“I read your report, Kronara. Your task force destroyed hundreds of their ships in that engagement. You found their entire fleet, and you ended it. There hasn’t been a single raid since. If that’s not evidence, I don’t know what is.”

“Senator, respectfully, I think you saw what you wanted to see in that report. I can confirm that we destroyed a significant Nihil force. But at this point, we have very little intelligence about their operations. We know they had hyperspace capabilities we still don’t understand, but we don’t know how they got them, how many there were, where they’re based, if they have goals beyond just simple raiding…”

He shrugged.

“Say whatever you want in your speech. It’s not my problem. But if the Nihil aren’t gone, and they start attacking worlds in the Outer Rim again, you’ll look pretty foolish if you’ve already told your constituents they have nothing to worry about.”

Chancellor Soh enjoyed that exchange very much. Senator Noor, perhaps less so. He turned back to his aide.

“Revise the phrasing. Let’s just say that great strides have been taken toward making the Outer Rim Territories safe and secure, and we look forward to peace and prosperity in the months and years to come.”

“You know what else you might mention, Senator?” Chancellor Soh said.

Senator Noor raised an eyebrow.

“The Starlight Beacon. It’s going to open on time. I just got a report in from Shai Tennem. If the Nihil aren’t in fact gone, or if anything else pops up out there, the Beacon will be a big part of handling it.”

And the projection of Republic authority it represents will make it that much easier to negotiate the Quarren–Mon Calamari peace accords, she thought, and the Beacon itself will serve as a communications relay that will increase the reliability of transmissions across the region and act as a linchpin for the rest of the new network, and once people see how effective it is, getting a vote through to authorize the other stations just like it will be simple.

Her Great Works, falling into place one by one.

The Republic was not one world. It was many, each unique in ways large and small. Solving one problem inevitably caused others. There were intractable cultural, historical, economic, and military conflicts among inhabitants of worlds. There were warlords and agitators and malcontents and other less-easy-to-handle enemies—plagues and strange magical factions on hidden worlds who believed they should conquer the galaxy and, yes, even hyperspace anomalies.