"Bear, you are cleared for external dock."
"Thank you Bangor , initiating clamp-down now." Hovering above the top side docking bay, Jason gave
a nudge to his down thruster and felt his Ferret scrape up on the deck of the transport ship. There was a
quick groaning snap as the Bangor 's external docking locks clamped around the landing skids of his ship.
Shutting down his ship, he bled off the cabin air until it was vacuum, and then popped the canopy hatch.
Slowly standing up he looked out across the open vista of space. A glorious binary was off to port, a red
giant with a tiny white dwarf above it, a trail of incandescent fire spiraling up from the red giant's surface
into the glowing white dwarf. The Milky Way spanned the heavens with a hundred million jewels of light
and he paused for a moment to admire the view. It was hard to imagine that there was really a war on.
The silence of space was all encompassing, an eternity to be explored, and he again felt that wonder of it
all, and the sense of irony about the fact that even out here, humankind could not escape the bitterness of
war.
He realized as well that he was stalling. Cautiously taking hold of the side of the canopy he pulled himself
out of his cockpit, turning a somersault while still holding on to his ship. If he didn't lock to the deck of
the Bangor , and should let go now, it'd be most embarrassing to call for a rescue party to come out and
reel him back in. He always hated external dockings for that reason. Bangor , as did all marine landing
transports, had a launch bay, but they were just large enough to hold the assault landing craft, without an
inch to spare for anything else.
His feet hit the hull of the Bangor and he felt the magnetic lock snap his shoes down. Moving slowly he
walked across the deck and reached the airlock door, punching it open and then stepping inside. The
door shut, and he felt the ship's gravity take hold, slapping him from weightlessness to one standard
gravity as a flood of air washed around him. Seconds later the interior door opened, and a marine
corporal in dress blues was before him, standing at rigid attention.