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Master Cole grinned. “I think you’re right, Threepio. I think you’re right.”

Mon Mothma walked Leia to the redesigned Imperial ballroom. Leia was wearing a copy of her white dress, but she had forgone the braids wrapped around her ears. Instead, she wore her hair down. Han had smiled at her before she left the suite, and had made her promise to return from the Senate early. The children were due back the following day. He wanted to make the most of his time alone with her.

So did she.

“I still don’t understand how you got them to call off the recall election,” Leia said.

Mon Mothma smiled. “I didn’t, Leia. You did. You and Wedge and Han and Luke. If you hadn’t successfully defeated Kueller, you would have come back here to a political storm unlike any you’ve ever seen. But when it became clear that Han wasn’t involved in the bombing, and instead you all had been the ones who caught the culprit, Meido and his followers could do nothing else but support you.”

Leia clasped her hands behind her back. “But you had to have done something. You already had Meido off the Inner Council by the time I came back.”

Mon Mothma shrugged. “I’ve had more years of experience dealing with divergent voices than you have, Leia. You’ll need to learn how to work with a group that is no longer homogeneous. The Senate won’t always agree on policy anymore. You’ll have to build coalitions.”

“With Imperials?” Leia asked, shuddering.

“Former Imperials who really had nothing to do with the Empire. You can’t always blame people for their pasts. You should know that better than anyone, President Organa Solo.”

Mon Mothma had a point. Han’s past was shady at best, and yet he was getting a hero’s commendation for his work with the wounded on Smuggler’s Run. So was Lando. Lando had already asked Leia how much financial compensation went along with the commendation, and had frowned when she said that gratitude came without monetary reward.

And then she had promised to pay, out of her own pocket if she had to, for the refurbishing of the Lady Luck. It was the least she could do. Lando had saved hundreds of lives.

“Any word from Chewbacca?” Mon Mothma asked.

Leia nodded. “He and the Alderaan are due at any point. It took him a while to find the wild pride of Thernbees. Apparently, when their number had been so badly hunted by the Je’har, they had moved away from their normal stomping grounds. But Chewie was able to deliver our Thernbee back to them.”

“He sounds like a delightful creature.”

“He was too big and pesky to be delightful,” Leia said. “And it took him two days to digest the ysalamiri. Mara, Luke, and I were stuck in the Falcon, playing holographic games while Han and Chewie argued about who would repair the damage.”

“They must have fixed it.”

Leia grinned. “They did. After Mara threatened to shoot them both.”

Mon Mothma laughed. They stopped in front of the ballroom door. Mon Mothma put her hand on Leia’s arm. “You realize that some of the senators are saying Threepio and Artoo should be deactivated for taking such initiative. They also want action taken against Cole Fardreamer. The theft of the freighter has them all disturbed. They’ll try to make that the first order of business.”

Leia glanced at the closed doors. The last time she had gone into a Senate Chamber dressed like this, she had been worried about the petty backbiting of the senators. The explosion had come out of the blue, had ruined so many lives, and had made those worries seem trivial.

Kueller. His youthful face would haunt her longer than his death mask would.

His actions would haunt her longer still.

He had taken so many lives without a single thought. And it had taken so much to defeat him. She would do everything she could in her position as Chief of State to see that no other monsters like him were created under her watch.

And the first order of business would be to make sure no truth got distorted by opportunistic politicians.

“They won’t succeed in deactivating the droids,” she said. “Artoo and Threepio are heroes. I have some