I had originally thought I could edit this chapter and the next to fit the letter of the rating, but I've cut the beginning of the scene...

(Moff d'Ashewl's office at Imperial Intelligence)

...

They were talking about promoting her to Empress. Was an Empress allowed to sub for an ordinary Moff?

Was an Empress allowed to sub for anyone?

Even more bizarrely, they were preparing to stage some sort of election. She'd been strangely confused to discover that they didn't just plan to rig the vote, but at least she was the only candidate, and was expected to win decisively. That made the Empire's idea of democracy seem reassuringly foreign. Reassuringly Imperial.

She looked up at Moff d'Ashewl, and opened her mouth to ask something, but ####

Then he turned, and walked away, back to his command chair.

She stood, not sure whether that was the appropriate thing to do with your hands in cuffs. Thankfully, before she had to work out if she could open their complicated lock with the Force, d'Ashewl tapped a comm on his desk, and the narrow durasteel bands loosened around her wrists.

"Thank you," she smiled, slipping her hands free, looking down at the binders for a moment, and slipping them back in the pocket of her uniform breeches.

"You have a question, Your Highness?"

"This Empress thing," she said.

"I don't recall that we gave you permission to alter the agreed arrangement," the Director of Imperial Intelligence told her.

"No," she agreed, catching herself before she answered sir. "I'm just not sure how this works in practice. I'm supposed to be Empress, but I still don't have a clear sense of what that actually calls for."

"You seem to be doing a very good job already," d'Ashewl answered. She didn't get the sense that he was talking about the sort of thing she'd just been doing.

Jaina exhaled. "I'm doing my best. But I don't understand how I should change my behaviour after the inauguration, even if that's only in terms of presentation. Or why everyone's insisting on this whole circus about letting the people of the Empire vote to ratify my promotion, first. Isn't the whole point of having a dictatorship that you can just make decisions?"

"You used to be famously impatient," d'Ashewl teased her. "Are you sure this isn't just that same urge to do things quickly?"

She mulled that over, pursed her lips. "No. If that is showing up, that's because I'm not able to get a handle on what I'm doing here, or why we're doing things this way. The Empire doesn't function the way I expected."

"The Empire seeks stability," d'Ashewl told her. "That means we need consent."

She thought that over. "I can see that," she agreed. "I'm just not sure I quite understand how all this works."

"The advantage of being an outsider."

"I need to learn," she countered.

"Just don't lose the skills you've brought in from your Rebel background, Highness," he teased. She shot him a fast and dirty look, but he changed the subject. "Now, the security arrangements for your apartment."

"I'm sure you've been following Commander Veila's report," she answered. She wasn't sure exactly how she went about formally promoting Tahiri, but the rank seemed right.

"I want you to brief me. As Grand Moff of the Empire to her Director of Intelligence."

Jaina sighed. Was this a test? Or did d'Ashewl just get off on this sort of thing? "As you know, the Imperial apartment forms the penthouse of a kilometer-high skytower at the centre of the Palace complex, directly adjacent to the Moff Council building. Direct access is only possible from below. The levels immediately below the accommodation stages have been converted into a droid barracks for a platoon of forty Tendrando Arms DT-4s, which arrived three days ago. They are loyal personally to me, and I trust their programming. Further down the tower, Moff Sacker has deployed a battalion of her best stormtroopers in the former shuttle complex between the upper two guard lines. The guard lines, of which there are seven in total, are well-equipped with automated quad-laser and ion defenses, controlling both the turbolift shafts and maintenance access towards the suite. To say nothing of the outer security perimeters for the Tower and the Palace complex."

D'Ashewl gave a nod of was pleasantly surprised how quickly she had shifted her poise. She spun away from the thought that maybe being a soldier and a submissive weren't that far apart.

"The apartment also features a private hangar which is being enlarged to accommodate an enlarged retinue of personal shuttles and fighters and combat-training simulators," she went on. "And if necessary additional repulsor transport. This, as we both know, comprises the one major point of access outside the vertical perimeter. We both agree that discreet access here is a necessary advantage." They were still trying to work out the practicalities of a flight lane that could avoid monitoring by Military Command, allowing her and Tahiri to slip in and out of the system on special missions and enabling the Moffs to visit without going through security. "The sky around the apartment is fully closed. Perimeter TIE patrols and turbolaser positions are fully active, preventing unauthorised approach." She knew what he was going to say, so she raised a black-gloved hands. "I know you want to wire my quarters with enough listening devices, holo-cameras and security droids to create display-quality erotic holos of my entire private life, but the Imperial apartment needs to be a secure space within the sensor perimeter, where we can do our private business without being snooped on by spy systems. Much as your office is, I would imagine."

A nod from d'Ashewl conceded her the point.

Jaina smiled. Last time this had come up, she had threatened to ask her mom for a squad or two of Noghri commandos, but apparently she didn't have to make that point twice. Unlike the DT-4s, the compact alien assassins were very good at sneaking in and out of all sorts of places, and would give her an intelligence-gathering and contact-arranging presence of her own on Bastion, if she wanted to use them that way. The idea of the droid troopers trying to sneak anywhere was almost comical, by comparison - hulking machines twice her height, they were really more like small combat vehicles than the oversized battle droids they outwardly appeared to be - their processors were hard-wired for security purposes in a way that prevented any illusion of initiative or personality, and the fact that their sensor turret cowling and frontal glacis plate resembled the helmet and body armour of a stormtrooper was mostly for effect.

"I think I'm as secure as the Empire can make me, Moff d'Ashewl."

"And your astromech?"

"Spanker?" She laughed, feeling stubborn for a moment. "Spanker just picks up discarded lingerie and tries to film me and Tahiri having sex."

"I understand that Rebel combat pilots are often irrationally attached to their droids," d'Ashewl began.

"No, we're professionally opposed to giving them memory wipes," Jaina countered. "Spanker's not simply a production-spec machine with coded loyalties. The same process of idiosyncratic workaround programming that optimises the interaction between a pilot and their back-seat droid gives them a quirky sort of personality, and makes loyalty overwrites impossible."

"You're thinking like an X-wing pilot, then," d'Ashewl observed.

"No, I'm thinking like the only Imperial pilot who's qualified on the fully armed and operational StealthX infiltrator that we recently acquired."

The Moff looked like he was about to disagree, but shook his head instead. "I'm still concerned about the risk of outside actors, Your Highness."

"With respect, Moff d'Ashewl," she smiled "You're the bad guys. Who am I supposed to feel threatened by? Tenel Ka is trying to be friends again, and I don't regret the fact she stole my husband in the slightest." She flashed a genuine smile. "Uncle Luke leads the Jedi Council. They don't do anything without permission. The Alliance government are civilian politicians - all they care about is elections and their own economy. The Mandalorians are on the payroll, and the Hutts don't care. All the Moffs who were stupid enough to betray the Empire are in jail, and I'm not sure I'm the person to be taking point if they still have assets and supporters you've not identified or locked up."

She reflected that Jag's friends had been pro-Alliance, and the motivation for their attempted coup had apparently been to try to maintain arrangements that favoured them and their foreign allies rather than the Empire as a whole, but she shook off that thought. That sort of selfish factionalism wasn't the way the Galaxy worked - well, not the Galaxy outside Imperial Space, the Galaxy where she'd grown up.

"Besides," she concluded. "The practical part of our arrangement was that Tahiri and I would solve the Empire's problems with our lightsabers. I'm pretty sure we can handle anything that comes up."