Vek closed his eyes and rubbed them with the heels of his hands. A headache had been growing in the space behind his eyes for hours now. The pain was becoming sharper as the adrenaline of the first days of their flight drained, and they had pushed further towards Jupiter and the system core beyond. Everyone was the same, though. He had heard the crew muttering to each other about their dreams after they returned from the few hours most of them had managed to sleep.

Everything was fraying. There had been incidents: shouted arguments between superiors and subordinates. This was a civilian ship, a short-range freighter. Its crew were not military and the habits of authority and command were barely surviving this new reality. And the refugees in the hold… He had gone down to see them every day until today. The last time he had stepped into the holds they had swarmed not to him but towards the door, and there had been a blank-eyed desperation to them.

Refugees… Isn’t that what they all were now?

‘Signal intensity altering!’ said Chi-32-Beta. ‘Secondary signal return detaching from the primary. Plotting location and vector.’

‘What is happening?’ he asked.

‘A second return has separated from the first. It is smaller, and not sensor baffled. In more easily parsed terms, the ship that we detected has launched a shuttle- or lighter-sized void-craft. It is visible to our auspex. I am using it to extrapolate data on the primary return.’ The tech-priest was silent for a second. Vek heard a metallic whir from inside her mask that made him think of a sharp inhalation. ‘Recommend brace condition and immediate internal lockdown!’

The officers of the bridge woke from lethargy into panicked motion. Crimson lights began to blink and strobe.

Vek started towards the tech-priest, but she was already calling out.

‘They are very close – they must have been gaining on us for hours, and the smaller craft that they have launched is approaching directly and swiftly.’

‘What is it?’

‘I would speculate that it is a class of assault craft.’ The tech-priest rotated her head on her shoulders to look fully at Vek. Her eyes were two circles of crystal-brushed steel. ‘They mean to board us.’

‘How long?’ Vek asked, and as though in reply a machine-voice boomed from vox-speakers across the bridge.

‘Brace! Ten seconds to impact! Brace!’

Vek turned to look at the viewport in time to see a sleek shape fall on them like a fiery arrow shot from the night.

All those people gone, just gone, and Vek did not even pause…

Pulled a gun, yes, he pulled a gun, and what choice did you have then?

You had to. He left the captain. He killed her. What choice did you have?

None.

And all for his brats. All to keep two rich little brats alive.

How many died?