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The men, whoever they were, never looked their prisoners in the eye. They never spoke, not even to one another. Leia had managed to knee one in the gut, but he hadn't grunted in pain. He had barely even flinched, and the blank expression on his face never changed. It was like they were droids. It was like they were empty.

"Don't you dare leave us in here," Leia ordered, as they slammed and locked the cell gate.

One of the men finally did look up and, perhaps accidentally, caught Leia's eye. She shivered. There was something… wrong about his gaze. Something empty.

And then the man was gone.

Leia tried to shake off the horror. "This is all your fault," she muttered. When in doubt, arguing with Han always seemed like the best course of action. You could usually count on him to be wrong. But mostly, she just wanted some noise to fill up the silence in the cell. And to drown out her thoughts. There was an idea bubbling up in her, an idea she couldn't tolerate. Fighting with Han was the perfect way to ignore it.

"My fault?" Han echoed. " My fault? "

"Yes, your fault!" Leia said. She sat with her back against the wall of the bare cell.

Han prowled the other side, searching for cracks in the wall. Chewbacca wrapped his giant paws around the durasteel bars, trying to pry them apart. But it was no use. The Wookiee roared in frustration. "See?" Leia said triumphantly. "Even Chewie thinks it's your fault."

"You going to listen to that furry oaf?"

Chewbacca growled, sounding insulted.

"Sorry, buddy," Han said quickly. "But Her Royalness here knows that if anything, this is her fault."

" My fault?" Leia repeated.

"You got it, sweetheart. If you hadn't landed so quickly—"

"If you hadn't shot our only leverage—"

"Oh, yeah? Well, if you hadn't…if you hadn't…"

"Where do you think they took Luke?" Leia asked quietly. She couldn't ignore it any longer.

"I don't know," Han said. "But you know the kid. He can take care of himself.

Probably fought 'em off with some of that Jedi magic of his." He didn't sound convinced.

Leia didn't say anything.

"Hey, don't worry," Han said awkwardly. "We're all going to be fine."

She had to smile. It was always a little entertaining whenever Han tried to be sincere.

He was so… bad at it.

"We've gotten out of tighter jams than this one," he reminded her. "About a thousand of them."

"I know," Leia said. "You're right."

But she couldn't stop seeing the look in those men's eyes, empty and soulless. And she couldn't ignore the truth any longer. She remembered where she'd seen a look like that before: X-7, the brainwashed assassin. He'd been brainwashed by Soresh, the Imperial who had trapped them here. And Leia was starting to think that Soresh had built himself a soulless, empty-minded army.

That was bad enough, but not as terrifying as the obvious question: How many more soldiers did he need?

"I simply was not built for this kind of situation!" C-3PO exclaimed, crouching stiffly behind a large red boulder.

R2-D2 beeped sadly.

"Yes," C-3PO agreed. "You'd think I would be used to it by now."

The protocol droid and his astromech counterpart had watched their friends being dragged away to some kind of underground fortress. Now they were alone on the surface of the moon. And they had no idea what to do next.

The astromech droid was rolling in slow circles, his neural circuitry whirring with furious thought. Suddenly he released a shrill whistle.

"Oh, we have to help them, do we?" C-3PO said, sounding irritated. "That's all well and good. But how exactly do you expect us to do that?"

R2-D2 trilled a speedy response.

"Me? You want to know if I have an idea?" C-3PO said.

R2-D2 beeped a yes.

"My idea is that we go back to the ship and stay out of trouble, just like we were told," C-3PO said. "I'm sure Master Luke and the others are perfectly capable of saving themselves."

The astromech droid stopped in his tracks, and unleashed an angry burst of beeps and whistles.

When he finished, C-3PO leaned stiffly against