Incursion Vector

007

[▲] Tāwhiao Retreat, New Zealand, Earth

Keiji woke halfway through the next morning to the sound of laughter and the squealing of children thundering across the deck in what sounded like a wave of objective-storming Infantrymen—and made his head feel as though those Infantrymen were on forced march through his skull wearing ice cleats. When he opened his eyes he found himself surrounded by seven boys and girls barely old enough to enter the University Frigate system, most of them with Damien's dark skin tone but all of them dressed in blue and white plaid primary school uniforms. They were all staring at him like he was a shark on the other side of the aquarium glass, slightly afraid he might leap out and bite them but still completely willing to poke at him to get his attention so they could try and catch a glimpse of his teeth.

"You're a space pilot like Uncle Damien?" asked one girl who was missing a front tooth.

"Wow, your face is really purple, mate," piped up another. "It hurt bad?”

A blue-eyed boy with a half-done tie pushed his way to the front of the pack. "You're one of those ones that killed the aliens in the battle like in Terran Marine? Was it really scary?"

That got his attention rather abruptly and he bolted to his feet and ran back inside, feeling his splitting headache worsen exponentially each time his heels hit the ground. He made his way to the common room where Damien's family had a holoscreen and found most of his older relatives as well as the rest of the flight gathered up, sitting on every bit of available furniture real estate that was capable of supporting weight. Seeing him walk in, one of Damien's uncles handed him a fizzing glass of cold liquid and mimed that he should drink it down in one gulp, but he returned his eyes to the screen only a moment afterwards.

News of the First Contact Incident had finally hit the major media outlets. There were dozens of camera drones swarming around the absolute limits of Gagarin Station with particularly gutsy cameramen flying them in close for a better look at the ships in dock, particularly the bones of the Brahe. They managed only to get a few milliseconds of footage before they were shot down by the automated defense turrets, but that was enough to get freeze frames which reporters and their "special correspondents" could pick over and fill air time. The current anchorman was droning on about the valor shown by the crews that had faced the aliens that had breached Terran-Colonial space, staring down an invasion force that sounded much bigger than Keiji remembered it being. Going by what the man was saying they had faced an entire fleet headed straight for the heart of Alliance territory, not a series of solitary ships with fighter escorts dropping out of random points in frontier space.

He heard a string of profanity come out of Karda's mouth followed by a hastily muttered "mea culpa" as he reprimanded himself for swearing. Damien just watched the whole thing, holding his teary-eyed mother's hand—she had been away on Titan doing fundraising for the Retreat and evidently hadn't been informed by the family exactly what her son had been through. Leo, as always, watched the entire thing with an inscrutable expression, but from the worried glances he was getting from both Calli and Damien he was either angry or about to be physically ill. Just before a brief commercial interrupt Calli politely excused herself from a couch full of aunts and uncles as her computer began flashing with an incoming priority com from New Berlin.

When the anchorman began reading off a High Command-issued list of the men and women killed in action Nim abruptly got up and walked to the back deck, apologizing to various members of Damien's family she stepped over to get out. Keiji felt the urge to go after her and apologize yet again but stopped himself. No amount of apologizing would ever set things right between them. But it always looked so wrong to see her without the blond Hayha pilot somewhere nearby. He had realized not too long after watching Seig being rolled out that he could count the number of times seeing one without the other using less than five fingers. It was like half of the person he expected to be looking at or arguing with was missing.