Incursion Vector

013

[▲] Hubble Station, Earth/Sol L2

According to Damien, Hubble Station had been only named after the ancient space telescope and its namesake astronomer. The actual telescope had fallen into disrepair centuries ago and was now a prized possession of some wealthy Colonial baron's family who had hired pirates to steal it from orbit during the civil wars. It sounded just crazy enough to be fiction until Keiji had pointed out that it was indeed true—his father knew the family who kept the instrument warehoused in a planetside mansion and evidently bragged about the "truly epic" way in which they "procured" it during social engagements.

It never failed to surprise Leo the lengths some people would go to in order to obtain wealth or prestige. That such people would die ignorant of what they could have seen had only they put their energies towards bettering the lots of their people rather than themselves was a shame.

Leo had never met the emissary of his fleet personally and his father never had an abundance to say about the man on the rare occasions when they had discussed the politics regarding his entry into the University Frigate system. That meant he really disliked Tiaha's ambassador to the Terran Alliance; his father would either speak well of his tribesmen or he would not speak of them at all. He liked to think that he had inherited that particular trait from Yusuf Ibrahim, though he knew that it was his mother's resilience which had shaped him into the man which now stood in the oblong lobby of the interstellar embassies waiting to be announced by the emissary's plain-looking male secretary at the single burnished steel desk in the room.

It really made no difference what sort of man the emissary was, however. Captain Michael had forwarded him every after action report from the vessels involved in fleet's ambush and the subsequent rescue operations, including a list of all the casualties, survivors, and ships from which they had been rescued. The emissary's two sons—his only two sons—were both on the Averroes training alongside his brother Zizka to join the defense fighter wing. They were alive only because of the actions of his mother and sister. After his grandfather was nearly killed in the first wave after the EMP blast, his mother had taken command of the defense forces and managed to keep the evacuation running. With the Averroes reduced to little more than a hunk of aerated metal, his sister had packed every survivor into the only uncompromised radiation-shielded compartment of the ship while she routed every bit of remaining power into the CO2 filters and heating system while somehow managing to move the wreck into the shadow of the Avicenna for cover. The radiation from the Averroes' overworked drive core combined with that of the dreadnought as it was destroyed was what had ultimately killed her, with the council agreeing to take aid from the Navy too late for even the most aggressive counter-radiation treatments to work. Even if his mother's contributions could be discounted due to her heritage, he wasn't going to let anyone forget Safiya's death or the reason she had died any time soon.

Ten years ago, she had been the one to browbeat him into heeding their father's request that he test to enter the University Frigate system. Originally he had meant to join the Infantry, hating the idea of being crammed in a ship full of people with whom he had absolutely nothing in common. He had a hard enough time dealing with people on his own ship. In hindsight, Safiya had probably saved the fleet twice over, though no one beside himself would ever know how.

What he intended to do in order to stay with the Heinlein was not only completely unorthodox, but went entirely against the generations of distrust and outright hatred his people had for virtually everyone not of the migrant fleets. Still, he stood a much better chance of helping his people if he remained with the Navy. As one fighter pilot and one voice amid a band of bitter men who had only grudgingly accepted the changes his father and grandfather had proposed for the fleet, he would be completely useless to everyone except the ship he was assigned to and the few steadfast allies that had survived the ambush. In all likelihood his presence would divide the fleet even more along progressive and traditionalist lines, something he would not let happen could it be helped. So long as the Navy continued to pursue the alien forces that had slaughtered so many of his people he felt perfectly justified staying with them and participating in the hunt. If that ever changed he would leave without a second thought about it, but he had faith that Captain Michael would fight with every bit of his strength to make sure the Heinlein stayed on the front lines where they could inflict the most damage against the enemy.