My Sinister Agents Have Failed Me Again

Typical day at work. Rebel Alliance remains at large.

I feel uneasy, but I do not wonder why.

Tonight I have excused myself from the technical debrief of yesterday's assault on Dantooine, opting instead to remain on the bridge meditating on the stars. The force brings to me every whisper of the officers as they wonder at my state. Can any of them know what it is like?

They cannot. Their tour of service does not allow for marriage, or even private property beyond the materiel assigned them by the New Order. Even the eldest of them are children, in this respect, for their experience is limited to a world of men's camaderie, soldiers' celebrations and Imperial discipline.

They could never know what it is like to find out you still have a son, a stranger to you, lost amid the squalid systems of the outer rim and counted as a hero by your enemies.

Tomorrow I may strangle General Veers.