A/N: Sorry I've been away so long--finals have thoroughly beaten me up. But I return! Like a non-void function. Anyway, for those of you following Guarded, expect an update early next week.
Juno is not the sort to cry.
She never has been, not even as a child; when her favorite toy broke she only swept up the pieces and neatly threw them out; when her mother died she had stood, dry-eyed, at the funeral, and watched the bare-branched trees stretching up against the bright sky. She did not cry when she left for the Academy; it was only another trip, wasn't it? She did not cry when she crash-landed on her first solo flight and broke her arm in two places; her arm would heal, wouldn't it? And there would certainly be other flights.
It would be foolish to cry over a boy who has broken her heart. So she doesn't.
Instead she fires up the sub-light engines and maneuvers them into the first jump through hyperspace (and Galen is pacing, pacing in the main cabin); she punches in the coordinates for Raxus Prime and the ship jumps—
He tries to speak to her, twice, or at least she thinks he tries; once he comes to find her in the cockpit and she uses the excuse to go to her bunk and catch a few hours of sleep (because someone should watch the ship, after all, and it might as well be him); the second time he corners her as she is coming out of her room later, hair wet from the shower and still feeling betrayed—she snaps at him, then, and tries not to see the look of bewildered hurt on his face as he backs away.
Juno drops him down on Raxus Prime. There is an Imperial shipyard there; he is to destroy it. She doesn't even know who he is betraying anymore, besides her—still, it is perhaps an even greater betrayal that her heart stops every time his comlink cuts out. What does she see in him, anyway? Her savior?
Kota tells her about the Force as they wait for the link to come alive again, and Juno makes slow, looping circles above the Imperial shipyard and thinks to herself that the Force sounds more like a religion than anything else. There are three physical forces in the universe but a grand unifying theory is still elusive; this Force, with its all-encompassing stretch and spiritual overtones, does not seem like a force at all. It seems like an uncaring god.
And then Galen pulls a star destroyer out of the sky.
Later, Juno will not remember the frantic maneuvers to move the Rogue Shadow out of the way of the falling destroyer or the furious firefight she engages herself in to pull some of the TIE fighters off Galen's trail; she will not remember how Kota was shouting at her or her worry over PROXY. She remembers, instead, how her thoughts danced around and around the idea of the Force—
A force powerful enough to down a star destroyer; a force powerful enough to pull twenty-five million tons of titanium and steel (and a mish-mash of other alloys, Juno adds distractedly, just for accuracy's sake). It could be gravity but she has seen Galen shoot lightning from his fingertips so she goes with electromagnetism; she still isn't sure what this Force is or even that it's a separate incarnation from the other forces—but still. It must be something.
Twenty-five million metric tons, and twenty-six thousand kilometers in orbit above the planet surface—and the thrusters must have been firing madly in the opposite direction, Juno thinks; how had he even done it? Induced a magnetic charge in a star destroyer?
All that power, and what will he do with it? Fight the Empire?
After he has been in contact with Vader?
And Juno thinks, determinedly, of magnetic fields and shards of lightning, and when Galen limps onboard with PROXY she merely pulls the Rogue Shadow back into orbit again and does not, does not ask him if he's all right even as her heart is in her throat.
"Corellia," Starkiller tells her, and he looks as though he would like to say something more but Juno bends her head and busies herself with the hyperspace coordinates.
Twenty-five billion kilograms of steel; the force necessary to counteract the thrusters alone would have been incredible. Juno doesn't want to think about it but does, anyway, mulling over the numbers again and again in the solitude of her mind, and she is almost relieved when the secondary engine reports a minor malfunction. It's probably a wire or two that needs to be replaced, but still, Juno is glad for the distraction.
PROXY is out of commission, engaged in self-repair in the practice room; Kota can't fly a ship. Still, they are in hyperspace, so Juno leaves the ship on autopilot and goes to check on the engines.
He shoots lightning from his fingertips. However does he manage that?
It is so cold on this ship, and Juno is tired of it. Even in the engine room—the secondary engine is off and the two primary ones aren't running at full power; they are in hyper-space, after all, and the ship's system doesn't require that much power to run, because really what is there but a few computers and a light or two in the wake-cycle—
He could destroy the Empire, if he liked, but instead he's still fighting for Vader—for Vader, of all people—and Juno does not know why. She presses her forehead against the soothing hum of the engine and wishes that she has some answers.
She closes her eyes and wonders what her life would be like if she had become an engineer.
Footsteps, purposefully loud; the click of the door as it opens. Juno straightens up hurriedly. She turns around and brushes her hair away from her face, and she is horrified to discover that her fingertips are wet; in front of Starkiller, of all people—
But he says nothing, only tilts his head and regards her, thoughtfully.
"I'm fine," Juno says, embarrassed. "It's not—" Her eyes are welling up again. She rubs her hand across them, and says, rather lamely, "Sorry."
"Juno," he murmurs, and then his hands are on her shoulders and he is pulling her toward him; he is warm and reassuringly solid, and Juno presses her cheek against his shoulder and takes a deep shuddering breath and does not cry.
It occurs to her that this is the first time he has ever touched her. It occurs to her that it might be the first time he has ever touched anyone since he was seven; this may very well be the bravest thing he has done in his life, and Juno is, for some reason, absurdly proud of him, even though the echoing hollowness in her chest makes it hard to breathe. Her fingers are tightfisted in the front of her shirt, and Juno does not cry even though she thinks she wants to.
He says her name again, like a question, and Juno is too tired to be embarrassed now, because thinking about him and the Force and the Empire is quite the mental exercise. "Vader," she says.
"He won't interfere," he says, and Juno pulls away and looks up at him because she isn't quite sure what he's doing; his arms are still around her, and she likes that, she thinks, because it is cold on the Rogue Shadow. "Trust me."
"I'm doing what's best," he says. "For both of us."
There is such earnestness in his eyes. He's a Sith, isn't he? Vader's apprentice? And yet he doesn't know the first thing about duplicity—
Juno breathes out, a long, ragged breath, and nods. "I don't want—" she says, and stops. What can she say? I don't want to see you bend to Vader's will. I don't want you to betray the rebels.
And lightning flares up between them, cool, intense, and Juno shouldn't be surprised but is; she presses her lips together and looks up at him. I don't want you to betray me, she wants to say.
"I won't," Galen says, as though he understands.