Brennen downed half his brew in solidarity. He knew all too well the dangers of diseases in space. The medical establishment had long ago eradicated congenital degenerative diseases, cancers, and so many sexually transmitted infections it was a non issue.  But the ones they couldn't kill just got worse.<br/><br/>"The ghost ship" wasn't just an overdone trope of teledramas, but a very real possibility. The Spacers, the civilization of nomadic ship-and-asteroid dwellers who were the glue of the early Federation dealt with it in their pre-FTL era. Even today, untold centuries later, a shipwide epidemic was a very real danger, such that medical crews were the absolute highest authority on a ship.<br/><br/>The Core Exodus was bringing people by the millions together from dozens of worlds and Influenza in particular had mutated like crazy. The never ending battle between virus and physician was, for the first time in living memory favoring the viruses.<br/><br/>Planetary populations were much larger  and gave medics more time, but the ships...<br/><br/>He took another gulp. The jumpgates and their entry points were deliberate positioned several day's sublight travel distances from planets both to protect the planets from engine mishaps (a hypercapaciter rupture even a hundred million kilometers away would trigger a blast that would fry most FTL and every lightspeed transceiver and sensor in line of sight, even in planetary orbit.  That was better than sterilizing a hemisphere,  or worse.<br/><br/>That meant the closest station was at the earliest a week away.<br/><br/>He downed the rest of his brew and put a hand atop hers. "You did what you were supposed to do. That old saying about the needs of the many sure looks good on paper, but in the real world it sucks."<br/><br/>He sighed. He'd thought about his assignment for tomorrow. Jumpgates were self-maintaining and very good about reporting issues. He had a hunch he wasnt going out for inspection, but rather to make sure the demolition charges planted in the nav systems were working.<br/><br/>The relatively new Ministry of Civil Defense outlined a catastrophic defense strategy to destroy the galaxy spanning series of FTL ansible 'hardlines' that formed both the jumpgate navigation and interstellar comms networks. Literally destroying centuries of work should the war heat up. As much to prevent an enemy from using the gates, but to prevent civilians in the safe areas from getting into trouble.<br/><br/>"I think I'm being sent out to tomorrow to make sure the gate can be turned into a floating pile of junk on a moment's notice." He sighed