5/19/1

"Major Frakes…"

Frakes turns, looking down slightly, at the smaller man… he reads the command insignia, General seeking his attention.

He snaps into perfect attention and says, "Sir."

"Relax, Major."

He does, marginally. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"Are you Bill Frakes' boy?"

Jon nods, a bit confused as to why anyone would be asking that. "Yes, sir."

The general smiles at him. "I thought so. You've got the look of him. Not the coloring. He had dark hair, but the shape of your face."

Frakes nods again. Then says, "I'm sorry, sir, I wouldn't know."

The General shakes his head. "He was on the Second Death star. You never got the chance to really know him, did you? I'd forgotten that. Flaming shame, that. He was a good man."

"So I've been told, sir. I'm sorry, sir, you have the advantage of me."

The general smiles at him. "Kinear. Pat Kinear."

"General Kinear. May I be of any service?"

"You may be. I've been told you're the one to see about making things look right."

"Whoever told you that has been very kind." Jon says, manners perfect.

Kinear smiles up at him. "Take advice from an old man who outranks you by a kilometer, don't downplay your victories, lad. That's how you get your stripes."

"Yes, sir." Frakes waits patiently. Eventually the old man will get around to whatever it is he wants.

"I've gotten word that we're going to be taking possession of a few new colonies. I'm thinking it might be valuable to have some sort of… reception… A welcome to the Order party. Back in my day when you got your stripes, the other officers would have a party, let you know you belonged."

Jon doesn't make a comment about how those days were likely under the Old Republic. "You'd like us to… extend a warm welcome to our newest colonies?"

"Something like that. Invite the people who more or less run things, put them at ease, liquor 'em up, see what they think is going on when they're feeling relaxed and open. It'll be easier to see who'll work well with us if they're not afraid we're about to kill them all."

Jon doesn't have a comment on that. "Does Master Ren know about this? He usually speaks with me directly about things like this."

"He doesn't, yet. He's… sometimes a bit more shy about things like this than is optimal. I was hoping I could get you to come up with the sketches and the costs. Once we've got that figured out, I'll hit him with it."

"If we do this for every colony, it'll get expensive."

Kinear grins at him. "That's the right attitude, lad! We're going to do this a lot. And, at least right now, I've got credits, and I'm in a giving mood."

"Sir?"

The old general's looking up at him, eyes bright. "Do you feel it? That we're on the verge of something great? That we're finally moving to where we're supposed to go? We're building alliances and spreading a system that benefits people. This is important, lad, and it's time we start putting everything we can to it."

"Yes," breathes out of Frakes.

Kinear smiles at him. "That's worth celebrating, isn't it?"

Frakes smiles. "I'll design it for you, sir."

"Thank you, Major."

"Well…" Admiral Schiff says to Kinear a few hours later.

"He's young, enthusiastic, loves our Master, completely dedicated to the mission, and not smart or jaded enough to know not to trust me."

"So, you're saying he's perfect," Schiff replies.

"He's perfect," Kinear says with a huge grin.

"And what are we doing with our perfect boy?" Schiff asks as they stroll through the busy hallways of the F deck.

"Right now, I've got him planning a state dinner."

Schiff nods at that. "Does Ren know you're planning him a state dinner?"

"Not, yet. I told Frakes I wanted it sketched and priced out first, and then I'd hit Ren with it."

"And, whom are we feting at our state dinner?" Schiff asks.

"We've got the colony the Polnians are flogging off on us, the two we've taken possession of in the R'Leah system, I think the G'Rnders are going to give us one, and the Ygrines are on the final draft of the non-aggression treaty. Might as well get 'em all in one place and have a 'Yay us!' party."

"I'm thinking we leave the Ygrines out for now. We can have a separate gathering of them and other people we want non-aggression pacts with. We're likely better off if we keep the colonizers separate from the colonists." Kinear nods along with that. A sensible plan. "That said, I can think of three other systems non-aggression pacts would be valuable for."

"Two parties then, I can get Frakes to plan out both for us," Kinear adds.

Schiff pulls a datapad out of his pocket and makes a note for himself. "How'd Frakes take the idea?"

"He's worried it'll be expensive."

"Smart boy. We do enough of this sort of stuff, and it will get expensive."

Kinear waves that off. "This may pinch our purses some, but…"

"But we've both been known to make the occasional prurient investment when it's warranted."

"Exactly."

Schiff looks up from his pad to Kinear. "You know, there was a rumor that once upon a time, you'd intended to go into politics when you got out of the Emperor's army."

Kinear smiles. That's an old rumor, and an old wish, one that he thought died a long time ago. "You always were good at this, Josh."

"You, too, Pat. How many of your grandkids will be running?"

"All six and one of the great-grandsons looks interested, too. You?"

"Four."

Kinear looks around them, at the bustle of the F Deck. Other than the lack of sky, they could be in any busy town. "He tells me he wants to do away with geography. Planets, land… just dust."

Admiral Schiff grins. "Music to my ears. He's talking to the designers about scaling down."

"How far?"

"Dreadnoughts."

"Thank the Force!" That makes Kinear feel significantly better. Of all of Snoke's stupid ideas, this behemoth is the worst of the bunch. "How many?"

"Looks like seven of them."

"He's going to need an Admiral and General for each of them."

"Yes, he will," Schiff says.

"You already making your list?"

"Of course," Schiff replies with a smile.

Kinear sighs. "Do you miss Canaday right now?"

Schiff shakes his head. "Peavy, too. What they would have done with this…"

"Indeed. So, seven new dreadnoughts."

"Assuming we can get the materials for them." Schiff's eyes are dark, tools, people, dry docks, all of that's harder to lay hands on since Starkiller went up.

"Are we going to scrap this hunk?"

"No. He's decided that if we're going to fly into battle, having a huge, mostly empty ship shooting at whomever we're fighting, attracting their attacks is a good plan," Schiff says. He agrees with that. A big target in the middle of the fight that attracts attention away from his actual weapons, that's just fine by him. "We've got three destroyers that are ready for the rubbish heap. Might see what we can salvage and repurpose."

"That's… half a dreadnaught?" Kinear is a general. Give him a chunk of ground, or even, the inside of a ship, and he can plan a battle down to the number of batteries he'll need for the blasters. What goes into building a dreadnaught is a mystery to him.

"Something like that. It'll take time to get his plans into motion. Five years probably before we can get the first two ships out of the docks. But it's a plan, and we can do it."

"You know people in the building trades?" Kinear asks. He knows people in the weapons trade, and people in the logistics trade, and people in the armor trade. Schiff has to have similar contacts, right?

"Before Starkiller blew we had most of it in house. That's part of why we're scrabbling to keep up our maintenance. The Rebel scum took out our mechanical training base when they destroyed Starkiller. I can get tools and droids, but replacing my mechanics and engineers… Since Starkiller, I've had to outsource most of it, and…" Schiff almost growls, but that wouldn't be fitting, so he doesn't.

"Let's get a bunch of them together, see who we can schmooze into working with us on the cheap for goodwill."

"That's a high-demand trade. They're going to want credits," Schiff says.

"Then get me a list of building docks that might decide they don't particularly like their current overlords. And we can schmooze them. This choosing your own leader thing might be catching."

Schiff grins wide and steady. "And if we don't go that far, we can put recruiting stations all over them. Maybe The Master will allow us to offer a bounty on skilled trades. Three years' service leads to citizenship for mechanics and machinists."

"We can certainly pass that by him."

Schiff glances around them. On F Deck everyone nearby is an officer or the family of one. Most of the people around them are significantly younger. And a lot of them have numbers, not names. "Speaking of passing things by him, how is letting him know about the condition of our training program going?"

Kinear sighs. The training program is the reason why his grandkids aren't getting ready to run, yet. He's not letting any of them set foot in it the way it is now. He's sure Schiff's aren't enlisted, yet, either, for the exact same reason. "It's going. I know for a fact that it's in one of the datapads on his desk. He's just got to pick it up."

"Good."