Incursion Vector

011

"Clever kids you're in command of there." The man caught the ill look on his father's face and laughed. "I did not inherit the lead-lined stomach required to call that sludge you drink palatable. Sorry, pops."

Michael pushed the coffee aside with a barely concealed shudder. "Thanks for the offer though."

"You know you're always going to call them your cadets. I don't know why you bother to correct yourself."

"Most of them can't even vote," sighed the Captain, briefly wondering why anyone bothered brewing coffee if they were just going to dilute it with unnecessary liquids or sugars. "We're taking on some regular Navy personnel but they're going to have to learn from kids half their age what to do on the ship. Kids who can do everything better than them. Cocky kids who still think snatching someone's kit out of the showers and hiding it in the mess is hilarious."

Serge grinned. "Sounds fun. I think I'll stay here and not hear about it later."

"And here I thought I was done fighting uphill battles after your mother divorced me."

"Everything worth having is worth fighting to keep. Sounds to me like your non-voting crew is worth stepping on a few old toes for." The doctor shrugged, his anti-static lab coat crinkling as he bunched up his shoulders. "And honestly Dad, you and Mom were miserable together. You just weren't around enough to realize it. It was... easier on everyone after you split.”

"Maybe so. Doesn't mean I didn't love her though." He surveyed the sterile breakroom set aside for the research group that used this particular arm of the station. "Why do you need a place like this to do census research?"

Leaning back in his chair Serge stretched his arms over his head and yawned. "We do genetic profiling too. Have to, to chart the variations when we get donor samples from the Colonies. They've never required federal gene bank registration at births like we do."

"Figure out when that cosmic background radiation is going to regress us all into monkeys yet?" asked the older man with a wry smirk. It was just the latest crackpot theory circulating throughout the conspiracy theorist message boards of the day. Redloader had brought it up during a morning briefing months ago and they had been laughing at the stupidity of it until they found out humanity wasn't the sole intelligence in the galaxy.

"Cute, Dad. Really cute." He propped his elbows up on the table and leaned forward. "Seriously, though. It's fascinating. Take shift sickness, for example. There's not a person born in a natural gravity environment that doesn't report at least some queasiness when a ship's Casimir rails are charged for a gate jump. Some people get so sick they medically sedate themselves for the duration, sort of like how people used to get themselves drunk to travel on airplanes back in the day. But for people born in artificial gravity, on ships and stations, the incident rate is in the decimal percentages. And people with both sides of the family born in artificial gravity almost always get 'land sick' when subjected to planetary environments. Atmospheric pressure, dust and pollen, slight changes in humidity, solar radiation—most say it drives them absolutely batty, with the extreme cases confining themselves to environmentally controlled exosuits.”

"Have a couple of those types on the Heinlein," mused Michael. "One of them, Lewis, brings bags with him in his fighter so he doesn't get vomit stuck in his helmet during emergency jumps."

Serge laughed at the thought of anyone in the current century carrying airline sick bags as though they were boarding a jet plane bound to hit turbulence. "The trends show that symptoms are categorically worse for people born on Earth or on planets with a very similar gravity—not more than one or two meters-per-second-squared difference." He drummed his fingers on the table thoughtfully. "Have any pilots on board that prefer zero gravity?"

"It's down to one after the attack." Ironside, Banoub, and MacNamara all flew without artificial gravity during live flight exercises. He remembered signing off on their waivers after listening to the flight surgeon drone on for a good two hours about all the adverse effects of zero gravity on developing skeletal systems every single time. In the end he had wanted to subject the good doctor to zero gravity via the nearest airlock. The man could have at least come up with a few different words for his speeches each time he gave them.

Serge was more than familiar with how personally his father took the loss of anyone under his command, so his son just nodded and remained respectfully silent for a time. Michael thought he had improved over the years since his son had seen him at his absolute lowest following the loss of the marine unit which had ultimately lead to his assignment to the Heinlein, but he knew he still tended to brood somewhat obsessively over his decisions after the fact. He no longer drank until their ghosts were rendered mute, at least. That was likely all he could say about it definitively.

"I'd wager your finishing that coffee that they were the best pilots you've ever had on your ship—and that they're all at the very least fifth or sixth generation spacers, if not related to at least one person on the generational ships that headed out in the early 22nd."

Michael glared at the weak cup of coffee. "You'd win the wager—but I'm still not drinking that shit." He folded his hands atop the table and added, "So what's the theory? Divine intervention? Secret government genetic experiments? Ionized space water?"

"Cosmic background radiation is as good as any at the moment," Serge replied with a shrug. "But it's just a theory. We don't have enough data from Colonial or multi-generation spacer families yet to make any definitive assessments. Most Colonials actually think we're genetically profiling outlying settlements for some weapon of mass destruction—not a whole lot of volunteers lining up."

"So you cook up theories here, then."

"And the next biological warfare weapon the Terran Alliance is going to unleash on the settlements to bring those righteous bastards under our sadistic imperial thumb," added his son, taking a deep breath and following up with a malevolent cackle. "We shall finish the great war of freedom from hypocrisy that was halted by those traitorous compromisers a century ago. Those bloody Colonial barons, their lands, their fortunes, and their brainwashed children shall be ours yet, father! Or my name isn't Davis Serge Michael!"

He couldn't help but laugh himself to tears at the man's twisted, theatrical imitation of the prune-lipped Alliance dictator that was making the rounds through the Colonial extranet message boards. "My heart weeps to have raised such a loyal, imperialist boy! Go forth, my glorious son, and bring those separatists to their knees!"

Serge smiled and slouched back down in his chair. "It's good to see you again, Dad. Really. How long is your leave?"

The man sighed and shook his head, knowing their supposed two weeks would inevitably be curtailed in light of their being the only strike carrier crewed by people who had actually encountered the incursion forces. "It's going to depend on what happens once things are sorted out at Vespucci Waypoint. Why?"

"Meet me here at 1700 and I'll take you to dinner,” replied the scientist, slapping the flat of his hand on the table. “You need to meet Kate and our boys."

Staring at his son in shock Michael groaned, "I go on tour for a few years and suddenly I have grandchildren? I'm not old enough yet.”

"The boys aren't mine officially—not for the next four months while the courts probably wipe their asses with the adoption papers." He grinned at the captain and stood up to push his chair in. "We're thinking of making it three. But I've got to get back to the lab before one of my idiot-terns puts a centrifuge through a bulkhead. Nobody told them they'd be required to do biological lab work when they signed up at the university this semester. Everyone thought they'd be rooted behind a computer for five months."

"Then I'll let you get back to it and meet you for dinner," said Michael, standing up as well. He held out a hand for his son who instead pushed it aside and embraced his father, an act neither of them had performed in almost fifteen years. "You did good, son."

"So did you, Dad. Plus you look a hell of a lot happier." He smiled warmly at the man. "And you wanted to take that discharge rather than captain a University Frigate. Shows what you knew."

Michael laughed at his son as he walked off towards the restricted area of the station beyond the biohazard scanners and negatively pressurized bulkheads. “Smartass.”