Chapter Text
Galen swore as the turbolaser blast connected with his shuttle’s shields and the shield generators overloaded. He just knew he should have left Cal and his group sooner. Ever since they figured out that the more force users were in the same place the easier they were to track Galen had known he should leave. After all, why should he stay? Attachment? Feelings? Those were forbidden were they not? Was it not the selfless, noble, jedi thing to do to leave?
But he had stayed, taking solace in Cal and learning everything he could from Merrin. And that, if he allowed himself to be honest, had been why he stayed. He had been shocked when the nightsister offered to teach him, all while sporting a knowing, but somehow sad look, speaking of the sisterhood of her people and their ways. Teaching him the foundations of their magicks, their sorcery, their ways, and their customs. Those had been some of his best days. He had felt more whole learning with Merrin, even if not fully. He had never been whole, since he had joined the jedi it had only gotten worse. Of course, even feeling that was to feel too much for a jedi. To feel at all was to go against the code, or so his master had said, and so Galen had been shoving that feeling of emptiness away as best he could. But it merely lodged, like a splinter deep inside him. He wondered now if others did the same, and if those feelings breaking out was not what others called a “fall” to the darkside.
And so he had stayed with them longer than he should have, long enough that Merrin had begun to treat him as a fellow nightsister. Even if he was a brother, a fact that had started to scratch at something inside him, enough he was considering talking to Merrin about it. But he had awoken this morning with a dream full of death, a dream from the force, and so had been forced into taking action. Gathering his things and making a hasty farewell before going to board his scavenged shuttle. Before he left, Merrin had thrust, of all things, a book at him as she bid him farewell with a simple, “May this guide you further on your journey and strengthen the ties between us, Veletha.” And with that strange, unknown word ringing in his chest, Galen had left Cal and his band.
Only to run into a star destroyer, probably with an inquisitor, or force-forbid, Darth Vader on board. Galen had for a moment considered trying to escape undetected, but Cal and his krew had still been preparing to leave, and would be much harder pressed to escape than he was if the imperials had time to launch a full intercept group. And so, Galen had let the force flow through him and out and had flown close enough for the imperials, and whatever force sensitive was onboard to lock onto him.
Galen was now desperately trying to calculate a lightspeed jump but with those shields going out he had run out of time. The calculations were only partially complete, and he was now faced with choosing the least worst option: hope he could outfly the imperials until the calculations completed, or risk a jump with incomplete/nonexistant calculations. But there was hope, for there, just there, in that way only another force sensitive would understand, was that feeling of guidance that led one hand onto the controls and the other to the lever neeFded to activate the hyperdrive. Falling deeper into the force, Galen let it guide his hands and held onto hope as the points of stars screamed into lines and the whorl of hyperspace blossomed before him.