Yerin was wandering around the city with Joy when she saw something unusual. All the days that she had spent here in the city with Joy, she had never seen soldiers with that uniform.

“Hey, Joy?”

“What hun?”

“Who do those work for?”

“Who?”

Yerin watched as her friend’s expression changed instantly.

“We need to leave. You need to leave oh my god.”

Joy grabbed Yerin’s hand and pulled her out of the city through the back alleys and shortcuts that she knew. Arriving on the mountainside where they had moved the ship, they dug quickly through the sand and pressed a button password where Sowon turned camouflage off of the ship for them to get in.

“Who were they Joy?”

Sowon watched them carefully, something must have happened.

“Those people are from the first order’s elite forces, you know the kind of like special unit of people you should never run into?”

They frowned, why were they here? Joy dropped off some of the supplies that they had gotten, the ship was almost fixed completely, the only things left mostly for aesthetic like the paint on the outside or the case covering for some of the innards of the ship.

“I’m going to go back to the city okay, I need to find out what their here for. That kid that one of you is friends with should also go home too.”

“Chaeyeonie has to go home?”

Yuju walked around some crates in the hold, her hands tightly holding another girl’s. They had met on a grocery run in the city.

“Yea Yuna yah, it’s not safe for her.”

“Isn’t it safe here?”

“It is safe but I want to make sure her parents are safe too, what if they check each household and then suddenly Chaeyeon was missing? Would they believe her parents that she was out to play?”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

Sowon sighed, she really didn’t want to go into detail about the recent happenings of the first order that she got through a one-way radio.

The first order had managed to intercept some transmissions between worlds and got hold of some information on the children who were meant to be the return of the next generation of Jedi. The people who wanted to help the rebellion had good hearts, trying to tell them that their child was in touch with the force, but they were not smart enough to encode their transmissions better, leaving the first order to go out and hunt down these people and force them to join their side.

“Right now, all they want to do is kill whoever is related. They wouldn’t know who Chaeyeonie is and then her parents may die for it.”

“That’s stupid.”

“I know its stupid Yuna, but just in case, right? You don’t want Chaeyeon to be without her parents.”

Yuju pouted but she understood.

“You better hurry back home.”

“I’ll be back when it’s safe.”

Chayeon kissed Yuju’s cheek quickly, making the taller girl blush. She had begun puberty and had begun growing taller so Chaeyeon had to go on her tip toes to reach Yuju’s cheek.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After a while, Joy reported that the elite soldiers hadn’t appeared for a while, and it might be okay to come out for some fresh air.

Sowon left with Umji and Yuju, they needed to restock their food and water before they made the final preparations to leave here.

“Do we have to leave Sowon unnie?”

“We have to, we don’t know when they’ll be back after all.”

“Where will we be going?”

“I haven’t decided that yet, perhaps another outer rim territory. One where nothing has happened in a long time.”

Packing the food into the primitive backpacks they had, they were making their way back to the backstreet exit where their ship was going to be when Sowon heard some screams. Rushing the children some they exited the back alley and into the main street to find that the elite soldiers had returned and they were destroying things to force whoever they were looking for to come out.

“Chayeon!”

Yuju spotted Chaeyeon at the end of the street, standing with her family, only the building behind them didn’t look very stable.

Sowon gasped as a stray force lightning bolt hit the supporting pole and the building began to collapse. She reached out to stop Yuju from running to her friend, but she missed by a little, her heart stopped as she watched Yuju running into the debris.

“Yuna!”

When she blinked, she heard a ‘what?’ and she turned and faced an elite soldier, only, he wasn’t looking at her. Following his line of sight, Sowon gasped. Yuju had managed to save Chaeyeon’s family by using the force to hold up the bigger debris from falling on them.

“Hurry! Get out!”

They rushed out and Yuju began to scoot away from the rubble before letting it fall. Sowon let out a scream as the elite soldier dashed for Yuju with a dagger in hand.

“Yuna!”