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begin with and have done with it?’
    ‘I suspect they were having too much fun making a game of picking off selected targets until you arrived,’ said Aidan. ‘Now they want to make sure neither you nor anyone else ever has any reason to return to the planet. That proton bomb will ensure nothing can grow or live on the planet surface for at least fifty Sol years.’
    ‘Including the Mazon. They’ve ruined that planet for everyone, themselves too,’ I said.
    Aidan shrugged. ‘They obviously believe that’s a small price to pay.’
    I couldn’t take any more. The opposite end of the universe wouldn’t be enough space between me and the Mazon at that moment. What had happened in the past had been an accident, tragic and terrible, but an accident nonetheless. The Mazon however refused to believe that.
    ‘Get us out of here. Maximum speed.’
    I sat back in my chair and closed my eyes. The Mazon didn’t have to do that, slaughter innocent people. They were renowned for their xenophobia and considered all the planets in this system as theirs and theirs alone. But to massacre so many just to make a point . . .
    Those people on the surface never stood a chance.
    It barely registered that Aidan was walking towards me. Before I knew what he had planned, I felt a sharp scratch against my neck.
    ‘Ow! What the hell, Aidan?’
    ‘It’s medication to counter your radiation poisoning from the Mazon engines,’ said Aidan. ‘It also contains something for your burns. You needed it now before your body goes into shock.’
    ‘I repeat. Dahell! I could’ve done it,’ I said, annoyed.
    ‘Yes, but you didn’t. And what is the point of swearing? I’ve often wondered.’ Aidan returned to his seat at the navigation panel.
    Glaring at him, I rubbed my neck where he’d just injected me. I appreciated his concern but I really could’ve done it myself. My neck was beginning to hurt where I was rubbing it. My skin would be ultra-sensitive for the next twelve hours at least, but I counted myself lucky to still be alive to feel it, unlike all those poor people left behind.
    ‘Where are the survivors now?’ I asked Aidan.
    ‘In the cargo hold. Now that they’ve all been decontaminated, d’you want me to allow them to leave that area?’
    ‘Of course. They’re not our prisoners,’ I frowned. ‘Let them come up to the bridge.’
    ‘We know nothing about them,’ said Aidan. ‘Are you sure about this?’
    ‘I’m sure,’ I replied. ‘Direct them up here so they can be registered.’
    Aidan’s fingers tapped and slid over the command console before him. He operated that thing like a maestro. He was far faster than I could ever hope to be when operating the controls and I never tired of watching him work.
    ‘So who are our new guests?’ I asked after a while.
    ‘Twelve males, ten females, including two children,’ Aidan replied.
    Children?
    ‘Why on earth did they bring children to somewhere so dangerous?’ I said, horrified.
    ‘You’d have to ask them that, not me,’ said Aidan.
    Two children. How many more had been on Barros 5?
    Vee, stop it! You did your best. What else could you have done?
    ‘Vee, concentrate on the ones you
did
manage to help. They’d all be dead if it wasn’t for you.’
    I took a deep breath and forced a smile. My brother was right. I had to focus on the positive. After everything that had happened, to concentrate on anything else might send me over the edge.



8
    A strange, strangled hush had descended on the cargo hold. Darren was kneeling on the ground, with his head in his hands, grief making his whole body quake. The ship we were on was still rising, juddering and jolting as we moved through the planet’s atmosphere, leaving our friends and loved ones behind. I looked around, shaking my head. There were so few of us left. At first glance I’d say around twenty-odd. Would we get the chance to rescue the others before the Mazon wiped them out? Without warning, the ship shook