"Future History" by Frances Monro

You will of course know of the story of humanity's early expansion into space, after the discovery of the Phobos device led to the development of faster than light travel. Hundreds of years of expansion and settlement in the Diaspora period came to an abrupt end when contact was made wth our masters the Xtrainul, the ensuing conquest leading to humanity's rapid retreat on all fronts.

Beaten back to the core systems and sorely pressed by Xtrainul assaults, the human houses came to the decision to attempt to flee here to the Daedelus cluster, over 5000 light years from Sol. This was an ambitious - some would say reckless plan given how tightly resources and social systems were stretched at the time - but it seemed to these wild humans to be an alternative to Xtrainul domination.  

Remnants of the Exodus may still be seen in the Daedelus cluster today in the form of planetary ruins or orbiting hulks, many bearing the heraldic devices of the houses of the period. It was a time of disorder, when the prevailing social structure was coming apart under the force of the repeated hammer blows of Xtrainul conquest. Typical house devices of the period bear martian capitals upon the shield of the great Ordos Line Corporation, which by this period had alread already fragmented into two competing lines one carrying container freight and the other freight and passengers.

Official proclaimations of the time portray the Exodus as an orderly evacuation with house conclaves and comitees allocating resources and matching needs and shipping capacity in an orderly, rational fashion. The truth was far more chaotic. Stretched over long distances with poor communications and few support systems the Exodus was a process barely controlled, sometimes out of control, by the great Houses and Corporations. Corruption and piracy was rife, as well as simple incompetence and lack of resources and strain on men and machinery. It is estimated that at the height of the Exodus a ship departing the inner sphere had only a 65% chance of reaching the Daedelus Cluster at the end of it's long journey.

Every passing year brought increased pressure for more speed, more ships, more cargo and more money as Xtrainul conquest bit home in the core systems and the population became frantic to escape. Social systems broke down. Fortunes were made and lost in days, hours. It was a time when the unscrupulous could easily practice murder, deception and theft, and a time when a man with a ship could expect to either make a fortune or die in a very short period of time....