The Empire's Corps: Book 05 - The Outcast

by Christopher Nuttall

  She felt a twinge of guilt for giving the kids such orders, but there was no choice. Besides, the hijackers had thrown her into interplanetary space, fully expecting her to die in the cold vacuum. A few more minutes, she suspected, and they would have gotten their wish. She scowled as she felt the ship’s drives suddenly growing stronger, as if the hijackers were trying to squeeze more speed out of the ancient systems.

  Steve must be panicking, she thought, grimly. She knew just how much work he’d put into the drives over the years, replacing as much as he could just to keep them running for a few more months. But there was nothing he could do to save the ship he loved.

  “Hold here,” she ordered, and peeked down towards the hold. There was an unpleasant smell in the air, but no sign of anyone with a gun. Carefully, she slipped further down and peered into the hold itself, sucking in a breath when she saw the scene in front of her. The remaining refugees – and Ethne and Jayne – were lying on the deck, their hands tied behind their backs. Again, there was no sign of any of the hijackers.

  She removed the strip of tape over Ethne’s mouth, then released her hands. “I’ve got the kids,” she muttered, “but everyone else is on the bridge, apart from James.”

  “He was meant to be in engineering,” Jayne said, once she pulled the gag away. “What happened on the bridge?”

  Sameena explained – and then had to endure the doctor examining her face and hands. “You may need some surgery later,” Jayne said, finally. “Vacuum damage isn’t hard to repair, but if you leave it too long it can leave scars.”

  “Leave that for the moment,” Ethne said. “Why are they powering up the drive?”

  She started to walk out of the hold. Jayne caught her. “What about them?” She asked, nodding to the remaining refugees. “They’re clearly not on the wrong side.”

  “We can't trust them,” Ethne said, flatly. “Leave them here until we regain control of our ship.”

  Outside, Ethne found some additional weapons and ammunition, then used her terminal to access the datanet. “We’re heading back towards the planet,” she said, in surprise. “And picking up speed. That’s worrying.”

  Jayne nodded. “I thought they wanted to leave the planet,” she said. “Or ...”

  “They’re taking us right back to Orbit One,” Ethne said. “I think they plan to ram the station.”

  Sameena frowned. She might not have known anything about orbital trajectories before she'd joined the crew, but she’d learned a great deal since then. “There are three starships in the system,” she pointed out. “Surely one of them will intercept us before we hit the station.”

  “Almost certainly,” Ethne said. “But there are children on this ship. They may hesitate – or they may simply blow us away. Either way, we die.”

  She looked over at Jayne. “I want you and the kids to go to engineering,” she ordered. “If James is there, get him free and then shut down the drives. Don’t worry about anything else, just stop us from heading towards the station. Sameena and I will go get them out of the bridge.”

  Jayne nodded. “Understood,” she said. She looked over at Sameena. “You watch yourself, all right? And don't let my husband get himself killed. He’s through with heroics.”

  Sameena nodded, although she didn't understand quite what Sameena meant. Ethne passed her a pair of spare clips of ammunition, then led the way towards the ladder leading up to deck one. If the terrorists suspected anything, Sameena realised, they’d have someone posted on the ladder, watching for trouble.

  “It’s possible,” Ethne agreed, when Sameena said that out loud. “If this was a bigger ship, we could go through the tubes and surprise them, but there isn't any other choice.”

  “We could go through the airlock again,” Sameena said. “Or ...”

  Ethne shook her head. “Far too easy to get trapped in the airlock,” she reminded her. “That would be a good way to turn ourselves back into prisoners.”

  She scowled as they reached the ladder. “Once we get out of this, I’m going to insist that we strip-search everyone who comes onboard,” she added. “We should have searched the bastards for weapons, but we just took it for granted that they wouldn't have been allowed to keep them in the camps. Someone must have taken a fairly hefty bribe.”

  Sameena looked over at her. “Who are they?”

  “The Imperial Navy is backing one faction on the planet’s surface,” Ethne said, as she inspected her terminal. “Logically, one or more of the other factions would want to destroy Orbit One and make it harder for the Navy to operate here. Even if they failed, the new security precautions would be so irksome that fewer merchant ships would wish to visit.”

  She grinned, suddenly. “There’s no one up there.”

  Sameena blinked in surprise. “How can you tell?”

  Ethne showed her the terminal, which was linked to the life support monitors. “If someone was up there, there would be a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the corridor,” she said, shortly. She scrambled up the ladder and pushed open the hatch. “But you still need to be quiet.”

  Sameena nodded as she joined Ethne. Logan no longer felt entirely friendly, as if the ship had been violated by the enemy. Cold rage burned in her, fuelling her determination to help liberate her new family and destroy the hijackers before they could turn her new home into a weapon. She was not going to let them get away with this.

  The ship trembled, then the sound of the drives faded away. “She must have succeeded,” Ethne muttered. “If they’d burned out the drives, we would probably have lost gravity as well.”

  Ahead of them, the hatch to the bridge opened, revealing two of the hijackers. They stared at Sameena as if they’d seen a ghost, giving Ethne a chance to get the drop on them. She levelled her weapon at the pair, daring them to move. There was a long pause, then the hijackers started to stumble backwards. Ethne barked at them to stay where they were and keep their hands where she could see them. Instead, the leader peeked out of the hatch and stared at them. He had never expected to see Sameena again.

  “We still have your friends hostage,” he said, his voice inhumanly calm. “And we have control of your ship.”

  “No, you don’t,” Ethne said. “We have control of the drives now and the Imperial Navy is on their way. Tell me – what were you thinking? They would have blown this ship into little pieces of debris before they let it get within ramming distance of the station.”

  The hijacker glared at her. “So we wait and blow the ship when the Marines arrive,” he said. “It’s still a win.”

  “No, because the ship won’t explode on your command,” Ethne said. She snorted, rudely. “This isn't a warship with a self-destruct system, you know. You couldn't even convince the drives to explode if you worked on them for hours – and you knew precisely what you were doing, which you don’t. You really need to surrender now.”

  “So you take us out of the system instead,” the hijacker said. His voice was starting to crack, as if he’d realised that he might well be able to die for nothing. “Get us somewhere else, like you agreed ...”

  “I think our contract is moot now,” Ethne said, dryly. “Besides, do you know that we cannot hope to outrun the Imperial Navy? They could give us a few hours to run and then still chase us down before we cross the Phase Limit. If you surrender, you might ...”

  The hijacker pulled a knife out of his sleeve and threw it at her. Sameena reacted on instinct, shoving Ethne to one side and then shooting the hijacker through the head. She saw, through a cold haze that had descended over her mind, him crumpling to the deck, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. The first two hijackers lunged at her; she shot them both, then staggered backwards as one crashed into her. She hit the deck and winced as her head smacked against the cold metal.

  “Good work,” she heard Ethne say, through a haze of pain. The weight on her body – the hijacker, she realised – was dragged away. “Very good work.”

  Sameena sat upright,
feeling the world spinning around her. She’d killed. The mere thought of killing someone had bothered her after Paddy had started giving her shooting lessons, but when the time had come she’d just ... acted. And she hadn't panicked when they’d tried to shoot her into interplanetary space without a spacesuit either. She’d remained calm and done what needed to be done.

  There was a nasty red stain on her shipsuit, she saw. Blood; the hijacker’s blood. Only one of the hijackers had survived, although she knew that the rest of the refugees had concealed them. Had they been forced into it or had they been willing collaborators? There was no way to tell.

  “Call Jayne,” Ethne was saying. Her voice seemed very distant. The deck seemed to be buckling under her weight, as if the internal compensators had started to fail. But that was impossible, wasn't it? They’d all be dead if the compensators failed. “Sameena needs help ...”

  The next thing she knew was that she was in the sickbay. Jayne was bending over her, examining Sameena’s forehead. Her head was pounding unpleasantly – for a terrible moment, she was sure that she was about to throw up – and her body felt numb all over.

  “Lie still,” Jayne ordered. There was a flat tone in her voice that brooked no argument. “I’ve done basic repair work, but it will take some time for your body to settle down.”

  Sameena tried to nod, but even that motion made her head feel worse. Instead, she just lay still, fighting the urge to whimper. Tiny sparkles of pain were starting to break through the numbness, tearing away at her mind. Part of her just wanted to surrender to the darkness and go back to sleep forever.

  “Diving into space like that,” Jayne said. She shook her head in disbelief. “If you’d done that deliberately, sweetheart, there wouldn't be a single ship that would take you on as a crewwoman. As it is, we’ll have to make sure that the story is told and retold before someone starts their own version. The clans chatter a lot, you know.”

  I didn't mean to, Sameena wanted to say, but her mouth refused to work.

  “Your face, thankfully, didn't require more than basic repair work,” Jayne added. “Some frostbite to your hands and feet, which is more serious, but I’ve injected you with quick-heal, seeing that the Imperial Navy is picking up the bill. They’re quite embarrassed over what happened to us – and almost happened to the station.”

  Sameena tried to look a question at her. “It seems that they also want to offer a large cash reward,” Jayne added, after a moment. “Those refugees” – she made the word a curse – “included one of the deadliest killers on the wrong side – the one the Imperial Navy isn't backing. Turns out that someone in the Navy took a huge bribe to look the other way when he and his team forced their way into the refugee camp and rounded up some women and children to go with them, pretending to be their families. They were told that if they didn't cooperate, the remainder of their families would be killed.”

  She smiled. “Mum was talking about taking them with us when we leave, but I don’t know what will happen to them. They don’t really have much to offer, apart from their bodies – and they’ve already been badly abused. Maybe we can find something else for them.”

  Set up some schooling, Sameena thought. It would tie in with the plan she was slowly putting together, piece by piece, in her mind. Maybe see if we can turn the kids into proper engineers.

  Jayne shrugged, unaware of Sameena’s thoughts. “Brad will be pleased,” she said. “A large cash reward split between the crew will help him accomplish his dream much sooner. The rest of us will no doubt find uses for the cash, in time.”

  Good for him, Sameena thought. She already knew how she was going to spend hers. Good for all of us.

  “I’m going to sedate you again now,” Jayne added. “You’re going to be in my sickbay for a few more days, unless the Imperial Navy can offer better facilities. When you wake up, you should be much better. And thank you. You saved us all.”

  She leaned over, kissed Sameena lightly on the forehead and placed something against the side of her head. Sameena felt a faint spark ... and then she plunged down into darkness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  This may seem contradictory. However, the true foundations of wealth lay in production, rather than stockpiles of money. Gold actually lost value while it rested in a bank vault; it was only when it was turned into produce that it gained value. A sudden influx of gold caused the overall value of gold to decline. In effect, the supply had suddenly outstripped demand. The Spanish failed to use the windfall to build up their position before the economy adjusted for its arrival.

  - Professor Leo Caesius. The Science That Isn’t: Economics and the Decline and Fall of the Galactic Empire.

  “They stiffed us,” Brad said, four days later. “A lousy ten thousand credits each?”

  “And a promise of supplies from Madagascar Base, and first dibs on any future contracts,” Ethne said. “I don’t think we did too badly.”

  “But they also want us to keep it quiet,” Brad growled. “Other crews might make the same mistake.”

  Sameena tuned out the argument. She couldn't blame Brad for being annoyed; if Logan had been destroyed, they would have been unable to obtain a new starship with the compensation they’d been given. But it wasn't as if they’d had much choice. The only alternative had been to bail out and hope that the navy could rescue them. It hadn't even crossed their minds as they sought to recover their bridge.

  She looked down at her hands, shivering. Jayne had repaired all of the physical damage – no one could tell that she’d ever been injured – but the whole affair had left scars on her soul. She’d killed ... and she felt nothing, apart from mild regret. It bothered her that she felt so little. And that she’d done so well, even though she had been raised to avoid fighting at all costs. It wasn't considered a feminine occupation on Jannah.

  Paddy snorted, loudly enough to catch her attention. “The Navy can’t give us a few million credits each,” he said, crossly. “Just be glad they’re not trying to bill us for the rescue.”

  He stalked off the bridge, heading down towards the galley. After a moment, Sameena followed him. They would need to prepare water and ration bars for the remainder of the refugees, who had elected to go to Madagascar anyway. There was nothing left for them on their homeworld.

  “I need to ask you something,” she said, once they were alone. “You used to be in the military, right?”

  Paddy studied her for a long moment, his gaze reminding her that – by the strict social mores of her homeworld – she shouldn't be alone with him, even if Jayne had been her biological sister. But she felt no particular guilt or shame any longer.

  “I am a retired Marine,” Paddy said, finally. “Why do you ask?”

  Sameena hesitated. “I killed them,” she said. She’d killed three of the hijackers personally; the remaining two had been handed over to the Imperial Navy, who would interrogate and then execute them. “And yet I feel ... almost nothing.”

  “You handled yourself well in a crisis,” Paddy said. “I’ve known more experienced officers and crewmen who would have panicked when they were thrust into space.”

  “All of your emergency drills helped,” Sameena admitted. She’d hated being woken in the middle of the night and told that there was an emergency, but it seemed to have prepared her for a real disaster. “But why don’t I feel anything now?”

  “They would have rammed Orbit One and destroyed the station, along with us,” Paddy said. “If a large chunk of the station had made it through the atmosphere and hit the surface, it would have devastated parts of the planet too. Thousands of lives were at risk. And they weren't going to surrender. I think you know that they had to die.”

  “I don’t think I thought it through that comprehensively,” Sameena said. “I just ... I just don’t know how to feel.”

  She looked up at him. “How did you cope with it?”

  Paddy considered. “You want a honest answer? Most of the people I killed while I was in the Corps were
trying to kill me at the time, or they were tormenting others, or they were not honourable opponents ... they were people I wasn't going to waste time feeling sorry for. The real problem was remembering that just because some people come from a bad society isn't a good reason to hate the entire population.”

  Sameena frowned. “The entire population?”

  “I was stationed on Moonstone,” Paddy said. “The entire planet was run by ... well, call them religious fanatics. By the time we landed, they’d sunk their propaganda bullshit into every man, woman and child on the planet. They would happily launch suicide attacks, use themselves as human shields, keep their mouths closed when we asked questions and turn on us at the drop of a hat. We could never trust anyone completely. After a while ...”

  He shook his head. “After a while, we just started to hate the entire population,” he added, softly. “Our discipline began to break down. We shot people for looking at us funny, ignored problems that we could have fixed ... thankfully, they pulled us out before we could go completely bad. The Imperial Army had it much worse. Some of their units had been stationed there for years and were little more than just another gang.”

  Sameena thought she understood. “Why did you leave?”

  “The Marines?” Paddy asked. “Do you want a honest answer to that too?”

  He smiled at her expression. “I joined because I was told that it was a brotherhood – and I needed some brotherhood in my life. And it was a brotherhood; by the time we fought our way through the Slaughterhouse, there wasn't one of us who wouldn't lay down his life for the others. I was proud to serve until I realised an ugly truth.

  “We were the Grand Senate’s enforcers,” he explained. “When a planet defaulted on its taxes, we were sent in to bust heads; when a planet rebelled, it was our task to restore order; when a black colony was exposed, we were the ones who invaded and brought them into the Empire. I was a terrible coward. It took me months to decide not to re-up when I completed my first decade of service.