Sophia McDougall - Mars Evacuees

After that he bounded over to the little kid, who was clearly his brother, and wrapped a damp arm round his head just to be annoying. The little one wriggled away and lamented, ‘Why’d ya have to do things like that, Kuya?’

‘Oh, what was going to happen? There was a ladder right there! I’m not a moron .’

‘Oh yeah?’ said the little kid. ‘And are there hammerhead sharks? A big metal beam under the water? You don’t know! And you’re in massive trouble!’

‘Yeah, well,’ Carl-or-Kuya said. ‘It was worth it.’

The little one sighed heavily and went off to try and feed a seagull.

Before any of us had really got our breath back from this incident, there was a cascade of noise from overhead – sonic boom after sonic boom – and people started pointing excitedly upwards, where sure enough a small flight of spacefighters had just punched through the atmosphere and were blazing down across the blue sky. And evidently they weren’t alone up there, because as they plunged they were wheeling and swooping and dodging and firing into what looked like a completely empty sky. Except that sometimes, just for a shaving of a second when they took a hit, you could see the outline of the Morror ships – U-shaped and transparent in the rays, flickering like ghosts. A Flarehawk looped backwards from a shockray blast. There was a mixture of cheers and screams from the kids on the platform, depending on how often they’d seen this sort of thing before.

In my case? Often enough that I didn’t make any noise. Not so often that my chest didn’t get tight either. Spaceship battles would be very pretty, if you could forget you might be about to watch someone die.

The EDF seemed to agree that it was time to get us off the planet. All the doors of the Mélisande sprang open and soldiers started hurrying us inside one National Group at a time, which meant Carl and the other Australians were soon on board but there was a lot of hanging about for those of us from countries down at the bottom of the alphabet like ‘United Kingdom’.

‘This is ridiculous! You are going to get us all killed!’ burst out a tall blonde girl in expensive sunglasses in the Swedish section. None of the EDF officers took any notice, and she subsided into complaining loudly to the few other Swedish kids.

At last I got jostled down an aisle and into a seat by a window, and at first I was too busy trying to look out to take in much about the inside of the ship. We could still hear the battle shrieking and booming, but no matter how uncomfortably I strained against my seat belt and pressed to the window I couldn’t see it, which somehow made it a lot more nerve-wracking and no one was cheering at all any more.

A trio of EDF officers assembled at the front of the cabin. ‘I’m Captain Mendez,’ said the man in the middle. ‘Everyone stay calm. You’re perfectly safe. The walls of this ship are strong enough to withstand any stray shockrays.’

He had a nice reassuring voice, but the effect was rather undermined by the crewwoman next to him nodding vigorously and adding, ‘ Mostly strong enough.’

Forty or so hands went up at that, but no one seemed to be in the mood to be taking questions. Captain Mendez just scowled and said, ‘ Thank you , Sergeant Kawahara,’ to the crewwoman and, ‘We’ll be leaving very shortly,’ to us and then he strode away again.

And yet we didn’t move. The windows flashed with the Morrors’ shockrays and we just sat there. I twisted around in my seat belt trying to see what the hold-up was. The Mélisande must have been some kind of luxury tourist liner before the war. It was all curved pearly surfaces and on the wall beside my head was a faded poster of a couple with champagne glasses in their hands, gazing soppily back at the Earth with the slogan ‘Archangel Planetary: Taking You to the Stars!’ But the shiny walls were lined with scars where the luxurious private cabins had been ripped out and sensible military fixtures had been bolted in. Now the ship was crammed with padded benches for both sitting and sleeping on. They were arranged in pairs with a table and a little curtain that could go around the two of you, and that was all the privacy you got.

But there wasn’t anyone on the bench opposite me.

Why wouldn’t there be someone on the bench opposite me?

The few crew members who seemed to be in charge of us kept stalking around looking tense with their communicators beeping all the time. I heard one of them whispering to another. ‘We’re just going to have to go without them!’

‘Who’s missing?’ Kayleigh was saying, a few seats back from me. ‘What’s happened to them? Have the Morrors got them?’

‘Come on, we have to move,’ yelled the angry Swedish girl from before.

Instead of actually talking to us, the EDF people let the ship do it. And apparently the ship’s idea of a useful contribution was to start playing twinkly music and waterfall noises. ‘ Please relax and stay in your seats, ’ crooned a soothing, automated voice. ‘ Imagine a stream of healing energy flowing through you …’

Outside, something – one of our ships or one of theirs, we didn’t know – exploded. I was hurting the palms of my hands by digging my fingernails into them. I tried to remind myself that there was no particular reason the Morrors should bother with a passenger ship trying to LEAVE the planet.

Then there was a roaring sound very close that rattled everyone, but it was just an ordinary plane landing on the platform. All the crew’s communicators started beeping even more furiously and finally a door opened, and twenty kids ran up into the cabin, looking rather agitated to say the least.

Before they’d even sat down, the door had slammed itself shut and there was a whirr and a lurch as the spaceship’s legs retracted. And then we were moving, skimming low over the Atlantic: I looked out and saw it melt into a dark-blue blur. Already the artificial gravity was working against the drag of the natural stuff, which meant you didn’t fall about as much as you would have done otherwise but felt very odd. None of us was used to it and some people were sick into the bags provided. Luckily I don’t throw up very easily, but it made me feel as if I was being hit lightly but persistently all over with tablespoons.

And then we were beginning to climb. One of the new arrivals came staggering down the aisle and toppled into the seat opposite me, panting. ‘Hello,’ she said. To my surprise, she was English too.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said, as we shot upwards into the flashing blue sky.

Earth fought to hold on to us – we could feel its pull in our bones, and in the way the ship shivered. But we dragged stubbornly on, and the planet dropped away. And then there’s that moment when the surface you’re leaving curves in on itself and the horizon bends into a circle and you see the world really is round after all. Even though you know it’s going to happen, it’s still like the biggest, most shocking conjuring trick ever.

Now we could see the bands of white at the poles, pressing in on the bright stripe of colour in the middle. Here and there, the world glittered with little sparks which were explosions and shockray fights.

The girl opposite me whispered, ‘Beautiful,’ with a sort of break in her voice.

She was pressed as close to the window as she could get. The ship, mercifully, had stopped advising us all to imagine we were relaxing in a sunlit glade and everything felt strangely quiet and still. I don’t think I answered; I just stared back as the Earth got smaller and smaller behind us.

Then she added thoughtfully, ‘I’ve forgotten my suitcase.’