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“Maybe, but not in the way you think I will.” I narrowed my eyes. “And as for your responsibility for Mirax, I just remembered something. In the past ten weeks, you’ve never tried to get a message to me asking after Mirax. You never even got a message to Wedge about her.”

I stood and leaned forward on his desk. “All the concern you’ve showed for her has been from my ship to this office. And that tells me one thing, Booster: you knew! You knew all along that she was working for Cracken to track the Invids, didn’t you? She probably worked from here, using the Errant Venture as her base of operations.”

Booster laughed slowly. “I can see the Horn blood runs strong in those veins. Very good.”

His casual admission stunned me. He’d grabbed me, slammed me up against a bulkhead and all but accused me of having abandoned his daughter to whatever fate her enemies had in mind for her. Part of me wanted to reach across the desk and throttle him, while yet another part wanted to feed my anger through the Force and slam him up against the wall.

Neither of those parts won in the war for control. “Were you just beating up on me for fun?”

Booster shook his head solemnly. “When I realized Mirax was missing and heard you were off playing Jedi games, I was mad enough to come here to Yavin and beat you to within a micron of your life. A great chunk of me still is, but I respect your father enough to think you wouldn’t abandon Mirax. Just now, in bracing you like this, I gave you a chance to put the blame for your actions on others. You didn’t. Got to admire a man who accepts responsibility even when it might hurt.”

I straightened up, crossing my arms over my chest. “And your reason for this little test?”

“I didn’t know how much your time down there changed you. I wanted to make sure you could still do what has to be done to save Mirax.”

“What?”

“You don’t remember Corellian Jedi Knights, but I do. A bit. I wasn’t sure a Jedi would care for my daughter anymore.”

I stared at him in disbelief. “What gets taught at the academy doesn’t make students less human.”

“Tell that to the people of Carida.”

Echoes of their death agony pounded through me. “You have a point.”

Booster nodded. “How did you know I was testing you?”

“Attitude and what I sensed about you. Smug satisfaction.” I shrugged. “You also mentioned General Cracken and you couldn’t have known why I’d be talking to him unless you knew Mirax was working with him. Since I didn’t know that, and since she’d not confided in Wedge, I assumed she confided in you. You must have blistered Cracken’s ears when you found out she was gone.”

Booster smiled like wampa scenting tauntaun. “Told him I’d found a cache of guns to put on this monster before I went hunting for Mirax myself.”

A fully armed Errant Venture was one of General Cracken’s recurring nightmares, especially with Booster at the helm. “Get anything useful from him?”

“Not much.” Booster scowled. “I know the galaxy is a big place, but she can’t have vanished so completely.”

“She hasn’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“A woman named Mara Jade …”

“Karrde’s confederate?”

I nodded and sat back down. “The same. She said she had inquiries from a rare properties dealer on Nal Hutta about a deal for an item that he’d been holding for Mirax. Mirax had bought an option on purchasing the item and she was supposed to pick it up within days of when she disappeared. Sounds to me like a legitimate deal she would have set up to bolster her cover when seeking the Invids.”

Booster smiled. “A number of the Invid crews ship out of Nal Hutta, or used to, anyway. Lots have been moving in the last two months.”

“Because Mirax’s presence was proof positive that the New Republic was looking in that area.”

The older man stroked his goatee. “It’s as good a place as any to start. We’ll be on our way within the hour.”

“No.”

Booster frowned at me. “No? We have the first lead that’s come up and you don’t want to follow it up?”

“I want to follow it up, yes, and follow up the more important