Huh, I suppose it does look like an old sailing ship. Though, as he forced himself to admit a few moments later, he probably wouldn’t have seen it if the designers hadn’t kept pointing it out.

The Odyssey’s cylindrical habitats could only be seen as the hull of a sailing vessel if one had the most liberal of imaginations. The rest, though, was easier to understand. A long keel that appeared to mark the vessel’s “bottom” was actually an enclosed flight deck, built to house shuttles and fighters. Similarly, mast-like sensor spires dotted her “top.” The rear engine compartment looked like the stern of an old frigate, and her bow was marked by long antennae that reached dozens of meters out from the ship.

“Odyssey Control to Archangel Zero One, please change your approach vector to oh-two-four-mark-three. You have been cleared for standard approach on deck two,” the voice relayed over his headset induction receiver, sounding clearer than if the person had been in the cockpit with him.

Weston acknowledged the signal and slid his fighter along the new approach path.

It didn’t take long for the cat officer to come over his radio, taking over from the Bridge Control Team.

“Archangel Zero One, I have you on approach,” the voice crackled over the radio as the signal began to suffer from the mutual interference of the counter-mass (CM) fields that surrounded both his fighter and the NACS Odyssey. “Call the ball, Captain.”

“Roger, Cat. I have the ball.”

“Confirmed. Glide path is clear. The deck is green. Come on in, the air is fine.”

Weston guided the sleek Archangel Zero One toward the Odyssey, vectoring toward her bow and aligning toward the enclosed carrier deck in the ship’s massive keel. The forward section of the deck was open to space, offering entry to the ship for fighters and shuttles at speed, while heavy side locks permitted more controlled docking. As the starry depths of space were eclipsed by the cavernous interior of the carrier deck, Weston felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand at attention. He recognized the sensation and knew that the ship’s flight crew had caught him with “the trap,” a powerful counter-gravity field that slowed the fighter down drastically without putting him through the effects of deceleration.

Minutes later, his fighter came to a stop and he regained control as he carefully steered it to one of the deck’s lifts. Once he was in one of the eight hangars built into the Odyssey’s keel, Weston powered down and checked the external atmosphere on reflex. He carefully equalized the pressure in the fighter to that of the hangar and popped the canopy, waiting as it slid back. He pulled himself clear and, with a slight tug, floated free of the cockpit.

As he drifted toward the hangar’s ceiling, Weston heard the reverberating clang of magnetic boots and looked up—or rather, down—toward the floor.

“Howdy there, Commande…whoops, I mean Captain!” the cheerful voice echoed through the hangar as its originator jumped up, did a neat little flip, and floated up to where Weston was just planting his own pair of Magboots on the metal deck plating.