The Empire's Corps: Book 05 - The Outcast Read online

  The Outcast

  The Empire’s Corps – Book V

  Series Listing

  Book One: The Empire’s Corps

  Book Two: No Worse Enemy

  Book Three: When The Bough Breaks

  Book Four: Semper Fi

  Book Five: The Outcast

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  http://www.chrishanger.net

  http://chrishanger.wordpress.com/

  http://www.facebook.com/ChristopherGNuttall

  All Comments Welcome!

  Cover Blurb

  A new novel set in the universe of The Empire’s Corps!

  When Sameena’s brother accidentally annoys a religious leader on her homeworld, her entire family is targeted for elimination. Forced to flee to save her life, Sameena stows away on a trader starship and is eventually welcomed into the crew, embracing their very different culture and making a new life for herself amongst the stars.

  But the Galactic Empire is starting the final descent into chaos and her new home is on the verge of collapse, while secretive forces are manoeuvring to take advantage of the Empire’s collapse. If Sameena cannot find a way to keep some small part of civilisation intact, the galaxy will crash into a new dark age that will last far longer than a thousand years.

  Dear Readers

  When I first started to outline the series that would become The Empire’s Corps, I intended to alternate mainstream books – stories following the characters on Avalon – with stand-alone books set somewhere else within the collapsing Empire. When The Bough Breaks was set on Earth, but still followed the Terran Marines. The Outcast follows a character who is not a Marine and the Marines themselves are barely mentioned. However, she will be very important as the ruins of the Empire give way to successor states and interstellar war.

  I hope this meets with your approval. Please feel free to post your opinions on my website discussion board or facebook page (links above.) And if you liked the story, please don’t hesitate to write a review.

  It is my intention to write Book VI in two months, which is provisionally titled To The Shores (a snippet, under the title Marching Through Hell, is on my blog) and will return to Avalon, then look in on Belinda and Roland in Book VII.

  Chronologically speaking, part one of The Outcast starts four years prior to The Empire’s Corps and the epilogue takes place a few months after Semper Fi.

  As always, if you spot any spelling errors and suchlike, drop me a line. I offer cameos!

  Thank you for your attention.

  Christopher G. Nuttall

  Dedication

  There are hundreds of thousands (perhaps many more) people trapped in bad situations, from a troubled marriage to a repressive state or religion that refuses to allow them their freedom. And yet sometimes the oppression can feel safer than trying to escape, without quite knowing what might be waiting for you ...

  This book is dedicated to those who have the courage to escape.

  Prologue

  From: The Rise of the Trader Queen. Professor Leo Caesius. Avalon Publishing. 49PE (Post-Empire).

  When did the Galactic Empire fall?

  It seems an absurd question. A cursory glance at a history book will reveal the dates that Earth was destroyed, the Sirius Sector declared independence, the war between Hecate and Heartland began and a thousand other events that formed part of the final collapse of the Empire. But when did the Empire actually die? At what point did the fall become unavoidable?

  I think it truly became unavoidable when the economy started to collapse.

  The empire was held together by a combination of military force and economic ties. Together, they held thousands of worlds in a common union. But the former was wearing away and the latter was being destroyed by the Grand Senate. The economy was being strangled at precisely the moment it needed to breath. In short, the Grand Senate was not only robbing Peter to pay Paul, it was also eating its own seed corn.

  This was disastrous. As imperial taxes grew ever-higher, more and more freighters and interstellar shipping companies were forced out of business – or became smugglers. Entire planetary systems and even sectors started opting out of the Empire’s economic network, forming their own units that existed in isolation. Indeed, as the big corporations started to lose their profits, they pulled out and abandoned hundreds of planets to their own devices.

  Chaos spread across the Rim. Pirates went on the rampage, attacking trading starships and entire planets. HE3 supplies started to run out, forcing planets to revert to an earlier stage of technological development if they couldn't build their own cloudscoops. Isolated colonies fell completely off the trade routes, such as they were; entire planets died out because they could no longer maintain their life support systems ... the end of history seemed at hand.

  But this also offered opportunities for those who were prepared to think outside the stifling centralised control of the Empire.

  One such person was Sameena Hussein.

  Or, as she became known, the Trader Queen.

  Chapter One

  A very famous philosopher once referred to the study of economics as the ‘Voodoo Sciences,’ suggesting – in effect – that there was no true science behind economics. Human experience tends to agree. All attempts to devise a science for economics have failed.

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

  “Good work, Sameena.”

  Sameena beamed with pride at her father’s words. It was unusual for a girl to receive any formal education on Jannah, let alone be granted the chance to use it, but her father had recognised her talent from a very early age. The family business would be passed down to her brother Abdul – a girl running a business was unheard of – yet he’d already promised her that she could continue to work behind the scenes. Her brother had no talent for business and knew it.

  “Thank you, father,” she said, as she looked down at the figures. Honestly, they weren't very complicated at all. “I could do the next set right now.”

  Her father made a show of stroking his beard in contemplation, then shook his head. “Your mother will want help in the kitchen,” he reminded her dryly. “Or we will have no food tonight.”

  Sameena rolled her eyes. “I burn water, father,” she said, hoping that he would change his mind. “You should put Abdul in the kitchen.”

  Her father’s eyes twinkled with amusement. The only male cooks on the planet were the ones who cooked in the mosques, feeding the men who travelled from town to town spreading the word of Islam. It was unlikely, to say the least, that Abdul would ever join them. He was simply too fond of games to take up a career in the mosque.

  “Cheeky brat,” he said. He reached out and patted her on the head. “Go help your mother while I check the figures. You can do more sums tonight.”

  Sameena stood up and bowed, then walked out of her father’s study and down towards the kitchen, where the smell of cooked meat was already starting to waft through the house. Her mother was a wonderful cook, she knew, but Sameena knew that she had no talent for cooking. In her fanciful moments, she wondered if she had inherited the gene for trading from her father, rather than the gene for cooking she should have had. Most of her friends saw nothing wrong with spending most of their time in the kitchen.

  She stopped in front of the kitchen door and hesitated, catching sight of her own reflection in the mirror her mother had hung on the door. A dark-skinned face looked back at her, surrounded by long dark hair that fell down over her shoulders. She looked almost mannish, her mother had said, apart from her hair. The doctor they’d taken her to had sai
d that she was simply a late developer. Shaking her head, Sameena pulled her hair into a ponytail and pushed open the door to the kitchen. Her mother was standing in front of the stove, boiling a piece of beef in a large pan.

  “There you are,” her mother said, crossly. A strict traditionalist, her mother had little time for the work she did with her father. Only the tradition of female obedience had stopped her from making more of a fuss. “Go wash the pots and pans.”

  Sameena sighed. “Yes, mother,” she said, as she walked over to the sink. As always, her mother seemed to have gone out of her way to use as many different pans and utensils as possible. “Why don’t you get Abdul to do it?”

  Her mother gave her a sharp look. “Because he is at study,” she said, sharply. It was her latest scheme to make something of her son and she’d nagged her husband until he'd agreed to pay for it. “And because men don’t work in the kitchen.”

  It hardly seemed fair to Sameena. She was better at maths than her brother, better at reading ... why did she have to get married and spend her life in the kitchen? If her father had wanted to marry her off, he could have done so from the moment she’d become a woman. She’d been lucky. Some of her girlfriends had already been married, or had been practically chained to the kitchen inside their houses, permanently supervised by their mothers. But why was it that way?

  She pushed the thought aside and started to work on the pots and pans. Her mother kept adding to the pile, or scooping up items she’d washed and using them again, forcing Sameena to wash them again and again. She just wanted to walk away, but there was no point in leaving. Her mother would be angry and her father would be disappointed in her. Where could she go if she left?

  “Take this out to the dining room,” her mother ordered. “And then come straight back.”

  Sameena took the dish of curry gratefully and carried it out of the kitchen, down towards the dining room. It was the largest room in the house; her father used it to entertain his business partners or the bureaucrats from Abdullah every few weeks. Sameena had been allowed to listen to some of the discussions – although she hadn't been allowed to speak – and she’d learned more about how the world worked than she'd learned from her mother, or the tutor her father had hired for her education. They hadn't bothered to conceal anything from her.

  Her father was already sitting on the floor. “Put it down there,” he ordered, tiredly. “And then you ...”

  There was a crash as someone opened the front door. Sameena looked up to see Abdul as he stepped into the room, grinning from ear to ear. Her brother was handsome, some of her girlfriends had said, but Sameena didn't see it herself. But then, he’d been two years old when she’d been born and they’d practically grown up together. She’d been very lucky in her brother as well.

  “You’re late,” her father said, sternly.

  “I had to talk to the teacher,” Abdul said. He was still grinning. “Can you believe that he got something wrong?”

  Their father stared at him. “... What?”

  “The teacher, the one who came all the way from Abdullah,” Abdul said. “He was basing his arguments on a discredited hadith, so I had to tell him ...”

  Sameena looked at her father and saw the blood draining from his face. “What did you tell him ...?”

  Abdul dropped into classical Arabic and started to explain. Sameena scowled at him – girls were not encouraged to learn classical Arabic and she could barely follow one word in ten – before looking at their father. He’d gone very pale.

  “You utter idiot,” he said, when Abdul had finished. “You ... you’ve ruined us all!”

  “But I was right,” Abdul protested. “I ...”

  “Fool of a boy,” their father thundered. “Do you really think that matters?”

  He started to pace around the room. “He will have complained about you to the Guardians of Public Morality,” he snapped. “You will come to their attention. And anyone who comes to their attention is lost forever.”

  Abruptly, he turned and headed towards the door. “Eat your dinner, then stay in your room,” he ordered. “And don’t talk about it with your mother.”

  His gaze moved to Sameena. “You too,” he added. “Don’t talk to your mother about anything.”

  Sameena watched him leave, unable to suppress the nervous feeling in her chest. She’d seen the Guardians of Public Morality – dark men in dark robes, carrying staffs – from a distance, but she’d never spoken to one. And yet she’d heard the rumours of what they did to people who stepped too far outside the lines drawn for Jannah’s population. Those who came to their attention always regretted it.

  She would have asked Abdul, but their mother bustled just after their father left and started putting the rice and bread down on the mat. Instead, she ate and worried.

  ***

  Two days passed before her father returned to the house. He must have said something to her mother, Sameena had decided, if only because she didn't seem worried by his absence. But then, he'd often had to make business trips, either to Abdullah or to the spaceport out in the desert. Having to leave at short notice wasn't uncommon. Even so, she couldn't help worrying about what was going on. Abdul hadn't been very talkative and had spent most of his time in his room.

  Sameena was sitting in her room, reading a book, when her father opened the door and came inside. As master of the house, he could go anywhere without bothering to ask permission, but he normally respected her private space and knocked before entering her room. It was so out of character for him to barge inside that she almost panicked. Just what was going on?

  “I have arranged for you to marry,” her father said, without preamble. The look in his eyes chilled her to the bone. “You will marry Judge Al-Haran and ...”

  Sameena gaped at him. “Father,” she protested. “He’s married! He has two wives!”

  “You will be his third,” her father said. He put a small purse of gold coins on her bedside table. “He has agreed to take you. It is a very great honour.”

  Sameena felt her world crashing down around her. She had known that she would be married, sooner or later; it was very rare for a woman to remain unmarried past her late teens. Even those whose morals had been called into question were married off; they just had to become second or third wives. But she ...

  Her father had promised her – promised her – that she wouldn't be married off unless she approved of the groom. And her brother, who would become her guardian if her father died before she married, had made her the same promise. She’d trusted them – and yet now they were selling her off to the highest bidder. How could she be a third wife? She’d heard the older women chatting, when they thought their children couldn't hear, and she knew what it would be like. The third wife was a slave, in all but name. She would be bullied by the senior wives as well as her husband.

  And she’d met the Judge, once. He hadn't impressed her.

  “Father,” she said, gathering herself as best as she could, “I will not marry the Judge. He’s fifty years old, and smelly, and ...”

  Her father slapped her.

  Sameena fell backwards, more shocked then hurt. Her father never hit her. She’d been slapped by her mother more than once when she’d been disobedient, but her father never hit her – or Abdul. Her cheek hurt ... she lifted a hand to it and touched her skin, feeling it throbbing in pain. She’d never been scared of her father before.

  But when she met his eyes, she realised that he was scared too.

  “Your idiot of a brother has made powerful enemies,” her father said, very quietly. “I have it on good authority that the Guardians of Public Morality have already been alerted and that they’re just waiting for permission to act. No matter what bribes I offer, I cannot save my son, or my wife, or myself. You know how many enemies merchants have on this world.”

  Sameena nodded. Merchants kept the world going, yet the local governments often disapproved of them. She’d done the sums and knew how much money her fat
her had to pay out in taxes – or bribes – just to keep going. A charge of disbelief, of unorthodoxy, might be impossible to bury underneath a mass of bribes. Even their friends might back away if they realised that the fallout might land on them as well.

  And all it took to unleash the Guardians of Public Morality was a brief dispute in a mosque between a young man and a teacher ...

  “But I can save you,” her father insisted. “You’ll go to the Judge, you will become his wife and they won’t be able to touch you. We can go to his house and he can perform the ceremony ... don’t you understand? There is nothing he can do to you that is worse than what the Guardians of Public Morality will do, if they get their hands on you.”

  Sameena remembered the worst of the rumours and went cold. How could their lives have turned upside down so quickly? But there was no point in crying over spilt milk, as her mother had said more than once. If her father was right, she had no other choice. There was no one else who would give her the same protection as the Judge ...

  A thought struck her. “But father, given what Uncle Muhammad has been doing for the government ...”

  “They won’t take that into account,” her father assured her, grimly. “He isn't your real Uncle, after all. If we’re lucky, he won’t be involved at all.”

  He tapped the purse of gold. “You won’t be able to take much with you,” he added. “But take that – in a few years, maybe you’ll be able to seek an alternate arrangement. Legally, he has to leave that with you ...”

  Sameena shook her head in absolute despair. Maybe, just maybe, the Judge would grant her a divorce once the whole affair had died down in a year or two. But if he refused, there was no way that she could find a legal separation. The law wouldn't be on her side, whatever he did to her. And he could take her gold and no one would be able to stop him.