STARS ABOVE ↝ P. DAMERON

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"Wrench," Daris Thorne's voice echoed through the shed, arm reaching out from where he lay below a speeder to grab the tool from the small hand that held it out for him.

"Wrench," the small voice that accompanied the hand echoed.

Once the wrench was firmly in his grasp, his arm disappeared once more under the small hovercraft, accompanied by a slight sound of turning bolts until he sighed in satisfaction. "There," he said, pulling himself back out from under the speeder, his eyes falling on a head of blonde hair with a proud smile and handing the wrench back to the little girl. "That should do it for tonight."

Nine-year-old Tera Thorne placed the wrench back into her father's toolkit, the metal clashing with the other tools with a dull clinking sound as Daris dusted off the leftover machine oil staining the man's hands onto the fabric of his pants. While the two had been working on the engine in the shed behind their small family house, night had settled over the desert planet of Jakku, leaving the Thornes in darkness except for the lighting of the lanterns Daris had placed throughout the small room. One by one, Tera went around to turn each of them off as they made their way out into the starry night, millions upon millions of stars in view as they illuminated the night sky.

"Look!" Tera exclaimed as a bright streak began to light up the sky even further. "It's a shooting star!"

"That it is," Daris confirmed with a smile as he saw the way his daughter's face lit up. "And you know what they say about shooting stars."

"You can make a wish." Tera said, and her father nodded, kneeling down next to the little girl.

"Make your wish, Tera." he said. "Just remember, whatever you wish for, don't tell anyone. That's how you can make sure it comes true."

Tera closed her eyes tightly, knowing exactly the wish she had for that star. It was the same wish she'd always had, not that she ever told her father what it was, for fear that it really might not come true. She'd always called the desert wastelands of Jakku home, so had her parents for that matter, her father taking on his family's trade of being a mechanic and the stories he would tell about her mother's work as a scavenger, trading things she'd find at Niima Outpost for food or even bringing home spare parts to keep in Daris's shed.

But Tera had also heard the stories of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker saving the galaxy from the forces of the Empire, or even of the legendary outlaw Han Solo and his ship, the Millennium Falcon, making the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs. What the young girl wouldn't have given for the chance to one day go on an adventure of her own, and to see the big, beautiful galaxy that she was a part of.

Tera opened her eyes slowly, having made her wish and claimed the falling star as her own, her father watching her with a proud smile as he rose back onto his feet, and the two made their way inside, out of the sand and into the warm home.

"So what did you wish for?" her father asked with a grin, and she shook her head, bursting into a fit of laughter.

"Papa!" she exclaimed. "You know I can't tell you that."

Not if she wanted to someday have her own adventure up in the stars above, that is.