• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“We have to work together,” said Senator Gno. He had been a senator in the Old Republic, and then a member of the Rebel ring in the Imperial Senate. He was one of the few Old Republic members who hadn’t retired. “Have you ever thought that whoever set off that bomb did so for precisely this reason? If we fight among ourselves, we no longer focus on outside threats. We cannot tear this government apart from within.”

That thought hadn’t occurred to Leia either. She had been concentrating on finding the perpetrators, and on discovering if they were the source of the Force-vision she had shared with Luke. She hadn’t forgotten that feeling of impending doom, not just for the Senate, but for the government itself.

She couldn’t tell this body, though, about the new weapon. Not without a greater proof than her feeling, and Luke’s.

“It seems to me that this government is already being torn apart,” R’yet said. “We need leadership. Good leadership would have prevented this attack.”

“We don’t know that,” ChoFï said. “We won’t know anything like that until we discover what caused the destruction.”

“The teams are working on that now,” Leia said. “We have some experts digging through material removed from the building, as well as searchers still in the Hall. We’ll know more by later today.”

“Will we know then whether the attack was aimed at the Senate or aimed at you?” R’yet asked.

He had the right to ask that. Leia knew he did. But that didn’t stop the flare of anger within her. She had had enough. He was acting as if he had attained a moral high road through M’yet Luure’s loss.

“Senator Coome,” she said, rising to her full height. “If the attack was aimed at you, at me, or at any of our colleagues, then it was aimed at all of us. We are a body, a group, whether you like it or not. The attack occurred in the seat of government, and affected all of us equally—”

“Not equally,” R’yet said. “Some of us are dead.”

“Equally,” Leia said, “at least for the survivors. Now you can work with us and help the New Republic.”

“Or?” He had stepped forward despite Meido’s restraining hand. “Are you threatening me, Leia Organa Solo?”

“That wouldn’t be good for unity, now, would it?” Leia asked.

“It certainly wouldn’t,” Meido said smoothly. “Perhaps it would ease my colleague’s mind if we had a separate investigation going, as well as the official investigation. With two teams, we might get better results.”

“Or we might confuse the issue,” Leia said.

“So you’re opposed to a separate investigation?” Meido’s tone implied that she had something to hide.

“Of course not,” Leia said. “I just don’t like expending unnecessary resources. The New Republic is not wealthy, either in credits or in available labor.”

“I think that anything that enables us to trust one another again would not be a waste,” Meido said.

Again? Leia thought, but did not voice it.

“She obviously doesn’t like the idea,” R’yet said.

They had forced her into this. She should have expected it. She took a deep breath. “We’re a governing body,” she said. “Let’s vote.”

“I thought this was an informal meeting,” ChoFï said. It was an admirable ploy to delay the vote.

“An informal meeting is still a meeting,” Meido said.

Leia suppressed a sigh. They had outmaneuvered her. It would be hard to take a vote without their consoles, without the electronic count, or computer backup. But a voice vote would work, if someone counted the votes, and tallied them to the proper senators. It also had the added benefit of making each voter accountable in front of the others.

She sent one of the pages to get an official tally sheet. When the page returned, she scanned the sheet, her gaze stopping each time it hit a dead or seriously wounded senator. She would remember that day in the Hall for the rest of her life. In its own, less devastating way, it had shaken her as the destruction of Alderaan had. She had thought the Hall a completely safe place. Perhaps that was why she fought the introduction of the former Imperials. Perhaps she wanted to protect one of the few havens