Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [84]
She moved away from the viewport. The transparisteel automatically darkened as she sat at the opposite end of the bunk from Mool. “So explain it. They arrest me on charges of complicity and murder, crimes of which I’m clearly guilty—”
“Don’t ever say that. Not out loud, not to yourself, not when you’re alone, not even when you’re asleep. You’re not qualified to judge whether you’re guilty.”
“Thank you for that vote of confidence,” Tahiri said dryly. “They accuse me of these crimes, they tell their side of the case to the press as if they’re hopping mad and lusting for my blood, all the while leaving me sitting in here for the longest time—in a medium-security detention center from which I could escape sleepwalking, by the way. And now, suddenly, they’re pressing the courts for a trial date. I just don’t get it. I don’t even understand why they’re prosecuting instead of the Empire, when the man I killed—”
“The man you’re alleged to have killed.”
“Stop that. Was an Imperial citizen and died on an Imperial world. I’d have thought that the Empire would have jurisdiction and I’d be tried there.”
Mool sighed. “Tahiri, do you actually want to live long enough to figure out whether you deserve to live?”
She was silent a long moment, but she’d settled that issue in her own mind a while back, shortly before the security officers had come to arrest her. “Yes.”
“Then you need to start doing what I say. You never say I did it—for a couple of reasons. A belief in your own guilt can show in your face, in your body language, more than you think, and can persuade a judge or jury of your culpability when everything else is perfectly balanced. And you never know when a government might have court permission to place listening devices in your vicinity. I do a sweep whenever I visit, and that might be good enough for now, but I’m not an expert and I won’t always be around. They might not be able to convict you with the resources they already have. Don’t give them any more.”
“All right. So I’m … not guilty.”
“You say it, but you still don’t believe it. Meaning you think that every one of your decisions was of your own making, and that Jacen Solo had absolutely no influence over you.”
“Well, of course he had some influence over me.”
“How much?”
“It’s impossible to quantify.”
“Correct.” He gave her an approving nod. “I think it was more influence than even you are able to recognize. He preyed on your insecurities. He isolated you, making himself the sole point of reference for your worldview, which means your ethics and understanding of right and wrong. He may have used Force abilities on you, abilities you never saw being employed. Tahiri, every one of us wants to believe that he or she is mentally competent at all times. But nobody is sane at every moment of his life, not a soldier or pilot who has killed and seen friends killed throughout a career, not a Jedi who struggles with light-side and dark-side issues all her life, and not a teenage girl who saw the love of her life die and who later got to be led back into his presence again and again by his charming brother. Where, in the middle of all that, do you even have a chance to be consistently sane?”
Tahiri felt a stirring of hope. But to accept Mool’s explanation would mean surrendering her belief that she’d always been in charge of her own thoughts, her own decision making. That would be an awful conclusion to come to.
Fortunately for her, Mool turned the subject back to her other questions. “As to why they arrested you, then let you sit in a medium security facility—they wanted you to escape.”
Understanding dawned for Tahiri. “Because if I fled, I’d convict myself.”
“Not only that, but you’d probably seek help from your friends, putting