The Empire's Corps: Book 05 - The Outcast

by Christopher Nuttall

  Sameena’s first inclination was to snort ... and then she caught herself, remembering the day she’d faced Captain Hamilton and pleaded to be allowed to stay. She’d had no formal training on shipboard life and he’d still given her a chance to prove herself. How could she do any less, particularly when the young girl wouldn't be staying on the ship permanently?

  “I suppose you can,” she said. “Do you want a scholarship?”

  “I'm a qualified first-rank graduate of Hestia,” Doctor Hamblin said. “That gives one of my children the right to study there, free of charge. I can pass that right on in exchange for Barbara’s studies.”

  “Or she could have a scholarship,” Sameena suggested. She could see why Hamblin wouldn't want his daughter to go to Hestia. It was right on the other side of Earth, nearly nine months away from Rosa. “There are always options that wouldn't force you to trade in your reward ...”

  “Maybe,” the Doctor said.

  Sameena looked back at Barbara. “Listen carefully,” she said, and outlined the basic safety rules of living on a starship. She hadn't really known how seriously to take them when she’d stowed away, not until Ethne and Steve had gone through everything that could have gone wrong with her escape plan in considerable detail. “If you have problems coping with the rules, I suggest that you stay here.”

  Barbara looked nervous, but nodded firmly.

  “And you won't be able to see your father again for months, if not years,” Sameena added, grimly. “You may not even be able to send messages.”

  “I understand,” Barbara said.

  Sameena smiled, inwardly. She would have given up half her fortune to have her parents back, even though she knew that her mother would have been horrified at everything she'd done since travelling into outer space. Barbara had just recovered her father and yet she wanted to part from him again, immediately. Maybe she just wanted to be away from her homeworld for a while, where she'd been forced to grow up too quickly and play at being an adult. It was understandable, she supposed.

  And Doctor Hamblin wasn’t going to stand in her way.

  “Very well,” Sameena said, finally. She held up her hand before either of them could say a word. “I’ll draw up the travelling and guardianship papers” – she scowled inwardly as she realised that meant that she would have to delay her departure – “and then you can both sign them. You might also want to review the legal issues surrounding such papers.”

  She looked at Barbara, wondering at the girl’s enthusiasm. “You’ll effectively be my daughter, at least until you graduate,” she warned. “And there will be another guardian while you’re on Madagascar. You’ll have two people bossing you around.”

  Barbara giggled. “I get that a lot from father,” she said. “And Fox, even though I was the doctor.”

  Sameena laughed. “You’ll need to behave yourself anyway,” she said. “And I won’t be very good company on the trip.”

  Leaving them to make their goodbyes, she left the hospital and started to walk towards the landing strip nearest the ramshackle city. The shuttle was waiting there, ever since she had brought the remainder of the weapons down to the surface. She couldn't help thinking that Rosa was going to have problems even though the governor was now dead, but at least it would have a chance to bloom without him. Her production plants might help.

  But the settlers didn't want to turn their backs on the universe, she thought, sourly. Not like Jannah’s founders, who wanted to pretend that the universe didn't exist.

  “Hey,” a voice called. “Wait up!”

  Sameena spun around, one hand reaching for her pistol ... and stopped when she saw Ginny limping towards her. The former captive still looked bruised and beaten, although Sameena suspected that her life was no longer in real danger. Half of her face seemed to be frozen; the remainder seemed to be curved up in a twisted smile.

  “I wanted to thank you,” Ginny said, as she staggered to a halt. “You saved us all.”

  “You’re welcome,” Sameena said. She found it hard to even look at her. Under the dim lighting of the prison cell, she hadn't realised just how badly Ginny had been hurt. “Do you want to go into space too?”

  Ginny gave her an odd look. “No, why?”

  Sameena shook her head. “Never mind,” she said. “Did you find your family?”

  “Two of my brothers are dead,” Ginny admitted. “The others were all up in the hills, fighting. It may be a long time before we get back to farming.”

  She shook her head. “I would have died too, without you,” she added. “Do you know that some of my wounds were infected? I might have died within the week.”

  Sameena wasn't surprised. The prison had been extremely unsanitary. Islam prized hygiene – Steve and Jayne had explained why, when Sameena had first started to work on the waste disposal tubes – but Desiree hadn't cared about what happened to the prisoners under her care. It was sobering to reflect that she’d actually gotten off very lightly, compared to some of the other prisoners. The handful of reports she’d heard had been shocking. Male and female prisoners had been abused, raped and murdered, without restraint.

  “The governor must have gone mad,” she said, softly. How many more people in positions of power would go mad when they realised that the Empire was no longer there to enforce its laws? “I am glad you survived.”

  “Me too,” Ginny said. “They caught up with the Colonel, you know. Silly bitch tried to plead instead of running. Her former prisoners tore her apart,”

  Sameena shuddered. The capital city had been wracked by revenge killings, despite the best that Fox’s men could do. One by one, those who had served the governor had been killed, thrown into a penal camp ... or forced to flee into the countryside. The mob hadn't calmed down for three days, during which time hundreds of people had died. Some of them had simply been the victim of personal vendettas and hadn't had anything to do with the governor.

  “Good,” she said, finally.

  She watched Ginny limping off, then turned and walked towards the landing strip, shaking her head sadly. The space-born seemed to know the limits from birth, growing up as they did in an immensely dangerous environment, while the groundhogs seemed quite willing to run riot whenever they were even slightly displeased. Jannah was no different, she knew; if the Guardians branded someone a disbeliever – or worse – the howling mobs would form and the victim would die. Law and order died when the mobs ruled the streets. Anyone even the slightest bit unpopular might become a target.

  Inside the shuttle, she downloaded a copy of the standard contract from the starship and then altered it slightly to suit Barbara’s particular circumstances. Technically, the girl was too young to take on an apprenticeship, but her father’s high rank would ensure that would be overlooked. It was odd to realise that a graduate from Hestia would be working on a stage-one colony world, rather than Earth, yet Sameena found it hard to blame him. She couldn't see any way in which the crash of Earth could be averted. Anything the Grand Senate might try would only trigger the crash earlier.

  She finished writing out the contract, copied it to her datapad and stood up to go find a printer. There was no real datanet on Rosa, not even a basic emergency system. It was strange – very few worlds lacked an emergency datanet, even if it was forbidden to the average citizen – but yet another sign of decay. She’d have to give them both a printed copy to make it legal. Once, the whole concept of printing a document would have awed her. Now, it just seemed far too primitive for words.

  Laughing at herself, she left the shuttle and headed back towards the Imperial Library, where she should be able to get the contract printed out. If nothing else, taking Barbara onboard would save her from brooding – and she knew that she would have brooded all the way to Madagascar, if she’d been completely alone. Brad might be dead, but she would still feel his presence looking over her shoulder. And she knew that she would have to tell his parents.

  She wasn't looking forward to that at all.


  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Even when the government was not communist (or fascist) the results of interference in the marketplace could be dire. The influx of money from the government (which came from taxpayers, which further damaged the economy) often warped the marketplace. For example, an unprofitable product could be continued because it was being funded by outside sources, rather than its own profits (or lack thereof).

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

  The marriage contract was simple, yet elegant.

  She took it out of Brad’s safe once Lead Pipe was in phase space and read it carefully, unable to avoid wondering just when Brad had drawn it up. It granted both parties certain rights over the other, acknowledged any children as their mutual heirs and even provided a framework for separation, should the marriage not work out. The only thing missing was any provision for extramarital lovers, which made her smile sadly. Brad had been more of a romantic than anyone had guessed.

  Brad’s signature at the bottom, accompanied by his thumbprint and a drop of blood, mocked her. He’d intended to court her – and he’d had faith that he would succeed. Or, perhaps, he’d set the whole thing up in the belief that she would need it after his death. He was smart enough, unlike some men, to anticipate the possibility. She felt another pang of grief and rage as she read the contract one final time, trying to decide what to do. It felt like a crude parody of a marriage.

  She'd always had mixed feelings about the whole concept. Marriage on Jannah was for life – at least for the woman. It was a rare court that would grant a woman separation from her husband, let alone custody of her children. And marriages were almost always arranged by the parents, with neither party having much say in the affair. For every marriage that worked out – and her parents had come to love one another – there were several that were permanent battlegrounds, or so cold it was a wonder they didn't freeze. She'd known that she didn't want such a marriage, but she’d also known that she might not have a choice. One day, her father would have had to marry her off.

  Marriage in the Empire was different. There was no taboo on premarital sex or on divorcé, ensuring that marriages were rarely permanent. It seemed to cheapen the concept if a couple could marry on Monday, fall out on Wednesday and separate on Friday. And the traders used marriage as a way of binding people together, at least as long as they shipped together. She had been unable to avoid wondering if Paddy and Jayne would one day separate without recriminations. It was a question that she had never dared ask.

  And then ... she looked down at the contract, feeling bitterness seeping through her soul. All it would take was a signature, a thumbprint and a drop of blood ... and she would be Brad’s wife, a woman married to a dead man. There would be trouble, she knew; the banks would know that she’d married him to ensure that she inherited the ship. And she wasn't even sure that she wanted the ship. Lead Pipe belonged to both of them. Now that Brad was gone, part of her wanted to find a new freighter. She could ...

  ... But that would have felt like a betrayal.

  My father would complain, she thought, as she signed her name to the contract. He would certainly protest the marriage.

  She couldn't help smiling at the thought, although she knew that none of the traders would understand. On Jannah, a woman’s protector – her father, her brother or her husband – would be required to countersign any contract she entered into, particularly marriage. Sameena could not have married anyone without her father’s consent. But as a trader, she had freedom the moment she came of age. She could legally marry anyone she wanted.

  The contract seemed to glow faintly as she pricked her finger and added a drop of blood to the paper, then placed it back in the safe. She had to be imagining it, she told herself as she stood up and looked around the cabin. Brad’s clothes, his tiny collection of books and dozens of datachips lay everywhere, as if he’d just nipped out to go to the bridge and would return at any moment. Sameena sat down on his bunk and put her head in her hands, feeling an aching sense of loss that threatened to overcome her. She would have given up her entire fortune to see him again.

  “I'm sorry,” she whispered, quietly. “I’m so sorry.”

  There was a photo album on his table, she saw. She picked it up and flicked through it, realising that Brad had collected and printed out photos of himself as a growing man. Brad as a child, with a pair of babies that had to be James and Jayne; Brad wearing his first set of overalls over his shipsuit; Brad and his family in front of a shuttle, waiting to go up to orbit; Brad with a set of men and women she didn't recognise; Brad wearing a full-sized shipsuit; Brad and Sameena, standing together when they’d transferred to their new ship ... when had that been taken?

  She put the album down and forced herself to stand up and leave the cabin. It was her duty, as the starship’s commander, to go through it, box up his possessions and store them until they could be passed on to his heirs. But she couldn't bear it, not now. It was something that would have to wait until they got to Madagascar. Once she stepped through the hatch, she closed and locked it behind her.

  Barbara looked up at her in surprise as she entered the schoolroom. “Are you all right?”

  Sameena scowled at the child. She really was astonishingly perceptive. “No,” she said, sourly. “I’m not alright.”

  Brad hadn’t been able to afford a full-sized tutoring machine for his ship, but thankfully she had progressed beyond having to need one. She picked up her datapad and tried to concentrate on Professor Sorrel’s latest assignment, but her thoughts refused to focus on the aspects of Imperial Law as they related to interstellar trade. Instead, they kept coming back to Brad. He’d died ... and part of her insisted that she could have saved him, if she’d done more. And yet, once they’d landed on Rosa, it had been out of her hands.

  Barbara leaned forward and touched her arm. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  Sameena almost slapped her as a hot flash of anger boiled through her mind. She didn't want to talk about it, she wanted to curl up and surrender to grief. And yet the part of her that was always cold refused to allow her to give up. Maybe talking about it would make it easier to handle ...

  “No,” she said, firmly. “Why don't you tell me what happened on Rosa instead?”

  Days passed as they travelled towards Madagascar. Much to her surprise, Sameena discovered that bringing Barbara along had been the right decision, even though the child was terrifyingly inquisitive. Talking to her, answering her questions – even if she refused to talk about Brad – prevented her from just slipping into her shell and giving up. Barbara kept her from being alone with her thoughts. And then there was the endless series of maintenance tasks that had to be carried out. Being busy helped push the pain aside.

  “That’s Madagascar,” she said, two weeks after they left Rosa. The asteroid came into view slowly, hanging against the gas giant. It was almost as spectacular as she remembered from his first visit. “Welcome to a strange new world.”

  Barbara stared at the viewscreens, while Sameena tapped a switch and sent a pair of messages into the asteroid’s datanet. One was to Professor Sorrel, asking him to start arranging Barbara’s apprenticeship; the other was to Captain Hamilton. She wasn't going to send the news over the datanet when she could take it to him in person. And she would have to visit the banks, report Lead Pipe’s change in ownership and pay the next instalment on Brad’s debts. They’d be less likely to make a fuss, she figured, if they were still getting paid

  “You need to remain onboard,” she said, as they docked. Professor Sorrel had yet to reply to her, but Ethne had sent a message inviting her to visit Logan. “Do not try to leave the ship.”

  Barbara looked mutinous. Whatever she had thought the trip would be like, being trapped on the ship for two weeks had given the child a bad case of cabin fever. Sameena, who hadn't really felt it herself, found it hard to comprehend, but then she had led a very restri
cted life before fleeing her homeworld. Barbara had been used to the wide open skies.

  “I won’t,” she promised, finally. “But please hurry.”

  Sameena felt nervous as she made her way through the spaceport to where Logan was docked. The last she’d heard from Ethne had been that Logan had accepted a series of semi-permanent contracts from the Imperial Navy, hauling supplies across the sector. It gave them steady work, even though she suspected that Captain Hamilton would be growing bored by now. The man had a wanderlust that drove him to visit new worlds and meet strange new people.

  Stepping back onto the freighter felt like coming home. Ethne met her at the airlock, her face grim. She had to have guessed, Sameena realised; Brad would have visited his parents, if he’d still been alive. It was easy to believe that Ethne would hate her for Brad’s death, or that she would be angry about the marriage contract. She'd brought good luck and bad to Logan’s crew in equal measure.

  Captain Hamilton was sitting in the galley, waiting for them. He looked older, somehow, despite the genetic engineering that gave him a distinguished image. Sameena swallowed hard, part of her tempted to turn and run. How could she face the man she had come to think of as a second father and tell him that his son was dead? But there was no choice.

  “Brad ... Brad is gone,” she said, trying to get it out before she choked up completely. “They killed him.”

  Ethne caught her as her legs buckled. “Tell me what happened,” she ordered, as she pulled out a stool for Sameena. “How did he die?”

  Sameena found herself telling Brad’s mother everything, starting with the contract to ship weapons to Rosa – Captain Hamilton sighed at that point – and ending with Brad’s death in front of her. She half-expected them to hit her, or to throw her out of the airlock; it was odd to see them both sitting there, listening calmly. But death was an ever-present risk on a starship.

  “He really did want to pay off his debts alone,” Captain Hamilton said, finally. There was a note of grief in his voice that stunned her. “I was just the same. Poor brave foolish child.”