Cas­sidy wanted to know how it felt. Locked away in the con­vent, she’d never be pen­e­trated by any man. Her own touch would be all she would ever know.

  She pressed her fin­ger gen­tly against her se­cret open­ing. The tip slipped in, eased by the thick juices seep­ing from her core. Heat ra­di­ated, invit­ing her to ex­plore her in­ner re­gions. Cas­sidy’s fin­ger dared an­other frac­tion of an inch.

  A harsh buzzing splin­tered the dark­ness. Cas­sidy gasped. Pan­icked, she scram­bled wildly to the vent open­ing, burst­ing into her dimly lit cell.

  Her tiny bed was right be­low, and she crashed onto its hard sur­face. Even as she landed there, she was al­ready reach­ing for the vent cover ly­ing on her thin pil­low. Heft­ing the cold rec­tan­gle of metal, she shoved it into place over the shaft open­ing. Cas­sidy winced at the high squeal of metal scrap­ing metal.

  The mo­ment the vent cover was in place, she jumped from the bed and bounded the sin­gle step it took to get to her habit hang­ing on the wall peg. Cas­sidy knew her room even in pitch black; it was too small to flail around in con­fu­sion. Ev­ery­thing she needed was near at hand.

  Her night­gown flew into the air, and she jerked on the sleeve­less shift of her un­der­dress, fol­lowed by the white dress of the con­vent as­pi­rant. De­spite its vo­lu­mi­nous folds, it failed to con­ceal her gen­er­ous curves.

  Cas­sidy gath­ered her long, thick hair in a wad at the nape of her neck, hold­ing it in place just long enough to stuff it into her head scarf. She grabbed a pair of socks from the shelf next to the wall peg. Af­ter hang­ing her night­gown, she sat on the edge of the bed and yanked her socks on.

  The buzzer blared again, and she shot to her feet with a lit­tle shriek. She made her­self calm, coax­ing her ham­mer­ing heart to quiet.

  “Lights up, one-quar­ter,” Cas­sidy whis­pered. Her grim lit­tle cell il­lu­mi­nated softly, dis­play­ing the for­bid­ding gray walls, ceil­ing, and floor.

  She quickly smoothed the sheet and scratchy gray blan­ket that cov­ered her bed. Ex­cept for the white of her clothes and black of her shoes, the room was a uni­form drab gray. It re­flected her life since com­ing to Eu­ropa per­fectly. If there was a more de­press­ing place in the uni­verse, Cas­sidy couldn’t imag­ine it.

  With one last look around, she as­sured her­self noth­ing was out of place in her cell. Be­sides the bed, peg, and shelf, Cas­sidy’s room con­tained only a wooden chair, too un­com­fort­able to be sat on for long. Her clunky black shoes sat be­fore it, but she didn’t put them on. She’d re­hearsed the even­tu­al­ity she’d be sur­prised from the vent many times in her mind, and a tiny flare of sat­is­fac­tion warmed her breast.

  She stood be­fore her closed door. A voice com­mand would have opened it. How­ever, Cas­sidy wor­ried she might be more breath­less than be­ing wak­ened from sleep would ac­count for. In­stead of or­der­ing the door, she quickly wiped her sweat­ing hands on her dress. She pressed the but­ton that un­locked and slid it open. Light spilled in from the hall­way, il­lu­mi­nat­ing the fig­ure that stood wait­ing in the cor­ri­dor. Cas­sidy’s mouth dropped open in shock as she rec­og­nized the bald man be­fore her.

  “Grand­fa­ther!”

  Gen­eral Patrick Hamil­ton, re­splen­dent as al­ways in his olive green uni­form, in­clined his head in greet­ing. The rest of his whip-thin body re­mained ram­rod straight. “Hello Cas­sidy. I’m sorry to have wak­ened you at such an hour.” His eyes nar­rowed as he looked her over. His lips thinned in a dis­ap­prov­ing line. “Why are you out of breath?”

  Cas­sidy’s hand went to her head scarf, as­sur­ing her it was in place with none of her hair show­ing. “I thought I’d over­slept. I rushed to dress and straighten my room be­fore morn­ing prayers.”

  The gen­eral’s mouth quirked slightly, a rare con­ces­sion to hu­mor. “You for­got your shoes.”

  Cas­sidy’s guts loos­ened a frac­tion, and she looked down at her feet in feigned sur­prise. “I’m sorry for my ap­pear­ance, Grand­fa­ther. I guess I’m mud­dled from wak­ing so sud­denly.”

  “No apol­ogy is nec­es­sary. Put your shoes on and join me in the chapel.” He smiled, but it wasn’t for her. He looked like a man who’d just won an ar­gu­ment. “I have won­der­ful news for you.”

  With­out wait­ing for her obe­di­ent “Yes sir”, he marched down the hall to­wards the dorm exit.

  Cas­sidy sagged in re­lief. The plan had worked, and on no less than her ob­ser­vant grand­fa­ther. She had even scored a few pre­cious sec­onds by not putting on her shoes, time she could use to set­tle the wild beat­ing of her heart and make sure all ev­i­dence of her so­journ into the vent was taken care of. Smug sat­is­fac­tion warmed her chest.

  But what in the names of Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses was her grand­fa­ther do­ing here?

  Cas­sidy hur­riedly put on her shoes. She knew bet­ter than to keep the gen­eral wait­ing.

  Chap­ter 2

  Tra­nis stepped onto the Earther trans­port’s bridge and fought off a sat­is­fied smile. The sud­den ap­pear­ance of the spy­ship when it de-cloaked had suf­fi­ciently dis­tracted the en­emy ves­sel. The Earth­ers had been so busy is­su­ing threats and fir­ing shots that they failed to de­tect the small group of space­suited Kalquo­ri­ans gath­ered out­side the trans­port’s shut­tle bay. Li­don’s young in­fil­tra­tion team had made short work of find­ing the cor­rect fre­quency to force the bay doors open. Once the group of Nobeks had in­vaded, they’d quickly got­ten to the weapons and com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­trols. The at­tack­ers knocked the trans­port’s de­fenses out be­fore the ship’s cap­tain even knew the en­emy was on board. Over­whelmed, the Earth­ers sur­ren­dered un­con­di­tion­ally.

  Li­don en­tered the bridge at Tra­nis’ side. The weapons com­man­der im­me­di­ately went to a com­puter sta­tion and wired an in­ter­face with his hand­held com­puter. With De­gorsk ac­com­pa­ny­ing him, Tra­nis stepped up to Nobek Osopa and clapped him on the shoul­der in con­grat­u­la­tions. The young team leader grinned for an in­stant be­fore re­cov­er­ing his pro­fes­sion­al­ism. He bowed.

  “Here is the cap­tain of this ship, Cap­tain Tra­nis. His name is Big­gers.”

  Two Nobeks es­corted the Earther cap­tain for­ward to stand be­fore Tra­nis. Big­gers was gray-haired and paunchy, his pale face suf­fused with hec­tic red blotches. An slightly un­der av­er­age-sized male Earther, he stood chest high to Tra­nis.

  “I must protest your at­tack on us, Kalquo­rian. We’re a sup­ply ship bring­ing goods to the Eu­ropa Colony, a non-mar­tial in­stal­la­tion. Nei­ther we nor our mis­sion are mil­i­tary. Your at­tack on my ship is in vi­o­la­tion of Ga­lac­tic Coun­cil con­ven­tions.”

  Big­gers spoke Eng­lish, one of eight Earther lan­guages Tra­nis had learned. Big­gers’ ac­cent sounded like he’d come from the po­lit­i­cal and re­li­gious base of Earth known as the North Amer­i­can Bloc.

  “You’re trans­port­ing a high-rank­ing mem­ber of the mil­i­tary, Cap­tain Big­gers,” Tra­nis said. “That makes you fair game in war.”

  He looked at the as­sem­bled pris­on­ers kneel­ing in a group in the mid­dle of the bridge. They all looked fright­ened as well as ob­scenely small and de­fense­less. It was hard to be­lieve these were the crea­tures fin­ish­ing the job of driv­ing Tra­nis’ peo­ple to their doom. There were only a dozen Earth­ers on the bridge, and an­other 45 now be­ing guarded in a stor­age bay. The num­ber of Earth­ers, who ap­par­ently had lit­tle to no hand-to-hand com­bat train­ing, had been no match for his 26 Nobek war­riors. He could al­most pity them.

  Pity or not, Tra­nis had a job to do. He asked, “Where is Gen­eral Hamil­ton?”

  To his credit, Cap­tain Big­gers didn’t flinch. “There are no mil­i­tary per­son­nel on board this ship.”

  “Was he on the shut­tle that went to the colony on Eu­ropa half an hour ago?”

  “This is a sup­ply ship.”

  Tra­nis stepped to one side. “De­gorsk.”

  The Imdiko loomed over Big­gers, his hands mov­ing in a blur. The Earther sud­denly gasped, clutch­ing one side of his neck. The Nobeks guard­ing him kept him from fall­ing back­wards.

  “What did you do to me?” the Earther splut­tered.

  De­gorsk re­turned to Tra­nis’ side. “The drug I in­jected you with will not harm you. It will help you co­op­er­ate.”

  “I’m just a courier. I know noth­ing!”

  Li­don called for Tra­nis’ at­ten­tion. “Cap­tain, scans show there is no sub­ter­ranean cham­ber be­neath that in­stal­la­tion on the planet’s sur­face. What’s be­neath the con­tain­ment dome ap­pears to be the en­tirety of the base.”

  Tra­nis turned back to Big­gers. De­gorsk was wav­ing a scan­ner in front of the now trem­bling Earther. “Is he ready?”

  “The drug has taken hold.” The medic frowned at the scan­ner.

  “Is there a prob­lem?”

  “His heart rate has el­e­vated, but it’s prob­a­bly the stress of the sit­u­a­tion and fear of what he might re­veal. I’ll mon­i­tor him.”

  In Eng­lish Tra­nis asked the Earther, “Cap­tain Big­gers, are you trans­port­ing Gen­eral Patrick Hamil­ton?”

  The hec­tic splotches on the pris­oner’s face deep­ened. Be­tween clenched teeth he mut­tered, “Yes.”

  “Where is the gen­eral now?”

  “At the con­vent on Eu­ropa.” Big­gers gasped with ef­fort.

  “He was on board the shut­tle that left this ship?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who else?”

  “Just the pi­lot.”

  “What kind of fa­cil­ity is a con­vent?”

  Big­gers’ face was nearly pur­ple as he fought to not an­swer, but the words grated out any­way. “It’s where nuns live and wor­ship.”

  “Nuns?” Tra­nis shot a ques­tion­ing look at De­gorsk, who shrugged.

  “I’ve never heard of those,” his clan­mate said. “We’ll have to tell Fleet Com­mand they sent us out here with in­ad­e­quate in­for­ma­tion. Have Li­don do it in per­son so they’ll know we’re pissed off. That will keep them from fuck­ing up again.”

  Their Nobek snorted as he con­tin­ued his scans of the moon’s sur­face. In Kalquo­rian he warned De­gorsk, “Be­have your­self, my Imdiko. We’re on duty.”

  “All the more rea­son not to be so damned se­ri­ous.”

  De­gorsk’s med­i­cal scan­ner beeped, cut­ting off his an­tics and sav­ing Tra­nis from hav­ing to cite him for dis­ci­plinary ac­tion. The Imdiko scowled at the read­out. “Cap­tain Big­gers, re­lax. Take deep breaths.”

  “What are nuns?” Tra­nis prod­ded Big­gers.

  The Earther shud­dered. His breath wheezed. “Women who have given their lives to serve the Church.”

  Tra­nis’ heart thumped with sud­den ex­cite­ment. Li­don was sud­denly at his side, his eyes sharp. “Women? How many women?”

  “I don’t know Eu­ropa’s ex­act num­bers. A cou­ple hun­dred, per­haps.”

  Big­gers shud­dered again. One of his fat-fin­gered hands sud­denly clutched at his chest. He whooped air, and his eyes rolled over white. De­gorsk grabbed him by the shoul­ders a mo­ment be­fore the Earther’s knees un­hinged.

  Tra­nis’ ela­tion gave way to con­cern, and he helped his Imdiko lower the now un­con­scious man to the floor. “What’s wrong?”

  “His heart has stopped.” De­gorsk mut­tered a string of pro­fan­i­ties and dropped the scan­ner. He placed one palm on Big­gers’ still chest. He pushed down, eased up, pushed down, and eased up with one hand. With the other, he reached into his por­ta­ble med­i­cal kit and prepped a stim­u­lant in­jec­tion.

  Tra­nis watched help­lessly while the medic worked on the Earther cap­tain. Six years of clan­ship wasn’t a long time, but it was enough that he could read the ex­pres­sion in De­gorsk’s eyes. Af­ter a few min­utes, the Imdiko sat back, de­feat slump­ing his shoul­ders.

  “Fuck, Tra­nis. He’s gone.”

  “What hap­pened?”

  “I don’t know. Ini­tial scans in­di­cated Cap­tain Big­gers didn’t have any heart con­di­tion de­spite his phys­i­cal shape. I wouldn’t have shot him up with truth-telling com­pound if I’d seen any­thing wrong.”

  “Could it have been a side-ef­fect of the drug?”

  “Maybe, but it shouldn’t have been an is­sue. The com­pound I used was de­vel­oped specif­i­cally for Earth­ers so they wouldn’t be harmed dur­ing in­ter­ro­ga­tion. I need to run tests on him to fig­ure out what went wrong.”

  Tra­nis con­sid­ered. “Anal­y­sis will have to wait. I want you and all med­i­cal per­son­nel on that moon with us when we go down.”

  De­gorsk gave him a dark look. Whether a pa­tient was an ally or an en­emy, he hated to lose a life. Hav­ing a man die while un­der his care al­ways ig­nited De­gorsk’s fear­some tem­per.

  His tone was down­right in­sub­or­di­nate as he said, “I refuse to sanc­tion us­ing the drug on Gen­eral Hamil­ton un­til I know it didn’t kill Big­gers.”

  Tra­nis didn’t take of­fense. As clan leader and cap­tain, he knew De­gorsk too well to be put off by his Imdiko’s flashes of ill-hu­mor when things went wrong. “Un­der­stood, and I con­cede the mat­ter to your ex­per­tise once we cap­ture our tar­get. Be­fore I in­ter­ro­gate Hamil­ton how­ever, there are fe­males on Eu­ropa to be col­lected. I think you will agree that their wel­fare is para­mount. If any are in­jured in the take­down, I want your team’s pri­or­ity to be to care for them.”

  De­gorsk re­laxed. “Un­der­stood, Cap­tain. Sub­com­man­der Osopa, can you ar­range for Cap­tain Big­gers’ body to be trans­ferred to the spy­ship?”

  “Yes, Doc­tor.”

  Tra­nis stood. Li­don’s en­thu­si­as­tic clap on his shoul­der nearly knocked him back down.

  The Nobek grinned with preda­tory tri­umph. “Cap­tur­ing Gen­eral Hamil­ton plus dozens of Mataras to bear our chil­dren, all in one fell swoop. You’ve out­done your­self, my Dramok.”

  Even though his heart felt heavy for the dead man ly­ing at his feet, Tra­nis couldn’t help the thrill that raced through his be­ing.

  Fe­males on Eu­ropa! Maybe as many as two hun­dred of them. Per­haps when the Kalquo­ri­ans went down to that moon, he’d even find a Matara suit­able to claim for his own clan.

  That idea made the Dramok’s heart pound. A Matara. A lifebringer. Noth­ing was more pre­cious in the uni­verse to a Kalquo­rian man. Ac­co­lades and rank paled in com­par­i­son. Could it be true there were so many women on the moon be­low, one of which waited to be­come the cen­ter of Tra­nis’ clan? By the an­ces­tors, it was a re­ward be­yond any­thing he could imag­ine.

  Only con­sid­er­a­tion for the Earther crew’s loss kept a tri­umphant smile from stretch­ing across Tra­nis’ face.

  * * * *

  Cas­sidy en­tered the chapel. Her grand­fa­ther sat on the bench clos­est to the al­tar, his bald head gleam­ing in the soft col­ors of the stained light glass and al­tar can­dles. She hur­ried for­ward.

  She knelt be­fore the al­tar and the mam­moth sym­bol of her re­li­gion that hov­ered be­hind it. “The em­blem of great re­li­gious per­ver­sion” one il­licit book in her col­lec­tion claimed. “The North Amer­i­can Bloc’s fi­nal in­sult to the world it has con­sumed.”

  At the cen­ter of the icon was a six-pointed star rep­re­sent­ing the for­mer Jew­ish faith. Ra­di­at­ing from it were four bars, the cross of Chris­tian­ity. Top­ping the brushed gold fig­ure was a cres­cent moon with a five-pointed star perched on its lower tip for Is­lam.

  Cas­sidy knew from her read­ing that Earth’s other ma­jor re­li­gions at the time of Uni­fi­ca­tion had been de­stroyed, or at least driven un­der­ground, dur­ing the Great Purge. Hin­duism, Bud­dhism, Chi­nese tra­di­tion­al­ists, the Sikhs, Baha’i and too many oth­ers to re­mem­ber … all had been dec­i­mated in the name of the one true re­li­gion.

  She’d read the hea­then texts and wept for the loss of the peo­ple who’d be­lieved in them. The mass ex­e­cu­tions of those who re­fused to con­vert had gone on for well over a decade. Those souls had trusted in their faiths and paid for it with their lives. The deaths had num­bered over two bil­lion. It didn’t mat­ter the purge had taken place long be­fore Cas­sidy’s birth. The thought of so many lives lost still broke her heart.

  Then there were those who had held to their orig­i­nal be­liefs in Ju­daism, Chris­tian­ity, or Is­lam. They too had been cut down as un­holy. Only those who ac­cepted or pre­tended to ac­cept the new faith had been left alone. The third Holy Leader had de­creed the mass ex­e­cu­tions, and his fol­low­ers had car­ried out his edicts with fa­nat­i­cal joy.

  It wasn’t that the new faith was so aw­ful in its in­ten­tions. Its orig­i­nal writ­ings by the fourth prophet of God had not even de­manded the blood of the un­be­liev­ers. It had tied to­gether the three re­li­gions that had pre­vailed in the North Amer­i­can Bloc, mak­ing one some­what har­mo­nious whole. It had gone so far as to prom­ise no more wars fought in the name of God. For a short time it had suc­ceeded, gath­er­ing wor­ship­pers who preached free­dom from di­vi­sive ha­tred, one united world un­der God.

  When its most de­vout ad­her­ents gained con­trol of the po­lit­i­cal land­scape and mil­i­tary, the orig­i­nal teach­ings had been skewed to fa­vor might over love. Penance, of­ten vis­ited on sin­ners with deadly zeal, was de­liv­ered quicker than for­give­ness. Now the Church ruled all of Earth and brooked no dis­sen­sion, no dis­be­lief. To go against it meant swift judg­ment, of­ten with the sen­tence of ex­e­cu­tion.