A sharp sound caused James to look more carefully at the virtual screen. Two bright, pulsating dots appeared just below the top right-hand corner. Moving incessantly against the background of the fixed stars and getting closer and closer – the distance indicator kept dropping – these dots could only mean one thing. James reached for the weapons control panel, activated it, and switched on the communications system.

‘Tally-ho! Coordinates…’ He uttered a series of numbers that appeared on his virtual screen but missed the last one. ‘Uh… two o’clock up.’

Steve reacted instantly, ‘Roger.’

‘Attack plan –’ James began but had no time to finish. Squadron Leader Dutton’s voice appeared in his headset.

‘Stop!’

The virtual screen froze. James leaned back in the pilot’s seat, mentally replaying his last actions in his head and trying to figure out what he had done wrong and why the Flight commander had stopped the simulation.

‘Mr Jenkins, tell me, what have you been doing?’ Dutton’s voice appeared again.

‘Sir…’ James was so confused that he could not find words. ‘I –’

‘Mr Jenkins, can you hear me?’ The commander’s voice was absolutely calm, which confused James even more.

‘Yes, sir,’ he muttered. ‘Sure, sir… I was getting ready for an attack… sir.’

‘You’re going to attack the enemy, I understand that right?’ The commander’s tone seemed quite astonished.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Do you remember your mission task? What it was?’

‘Uh… a reconnaissance… er… sir.’

‘Exactly, Astronaut First Class,’ said the commander. ‘Reconnaissance…’ he emphasised the word, ‘and there was nothing about any other action even if enemies were detected, was there?’

James had already gathered his thoughts and replied clearly, without hesitation, ‘Yes, sir. You’re right, sir.’

‘So what the hell have you been doing?’ Dutton barked suddenly.

Until now, James had only seen the B Flight commander a few times and had found him to be a quiet and discreet gentleman, unlike most senior officers and even more so Flight Sergeant Rowling. But today, the Squadron Leader did not mince his words. Sergeant Hancock, who had been with the squadron since the beginning of the war, said it would take a lot of screwing up to make Dutton angry.

‘…And why did you not inform the control centre of the enemy’s appearance in your responsibility area?’ the Flight commander continued, calmer. ‘You should have done so immediately. That was your mission task.’

‘Well… yes, sir… but if –’ James wanted to retort but could not find the right words again.

‘Very well… I mean very bad,’ the Flight commander interrupted him coldly. ‘I’m activating the landing programme now. Try not to screw it up this time. Otherwise, I can’t be sure you are ready for real mission. I’ll be waiting for you both in my office after the simulation; Mr Jennings, you too.’

James guessed that the Section Commander was also in touch with Dutton, listening to every word and drawing his own conclusions. He tried to turn his mind to completing all the pre-landing procedures. At the right moment, as he thought, he gave Steve the command to get ready, completed the landing checklist, and typed in the activation code of the landing program on the control panel. The fighter’s artificial intelligence responded as it should (James exhaled in relief), synchronising their speed to the spacecraft’s speed. Both fighters entered an approach trajectory almost at the same time.

James breathed a sigh of relief again when the indicator showed that his fighter craft had caught the arrestor gear, just in case, waited for the green light confirming the hangar sealing and opened the external hatch after that only. It did not make practical sense because their fighters did not leave the hangar. However, he had no doubt that Dutton watched them closely.

‘How it goes?’ asked Lewis, who met them in the hallway. James just waved his hand.

‘Not good,’ muttered Steve, also rather distressed.

‘What happened?’

‘Well… really, I didn’t get it. We spotted the enemy, James gave the command to attack, and everything in due form, but Dutton stopped the simulation, saying that this wasn’t in the mission task.’

‘We were stopped too,’ Lewis said. ‘Junkie was a bit nervous; twice ordered to change course and suddenly gave the command for landing. Dutton asked what the reason was, he mumbled something, and in short, full bullshit came out.’

Steve scolded with feeling. ‘If Junky gets his arse kicked, he might take it out on us,’ said he. ‘Yep,’ James agreed. ‘What the hell! Yesterday it all went okay…’

The day before, in the same computer simulation mode they practised a group attack with the entire squadron. All the commanders were satisfied; even Wing Commander Burton praised at first Dutton as the Flight commander, then Jennings, and even James and Steve separately for well-coordinated actions, as he put it, only mixed up their names. He probably had not yet remembered all the newcomers.

The Flight commander’s office door was open, and Jennings’s voice was heard from inside.

‘…I already told you, sir, that these two… er… I mean… I count them both as…’

Lewis was right. The Section commander was really on edge and probably confused about what he was saying because of it. James and Steve stopped a few steps before the door and looked at each other. The conversation was clearly about both of them.

‘Insufficiently ready, you want to say?’ Dutton interrupted the Flight Lieutenant’s stormy verbiage. ‘So, what’s stopping you from teaching them? We have time for this yet. And that’s the reason you should take advantage of this time. We will go on a mission very soon; it could be too late.’

‘I’m a pilot, sir, not a school teacher.’

‘Well, who am I?’ Dutton raised his voice a little. ‘However, I had to become a teacher, including for you personally. You’ve been deemed qualified enough for a command position. So, let’s share your knowledge and skills with them. The commander is not only the one who gives the orders.’

‘I think it’s wrong to entrust the control of combat vehicles to these… They’re just children –’

Dutton stopped Jennings again with a raised hand. ‘What you assume is right or wrong doesn’t matter,’ said he. ‘Even at peacetime, nobody was given the right to select his subordinates, especially now. I’m not happy with it either. But you’re aware of the situation well, I presume. First of all, inevitable losses, not only combat ones, of which there were too many at the first stage of the war. Secondly, radiation does not allow anyone to stay in deep space indefinitely, even with all spacecraft’s protection systems. Our fighters don’t have such systems at all, and engineers still cannot yet create such systems that are sufficiently compact and reliable. How long did you spend on rehabilitation after the previous mission? A lot, didn’t you. However, someone else must fly instead of you all that time. As for these boys… some of them lost their fathers by this war, they’re –’

‘And Joint Command takes advantage of this,’ muttered Jennings. ‘Great!’

The Flight commander shook his head.

‘It’s not for us to talk over Joint Command,’ said he strictly. ‘Whatever you want you have to work with them. Raise them as you were raised. By the way, you, even after the Officers’ College, came here not as such an experienced pilot as you became later. And they only have a short Flying School course behind them. I mean that fact, they’ve been taught to pilot is already an achievement –’ The Flight commander broke himself off, probably only now noticing James and Steve staying in the doorway. ‘Come,’ said he gloomily. James passed the doorstep, Steve followed him.

‘Astronaut First Class Jenkins –’

‘Stand easy,’ Dutton interrupted him accompanying his words with a gesture. Out of his eye corner, James noticed a grimace on Jennings’s face. It was not so easy to realise what it meant, but most likely, it did not bode well for them. Meanwhile, Dutton paced his not-so-big office, snapping his fingers in time with his steps.

‘I hope,’ he began, ‘you’ve familiarised yourself with the mission task before starting the simulation.’

James nodded positively.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So,’ the Flight commander continued, ‘you should have noticed there was no word about an attack on the enemy.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Your flying school instructors explained the meaning of the term “reconnaissance” to you, didn’t they?’

James nodded again. ‘Yes, sir, but… um… the enemy could have detected us… er…I mean, they would have detected us in all likelihood, which would have given them a chance to attack and destroy us before we completed the mission.’

‘Did the enemy somehow indicate that they had detected you?’ asked Dutton stared directly at James.

‘Uh… er… No, sir,’ James became distraught under that stare. ‘But… I mean, we might not have known about this. Their early warning systems are obviously more advanced than ours…’

‘They surely detected us,’ added Steve.

‘You see, sir?’ Jennings butted, ‘I told you –’

Dutton motioned the Flight Lieutenant to silence. ‘Hold on, Mr Jennings. We have to figure it all out. That’s what training is for…’ He looked at James and Steve and continued in a calmer, more conciliatory tone, ‘I understand the reasons for your actions. That was why you both joined the Space Force even though you might be…’ Dutton even seemed to chuckle, ‘…playing computer games, sitting on a cosy sofa at home. The adrenaline rush is almost the same and not any slightest danger. I understand your desire, Mr Wolverton, to get into battle soon. Moreover, I partly share your feeling…’

James heard a note of annoyance in the Squadron Leader’s tone.

‘…The war has already cost us many lives. I’ve lost a good friend with whom I grew up. You, Mr Wolverton, have lost your father. We still don’t know why these aliens attacked us. There are many various assumptions, theories and conjectures –’

The Flight commander fell silent for a moment and snapped his fingers again. ‘…However, I am a military man,’ he continued, ‘and it’s not for me to theorise and speculate. I must do my duty. Both of you are also military men now, and your first duty’s to follow the orders you have been given, whatever they may be. You showed your ability to observe, assess the situation, and draw conclusions; that’s fine, but you didn’t follow the order. That’s why I stopped the simulation. Your attack, even if successful – which is highly doubtful – could expose not only two fighters but the carrier craft itself. Whoever these creatures are, they certainly suspect that vehicles like our fighters cannot fly in space on their own. By the way, you’ve used some unrecommended terms. The Battle of Britain is a glorious page in our history, but it doesn’t cancel the radio traffic regulations. You may consider this insignificant, but violations of these regulations have had serious consequences on more than one occasion…’

James marked that Jennings was about to say something but did not dare to interrupt the Flight commander.

‘…You’ll all have another chance to take the initiative, maybe even sooner than you thought,’ Dutton went on, taking a deep breath. ‘Tomorrow is our first real flight, before which all systems must be carefully checked. Mr Jennings, report back to me at 19.00. I haven’t received the flight plan yet, so there may be some unexpected surprises at any time, and we must be ready for them. Dismissed.’

Jennings squeaked angrily through his teeth as the three walked out of the Flight commander’s cabin into the corridor.

‘You two,’ said he abruptly, ‘remember, I don’t want to hear something like that anymore. Get to the hangar. You only have three hours to check all the systems.’

‘Isn’t that the techies’ job?’ asked Steve. Jennings seemed to be on the verge of screaming.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

‘This is your fighter,’ he hissed, having mastered himself not without some difficulty. ‘Wanna rely on techies, fine, have it your way, but I don’t want to be told off again tomorrow. You, Jenkins, have been in charge of a pair only because we have an understaffed officer corps, and you have a surplus chevron. However, this chevron can easily be ripped off your uniform, don’t forget. In the event of the slightest malfunction, even the most trivial, you both would be kicked off the flight staff to hell! This is not a computer game. This is space, do you understand? Understand?’ he barked because James and Steve remained silent.

‘Yessir!’

Snorting with displeasure, Jennings walked away.

‘Shit!’ James reacted with a deep sigh and looked at Steve. ‘Honestly, Dutton is absolutely right. I shouldn’t have rushed. Besides, set you up –’

‘Don’t fret about me,’ Steve smiled and patted him on the shoulder. ‘Dutton seemed to me to be a very reasonable man. Hear him kick Junkie back? I guess he went over the top yesterday, and now he got his ball back.’

‘I am afraid he can play us back. What did he say about getting rid of us –’

‘Let him talk about whatever he likes,’ said Steve, laughing. ‘It’s gonna be alright.’ He winked. ‘We made an impression on the squadron commander yesterday. If all goes well tomorrow, we might even get promoted.’

‘Uh-huh, right now…’ Steve’s unexpected enthusiasm seemed excessive to James. ‘…forgot Rowling and reprimand?’

‘Rubbish. Who’s the boss here,’ Steve chuckled, ‘Squadron Leader or Flight Sergeant? Burton is just going to say a word, and Rowling is going to shove that reprimand up her arse. So if it’s in her power to reprimand us, it’s in his power to reverse all those reprimands to hell.’

‘That would be nice,’ James muttered.

‘Take it easy, old man…’ Steve patted him on the shoulder again. ‘Nothing’s happened yet. And we’ll deal with Rowling somehow. We need to keep out of her sight, and that’s all there is to it.’

They headed for the hangar, where the technicians were supposed to lower the fighters from the flight deck. All the vehicles were already in their usual places. The head of the deck crew, Warrant Officer O’Brien, knew his job. James had had the opportunity to see for himself the day before. As soon as the simulation finished, O’Brien ordered the flight deck cleared. And today, the technicians had even remembered to cover the engines. But his fighter’s cockpit remained open. He forgot to close it in his haste. This was against all the regulations.

James wondered if any senior officers had noticed and hoped that none had. There were only technicians in the hangar. One of them, Junior Technician Rajeev Dabir, standing on a moveable ladder at the rear of James’s fighter, beckoned him over.

‘Actually, all the systems are normal,’ said he with his inimitable accent. ‘The only problem is the device…’ he uttered a series of numbers and letters that meant nothing to James.

‘Well… and?’ James had not realised what the problem was.

‘I need instructions.’

‘Uh…’ James expected nothing like this. ‘Who has to give you these instructions? Me?’

The Junior Technician nodded silently.

‘Huh, I’d give you instructions,’ said James, ‘if I had any idea what this thing was and why it was needed.’

Something like a smile appeared on Dabir’s face, which was immediately replaced by the previous, almost impassive expression.

‘This is a backup unit that doesn’t affect the main systems,’ said he. ‘Maybe there are no problems, but I’m not sure.’

‘What do you need to be sure?’ asked James.

‘There is a test programme, but I can’t run it on our equipment.’

‘So?’

The Indian spread his hands. ‘Up to you.’

This answer stumped James. ‘Is it possible to just replace this device and not sweat?’ said he after a short pause.

‘Yes, it’s possible,’ the technician nodded, ‘but I need a justification.’

‘Sorta?’

‘If it turns out that it’s faulty, I have to write a replacement request. But I need to point out exactly what is wrong.’

‘Can’t you just write that this device is faulty?’ asked James, thoroughly confused.

‘Mr Andrews… the Technical Service Chief,’ Dabir added, obviously marking James’s expression when he heard the name. ‘He’ll definitely require clarification. He won’t approve any replacement without it.’

‘What the hell!’ exclaimed James. Dabir said nothing. James looked around. There was no one to consult. Steve was in the cockpit of his fighter, talking to another technician about something. Jennings appeared in the depths of the hangar, but James did not want to deal with him now.

‘…Well, what d’you suggest?’

‘There’s the necessary equipment in the engineering compartment,’ Dabir requested without any emotions, ‘but I can’t get away now.’

‘Okay, can you do it later?’

‘I’m not sure I could make it by the deadline.’ Having said that, Dabir looked at James in what seemed like a questioning manner.

‘So what should I do?’ James said to say something because he had no idea what to say. The technician shrugged.

‘Nothing if you sign the diagnostic card.’

‘What about the device?’

‘I must point out some doubts.’

‘There’s no other way?’

Dabir shook his head negatively.

‘…So if I sign,’ James continued, ‘and –’ he paused. Dabir’s expression did not change.

‘The likelihood of the backup system being engaged during a training flight is extremely low,’ said he. ‘If Mr Andrews won’t check every diagnostic card…’

‘And he would?’ asked James, secretly hoping for a negative answer.

‘Maybe,’ Dabir replied, ‘but maybe not.’

‘Holy shit!’ James felt himself falling into a state of almost panic. He had never been in a similar situation before and had no idea how to escape.

‘Sorry?’ Dabir’s calm voice snapped him out of his stupor.

‘I mean, is there any way out?’

‘I can remove the device,’ the Indian returned in the same impassive tone. ‘You can go to the engineering compartment and ask their staff to test it. If it’s okay, I can put it back; if not, they can tell you what’s wrong, and I can request a replacement.’

‘Are they going to agree to do that? I mean –’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bloody hell!’ cried James, almost losing his patience. ‘So what do I do?’

‘Up to you,’ followed the Indian’s reply in the previously used tone.

James looked around again. No one seemed to be paying any attention to their drawn-out dialogue. He was about to tell Dabir that he would sign the diagnostic card when he suddenly recollected Jennings’s last words.

‘Okay…’ he made a decision. ‘Gimme that fucking thing. Uh… where’s the engineering compartment?’

‘J Deck…’

The mystery device appeared to be a small plastic box with a connector. Putting it into the flight suit pocket, James set off to find the engineering compartment, which proved to be no easy task. As he descended the companionway, he recalled how he had almost gone astray on the first day had it not been for the help of an unknown senior crew officer. Now, these crew officers in their turquoise flight suits had come across him more than once, so there was someone to point the way, but he had no idea to whom he was going.

Nobody was in the diagnostic lab next to the reactor control centre, where he was eventually sent. James had stopped just as he crossed the threshold. It was not the practice in the squadron’s technical service to leave the access hatch open when no one stayed. Here, it seemed, everything was different.

‘Looking for Marla?’ He heard a voice behind him and turned. Behind him stood the same boy he had seen once before, on the day Flight Sergeant Rowling had ordered him, along with Steve and Lewis, to swab the deck. Wearing the Space Agency uniform, he was no different from the other crew members, except that he could not have been one of them due to his age. Glancing into the laboratory, the boy grinned. ‘…Looks like she went to see her boyfriend as usual,’ said he with a sly smile. ‘I won’t tell anyone, of course, but if Harris finds out…’

‘Who you?’ asked James, looking at the boy whose freckled face seemed almost childish. ‘Peter Pan?’

‘Nope, Oliver Stubbs.’

‘And what are you doing here?’

The boy shrugged and chuckled, ‘Just passed by.’

‘I mean, in the spacecraft.’

‘Same as you, I suppose…’ the boy chuckled again, ‘or ya think if you can, others can’t? You’re not a passenger here either, huh?’

‘You have a rank, too?’

The boy nodded in confirmation. ‘Specialist 3rd class,’ said he, not without pride, his eyes slightly tilted at his right shoulder. James noticed an insignia patch on the boy’s flight suit sleeve just above the elbow: a narrow stripe bisected by the stylised Greek letter Delta, embroidered in silver thread. ‘…So why’d you need Marla?’ the boy went on in the same slightly jaunty tone.

‘Honestly, I don’t know whom I need,’ said James. ‘I just need to test… something…’

‘Precisely what?’

‘A device.’

‘Sorta?’

‘This one,’ James handed the box to Oliver. The boy took it, studying the markings carefully.

‘It’s a backup clock generator,’ said he after a short pause. ‘Why does it need to be tested?’

‘Our technician doesn’t sure that this generator, as you say, is working correctly.’

Oliver shrugged. ‘Big deal,’ said he, ‘just to replace it and all. Actually, I can’t even imagine what could be wrong with it. There is a single-crystal structure inside. If it doesn’t respond to a diagnostic impulse for some reason, this means nothing. There are a dozen of these in your fighter’s systems.’

‘How do you know?’

‘…You can test it, of course,’ Oliver went on as if he had not heard the question, ‘but it’s useless. If there’s any doubt, it’s better to replace it. Tell your technician that.’

‘He says he needs to know clearly what the problem is. Otherwise, the Technical Service Chief won’t approve the replacement.’

Oliver laughed. ‘Bureaucrat. Okay, let’s go to the warehouse. There’s a lot of such sorta stuff.’

‘Are you sure they’re compatible?’

‘Absolutely. This is a standard piece of equipment used in many spacecraft. C’mon.’ And Oliver stepped down the corridor. James followed him more automatically than consciously.

They reached the companionway, and James had stopped; Oliver waved to him. ‘This way only leads to the upper decks. We need an elevator.’

‘Looks like you know everything here,’ James chuckled. Oliver snorted.

‘Sure. The technical drawings of this spacecraft were hung over my bed when I was a kid.’

James thought he had misheard. ‘Huh?’

‘What? I even learned to read with them.’

‘I mean, where you got those –’

‘Not me, of course, Grandpa. He designed this spacecraft... well, and several others, as well as your fighters.’

James even froze, never reaching the elevator.

‘Your grandpa?’

Oliver looked at him and tilted his head slightly to one side.

‘Yeah, Walter Jefferies.’

‘Walter Jefferies, is your grandpa?’ James exclaimed in astonishment. He had heard the name of one of the leading designers of space technology more than once.

‘What kinda problem?’ Oliver was now clearly astonished at such a reaction.

‘Hmm… nothing…’

The lift doors opened, and they both stepped inside. James had never been in a spacecraft lift before and was surprised by the strange lighting system. The light seemed to come from the ceiling itself. It looked unusual because the ceiling was covered by the same opaque plastic as the walls. Oliver must have noticed because James lifted his head to scan the ceiling. He chuckled.

‘Cool, eh? The ceiling panel is coated with a special compound through which a weak electric current is passed, turning the panel into a light source. Grandpa wanted to do this everywhere, in the corridors, Sickbay, even the Main command centre. But it seemed too expensive to the Space Agency. So he limited it to the elevators.

‘How did you get here?’ asked James.

‘What?’ Oliver looked at him questioningly.

‘I mean this spacecraft.’

‘Ah, it could be saying, by chance. Colonel Montgomery became my guardian when my grandpa died and took me with him.’

‘Montgomery?’

‘Chief Flight Engineer. Ya don’t know him?’

‘Actually, it’s the first time I’ve heard of him. And where’re your parents?’

‘They disappeared a long time ago.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘Without a trace. They were both science officers of Discovery – the 6th deep space expedition – which disappeared with all hands at the inner edge of the Oort cloud. I was only three at the time. I’ve no memory of them at all. So I stayed with my grandma and grandpa. Grandma died of an incurable disease two years ago. Grandpa missed her very much; maybe that's why he died soon.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry…’ James suddenly felt awkward. Oliver looked at him slightly surprised.

‘Sorry for?’

‘Well… for making you remember all this –’

‘C’mon,’ the boy smiled and waved his hand, ‘that’s all in the past.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen…’ Oliver paused, hesitating for a second, most likely catching James’s sceptical look. ‘Soon,’ he added, a little embarrassed, ‘in September…’

‘What year?’ James said with a laugh. Oliver frowned.

‘Well, the next one. What’s so funny?’

‘Nothing. I’m just… Wait, you still have to study at school.’

‘I’ve already finished school.’

‘Finished?’

The lift reached the deck they wanted, the doors opening noiselessly.

‘Accelerated learning,’ Oliver chuckled, ‘six years instead of twelve. Well, seven, actually. I was only allowed after fifth grade to take sixth-grade exams and move on to high school. And at the high school, nobody really knew what to do with me, and they all were happy to get rid of me as quickly as possible.’

‘Young prodigy?’

‘Huh?’

‘I mean super duper talented.’

‘Not at all.’ Oliver grinned. ‘My grandpa was talented, there’s no doubt, but I still have some struggles with tensor calculus.’

‘Joking?’ James still could not understand whether the boy was showing off or telling the truth. ‘I don’t even know what that is. Well, I know what that is, but that’s all.’

‘How did you study impulse motion theory?’

‘I didn’t. They had read us only the basic course and briefly. Sorta, the general idea we seem to have understood, but all the details are not for our average minds. Like, the fighter’s artificial intelligence will do the rest by itself.’

‘I see your point…’ Oliver chuckled, nodded, and looked at James joyfully. ‘So what are we still doing in the elevator? It’s the last stop…’

In the warehouse, as Oliver called the room, which looked like a pilots’ sleeping quarters – James even thought that their sleeping quarters could most likely have been such a warehouse before – they met a guy of about twenty-five years of age, sombre and unshaven, it seemed, at least for a few days, whom Oliver introduced as Ben. There was no name patch or rank insignia on his overall, but a metal badge pinned crookedly: ‘Payload Specialist’. He immediately gave them off a similar device, asking Oliver ‘to write it off’, as he put it, ‘somehow so that there was nothing sorta’, accompanying his words with a strange gesture. What he was trying to say with that gesture remained unclear to James.

‘Don’t panic, I know the rules,’ Oliver reassured him with a smile and waved to James, ‘let’s get back. By the way, if you want, I can put it in place myself. Otherwise, your technician might ask where it came from and so on.’

‘The fighter’s technical drawings were also hanging above your cradle?’ James tried to tease. Oliver did not do a bit of eyebrow-raising.

‘Nope, I made them,’ said he. James froze again.

‘You?’

‘Figuratively speaking. Grandpa didn’t like computers. He preferred the old-fashioned paper method, so I converted his paper engineering drawings into digital format. Not all of them, of course. The spacecraft drawings are too complicated, but a fighter is a simpler vehicle. In short, if you have any problems, just let me know…’

Oliver was not showing off. He actually seemed to know as much about fighter systems as Dabir. He put the clock generator in place quickly and then had a long conversation with the Indian about something, so much so that Dabir ended up addressing the boy as ‘Mr Stubbs’, almost with respect. The second check revealed no malfunctions; James signed the diagnostic card and managed to report back to Jennings before the appointed time that both fighters were ready for tomorrow. The Flight Lieutenant chuckled sceptically but said nothing. Nevertheless, James left the commander’s cabin in high spirits.

But he had not gone more than a few steps when he encountered Rowling, who gestured for him to come over. ‘What were you doing outside the squadron location?’ she asked in her usual icy tone.

James was even taken aback. ‘I… I had to go to the engineering compartment,’ said he.

‘What was the reason to go to the engineering compartment?’

‘I was doing my official duties.’

‘What?’ Rowling stared at him with her eyes wide open.

‘My official duties, as I said, sir,’ James replied. ‘Got it, old owl?’ he added mentally, barely keeping himself from saying it out loud.

‘I have other information,’ the Flight Sergeant did not seem to notice or pretended not to. ‘You were seen having a completely off-duty conversation with a crew member.’

‘Isn’t that allowed?’

‘It’s not allowed to talk back to your superior,’ said she strictly. ‘You had no right to leave the squadron location without the permission of a senior officer or me.’

‘I had to… that’s, I needed to test a faulty clock generator…’ James had difficulty remembering the name of the device for which he had to justify himself to Rowling, ‘…that could only be done in the engineering compartment.’

‘You must justify the reason and get permission. And you must not engage in off-duty conversation with the crew. I am giving you a warning.’ She turned around and headed towards her cabin.

James cursed under his breath, barely keeping himself from saying the words out loud again. His mood, which had just improved, was sinking again. Rowling was really becoming the problem to solve.