She gets a plain meal together, then. Mostly reconstituted from powders, though there's a small fruit with a thick rind as a side.

"Master Anakin thinks we probably won't come back here, at least not for a long time, so we've packed up everything we wanna keep..." she says, a bit awkwardly. "Speeder's ready."

She eats with practiced speed and efficiency, tucking the fruit away for later.

"Great. Shall we, then?"

"Yeah. Lemme just get these." She cleans up - and packs - their plates and cups and the last of their food and water, then floats her bags behind her and leads Ellaita out into the gathering dark. It's still warm out, but not quite so brutally hot, and there's a cool wind starting up. The speeder has room for two, some cases already strapped to it. Lily gets her bags secured, and - "Do you want to drive?"

"If that's all right."

She nods. "I'm alright with it."

And Anakin manifests nearby. "I've got coordinates for the nearest town with likely ships," she says, "Though navigating on Jakku can be a bit of an exercise in creativity."

"I've noticed that, yeah. Any notable hazards in our path here?"

"The best path takes us through a canyon. It's sometimes tricky to navigate, with a possibility of sandslides. There's not a lot of predators that'll go after a speeder - most of them prefer hiding under the sand and waiting for something to step on them - but there's some around the canyons and rocky areas that get ambitious."

"There's also some sand flats - after the canyon - that are unstable to land on, since they're above a cave system with frequent sink holes and often only a thin crust above a void. Sometimes the way the sand shifts there can throw off the speeder's height sensors, and that stretch is prone to extremely high winds. Worst at dawn and dusk, though, and we should be passing through after the dusk winds have died down some."

"There's also a settlement an hour past that we'll need to give a wide berth - they've crouched on a nice wellspring and are now aggressive about their territory."

She nods, already running through evasive maneuvers in her head.

"Best make a start, then." She gets into the driver's seat.

Lily climbs into the seat behind her, setting up a riffle beside her. Just in case some predator gets ideas.

(The speeder is, at least, fairly obvious on 'how to drive this thing.')

"I'll keep pace with you," Anakin says, "Though I'll be concealing my presence."

And off they go.

She swings the speeder about a bit to get a feel for its responses before they get to the tricky bits.

It's a good quality speeder, despite its weathered appearance and clear age. It's clearly been worked on and improved fairly extensively - it runs quietly and cleanly, handles beautifully. It's fast, too, especially for a local speeder, and maneuverable even at higher speeds, with a tight turning radius.

"How long have you been working on this?"

She grins. "Pretty long. Master Anakin used to tinker with podracers when she was a kid, so she's been teaching me stuff since I could hold tools. And - I like it a lot. This isn't really properly tricked out for real racing, though it can get really fast. This one we've only had, like... Six years? After I crashed the last one." She perks up a little. "Maybe once we're off planet I can get the parts for an actual racer. That'd be awesome - most of the parts in this are salvage, or stuff Master Anakin reshaped out of salvage."

"You've done a pretty good job with it. Ever do any actual flying?"

"Not a ton. We've been trying to avoid drawing attention, which a ship would out here... But I found a TIE in one of the crashed Star Destroyers once that no one'd salvaged yet. Got it working long enough for a spin somewhere really deserted, though it shook apart when I tried to get too high... Master Anakin had to float me back down."

"TIEs are probably most similar to a podracer, in terms of how they handle. Tiny little cockpit, huge amounts of thrust."

"Yeah. It was really fun."

"I'd still rather have an X-wing in a fight, though."

"How do X-wings handle?"

"The power's spread out over four engines at the back corners so you've got a better balance. TIE'll turn sharper but the X-wing's less likely to spin out on you. Plus it's got heavier cannons and a rack of torpedos for the standard loadout. And the shields, which means you don't immediately die if you fuck up once."

"Less of a racer and more of a fighter, then - though I bet TIEs do pretty well if the field's crowded with stuff, or if there's a lot of them..."

"Strongest in swarms, yeah. Something the size of an ImpStar carries at least six squadrons, and they don't usually deploy from anything much smaller."

"Woah."

"Is fighting them cool?"