The Empire's Corps: Book 05 - The Outcast

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I ... we ... would like to sign up,” Jayne said. She glanced over at Paddy, who nodded. “I’d like to be somewhere else for a while.”

  “Oh,” Sameena said, surprised. She hadn't expected either of them to ever leave Logan. “I thought ...”

  “We can show you our resumes, if you like,” Paddy said. He gave her a grin. “I am a qualified technician as well as a Marine. Jayne has a degree in navigation. You might find us useful.”

  “It looks that way,” Sameena said. She hesitated. “I don't know where we will be going, though.”

  The thought made her scowl. She wanted to go see the mobile factory and inspect it for herself, but after that ... part of her wanted to find a contract and go visit a whole new world. Who knew what opportunities there might be to expand her holdings ...?

  “That doesn't matter,” Paddy assured her. “Just let us know before you take us into a war zone.”

  “I didn't know about the war zone on Rosa until it was far too late,” Sameena confessed. In hindsight, there had been signs; they just hadn't noticed them. “But this time, there will always be someone left on the ship.”

  “Get some weapons too,” Paddy added. “You can’t really turn a freighter, even a fast light freighter, into a warship, but you can certainly deter pirates.”

  Sameena hesitated. Part of her knew that they would be a constant nagging reminder of Brad, but she also knew that she would welcome their company. “What about your current contracts?”

  “I can buy them both out,” Paddy said. “Once Captain Hamilton finds a new doctor and gofer, we can leave with a clear conscience.”

  “Then welcome aboard,” Sameena said.

  Jayne shook her hand firmly. “Are you going to have Brad’s child?”

  “I don't know,” Sameena admitted. Somehow, hearing his last will had left her feeling unsure of herself. Would it be right to bring such a child into the world, knowing that she couldn't look after him or her properly? How had Captain Hamilton coped with his four children, to say nothing of Richard and Regina? “I just don’t know.”

  “Be sure of your choice,” Jayne said. “But you are building up a small trading empire. You’re going to need a heir, sooner or later.”

  “I know,” Sameena said.

  Her father would have liked the thought, she suspected. He’d built a much smaller trading empire on Jannah; his daughter was building one out among the stars. And one day she would go home and see what had become of her family. It was a quiet resolution, one she'd kept to herself, but she intended to keep it.

  She walked out into the main room, stared at the people drinking, dancing and singing as part of the wake, then turned and walked back towards her ship. Brad would have appreciated so many people coming, she suspected, but it wasn't her style at all. Instead, she found herself walking past the airlock and out to one of the observation blisters. It was facing away from the gas giant and it’s moons, allowing her to see the cold stars. Brad had been born amongst them, his father had said. And he’d died on one of the planet’s the spacefarers had hated.

  “I'm sorry,” she whispered, quietly. It was tempting to believe that Brad had become part of the stars he so loved. “I’m so sorry.”

  “He was a decent person,” Jamie’s voice said. Sameena looked around to see him standing in the hatch, wearing dark mourning clothes. Somehow, she’d missed him at the wake. “He deserved much better.”

  “Yes, he did,” she said, shortly. Seeing Jamie gave her another pang of guilt. Brad had loved her and she’d never seen it, not really. Her own feelings were still a conflicting mess. “I will miss him.”

  Jamie smiled. “Rumour has it that you bribed the Admiral,” he said. “No one is quite sure what to make of it.”

  “Me neither,” Sameena admitted. “Why are you here?”

  “I’ve been offered a promotion if I stay in place,” Jamie admitted. “A jump forward to Commander – up two full grades. Apparently, two of my superiors have decided that they want to go right back to Earth and there won’t be any replacements.”

  Sameena felt a flicker of sympathy. The promotion did seem like a poisoned chalice, under the circumstances. “What about the Admiral?”

  “He’s gone back to the pleasure dens,” Jamie said. “But his XO is on the list of people to be relocated back to Earth, soon. I don't know what’s going to happen then.”

  Sameena looked back out at the stars. It wouldn't be long before the Imperial Navy supply lines collapsed. At that point ... she would start offering them her supplies and then ... who knew what could happen then?

  But as she looked at the stars, they seemed to grow fainter ...

  It was an optical illusion, she knew. And yet it still sent a shiver down her spine.

  Interlude Two

  They were not very promising candidates, Commodore Steven Philly told himself, but beggars couldn't be choosers, certainly not beggars who happened to be under sentence of death if the Imperial Navy ever caught them. There had been a slight accident when he and the unit training funds had taken the wrong direction, leaving behind enough evidence to frame a young officer for theft and murder. He still didn't know how they’d worked out that he’d survived, but he dared not go back to the Core Worlds. There weren't many positions for former training officers along the Rim. Beggars definitely couldn't be choosers.

  He eyed the line of prospective naval crewmen doubtfully. They were shockingly ignorant, even by the lax standards of entry-level Imperial Navy crewmen, but they had a sense of entitlement that rivalled the scions of the Grand Senate. Many of them were happy to dress up in fancy uniforms and prance around as if they were trying to impress the girls – a moot point as there were no girls on the base – yet most of them weren't even trying to pick up the basics. And they were intending to be officers!

  God knew the Imperial Navy had been working hard to compensate for a lack of basic education for years, but this was absurd. Half of them couldn't even read or speak Imperial Standard, even though just about everyone in space spoke it as their second tongue. And it was hard to motivate them to do any real work. The concept of serving before leading was utterly foreign to them. Even switching out one solid-state component and replacing it with another was nearly impossible.

  And they didn't take him seriously, even when one of their officers was supervising training sessions. They didn't listen, they looked down on him ... and they chose to disregard everything he taught them at the worst possible time. By now, even Prince Roland himself would have been kicked out of the Imperial Navy Academy if he’d pulled half of the shit they’d pulled. Didn't they even have the sense to stop and listen to the NCOs?

  It was God’s own miracle, he decided, that the tiny flotilla of destroyers hadn't destroyed itself long ago. Ramming an asteroid or another starship accidentally was almost impossible, but the crews had very nearly managed to do just that. And then there were the problems with the life support units ... if he’d been allowed a completely free hand, he would have hired mercenaries or starship crews to handle the ships, or at least perform basic maintenance. As it was, he wouldn't have cared to take the flotilla up against a single Imperial Navy destroyer, even at five-to-one odds. The crews were just pathetic. And they didn't even know it.

  But he was being paid a hefty paycheck to get them ready for action.

  Damn it, he thought, bitterly.

  He should never have taken the job, he knew, but he hadn’t been offered much of a choice. The promise of vast payment, a new identity and other perks – and the unspoken threat of handing him over to the Imperial Navy – had seduced him. And he’d needed the cash desperately. It had stopped him asking questions; indeed, no questions had been one of the terms of his contract. He didn't even know where the crewmen came from. Or why they were so ... unconcerned when one of the little idiots did something stupid like accidentally walking out the airlock. Or why they held their enemies, whoever they were, in absolute contempt.

  But in th
e end, he hoped he would never have to join them in battle.

  He didn't know if they frightened the enemy, but he knew they frightened him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Government added yet another issue to supremely-complex economies. In order to avoid civil unrest, governments were forced to spend money on ‘bread and circuses’ – social security networks, in modern terms – to provide a safety net for their population. However, these safety nets became more and more expensive, forcing the governments to spend more ... and thus collect more from sources of revenue.

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

  Director Quemoy didn't look happy – but then, he had good reason to be very unhappy indeed.

  “This contract is quite harsh, Captain,” he said, as he signed it. “But we seem to have no choice.”

  Sameena nodded. Marigold’s Folly orbited alarmingly close to its parent star, a tidal-locked burned ember of a world that would have been completely useless, save for the rare raw materials that could be found under its blackened surface. Over the years since the mining station had been established, it had grown into a small community, largely buried beneath the surface. But, without constant supplies from the outside universe, it was simply unsustainable. The corporation that ran the station had largely abandoned it, leaving the miners and their families to die. It had been sheer luck that she’d realised what was happening in time to intervene.

  The contract was simple enough. Marigold’s Folly would supply her growing industrial base with raw materials, mined from the surface of the planet. In exchange, her freighters would ship in food, spare parts and anything else the locals might need. She also intended to run internships through Marigold’s Folly, although that might be a long time in coming. Most of the miners knew almost nothing about how their technology worked, despite its simplicity.

  “No, you don't,” she said, softly. The founding corporation had deliberately crippled the planet’s development. They hadn't even included an algae farm. If interstellar trade broke down completely, the miners would have starved to death. “But I have no intention of treating you any worse than the corporation.”

  She smiled inwardly. Marigold’s Folly was the ninth world to sign up to her growing trade empire, an empire that largely existed outside the Empire’s awareness. With the big corporations pulling out, something had to take their place if anything was to survive. Given time, Sameena calculated, she would be ready to keep at least one sector going. And, once she was established, she could keep expanding into the ruins of the Empire.

  The Empire had relied on physical force – directly or indirectly – to keep planets in line, even though it was pushing the Empire towards collapse. Sameena had a different idea. The colony worlds could have full control over their internal affairs, but she would control interstellar shipping and production. It would give her a formidable position without needing to resort to force. Or so she hoped.

  “That’s good,” the Director said. “And thank you.”

  Sameena felt a twinge of guilt. Her walk through the domes on the dark side of the world had convinced her that the mining station was breaking down. The miners were nervous; their food stocks had been rationed for months, while there had been no visitors from outside the solar system. Sameena couldn't blame them – or their wives and children – for panicking, not really. Their world’s life support system was on the verge of breaking down.

  The Director wasn't a bad man, according to her contacts. He hadn’t asked to serve as the final director of the mining station, abandoned – like the rest of the crew – by the corporation he had served. But he had to know that law and order were on the verge of breaking down, threatening to rip the station apart. A single riot might kill them all.

  “You’re welcome,” she said, standing up. “I’ll have the food supplies transported to the surface at once.”

  She'd never quite lost the thrill that came from seeing strange new worlds, even though what little she could see of Marigold’s Folly looked identical to Madagascar and a thousand other asteroids. Corridors hewed through rock, massive chambers that had become everything from bedrooms to dining halls, all illuminated by flickering lights that seemed permanently on the verge of burning out. Their supplies of HE3 were running low too, she knew. If they ran out completely, the power would die and they would suffocate in the darkness. The corporation hadn't even bothered to introduce the oxygen-producing grass that carpeted the floors of most asteroids or settlements on airless worlds.

  The Empire hadn't quite regarded Marigold’s Folly as a penal world, but it had seen it as a dumping ground. Reading between the lines, Sameena had concluded that many of the women sent to the outpost had been refugees or convicts, purchased by the corporation and treated as slaves. Some of them had married miners and had relatively good lives, others had been forced into brothels where they serviced the unmarried miners. The Empire simply didn't care.

  “There’s little else for them to spend their money on,” the Director said, when she asked. “Miners spend two weeks down in the darkness or in exploration vehicles, probing for new seams of ore. And then they come back and blow their cash on alcohol, women and song.”

  Sameena scowled. The miners had been trapped on Marigold’s Folly even before the corporation had abandoned them. Their contracts ensured that, no matter how much money they made, they could never really hope to pay off their debts and leave the planet. The whole system was thoroughly rigged, she’d discovered. On the surface, the miners were paid well ... but they were charged for each and every little thing. They had no hope of escape, so they wasted their savings. What else did they have to do with their lives?

  She caught sight of a handful of children and shuddered. There were no tutoring machines on Marigold’s Folly and certainly no teachers. Kids learned what they could from entertainment programs, all the while growing up into replacement miners who didn't even know what they were missing. The corporation, she realised grimly, must have seen it as a chance to make their workforce self-sustaining. But most of the kids had no hope of becoming more than grunt workers, if that.

  I could do something about that, she told herself. And about the women.

  They reached the shuttlebay without incident, despite a handful of angry stares that were directed at them from the off-duty miners. Sameena shook hands with the Director, pretended to ignore the wistful look he cast at the shuttle and stepped inside, breathing a sigh of relief as she tasted the shuttle’s air. It was dry, but sweet compared to the colony’s atmosphere. The growing stench outside suggested that the atmospheric scrubbers were beginning to break down.

  She sat down in front of the console, catching sight of her reflection. Brad’s death had left scars on her soul, scars that she could see on her face. Even two years after his death, she still missed him – and blamed herself. It would have been so easy to slip him a contract without him ever realising just who he was working for.

  “He signed the agreement,” she said, keying a switch on the console. “You can tell Ivan to send down the first shuttle now.”

  “Understood,” Paddy said. “Are you coming back up now?”

  “In a few minutes,” Sameena said. She wanted to relax before heading back up to orbit and supervising the unloading. She’d brought two medium freighters, crammed with food, from Rosa. Between them, there would be enough supplies to keep Marigold’s Folly alive for another few months. “Have you heard from the survey team?”

  “The raw materials seem to be of good quality,” Paddy said. “Steve will be pleased.”

  Sameena smiled and shut down the connection. Mining in a gravity world was inherently inefficient, but the reward was worth the extra expense. Or so the founding corporation had judged. She allowed herself a long moment to relax and focus her mind, calculating and recalculating their course back to Madagascar. Steve was meant to be meeting her at the hidden industrial plant.

>   The shuttle shook, violently. Sameena sat upright, one hand going automatically to the pistol at her belt before remembering that she'd left it in the locker. Marigold’s Folly didn't allow weapons on the surface. She stood up and glanced out of the viewport, cursing out loud when she saw the miners gathered around her shuttle. They were pushing at the hull, shaking it. What the hell were they doing?

  She saw their desperate faces and knew the answer. They wanted to leave the planet, sensing – perhaps – that they had been abandoned. Sameena hesitated, unsure of what to do. Bare hands couldn’t break the shuttle’s hull, even if it wasn't starship hullmetal, but miners tended to have mining tools. A simple debonder would be enough to break through the hatch and allow entry. And it would render the shuttle unserviceable. She wanted to take off, yet the hatch overhead was still sealed. Opening it would kill the miners outside as the atmosphere raced out of the shuttlebay.

  There was no sign of the Director – or the handful of security men he had to maintain order. She wasn't surprised. They weren't armed with anything more dangerous than stunners – the corporation had been nervous of people letting guns off inside the mining colony – and they would be heavily outnumbered. He had to know that letting Sameena be lynched would destroy the agreement he’d signed to supply his people, but he had few options. And he was probably dithering in his office.

  Should have bought that suit of armour Paddy kept recommending, she thought, as she keyed the console. Bare hands couldn't break that either.

  She activated the shuttle’s loudspeaker. “Calm down,” she ordered. She could hear her voice echoing even through the shuttle’s hull. Outside, the miners grabbed at their ears, falling back from the shuttle. “Other shuttles are coming with food supplies. I suggest that you clear the shuttlebay so they can land.”