1/11/2

Emperor… Master… Frakes…

Well, Mirina Frakes certainly doesn't mind that idea.

Not at all.

And, if Kylo and his Rey aren't ready for the big time, they are likely good enough to put things in place for someone who is ready, who understands how to play the game, and then, once in position with a good, solid, secure platform, to go forth and really rule.

And, of course, getting these things started is always rocky and difficult, so if someone… expendable… someone not her personal son, were to do the hard work, pave the path, and then, graciously, step aside…

Well… That's likely worth some time and effort.

The Supremacy is, without a doubt, the single ugliest ship Mirina's ever seen.

She, personally, has access to the I-Deck, where her current, adequate, but not spectacular, apartment is; the F-Deck, where the officers live and play; the C, D, and E-Decks, enlisted-land; the main flight deck; and apparently, whomever was in charge of setting up her access chit, didn't realize that post-party, she could still get into a lift, punch in Kylo's not-a-throne-room, and have the elevator deliver her to his personal area.

(Obviously, that has to change. Not for her, personally, but for everyone else who is still lingering on the I-Deck. Mostly hangers-on who have decided life aboard the Supremacy is fairly comfortable. And, it is. Just not as luxurious as home.)

The I-Deck and F-Deck are likely supposed to be the best, most comfortable, most posh part of the Supremacy and they're mostly just klick after klick of sterile looking black and gray steel and transteel corridors… The canteens are… adequate. Comfortable places to gather together and chat in private, outside of one's personal rooms are… non-existent outside of the market zones. Though there does appear to be enough traffic in the markets zones to cover pretty much any sort of discreet activity.

It's a battleship. And, as battleships generally are, it was designed to be a battleship, and it looks it.

She should probably be glad there are market zones. Though… They're fine. In a middle-class, plebeian sort of way.

If people are going to set foot on the Supremacy and feel like they've entered the Court of Frakes, the jewel of a city in a crown of sparkling beauty, elegance, and power…

She sighs. This is going to be an uphill battle.

First and foremost. People have to be able to move. Nothing else happens if that doesn't, so… Mirina heads off to scout her battleground. After all, a good general doesn't go into a fight blind, so she shouldn't, either.

Transportation on the Supremacy is appalling.

Up and down, between decks is fine. There are single floor elevators every hundred and fifty meters, and express elevators, that stop ever ten floors every three hundred meters, and five super express elevators that stop every twenty five floors. So, up and down is slick and easy.

As she strolls the market areas, and chats with officers, she finds that living quarters on the Supremacy are intentionally designed to go through the entirety of the horizontal space of the ship, so that anyone can quickly, by going up or down, get to their station.

So, obviously, up and down transport is ready, willing, and able to do the job.

But from one section in a deck to another section in the same deck… There are trams on C, D, E, and F-Decks. The trams go at a swift running speed, so they're an improvement over walking, but they stop to pick up and drop off more people every half klick, so it takes her more than five hours to go from one end of the F-Deck to the other.

The rest of the Supremacy is set with the idea that if you're on a working deck, you'll be within 150 meters of wherever you're supposed to be, so there's no need for any sort of horizontal transport at a higher than walking speed. Outsiders aren't supposed to be strolling about, or running about, or even standing about, on those decks.

And… She sighs. While it is true that the F-Deck has what is likely the height of comfort, for the Supremacy, it's primarily utilitarian. There's no sense of style or elegance. The market sections are like mid-range markets everywhere. Goods are plentiful, not cheap, but not expensive, either, and anyone can just walk in and buy whatever they want.

If any part of the Supremacy is exclusive, or designed to make people feel like they're some sort of elite, she can't find it. (Of course, she also hasn't attempted to get onto the F-Deck with an enlisted ID. Had she done that, she'd recognize that there is at least one level of elite on the Supremacy.)

She sighs at that.

Beggars can't be choosers, and unfortunately, when the dust settled, and all was said and done, people like her didn't have a lot of choices.

And, strolling through the market section closest to her son's rooms, getting ready to have dinner with him, this is what she's got. No one else is coming within light years of offering this sort of option to her son, so…

Take the choice, see what she can do with it, or not…

She thinks about it, looking around, and knows it's not really a choice. Ellie pointed it out. She made her choice years ago, now she just has to keep going on.

The first year after the fall of the Empire was, without a doubt, or any exaggeration, the absolute worst of Mirina Frakes' life.

Having had four babies in the first seven years of her marriage, she was done with babies, and firmly convinced (and relieved) that menopause had finally hit when she began missing cycles with Jon. And, part of being done with babies was that babies, with their needs, lack of sleep, hormonal disturbances, and all the rest of it, ran her ragged during their first year.

At least, that's the polite way of putting it. "Poor dear's having a hard time of it." That's what her friends or mother would say. The medical term is postpartum depression, and every time, she got it, bad. But, eventually, they'd find the right meds, and eventually things would even out, and eventually, it would get better.

But four times were enough.

Until it became apparent it would be five.

Jonathon William Frakes showed up late enough in his parents' life that, when his father announced he had another one on the way, a lot of his friends chuckled and made comments about miracles and the old shaft not being quite dead yet.

He also showed up six weeks before the Battle of Endor.

So, it was, with a newborn on the breast, in the midst of wracking postpartum depression, made worse by the fact that as soon as the pregnancy hormones cleared, menopause was indeed bearing down full-force on Mirina Frakes, that she got word that the second Death Star, her husband's command, had been destroyed by the Rebels.

She didn't scream when she got the news, because she'd been through it once before. He'd been stationed on the First Death Star, too.

But… the first time… He called home. Before he even checked in with what was left with his command. As soon as the news went live that the First Death Star had gone, as soon as he knew it had happened, he called home. (He was actually the one who told her it was gone. He'd gotten the news before she did.)

A week later, when he still hadn't called home, that's when she started to scream.

Mirina doesn't really remember too much of that year. And she's honestly grateful for both that, and that Tasha, who was twenty at the time, was old enough, and bright enough, and resourceful enough to take over.

She spent most of the second and third year in a panic. A very quiet, calm-looking panic. The show had to go on. Clients had to be met. Life had to continue. Never let it be said the Frakes women can't be internally screaming and externally smiling, making small talk, and looking for all the world like nothing more pressing then the choice of dove gray velvet or eggshell silk were in order.

But the Concordance was signed, and the trials were beginning and friends and foes and allies and enemies were singing their songs, making deals with the New Republic, turning in everyone they knew in the Empire to save themselves, and every night she went to bed, terrified that before morning, some heavily-armed, bright young things from the New Republic were going to show up to arrest her and her daughters.

When Pat Kinear went up on trial, she almost ran. Almost. Sheer grit, and the fact that the New Republic either were just too damn egalitarian to understand that there were spheres of power where men just didn't go, or they were too damn amateur to know that the army and navy were just the tip of the Empire, she never learned. What she did learn, slowly, over time, is that the New Republic was too… good… or… moral… or… whatever to drag the officers' wives in for questioning.

Which meant, eventually, five years on, when the trials ended, her name hadn't been dragged into it.

And she was, officially, in the clear.

And she was, unofficially, looking to hit back at the New Republic as hard as she could.

Ten percent of her contacts were executed for war crimes. Anyone who could have been plausibly connected to the genocide of Alderaan, meaning pretty much every surviving officer of the First Death Star, was executed. Supposedly, if you were playing by the rules, having heard the order to murder a peaceful, unarmed, teaming with Rebels, because they wanted to be on a peaceful, unarmed, perfect moral victory target should anyone ever strike against them, you would have mutinied.

Apparently, Death Star, was foreshadowing for anyone on it.

Fifty percent of her contacts were in prison. Useless. (For the next ten to twenty-five years. As they got out, some of them discreetly visited their old friends. Or had their children and grandchildren visit. By the time the Resistance was up and resisting, most of Mirina's old friends were out and about again, and a lot of them knew where to go to get back at the people who put them in prison for following the legal orders of a legitimately elected government.)

Another thirty percent had gone renegade. Possible, but dangerous. The bounties the New Republic had on any of the Empire's rogue commanders were sky high, and any hint that you could get in contact with one of them would get you a lot more attention than she wanted. She did put her feelers out for Admiral Schiff, who, at that point had a small but growing armada of his own, but he'd taken Thea with him when he went rogue, so her contact on his staff was with him.

The last ten percent made it through the trials, and either by dint of clever bribes and lies, or even more clever service records, came out the other side "free men." They didn't tend to stick around.

The Kinears just vanished one day. They had been on Coruscant since Pat was released, found not guilty of war crimes. She noticed with scorn that he kept trying to get the New Republic to arm itself, and defend the far edges of their territory, and to do something to make it worth the while of the rogue Admirals to come in. Better an easy peace than an unending war.

But they just nodded and ignored him.

And then one day he, Ellie, and the entire clan, was gone.

Rumor had it they (and the others who avoided prison) were heading to the Rim. Rumor had it, there was work for men, and women, who had certain skills, out there. Work the Republic wouldn't let them get near.

Not the kind of work she could do from out there.

Slowly, Mirina's brand began to grow again, as she began to make friends in the right sorts of places, and slowly she began to notice who thrived when the New Republic was stagnant and chaotic. She made sure they got useful information.

And when those rumors of the Rim, and the Unknown Regions began to coalesce, when they moved past vague hearsay… Well, she knew what sort of information that new power would need. She just needed to find a way to get it there.

Apparently, the power on the edge of the galaxy remembered her, and when Karoline Schiff, the Admiral's granddaughter, needed a wedding dress, she had a very easy time getting an appointment with Lady Frakes.

And if it took an abnormally large number of fittings… Well, some brides are picky.

And if, over the next twenty years, a collection of somewhat less well known-women had an unusually easy time getting appointments with the House of Frakes, well… Tasha and the older girls knew not to ask, or, as time went by, got in on the game themselves, and Jon, a child and then teen, was too oblivious to have a clue as to what was going on.

And after twenty-five years, the First Order was no longer a ghost hiding in the shadows, and Mirina was, after the correct assurances had been offered, relieved to send her son to them. Hoping he'd take after his father.

Though, unlike her hopes of the First Order bringing about a new Empire, or at least wiping the New Republic off the galaxy, or if not even that, then at least killing the bastards who got her husband, Jon taking after Bill was rather a long shot.

Still, looking around the Supremacy, if she'd realized how far away from the Empire this was, she might have thought twice about offering Jon up to it.

That said… She's strolling around the F-Deck, noticing how empty large sections of it are. There's room here. And… opportunity. Enough money, the right people… This… could be something.

Something her son could rule.

The House of Frakes could move from the shadows to the center stage, and she wouldn't mind that, at all.

1/12/2

It has not escaped Jon's notice that his mother is still here on the Supremacy.

It's not like she's underfoot every moment. In fact, several days go by at a time without him seeing her, but… And it's not like she's begging him to leave, though her comments about lovely planets with wealthy people and permissive mores being an excellent place to set another branch of the House of Frakes aren't exactly flying under his scanners.

But she could do that from Coruscant. So, he doesn't know what's going on, and that makes him uncomfortable.

He supposes she might be lingering, hoping to get him to change his mind. Her skills at getting people to bend to her will have always been better in person, but… Well, it has been a long time since they've lived together, and he supposes it's possible that she just doesn't understand that he's not going to change his mind because she's upset.

(Granted, how she could have missed that, what with the fact that she was very clearly indicating over and over that she was constantly upset with him and his behavior as a teen/young adult, and he changed bugger all for her then, is a mystery, but… again… it's been almost a decade since they've lived together, some memories may have dimmed down over time.)

She's asked to have dinner with him, and… well, he's glad she asked, because he's busy, and she generally more tells than asks, so… That's probably moving things in the right direction.

He can pry an hour or two free to have a meal with his mother.

She shows up one minute early.

She's always one minute early.

Jon lets her in, and she smiles up at him. "It smells good."

"Thanks. I wasn't sure what you'd like, so it's just a chop, potato, and veg."

"I like all of those things." She sees the plates on the table. "Did you cook?" She can't keep the disbelief out of her voice.

Jon sniggers. "Uh. No. I've developed many new skills since I lived with you, that not among them. But, as you always say, rank has its privileges, one of which is that if I want food, food comes to me."

She nods, and appears to be taking note of that. "Indeed."

They settle down, and he pours glasses of wine for both of them. For a moment, they both drink, and it's… a moment. It's… not uncomfortable, but Jon's decidedly unsettled.

Finally, when he's just about to say, "Okay, what's up and why are you still here?" Mirina says to him, "So, what… or where… on the Supremacy would be considered a fashionable neighborhood?"

Jon blinks at her, squints, takes a long sip of wine, and then blinks again. "Mom?"

"A good neighborhood. A place where one might open an elite shop, and set a good flat."

Jon blinks again. Then he takes a much bigger sip of his wine. "Mom… are you… thinking about moving in?"

"Yes." Jon is very pleased that he doesn't whimper at that. "The House of Frakes has always been at the center of power in the galaxy, and… well, that appears to be here, now. So…"

"But… What about home?"

She waves that off. "Tasha has that well in hand. There's nothing going on there that she can't take care of."

He pours himself more wine, and gulps it.

Mirina readies a tidy bite of her chop, balancing it neatly on the tines of her fork, looking for all the world like she's patiently awaiting his response as to where the 'desirable' neighborhoods on the Supremacy are.

After another moment, Jon says, "I… didn't think you wanted anything to do with… Kylo."

"I don't. But, as you said, the only way to get to better is forward, and… If better is where we're going then," she gestures. "So, where would one set up shop?"

Jon sighs. He stabs a bite of his potato, and gets to eating. "Mom, it's a battleship. It doesn't have neighborhoods."

She arches an eyebrow at him, and he can feel she can't believe he's going to even attempt that with her.

"Fine. It doesn't have the kind of neighborhoods you want. This is it, as posh as it gets. Officer-land. And we're sprinkled through here to try and keep us close to our commands, so, for example, I've got an ensign two doors down, and a major across the hall." He doesn't need to point out that this was Lane's flat originally, and he was a major, or how even though he's jumped several ranks, and will jump several more, he hasn't moved, nor does he intend to.

"Where do the generals live?"

"Most of them have their own command ships. I think… Actually, I don't know. Kinear's the top of the heap general-wise right. He has rooms here, but I don't think he lives in them. I assume there has to be someone in command of the troops on the Supremacy, and I assume that general would actually live here, but…"

Mirina nods. This is the sort of thing that the Master of the Order's Diplomatic Department should know, but it's also true that one doesn't, generally, go from tactical design into diplomacy, and Jon's got more than a bit of studying left to do. "And the section I'm in is where you put the well-off guests for the First Year celebrations?"

"Yes. C, D, and E-Deck is enlisted housing and entertainment. F-Deck is officer housing and entertainment. You're on I-Deck, along with the suites we're putting guests in. I suppose if there's going to be a 'posh' section of the Supremacy, it will eventually be the I-Deck, but right now it's pretty empty."

Meaning, as best he knows, Mirina, and three dozen other guests who have, for whatever reason, and he should likely ask if Artoo might be interested in finding out what those reasons might be, haven't left since the First Year party, are the only people on the I-Deck.

Mirina nods at that. "It is. But it doesn't have to be. Did I hear a rumor of potential embassies on this ship?"

Jon looks at her curiously. "If you did, I haven't." He thinks about it. They probably should have embassies here. Probably should see about sticking embassies on other worlds, too. But, right now, he's painfully short of people to put in them. He rubs his head. He needs a C8 or Threepio of his own, and then about fifty humans to start overseeing things like embassies and posh neighborhoods and… Well, shit, if they're doing this, they should really have some sort of bloody market or something. Something people could come here to trade at. Not like they don't have room, or the ability to provide security for a merchant who's looking to move goods. "But if we could…"

"I've heard that you've talked with Kylo about building a palace here. It's too big to be a palace. But it's just right to be a capitol city. How long is I-Deck?"

Two weeks. She's been here two weeks and already is more hooked into the rumor network than he is. Jon sighs. "Fifty-five, maybe fifty-eight klicks across. More than two and a half wide at the widest point."

"Many cities are smaller than that, and that's just one floor here."

"True," he takes a bite of his chop and works on thinking through the angles his mom is talking about cornering. Well, first and foremost, posh neighborhoods and people might be a goal, but they aren't anything approaching reality at this point. "Mom… Not to put too fine a point on it, but… Uh… If you open up a branch of the House of Frakes here, who, exactly, do you think will be wearing your goods? The kind of people who are generally your clients… They aren't here." And given what happened to the board of directors of the Raclan bank, they're likely to be wary about coming here.

"We'll start with Lady Ren, and go from there."

"Does she know that?" Jon's fairly sure that if he hits Kylo with it right, mostly by just telling him it's a good idea, Kylo will let him dress him up and arrange most of the stuff around him to suit Jon's idea of what they need and how it needs to look. He's fairly sure that Rey will not be nearly so easy about this.

"She will." Mirina smiles. That smile doesn't make Jon shiver, but there is something cold about it. "My own rooms. They're adequate, but I'd like to see about shifting them some. The entertaining space is too small, and preferably they'd be within a short walk of the shop. Likewise… transportation within the Supremacy is appalling. It takes forever to get from one side to the other. If someone were to visit, they could get here from any corner of the galaxy in hours, and then spend hours getting from the landing bays to the I-Deck."

"Uh… Yes, I'm sure." Traffic… That's a million levels beyond his training, and well below his pay grade. "Mom… uh…" Jon shakes his head. He's in charge of Tactical Design. He's unofficially, one of the top four people in the Order. Finding someone in physical plant to set up a shop for his Mom would probably take him ten minutes. Except, of course, if he does that, she's not going to leave.

"I won't be underfoot, Jon."

He eyes her a little. She's always had an unsettling habit of responding to things he hasn't actually said out loud.

"Now, once we've got my space set, I have a feeling we're going to need more flats along those lines. You should likely move up, too."

"I swear you just said something about not being underfoot."

"Jonathon… You know how this works. Important people like to congregate together. It's likely a good plan the Master doesn't end up there. Making sure he's elsewhere helps to cement his image as apart and above everyone else, but putting more of us in that area will encourage others to move up, too, and next thing you know, you do have a neighborhood were power concentrates."

Jon sighs. The only way they're taking him out of this apartment is in a box, and she should know better than to even suggest it. "Maybe you'd prefer to have a chat with a few of those generals. Get them to set their own rooms here instead of their command ships."

"Oh, love, I certainly intend to. Well, their wives, at least. I have a feeling more than a few of them will understand what's being done here."

For a good tenth of a second, Jon almost thinks of suggesting his Mom and Threepio have a chat, but he jettisons that idea, fast. After all, if the son of Leia Organa is a sticking point, her personal protocol droid, is likely to be an issue, too.

That said, if anyone would be good with the idea of setting up some sort of… posh space… that'd be Threepio. He rubs his eyes, and reaches over, grabbing one of his data pads, and makes a note to set up another meeting with the droid, so they can go over this. Hell, if they ever manage to get Kylo's senate into play, they'll need a nice place, likely with attractive rooms, to put them… I-Deck could be where the senate lives. He mentally sniggers at the idea of sticking his Mom in the middle of the Senate.

Mirina waits for him to do that, glares at him for a second, and then says, "Now, tell me about your plans for his throne room."

"It's not a throne room."

"Yes, I had noticed that. There is a conspicuous lack of throne there, which simply won't do."

"Yeah, well, that's on the non-negotiable list, so…"

She waits for a moment, "So…"

He shrugs. "What's got you thinking about this?" He's pleased to see she's not trying to pull him away from Ren, but… This complete reversal, followed by her fully throwing in with The Order is making warning signs dance in his head.

"I talked with Ellie yesterday."

"Meeting up with old friends?"

"Something like that. She tells me you've got a reputation for being good at this, so…"

Jon snorts. He knows the sorts of things people say about him. He would prefer they talked about him being good at his job, but he knows they don't. "I've got a reputation for fucking anything that moves."

"Language…"

"Mom, I'm thirty-three and in my own home, I'll say fuck as often as I like. When I'm in your home, I'll censor myself."

Mirina rolls her eyes a bit. "Fine."

"And, best of my knowledge, they don't talk about my job much, other than a bit of speculation as to if Kylo's one of the moving things I'm fucking."

Mirina doesn't glare, but her glance does have a lot of edges to it. He understands her look as you brought that on yourself. "Yes, well, that does tend to happen when you marry the man who promoted you all the way from ensign to captain in one move, and then proceed to deal with your grief at his loss by attempting to fornicate it away. Which does not work, by the way."

Jon shrugs, ignores her last comment, and says, "I am good at my job. Lane recognized it."

"And given he wasn't summarily executed for how he took care of your old supervisor, I'm going to assume he was right."

Jon shrugs at that, too. It would have been nice if that was true, but… "Honestly, given how things used to be run here, Lane could have been dead wrong and no one would have cared. Smanth called him incompetent, told everyone he was playing favorites, thinking with his shaft, and promoted me to get into my bed. And then he jumped the line and complained about it to Lane's commanding officer. Even if he'd been right, that was insubordination, and Lane, as Smanth's commanding officer, had every right to handle it, so handle it he did. With the way things are run now, I have a feeling executing an underling for inappropriate comments would have gotten Lane more than a raised eyebrow and three hours of extra paperwork."

"Is that an improvement?"

Jon's a bit irked that she even has to ask, but… She's Empire. "I'd like to think so. The more I think on it… The less comfortable I am with people having total power over the people under them. It's… too much begging for trouble." It's clear he's thinking about how some of his very favorite people have used absolute power over the years, what he went along with when they had it, and… These days it's starting to chafe.

Mirina doesn't look terribly convinced by that, but she also doesn't appear to want to argue with him. She'll admit at first she didn't have much use for Lane. She sent Jon off in a last ditch attempt to get him to behave in something approaching tolerable manners and mores, and two years later, he came back with the news that he was getting married, which she approved of greatly, until she understood Jon was the bride.

Then she took one look at Lane, and knew what he was doing. Men get to a certain age, and a certain level of career responsibility, and they decide they want something young and pretty to warm their bed and keep them company. That's part of what her parents were looking for when they introduced her to Bill. Part of what she was looking for in a few of her daughters' suitors.

Major Lane Keenadun, who was forty-three (to Jon's twenty-seven) had hit a certain age.

As son-in-laws went, it's not like Lane was horrible, or even mildly problematic. Most of her other son-in-laws took to him right off the bat. Senith, Tasha's husband, the closest thing Jon has to a father, genuinely liked him and told her to get over herself and stop being a twit about Lane being a man… but…

Still… This was not what she'd been hoping for when she sent Jon to the First Order.

Then the night before the wedding, when a few of Jon's friends had been drinking, and explained to her, in gory detail, what Lane had done to the man who dared to complain to the General in charge of Physical Logistics that her boy had fucked his way into his Captain's stripe.

And, as Jon had just put it, Lane handled that complaint, and the man who made it.

And that vastly improved her opinion of Lane. Yes, he was still the wrong shape and sex for her son, but he at least understood a husband's job, and had been willing to do it properly… And, of course, he was willing to marry Jon, instead of keep him as a dirty little secret. After all, this sort of relationship was technically illegal in the Empire, but discreet buggery was never (assuming the people involved did their jobs right, were publicly seen with or married to women, and were appropriately pro-Empire) punished.

By their second anniversary, she was willing to admit that Lane was a pretty good son-in-law.

He told her once, with a grin, that she'd learn to love him. And damned if the bastard hadn't been right.

She cried, hard and ugly, for him at his funeral.

Right here, right now, and thinking of Lane, she'd also admit that she sees no issue with a commanding officer having that sort of power. That's the point of being a commanding officer. (And the point of being very good friends with them.) But, in that she's trying to get to some sort of… detente… with Jon, so she can move on toward getting the Court of Ren into a place where it can become the Court of Frakes, she lets it lie.

"So," she redirects. "Tell me about the not a throne room. And where you think the Supremacy is supposed to go if we're building a palace."

Jon doesn't raise an eyebrow at we're. He wants to, but… "Well, first and foremost, there's the guy I'm building it for, and what he wants."

Mirina dismissively waves that away. "If you package it right, he'll go for anything you say. There are a lot of issues I wouldn't push that man on, how anything around him looks isn't among them. He's giving you the power, so manage him."

"He's not a condition, Mom. I'm not managing him."

"I know, he's a client, who is hiring your expertise, because he knows he doesn't know what he needs, so do your job."

Jon exhales, gets up, and crosses his living area to his drafting table, and returns with the best of the sketches he's worked out.

"Color palette for the hard surfaces is black, white, a collection of grays and silvers. Sharp lines, hard angles, stark and clean."

"The colors and aesthetic of the Order."

"Right. But we're not just the Order. The Maji's going to be worked into this at some point."

"And the Maji is…"

He half inclines his head. "We don't exactly have a look for that yet. Colors, fluid, soft. Balance. We're working on themes of balance."

He lays the sketch down. The shell of Kylo's not-a-throne-room is structurally unchanged. He's kept the support pillars black. The walls and floor are now light gray. A twining path in black is picked out along the floor. Planters of silver and white marble, veined through with soft grays and blacks are filled with plants and flowers in all colors and sizes. Between and among the flowers are black reflecting pools. Swimming about in said pools are bright aquatics, fish, like Jon's, and also water plants.

"This is the one I'm liking best of the bunch."

"A garden?"

"What's more rare and costly in space? I'd plant trees in there if I could figure out how to keep the roots happy. We've got the hard surfaces in the Order colors. The plants are alive and vibrant, so those are Maji themes, and we balance the starkness of space," he hasn't enclosed the two open walls of Kylo's not-a-throne-room, so there's still the view of a billion lightyears of space all around them, "with a lot of soft, living things."

Mirina's nodding along. She doesn't dare lay a mark on the sketch but she does point to the center of the garden. "A pergola, or gazeebo here. Detailed, filigree work. Metal, black, hard and straight supports with clean arches, in between with lines will curve and twine, put them in silver or white. Soft seating, pillows in a lot of colors. If we're feeling really lush, perhaps chaises. Some place for the Master to sit in comfort, and entertain chosen guests."

Jon nods, and puts a note for that. "More seating all over. Benches…" He adds another note. "Maybe… Water walls, between some of the pillars, create a few somewhat secluded nooks."

"Wired for sound?"

"And visuals," he makes a mental note to point out to Kylo that if they build these things that they're not his personal pleasure garden, so not to go fucking about in them unless he wants the Order's security and spy network to get an eyeful.

Mirina is nodding, seeing the image in her mind. "A proper courtyard. You might want some tame animals, beyond the fish. Something cute and fluffy. People like having soft and friendly animals to play with. It puts them at ease."

He half shrugs. "I suppose so." Granted, soft, fluffy tame animals need to be cleaned up after, and that's something they likely don't need in the not-a-throne-room. "Now ask me how I'm going to pay for it."

"Ah… Yes. Well, that's always going to be an issue." She taps the sketch. "But right now we're dreaming, so we might as well dream."

"Well, if we're dreaming… This is… Temporary. We've got two dreadnaughts in design right now. Eventually they'll be the palaces, and this will be the battleship."

Mirina shakes her head. "No. They're what… five years out?"

"Probably. Maybe four and a half if they go full speed ahead and nothing gets FUBARed between now and then."

Mirina half-smiles. "And when has anything, ever, not gotten a bit FUBAR?"

He snerks at that. "Oh, you get to say it, but I don't?"

"You're a military officer on your own ship, talking about serious plans within the prevue of your command. There are appropriate places for pretty much every word, and this is certainly the place for FUBAR."

Jon takes a bite of his potato. "Indeed. Why not temporary? This monstrosity is going to be well-nigh impossible to turn into anything approaching a palace. I don't know if you noticed the outside when you were flying up."

Mirina nods. She noticed. "If he builds this the way he claims he's going to you, you're going to need every centimeter of space you can get. You may eventually move his flag ship to one of the new ones, but the Supremacy can't just be a placeholder. You need to build this like it matters, like this is… the start of your empire."

"It is."

"Then treat it like that. What about the rest of the ship? You obviously don't have the people to fill it, yet, so what are you doing with it?"

Jon rolls his eyes. "Right now, a lot of it is empty, or filled with weapons we're not using. It'd be one thing if we were fighting, but, we aren't, and there's nothing quite so useless as an army at peace."

"That's part of why you're trying to get those contracts."

"Exactly, we've got people who are trained or in training. We've got more arms than anyone needs. It'd be nice to do something with them besides let them collect dust."

"And do you have any contracts along those lines?"

Another issue in the space between dream and reality. "We've got people asking about them. As best I know, as of today, none of them have been finalized."

"I understand you're also looking to expand into the colony game."

"Do you read my briefings when I'm not here?" Seriously, two fucking weeks. What the hell has this woman been up to?

"No dear, I listen when people talk."

"And apparently you've spoken to everyone."

She smiles.

"Yes, we've gotten a few of them either online or getting online."

"And a space to finalize them, make them feel welcome and relevant, and perhaps a neighborhood for the people who are involved with them…" He can stick the representatives of their colonies next to the eventual senators. Hell, if they're feeling really frisky, once they've got a senate, each colony can elect provisional members to it, or something like that.

"Yeah. I know. Last I checked we only had two finalized as of yet."

"But you have a lot of people looking."

"We do. More than looking for security contracts. Schiff's in charge of most of that." Jon sighs at that, too. Those contracts, after year five, will bring in more, a lot more, than they cost. But year one, and probably year two, is entirely sunk costs, on their part, with no pay out.

"I've had a few lunches with Lady Schiff, and will likely have a few more. Thea's utterly lovely."

"I'm sure she is." Jon pauses at that. His eyes narrow. "Wait… How long have you known Lady Schiff?"

Mirina smiles at that, too. "Ages, dear."

"And Ellie?"

"Since well before you, or Tasha, were born."

He thinks about her store, and where they were, and what she did, what his father did. "Do you know the entire Imperial Officer class?"

"Oh, no." Again, she smiles. "Just the ones who matter. And well, if they're still around, they likely matter."

Well, he supposes that likely explains how quickly she's gotten into the loop here. And who the future clients of the House of Frakes, Supremacy branch will be, and who she intends to stuff into that posh neighborhood.

And he suddenly knows what his mother is trying to rebuild.

"He won't be the Emperor for you."

"He doesn't have to be," Mirina says with a smile. "In fact, I'm beginning to think we're sincerely better off if he isn't."

And with that, Jon's utterly unsure if he should be comforted or terrified.