A dark mass had suddenly appeared behind the shuttle’s porthole, gradually covering the Earth, brightly illuminated by the Sun. James looked out of the porthole and gasped in surprise involuntarily. He knew an impulse-powered spacecraft would have to be larger than any other interplanetary craft, but he could not imagine such a giant. According to the brief description James picked up from the Space Force website, having got the assignment, Military Space Vessel Endurance was about 150 metres long and had 11 decks. He could not recall anything more and was already reaching into his pocket for his communicator when he suddenly heard the pilot’s voice.

‘Hey, what about weightlessness?’

James wondered why the pilot suddenly broke the silence by talking to him. During the more than five-hour flight, they had not exchanged a single word. This young man looked in his early twenties with a second lieutenant’s bar on the collar of his flight suit turned unfriendly immediately when he saw James for the first time at the Space Force ground base. He became angry after finding out he only had to take one passenger. The order signed by the Chief of the Military Transportation Service finally forced him to turn anger into mercy and allow James to board. However, James could hear his displeased grumbling from time to time during the flight.

‘Weightlessness?’ he echoed, not understanding what the pilot was trying to say.

‘I’m gonna turn off the artificial gravity system for a while,’ said the pilot. ‘We have to let the commander through.’

‘Sorry?’

‘The commander’s shuttle is coming,’ the pilot said suggestively. ‘Well, what about weightlessness? I don’t wanna clean up your vomit.’

James caught the pilot’s hint.

‘Don’t worry,’ said he with a chuckle, ‘you won’t have to.’

From the expression on the pilot’s face, it could have been assumed that he did not like James’s tone, but he said nothing and turned back to the control panel. James was tempted to unstrap himself from his seat even though there was almost nowhere to float weightlessly inside the small shuttle’s cockpit, designed for only three passengers and a pilot. The instruction plaque near the entrance airlock in capital letters required all passengers and pilots to keep their seatbelts fastened throughout the flight, which James knew without the plaque. His Pilot’s Certificate was in his backpack.

The document was old-fashioned, in paper form, and his name was written by hand in old styles of fonts that had been used two or more hundred years ago. He was trained to pilot a fighter-interceptor craft; however, the certificate gave him the right to control any craft up to a certain mass, including a shuttle like this one. James was sure he could bring it into the hangar of a spacecraft much smaller than the one still floating outside the porthole and seemed to have no end.

A signal from the control panel drew his attention. The pilot had switched off the artificial gravity system as promised. James suddenly felt weightless. Being unfastened to his chair, he could have flown to the ceiling.

‘Hmm… I’m afraid we’re stuck here for an hour at least,’ the pilot broke the silence again. ‘Two shuttles can’t come in at the same time.’

‘We were taught to land in pairs,’ said James.

‘Your fighters are more manoeuvrable…’

James thought he heard a hint of envy in the pilot’s voice.

‘…and land on F Deck, over a hundred metres long. Our hangar on D Deck is narrow, only thirty metres long. Don’t catch an arresting gear in time – bam into a bulkhead. Anyway, we have to give them a way…’ The pilot pointed to the opposite porthole. ‘They’re oncoming and would cross our trajectory.’

James unfastened his seatbelts and, rising above his chair, floated up to the porthole, through which he could see a shuttlecraft, a bit larger than the one he was in, slowly approaching. Quite elegant in form, the shuttlecraft was capable of flying in space and in the atmosphere. Suddenly, the pilot raised his eyebrows.

‘Uh oh…’

‘What’s wrong?’ James inquired, wondering what could have caused such a reaction. The young man shook his head.

‘Looks like it may take more than an hour,’ said he, staring out the porthole with a pensive expression. ‘They used the shortest trajectory, so… they should now synchronise their speed and orbit to catch the signal from the Hangar Landing System…’

‘Big deal,’ James snorted. ‘They can start the port manoeuvring thrusters at quarter power at a sixty-degree angle for a few seconds to climb, then dampen the impulse with the starboard thruster, inertia getting them into the hangar by itself.

The pilot’s thoughtful face twisted into a scornful grin. ‘There are the rules of orbital mechanics,’ he said in a teacher’s tone, ‘which may seem counter-intuitive, but which you can’t fight.’

‘I’m not suggesting you fight the rules of orbital mechanics,’ James shot back. ‘I propose to use those rules.’

The pilot snorted contemptuously. ‘How did you get so smart?’

‘Graduated No 1 Space Force Flying School.’ James grinned. ‘Any more questions?’

‘Get back to your seat,’ the pilot grumbled back.

‘C’mon.’

‘Rules are rules!’

‘Yah? Who ignored almost half the pre-flight checks, eh?’

The pilot seemed slightly embarrassed. He opened his mouth but said nothing, staring out of the porthole. A bright flash flickered from the port side of the commander’s shuttle and faded almost instantly. The manoeuvring thruster fired a jet of red-hot plasma. The shuttle changed its trajectory and disappeared from sight. James shifted his gaze to the opposite porthole, the pilot, too. The shuttle appeared behind the porthole for a few seconds before disappearing again, hidden by the spacecraft’s massive hull. The pilot shook his head and looked at James in surprise.

‘Looks like the commander pilots it himself,’ he said after a short pause, even with a note of admiration in his voice. ‘What a fantastic manoeuvre! He’s really a natural pilot.’

‘Really?’

‘You bet! Colonel Garneau led the first mission out of the Solar System. Well, not really out, of course, I mean –’

‘Pathfinder?’ James said questioningly. ‘I thought the first spacecraft to enter interstellar space was –’

‘A probe?’ the pilot questioned back. ‘Yeah, but I mean the first crewed mission. Of course, the Pathfinder’s engine system could only support a quarter impulse for a short time. They needed over two years to reach the edge of the Solar System. Now, full impulse isn’t considered a limit.’

‘In a theory,’ said James, recalling a scientific publication on the Space Force web, of which he, if to be honest, understood almost nothing.’

‘Yeah,’ the pilot agreed, ‘but there was a time when the impulse drive itself was considered pure theory. Our spacecraft’s engines can only support full impulse within forty-eight hours, which for Vanguard, currently under construction, is a standard regime. Going by rumours, our commander would be transferred to Vanguard, but he flatly refused.’

‘Why?’

‘Huh! Who wanna stay behind the lines for a year more? I –’

A signal from the control panel interrupted the pilot in mid-sentence, and a woman’s voice came over the loudspeaker, ‘Shuttle 2, this is Endurance. Cleared approach to hangar D. Over.’

The pilot turned back to the panel.

‘Roger, Endurance. Hangar D. Shuttle 2, out.’

Turning back to James, he waved his hands as if he had fastened the seat belts. James took the hint and swam back to his seat. The spacecraft’s hull had gone a bit down. Behind the porthole, the already open hangar gateway appeared, brightly illuminated by powerful searchlights on both sides.

James did not feel the moment of landing. It seemed to him that only a second after the shuttle had entered the hangar, it was already standing on the deck, unmoving. The pilot turned to him.

‘That’s all, we’re home,’ he said and suddenly added, holding out his hand, ‘I’m Max, by the way.’

‘Max means Maximilian?’ James shook the pilot’s hand.

‘Max means Max,’ he chuckled.

‘Got it, I’m James.’

‘Where are you from?’

‘Bangor.’

‘Is that somewhere in…’ Max raised his eyebrows questioningly, ‘…Maine?’

‘It’s somewhere in Wales.’ James wondered what could have caused such a change in the lad’s behaviour. Could it be the commander’s manoeuvre he had predicted?

‘I see,’ Max nodded. ‘And what the hell brings you to the Space Force?’

James waved his hand. ‘It’s a long story.’

‘No, I mean, how did they recruit you to… um –’ Max continued and suddenly stopped. James thought he had guessed what was going on.

‘Go on, don’t be shy,’ he grinned. ‘Actually, it’s legal under British law: from the age of 17 with parental consent. Speaking frankly, nobody gave me that one, but as you can guess, it’s not too hard to forge a piece of paper. By the way, anyone can join the Space Force now. There are not so many volunteers who are good for spaceflight.’

‘I know,’ Max nodded and took a deep breath. ‘So I can’t understand why we’re not being recruited.’

‘Spacecraft need pilots too.’

‘They told me the same thing.’ Max sighed again. ‘I’ve asked to be sent to tactical training twice already. Zero. We had no military training at uni.’

‘Hmm… you’re a commissioned officer,’ James said in surprise, flicking his fingers at the collar of his flight suit. Max didn’t seem to catch on immediately, and then he nodded.

‘Yeah, but it’s just a formality,’ he grimaced. ‘They told us again and again, “We’re explorers, not soldiers”… Damn!’ He banged his fist on the control panel.

‘You think these aliens attacked us because we’ve gone too deep into space?’ said James. Max shrugged his shoulders.

‘Who knows? We don’t even know what they look like.’

‘Looks like humanoids.’

Max shrugged again and spread his arms. ‘That was assumed when something resembling a pilot’s chair was found in the wreckage after the Lunar Orbiter was attacked, but there was no body or organic remains.’

‘It might’ve been a drone.’

Max snorted. ‘Guess what kinda comms system it takes to control a drone at such a distance.’

‘Autonomous drones have been used since the beginning of the last century,’ said James. ‘I don’t mention probes like Voyager and so on.’

‘Yeah…’ Max nodded in agreement, ‘but autonomous drones used near the Earth surfaces, where are the GPS or other satellite navigation systems, or at least visual reference points. As for the first deep space mission probes, all of them were controlled from Earth in reality.’

‘An artificial intelligence –’ James tried to argue. Max snorted again.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

‘Any artificial intelligence also requires control,’ he said.

‘Logically,’ James agreed. ‘The joint command tried to use such sorta intellectual drones at the first stage of the war, but very soon it became clear that this was not working.’

Max raised his eyebrows in surprise. ‘Did they tell you that at your Flying School?’

James nodded.

‘…Well, it wasn’t quite so,’ the pilot went on, smiling, ‘though it’s a long story, and maybe you’re right; I mean about a drone. Certainly, the alien’s technologies are much more advanced than ours, so their artificial intelligence could be more intellectual.’

A green light flashed on the rear bulkhead of the hangar. Max unbuckled his seatbelt and got out of his seat.

‘Well, we can go out,’ he said, adding after a short pause, ‘Just don’t tell anyone about the pre-flight check, please.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ said James, pulling his backpack off the overhead rack.

There was nobody outside in the hangar, and nobody met him. A couple of the spacecraft’s crewmembers only came out from the airlock, going toward the shuttlecraft. James hoped that someone from the Space Force personnel would meet him and wondered why nobody appeared.

Max patted him on his shoulder.

‘Well, I have to go. Wanna chat, drop in on me. I’m on C Deck, corridor 5, cabin 05-21. By the way, do you play poker?’

‘Not so good.’

‘Doesn’t matter, this isn’t Vegas. We’re all so-so players, except Wilson, of course.’

‘Huh?’

‘Deputy Mission Commander. He’s a fan and even took part in a celebrity poker tournament.’

‘Is he a celebrity?’

Max chuckled, ‘Uh-huh, in some sense. Well, I have to go: the post-flight report and other crap. See you.’ He waved his hand, turned and headed for the airlock.

James followed him, still wondering why no one had met him, and left him to find the location of No 617 Space Force Squadron himself. Judging by the size of the spacecraft, it could not be so easy. The corridor where he found himself passing through the airlock looked empty. Taking a few steps along the corridor, James stopped in utter confusion. There was a branching from which the corridor continued in two directions. But James saw no directional sign to help him find a lift or a companionway, and nobody was around to ask. Half a minute later, a figure wearing the Space Agency uniform appeared at the end of the corridor but disappeared around a corner. James pulled out his communicator, but the description was no help. He only found technical data, 3D exteriors, and pictures of some rooms, but not the most important thing at that moment – the deck plans.

‘Are you looking for something, young man?’ A man’s voice reached him. He turned around and saw a tall man standing a couple of paces away from him.

The man looked over fifty, and his head was completely bald. He was dressed in civilian, but the tone of his voice and manner suggested that he was a senior officer. James even straightened up mechanically.

‘Yes, sir –’ he started but stopped.

‘As I can see, you’re one of the Space Force personnel,’ the man continued, filling the pause. James nodded silently.

‘…Squadron No 617, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, it is, sir.’

‘G Deck. Follow this corridor to the next bend, where you’ll see the companionway. Then go down and find what you’re looking for.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘You’re welcome.’

The bald nodded and continued his way, stopped after a couple of steps and turned back to James. ‘Excuse me, young man, how old are you?’

‘Eighteen, sir…’ James mentally noted that he no longer needed to add ‘soon’. He turned eighteen three weeks ago. ‘Anything else, sir?’ he added, immediately realising that he should not have said it. The bald, however, responded only with a barely noticeable smile and shook his head.

‘Nothing. Remember where to go?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Nodded again, the bald turned and walked along the corridor. James looked after him for a while, thinking: could this man be the poker fan Wilson, whom the pilot named Max had mentioned and then moved in the indicated direction …

… ‘Astronaut First Class Jenkins reporting as ordered… um… sir –’

He stammered at the very last moment. First of all, he was a bit out of breath. Despite an unknown officer’s help, he had to wander through the long and tangled spacecraft’s corridors for around twenty minutes until he found the Squadron on-duty officer who pointed him to the right place. Secondly, he had no idea how to address the woman with the flight sergeant’s rank insignia on her uniform standing in front of him. According to the Space Force Regulations, senior staff must always be addressed as ‘sir’ regardless of gender. But not all women he had to face at his Flying School accepted such a style. The Impulse Movement Theory teacher asked to be addressed ‘Mrs Hastings’. However, she did not belong to the Space Force, being just a university lecturer. His hesitation passed unnoticed, but the Flight Sergeant’s gaze was not friendly.

‘You should have been here half an hour ago,’ said she sternly. ‘As far as I knew, you arrived on board about that time.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir…’ James decided to keep to the rules. ‘…I… um… I got lost… sir…’

‘Understood,’ the Flight Sergeant uttered in the same tone. ‘You’re forgiven for the first time, but only for the first time. The sleeping quarters you find behind the next airlock. Your bunk –’ she leaned over to her table, picked up one of the tablets, and began scrolling through the records on the screen, not looking at James. ‘…number 6. The daily schedule is simple: reveille at 06.00, lights out – at 22.00. Hygienic facilities are further down the corridor, the junior staff mess on the deck above, the hangars on the deck below. All the other places shouldn’t interest you, and you don’t need them, so don’t tax those few brain convolutions that helped you to get the Astronaut First Class rank. I’d only give you the second class. An Astronaut First Class should be able to find a way around the Solar System better than in his bedroom, but you’ve succeeded in getting lost in a spacecraft. Dismissed.’

James paid no heed to this long tirade but the last word. Navigation was one of two courses he passed with the highest mark, unlike the Impulse Movement Theory. Despite all Mrs Hastings’s efforts, it remained Greek to him. Of course, the Flight Sergeant could not have known about this. Unlikely, she studied all pilots’ personnel files so attentively. However, as he thought, leaving the Flight Sergeant’s office, such a cold shoulder did not augur well.

These thoughts distracted him a little; he missed a doorstep and almost fell, only at the last moment grabbing onto some pipe on the bulkhead. The sleeping quarters looked about seven metres long and four metres wide. Near the entrance hatch, James noticed several lockers, apparently for storing clothes. Behind them, rows of bunk beds stretched along both side bulkheads. A long, narrow table, with an intercom display above, stood between them. A row of armchairs with seat belts for the crew for the time of acceleration mode was seen in the depths along the back bulkhead.

His soon-to-be roommates – there were a total of twelve beds in the sleeping quarters – had already brightened up the interior a bit with their belongings, but it still felt like it had not been a living area before. He heard that in a spacecraft like this one, even junior crew members lived in four-berth cabins. Probably, it was a part of a cargo bay or something like that, hurriedly converted to quarters for pilots to whom such comfort was not granted. This was not much different from his Training School barrack; just a lot of cables and pipes stretched across the ceiling and yellow-painted handrails designed to facilitate movement in case the artificial gravity system broke or switched off, reminded that it was a spacecraft.

The bunk designated him was the last in the row, next to the back bulkhead, a fact he mentally noted as an advantage. An even number meant he would have to sleep on the upper level, which did not bother him at all. He had already put his backpack on the bunk, wondering if it was worth unpacking it right now, when he felt someone patted him on the shoulder.

‘Hi!’

James turned around. A lad about his age, just a bit taller, stood behind him. His slightly reddish hair – cut short at the temples and at the nape of his neck – stuck out over his forehead like the bristles of a brush. To maintain such a hairstyle, an ordinary comb was not enough. It needed a special gel, which cost a lot. James did not even know how much. His hair was not suitable for such a hairstyle. He had tried it once but without any success. He was not a follower of fashion in that sense. When shaved heads became popular for a while, he almost decided to shave his head, but he was afraid that his hair would not grow back. His grandmother said there was a category of men who were terrified of going bald. He seemed to be in that category. His new fellow, however, obviously paid a lot of attention to himself. James even wondered what this lad was doing showing off like that for. The stern Flight Sergeant was the only woman he had seen on board.

‘…It seems you’re my new neighby,’ the lad continued, smiling broadly. ‘I’m Steve. Steve Wolverton.’

‘James Jenkins and it seems that way if it’s your bunk.’

‘Gimme five!’ said the lad, holding his hand out. ‘By the way, if you wanna have dinner tonight, move to the messroom right now.’

‘Right now?’ asked James, shaking Steve’s hand.

‘On-board time…’ Steve nodded at the intercom display, which James only now noticed showed time in standby mode, ‘corresponds to UTC, where it is now 18.20…’

James thought that might be true. He had left the ground base at around 11am, local time, which was the same as Coordinated Universal Time. He had only assumed that the spacecraft used Houston time, where the space agency and the headquarters of the Joint Space Command were located.

‘…It was the first that Flight Sergeant Rowling explained to me,’ Steve continued. ‘Have you already seen her?’

James nodded.

‘…A rare bitch, keep in mind,’ said Steve. ‘Reprimanded me at once when I asked where the main command centre is.’

‘She made it clear that I shouldn’t even think about it.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Steve nodded in agreement, ‘as if we’re just passengers here. Don’t think I’m against discipline, not at all. My dad was a soldier, so I’m used to it, you could say, since childhood. The Sergeant at our Flying School was a stern man too, but he never wasted time on trifles. If he punished us, it was for a case. But this dumb cunt hangs on every word. Lewis asked why there were no separate shower cabins and she said –’

‘Not enough space?’

‘Enough. Rowling said…’ Steve giggled, ‘this is, you see, a shower room, not a parlour for masturbation.’

‘Did she really say so?’

‘She did.’ Steve giggled again.

‘I see you all have a lot of fun here,’ James grinned.

‘Yep, more fun doesn’t happen,’ Steve reacted similarly. ‘Have you already seen the commander?’

‘Wing Commander Burton?’

‘Huh, he’s as unreachable for us as the main command centre. I mean Junkie.’

‘Junkie?’

‘The section commander, Flight Lieutenant Jennings. Boys call him Junkie.’

‘You mean…’

Steve shrugged. ‘Actually, I don’t think so, but his eyes look as if he is stoned.’

‘I haven’t seen him yet. I boarded just an hour ago and got lost in these corridors.’

‘Nothing wonders,’ said Steve with a chuckle. ‘I’m still floundering here.’

‘How long are you here?’

‘Three days. I mean – the concept of day-night…’

‘Yeah, like in the training spacecraft. Which school have you finished?’

‘No 1. And you?’

‘No 3.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Next to the Officers’ College. But we weren’t allowed on the College grounds.’

‘Really? Why so?’

‘No idea. Why aren’t we allowed anywhere but these two decks and hangars?’

James did not find what to say, so he said nothing.

‘…Treat us like I dunno whom, even though we’re pilots…’ Steve pointed to the pilot’s wings on his flight suit not without pride. Since man first took to the air, the pilot’s badge remained the same. Spacecraft crew members who had the appropriate qualifications wore similar badges.

‘Yep,’ James chuckled, ‘drones pilots.’

Steve slightly twisted his face.

‘I guess we wouldn’t be here if these artificial bits of intelligence could manage all the systems without us,’ said he. ‘So, since we’re here, it means we’re needed. And with all this, they still require…’ He twisted his face again and continued, ‘One newbie turned out to have high blood pressure or something like that, so they sent him back. He nearly cried. His parents were killed on the Lunar Orbiter.’

James nodded. ‘I see… that explains why I was sent here.’

‘Huh?’

‘Well, I was assigned to 207 Squadron. I already got a travel order. And then bang, they change everything and send me to get all those documents again.’

Steve raised his eyebrows in surprise.

‘You’re an Astronaut First Class,’ he flicked his fingers at the patch on James’s flight suit sleeve – Astronauts Second Class had no rank insignia – ‘could have chosen any squadron.’

‘Nope. I was assigned this rank, how shall I put it, as an exception.’

‘By backstairs influence?’ Steve grinned.

‘You may not believe it, but something like that,’ James grinned back. ‘As you know, the rank of Astronaut First Class is usually designated to the three of a group who scored the highest total score. But none of our top trio had the highest score for piloting. I was fourth on the list, but I had the highest score in piloting. So they promoted me so that at least one of the top ones had the highest score in piloting. Funny, eh?’

‘What’s funny?’

‘Well, the war’s going on, but they’re worried about… I don’t know…’

‘Bureaucracy,’ Steve chuckled. ‘They also have to report to their bosses. By the way, don’t forget about the dinner. Just half an hour left. Stomp to the mess, or you shall starve until the next morning.’

‘And you?’

‘I’m on extra duty…’ Steve showed a red band on his flight suit’s sleeve, and his face twisted slightly ‘…fucking Rowling!’

James headed for the junior staff mess, located one deck above, where he had to argue a little with the artificial intelligence that controlled the meal distribution before he was served a ruthlessly overcooked cutlet of synthetic meat and potatoes, also of hardly natural origin. At the table, he met two more of his new fellows. Lewis Blackwood was the same age as James, Kevin Stoddard a little older, and both had come on board the day before. He had not had time to finish his meal when an unfamiliar voice over the intercom called him to the Section commander. He had to wander around a bit before he found Flight Lieutenant Jennings’s office, also used as a living cabin.

Flight Lieutenant Jennings looked about twenty-six or twenty-seven. James immediately thought Steve was right about the commander’s eyes. These hazy eyes reminded James of his father’s hungover eyes. It even seemed to him that he smelt a slight odour of alcohol emanating from his new commander. He wrinkled his face slightly, not wanting to remember that time of his life. Fortunately, his grimace passed unnoticed by the officer.

‘James Jenkins, right?’ the Flight Lieutenant asked, looking at James with hazy eyes. ‘No 1 Flying Training School, isn’t it?’

‘It is, sir,’ James replied. ‘The best school,’ he added, suddenly remembering the School Commandant who used to start all his speeches to the cadets with those words. Only then did he decide it was not a good idea to start talking to his commanding officer that way. Flight Lieutenant Jennings just grinned.

‘Every school thinks it is the best,’ said he, carefully examining something in his tablet. ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. I’m more concerned that you only have thirty hours of solo flying. That’s not enough.’

‘The qualifying rating was even less, sir,’ James replied, immediately doubting the validity of his words. He thought he remembered all the requirements perfectly well, but now they had completely slipped his mind.

‘Maybe,’ muttered Flight Lieutenant Jennings. ‘I’d heard they were constantly reducing the training time. We trained for four years, and the rating was over a hundred hours solo, and even that wasn’t enough to make us real pilots…’

James thought the Flight Lieutenant had not come up with it himself, he was just repeating someone else’s words. ‘It seems he wants to look older against our background. And where he gets booze,’ James no longer doubted, now smelling not a faint but a very distinct smell of alcohol. ‘Or is it not forbidden for the Space Agency staff? This is a uniformed service, but not a military one…’

‘…Well, what am I to do with you?’ The Flight Lieutenant’s voice brought James back from his thinking.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ he replied, assuming the attention position just in case. Flight Lieutenant Jennings flinched slightly, though it was hard to define what caused such a reaction – James’s words or his movement.

‘Of course, you don’t know…’ he put his tablet on the table and waved his hand. ‘Well, the first real training flight won’t be so soon, not until this flying hangar reaches Neptune. But we should be ready. There are no simulators on board…’ He raised his head again and looked at James intently. ‘You see, they’ve had no time to install them. Civvies!’ The Flight Lieutenant uttered his last word with an undisguised air of contempt and waved his hand again. ‘Hope you find a common language with your fighter’s electronic brain. Dismissed.’

… MSV Endurance left its orbit around Earth three hours later, heading for the Solar System’s outer planets.