Chapter Text
Dusk grew close as a single green speeder crossed the blue, jagged, rocky landscape of Tetina. Inside were Trass and Drake, two young, dumb lovers, as the locals would say. Two young upstarts whose greatest ambition was simply to elope together. The destination didn't matter to them as long as the road included each other. A Twi'lek and a human, who would say to anyone that asked, "Just you and me, to infinity."
Before them was the wreck, a lifetime ago it was called Agonizer, now it was just the wreck. Many existed like it across the galaxy—from Jakku to Endor to Pammant. An Imperial-class Star Destroyer, decrepit, rusting, and rotting, an echo of an older time, now just the source of income for two 24-year-olds perpetually saying that just one more good scavenging run and they'd be off this rock.
Finally, Trass pulled to a stop in front of the imposing wreck and took a deep breath. "Let's get it done. What do you say?" She readjusted her green lekku as Drake nodded in agreement, holstering a sidearm and picking up his slicer pad for any Imperial security systems that somehow managed to be online. They'd never found any, but assumed caution was warranted. Likewise, Trass stepped out of the vehicle and retrieved a large repeating blaster from the trunk, also not something they'd ever actually needed inside the wreck, but again, they assumed caution was warranted.
They didn't speak as they trudged through the hangar, their boots crunching on decades of accumulated grit and shattered transparisteel; every step echoed from wall to wall and out the way they had come. The air inside was always ten degrees cooler, smelling of rust, ozone, and decay. Their headlamps pierced the oppressive gloom, the beams catching swirling motes of dust—the only things still moving with any life in this place.
"Remember when this place was scary?" Trass asked as they approached the bulkhead to deeper within.
"You mean when we were 12?" He shook his head. "I never felt scared of it; that was a you thing."
"Nuh-uh, the first few times you wouldn't even come inside with me." She peered through the long hallway past the bulkhead and paused. "Hello."
She waited until the echo died. "Guess we're the only scavs that still bother with this thing."
Drake stepped in past her. "That's because old man Mandrakago has them all thinking it's haunted." He started wriggling his fingers. "Oooooh, it's me, the spirit of the captain."
Trass giggled before pushing him aside and stepping inside. "Yeah, okay, how about we just find something valuable and get outta here?"
"Oooooh, the captain forbids you from finding his treasure."
Trass rolled her eyes and shoved him playfully before giggling. "Oh, and what's this great treasure?"
Drake smirked and pointed to her loins, still making that same voice. "The treasure still be buried there."
Trass's green skin turned purple as she blushed. "Oh, shut up. You've spelunked down under enough to know there's no hidden treasure."
"The spelunking is the treasure." He countered, leaning in close.
"Okay, okay, fine, maybe…. When we're done, we can have a little treasure hunt." She elbowed him playfully. "Now, let's find something worth finding."
Hallway by hallway, bulkhead by bulkhead, they dug deeper, the way illuminated only by flashlight and memory. Deeper they had to go because scavs had been picking the place clean for years now. They stopped at every panel looking for parts, searched every room, everything punctuated by Drake checking his chrono.
"Thought you wanted to take our time?" Trass questioned.
"I wanted to time everything perfectly for your surprise." He admitted as he checked a cavity in the wall.
"A surprise?”
He nodded. "Only happens every few hundred years."
She paused, her lekku almost wiggling. "That sounds… promising."
"Trust me, you wouldn't want to miss it.”
That certainly put a bounce back into her step. She moved quickly now, her eyes scanning every cavity and corridor anxiously as the chrono slowly ticked.
Their scrap wasn't worth much when they found it. It wouldn't be their jackpot off this rock, but it would sell for something—a case full of old power cells and deep-space biscuits.
There wasn't time to mourn the fact that they'd be trapped here another day; they had something special to get to. Drake led the way step by step until they emerged from a hole torn into the Star Destroyer's hull, walking across the top of the ship, the planet surface well below them.
Atop the Star Destroyer, he pulled her into a kiss, gentle at first, growing in demand as his hands glided over curves. They'd had sex in the wreckage before, but never on top of it.
She was a willing partner, pushing him off only to disrobe herself as quickly as she could, laying back on the cold metal of the ship's armor. He mounted and lined up right…
Then he paused.
She looked at him, concerned. "Changed your mind?"
"One more minute." He gestured upwards.
The planet had two moons. One eternally ablaze from an incident thousands of years ago when a chemical tanker crashed, the other a celestial body of pure glass and crystal. She watched slowly as they aligned into an eclipse, the fires of one projected and magnified by the other, painting the sky, the hull, and the ground below in a vivid, roiling rainbow.
For a long moment, they were silent, wrapped in the impossible, shifting colors. The universe felt vast and mysterious, but for once, it felt like it was making something just for them.
"It's beautiful," Trass whispered, her hand finding his.
"Told you it was worth the wait," Drake said, his voice soft. "Just you and me."
"To infinity," she breathed.
He could see the lights dancing on her skin and in her eyes, but in that moment, the eclipse was of no concern to him. She was beautiful, and someday she'd be his wife. He had the ring ready; he just needed to wait until this planet was far behind them.
They lay together afterward, skin cooling in the open air, watching the eclipse paint the world in impossible colors. Trass traced lazy patterns on Drake's chest, her lekku relaxed and content.
"We could stay here forever," she murmured.
"We could." Drake kissed her forehead. "But I thought you wanted off this rock?"
"Maybe the rock's not so bad." She smiled up at him. "As long as you're on it."
"Sap."
"You started it with your fancy celestial romance."
He laughed, pulling her closer. The eclipse was beginning to fade now, the moons drifting apart, and the rainbow light dimming back to ordinary starlight. In a few minutes, it would be gone entirely—something so rare and beautiful, reduced to just another memory.
"Hey," Trass said softly, propping herself up on one elbow to look at him properly. "When we do get off this rock... where do you actually want to go?"
Drake considered it, running his fingers along her lekku in that way that always made her shiver. "Anywhere with an ocean. A real one, not some dried-up salt flat. Somewhere we can just... exist. No scavenging, no scraping by. Just us. We become fishermen, live in a cute little houseboat. Anytime we don't like our neighbors we could just sail away.”
"Just us," she echoed, and kissed him. "To infinity."
"To infinity."
They stayed like that a while longer, watching the last traces of color fade from the sky. Drake found himself thinking about the ring hidden in his footlocker back at their shelter—a simple band he'd traded three months of good salvage for. He'd know when the time was right. Maybe when they finally made it off Tetina. Maybe when—
The sound hit them first. A roar that split the sky, so loud it rattled the hull beneath them. Then the light—not the soft rainbow of the eclipse, but something harsh and white-hot, streaking across the darkened sky.
Something was falling.
Something big.
Then the sound of an explosion and a gust of air as its emergency thrusters kicked in to slow its descent. It was a ship; though in this light, it was a shooting star, a big shooting star that carried yet another hope of realizing a dream.
Drake was on his feet instantly, fumbling for his pants and datapad. Trass grabbed her shirt, eyes locked on the burning trail cutting through the eclipse's beauty.
"Did you see where it—" Drake was already pulling up the speeder's sensors on his pad. "There. Four klicks northeast. Fresh crash."
They stared at each other.
"Salvage rights," they said in unison.
Drake was already pulling up the comm frequency, hands shaking from a bare naked excitement. "This is Drake Millhouse, independent salvager, transmitting universal salvage claim. Crash site four klicks northeast of the Tetina Star Destroyer wreck, coordinates uploading now. Claimed under Outer Rim salvage protocols, witnessed by Trass Kaval, time-stamped and logged."
The acknowledgment came back almost immediately. "Received and logged, Millhouse. You're on record and CorSec approved. Happy hunting."
Drake killed the connection and looked at Trass, his grin so wide it hurt his face.
"This is it," he said. "This is our ticket."
Trass pulled her boots on, already moving toward the hull breach that would lead them back to the speeder. "Then what are we waiting for?"
As they gathered their clothes in the now-fading light, Trass paused, her eyes fixed on the spot where the moons had aligned. "Do you think we'll ever see anything that beautiful again?”
Drake came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "With you? I'm counting on it. Now come on, let's go cash in this junk.”