the Falcon. Even if she's nose deep in mechanics, the sound of BB-8 rolling around and his informative chirping is a nice change of pace.

But she can live without it and she knows the droid is just helping her because he wants to. There are probably a hundred things he's more suitable for that need doing.]

[Poe watches him roll to the ship's computer and plug in, both machines making small electrical sounds. It's not what BB-8 was programmed for, but like most Droid he had hidden depths. Was more capable than most would give him credit for. He had done more than a lot of people had for the resistance.

Then Rey stands, and he considers. He just needed BB-8 to check in with the programming station, make sure he got the newest compatibility updates for the X-wing's program. But it wasn't something that needed to happen right this second. Or anything that would take very long. He makes a short noise, stands straight again and uncrosses his arms.]

On second thought, just send him back home when you wrap up for the night. I can wait.

[And in a day, two, three, she would leave and BB-8 and her wouldn't see each other for who knows how long. Better they spend it together.]

[The droid swivels his head around to look at Poe, beeping questioningly even as he continues checking the Falcon for more faults. It was a long list, technically speaking, on such an old ship, but BB-8 knew to single out only the major ones.

If they took the time to fix every single problem the Falcon had, they'd be here forever.]

[It's a strange thing to say, isn't it? Hadn't he come looking for the droid for some specific task? She blinks at him once, then glances to where BB-8 is hooked into the Falcon and then back, clearly not entirely sure how she's supposed to take the offer. Why? Why come this whole way and help them only to wander off again without the only thing he'd come for in the first place?]

Alright. [Because why would she argue the point? Well, because default suspicion, that's why:] You're sure?

STAR WARS: possible spoiler warning

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