The Empire's Corps: Book 05 - The Outcast

by Christopher Nuttall

  Sameena hesitated, looking down at her child. How could she tell Ethne – her mother-in-law, to all intents and purposes – that she felt little for the boy? That her first thought upon realising that she could take the child onboard ship had been that he would be a nuisance? It was wrong, she knew, and yet it was true. Perhaps, if Brad had lived ...

  She pushed the thought aside, angrily. There was no way she could admit that to anyone, let alone Ethne. The woman wouldn't understand. Her maternal instincts had led her to adopt Sameena; she wouldn't understand Sameena’s rejection of her own child. Or, maybe, she would try to have the child taken away from her. If it wouldn't have destroyed her reputation, she wouldn't have considered that a bad option.

  “Maybe,” she said, reluctantly. Perhaps if she spent more time with her child, love and tenderness would blossom in her heart. She’d intended to hire more crew; perhaps Jayne would agree to look after both children, once hers was born. “Thank you for taking care of him.”

  “It’s a pleasure, dear,” Ethne said. “We’ve been stuck here for the last two weeks anyway.”

  Sameena looked at her, surprised and alarmed. “Stuck here?”

  “Contract negotiations,” Ethne said. “They keep changing their minds about what they want from us. If they weren't paying us a steady retainer fee I'd advise Thomas to go look for a contract elsewhere. But there are fewer and fewer contracts to be found.”

  Sameena held Brad tightly, thinking hard. If the Imperial Navy was keeping her adopted parents on Madagascar ... what did it mean? They weren't under arrest and their ship hadn't been seized, but they were still effectively trapped. It suggested that the Navy didn't intend to threaten her, at least not yet. Or maybe it was merely a coincidence.

  “There's no such thing as a true coincidence,” Paddy had said, years ago. “If you think that the timing is suspicious, you’re probably right.”

  “That’s bad,” she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to suggest that they take the kids and leave anyway, but she didn't quite say it out loud. “What do they want from you?”

  “Hauling freight, mainly,” Ethne said. “They actually gave us an escort for another trip, two months ago. I still don't know what we were carrying.”

  “Weapons, probably,” Sameena said. She put Brad down, silently damning herself for her lack of concern. Maybe she should have stayed on the asteroid after he was born, or taken him to the interstellar factory. It wasn't as if there had been a shortage of work to do. Steve had had to take decisions on his own because she hadn't been there. “Have they asked you any questions?”

  “Nothing, apart from the usual round of questions about carrying capacity,” Ethne admitted. “They ask the same question every time they hire us – how much can we carry and how far can we go?”

  Sameena had to smile. The Imperial Navy might be weakening, but its bureaucracy was as strong as ever. There was no shortage of forms that had to be filled in every time she visited a heavily-populated planet, all designed to do little more than make the bureaucrats feel important. It wasn't as if they had any way of checking on her answers, she’d discovered. Besides, cataloguing where she’d been and when over the past five years would have been a nightmare.

  “But nothing else,” she mused. “Is there?”

  “Nothing,” Ethne said. Her eyes narrowed. “Should there be?”

  Sameena silently cursed herself. Ethne had been the negotiator on Logan; she was smart, perhaps smarter than her husband. And, unlike a woman on Jannah, she’d grown up in an environment that encouraged her to use her brains. And she knew far more about how the Empire worked than Sameena.

  “I don't know,” she admitted, finally. She didn't want to say anything out loud. Paddy had told her that Imperial Intelligence could produce bugs that were so tiny they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. She used the hand-signal she’d been taught to indicate that they might be being watched and pressed on. “But you might want to look for another contract.”

  “We will,” Ethne said, grimly. “And you be careful too.”

  Sameena nodded and left her with the children, walking back down into the eatery. Barbara was standing there, looking surprisingly adult in her uniform as she waited on tables. Sameena took a moment to say hello to the girl – it was strange to realise that she was growing up – and promised to speak to her later, then walked out of the eatery and into the stalls. The environment still bothered her, but for a very different reason.

  The signs of economic decay were everywhere. Some of the stalls she remembered from her first visit were gone. Others were selling reduced stock, at prices that would have been laughed at years ago. The dressmaker she’d visited with Jayne – it felt like centuries ago – was having a final sale before she went out of business. On a whim, Sameena stepped inside and looked at the clothes. Many of the selections she remembered from last time were gone.

  She shivered. The Empire was slowly winding down. And she knew that the end could not be long delayed.

  Her wristcom buzzed, informing her that she had one message. She glanced at it and felt her eyes widening. Jamie knew that she was on the station, even though she hadn't sent him a message, and was inviting her to dine with him. She hesitated, knowing that it could be a trap, then accepted the invitation. Part of her wanted to get some straight answers for once, whatever the risk.

  Jamie had selected another expensive restaurant, one that offered buffet food from Han and its colony worlds. She couldn't help noticing a large sign, written by the owner, that proclaimed that his great-grandparents had left Han centuries ago. The uprising on Han had made the news all across the sector, even if it was thousands of light years away. Jamie himself was seated in a small compartment, wearing civilian clothes. He rose to his feet as she approached.

  “It's good to see you again,” he said, smiling. He looked older than she remembered, although she would have been hard-pressed to say how. Like everyone else on the asteroid, his genetic makeup had been improved to the point where aging left fewer marks on his face. “Please, take a seat.”

  Sameena nodded and sat down. She wasn’t quite sure why Jamie spent time with her – she had been too disturbed by Brad’s death to consider a proper relationship – but part of her enjoyed having someone to meet who wasn't a trader or working for her. Besides, she told herself, it wasn't as if either of them were committed. He might find a girl tomorrow and leave her as nothing more than a friend.

  “This isn't exactly a pleasure call,” Jamie admitted, once the waiter had placed a jug of water on the table. “I'm sorry about that, really.”

  “I understand,” Sameena said. At least the penny was about to drop, even if it might turn out to be a hammer. Jamie’s superiors might have put pressure on him to speak to her in semi-privacy. It suggested that they might want to make a deal. “What did you call me for?”

  Jamie looked – for a long moment – guilty. “It’s a long story,” he said. He lowered his voice. “But first things first. Do you know that you are being followed?”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  This rapidly proved unsustainable, often too late to prevent disaster. Those dependent on the networks often came to see them as an easier way to live than actually working for a living, particularly as government taxes often ensured that wages were cropped. This shouldn’t have been surprising. The decision was in the best interests of the person involved, not necessarily in the best interests of society as a whole.

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

  Sameena stared at him. She'd known she was being followed, but she’d assumed that they worked for the Imperial Navy. Who else would be following her?

  “I knew, yes,” she said. “Who are they?”

  “Good question,” Jamie said. He leaned back in his chair. “There are four of them, all men. They came onto the asteroid two weeks ago. Since then, they’ve been asking a great many questions and eventually
settled on you. We don’t know why. Do you?”

  Sameena hesitated. “No,” she said, finally. Not the Imperial Navy? Who did that leave? One of the corporations? “I don't know.”

  “My ... superiors are none too happy about their presence,” Jamie said. “But so far they haven’t done anything actually illegal. They cannot be legally evicted from the asteroid.”

  “I suppose not,” Sameena agreed, turning it over and over in her mind. Who would have a motive to send people out after her? “I don’t know who they represent ...”

  She saw it suddenly and cursed her own mistake. They were working for the Cartel, they had to be. Somehow, they'd noticed that there were more bottles of Firewater Mead in the sector than there should be and they’d eventually traced most of them back to Madagascar. And if they knew where the Mead actually came from, they’d know who was selling it the moment they looked at the list of registered corporations. In hindsight, naming her corporation after the Prophet’s first wife had been a dreadful error.

  “I think they want to kidnap me,” she said, thinking fast. They'd want to ask questions, she knew; if they’d aimed at simple assassination they could have shot her by now. “I have to get out of here.”

  Jamie reached over and touched her arm. “Relax,” he said. “They can't kidnap you from here. And I can call a naval party to help deal with them.”

  “You’d need to catch them trying to take me,” Sameena said. She grinned, suddenly. “Do you want me to serve as bait?”

  “After we finish our dinner,” Jamie said. He fiddled briefly with his wristcom. “And I have something else to discuss with you.”

  Sameena nodded, somehow unsurprised. Jamie wouldn't be calling in help from the naval station unless he expected his superiors to approve of it – and that would only happen if they wanted something from her. There would be a price tag attached to their help, she was sure – but what? Her thoughts kept returning to one simple question. How much did they know?

  She took her plate, walked over to the buffet and piled it high with rice and various kinds of stir fry, then returned to the table and started to eat. Jamie returned a moment later, placing a privacy generator beside her as he sat down. Sameena lifted an eyebrow, but said nothing. He would tell her what he wanted in his own good time.

  “We keep an eye on trading networks – official and unofficial,” Jamie said, once he had taken a bite of his food. “I think you know that already, of course.”

  Sameena nodded, impatiently.

  “We know that you are plugged into a network that has been supplying spare parts to the civilian shipping communities,” he continued. “Without that network, civilian shipping in this sector would have collapsed completely by now.”

  He didn't know that Sameena was running the network, she realised. They’d probably assumed that it was linked into the trader clans and the RockRats, with her as one of their representatives. If he'd known the truth ... she pushed that thought aside and nodded, slowly.

  “We need supplies ourselves,” Jamie said. “The squadron is on the verge of collapse too.”

  “I hadn't realised that it was that bad,” Sameena admitted. She’d always assumed – foolishly, she realised – that the Grand Senate would ensure that the Imperial Navy was always supplied. After all, the Navy was their enforcer. “I ...”

  “There are thirty ships officially assigned to this station,” Jamie said, cutting her off. There was a quiet brooding anger in his voice that shocked her. “Twenty-one of them are effectively immobile because we’ve run out of spare parts to keep them functioning. The remaining nine are being held together with spit, baling wire and pieces cannibalised from the other ships. In a few more months, if that, the entire squadron will be stranded.”

  His scowl darkened. “Five of the ships are capable of sublight travel only,” he added. “They can protect Madagascar, but they can't leave the system. The remainder aren't even capable of doing that. They’re going to be sitting ducks if anyone turns up with a great deal of firepower and bad intentions.”

  Sameena blinked. “Is that going to happen?”

  “There are odd reports – all denied, naturally – filtering through the Navy’s grapevine,” Jamie said. “Entire sectors in revolt, naval commanders declaring war on each other ... the bottom line, Sameena, is that we will not be receiving any more supplies from the Core Worlds for a long time, if ever.”

  “And you want to draw supplies from the network,” Sameena said, slowly. It was obvious where this was going. “You do realise that most of the components the network put together are low-grade stuff?”

  “They can be adapted,” Jamie said. “We’re desperate.

  Sameena considered it carefully, piece by piece. Helping the Navy wouldn't make her many friends among the traders, but she doubted that she had much choice. Besides, having them owing her a favour might come in handy. And they did have something she needed.

  “I believe that we can come to an agreement,” she said, slowly. She hesitated, then plunged ahead. “My superiors will want something from you.”

  “Mercenaries,” Jamie muttered, although there was no heat in his words. “How much do you want?”

  “Money isn't likely to be worth much in the very near future,” Sameena said. “We want the access codes for military-grade production equipment. And high-level commercial equipment, if you happen to have them.”

  Jamie studied her for a long moment. “You seem very confident that they will want those codes,” he said. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s something you can give them that will be worth more than money,” Sameena said, keeping her voice level. Did he know that he was speaking directly to the leader of the network? Or did he genuinely believe that she was a subordinate? “I have standing orders to obtain the codes if an opportunity presents itself.”

  Jamie reached into his pocket and produced a datachip. “This is a list of components we desperately require,” he said. “We will need shipments every five months, at the very least, just to keep the ships operational. In the long run, we might want to reactivate some of the cannibalised ships, but that will require additional shipments. If you make a commitment to supply us, I believe that my superiors would agree to hand over the codes.”

  Sameena slotted the datachip into her reader and skimmed it quickly, mentally comparing it to the lists Steve sent her. Some items would be fairly easy to produce, a handful required the codes to unlock the military production equipment. But it would consume a considerable portion of her productive capability. There would be shortfalls elsewhere.

  “Tricky,” she observed, finally. Steve would have to be consulted. “I’d have to get back to you on this one. There might be a few other aspects to the agreement to consider.”

  Jamie nodded, unsurprised. “We can meet again when you return,” he said. “Do you have any idea what they'd want?”

  Sameena did – but most of the list would be far too revealing. “Escorts, I suspect,” she said. “and perhaps a few other things.”

  She put the datapad back in her pocket and took another bite of her food. “Just how bad is it over there?”

  “We lost four crewmen five days ago to a blowout in the airlock,” Jamie said, bitterly. “They should have been safe. Airlocks are the simplest pieces of technology in the damn ships. But something jammed and the airlock blew open, throwing all four of them out into space. Others have been injured, or killed ... one of the destroyers didn't return from patrol a month ago. Was it lost somewhere in Phase Space? We don’t know.”

  Sameena shivered. Brad had been fond of novels and films that showed the plucky crew of a damaged starship limping home across interstellar space, but real life suggested that such stories always ended badly. There were only a handful of confirmed reports; normally, all that happened was that a starship was noted as overdue and eventually listed as missing, presumed destroyed. The odds were astronomically against someone stumbling over the wreckage. On an interstellar scale,
even a colonist-carrier or a battleship was smaller than a grain of sand on a beach.

  But there was another possibility. There were rumours that the crews of Imperial Navy ships were mutinying, leaving the service and becoming pirates. Sameena knew just how badly corruption had infected the Navy, spearheaded by senior officers who owed their slots to political or family connections, rather than competence or even dedication. It wasn't something she wanted to discuss with him.

  The rest of the dinner went smoothly, much to her relief. It wasn't until she was prepared to leave that Jamie stopped her. “Head down the South Walk,” he said, seriously. “My team will be there to intercept the snatchers when they come after you.”

  Sameena scowled. She'd been targeted before, but she’d never made herself a target deliberately. But there was no other choice. If she was right, luring the watchers into a position where they could be legitimately arrested was extremely important. The longer she waited, the greater the chance they would jump her before she was ready to deal with them.

  Jamie walked her to the exit, gave her a kiss on the cheek and then waved her goodbye. She resisted the temptation to look around for the watchers as she walked into the South Walk, a corridor that ran around the edge of the asteroid. Originally, she’d been told, the designers had intended to turn it into another shopping complex, but profits had never been high enough to justify it. Instead, it looked abandoned, almost completely isolated. Apart from a handful of squatters, no one lived there. It was the perfect place for a kidnap.

  It was always harder to listen for unexpected sounds in an asteroid. Unlike a ship, parts of it were eerily silent – and parts of it were deafeningly loud. The air circulation flickered without warning, there were strange sounds that echoed through the air ... she felt the hair rising on the back of her neck as she walked further down the corridor. They had to know that they wouldn't get a better opportunity to snatch her without being detected. So where were they?