A dark spot on the main screen grew larger and larger, obscuring the stars, among which the Sun, shining somewhere far, far away, stood out only for its brightness at such an incredible distance. A little further, this brightest of pinpoints disappeared, along with many others, as if they had been swallowed up by the blur spreading across the screen. Now, it became clear that this was not just a spot but an object gradually taking on the shape of a spacecraft.

Compared to the Endurance, which James had seen outside many times before, this spacecraft seemed much smaller. It looked like two cylindrical sections joined together. One, probably the cargo bay, was slightly larger than the other, where the living and control compartments should have been. Behind the larger section should be a third one, the engine bay, off-limits for the shuttle’s external cameras. The docking port was already plainly visible on the hull between the large and small sections. The shuttle was slowly approaching it.

‘One minute to contact,’ the artificial intelligence’s dispassionate voice informed.

‘Comms with the supply craft,’ Major Jamison ordered from her command chair.

‘Comms on,’ replied Lieutenant Leverton.

‘Good… ESV One to C558, can you see us?’ said the Major more loudly than usual.

‘Confirm,’ came an unfamiliar voice, slightly distorted by interference. ‘We’ve seen you and are ready to dock.’

‘Very well…’ Major Jamison settled himself more comfortably in the commander’s chair. ‘I hope this won’t take long.’

‘One hundred metres… eighty metres…’ Lieutenant Fournier was reading the distance off the screen at the flight control station. The supply craft had already covered most of the main vewscreen by itself.

‘Docking port is ready,’ Flight Engineer Bowman’s voice came over the intercom.

‘…Fifty metres… Forty…’ Quentin continued. ‘…Thirty…’ He coughed nervously. ‘…Ten metres… Do-o-cking!’

A moment of silence followed. No one noticed the moment of contact or how the shuttle’s docking port was connected to the supply craft’s docking port.

A few seconds later, the voice of a crew member from the supply craft was heard again, ‘Docking confirmed. Welcome, ESV One!’

Major Jamison breathed a sigh of relief, and James, too. It was not the first time he had been present during a docking procedure. But it was the first time he had felt not like an outside observer but a direct process participant.

‘Cool!’ whispered Steve, sitting behind him. ‘This thing made it all by itself. I wouldn’t mind having something like that.’

‘Our fighters’ artificial brains are just as good,’ James also replied in a whisper.

‘I mean voice control.’

‘You wanna sit in the pilot’s chair and do nothing, just give commands?’

‘Why not?’ Steve smiled.

‘I think that would be pretty boring,’ James said, also smiling involuntarily.

‘Well… maybe you’re right,’ Steve chuckled.

‘Okay, guys…’ the Major looked around the control centre and clapped. ‘We can consider ourselves halfway there. You have all done a good job. I’m glad our small crew has come together so well. But since this is only the halfway point, we’ve still got a lot of work to do. So, after warm hugs and a friendly dinner with the supply craft’s crew, we’d start checking and accepting the cargo we’ve come all this way for. After that, we’d have time to work on our enigma. I mean our missing long-range comms antenna. It would also be nice to think about a temporary replacement, as we’d need the long-range comms system once we’d plotted a course back. Well, that’s up to Dr Bowman –’ She paused, snapped her fingers and looked around the command centre again, ‘Any questions? No questions. Lieutenant Leverton, let’s check the equipment list to refresh our memories. I hope our contractors have taken care to get everything ready but for any case.’

‘We were pilots, and then we became observers. Looks like we’ll have to be dockhands now,’ said James, elbowing Steve lightly.

‘Huh, let’s see what happens when we get back,’ Steve replied with a wily smile and winked. ‘I have a vague suspicion, Major Jamison mentioned us a couple of times in the log, and not in a negative way…’

‘Docking port is verified,’ Flight Engineer Bowman’s voice came over the intercom.

‘Wonderful…’ Major Jamison smiled happily, ‘let’s open it, Phil, we won’t ring twice…’

The Major did not like to waste time; James had the opportunity to verify this during the flight. The two crews met without any ceremonial speeches. Dinner, to which all three members of the supply craft crew had been kindly invited, was spent discussing the work ahead. After studying the cargo list, the Major stated that everyone would have to, as she put it, ‘flex their muscles’. Lieutenant Fournier’s timid suggestion to switch off the artificial gravity system during loading was rejected by the commander of the supply ship, who cited some technical difficulties. Quentin sighed sadly but said nothing.

The plastic containers with the equipment needed to repair Endurance were heavy and unsuitable for carrying through the supply craft’s narrow corridors. Dr Bowman even doubted that the two large containers would fit through the docking port, and he was right. These containers had to be unpacked, and their contents carried separately.

‘Come on, guys, hurry up!’ Major Jamison hurried them on from time to time. ‘We haven’t got much time. We must start in forty-eight hours, not a minute later. Otherwise, we will wait another two days for the launch window, which is undesirable…’

The composite panels intended to replace a damaged Endurance enclosure plating, James and Steve had to push through the docking airlock, one after the other, making sure that neither the panels nor the airlock seal were damaged.

‘Fuck!’ Steve shouted, carefully placing another panel – It was hard to tell which one it was – against the wall of the narrow corridor. ‘It’s the right time to stop and rest. My back can’t straighten anymore.’

‘Your backs bent too early, guys,’ Dr Bowman’s voice came to them. ‘We’re only halfway there.’

‘As it seems to me, a short rest wouldn’t do any harm,’ Major Jamison objected, appearing from around the corner. I need no crippled crew on the way back. Since our mess has been turned into a storage room, we’d have to temporarily move the rest and eating areas into the command section. I’ve already asked Lieutenant Leverton to take our dry rations there.’

Steve looked at the Major gratefully.

‘Don’t thank me, Mr Wolverton,’ she said with a smile, running her hand over her forehead. ‘Honestly, I’m as tired as a dog myself…’

Just entering the command section, James felt dead tired, too. He glanced at the weapons station monitor and was surprised to find that eight of the forty-eight hours had already passed, though he had not noticed. All the others looked not better, even Dr Bowman. Quentin followed James in, breathing heavily. Ashley, using the comms screen as a mirror, wiped the sweat from her brow and straightened her hairstyle. Oliver plopped down in a chair near the engineering station and sat motionless. The Major was sitting in the commander’s chair with her eyes closed.

‘Not the best use of the messroom,’ Steve muttered as he opened the packet of dry rations Ashley had handed him. ‘All those iron things belong in the cargo bay.’

Dr Bowman frowned.

‘There’s no cargo bay,’ said he. ‘The craft was designed to explore the planets of the Solar System.’

‘Is there anything left to explore?’ Steve asked, seeming a bit surprised.

‘There is, and plenty of it,’ Major Jamison hastened to intervene, noticing the change in the Flight Engineer’s face. ‘Even if the Sol System looked like it was believed to look in the mid-twentieth century, we could be sure that we would have explored only a quarter of it. But because the system is so much larger and more complex, we can say with certainty that we have only explored about ten per cent of it. The internal structure of most planets and their moons are still guessed. And not all of these guesses have been confirmed. For example, beneath the icy surface of Ganymede, we had assumed to find an ocean of liquid water –’

‘But it turns out it’s not water, but ammonia-water slurry,’ Oliver interrupted. The Major nodded his head in agreement with a smile. ‘Good example.’

‘The universe is too complicated for one mind to comprehend,’ Quentin said philosophically, yawning. ‘We still don’t know where it all came from.’

‘Not the universe, but your assumption is too complicated,’ Ashley said. ‘At least I understood nothing.’

Quentin snorted, but there was no further dialogue.

‘Is this substance valuable?’ Steve asked. ‘I mean this er… ammonia-water something. Well, for us… for humanity?’

The Major looked at him in bewilderment.

‘You mean from an economic point of view?’ she said. ‘Not at all. What’s the question?’

‘Well, I thought…’ Steve continued. ‘Otherwise, what’s it all for?’

Dr Bowman tilted his head slightly to one side, his face taking on a serious expression.

‘Not everything has material value, if that’s what you mean, young man,’ he said. ‘Non fasces, nec opes sola artim sceptra perennant, which means neither wealth nor power, but only knowledge alone lasts – the motto of the great Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.’

‘That’s all?’ asked Steve, who seemed to be a bit puzzled. You’re saying we're studying space just for… knowledge?’

Dr Bowman took a breath and shook his head slightly.

‘Knowledge drives progress,’ he said edifyingly. ‘When Becquerel, Rutherford and others studied radioactivity, no one, not even themselves, imagined their work would lead to nuclear power.’

‘And eventually to the creation of the engine that has brought us here now,’ Oliver put in, smiling broadly.

‘Yeah, and that we have to fight unknown creatures, nobody knows where they came from,’ James added.

‘Uh, well…’ Oliver shrugged, ‘that’s right. Unlikely old Bart could imagine something like that.’

‘Bart, who?’ asked Steve. The boy gave him a puzzled look.

‘You two have been flying the craft with the Cooper engine,’ he said expressively, ‘and you haven’t heard of Bart Cooper?’

‘Well, I know this guy created the Cooper engine,’ said James.

‘Not really,’ Oliver chuckled. ‘I mean, he began to create it. There were still a lot of people who had to work hard. But of course, Cooper had done a lot of things, too. First of all, he laid the theoretical foundations. In the beginning, he worked for Musk –’

‘That was the jerk who yelled: Forward to Mars!’ said Steve with a chuckle.

‘You’re mistaking him for Zander, who lived about a hundred years earlier,’ said the boy. ‘By the way, he wasn’t yelling anything, it was just his motto. Musk was –’

‘An adventurer,’ James picked up.

‘Not just an adventurer,’ Major Jamison said with a smile. ‘He was a pompous, narcissistic, bloody rich bloke who thought he could do whatever he wanted.’

‘Maybe,’ Oliver spoke up again, wincing slightly. ‘Anyway, he took space technology to the next level. I wanna say he put together a team of scientists and engineers who have done more than the scientists and engineers of several countries together.’

‘That’s true,’ Major Jamison nodded. ‘Musk really has done a lot to advance space technology. But I think he’d have done more if he’d stayed out of what he understood nothing about.’ She looked at Oliver slyly. The boy did not seem to notice the twist in her gaze.

‘So where was I?’ he continued. ‘Ah yeah, Cooper started working with Musk being still a uni student. Eventually he became a project manager. But then they had a falling-out. Cooper was a very ambitious bloke, too –’

‘Like someone you know, I don’t want to point fingers,’ Ashley chimed in with a slightly ironic smile. Oliver frowned.

‘If you’re not interested,’ he muttered, ‘I won’t go any further.’

‘It’s interesting, indeed,’ James encouraged the boy, barely able to contain his laughter. ‘Go on!’

‘Well, to make a long story short,’ Oliver went on, seeming to forget his wounded pride immediately, ‘Cooper eventually fell out with him and started his own project for NASA –’

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‘Callisto-two thousand and forty… something?’ said James. Oliver nodded in confirmation.

‘Forty-two.’

‘Which failed?’

‘Not at all!’ Oliver said these words with a note of resentment in his voice. ‘The mission has taken place. Okay, twelve years later than planned, that’s right, but they had no choice. Otherwise, it could end up like the first crewed Mars mission, which really was a failure, and with such a fizzle that it even put further space exploration into question for a while. So they couldn’t take any risks. As a result, they made a breakthrough –’

‘Yeah, a breakthrough,’ James chuckled. ‘They found out that all Jupiter’s largest moons are just giant snowballs, and there’s no life form there because there couldn’t be.’

Oliver waved his hand.

‘That was known before, not the point,’ he said. ‘This was the first step toward the next level. The main problem was speed. As you know, all the probes that explored the outer planets at an early stage took years to reach their destinations. This is despite all the gravity-assist manoeuvres around Jupiter or any other giant to increase speed. With all the unsolved problems of radiation protection, prolonged zero gravity, and so on, that was too long for a crewed mission. Cooper decided to try a radically different approach –’

‘If I remember rightly,’ James interrupted, ‘the impulse engine principle was known even earlier. Something similar was proposed for the Daedalus project’s propulsion system –’

‘British project, by the way,’ Steve interjected snidely. Oliver waved his hand.

‘That’s right,’ he admitted. ‘Just a whole bunch of problems appeared at once. First of all… um… well, never mind. These problems could be solved in time, of course, but Cooper went further… er… In short, he came up with a theory. But the theory seemed so audacious to him that he decided it was wrong and didn’t even bother to publish his results. Maybe he was afraid he’d be considered mad, I don’t know. So he went back to his previous work. That might have been the end, except for a couple of new adventurers. Two guys from Caltech, Schwärmer and Snílek, took Cooper’s work, thought about it a bit, and concluded that Cooper wasn’t mad, and his theory didn’t break the laws of physics in any way. But when they went to Cooper, he didn’t want to listen to them and threw them out. So they had to do it themselves and build a pulse engine in their garage.’

Finishing his monologue, the young Specialist 2nd Class exhaled and ran his hand over his forehead as if to wipe away sweat. The Major smiled; Ashley chuckled.

‘Huh, great!’ Steve exclaimed. ‘I just didn’t understand…’ he added, grinning, ‘why was the engine named after Cooper?’

‘Well, because –’ Oliver paused and shrugged. ‘Um… maybe like… a homage to Cooper… To be honest, I don’t know.’

‘You should have said that at first,’ the Major said with a chuckle. Oliver mumbled something in a disgruntled tone again.

‘Nothing unusual,’ said Quentin. ‘Stigler’s law says no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Take Columbus, for example, but he was the one who discovered America.’

‘A Welsh prince, whose name, if I’m not mistaken, was Madawg ap Owain, sailed across the Atlantic over three hundred years before Columbus,’ said James. The Lieutenant grinned.

‘Tell us that Antarctica was also discovered by a Welshman,’ he said.

‘I won’t. Antarctica was discovered by James Clark Ross –’

‘…Who was a Scot,’ Dr Bowman continued after James, chuckled. ‘However, to be precise,’ he added in a serious tone, ‘Antarctica was discovered by American whalers and Russian naval sailors at almost the same time, so it’s impossible to give primacy to one or the other. But they never realised what they’d discovered, so you’re partly right. Ross was the first to guess that it was a continent, not a group of islands, so –’

Major Jamison did not let him finish. She clapped her hands.

‘That’s nice,’ she said, ‘but we’ve still got a lot of work to do. Phil, have you already thought about restoring the long-range antenna?’

‘I have,’ Oliver put in suddenly, earning a momentary and thoroughly unfriendly gaze from the Major’s side.

‘I didn’t ask you, Specialist 2nd Class,’ she said sternly.

‘I just wanna say –’ Oliver started again and fell silent under the commanding officer’s gaze.

‘I’d be happy to listen to you if I deem it necessary,’ she said, ‘I would just like to remind you that it’s not allowed to interrupt the conversation of senior officers under any circumstances. I’m reprimanding you for the first time.’

‘Permission to speak freely?’ Oliver began again.

‘You’ve been watching too many TV shows,’ James hastened to interrupt him thinking the boy a bit carried away. ‘I don’t know what a Space Agency senior officer could say to you; a Space Force senior officer would simply say no.’

‘Neither would a senior Space Agency officer,’ the Major added. Oliver frowned resentfully.

‘A hundred years ago…’ he muttered. James noticed the Major and Dr Bowman exchange glances, and both smiled.

‘A hundred years ago,’ said the Major, ‘becoming an astronaut required a master’s degree, followed by at least three years’ experience,’ she said with meaning. ‘Have you any of that?’

The boy said nothing this time. The Major looked at Dr Bowman and winked.

‘So,’ she continued, glancing at Oliver again, ‘since we’ve already finished eating, you should clean up this area before you join us again. All these dry ration wrappers, crumbs, and so on should be removed. This is the command centre, not a McDonald’s.’

Oliver muttered something again in an aggrieved tone. Steve patted him on the shoulder.

‘Congrats! You caught an extra duty.’

‘All the others,’ the Major continued, clapping her hands again, ‘let’s get up and go; the work is waiting for us…’

The shuttlecraft crew made a beeline for the exit. James went too, mentally calculating how many more composite panels would be left and when this loading and unloading work would finally be over. Then, he suddenly thought that Flight Sergeant Rowling would not certainly limit herself to such a lenient punishment. Not surprisingly, discipline in the Space Agency was left to be desired.

Both crews continued to work for the next six hours until Major Jamison looked around at her tired subordinates and said, ‘We’ve done enough for today.’

This happened at the most opportune moment. James already felt like he could barely stay upright. He wanted to sit down as soon as possible or better to lie down. But he still had to return to the shuttle command centre. The supply craft’s shift officer asked for data on enemy vehicles from the battle station’s database in case one suddenly appeared nearby so that the craft’s electronic brains could quickly identify them.

The only person he found in the command centre was Oliver. The boy was at the engineering station, taking readings and talking to Dr Bowman on the intercom. He had transmitted all the necessary data to the supply ship while listening to Steve’s lecture to the duty officer on the manoeuvrability of enemy craft when Ashley suddenly appeared, almost followed by Major Jamison.

‘Mr Jenkins,’ she began, ‘have you given Mr Dodson all the information he needs?’

James confirmed.

‘Wonderful,’ said she, nodding. ‘It looks like the supply craft’s database is quite out of date; that’s not surprising, they left Earth earlier than Endurance. Well… I must say…’ A slightly confused look appeared on her face. ‘…We have a problem.’

‘What kinda problem?’ asked Oliver. ‘If you mean the long-range comms system…’

James smiled involuntarily. It seemed the reprimand and extra duty did not have any effect on the overactive Specialist 2nd Class. The Major visibly pursed her lips. It looked like the same thought had occurred to her.

‘No, Mr Stubbs,’ she said, giving him an expressive look. ‘Dr Bowman and you will work on that tomorrow, after the full six, at least, hours of sleep we all need to recover. Actually, that’s the problem. We’ve had to take all but one of the sleeping cabins because we haven’t figured out where to put some of the equipment, which requires very delicate handling. Our friendly hosts offered us their hospitality for a conditional night aboard their spacecraft. However, they haven’t much accommodation. So, some of us will have to stay here.’ She paused and looked at Ashley, then at James and Oliver. ‘Well, since the three of you are here, you’d stay, okay? Lieutenant, you’re in charge until I get back.’

Ashley seemed completely unprepared for this turn of events. James caught the look of confusion in her eyes. Major Jamison, on the other hand, either did not notice or pretended not to.

‘Don’t worry, it’s just a formality,’ ’ she said. ‘The shuttle is docked with the supply craft. Nevertheless, I want to be sure that everything is under control, okay?’

She looked directly at Ashley. The girl nodded confusedly.

‘Okay,’ Major Jamison smiled barely noticeably, but then her usual expression returned to her face. ‘That doesn’t mean you have to be on alert all the time,’ she continued. ‘If something happened, the shuttle’s artificial brain would make a noise that would wake even a dead…’ She smiled again and winked. ‘Computer, transfer the control to Lieutenant Ashley Leverton from this moment until further notice.’

‘Transfer complete,’ the shuttle’s artificial intelligence reported after a short pause. ‘ESV One is now under the control of Lieutenant Ashley Leverton until further notice.’

‘Wonderful, I can sleep well now and wish you the same.’ The Major waved her hand as if to say goodbye and headed for the entrance airlock.

‘Huh? We have to sleep here?’ Oliver said, wincing in displeasure and looking around the command section.

‘No, she said, one cabin remained free,’ Ashley muttered, not so surely.

‘Not quite free,’ James went on after her. ‘If I understood rightly, the Major meant your cabin.’

A puzzled and slightly confused expression appeared on the girl’s face. James spread his hands.

‘If I’m right, we have no choice,’ said he. ‘She’s going to get us up after six hours, not a minute later. So do you mind if Oliver and I spend um… this night, so to say, in your cabin? Otherwise, one of us will have to sleep in these chairs. I’d agree, but honestly, I’m just so tired.’

‘Hmmm… I don’t mind, actually –’ Ashley began.

‘Well, let’s not waste any time,’ Oliver interrupted her. ‘Jim’s right, Major Jamison’s going to get us up in six hours, as she said, minute by minute, and the longer we talk about it, the less time we have to sleep.’

When James made his proposal, he was sure that Ashley’s cabin was a four-berth, like the one he, Steve, Quentin, and Oliver shared. But he regretted his words immediately when he opened the door. The cabin turned out to be a two-berth. It was narrow enough that it would be difficult for a person of considerable constitution to squeeze between the two bunks above each other and the bulkhead.

‘Well, you two can do what you want; I’m going to bed…’ With these words, Oliver began to climb onto the top bunk. James had no time to object. The young Specialist 2nd Class had already taken the bunk that James, assessing the current situation, had mentally reserved for himself and, judging by the sounds, was making himself more comfortable. Ashley looked at the only free lower bunk, then at James with a slightly raised eyebrow.

‘I haven’t got a sword,’ he said.

‘Sword?’

‘Tristan and Isolde. He put his sword between them, and when King Mark –’

‘A-ah…’ She snorted. ‘Don’t worry; no king is waiting for me. Which side of the bunk do you prefer?’

‘What d’you mean: which side?’

‘Okay…’ she nodded. ‘I’m not claustrophobic, so I can give you the outside…’

… It was a bit cramped in that narrow bunk for two. James tried to move close to the edge.

‘James, I’ll kick you out,’ Ashley whispered.

‘Whereto?’ he asked in a whisper, too.

‘Down to the floor,’ she whispered.

‘It’s called a deck.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’

‘Not the best place,’ he murmured.

‘Well, don’t twirl around,’ was the reply.

‘I’m not twirling,’ he whispered.

‘You’re twirling… wriggling like… a python.’

He laughed almost out loud.

‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.

‘Just a story popped up,’ said he.

‘Which story?’

‘Well, one girl had a python… um… as a pet…’

Ashley hummed, ‘A python?’

‘Huh, many people have dogs or cats, yeah?’ said James, ‘and she had a python. Slept together… not in this sense, of course, just she slept on her bed, and the python curled up next to her. Well… everything was going fine, but then the python suddenly stopped eating. The girl got worried and went with the python to… um… a snake specialist –’

‘Herpetologist?’

‘Maybe. In short, that guy looked at the python and said that this python is going to swallow someone… really big…’

‘Her?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Horribly!’ said she and James could feel her moving closer and closer to his body, probably involuntarily, as he told the story. It was even pleasant.

‘…So to say, she nursed a snake in her bosom…’ He also moved a little towards her. She moved a little away from him.

‘And what has the girl done?’ she asked.

‘Well… she mourned, mourned, took the python to a zoo or somewhere.’

Ashley giggled and moved closer to James again.

‘What a python?’ Oliver’s voice sounded upstairs. The voice was sleepy and sad. ‘Where’s a python?’

‘Nowhere’s a python. Sleep!’ said James.

‘Poor boy, we woke him,’ whispered Ashley.

‘Easy to say,’ Oliver muttered, barely audible. ‘You two mumble and mumble –’

But there was no continuation. Oliver seemed to have fallen asleep again. Ashley laughed barely audibly, and James, too. Suddenly, he felt like hugging her and even started to raise his hand, but with a force of will, he stopped himself. There was no more talking between them.

Ashley was still asleep when James awoke. She was still lying in the same pose, facing the bulkhead. He got up from the bunk and tried to slip out of the cabin as quietly as possible. In the command section he headed, everything seemed the same as it was six hours ago. The instruments sang quietly. The overview screen of the weapons control station flashed numbers, indicating the distance to the nearest object, which could only be the supply ship, so for a second, James thought those numbers were completely out of proportion. Only then did he realise what the data meant and even laughed involuntarily.

A few minutes later, Ashley entered the control section. She smiled at James but had no time to say anything. Oliver appeared on the entrance airlock threshold almost immediately after her. He had a very glum look on his face.

‘What were you two chatting about all night?’ he muttered grumpily. ‘What python?’

‘We hadn’t been chatting about anything,’ Ashley said.

‘You had chatted,’ Oliver insisted grumpily, ‘and didn’t let me sleep the whole time. A python and a python…’

‘It was just a dream,’ said James.

‘It couldn’t be a dream!’ exclaimed Oliver. ‘I hate snakes!’

‘That’s why you dreamt of it,’ Ashley smiled. Oliver muttered angrily, suddenly interrupted by the buzzer of an external call. Ashley activated the communications system.

‘Jamison to Leverton…’

‘Uh… Leverton…’ Ashley did not react immediately.

‘Lieutenant –’ Major Jamison’s voice was suddenly drowned out by a strange sound, very loud and unpleasant. James noticed Ashley’s face twitch slightly. He wondered what could have caused such interference, given that the communication was between two docked spacecraft, when an unfamiliar, authoritative voice came from the loudspeaker, apparently belonging to the commander of the supply craft.

‘Report!’

They heard no reply, only a new question from the commander after a short pause, ‘…What the hell?’

There was a pause again. James caught Ashley’s puzzled expression. Suddenly, Major Jamison was talking again but in a way that was quite unusual to her.

‘Move the shuttle away!’ Her voice turned into a shout. ‘Move the shuttle to a safe distance. Now, Lieutenant! That’s an order!’

Ashley stood stunned, not moving.

‘Say, computer, emergency undocking,’ whispered James. ‘C’mon!’ he added more loudly because she was still silent.

‘Computer, emergency undocking,’ Ashley echoed.

‘That procedure is not recommended,’ came the reply.

‘Fuck!’ James could not resist. ‘Repeat!’

Ashley seemed to understand immediately and repeated the command.

‘Emergency undocking. Everybody out of the docking bay,’ said the same monotonous female voice that could drive anyone mad now. James gritted his teeth. Time was slow. Just over a minute passed, which seemed like an hour to James.

‘Undocking complete,’ the artificial intelligence reported. James breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Activate manoeuvring thrusters,’ he whispered, lightly nudging Ashley with his elbow. The girl looked at him, confused.

‘I… I don’t know how to do it…’ she mumbled.

‘Gosh!’ Suddenly, something seemed to click in his head. He rushed to the weapons control station and activated the port-side launcher.

‘What’re you doing?’ cried Ashley.

‘Following the order!’ cried he, desperately trying to remember the procedure. Panic gripped him for a moment. He was afraid he had forgotten the activation codes for the launch system. ‘A missile engine started with the shuttle’s engines off might give us a slight boost. That’s all we need for now!’ While speaking, he managed to pull himself together. Concentrating, he entered the activation code as he remembered it and the command to start the rocket engine, locking the rocket in the launcher. Only now, he thought, how risky that was. The launcher could fall apart. But they need just a few seconds…

…He mentally counted down a few seconds and turned the missile engine off…

…nothing happened. James did not even feel the shuttle moving or had no time to feel it moving when suddenly a bright flash flashed on the top camera screen facing the supply ship.

‘Computer, main screen!’ James yelled automatically. There was no reaction. Ashley looked at him, nodded understanding, and repeated the same command.

The main viewscreen in front of the flight control station showed the supply craft slowly moving away from them. But the flash did not disappear. And then... a bright glow seemed to erupt from the hull of the supply craft. It engulfed the entire hull for a couple of seconds and... disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared, but the supply craft was no longer in sight. Only vague shadows slipped across the viewscreen. James shook his head, trying to push the vision away.

‘No! No – that’s impossible!’ flashed through his mind. ‘This isn’t possible! It can’t have happened!’ …

… It happened. The shadows James had seen on the viewscreen were the wreckage of the supply craft, which no longer existed. Seconds later, even the wreckage was no longer visible on the viewscreen, only icy cosmic darkness …