DEATH VALLEY

“Do you have any idea how long it’s been since I’ve had a real meal? Let alone someone willing to cook for me that I didn’t have to pay,” she laughed when he asked if that was ‘all’ it took to impress her. Wasn’t that enough? Maybe her standards were a little low. “No, but I bet he’d be more hindrance than a help. He may have jedi lightsaber skills, but apparently he wasn’t programmed with their grace in the kitchen. 

She took his hand and got to her feet, laughing as he repeated her threat. “How about we say that, as long as it’s good, I won’t kick you off the ship.” She conceded, hanging onto his hand as he led the way.

Just as Juno predicted, PROXY was absolutely no help when it came to cooking. Galen kicked his oldest friend out of the room within ten minutes of the attempt. If he was going to fail at cooking Juno a real meal, it wasn’t going to be because of PROXY.

“Kashyyyk?” her eyes lit up with that unbridled curiosity that seemed to be the only thing keeping her anywhere near positive amongst the chaos of this odd time. She could do her best to ignore the war that raged on, could focus on learning all she could about the galaxy she knew so little about. It was a distraction, but perhaps not the worst she could find. “With the wookies? I am from Dathomir.” Her answer was spoken before she could consider the repercussions of such an admission, but her focus was not on her, but him. Had he seen wookies? Grown up with them? What were they like? A million questions ran through her mind, pushing away any logical fears that ought to have come up at telling him she was from a planet now desolate and empty.

Galen cracked a smile. He didn’t remember much from his brief childhood on Kashyyyk, but seeing someone so curious and excited about the planet tickled him. “Yes. I only lived there briefly - until both of my parents passed.” He didn’t mention that his father had been killed by Lord Vader. That seemed like unnecessary information to give this stranger. “From what I can remember, it was a nice place to live. My father certainly liked it.” Galen was equally curious about her life - although, admittedly, his curiosity was mostly tied to how she’d grown up. “Did you live your entire life on Dathomir?”

something about him seemed familiar and they had to be, why else would he be so honest about it. he cast his mind back into his memories briefly before it came to him —the file! this was someone that had been important in vaders files in the fortress. 

“if I had known in the beginning when I was a child… yes. i knew horror even then and I was…” he paused to search for the best word to use though several came into his head, “reluctant to be under someone elses power the way I had for the first nine years of my life.” he left it at that. he did not talk about his years as a child slave. not with anyone. kriff he’d barely spoken of it to padme, obi-wan, or ahsoka in the entire time he’d known them, yes small tidbits had slipped out but nothing past those. it was his pain and his alone to know. “it would be nice to think that wouldn’t it?” a cold smile drifted across his lips before they fell back into a mask of passive nothingness. 

The first nine years of his life? Galen, feeling some kind of sick loyalty to the man, managed to bite back a retort about he’d been under Vader’s control for almost his entire life. What had he told Juno all those years ago? Even after Vader betrayed him and had locked Juno away, Galen had still been his master’s slave. It took so long to break that, to realize that he had to take control for himself. 

“Controlling someone is easier than most people think.” Galen had only been a child when Vader took him and dubbed him Starkiller, but he knew that even then, some people wouldn’t have been fooled. “We all have something we want. Power. Love. Companionship. The smartest manipulators find what we’re lacking and dangle it before us. They use it to test us, to twist our minds until we only believe what they have to say, because we believe they can help give us the things that we so desperately desire.” He paused, his own features a mirror of Anakin’s - passive nothingness. “They’ll do it to anyone they gain something from. If one person rejects their attempts, they’ll find another.”

her head nodded in confirmation. “maybe i’ve just seen too much chaos to begin with.” that was something that she knew to be true with certainty, but she had always learned that it was because of continued efforts from the rebellion, that they were the party to blame when it came to the current state of the universe. iden had never been given good reason to see it the other way around. “that’s why the war needs to end.” the statement itself wasn’t controversial. it was just how that happened that was such a huge point of contention. “no one making these decisions are actually hurt by the war. maybe killed, but more often than not, their decisions fall on everyone else.”

his brows both rose in surprise as he struggled to not laugh at the abrupt question. anakin ran the places he knew through his head but he knew they’d be over 20 years out of date. “try to underbelly, I’m sure there are a few decent places down there. but watch out for the rebellion of people trying to fight for the surface.”  

turning to walk away once more to enter those depths he spoke of to the other. “rarely is someone a local when they ask for a place to go. around here at least.” the words drifted over his shoulder and trailed behind him in the air. 

Galen wasn’t sure what compelled him to follow after the stranger, but he did it anyway. There was something so familiar about this man. Something he couldn’t quite place...but could feel as strong as he felt the force around him. “I’ve never had much time to hang back and grab a drink.” Casual talk wasn’t something Galen was exactly accustomed to, and he wasn’t sure when he’d outstay the welcome of this conversation. Surely, this man had better things to do than guide Galen around. “I’ve always been tied up with...more important affairs.”

“Good, because if you try to steal my cockpit, I might have to dump you on the nearest backwater world to get it back,” she joked with a straight face, cocking a brow at him. “Hmm, well if you’re trying to impress me… there are other ways.” She winked at him suggestively. “For instance… you could cook me a meal that didn’t come out a plastic packet.” She laughed.

“I have known war,” she admitted with a nod of her head, “when I was a girl, I saw how war could ravage worlds, worlds that had no part of such a fight. But this-” she paused. She could not tell him that it was a different war, that this was something so very foreign to her. Instead she latched onto his words, curious and intrigued. “Have you come from far away?”

Galen didn’t know how to answer her question. “In a way...yes.” Where had he come from? It seemed strange to say that he had come from death. Was that really even it? He supposed he had been one with the force...was it more accurate to say that? Shaking off the thoughts, he finally said, “But really, I’m from Kashyyyk. I didn’t grow up there, though. What about you? Where are you from?”

“Why would you ever need to try to impress me?” Juno chuckled with genuine amusement. He couldn’t seriously think he hadn’t already impressed her enough, could he? She waited for him to lean closer, but when he didn’t, she glanced upwards. “You’re not terrible, but you’ll never be better than me.” She answered confidently, leaning in to close the rest of the distance between them, she pecked him on the lips sweetly. “But that’s okay, because I doubt I could beat you with a lightsaber, so we’re basically even.”

it was hard not to think of the near misses that had come recently –– she was lucky that she hadn’t broken more of her body when she’d nearly gotten sucked out of the rebel station and instead slammed against the doors at full force. her own careless mistakes tended to be quite… well, deadly. or nearly deadly.

“you make a fair point,” she offered with a small nod of her head. much of the plans made around her were meticulous. “some plans are quite meticulous when it comes to war, it’s hard to ignore that. but on a more personal level? i’ve seen… more than my fair share.”

Merrin’s eyes lit up at the offer. In truth, he was probably only being polite, possibly trying to ease his own situation, but curiosity… it had always been a weakness of hers. Tilting her head towards him, she couldn’t help the smile that played lightly on her lips as she considered his words carefully. “Would you?” she questioned despite herself, intrigued to know just how helpful this man might be. “This place, this war… it’s foreign to me…”

“The war?” Galen’s eyebrows lifted, and his mind raced. If the war was foreign to her, where exactly was she from? Surely every planet had felt the cold sting of this conflict. No one had been left unscathed...right? Then, his mind connected the dots. Had this woman been gone too? Had the force brought her back? He swallowed down the questions, thinking they’d be rude, and instead asked, “The whole war? Or just this part of it? These newest developments are  a bit strange to me too.”

He thought so highly of her, she could see it in his eyes, and it pained Juno to think that had gotten it so wrong. He knew the best things about her; that she was loyal, and competent, and compassionate, but he hardly knew the worst. As far as he knew, the worst thing she’d ever done was piloting him around to kill Jedi, but the truth was, she had done things far worse than he had. 

A part of her would always hope for forgiveness, and she’d always work to make up for what she’d done, but deep down, she knew she never would. She didn’t deserve forgiveness, and nothing she did could ever make up for the lives she’d taken, the world she’d killed. There was no way to bring back those lives and undo what she’d done, but she’d never stop trying to make the galaxy a little bit better anyways.

She hesitated to answer his question, knowing she’d hate to see the light go out of his eyes when she let him down. Kota had told her once that his feelings for her had been the bright spot in his darkness, and she hated to extinguish that, but he deserved to know the truth. “You don’t know everything I’ve done, Galen.” She sighed, swallowing the lump in her throat. “I’m not as good as you think I am.”

“I don’t care.” It was the truth. How could he care? Whatever Juno thought she had done so wrong, Galen was sure he had done comparably, if not worse. His lips tilted into a deep frown, and he grabbed her gently, but firmly, by the shoulders. He hated seeing her like this. No matter what she had done, she didn’t deserve to think that anything would taint his opinion of her. Didn’t she know how strongly he felt about her? How much his entire being ached just to be around her?

She and Galen hadn’t had much time together, in the grand scheme of things, and yet, in their short time together he’d come to mean so much to her. For a time, he’d been the only person she could trust, the only person she knew would have her back no matter what. After he’d saved her on the Empirical, they’d spent months cooped up together, searching for Kota, and she’d learned to rely on him.

She chuckled a little when he asked her too be patient; it was a reasonably request, but a part of her felt like all she ever did was wait around for him. Still, she wasn’t about to rush him. He didn’t have much experience with relationships at all, let alone romance. “I’m pretty used to waiting around for you, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” She teased playfully.

Her eyebrows shot up when he described his feelings as pure, and a pang of guilt shot through her. It was a familiar pain, the ache as she thought of Callos, and all the other innocent people she’d hurt while she was with the Empire. It had to be a joke, thinking she was anything but tainted. “What if I’m the one that doesn’t live up to yours?”

​

a second cursory glance is given his way at his response to her words, paired with a small shrug of iden’s shoulders.  “one of the easiest ways to get yourself killed, too,” she agreed with a nod of her head. “there’s enough chaos in the galaxy right now. the last thing people need to be doing is making careless mistakes.”

Careless mistakes. Galen had made enough of those in his lifetime. He briefly wondered whether his continued loyalty to Vader during his last life had been a careless mistake or simply one that involved too much care. He didn’t like to dwell on it. 

“I mean if I had seen through the emperor when I had been younger that maybe he wouldn’t have fooled me as easily as he did.” if he could have seen that that bullshit tale maybe he could have stopped the worst of it but definitely not all. anakin knew that was his delusion alone. 

It struck Galen that he had been fooled by Vader just as Anakin had been fooled by the Emperor. Well, no, it hadn’t been entirely the same. Galen had been raised as Vader’s secret apprentice. He had been brought up as Starkiller - truly believing that he and his master would one day rule together. Master and apprentice, side by side. 

Vader had tricked him, though. The sith always betrayed each other, and Vader had certainly stabbed Galen in the back....literally. 

“Do you really think that you could’ve stopped him, stopped it all, if you had seen through him? You were a tool for him, just like I was a tool for you. Easily discarded. Disposable. Replaceable. You aren’t blameless, but if you hadn’t been fooled by him, someone else would have been.”

​

leia rolled her eyes. “ don’t overthink it, marek. i’m not trying to set you up. ” she was not exactly sure what she was doing, but it was far from that. planning, gathering what other members of the rebellion thought would be a good step after endor. maybe searching for some kinship. “ i’m saying how i feel. what i want is your piece of mind on it. and be honest. ”

Galen mulled over the words. Sometimes anger and hatred are deserved and right. He thought about Endor. How he’d thrown himself on top of Juno, terrified of what might happen to her if he didn’t protect her. He thought of the screams of everyone around him as shrapnel flew through the air and cut into their skin. He thought of the gut-wrenching, all consuming pain and misery that accompanied his former master’s many betrayals. 

Then, he thought about holding his master at his mercy, with the killing strike aimed, only to refuse to submit to the dark side in his final moments. 

If she was startled by the voice answering her, she hid it fairly well. Her head turned towards the newcomer, curious and wary of their intent, all too aware that he could easily be something of an enemy. But he wasn’t holding a weapon to her head, and he didn’t look about to attack, so that had to be something, she reconciled as she let her gaze float back to the sight before her; keeping an eye on the man just to be safe.

Pursing her lips at his words, she considered them carefully. She had once thought Mandalore was past the war her rule had brought, yet it had been that same war that had lead to her death years later. It seemed that everything she had once known as fact was slipping away into questions instead. She didn’t want him to be right, she wanted to see an end to the seemingly constant cycle of pain and war, but she knew her wants and desires meant little in the grand scheme of things. 

With a tilt of her head, she didn’t quite agree or disagree with his words, refusing to commit to an answer. “It certainly takes its toll for far longer than anyone likes to admit,” she offered, watching those below with a sad smile gracing her features. Looking back to the man, she considered him for a moment before continuing. “Do you really think another war will follow this?”

“Yes,” Galen answered without hesitation. He didn’t want it to be true. He wished, more than anything, that he could have a more optimistic view on the matter. If only he could bring himself to ignore the strong twist in his gut that told him that the violence would never really end. “There will be another war after this one, and then another war, and then another. The cycle will continue as long as there are those who struggle for power and there are strong, opposing views. Whether the wars will be as deadly or spread as far across the galaxy as this one...I have no idea.”

Juno’s fingers itched to be back at the helm of the ship, never content when anyone else was flying her around. She somehow managed to contain her winces every time she felt a tremor she knew she could’ve avoided, keeping herself in her seat despite the strong urge to push him out of the way and take over. Even so, she knew he wasn’t doing a bad job, even if she knew she could do it better. “Hmm, now you’re making me regret the offer. Maybe it’s a bad idea to reward you for showing off,” she teased, folding her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes.