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Div couldn't look at the empty desk that had once been covered by Astri's computer clutter, or the shelves that had once been filled with Clive's collection of exotic Merenzane Gold vintages. The caretaker who came in once a month had managed to keep the abandoned house from falling in on itself, but she couldn't stop the dust from collecting.

She couldn't turn the house back into a home.

She couldn't clear out the ghosts.

It had been a week. And with each passing day, it grew easier to see those ghosts; it became harder to forget. Which was why he almost couldn't bear to look around the house. But anything would be easier than looking at X-7, who was sitting on Trever's couch, wearing Trever's clothes, flipping through Trever's old collection of Gravball trading cards.

X-7 tossed them onto a side table. "I don't understand," he said. "Why would he…I…anyone collect something with no value?"

"For fun," Div said. "It made you happy."

X-7 riffled through a stack of holopics sitting on the table. He picked up one of Trever grinning in front of a shiny new Arrow-23 speeder. It had been his fifteenth birthday.

"Happy." X-7 frowned and shook his head. "I can't remember that."

It wasn't the only thing he and Div had in common.

There were their strength and agility, of course, and their single-minded determination.

But it wasn't just that. They were both men without a past. They understood each other.

"Tell me again," X-7 said. "Tell me how it happened."

Div sighed. He'd told so many stories of the past, but this was the only one X-7 ever wanted to hear.

"They were betrayed," Div said. "It was supposed to be a simple raid. The munitions factory should have been an easy target. But one of the Rebels sold them out to the Empire…stormtroopers everywhere. They…they never had a chance."

"They killed our parents," X-7 said, brushing his fingers across a holopic of Astri.

"Except they weren't really my parents."

"They were. In every way that counted," Div said fiercely.

"But Trever—"

"You," Div said, correcting him. "You managed to sneak into the factory."

"You were watching from the ridge, with electrobinocs," X-7 said. "You were too far away. Too young."

"You saw Astri and Clive go down," Div said. "You still had the charges, and you were determined to get them inside. You weren't about to let them die in vain. But then…" He shook his head. "I still don't understand it."

"Then the TIE fighters dropped the concussion missiles," X-7 finished for him. "They destroyed their own factory. With me inside."

"They killed our people for trying to destroy it—and then they blew it up," Div said. It was the one thing he'd never been able to understand. It made all the death even more pointless.

"Because you've never worked with the Empire," X-7 said. "They have something they couldn't risk falling into Rebel hands. Or maybe they were planning on razing it anyway to build the garrison. So they destroyed it before you could. To make a point."

"A point that killed hundreds of their own men," Div said.

"Men are expendable," X-7 said with chilling calm. Then he gave himself a small shake. "I mean, that's what the Empire believes. That's what the Rebels don't understand."

Div understood. As soon as he'd seen that laserfire blast Astri to the ground, he'd understood.

"Except, they didn't kill everyone inside the factory," Div said. "There were survivors.

You."

X-7 became very still. His face was a chalky gray. He looked up from the holopics and, for the first time in a week, met Div's eyes. "I may have made it out of that factory alive. But, Div, we both have to accept it: Your brother did not survive. Whoever I was, it's not…we can't…"

Hesitantly, half afraid he'd end up shot in the head, Div put a hand on X-7's shoulder.

"You're here now," Div said. "So maybe we can."

"You're late," Ferus said as Div arrived at the rendezvous point. Div and Trever had discovered the abandoned shack, a few kilometers from the house, many years earlier.

They'd once used it as a clubhouse, where Trever pretended to be interested