A loud and prolonged siren sound echoed across the vast Flight Deck. James took off from where he was standing and was already running towards his fighter, which, for some reason, was not where he expected to find it. Moreover, he seemed to be running alone. Everyone else disappeared somewhere. He was already at the ladder, quickly climbed the steps, and lifted his right leg to enter the fighter’s cockpit when he suddenly found out he was not wearing his spacesuit. ‘I forgot to put it on!’ flashed through his mind. He froze, standing with one foot on the top of the ladder and the other in the cockpit. And at that moment, he thought he could not run as fast and climb the stairs as quickly in a spacesuit. Upon examining himself, he discovered that he was not wearing a spacesuit but a tracksuit he had worn at home for a morning run.

He thought it impossible, and then the Flight deck suddenly disappeared. A snow-covered hillside descending to the Menai Strait appeared before his eyes, with the outline of the Britannia Bridge beyond. However, the siren continued to ring in his ears. The sound was low at first, barely audible, but it grew and grew. It was almost like the day when all the global media reported the alien attack, and panic spread around the world. Only he remembered very clearly that he had heard the siren that day not on the Strait’s shore but on his way to school, crossing the nearby car park. And it was autumn, not winter… He thought it was impossible, and since it was impossible, it was… just a dream?

That was the dream, but James awoke the next moment and found himself lying on his bunk in the pilots’ sleeping quarters aboard the Endurance. However, the sound had not gone away after the dream; it continued, it seemed to him, louder and louder. James opened his eyes, sat up a little, and the next thing he knew, he was sitting on his bunk, unzipping his sleeping bag. The siren was not in his head; it was coming from the ceiling speakers, and large letters shone brightly, almost full screen, on the intercom monitor: ALERT! ALERT! ALERT! ALERT!

These letters faded and reappeared, glowing in various shades of red. James slipped out his sleeping bag and reached for his flight suit on the top shelf. His sleeping bag slid down onto Steve, who was already on his feet.

‘Sorry,’ said James, pulling on his flight suit. It was not so easy to do this sitting on the top bunk, but he thought it would be faster.

‘No problem.’ Steve got rid of James’s sleeping bag in one fell swoop and bent down to rummage under his own bunk. ‘Fuck! Where’re they?’

‘Lost something?’

‘My boots,’ muttered Steve. ‘Surprise, surprise…’

‘What?’ James heard Lewis’s voice and noticed his mate jumping down with his flight suit in his hands. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the A-Flight pilots rushing to get dressed and Sergeant Mike Hancock, already dressed, standing at the entrance hatch.

‘Dutton said to expect the unexpected,’ Steve replied.

‘Sure?’ asked Lewis.

‘What else?’ Steve finally found his boots, and now he tried to put them on one, jumping on one leg.

‘I mean… shit!’ Lewis, hastily pulling on his flight suit, got tangled up in trouser legs. ‘What if it’s a real red alert?’

‘Impossible. We’re orbiting Neptune, remember? Okay, around Triton, but it’s no matter; Triton itself is orbiting Neptune. Who was staring at that blue giant yesterday?’

‘Training alert, for sure,’ said James, lacing up his boots. ‘Anyway, we’d better hurry.’ ‘Attention all personnel…’ a voice came from the loudspeaker above the intercom display.

‘…A-Flight will assemble in Hangar 6, B-Flight in Hangar 8. Technical staff…’

James ignored what followed. Finished dressing, he crossed the sleeping quarters in seconds and jumped into the corridor ahead of Sergeant Hancock. Steve and Lewis followed him. Not wanting to waste any time, they slid down the companionway railing, overtaking everyone else and were the first to run into the hangar, where they found the Flight commander, who had apparently been waiting for them beforehand.

‘Excellent!’ Squadron Leader Dutton turned off the stopwatch he had in his hand and looked around at his subordinates lined up before him. The all-clear signal was already sounding behind the gateway. ‘…This time, you all broke your own record…’ The Flight commander looked pleased. ‘However, it’s not a matter of gratitude because that's how it should be. Right, Mr Hancock?’

Mike – the Flight veteran and oldest among the junior pilots – nodded in agreement.

‘Yes, sir. Just you three…’ he nudged James lightly. ‘I almost got knocked off my feet on the companionway. Be more careful next time.’

‘Sorry, old man,’ said Steve in a conciliatory tone. ‘We hurried.’

Jennings looked at him very sternly and seemed about to say something. Dutton raised his hand.

‘Gentlemen, please discuss and resolve any internal conflicts later. I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce today’s mission, to give you time to think about –’

A crackling sound, sharp as gunshots, out the loudspeakers, interrupted the Flight commander, followed by a voice, ‘Attention! Attention! All unit commanders are requested to report to squadron headquarters immediately.’

Dutton raised his head and looked at the source of the sound. A surprised expression appeared on his face. ‘What the hell?’ he murmured very quietly. James did not even hear, only guessed what the commander was saying. Dutton turned back to the lineup, ‘I assure you, this wasn’t part of the training scenario. I don’t know what happened, but just in case, I’d like to ask you to refrain from continuing the night’s rest. Anyway, reveille…’ he glanced at his watch and continued, ‘very soon, so –’

The loudspeaker wheezed again and repeated the announcement. Dutton gave the order to disperse and quickly left the hangar.

‘What happened?’ Lewis asked. ‘We’re under attack? Uh… sir, what do you think?’ He turned to Jennings, whose expression told James that the Flight Lieutenant wanted to know as much as the others why the Flight commander had been called to headquarters so suddenly and at such an inopportune time. He looked at his watch; it was half past five in the morning.

‘You’ll be informed at the appropriate time,’ muttered the Section commander in an unhappy tone. ‘Take better care of your appearance. Your uniforms are wrinkled, and your boots are dusty! And what’s the manner to run like a flock of sheep!’

‘We… hurried, sir –’ Steve began but promptly felt silent under the Flight Lieutenant’s gaze.

‘Even if you’re in a hurry, you have to follow the regulations,’ he snapped and went out to the corridor.

Steve shrugged in confusion and said, ‘What happened to him?’

‘Haven’t you noticed?’ Hancock replied quietly, almost in a whisper, then continued a little louder with a barely perceptible grin, ‘he came last…’ he chuckled, ‘…neglected and apart.’ The Sergeant continued in a full voice, ‘Dutton certainly hasn’t lost sight of that. I’ve known him for a long time. He doesn’t miss a thing. But you three could have been more careful on the companionway. One of you kicked me in the knee so hard it still hurts.’

‘Sorry, old man, we didn’t do it on purpose,’ said James, suspecting that his boot had brushed the Sergeant’s knee as they slid down along the railings. The blow seemed to be sensitive; Mike was still limping slightly. ‘So what’s happened anyway?’

His question remained unanswered. The Sergeant patted him on the shoulder and nodded, indicating that the incident was over, but said nothing. The corridors quickly emptied. All the pilots were stretching towards their sleeping quarters. They were all discussing why all the unit commanders had suddenly been summoned to headquarters but in low voices, occasionally glancing at the junior officers who seemed to have a discussion about the same problem, only in their circle. James thought that if the enemy appeared, the alert should have been announced throughout the spacecraft, and if not, the reason was probably something else.

Walking up the companionway to the living deck, he felt someone tug on his sleeve.

‘Hi! Guess what? We’ve got a new mission!’

James turned around. Oliver was standing behind him. They had not seen each other since the day the boy had helped James with the broken clock generator. He was a little surprised that Oliver acted like they were old friends.

‘New mission?’ he mumbled darkly.

‘We were assigned to lead a patrol –’ Oliver went on as if he had noticed nothing.

‘I know,’ James interrupted.

‘…Well, and now we have to escort a transport craft to 2032 RV17, unofficially Ultima Thule,’ the boy continued cheerfully, still not paying attention to James’s clearly expressed mood.

‘What happened there?’ James had no idea what those numbers meant, but his gloomy mood slowly dissipated. Oliver’s behaviour was even beginning to amuse him.

‘Nothing happened,’ the boy replied. ‘Just the Joint Command plans to deploy a detector array on the orbit of the minor component.’

‘Which orbit?’

‘Well, it’s a binary system…’ Oliver began with meaning in his voice. ‘…Two planetoids orbit around a common –’

‘I know what a binary system is,’ James interrupted him again, snorting. Oliver paid no attention again.

‘Smart boy…’ he patted James on the shoulder. ‘In short, because this system is almost at aphelion, it’s now the most distant solar system object. I mean a known object –’

‘Are there still unknowns?’

‘Probably a ton,’ Oliver grinned. ‘The last one was found only five years ago by the 8th expedition. In short, because these planetoids are now farthest from the Sun, a detector array in their orbit would be able to monitor the space not just within the Solar System but also within a radius of about two thousand astronomical units outside it. So it’s going to be a sorta early warning system. That’s where we’re going when the transport arrives. Wanna look at the detailed map, let’s go.

‘Whereto?’

‘Better to the crew mess, it’s open round the clock.’

‘Why did you get up so early?’

‘I didn’t. I had the night shift… Come on,’ Oliver added because James was not moving.

‘Will they let me in? I mean your messroom.’

Oliver looked at him, a little surprised.

‘Why not? We’ve no restrictions. I can go to the officers’ mess on C deck and anywhere.’

‘Even the main command centre?’ James asked with some doubt.

Oliver looked at him again and said with a tone of importance in his voice, ‘Nobody goes to the main command centre without a reason… Well, shall we go?’ he added after a short pause. James thought that he had wanted to get a better look at the spacecraft for a long time and followed the boy.

The crew mess on E deck was almost identical to the squadron mess. And Oliver was right – no one asked the Space Force pilot what he was doing there. But the eating was no better. The cottage cheese pudding James took had none of its usual flavour. Oliver switched on his tablet and unfolded a virtual screen that displayed a star map.

‘Look…’ he pointed to two bright points almost in the middle of the screen, ‘those are our planetoids. Cool, right?’

‘What’s cool?’

‘Look at the distance marker. Not so many people have ever been so far away from Earth.’

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James took a closer look. The distance, expressed in astronomical units, was a four-digit number.

‘Anyway, it’s within the Solar System,’ said he.

‘You mean the Hill Sphere? Yeah….’ the boy sighed with obvious regret. ‘We won’t even go beyond the Kuiper Belt… I mean in fact. According to the latest calculations, the boundary of the outer belt seems to be further away than previously thought. And we won’t have to use full impulse speed –’

‘Where should we be going?’ James interrupted Oliver’s strange jeremiad, wondering how the boy could know about the Joint Command’s plans and many other things that were completely unknown to him. Oliver looked at him with slight surprise.

‘You really don’t know?’

‘Well, I mean… the combat zone –’

Oliver grinned and nodded again.

‘Actually, there is no such zone,’ said he.

‘Huh?’

The boy chuckled.

‘This is outer space, not the Gettysburg Fields,’ he said. ‘As you should know, after the attack on the Lunar Orbiter, these aliens or… I don’t know who they were destroyed Magellan, Scott Sheppard Space Telescope, and an uncrewed cargo craft carrying supplies and equipment for the Tenth Outer Space Expedition; all the others were hastily withdrawn. After a long discussion, a patrol line beyond Mars’s orbit was organised. I mean, not a real line, of course, just a –’

‘I know,’ said James. The boy nodded.

‘A bit later,’ he continued, ‘Joint Command decided –’

‘I know about that too,’ James interrupted him.

‘Amazing!’ Oliver exclaimed and continued with a smile, ‘In short, Protector assigned to escort the transport craft with the second part of the detector array was not completely ready, so we were assigned to escort it.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked James, still wondering where the boy could have gotten such information. Oliver raised an eyebrow in surprise.

‘I think everyone already knows,’ said he.

‘Isn’t that classified information?’

Oliver gave James another slightly confused look and laughed.

‘Huh, got it! You’re military,’ he said condescendingly, ‘everything is classified for you, even things that aren’t. And what’s the point? The enemy’s early warning systems are much more advanced than ours anyway. Maybe they already see us. Of course, you’d find nothing about this on the news. Sorta, let’s people think that war is going somewhere so, so far away.’

‘And you?’

‘I?’ Oliver looked at James with a strange expression.

‘Well, I mean –’ Now the boy seemed to have guessed because he nodded.

‘You think I have to shake like a leaf?’ he laughed. ‘You don’t shake, eh?’

‘I’m military, as you just noted,’ James responded. The boy nodded again and tapped his tablet for some unknown reason.

‘I’m in service too, if that’s what you mean,’ said he. ‘By the way, Grandpa said if you’re afraid, you should wrap yourself in a white sheet and crawl towards the nearest cemetery. But honestly, I don’t want to go there. On the other hand, after those aliens attacked the station in Moon orbit... I wanna say it doesn’t matter where we are…’ he shrugged. ‘I think so… Okay, go on, finish eating and I’m going. I’m already sleepy-eyed, but I have to study for my exam.’

‘Exam?’

‘To be certified to work with the engineering systems, you must pass a qualifying exam.’

‘D’you need it?’

‘Huh, that’s interesting. Hope you can find your way back on your own.’

‘I’ll try…’

James did not get lost and returned to the squadron location – as Flight Sergeant Rowling called it – in time for a shower before morning formation. The Squadron commander did not turn up this time, and Squadron Leader King said nothing about the change of plans. He just scheduled a regular training flight for an hour later and left. If the senior officers knew what Oliver had told James, they did not show it. James was tempted to share his information with Steve and the other fellows, but thinking a bit, he said nothing. Besides, there was not much time. An hour before the training flight, he had to get a flight plan, make a control check, and enter the plan details into the on-board computer.

Section 2, under the command of Flight Lieutenant Jennings, was ordered to start first. The Flight commander and his wingman started after them, followed by Mike and Kevin. For the second time in recent days, James felt a moment of fear, accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, familiar from training flights in lunar orbit, as his fighter broke away from the launch rail and appeared to begin falling. In a sense, it was. Every object in space is in a constant state of falling. His sensation was one of almost instantaneous weight loss. The fighters were not equipped with an artificial gravity system. With a well-rehearsed movement, he activated the programme. The fighter’s artificial intelligence started the manoeuvring thrusters and steered the vehicle away from the spaceship, following the flight plan.

Neptune appeared before his eyes in all its glory. A giant blue ball appeared on the virtual screen of the pilot’s helmet as soon as the fighter went up over the spacecraft, which was now over the side of Triton facing the giant planet. Closer to one of the planet’s poles, a large dark spot was clearly visible, even at a range of more than 350,000 kilometres separating Neptune from its largest moon. James remembered his physics teacher at school telling them that the first dark spot in Neptune’s atmosphere had been discovered by the Voyager 2 spacecraft at the end of the twentieth century. That spot had soon disappeared, but over the past hundred years or so, similar spots, large and small, appeared not once. This spot James was looking at now was the fifteenth in a row. Not that he was impressed by all this extraterrestrial beauty, but it was fun to watch the changing atmosphere of a giant planet.

Squadron Leader Dutton did not give him much time. He ordered the B-Flight to reorganise into battle formation, maintaining their orbital position. For some time, they moved in the same orbit as the spacecraft. A few minutes later, the next order followed – to set a course for Triton. According to the flight plan, they had to move to a lower orbit, reorganise again, now in marching order, and only then return to Endurance. The second phase was more difficult. The fighter was mainly under on-board artificial intelligence control, but the pilot had plenty to do. James immediately forgot about Neptune and its spots. His eyes followed the constantly changing numbers on the virtual screen. He did not even immediately hear the general call signal, and only then did he realise what the buzzer meant.

‘…done, gentlemen…’ the voice of the Flight Commander came to him. Most likely, Dutton said, ‘Well done.’

‘…go ahead with the plan, but make some changes,’ the commander went on. ‘Once in orbit, disperse by the Gamma 6 plan and meet at the point…’ He dictated the coordinates; James entered new data into the on-board computer. ‘…B-one, out.’

Dutton’s voice fell silent. This seemed to be the surprise the Flight commander had warned about a few days ago. The first training flight had gone according to plan. James felt a shiver run down his spine. Now it was just a matter of orienting themselves to the navigation stars and calculating the course to the rendezvous point with the rest of the fighters and, just in case, with Endurance, considering that the spacecraft in synchronous orbit would make about a quarter of a turn around Triton during that time. During training in lunar orbit, a similar manoeuvre was practised twenty times on simulators before the cadets were allowed to perform it in reality. Just then, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Lewis’s fighter had somehow swerved to the side and pressed the communications button.

‘Bravo 7 to 6. You’re off course. Check your –’

Jennings’s voice cut him off, ‘Bravo 5 to Bravo 7, stand down!’

‘Er… sir… I’m… er…Lewis’s strained voice came to James, accompanied by someone else's, almost immediately covered by the Flight commander’s voice.

‘Attention, everyone! This is B-one speaking. Stop chatting! Bravo 6, report!’

There was silence for a few seconds, and then Lewis’s voice broke through the indistinct rustling and creaking.

‘…aim…’ Static from the planet’s radiation belt drowned out his voice. But now James could see with his own eyes a thin stream coming out of the hull of Fighter 6, just below the cockpit. Nothing like that had ever happened before. He completely forgot what kind of systems were in that part of the fighter and could not imagine what it could mean.

‘…losing…poop…orientat…’ Lewis’s voice broke through the static again, now not just tense, but rather frightened. And there was something to be afraid of. James could see that the Bravo 6 fighter was beginning to spin, and the spin seemed out of control. Having already switched off the transmitter, he flicked the switch again.

‘Bravo 7 to, Bravo 6 turned… er… spinning…’ he said, noticing his voice trembling.

‘Stop flapping,’ the Section commander snapped, against all regulations. ‘I’m seeing,’ he added; in his voice, even distorted by the interference, James sensed something unusual, disturbing, and completely uncharacteristic. Suddenly, he felt a chill run through his body, an icy chill as if he had been thrown overboard without a spacesuit. His hands became clammy; any kind of movement was difficult. The Flight commander’s voice in the headset sounded like Squadron Leader Dutton shouting from somewhere far, billions of miles away,

‘Bravo One to Control, Emergency! I repeat, emergency!’

James did not catch what he said next. His ears were ringing. He thought he had to pull himself together. No matter what happens, there are specific protocols for everything. But he could not remember of any appropriate in this situation.

‘Attention, Bravo One speaking. Bravo 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8 are ordered to return to base. Bravo 3 is in charge. Bravo One, over.’

‘Roger, Bravo One,’ Sergeant Hancock reacted immediately. His voice was absolutely calm as if nothing unusual was happening. ‘Bravo 2, 4, 7 and 8 use backup frequency. Bravo 3, out.’

Gathering his will into a fist, James brought his left hand to the panel and changed the settings. A noticeable click in the headset confirmed the change in frequency. At that moment, Hancock’s voice rang out.

‘Bravo 3, comms check. Report as you hear, over.’

‘I hear well… em… Bravo 4, over.’ James identified Kevin’s voice and repeated his transmission. ‘…What’s next?’ he added because Hancock was silent.

‘Maybe we should stay?’ This was Steve’s voice.

‘Who is this speaking? Identify yourself!’

James had no doubt that Hancock had uttered these words. Only now, the Sergeant’s voice sounded commanding in a way it never had before.

‘Bravo 8. I just wanna –’ Steve started again. Hancock cut him off.

‘The word is given, Bravo 8. Bravo 7, what have you got there, a Robin Hood band?’

‘No, sir.’

James tried to keep Steve from saying too much. However, he also doubted if they should leave Lewis and Jennings, whose fighter was doing strange somersaults, turning the engines on and off as it approached the spinning Bravo 6.

Sergeant Hancock’s voice appeared in headphones again, ‘Bravo 3 to Bravo 7, re-organising according to plan… er…Well, follow me, repeat everything from A to Z. Acknowledge.’

‘Roger, Bravo 3. Bravo 8, stand by. Keep the channel open, Bravo 7, over.’

‘Wilco, old man,’ Steve reacted immediately. ‘Repeat all Bravo 3 manoeuvres from A to Z, keeping the channel open. Bravo 8, out.’

James wondered how his wingman had pulled himself together so quickly. He had to do the same thing that was not so easy. Now, it was urgently necessary to focus on controlling the fighter because the artificial intelligence needed more instructions from the pilot in such a situation. He felt himself going from cold to feverish, probably from tension. Numbers spun around in his head, which he had to divide and multiply instantly as his hands moved along the control panel, changing the power of the manoeuvring thrusters according to the speed of movement in space, which was the noticeable difference between atmospheric flight and space flight. He did not breathe a sigh of relief until the navigational indicator signalled that the course was set, and the sustainer thrusters switched on for a fraction of a second, giving the fighter the necessary acceleration. He did not manage to fit directly into the tail of the leading Bravo 3, but he thought that was not so important.

What was going on with Lewis’s fighter worried him the most. He even wanted to switch the receiver back to the previous frequency and listen to the conversations between the Flight commander and others, but there was no time. Suddenly, an unfamiliar object appeared on the left side of the virtual screen. From the outline, James guessed it was a transport craft – probably the same one Oliver had told him about this morning – and it had come at the worst possible moment.

The distance was still long, but the speed of any object in space was also significant. It became clear that the trajectory of the five fighters would intersect with that of the transport craft. For some reason, perhaps preoccupied with an emergency, Mission Control forgot to warn them of the transport craft’s approach. Or James lost contact with Mission Control when he changed frequencies.

‘Attention, Bravo 3 speaking. Vector change: thirty degrees, elevation fifteen, out,’ Sergeant Hancock had caught on at the last moment, but a new problem had arisen. James noticed that Steve’s fighter was suddenly accelerating, moving further and further away from the course set by their Five’s commander. ‘Bravo 3 to 8, what are you…’

The Sergeant continued, but James no longer heard him. The hull of the transport craft suddenly covered most of the virtual screen. He made a mistake and lost sight of the craft without following Hancock’s instructions. It seemed to him that he had done everything necessary, but it turned out that he had done nothing; the fighter continued on the same course. He only had a few seconds to think, and they passed quickly. He was thrown back into the heat. Barely in control of his actions, he grabbed the joystick and pulled. Nothing happened, nothing at all. His fighter continued to move in a straight line directly towards the transport craft.

James was thrown back into a state of fever, and only then he realised that nothing should have happened. A stupid mistake cost him those few seconds. The aft manoeuvring thruster was what he had to do: start the aft manoeuvring thruster and only then move the joystick, which would divert the plasma flow and force the fighter to change direction. His hand shook, but he managed to engage the thruster, pull the joystick back, and immediately disengage it, but that was enough. The hull of the transport craft went down and disappeared, and Triton reappeared in James’s helmet-view screen.

Now, he had to cancel the impulse to change direction. Otherwise, the fighter would describe the loop and end up where it was not supposed to be. He achieved this, only guessing at the last moment to use the main engine to keep the fighter in orbit and avoid falling into the blue giant’s largest moon gravitational pull. The fighter’s artificial intelligence did the rest, keeping it in orbit. James breathed a sigh of relief.

‘Bravo 3 to Bravo 7, what was that?’ Sergeant Hancock’s voice came into James’s headphones. He did not respond immediately, still under the influence of what had happened.

‘Hmm… I’m wrong… commander…’

‘Wilco…’ There was no emotion in the Sergeant’s voice. ‘…As a result, we are now almost in antiphase with the spacecraft,’ he continued. ‘Looks like I was wrong, too. Let’s hope the control doesn’t notice. Otherwise, I don’t even know how they would meet us.

‘I doubt that with flowers,’ said James, leaning back in the pilot’s seat. What he wanted most now was to feel the grip of the landing rail on the Flight Deck …

… but it did not happen soon. Having made the necessary calculations, Mike Hancock ordered his party into high orbit, where they would have to wait more than eight hours for the Endurance to complete a full revolution around Neptune’s largest moon to synchronise speed and landing. Sergeant Hancock contacted the group several more times, among other things, to report that a large shuttle had been sent from Endurance to take Lewis’s damaged fighter in tow.

James had never observed the towing of a spaceship by another before, and he still had not done so now. They were too far away from the crash site. The external view cameras had long since lost sight of the remaining fighters, and only a few dots could be distinguished on the sensors, almost merging into one spot. Mission Control called them again only once. The impassive voice, to whom it belonged – he was unaware – gave the order to wait for permission to land.

The cantaloupe terrain of Triton floated left. Neptune hung overhead. The sensor data seemed extraordinary. It took a few minutes for James to guess that these signals were coming from the Adams ring, the farthest of the planet’s six rings, made up, like all the others, of interplanetary dust and ice and thus almost invisible to the human eye, and only from close range. He even thought he was dozing off when, after a long wait, he finally got the order to prepare for a landing approach.