There is a proof, lovely in its elegance, regarding the three sides of a right triangle.
She is high in orbit above Kashyyyk, rotating around the skeletal construct that is not yet the Skyhook, and this theorem comes to her because the ship and the Skyhook and Starkiller make up the points of a right triangle. How far is it to his position? How fast can she make it? When will he call her in for extraction?
This last question is really the only one that Juno is interested in, because the ship computer has already solved the other two. She worries about him, when he is out on these missions, which is silly because he trusts her to fly his ship so she should trust him to take care of himself. But Starkiller is her only link to anything these days and she isn't quite sure what she'd do if he were gone—get roaring drunk with General Kota, maybe. But she tries not to think of these things. It makes her anxious. She goes through the proof in her mind instead—once, twice—because Galen is fighting Ozzik Sturn down on the planet's surface and she does not want to think of him being shot at.
—if one side is held constant, then the rate of change between the other two is proportional to their lengths—
Something has exploded. The sensor readings from Galen's armor are beeping at her madly from the console; six years of military training and one ancient proof keep her voice cool and professional as she toggles the comm. "Eclipse to Starkiller. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." His voice comes crackling across the connection; he sounds slightly winded. "Sturn tossed something at me."
What have they been throwing around? Barrels of explosives? Juno presses her lips together and rechecks the Skyhook. He has taken out three of the seven mooring pins, and now there is a decided tilt to the structure—
No longer a right triangle, she thinks, and so the theorem does not hold. In any case neoclassical geometry has never been her favorite subject. She much prefers the complexities of hyperspace.
Four pins remaining. Three pins. Two.
It took her two semesters to realize she didn't want to become an engineer—too much geometry, for one—but during that time she learned quite a bit about structural integrity. Mostly about how to undermine it. It comes in useful now, when the Skyhook begins to collapse and Starkiller finally—finally—calls her down to retrieve him—
She is relieved beyond belief when he requests pickup. The Skyhook is shattering around him when she sets the Rogue Shadow down on the surface of Kashyyyk, but Galen does not seem to notice, only walks onboard as though there were not flaming pieces of debris falling down about them. "Alderaan," he tells her. His shirt is torn and bloody; he is bleeding from a cut to his cheek.
She wants to ask him, Are you all right?
But he is already walking away, tugging his ruined shirt over his head as he goes. She wishes he would talk to her. Vader's secret apprentice is not, perhaps, the most sociable of people—but Juno is lonely, and so (she thinks) is he.