Fourth Fleet Command, Moonus Mandel

Vansen shifted uncomfortably in the chair behind his desk, once again finding himself agitated and forced to fidget. As he had done several times over the last ten minutes, he triggered a small valve beneath the seat, the pad descending on pneumatics a few fractions of an inch, but it didn't help any. Something was off something about his office, his sanctum of sanity, had been miscalibrated, and it was driving him up the wall.

He sat in silence for a moment, and then a few moments more passed with his fingers drumming against the edge of the desk before a grunt escaped him and his hands reached out, adjusting the cluster of tiny starfighter miniatures that now adorned one corner of his desk. Merrin Altink had given him the idea, and had been all too happy to help the Admiral begin a collection of his own. These ones were small and entirely machined in a 3D fabricator - Vansen had neither the patience nor the depth perception to paint them by hand as the engineer did - each one representing one of the designs that Incom-Koensayr-Meorrrei currently had in production for the Alliance military, as well as a few of the concept designs that were actively in the process of being developed. A cabinet over in the corner held a cluster of other starfighters decorated in squadron colours relevant to Vansen's life: a Z-95 in Judicial red, a Y-Wing in Republic gold, an A-Wing in Valkyrie colours, and an X-Wing with Rogue Squadron markings; more besides, each one with meaning and significance that bore more sentimentality than Vansen was used to displaying. The shelf behind him meanwhile bore slightly larger reproductions, one to represent each of the starships he had served on: his first Rendili Dreadnaught, the Brenik, the Vakyrie, both incarnations of the Valiant, and of course, his beloved Challenger. The latter was in the wrong place, arguably. He'd served aboard her when she was new back in the Clone Wars, but it hadn't felt right nestling her so far into his past.

Vansen wasn't interested in those reproductions: they weren't the ones that she - they, he forced himself to mentally correct - would be looking at. It was poor taste perhaps, displaying those particular ships so prominently on his desk, but he had his reasons, and his justifications. He wasn't a man who hid his biases: they were what they were, and any deception surrounding them was futile and insulting. More than that though, these were his fighters. His projects. Designs that he had a hand in. When his bones had finished turning to dust, and when his name was no more than a footnote in a handful of minor battles, there would be a kid out there somewhere in the galaxy with a picture book of vintage starfighters, and they would obsess over the details and statistics of something he had helped create.

He wasn't sure why that notion struck such a chord with him: seventy-six years of life, and he'd never before given a flying frak about legacy and memory. Now though, with so much of who he was and how he defined himself being stripped away and replaced by bureaucracy and mediocrity, it seemed more important than ever to preserve something of the man he was supposed to be, even if it was just a few fingerprints on some blueprints, once upon a time.

He let out a sigh, and tweaked the angle of the largest of the models again. It was a two-person gunship, broad-winged and with a pair of slanted weapons pylons beneath. Many things could be said about Merrin Altink, but he certainly knew how to push Vansen's buttons: there were enough hints and familiar flourishes to remind him of the days of yore, and make him nostalgic for V-19s and LAAT gunships. They hadn't named it yet - and if the Appropriations Committee had it's way, there'd probably be no need to - but he was sure they would eventually. Someone would probably look at it from all different angles until they decided on a letter it resembled, and then bolt -wing on the back end and call it a day.

Vansen's gaze strayed around the room, surveying for more items to irritate his impatient sense of precarious calm. Instead, they settled on a stoic figure in the corner, a monocular stare focused directly on him.

The Admiral scowled. "Don't look at me like that, you miserable bucket of bolts."