A huge stone fragment, dotted with small cosmic particles, causing its surface to be covered with tiny craters and fractures, wandered in the darkness of space for hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of years. Nothing disturbed his peace and loneliness. The trajectory of the debris has long been stabilized and the rock did not carry a threat to other objects of the system.

The Central computer of the interstellar medium “Goliath 700–14” came to different conclusions. The first calculation, immediately upon leaving hyperspace, showed that the possibility of a collision is 94% out of a hundred possible! Estimated time to contact 85 seconds. Maneuver dodging is no longer possible. A protective diffraction field will withstand beyond doubt, but why take the risk when on such unforeseen cases (when the asteroids do not count for the course) - is there a clear instruction?

Here, a violet flash was reflected on the dark gray surface of the rock, and then, a laser beam struck instantly turned the fragment into a haze of slightly phosphorescent dust.

"Goliath 700-14" entered the system Salvari and right from the periphery, where an asteroid threatening the starship was destroyed, rushed towards the main component of the system - the red giant of the M-21 class. Huge greenish clouds of cosmic dust, illuminated by purple-orange reflections and flashes of light, were right on the course. But at the right moment, the Goliath 700-14 began to change the flight path in order to go around the dangerous area and continue its movement along the system boundary. But before doing this, the interstellar carrier performed the undock operation. In the lower part of its building there was a detachable module - an automatic controlled station “Lunar Prospector-6” of the MASSPI class or, in dry official language, an international automatic station for the collection of mineral resources. The crew of the station was to conduct and complete their work within 90 to standard hours. After that, the goliath 700-14, which has rounded the system, will pick it up and go home - towards the solar system.

Since the cosmic forces of the OFZN (United Federation of Peoples of the Earth) went into deep space, mankind, settled on dozens of worlds, required even more resources. Especially this need has increased after the war with the vegan colonies. And although peace was made with the enemy two years ago, it was too shaky and unreliable and the fire of the new war threatened from a local conflict, as it was at first, to develop into a full-scale armed confrontation that would sweep dozens of systems and huge sectors of the Galaxy.

Salvari's system was located on the border of the sector mastered by humanity and in close proximity to one of the vegan colonies. Therefore, the “Goliath 700–14” was not just a carrier of resources, but also a military space base, which had everything necessary for a long and serious confrontation with the supposed enemy. A spaceship in the form of a highly elongated disk with a multitude of superstructures and decks, launching pits for thermonuclear missiles and fighters was not for nothing got its name. From the bow to the stern, its length was 3.5 km, the width from side to side at the widest point was more than 900 meters. Separated from the carrier "Moon Prospector-6", also had an impressive size. It was a device in the form of a hexagonal prism, reaching, both in length and in width of a thousand meters.Three technical levels, as well as one residential and one auxiliary as a whole, were one hundred fifty meters high. Cyclopean storage cylinders were mounted on all six faces of the station.

The Lunar Stabler had autonomous control and a separate team. A set of twelve propulsion systems allowed him to maneuver as he liked. But the station could not make a hyperspace transition by itself. For this, she was always accompanied by an interstellar carrier equipped with a tachyon hyperdrive.

* * *

Sergei Ivashov’s duty had just begun. Having settled down in the navigation cabin in front of the control panel, he glanced at the central viewing screen and pulled a fruit cocktail through a straw, where, at his personal request, the automaton bartender added a few drops of the gorgeous Skivion liqueur, which is produced only in the Tau system on the planet Skive - 24. Chair it was comfortable with a high back and could move along the dashboard even to the right even to the left. On the central screen - a kind of imitation of a huge rectangular window, the image on which was built with the help of pee-view beams opened a magnificent view. Along the course, a gas-dust cloud of rich green color with inclusions of violet and dark blue shapeless spots stretched for many millions of kilometers in all directions. The light of the red giant, reaching the clouds, painted its upper layers in the most inconceivable shades from crimson-red to bronze-golden. And all this was in constant motion — it flared, sparkled, and sometimes changed shape and density. On-board sensors emitting PI rays that exceed the speed of light many times reproduced the image on the screen in real time, adjusting the speed convenient and acceptable for the perception of human eyes. In other words, Sergei saw what was happening around him at the moment, and not the past event, which came to him in the form of such a visual echo.

The cloud was in the shape of a horseshoe and covered a significant system space. But in the sector where Lunar Prospector 6 was heading now, its extremity was and slowly a giant planet was floating in its orbit, surrounded by a couple of hundreds of asteroid rings.

Argonis is a milky white gas giant with dark brown streaks. White is a monstrous accumulation of methane. Brown streaks - fimenol. Yes, the crew will have something to do. For the allotted time you need to pump out billions of cubic meters of gas. Asteroid rings, too, were of considerable value. The first reconnaissance expedition sent here a month ago found the richest deposits of nickel and iron in these stones.

After finishing the cocktail, Sergey threw a plastic cup into a special garbage collector that opened at the bottom of the console. The indicator eye that flashed with a red light that was located nearby showed that the process of waste-free processing had begun.

So, his duty will last four hours, exactly as long as it takes the station, which is now moving on autopilot, to enter the nearest orbit of Argonis. Then Lana will replace him.

Lana ...

Every time when he remembered the second mate, Sergei was boiling with blood. The non-statutory relations between senior officers in the navy were not encouraged, and there were many reasons for this. But what to do if Lana is such a woman that her brain is completely turned off when she sees her, and a member is tearing from her pants? And she herself turned out to be such a hot little thing that she couldn’t overcome the hormone blast when she saw the first mate. But everything was normal both with him and with her before they were transferred to serve at one station. All psychological and other tests gave the norm, the commission of clever men who decide who and where to go to serve and whom they work with did not reveal to either Sergey or Lana anything that could serve as an obstacle to working on Lunar Staratet class vessels and to occupy officer posts. But their very first meeting in a bar showed that the selection commission had miscalculated. Miscalculated in full.

They met at 3:00 pm ship time, and at 5:00 pm they were already in Lana’s cabin where they had organized something they didn’t expect from themselves.

Sergey, that to conceal it was never deprived of women's attention, but it just so happened that after living in the world for three decades, he never met the one with whom he would like to start a family and raise children. Perhaps the reason was his work with the eternal flights from one star system to another. Growth 1–87 favorably emphasized his strong build, pleasant facial features immediately attracted to him, like his always sincere smile, and blue eyes with surprisingly long eyelashes and fluffy for men ...