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“I did,” the general said.

“Oh, dear,” the protocol droid murmured.

Oh dear was right. The President’s face flushed as she turned toward the general. “You what, Wedge?”

The general shrugged. “Well, it wasn’t just me,” he said. “The chiefs of staff met. We’d had some problems with the X-wings. Mechanical troubles, mostly because they’re not aging well. Since the market for electronic component parts has gone down, we thought we could rebuild some X-wings, and then buy the others that we needed.”

“I wasn’t informed of this,” the President said.

“Leia,” the general said. “We issued a memo. It wasn’t really a policy change.”

“Perhaps not,” she said, “but it must have been expensive. The New Republic isn’t rich.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” the general said. “The costs on this project were unusually low. That’s why I promoted it in the first place. I thought it would benefit us. It certainly took the X-wing pilots out of danger from the mechanical failures we’ve been seeing lately.”

The President’s lips thinned, and her eyes narrowed. She clearly wasn’t going to argue with him in front of the guards. She turned to Cole.

“Do you believe this detonator is in all X-wings?”

He swallowed. She was magnificent, her style so different from her brother’s. She was hard-edged where he made his demands with a deceptive softness. There was nothing soft in the President’s manner. Cole would never have argued with her as he had argued with her brother.

“The detonator is in the new computers, ma’am. That’s the one item we’ve replaced in every X-wing we touched.”

“If you’ve touched those computers all day long, why haven’t you discovered this before now?”

“Because,” Cole said, “I’ve never had occasion to take apart a computer before now.”

“Wedge,” the President said, “I need you to be honest with me. Whose idea was it to replace the computers?”

“Mine,” he said.

“Wedge.” Her voice had a warning tone in it. “We don’t have time for games. I need to know.”

“Leia.” He put his hand on her arm. “It was my idea. I’m the one who discovered the problems with the old X-wings. I’m the one who thought of the reconditioning. I’m even the one who talked to the military-issues buyer. It was me, Leia.”

“I won’t believe you ordered sabotage,” she said.

“I didn’t.”

His words hung in the air. The guards looked away. Only the protocol droid watched them, his golden eyes taking in everything.

Cole bit his lower lip. He had to speak up. “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said, “but the general could have made the order without knowing of the sabotage.”

“I know,” she said. “The computers arrive assembled.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Cole said, “and in such a way that you’d have to be looking for it in order to find it. I wouldn’t have found it if Luke Skywalker hadn’t objected to the computer change specifically. And even then, I didn’t find it. Artoo did.”

“Mistress Leia,” the protocol droid said, “the Kloperians have a policy against astromech droids in the maintenance bay.”

Artoo whistled.

The President closed her eyes for a moment, then she asked, “How long have we been doing this?”

“Quite a while,” the general said. “I could look it up.”

She shook her head. “Luke’s X-wing was brought in this time. He’s been to Coruscant enough that we can assume the change was made since his last meeting. Still, that’s a long time. Mr. Fardreamer, how many X-wings do you think have the new computer system?”

“Most of them, ma’am,” he said. “I was surprised to see one as old as the Jedi Master’s without an overhaul.”

“Most of them.” She whispered the sentence. Her hands were clasped together so tightly that the knuckles showed white. “And what about the new X-wings? How many are in use?”

“All but a handful, Leia,” the general said.

“I want them all checked. All of them. I also want the rebuilt X-wings checked.”

“You don’t think that every X-wing has a bomb inside,” the general said.

“That’s precisely what I do think,” the President said. “And I want them removed.”

“That