Captain Sikorsky ((install)) <EASY ⇒>

“Unknown craft,” he said, slow and clear. “This is Captain Viktor Sikorsky, Russian Naval Aviation. You are cleared to fly in formation. Maintain five hundred meter separation. Acknowledge.”

“Co-pilot, you seeing this?”

It was three in the morning over the Barents Sea. His Il-38 patrol aircraft hummed steady, its belly full of sonobuoys and magnetic anomaly detectors. The northern lights flickered green and violet beyond the cockpit glass. Then—between one breath and the next—a shape emerged from the glow. Not a missile. Not a weather balloon. A disc. Smooth as polished bone, rimmed with a soft amber ring of light that pulsed like a slow heartbeat. captain sikorsky

A pause. The disc’s amber ring pulsed three times—green, blue, green. Then a synthetic voice, gentle and accentless, came through the speakers: “Acknowledged, Captain Sikorsky. Maintain heading. We will guard your starboard side. The sky is cold, but you are not alone.”

Co-pilot Zhukov leaned forward, his mustache brushing the instrument panel. “Da. Big. No transponder. No heat signature. No radar return until thirty seconds ago, and now it’s… just sitting there.” “Unknown craft,” he said, slow and clear

Today, something asked to fly with me. And for one night, the sky was not an empty battlefield.

“I know what protocol says,” Sikorsky interrupted. Report unknown contact. Do not engage. Do not deviate from mission flight path. But protocols assumed the unknown was a new Russian missile or a NATO drone. Not this. Not a thing that asked permission to fly beside you. Maintain five hundred meter separation

“Wait,” Sikorsky said into the mic. “Who are you?”