The Empire's Corps: Book 05 - The Outcast

by Christopher Nuttall

  Looking at the desolation, Sameena suspected that he was right.

  The governor just didn’t look very impressive when they dragged him out of his basement lair. He was a short man, with dark hair, wild staring eyes and an emaciated body that reminded Sameena of the drug addicts on Madagascar. His ravings made no sense to her; he seemed convinced that he was the absolute ruler of all he surveyed, even as Fox and his men took aim at his head. Moments later, he lay dead on the ground.

  A crazy man, she thought, who took advantage of the chaos to establish himself as a ruler.

  She couldn’t help thinking of it as a harbinger of things to come. The governor had had one planet, a stage-one colony world. What if he’d had a far more populated world and a handful of starships? He might have been able to start his own interstellar empire when the Imperial Navy pulled out of the sector altogether – or worse. Maybe he’d even make a bid for the throne on Earth. It would be insane on the face of it, but who knew what might be possible when the Empire fell?

  “Tell his men that if they stop fighting, they can live,” Fox ordered. He looked over at Sameena. “We’re heading to the main prison. Do you want to come with us?”

  Sameena nodded, wordlessly.

  The streets of Grosvenor seemed almost deserted as the rebels took control. Most of the population had learned hard lessons about not showing anything other than submission to the governor and his thugs. Sameena had been told that hundreds of urban dwellers had fled into the countryside before the governor had ordered them to build a wall around the city, trapping the remainder of the population inside. She couldn’t help spotting a handful of dead bodies on the ground as they drove up to the prison. It seemed almost deserted.

  “They’ve fled,” one of their escorts commented.

  “Be careful,” Fox ordered, as they slipped through the open doors. “It might be a trap.”

  It was worse than the prison they’d held her in, Sameena realised, as the rebels shone lights into the darkness. The male prisoners were crammed together in cells that were barely large enough to allow them some freedom of movement, all naked. And the stench was unbelievable. Sameena forced herself to breathe through her mouth – behind her, she heard some of the rebels retching – as she searched for Brad. But there was no sign of him.

  “In here,” one of the rebels called. “Hurry!”

  The room was an interrogation chamber. Brad lay on the table, his arms and legs strapped down ... and his body badly mutilated. Sameena let out a cry of horror as she saw the blood dripping down, then the twists in his arms that suggested broken bones ... she was too late.

  “Get a doctor,” she screamed. The rudimentary first aid she’d learned, at Jayne’s insistence, was nowhere near enough to save his life. Panic – not for herself, but for him – bubbled into her mind. “Hurry!”

  “Not a chance,” Brad wheezed. “Kept telling them that they were shitheads or worse. Wanted them to keep looking at me.”

  Sameena stared at him, then understood. Brad had wanted them to focus on him, rather than her. He hadn't known that she’d been liberated by the rebels; he’d encouraged them to torture him, rather than her. Sameena felt tears prickling at the corner of her eyes as she realised just how much Brad cared for her.

  “My fault,” Brad said, weakly. His hand twitched, struggling against the restraints – and the damage inflicted by the interrogators. “Should have listened to you. Never should have come here. But needed the money. I’m sorry.”

  “They didn't harm me,” Sameena lied. She would give him that consolation, if nothing else. “And I got you free.”

  She looked back towards the door and raised her voice. “Where’s the doctor?”

  “Know too much,” Brad said. “Internal bleeding and worse. I won’t survive the day.”

  “I’ll find a stasis pod,” Sameena promised, urgently. “I’ll get you back to Jayne. She can put you back together and ...”

  “No stasis pods on this planet,” Brad said. He giggled, suddenly, as blood trickled out of his mouth. “Primitive shithole, isn't it? And I brought you here.”

  “I could have said no,” Sameena insisted. “I didn’t ...”

  There had been options, she realised. She could have used another shell corporation to hire Brad and his ship, leaving him unaware that she was secretly funding him. Given enough care, he might never find out. But she’d thought that she should let him have his pride ... in a way, she was just as guilty. She could have made sure of his survival.

  But he would never have forgiven me if he’d known, she thought. And his pride would not have survived. Men!

  Brad’s arm twitched again. “Tell mum and dad ... sperm samples stored at the Meeting Place,” he said. “Maybe find a host mother, if they want my line to go on. And tell them I’m sorry. And tell them that it wasn't your fault.”

  His eyes suddenly sharpened. “There’s a marriage contract in my cabin, in the safe,” he added, weakly. He coughed as he spoke. “Sign it. I signed it already. Be my wife. The ship will be yours. No one will argue.”

  “I can't,” Sameena said. Tears were trickling down her cheeks. “It wouldn't be right.”

  “Mum and dad knew that I was planning to work on you,” Brad said. “Mum will understand ...”

  “She won’t want to see me again,” Sameena said. “I might as well have killed you.”

  They’d say that she’d killed Brad for his ship. Even if Captain Hamilton and Ethne knew better, there would be plenty of others who would level the charge at her. Rumours and innuendo flashed through the trader community like wildfire, often bearing absolutely no resemblance to reality. There would be hundreds of spacers who would believe that she’d deliberately led him into a trap.

  Jannah had stories of wives who murdered their husbands when they finally snapped. They were branded as monsters in religious education, women who had not lived up to the ideal – never mind the fact, Sameena had realised at a very early age, that their husbands hadn't lived up to the ideal either. The traders had stories of marriage contracts gone wrong, of gold diggers who had married into a clan and then ripped it apart from the inside ... they’d say that Sameena was just another one of them.

  “Tell them to give you truth drugs,” Brad said. For a moment, he showed a hint of his old personality. “Do I have to think of everything here?”

  Sameena couldn’t help giggling, despite the tears. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I ...”

  Brad coughed. More blood spilled from his mouth. “Have my child,” he suggested. “And please ... sign the contract. It will save you problems later on.”

  He choked suddenly. His eyes closed. Sameena stepped forward, but it was far too late. As she watched, the life went out of him. She found herself praying softly, realising just how much she was going to miss him. Maybe she would have his child, even though giving birth to a child out of wedlock was one of the greatest shames a woman could suffer on Jannah.

  The door opened, revealing Barbara. “I’m sorry,” she said, tearfully. “I came as quickly as I could.”

  Sameena looked at the child, then started to cry. Barbara reached out for her and enfolded her in a tight hug, providing what consolation she could. Part of Sameena wanted to lash out at her for not coming faster, but cold logic told her that Barbara could have done nothing to save her adopted brother. Like so many others, she was untrained ... and she didn't have the equipment she would have needed to save Brad’s life. Even a stasis pod would have given him a chance of survival.

  “I can give you something to help you sleep,” Barbara offered. “Because you need to sleep and ...”

  “Just find me somewhere to pray,” Sameena said. “And then somewhere to sleep.”

  She was barely aware of Barbara talking to one of the rebel leaders, then of being helped to a small room inside the governor’s palace. It was odd how her faith had actually grown stronger in space, when she’d seen some of the wonders God had created with her own eyes, even if i
t had also changed. The Guardians would say that Brad was doomed, merely for being an infidel. Sameena could no longer believe that to be true. Brad had been kinder and more honourable than any Guardian, or anyone else she’d met on Jannah. She refused to believe that he might go straight to hell.

  The bed was hard and lumpy. She lay down on it and closed her eyes, realising just how little time had passed since they’d landed on Rosa. Had it really been under a day? It felt like much longer ... and Brad was gone. She’d been talking and laughing with him yesterday ...

  That night, the nightmares started again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  However, this could also do considerable damage to the economy. The idea that the government could redistribute the wealth was tempting, particularly to those who had none – or had no experience of actually working with money. However, attempting to do so caused other problems. Sharing out the wealth often meant that the money needed to rejuvenate the economy wasn't there, while putting power in the hands of those who claimed to represent the workers only meant trading one set of masters for another - as it did, when the communist governments took power.

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

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Osaka said.

  Sameena scowled at him. Osaka’s involvement with the rebellion had been discovered several months after he’d dispatched agents to obtain weapons from Tabasco or another grey colony, but apart from some minor torture he’d barely been touched by his captors. He should have died, part of her thought, and Brad should have lived. If he’d told them what they were getting into, they would never have travelled to Rosa.

  “Me too,” she said, finally. “I trust that the remaining weapons are acceptable?”

  Fox – he swore blind that Fox was his real name – nodded. “I distributed them to the farmers and others, just to help hunt down the remainder of the indents,” he said. “And the payment – was that acceptable?”

  Sameena nodded, feeling numb. Imperial Credits were almost completely worthless on Rosa; she’d been paid enough to allow her to buy out the remainder of Brad’s debts, but it wouldn't be enough to bring him back. His body had already been shipped up to orbit and placed in the stasis pod. All she could do was consider having his child ... she hadn’t even been able to sign the contract yet, even though she knew she should.

  “Thank you,” she said, finally. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Try to rebuild,” Fox said. “The prisoners can be put to work as slave labour, rebuilding the damage they caused during the war. Maybe we can survive even without the corporation’s support – they just abandoned us, so our debts to them are null and void.”

  “They might feel differently,” Sameena pointed out, waspishly. Ethne had taught her that in legal disputes, might tended to make right. One of the reasons the Empire was in so much trouble was because the bigger corporations encouraged the Grand Senate to pass laws in their favour, squashing their smaller competitors like ants. “And you’re not in a good position.”

  Fox lifted an eyebrow. “How so?”

  “You don’t have the base to maintain a technological civilisation,” Sameena said. “It would take you years to build up again, particularly after the tech you do have starts to fail. And it will, once you run short of HE3.”

  “We’re already short,” Osaka admitted, after a brief glance at Fox. “I don’t know how long we can afford to keep the fusion reactor going.”

  “Not that we need it, outside the city,” Fox said. He looked back at Sameena. “What do you have in mind?”

  Sameena blinked in surprise.

  Fox laughed. “I was a Civil Guardsman,” he admitted. “I know when someone is trying to lead up to making a bargain. Cut to the chase, Captain. What do you have in mind?”

  Captain? She was a Captain now, Sameena knew. As Brad’s XO, she would have automatically succeeded him in any case, at least until the ship returned to port and the bankers started trying to claim it. But then, it hardly mattered. She had a sudden mental image of barking orders at herself, saluting herself and obeying herself and fought down a giggle. Brad would have understood.

  “I’ve been looking at ways to set up other production plants,” she said, slowly. She didn't want to tell them everything, but they had to understand that she was serious. “Plants that could produce spare parts for technology, which would eventually lead into producing new machines and then development; schools that would teach children how to become doctors or engineers or mechanics or whatever else we actually need ... eventually, set up newer cloudscoops and shipyards to keep the sector going. I’d like to set one of them up here.”

  She smiled at their expression. There were limits to just how much Steve and his gang of engineers could do with the mobile factory, even if they were starting to produce a steady stream of spare parts. Building one in a populated star system would allow her to give the system a push in the right direction ... and make it harder for anyone hostile to do anything about it. The RDC had effectively conceded Rosa’s independence when it had abandoned the planet.

  They might not see it that way, as she had warned them. But she had a feeling that it would be a long time before the RDC returned to the sector. By then, who knew what might have changed.

  “I see,” Fox said, finally. “And you think that we'd want this?”

  Sameena looked at him, evenly. “Do you want to watch the remnants of your technology fade away and die?”

  “Point,” Osaka agreed. “However, we are not in a good place to offer investment, merely ... people. And you may discover that you are producing more spare parts than we can reasonably absorb.”

  “There are plenty of other worlds and inhabited asteroids that need them,” Sameena pointed out. “And you can offer food – Madagascar, for example, has to import almost everything it needs to survive. And you could even offer a home to refugees.”

  “I suppose that would be true,” Osaka said. “It would need to be discussed by the new government, once it is established. However, I believe that there would be no real objections. You are, after all, quite a hero.”

  Sameena felt a pang of guilt. Brad had died when he should have lived. What did heroism matter compared to losing him?

  “Thank you,” she said, softly. “I’ll have some of the equipment shipped in within the next two months.”

  Once, she would have been pleased at how the plan was coming together. Steve and she had collected an astonishing amount of old equipment – mostly outdated, but still functional. Some of it could be moved to Rosa ... perhaps the RockRats could be convinced to help out by establishing an asteroid settlement in the system. They’d expressed some interest in her program, although – as always – they kept their own counsel about the future of the Empire. But then, their relationship with the Empire had always been fraught.

  And she had some of the older children – adults now – who had come to Madagascar as refugees. Professor Sorrel and his assistants had done an excellent job. The children might still be inexperienced, but they were trained and ready to start work on the production plants – and to help train others. Given enough time, Rosa might even be able to produce a dedicated workforce.

  “Start small,” Steve had advised. “Work on basic spare parts, then simple machines – and then work your way up to starships and shipyards.”

  She should have been pleased. But all she could feel was the aching sense of loss.

  “We look forward to it,” Fox said. “And thank you.”

  He hesitated. “I believe that Barbara wants to speak with you, as do others,” he added. “Can you make time for them before you depart?”

  “I suppose,” Sameena said, reluctantly. She didn't really want to talk to anyone. “Where is she now?”

  Barbara’s father had been lucky, she discovered as she stepped inside the makeshift hospital; he’d been enslaved rather than simply shot out of han
d. A trained doctor was simply too valuable to waste, Sameena knew, and the governor evidently agreed. Barbara waved to her, beckoning her over to a tall man who looked like an older version of herself. Sameena found herself liking him on sight.

  “Good afternoon, Captain,” he said. “I am Doctor Hamblin.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Sameena said, After so long, shaking hands was no longer a problem for her. “I believe you wanted to speak with me?”

  “I did,” Hamblin said. He led the way into a private office – Barbara following them – and closed the door firmly. “I am very sorry for your loss. I had a look at him before he was placed in the stasis pod and I do not believe that he could have been saved with the equipment on this planet. They really were desperate to get him to talk.”

  “I know,” Sameena said, sharply. She didn't wanted to be reminded – yet again – of her own failure. “What do you want from me?”

  The Doctor gave her a long considering look, as if he was having second thoughts. But about what?

  “Barbara needs medical training,” he said, finally. “I would like you to transport her to Madagascar, where she can take up her studies.”

  Sameena hesitated. She’d expanded the scholarship program twice since she’d started it; there was no reason why Barbara should be denied one, if she was prepared to agree to the conditions. More doctors would be very helpful. On the other hand, she was young and would need supervision. But Lamina was proving to be an excellent supervisor.

  She looked down at Barbara, who was looking up at her pleadingly. “I may not be very good company over the next two weeks,” she warned. “And it will be just you and me on the ship.”

  “I will be fine,” Barbara said. “And I can help ...”