They were baptized by fire in the first, most terrible days of the war. They were the first to strike back at the “lair of the beast” - Soviet long-range aviation bombed Bucharest and Berlin in the summer of 1941. They were accustomed to long hours of night flights and exhaustive combat work, to lack of sleep and mortal fatigue, to breaking through anti-aircraft fire and fighting with German fighters. But how can you get used to the loss of friends who died before your eyes, burned alive in the damaged “silts”, but did not deviate from the combat course... Front-line everyday life and air battles, desperate raids deep behind enemy lines and even more dangerous work along the front line , victories and losses - in the first novel about long-range aviation pilots.