Luke stared out at nothing. "It was just the start," he said hollowly. "But I didn't exactly have a reason to stick around. Ben said if I'd been home, I'd have died too." It was clear that wasn't much of a comfort to him.

"So we went to find a ship to Alderaan, but by the time we got there, the entire planet had been destroyed by the Empire in an effort to get Leia to talk." His mouth thinned. "It didn't work--of course it wouldn't work-so they slotted her for execution."