Niima Outpost, Jakku

"One half portion."

Rey crossed her arms. Glancing at the pile of scrap she had spent all day salvaging, she felt her stomach twinge with hunger. "You're joking! Skibok brought you this just last week, and you gave her three portions!"

Unkar Plutt's enormous jowls shook with laughter. "Supply and demand, girl. If I've already got one, I'm not going to pay as much, now, am I?"

Rey seethed and snatched the meager bag of powder off the counter, sliding the scrap into the pile. Biting back an insult, she slung the sled over her back and started heading back towards her speeder.

"The offer still stands, girl," Unkar Plutt shouted after her, glee in his voice.

"Over my dead body!" Rey snapped over her shoulder. She shuddered in repulsion at the thought, even as her stomach growled. "Shut up," she muttered.

Eyes closed, Rey tried to **** herself to sleep. The earlier meal had done little to assuage her hunger, and her stomach shot pain through her body every couple of minutes. Frustrated, she threw off her thin blanket and leapt out of bed.

Digging through the back of her cupboard, she scrounged up the last of her reserve rations and scattered the powder in a bowl of water. Almost before it had fully risen, she wolfed it down, scattering crumbs onto her bare breasts. Desperately, she scavenged every last morsel. Hunger sated, she returned to bed. She would have time to regret in the morning.

On her perch in the hull of the star destroyer, Rey was allowed time to think as her blowtorch slowly melted the welding of a power cell coupling. Even though she was one of the few scavengers who worked on the star destroyer, it had long since been stripped of the most valuable parts. Now that she had run out of the rations she had stockpiled from the initial boom, she couldn't justify continuing to salvage it. She could try and find another ship to salvage, but she was willing to bet that the others were just as barren.

If she was lucky, she could barter for passage on a ship, or even stow away. Ships came every couple of weeks, trading for scrap, supplies or fuel, but most of the crews stayed for as little as possible. And leaving Jakku would mean abandoning any hope of seeing her parents again.

Or - she shivered at the mere thought - she could accept Unkar Plutt's offer. He had connections within Niima Outpost, and he had offered to get her an audience with Niima the Hutt herself, to get a position as a servant, or worse, as part of her harem. At least she would be fed, and maybe she could even save enough to buy a ship and become a smuggler.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. Without anything to bargain with, Unkar Plutt had taken great pleasure in emphasizing that the only way he would help her would be if she "helped" him in return. Her skin crawled as she remembered the lewd look he had given her after his proposition.