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"You wouldn't do that," Luke said. He didn't know why, but he was sure it was true.

"Wouldn't I?"

They glared at each other. Luke looked away first. This is the right thing, he told himself. It's our only choice. But it didn't ring true. Yes, Div had valuable information.

Yes, he'd proven himself an enemy of the Rebellion. But he'd had plenty of chances to kill Luke. He hadn't.

And the anger on his face when they'd accused him of working for the Empire—that had been real.

"You knew we'd never agree to those terms," Luke said.

"Maybe."

"So why drag me out here in the middle of the night?" Luke asked, irritated.

Div slapped the worn mattress. "Couldn't sleep. So why should you?"

If it hadn't been the middle of the night, Luke might have laughed. "You don't need to make any deals," he said instead. They'd been over this ground before. "Just tell us what we want to know. The name of your employer, and where to find him. That's all. Then you can leave here to go do…whatever it is you do."

"You want me to talk, you're going to have to make me." Div didn't look too worried.

Surely he knew that the Rebel Alliance wasn't like the Empire, that they would never resort to torture or interrogation droids. Or maybe he was just certain that no matter what happened he'd keep his secrets to himself.

Luke drummed his fingers against the hilt of his lightsaber. "What if I could make you?" he said slowly. "You're forgetting, I'm a Jedi."

"You have a lightsaber," Div said. "It doesn't make you a Jedi. Trust me."

"The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded."

"You think I have a weak mind?" Div grinned. "Go ahead. Try me."

If only he could. Luke could feel the power within him. Why couldn't he access it? No matter how hard he pushed himself, how hard he tried to connect with the Force, it eluded his grasp. His failure was more frustrating than ever. He felt like the solution was fluttering at the edges of his memory, like a half-remembered dream. But that was silly. He didn't know how to use the Force, had never known. Because Ben had died before he could teach Luke all he needed to know.

He felt a surge of anger at the thought of Darth Vader and his red lightsaber slicing through Obi-Wan's body like it was made of air.

"This is useless," he said, fury boiling beneath his words.

"Like I've been telling you."

The anger is your true enemy. The words just popped into his head. They made little sense, but he felt they were true.

"I'm leaving," he said abruptly. The longer he stayed and the angrier he got, the bigger the chance he'd do something he would regret.

"Not so easy, this Jedi stuff, is it?" Div asked as Luke stepped out of the cell. He muttered something else under his breath, something Luke didn't quite catch. But it sounded almost like I should know.

In a dark corner of space, just beyond the Rebel defenses, a ship waited.

And inside the ship, three men.

Biding their time.

They had no names, not anymore. This was how the Dark Lord had wanted it. They no longer needed their own identities. They were servants of the Empire, nothing more.

And they were on a mission.

At their signal, a fleet of TIE fighters swooped into the moon's thick atmosphere and opened fire on the Rebel scum. The sky lit with explosions and laserfire. Flaming shrapnel screamed through the clouds. The Rebels scrambled a squadron of X-wings, but the pathetic ships would be no match for the Imperial attack.

And if they were: No matter.

The attack was merely a distraction, a decoy.

Something to occupy the Rebels while a single, stealthy Imperial ship slid into the atmosphere and streaked toward the jungle. With the fireworks of battle blasting above, no one would notice the grey bullet of a ship or its slim trail of exhaust. No one would realize that the perimeter had been breached. No one would understand why, without warning or reason, the TIE fighters suddenly turned and fled.

No one would stop the three men from