Star Wars_ I, Jedi - Michael A. Stackpole [77]
She glared at me. “You can go, too.”
I shook my head. “Kind of a chilly night. Basking in the heat of your anger seems like a good choice.”
“And if I don’t want you here?”
“Easy now, Mara. Your ship was stolen, that’s all.” I kept a light tone in my voice. “It’s not like the sun went supernova.”
“It might as well have.”
I frowned. “Am I missing something? That was just a Z-95 Headhunter, right?”
“Right. It was nothing.” She scowled and then let it melt with a sigh. “It was everything.”
“I’m not tracking.”
“Of course not, you’ve never had to track.” Mara graced me with a disgusted look. “You were incredibly lucky, you know that? Your family was part of CorSec so your life was all mapped out for you. You went as far as you could there, then joined Rogue Squadron and strung victories together there. And then you find out that you’re really from a Jedi family and you end up here training to be what you’ve been destined to be since birth. It must’ve all just come very easy to you.”
“It wasn’t very easy at all.”
“But at least you had a course plotted out for you. You had family supporting you in your decisions.” She shook her head. “In a galaxy coming apart at the fusion joints, you were able to cruise along smoothly. You’re even here, studying to become a Jedi while your wife has been taken away from you. You’re so sure that what you’re doing is right that you can set aside the anxiety and concentrate here, and you can do that because this is just one more trial in the life of a hero.”
I started to protest what she was saying, but faint echoes of it rang true. They meant little to me, however, because of the chill cutting at my spine as I reversed her words and applied them to what little I knew about her. “You thought you were on the same sort of hero path, doing what you had to do to make a difference in the Empire. Then, bang, it’s all gone. Everything you worked for and with vanishes, cutting you off, leaving you adrift.”
“You’ve made your point.”
“Sorry.” I glanced away from her and off toward the jungle. “You’re smart enough and skilled enough to take care of yourself, but you’ve no longer got the benchmarks you used to use to measure your performance.”
“Right, and everything has been swapped black for white in the galaxy.” She turned to look off in the same direction as me, but jerked a thumb back toward the Great Temple. “I came here for instruction and to learn where I fit into the new order of things.…”
“And the ship was your escape valve. If you didn’t like things, you could take off.”
I felt a hint of resentment from her. “I’m not one to quit a project I start.”
“Didn’t say you were. It’s just you might find that what you get here isn’t actually what you want or need.” I turned to face her. “You’re not wholly wrong about my life, but you’re not right about it, either. When my parents died, I was left without knowing how to calibrate my moral compass. I found others who stepped in and helped me, but the search for that sort of support is one that goes on forever. You’ll continue to do it. I’ll continue to do it. Even Master Skywalker will do it.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.” I found my hands had knotted into fists so I willfully opened them. “You and I are lucky in that we’ve got someone like Master Skywalker around to help us figure out where we are and where we’re going.”
Her voice hardened. “But you don’t think he’s handling this Kyp Durron thing correctly.”
“He’s not doing it the way I would, but that doesn’t mean I think Luke’s heart isn’t in the right place. It is. He knows where he wants to go and where he wants to take the Jedi. I’m just not sure he’s navigating as smooth a course as he would like for the journey.”
Her head nodded, but she said nothing for a bit. I remained quiet, listening to the hunting cries of stintarils split the night. For all the turmoil of the earlier evening, once Kyp had left, things seemed to settle down. I let the evening’s growing peace slowly seep into me.
“I don’t like losing my freedom like this.”
“I understand, but it