It is a period of law and order. The Galactic Empire, under the command of Darth Vader, rules the galaxy with an iron fist. On the Imperial City-World of Coruscant, the Finance Ministry oversees the credits that fund the Empire's innumerable starfleets. Brienne Guyot ( @prvtocol ) — a banking aristocrat from Aargau abandoned her family's unscrupulous trade and swiftly entered the Imperial financial services. But the Imperial budget is endless... And those who stare into its depths too closely often discover that the abyss stares back....
The hall of the Finance Ministry stretched long and straight, receding far enough that perspective began to compress. A single walkway bisected the chamber, and on either side of it, booths stood in parallel ranks, each workstation its own island of industriousness.
Dallows advanced at a measured pace, neither hurried nor theatrical. The combat tread of her boots struck the polished floor with a sharp, percussive snap that carried the length of the hall. It cut cleanly through the low, constant thrum of work: civil servants hunched over terminals, eyes locked to cascading figures, fingers tapping displaykeys in tight, economical rhythm.
For a moment, she half expected the opening bars ofGlory of the Empire to assert themselves, that familiar, inexorable progression that had once accompanied every formal arrival, every inspection, every reminder of where authority truly resided. Coruscant had been her home once, for three years of drills and doctrine at the Coruscant Imperial University. Now it was something else entirely, a place to be visited sparingly and navigated carefully.
Several heads lifted. Only briefly, just long enough to take in her unmarked black fatigues, no insignia beyond the blacked out Imperial roundel on her shoulder, the E-11 she cradled low against her torso, safe, but nevertheless unmistakeable. Their gazes quickly dropped back to their displays with renewed intensity. Styluses moved faster. Spines straightened.
This was how it always happened. How people reacted to the sudden awareness that the Empire had remembered they existed.
You did not want to be the person who interrupted it. You did not want your name attached to a delay, a misunderstanding, a question asked of the wrong individual at the wrong time.
Who knew how many stormtroopers waited just out of sight?
Who knew whose authority she truly carried?
Who wanted to risk discovering it? When the Emperor’s wrath was so famously indiscriminate?
By the time Dallows reached the desk at the end of the hall, the clerk was already standing. He was young enough to still believe in procedural insulation. That if he followed protocol precisely, it would shield him from consequence.
Dallows had once believed something similar. She assumed that Guyot did too. She stopped directly in front of him and allowed the echo of her boots to fade before speaking.
“Brienne Guyot’s office,” Not where is. Not may I have. Simply the name, placed into the air like an equation requiring a solution.
The clerk swallowed. His eyes flicked to the blaster, and she tightened her grip on it slightly as he did so, just enough to suggest that this was no longer a question of whether protocol demanded verification. It was a question of whether protocol would protect him if he insisted.
Dallows watched the realization settle. The faint tightening at the corner of his mouth. The way his shoulders adjusted, he knew as much as she did that the Empire did not reward people for being correct at the wrong time. He glanced once down the length of the hall—at the booths, the colleagues who had already returned to their work with conspicuous focus.
When he gestured toward the turbolifts, it was almost apologetic.
Brienne Guyot was laughing when Dallows saw her. It was a small sound, quickly checked, shared with a colleague who apparently inside the office of whom’s doorway she was leaning on. Something had just been said, trivial, private, incidental. Guyot held a flask of tea in one hand, steam curling faintly from the rim, her posture relaxed in the rare way of someone between obligations.
The door to the office began to seal, and then Dallows closed the distance. Her hand came down on Guyot’s arm, firm, unceremonious, gloved fingers closing just above the elbow with practiced certainty. Not violent. Not careful. An interruption rendered physical. The flask tilted; tea sloshed dangerously close to the lip.
“We’re going to your office,” Dallows said quietly. “Don’t look at anyone. Don’t speak until the door’s closed.” She did not wait for acknowledgment. The grip became directive, and movement followed.
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