Jaina took her seat in the cockpit of the Imperial shuttle—the co-pilot's seat, alongside Tahiri at the controls. She watched with a smile as her girlfriend ran through the pre-flight checks, punching buttons on the dashboard, reaching up to flick switches on the overhead console, exchanging comm chatter with Military Command's flight controllers, looking very poised and proper in her Imperial pilot's uniform, even though there was something unmistakably sensual in the outwardly-professional ballet of her black-gloved hands.
Jaina felt underdressed in comparison—she was wearing TIE Pilot chic, a high-waisted gunner's jacket of ribbed black nerfhide over the standard black flight suit, with the collar closed to hide her silver choker, a pistol on her belt, and a pair of regulation knee-boots modified with ten-centimeter lifts in the heels to give just a little height. Maybe if she'd pinned her Grand Moff's rank badge to the lapel, she might feel less like the shuttle's cargo tech, and more like she was the one in charge.
She'd barely recognized her girlfriend when she arrived on the rooftop landing pad, and found her black-clad pilot standing at attention alongside the shuttle's boarding ramp, her uniform impeccable, everything perfectly aligned with regulations right down to the way she'd styled her hair back beneath her peaked cap, and the lack of high heels on her boots—her collar concealed below the neckline, her lightsaber either in a hidden holster or simply packed away as luggage for the flight.
The salute she offered was as perfect as the rest of her—a click of her heels, a bob of her head. Even the mood she presented in the Force was flawlessly disciplined. Only the flash of flirtatious amusement from her green eyes betrayed her. Jaina answered with a Rebel salute, which had made Tahiri break into a grin, and they'd hugged before resuming the act of Grand Moff and Lieutenant, and marched aboard the shuttle, followed up the ramp by the the eight hulking DT-4 combat droids that they were taking with them on this trip.
Cabin luggage, Tahiri had said.
They'd headed forward to the cockpit, while the droids took the seats which lined the access corridor at the top of the ramp. There was a luxurious passenger compartment at the rear of the shuttle, with a big drinks cabinet and a bigger double bed, and hold space for their wardrobe and their bondage toys, but Jaina hadn't even thought of heading back there, or ordering Tahiri to set the autopilot and join her. She preferred being with Tahiri in the cockpit, watching her play the role she'd chosen for herself right now.
The view was spectacular in other ways, as well—the shuttle's cockpit viewport was a single pane of flawless transparisteel, so wide that Jaina couldn't see the sides, and sloped back overhead so that there was no sense of a top edge at all. For Jaina, that design detail was a subtle touch of luxury as meaningful as any of the bespoke details of the passenger accommodation.
She'd felt like an Empress for the first time as the shuttle lifted from the Imperial Tower and flew past the Moff Council Chamber and across the city grid, and now they were leaving orbit, she had a clear view of the stars of open space and the arrowheads of the Imperial Fleet.
Her fleet, at least in theory. Sort of.
The Rapier was directly ahead of them, massive and unmistakable. The Super Star Destroyer was far larger than any other combat warship remaining in the Empire's fleet, so large that the other ships in the formation were almost lost in the surrounding starscape—but although sheer size provided space for an ostentatious number of weapons and hangar bays, the ship's dagger hull was proportionally slender, and the interior was mostly engine, enough power generators for a fleet of normal Star Destroyers, paired with a first-class hyperdrive and nine high-output realspace thrusters at the stern. The unimaginable energy that could be thrown through the drive system propelled the massive hull to speeds that were normally the exclusive prize of fighters or fast gunships, as well as powering unsurpassed deflector shields, sensor arrays and long-range comm transceivers.
The smaller cruisers which surrounded the command ship were more conventional—a squadron of triangular hulls, all identically-proportioned, each with a central hangar bay becoming visible half-way down the keel as Tahiri flew the shuttle closer—but although they resembled old Imperial Star Destroyers, Jaina already knew that they were Vindicator-class ships, less than half the size but outfitted with the same deflector and sensor systems, and the same full combat wing of TIE Fighters. The hull was tough enough, the turbolasers and other weapons batteries more than adequate—better than the heavy guns of an Imperial-class ship against fighter attack. The main compromise was the lack of spacious troop decks that could accommodate an armoured battlegroup and their associated AT-ATs and assault shuttles, but the number of troops that could be carried aboard the Rapier more than balanced out the squadron's capabilities.
"Coming up on the command ship now, Grand Moff," Tahiri remarked, her Outer Rim intonation half-hidden by a playful attempt at an Imperial accent. She could do a much more precise impression—the comm voice that she'd used to clear their departure with the tower had been completely flawless. But that wouldn't sound as sexy, as teasing, or as deliciously flirtations. "I wouldn't have thought that Moff Tagge was the type to go in for something so... phallic. Perhaps he's trying to tell you something...?"
"Just fly the ship," Jaina grinned, then glanced across, as she caught a flicker of mischief from Tahiri through the Force. "What are you thinking?"
"Mostly that the old Jaina Solo wouldn't have just leaned back in the command chair and left me to do all the flying, Grand Moff," Tahiri smirked.
"The old Jaina wasn't about to become the Empress," she laughed. "So shut up and just fly the ship."