Halos of fire brand the night.

A violin-string tautness edges Yanevich's words as he observes, "Drop coming down."

Magic words. Ensign Bradley, the other new fish, sheds his harness and stands, knuckles whitening as he grips the side of the carrier. Our Torquemada wheel-woman decides this is the moment to show us what her chariot will do. Bradley plunges toward the gap left by the removal of a defective rear loading ramp. He's so startled he doesn't yelp. Westhause and I snag fists full of jumper as he lunges past.

"Are you crazy?" Westhause demands. He sounds bewildered. I know what he's feeling. I feel that way when I watch a parachute jump. Any damn fool ought to know better than that.

"I wanted to see..."

The Commander says, "Sit down, Mr. Bradley. You don't want to see so bad you get your ass retired before you start your first mission."

"Not to mention the inconvenience," Yanevich adds. "It's too late to come up with another Ship's Services Officer."

I commiserate with Bradley. I want to see, too. "How long before the dropships arrive?"

I've seen the tapes. My seat harness feels like a straitjacket. Caught on the ground, in the open.

The enemy coming. A Navy man's nightmare.

They don't bother with my question. Only the enemy knows what he's doing. That adds to my unease.

Marines, Planetary Defense soldiers, Guardsmen, they can handle the exposure. They're trained for it. They know what to do when a raider bottoms her drop run. I don't. We don't. Navy people need windowless walls, control.panels, display tanks, in order to face their perils calmly.

Even Westhause has run out of things to say. We watch the sky and wait for that first hint of ablation glow.

Turbeyville boasted a downed dropship. It was a hundred meters of Stygian lifting body half-buried in rubble. There is a stop frame I'll carry a long time. A tableau. Steam escaping the cracked hull, colored by a vermilion dawn. Very picturesque.