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Leia took a vagnerian canape and ate it quickly, hoping its sweetness would give her energy she still lacked. The doctors said she needed time to recover, that she had nearly died, but she had made it through serious wounds before. This time, she suspected, part of the problem was her attitude.

She wiped her hands on her pants—she wore a loose, flowing pair that resembled a skirt, with a blouse over them, deciding to be dressy but comfortable at this meeting—and stepped into the crowd of junior senators.

Their conversation ceased. She smiled at them, as if she had heard nothing, and clapped her hands for attention.

“I want to thank you all for coming on such short notice,” she said. “We are currently preparing the ballroom as a temporary home for the Senate, but it won’t be completed until tomorrow. In the meantime, I thought we would hold this informal meeting. I wanted to get you all up-to-date on the investigation.”

“What investigation?” asked R’yet Coome, the junior senator from Exodeen. His voice, filtered through his six sets of teeth, sounded so much like that of his colleague, M’yet Luure, that Leia started. It was even a question that M’yet would have asked.

She glanced at R’yet as he preened his six arms against his side. If she hadn’t known M’yet was dead, she would have thought she was speaking to him.

“We’ve had an investigation running simultaneously with the rescue effort,” she said. “The rescue effort took top priority for a day. We had to make certain—” Her voice broke.

“We had to make certain that no one else was trapped in the rubble,” said ChoFï, one of the senators who had been with her since the beginning of the New Republic. He stood just behind her, his seven-foot length protecting instead of dwarfing her.

She nodded, grateful for his support. She hadn’t seen him when she came in. He must have been eavesdropping, as she had been.

“You should have taken the precautions up front,” R’yet said. “I don’t know how I’ll tell the people of Exodeen that one of their most beloved figures is dead.”

“We have the best security of any place in the Republic,” Leia said. “Obviously, it wasn’t good enough.”

“Obviously,” R’yet said.

Meido, vibroblade-thin, his crimson face covered with tiny white lines, put a two-fingered hand on R’yet’s first arm. Leia was astonished that Meido knew Exodeenian etiquette. A touch on the first arm was a signal to stop speaking. A touch on the second would have been a challenge to fight.

“The Chief of State has had a difficult week,” Meido said.

“As have we all,” some senator in the back said.

Meido ignored him. “We must give her the benefit of any doubt. Of course, we had to see if anyone remained in the ruins of the Hall. Now the investigation can begin in earnest.”

His support made Leia suspicious. Meido hadn’t been supportive since his election.

“Thank you, Senator,” she said. She took a deep breath. “The damage to the Hall was extensive. The bomb, if we might call it that, was detonated inside the Hall. There was no exterior damage at all. We are currently investigating all personnel who were in the Hall at the time of the explosion as well as people who had access to it in the days before.”

“Does that include senators?” asked Senator Wwebyls, a tiny humanoid from Yn.

“It includes everyone,” Leia said.

“Even the dead?” R’yet asked, his lower hands perched on his secondary hips.

“Even the dead,” Leia said softly. “We can’t overlook anyone or anything here.”

“So you’re being investigated as well,” Senator Meido asked.

Leia started. Of course she wasn’t being investigated. She knew she wasn’t involved.

“She said everyone.” ChoFï spoke without judgment as he reminded them to listen, and as he got Leia off the hook.

Kerrithrarr, the senior Wookiee senator, growled from the back of the room.

“My Wookiee colleague has a good point,” ChoFï said. “The best way to survive this crisis is to work together.”

“We can’t work together when we’re being investigated,” said another junior senator.

“We’re all being investigated,” said Nyxy,