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Let the Force be your guide, the deep voice in his mind reminded him.

Soresh dangled the lightsaber before him. "You can have it back, for good," Soresh said. "All you need to do is press the button."

Luke didn't move.

"Now," Soresh urged him.

Now.

Luke struck out. His leg slashed across Soresh's knees, knocking the man to the floor.

The lightsaber flew out of Soresh's hand and Luke snatched it out of midair.

"Kill him!" Soresh shouted.

The lightsaber blade lit up just as the guards started shooting. Luke slashed and hacked at the guards, but they evaded him. He was always a step behind, a moment too slow…maybe because now he understood those guards. He understood they were people just like him, doing what Soresh wanted them to do because they had no other choice. He didn't want to hurt them.

On the other hand, he didn't want to die.

Trying to remember his training, Luke swept the blade through the air, deflecting every laserbolt that came near him. Laserfire erupted in the room, scorching the walls and blasting through the giant computers. Exposed wiring sparked and soon flames licked at the walls. Foul, acrid black smoke choked the room, shrouding them in darkness. Laserfire streaked through the black, and Luke struck on instinct. Eyes squinted against the smoke, he had nothing but the Force to tell him where the next shot was coming from. Still, he wheeled on his feet, deflecting one shot after another, from all directions.

Soresh had dropped to the ground, and was slithering across the room on his belly.

Luke felt the blade reaching toward him, as if the lightsaber wanted Soresh dead as much as Luke did. But the laserfire was backing him toward the far wall, and soon he was pinned. His blade was still blocking the shots, but his arms were tiring. He couldn't keep this up forever, and sooner or later his luck would run out. Even if it didn't, he would never be able to overpower Soresh. Not unless he could figure out a way to take out the guards—and there was no way he could defeat so many.

Especially since, from the sound of approaching footsteps, more were on the way. A wave of hopelessness washed over him, but Luke ignored it. There had to be something he could do, some way to defeat the enemy—

And then he got it. The guards weren't his enemies, he reminded himself. Not really.

They were just men and women like him, except they hadn't had the strength to hold on.

They'd lost themselves to Soresh. He was the enemy, of all of them. Luke just had to make them realize it. He continued to dart and weave away from the bolts of laserfire, as his mind worked feverishly, searching for a solution.

The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded, Ben had told him.

What could be weaker than a mind that was completely empty?

It was difficult to concentrate while he was swinging his lightsaber wildly and dodging laserbolts. But maybe that was better. Concentration had never helped his control of the Force. On the contrary, it was only when he stopped thinking, stopped trying that he ever succeeded. And so, without thinking about it anymore, or knowing what he was going to say, he spoke to the guards.

"You are someone!" he said.

"You do not belong to him!"

"He is not your master!"

He said the words with as much force as he could, again and again, trying to drown out the voice that was playing in their heads. But it wasn't working. The hail of laserfire continued to assault him in dangerous bursts. And somewhere, beneath the veil of smoke, he was sure he could hear Soresh laugh. At the sound, everything Soresh had done to him welled up in Luke and burst out of him.

"He is not our master," he said, pouring all his rage, all his pain, all his exhaustion, everything he was and had ever been into the words. "We do not belong to him."

Silence dropped over the room. A blaster clattered to the floor.

"Where am I?" someone mumbled.

"What am I doing?"

Sounds of confusion and fear—but