Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [115]
In watching the display I realized the detachment I had felt before, when she vanished, had finally faded. The “flash-blindness” Luke had diagnosed had lifted, and I might have noticed it sooner, but on Yavin 4 I had so little to remind me of her. It was probably just as well that the detachment existed while I started my training because I would have gotten nowhere while distracted.
Now, though, watching her images, the full weight of her disappearance crashed in on me. I had felt her presence that night in the grotto, and Exar Kun had showed her to me, but I knew I could not trust what I had seen through his power. The fact that I had sensed her when Luke took us on a sojourn through the universe helped sustain me, but now I realized just how alone I felt.
And how alone she must be feeling. She was out there, somewhere, waiting for me to find her, to help her, and I had done nothing. I sighed. Perhaps Booster should have smacked me against the wall even harder.
The hatch to the office slid open and Booster stalked in. He looked hard at me, then sat down at his desk. Fire burned in his brown eye just as brightly as in the electronic one. He watched me, then his head slowly nodded as he pressed his hands flat against the top of his desk.
Like a mute referee, Mirax danced from image to image between us.
“It is for her sake that I don’t just twist your head off, CorSec.” He kept his voice low and barely under control. “She’s been missing for how long?”
I swallowed hard. “Ten weeks.”
“Ten weeks!” His right fist hammered the desk, making the holocube bounce and the datacards ripple like loose tiles in a groundquake. He caught himself and slowly opened his hand. “Ten weeks, and you didn’t come to me and tell me.”
I calmed myself, just barely bringing my racing heart under control. My mouth felt dry and tasted like I’d been licking a bantha. “One, I knew then and know now your daughter is alive. In consulting with a variety of people it was determined that keeping knowledge of her disappearance quiet would be the best course.”
Booster arched a pale eyebrow. “ ‘It was determined?’ By whom? What coward decided I shouldn’t know my little girl was missing?”
I raised my chin. “I made that decision, Booster.”
“Did you, CorSec, did you now?” Booster sat back. “Not your General Cracken? Not your Luke Skywalker? Not Wedge? You made it?”
I nodded. “I weighed their opinions. I went over the scenarios they suggested and how best to handle the situation, then I made the decision.”
“So then you take full responsibility for it?” I could hear in his voice that he was setting a trap for me. “You take full responsibility for whatever happens to her?”
“I do.”
Booster hesitated, then smiled coldly. “I think you’ll find you don’t much care for the consequences of your actions.”
Something struck me as odd about Booster at that point. He’d managed to fix blame fully and squarely on me, which meant he should have been venting all of his anger and frustration on me, but he wasn’t. He’d identified me as a target and had me dead to rights, and he held back. Why?
Then the answer slammed into me and I leaned forward. “I accept the consequences of my actions, and you want to know why? Because Mirax is my wife. Our vows make her life and happiness and safety my responsibility, and I’ve done what I could to acquit that responsibility. I would have liked nothing better than to have headed out after her immediately, but there was nowhere to go, nothing to do. General Cracken and his people were stymied, as was I. All I knew was that your daughter lived, and as long as she lived, I could take the necessary steps to save her.”
Booster’s expression hardened against the challenge in my words. “You may think of her as your wife, but she’s my daughter, my flesh and blood, which makes me just as responsible for her as you are, CorSec. Don’t try to steal that part of my life the way