“If you want peace, prepare for war” is not a slogan, it is one of the basic principles of the development of civilization on Earth, a planet from the outskirts of the Galaxy. Having suffered through millennia of internecine wars, this principle remained a priority in the activities of Earthlings after the unification of humanity. The rest of the Galaxy has long forgotten about bloody wars, the army, and military operations. But, as it turned out, not all of it. The renegades have only just emerged, they have just begun to flex their muscles, but if a gun appears, it must fire. The peaceful passenger liner became the first victim of the aggressiveness of the newly emerged contenders for world conquest. And he died, throwing out the rescue capsule with the children at the last moment... The book is the first part of the novel “The Price of Victory,” part of the cycle of the same name.