Disclaimer: I'm just playing with Suzanne Collins' characters and her world. They're hers. Not mine. Any lines from the books are hers too. It's all hers. I also don't own Star Wars. None of it. Nada.
Force of Things
AN:I'm a casual Star Wars fan. If I got details wrong I'm so sorry.
#######
Gale flicks through the datapad, committing to memory every inch of useable information he could. The maps of the Imperial Base, somewhere on the rocky planet of Colstev, would give the Rebels only a small victory, if anyone could even call it that. Mostly, it would just be a bolster to moral, taking down an inconsequential base on an unimportant planet was still taking down a base after all.
Closing his eyes, Gale lets his head lean back, come to a rest against the cold of the ship's wall. He wishes he were home. He wishes there were a home to go back to.
The Panem System was small, often overlooked, but it was rich in resources; resources that the endless machine of war the Empire had created needed.
The Capitol, the only livable planet in the system, was used as a base of operations to wring every last bit of life from its thirteen moons. Gale's moon, the Twelfth moon of Panem, had been mined to the very brink of collapsing, while the others were farmed and worked to the point of being unlivable. Once Moff Snow had proven his loyalty to the Empire, destroyed his homeworld, he was promoted to a better sector. No one was sad to see him go.
Not that it had mattered, the damage was done. The only consolation the people of the Panem System had was that their moons weren't destroyed to make way for a hyperlane while they were still on them, as the people of Stewjon often reminded them.
"They razed you for insolence," the Governor of the Second Moon had muttered, insulted at having to share his air, his precious spot in the refugee ship, with common farmers. "Not for progress or a hyperlane."
"They razed us for having decency," one of the few survivors, a man with the good fortune not to be on planet when Stewjon's long standing habit of offering safe refuge to political enemies finally resulted in their complete and utter destruction. "Something none of the Moons of Panem will ever be accused of, believe you me."
Gale hadn't understood the exchange at the time, only that the tattery old man had lived the life of a nomad for far too long and lost far too many. It had taken only a few short months for Gale to understand the man's frustrations fully, because even without his homeworld, he still had his family.
When the Republic fell, the Empire instantly replacing it, Gale hadn't even been born. That was no small miracle.
"You would've been taken to the Academy on Coruscant," his mother had told him, shaking her head at the very thought. "Those Jedi were persistent. I remember reading about that 'baby Ludi' case…"
Gale hadn't been able to imagine anything worse than being torn from his family at such a young age for something he had no ability to control. If he'd had the choice he wouldn't have been born with the Force, just to save his parents the worry.
Even with the Jedi, with all their secrets and lies, all but extinct, Gale with his untapped power was still in danger. It had taken the destruction of his system, the using up of its finite resources and so wiping out of the need for a steady supply of ore miners, tibanna processors, nerf herders, and farmers, had heralded an even darker future for the beleaguered people.
The Emperor, with his network of spies and informants, had scoured every last corner of the galaxy for more Force Sensitives to add to his menagerie. With the destruction of the Moons, the Emperor's people had come and interviewed, done bloodwork on every child available on the refugee ship, before selecting the 'lucky' few.
Gale and his friend, Katniss, had been among them.
His father, as well as Katniss', had been killed trying to save their children from the Emperor's design.
If it hadn't been for Haymitch, a filthy, drunken smuggler that didn't have the good sense to back down from a fight when he was not only outgunned, but also spectacularly outclassed, Gale would've been processed and turned into some Dark Side practitioner. He would be part of the machine that had destroyed not only his planet but also his family.
"What do you want?" The man that had killed Gale's father right in front of not only Gale, but his sobbing mother and siblings, had asked the smuggler when he'd transmitted a message onto the ship carrying Gale and the other Force Sensitives to Coruscant. He hadn't looked particularly thrilled with the prospect of chatting, especially with a mangy smuggler.
Haymitch had simply lounged back in his chair, taken a long swig of his drink before burping loudly. He grinned at the look of disgust on the Emperor's man's face.
"What've you got there? Bunch of Force fodder?"
"None of a smuggler's business," the man snapped, trying to cut off communication. Haymitch's drunken face, grin widening, didn't flash out of existence. Gale watched, from his holding cell in the floor of the shiny ship, as the man began to irately smash buttons, trying to rid himself of the nuisance.
The flickering blue figure of the smuggler wagged his finger at the man. "Not very friendly are you?"
"What have you done to my communication devices? Why can't I cut you off?" The man yelled, a small amount of spit flying from his mouth.
"Why would we tell you?" An unseen person's voice asked from somewhere to Haymitch's right. "That would spoil all the fun."
Haymitch winked at the person before returning his attention back to the man. "Look, short, squat, and overdressed, how we did this isn't really half as interesting as why?"
The man frowned. "Why?"
"Not that that'll matter in," Haymitch looked to the chrono on his arm, "oh, five to six second."
Gale had barely had the chance to look at Katniss, stuffed into the same cell as him, with raised eyebrows, when a deafening explosion had rocked the ship.
The kids had all been thrown to the ground, into one another and the walls, as the cells had quickly filled with smoke and debris.
Before Gale had been able to clear his vision the bars locking him and the other children in the floor had been pried away and a hand had reach down and pulled Katniss out by the collar.
"Look what I caught!" The man, young with bronze hair and eyes the color of the seas Gale had seen in holos of the Fourth Moon, had grinned as he'd dropped the still stunned Katniss onto her feet, free from the cell.
Gale had glared up at the grinning man.
"Oh, you want out too?"
It hadn't taken long before the children were all plucked out of the cells, quickly ushered through a blast hole in the side of the kidnappers' ship and onto what, to this day, Gale still thinks is the most hobbled together mess of a ship he's ever had the displeasure of riding in.
"Quickly children," a kind eyed woman with long dark hair had called to them, giving the backmost group of children, the one's from the Eleventh Moon, a little push before reaching into the little bag at her side and pulling out a small sphere.
With a careless tug, she pulled a pin from the sphere and tossed it over her shoulder.
Gale heard the start of the explosion right as the doors to the new, unknown ship, snapped close.
"Follow Mads, children!" The slightly mad looking girl who'd just blown up their captor's ship without so much as a flinch yelled.
Turning, Gale had seen a small girl, maybe Katniss' age, gesture for them to 'come', her bright blue eyes shining under the pale yellow glow of the floor lighting.
She'd taken them to a large room, stuffed full of stolen goods and illegal substances, passed out food and blankets to each with a soft smile. She seemed entirely too familiar in the vastness of the unknown.
It had taken Gale several long minutes of staring to jog his memory.
She was Madge Undersee, the daughter of the Twelfth Moon's last Governor. The timid, quiet creature that had disappeared when her father had upset Moff Snow and the entire family had vanished from the face of the moon.
His staring had caused her to blush as red as any lethan Twi'lek, but it was hard to ignore a ghost.
Her presence had at calmed him. She wasn't worn looking, had no bruises or scars on her pale skin, and though her dress wasn't the finery she'd always worn back on the Twelfth Moon, it was clean and covering. This wasn't a bad place, he was certain of it by the look on her face as she'd handed him his blanket.
Gale hadn't spoken to her, the crowd and the shortness of the flight hadn't allowed for that sort of thing, but he'd made a mental note to find her later and ask her how she turned up on a smuggler ship.
They'd been taken to a port, where, to their surprise and delight, they'd been reunited with their families.
"Prim!" Katniss had nearly tripped over her own feet as she'd run across the ratty looking hanger to her sister.
"Gale!" his siblings screamed, running with his mother through the throngs of displaced persons.
Years later, Gale still can't remember just what was said, he was too consumed with grief over his father. He did know that what Haymitch and his smuggler band had told the group had been right.
The refugees of the Panem System were recruited for the Rebellion, to fight against the Empire and the Emperor that had destroyed their home and tried to steal their children.
"You're free to do as you like," Haymitch had told them, from his makeshift podium of spice boxes and droid parts. "But the Empire will come after you no matter what you decide, so choose wisely."
Now, years out and what feels to be a million missions later, Gale is still happy with his decision, however little difference it seems to make in the course of history. He doesn't see his family half as much as he'd like, but the hope that his brothers and sister will have a home someday, be free from the worry of the Empire bearing down on them and cutting them off from life, keeps him going.
"Committed it to memory yet?" A soft voice calls to him from the rectangle of light in the hallway outside his room.
Madge steps in, a soft smile on her face. Her hair is down, not up in the elaborate knots and braids she often wears when she's off ship, making deals and gathering up information from less than savory characters. The pale dress she's wearing is shimmersilk, one Gale had bartered for when he'd been on Belsavis.
"Pretty dress," he tells her.
She does a little twist. "This plain old thing?"
"Plain?" Gale's eyebrows rise. "You need to educate yourself on shimmersilk. Nothing made of that is 'plain'."
With a smile, Madge gently settles in next to Gale, peers down at the datapad in his hand. "Is it easy for you?"
It takes Gale a moment to catch up with her, he's still thinking about the shimmersilk dress, how low it's cut at the bust and how flattering it is at her waist.
"Memorizing things, learning, because of the Force, you know?"
"Oh," he looks down at his datapad, at the endless diagrams and maps Wiress and Beetee had stolen during a dangerous escapade on Nar Shadaa, and shrugs. "I guess."
"You'll be careful, won't you?" She asks suddenly not lifting her eyes from the datapad. "I know it isn't heavily guarded, but promise me you'll be careful, Gale."
Gale stares at her. She's got too much will for him to make her tell him what's bothering her why she's suddenly worried about him, and even if she weren't he doesn't have the stomach to force her. The old 'mind trick', was still one of his least favorite lessons, and he's not particularly good at it.
As he'd told the old master that had come to the children and tried to teach them, refine their crude skills with the Force, "That's not right, messing around in someone's head."
"Your moral qualms may be the end of you young Hawthorne," the old man had mumbled, giving up his lesson for the day.
Reaching out, Gale pushes a loose strand of Madge's hair from her shoulder, letting his fingers, charred from making modifications to lighsaber, graze across her shoulder.
"What's wrong?"
"Just promise me you'll be careful," she says again. She looks up, her eyes steady and full of a terrified intensity, and Gale finds he can only nod. There's no ease in her when he does, but she swallows, grimaces. "Good."
They sit there, holding each other's gaze for several aching minutes, before Madge's cheeks light up again, brighter than the suns of Tatooine.
"I should go," she forces a smile, her eyes still focused on Gale. "Haymitch will be looking for me."
Getting up, she straightens her dress, the shimmersilk catching the dull light from the hall, dancing over her figure.
"Madge?" Gale frowns at her. When she looks back, her expression soft, he swallows down uncertainty. "Do you think I'm reckless?"
Her lips twitch, turn up into something genuine, and she shakes her head. "I think you're brave, and I know you think you're part of the luckiest bunch in the Galaxy, because of the Force and all. I just-I just worry it'll get the best of you someday."
Cool little fingers reach out, comb through his hair before sweeping down and cupping his stubble covered cheek, her thumb brushing just under his eye.
"I think about the things we've seen, what's happened on all the other planets, our little moons, what happened to the Jedi, and I think how close you came to being dumped into the lap of that mad-man…" She sighs, closes her eyes.
"But I didn't," Gale covers her hand with his, trapping it against his prickly cheek. "I'm right here."
"We're walking a fine line." She opens her eyes. "They're murders. They're heartless. They'll either turn you if they catch you or they'll cut you up, take you apart and see how you work. They'll kill you, Gale."
"All this over a little raid?" He chuckles.
She gives him a watery smile. "I just keep thinking of the poor Bothans, about those plans, and that awful thing their building…"
"Makes everything we do seems so small and insignificant compared to what's going on at Yavin, huh?"
Madge shakes her head. "Just because it's small, doesn't mean it isn't important. I convinced Haymitch to save a bunch of Force Sensitive kids, and while that was a small act, you all have helped the Rebellion for years. That longevity is our contribution. We've been making little chips in the armor of the Empire for years. I don't think what we're doing is insignificant. I just…I'm not…" Her eyes close. "I'm not in tune with the Force, Gale. I don't want to lose you to it. Which is ridiculous, because I don't even have you to begin with-"
Gale stands before she can finish her babbling, quickly dips in and presses his lips to hers.
He's dreamed of kissing her for years, maybe not since he'd seen her handing out blankets and rations on Haymitch's ship, but not long after. It's every bit as intoxicating as he'd thought it would be.
There is no passion-That's what the old man that had tried to teach the Force Sensitives from the Moons had said, but Gale is certain there is. There is passion and emotion and it wears a shimmersilk dress and tastes of juna berries.
"You have me," Gale manages to breath out against her lips as he comes up for air. "You have me."
His hands start to travel, down Madge's back, the calluses on his fingers catching on the fabric of her dress, when someone comes suddenly over the intercom in the room.
"Hawthorne!" Haymitch's voice cracks over the system. "Go knock on Madge's door and tell her we're ready to head out. Karking intercom in her room is still busted."
Gale grunts a response, telling Haymitch to 'give him a minute', managing to give Madge a few more long kisses before she pulls away, a smile on her lips.
"Be careful, Gale."
"You too."
And with one last smile, she's gone, off for some secretive mission with Haymitch in the Outer Rim.
The scent of her blumfruit soap hangs in her absence as Gale smiles and flops back onto his bed, picks up his datapad and begins studying again.
Taking down the small base would bolster moral, that was true, but memorizing the stolen data would do more than just help them win an inconsequential victory. It would keep Gale alive, it would get him back to the ship, it would get him back to Madge, and that's as good as home to him.