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“Vengeance isn’t the issue,” Leia said. “Stopping another attack is. I hope you’ve all let your people know that the investigations are underway.”

“They don’t care about the investigations,” C-Gosf said. She was petite, even for a Gosfambling. They were delicate furred creatures, intelligent and soft-spoken. Her whiskers curled around her face as she talked. Leia had to lean forward to hear her. “It is the loss of representation. With so many serious injuries, and so much loss of life, the Senate is unable to vote on any but simple-majority declarations. We barely have a quorum.”

Leia leaned back. She had been fearing this.

“The term is just beginning,” said Gno. “If it were near the end, Leia, I would suggest closing the session with the representatives we have. But we are looking at three years and more in which certain planets will be underrepresented.”

“Exodeen lost its senior senator and its secondary senator,” said ChoFï. “Now it is only represented by R’yet Coome. That’s not good for any of us.”

“Don’t let your political biases interfere, ChoFï,” said Garm Bel Iblis. His craggy face had a look of exhaustion. “We have to get used to the former Imperials.”

“I worry that we’ll invite even more of them by having emergency elections,” Leia said.

“Or we give the ones already in the Senate more power,” Fey’lya said. “Leia, the Senate is based on the will of the voting republics. They have chosen former Imperials as their representatives. We cannot argue with that.”

Leia smiled sadly. “I suppose we can’t.”

“And we have to trust them to make the right choices in the future,” Fey’lya said.

The Bothan trusted no one. Even Leia knew that. “And what does your elaborate information say will happen if we hold elections now?”

Fey’lya’s fur rippled, the only sign he showed of distress. “Nothing would happen to the Bothans. We were surprisingly lucky in this.”

“If we hold the election quickly,” ChoFï said, “no one new would have time to mount a campaign. The losers of the last election would probably take office.”

“You can’t predict like that,” C-Gosf said. “My people would not elect someone who lost. Such a person can never run again, nor can that person ever hold a position of power. Once a loser on Gosfambling, always a loser.”

Leia glanced at C-Gosf. She hadn’t realized what her colleague had risked in running for the Senate.

“So what would happen on Gosfambling?” Leia asked.

“Someone who is already in power would be promoted,” she said.

“It’s a problem we’ve grappled with all along,” Gno said. “Imposing an electoral system on different cultures.”

“We have rules,” Fey’lya said.

“Yes,” ChoFï said, “and you should know perhaps better than the rest of us how cultures manipulate those rules.”

“The Bothans haven’t done anything untoward.”

“You mean illegal,” ChoFï said.

“It does no good to fight among ourselves,” Leia said. She sighed. “Gno is right. As much as I don’t want to, we have to hold emergency elections in those places where the representative was killed or is too injured to carry out official duties. And we have to do it soon, otherwise any legislation we enact will have the onus of being decided by a diminished council. We have enough troubles uniting the various members of the Republic. We don’t need additional problems.”

“You realize,” Bel Iblis said, “that we could create problems by having this rapid election.”

“You mean gain more former Imperials than we want?” Gno said. “We have to take the risk. Leia is right. The Senate is diminished already by the attack. To operate underrepresented would be a clear signal to those planets whose representation was lost that they are unimportant.”

“We can’t be afraid of our colleagues forever,” C-Gosf said. “We voted to allow former Imperials into the Senate. We have to accept them now.”

Leia nodded. She agreed, even though she didn’t want to. “Let’s set up the elections for one week from today,” she said, “and bring the new officials in as