There had always been cousins everywhere on the Halloran Ship. There were, when sitting at the first comm station, officially, Nav, and primary weapons, one and two, the Captain's Chair (which never had the old man in it, just an acting first officer) Pilot and Pilot's second, and Ops, the three of them. On top of those eight cousins sitting all around you, you often had multiple persons who weren't supposed to be on deck, by regulations.
At station dock, there were cousins running back and forth through the gangway, while other cousins scuttled through the hold, rolling dollies and working the cranes and otherwise just being in the way, even after the automatics were taken down and it became people's jobs to roll canisters onto the deck and manage the cranes and watch every movement and run around with clipboards.
In the mess, always, there were a few cousins, and at regularly scheduled six a day mealtimes, they swarmed down the hall, tufts of red and brown hair bursting through hatches after the scent of flavor. They'd be settled into table after table if you came a bit late, and they would pile far too many persons into a hotbunk, full of giggles while everyone else on the hall listened.
