Cas­sidy’s in­tel­li­gence warred con­stantly with her be­liefs. She wasn’t blind to the atroc­i­ties per­formed by her gov­ern­ment in the name of God. She’d read the Chris­tian Bible, the Jew­ish Tal­mud, and the Mus­lim Qur’an. She knew how far her re­li­gion had strayed from its ori­gins. Still, ev­ery sin she in­dulged in weighed heav­ily on her. She could feel the black smears on her soul, damn­ing her to ev­er­last­ing Hell.

  She rose from the ground and moved away from the al­tar to stand be­fore her grand­fa­ther. He looked at her with quiet ap­proval.

  “Here you are and quite pre­sentable. Sit down.” He pat­ted the bench’s molded plas­tic next to him.

  “Thank you, Grand­fa­ther.”

  Cas­sidy sat down, putting a foot of space be­tween them. She kept her head low­ered to cover her fear and loathing of the man. The gen­eral would like the fear. He’d pun­ish her for the loathing.

  “You’ve been here for how long now? Three years? I be­lieve it’s been about eigh­teen months since I last vis­ited. How are you get­ting on?”

  “Well, I think.”

  “You’re not sure?”

  “‘Look not for praise nor give it. Only God, who knows what lies in our hearts, de­ter­mines who is de­serv­ing of ac­co­lades’,” Cas­sidy quoted.

  She heard the smile in her grand­fa­ther’s re­sponse. “Very good. It’s no won­der the Mother Su­pe­rior is pleased. She be­lieves you have the call­ing.”

  So that was what he was here for, to tell Cas­sidy she was to be left on this rock for the rest of her days, her life swal­lowed in the mun­dane ex­is­tence of a Eu­ropan nun. Part of her re­belled, want­ing her to scream her re­fusal. She’d al­ready lost three years of her life to this place! Her hands ac­tu­ally clenched for a mo­ment be­fore she re­mem­bered the in­san­ity of such an act. Gen­eral Patrick Hamil­ton was a pow­er­ful man, and she was a mere woman. His word was law.

  Cas­sidy swal­lowed the lump in her throat. She would not beg him to re­lease her from this pur­ga­tory. She wouldn’t give him the sat­is­fac­tion. There was an­other way out of this. There had to be.

  To the gen­eral Cas­sidy said, “If it is God’s will, it is mine.” She won­dered at the lack of emo­tion in her voice.

  Hamil­ton sighed. “You are the last of my blood­line, Cas­sidy. If you take the vows, it will die with you. I don’t wish to be self­ish, so I have prayed hard on this mat­ter, and I be­lieve God has shown me the way. I do not think you are meant to be a nun.”

  Re­lief washed over her in a tidal wave. She closed her eyes as dizzi­ness threat­ened. “You know best, Grand­fa­ther.”

  “I’m glad you think so. I’ve come to take you home.”

  Cas­sidy wanted to scream for joy. In­stead, she meekly said, “Thank you.” In­side she turned cart­wheels.

  “That’s only half the sur­prise. You’re get­ting mar­ried.”

  She straight­ened, sur­prise mak­ing her bold enough to look into the gen­eral’s pleased face. “Mar­ried?”

  “Do you re­mem­ber Colonel Tucker?”

  Cas­sidy’s heart stut­tered in her chest. She re­mem­bered him all right, even though she couldn’t re­call his first name. Fol­low­ing her fa­ther’s death, Gen­eral Hamil­ton had tried to con­vince Cas­sidy’s mother to marry Colonel Tucker. Jackie Hamil­ton’s flat re­fusal had made her al­ready strained re­la­tion­ship with her fa­ther-in-law worse.

  The colonel’s son Eli was a hand­some young man and al­ready a mil­i­tary of­fi­cer. For the short time Cas­sidy had lived in her grand­fa­ther’s home fol­low­ing her mother’s ar­rest, Eli had been her es­cort at pub­lic func­tions. He’d been un­fail­ingly po­lite.

  “Colonel Tucker has a son about my age.” She warmed to the idea of mar­ry­ing Eli. He’d al­ways been re­spect­ful and kind. Cer­tainly be­ing wed to him couldn’t be worse than be­com­ing a nun. Cas­sidy would have her own home, maybe far away from her grand­fa­ther. The sit­u­a­tion had pos­si­bil­i­ties.

  “Yes, well a step­son a cou­ple of years older than you isn’t such a ter­ri­ble thing.”

  Cas­sidy’s heart again skipped a beat, and she looked at her grand­fa­ther with dawn­ing hor­ror. “Step­son? I’m to marry Colonel Tucker?”

  Hamil­ton’s chest puffed as if he’d be­stowed her with a price­less trea­sure. “George Tucker is a ma­ture, God-fear­ing man who will be an ex­cel­lent in­flu­ence on you. He and I have planned a quiet cer­e­mony im­me­di­ately af­ter you’ve taken your classes in wifely obe­di­ence and de­port­ment. It’s won­der­ful, isn’t it?”

  Mar­ried to that old man? His el­dest son is al­most Grand­fa­ther’s age!

  Cas­sidy thought of the re­tired Colonel Tucker, his sparse gray hair that barely cov­ered his liver-spot­ted crown, the deep-set wrin­kles of his face like ravines. Was she, not even out of her teens, re­ally sup­posed to marry a sep­tu­a­ge­nar­ian?

  Maybe be­ing a nun wasn’t such a hor­ri­ble choice af­ter all.

  Cas­sidy searched for some­thing to say, some­thing that wouldn’t of­fend her pow­er­ful grand­fa­ther yet con­vince him she couldn’t pos­si­bly be wed to her an­cient fi­ancée. Her mouth opened and closed like a beached fish. The words wouldn’t come. In­stead, the hor­ri­fied scream was back, slowly creep­ing up from her guts, ready­ing to shat­ter the air with her an­gry de­spair.

  The hiss of the chapel’s open­ing door and run­ning foot­steps saved her. “Gen­eral Hamil­ton!” a young man in a fleet uni­form screamed.

  Hamil­ton was on his feet, fac­ing the man who raced down the aisle to­ward him. “What is the mean­ing of this in­ter­rup­tion?”

  The gasp­ing man drew to a halt be­fore him, his eyes wide and his close-cropped hair stand­ing on end. “Kalquo­ri­ans have en­tered the con­tain­ment dome!”

  Cas­sidy gasped and rose from her seat. She clutched at her grand­fa­ther’s arm.

  White-faced, Hamil­ton shook her off. “Kalquo­ri­ans? Here?” For the first time in Cas­sidy’s life, the gen­eral looked un­sure.

  “Yes sir. I can’t raise the trans­port ei­ther. They don’t re­spond to my hails. Do you think the aliens have al­ready taken it?”

  Hamil­ton didn’t an­swer him. In­stead, he turned to Cas­sidy. “Raise the alarm, girl. Tell ev­ery­one to lock them­selves in their cells. Go!” He pushed her to­wards the door.

  Cas­sidy took off run­ning down the aisle, her heavy shoes clunk­ing against the hard floor. Be­hind her, she heard the gen­eral say, “Where did you see the demons and how many are there?”

  She flung her­self out into the con­vent’s per­pet­ual night be­fore the young man an­swered.

  * * * *

  Osopa pointed sev­eral yards ahead to the one build­ing among the oth­ers that didn’t look like a fea­ture­less block. “The Earther man who sighted us ran in there. No doubt he’s rais­ing the alarm about our pres­ence.”

  De­gorsk peered around the de­press­ing com­pound, won­der­ing why any­one would choose to live in such sur­round­ings. Sus­pended lights kept the colony from suc­cumb­ing to the to­tal dark­ness of this side of Eu­ropa. They emit­ted lit­tle il­lu­mi­na­tion, but for sen­si­tive Kalquo­rian eyes, it was more than enough to see by.

  The low-roofed rec­tan­gu­lar build­ing they headed for had a pointed spire shoot­ing to­wards the star-strewn sky. Be­sides that struc­ture, two rows of squat box-shel­ters sat in the cen­ter of a square of trimmed green grass. Straight walk­ways led from build­ing to build­ing, with a main thor­ough­fare be­tween the dou­ble strings of struc­tures. Like most Kalquo­ri­ans, De­gorsk pre­ferred the nat­u­ral state of veg­e­ta­tion grow­ing wild, even on ter­raformed colonies. This col­lec­tion of squares, rec­tan­gles and straight lines ap­peared aber­rant to his eyes. He felt if he spent too long look­ing at it, he’d go crazy.

  He groaned, “By the an­ces­tors, are we sure this isn’t a pe­nal colony? Liv­ing here would be the worst pun­ish­ment I could think of.”

  To his left, Li­don snorted. In a low voice he told De­gorsk, “Then I haven’t been dis­ci­plin­ing you prop­erly, my Imdiko.”

  Be­fore De­gorsk could wise off to his clan­mate, the weapons com­man­der raised his voice to is­sue or­ders. “Osopa, lead the team into that build­ing. Cap­ture that man and any other male you find with­out killing them, if pos­si­ble. Re­mem­ber, we want Gen­eral Hamil­ton alive.”

  On De­gorsk’s right, Tra­nis spoke up. “Also keep in mind there are sup­pos­edly a large num­ber of women here. Earther fe­males are frag­ile, and any­one who causes more than su­per­fi­cial harm to them will be dealt with by Com­man­der Li­don. I don’t care if a woman comes at you with a per­cus­sion blaster. You are not to hurt any fe­males.”

  It was De­gorsk’s turn. “Nobeks, medics will be ac­com­pa­ny­ing you in to se­date pris­on­ers. We’ll work as fast as pos­si­ble, but re­mem­ber there are only sev­en­teen of us. Work against your na­tures as Nobeks and try to be pa­tient.”

  Osopa nod­ded to his se­niors be­fore turn­ing to the two dozen se­cu­rity force mem­bers ea­gerly wait­ing to be set loose on the Earth­ers. “You have your in­struc­tions. First squad, go straight in to hunt. Sec­ond and third squads, you will pro­vide de­fen­sive—”

  He paused as the spired build­ing’s door slid open. The group of in­vaders tensed, hands mov­ing to­wards blasters as they in­stinc­tively crouched, ready­ing to fight. Li­don stepped for­ward, slightly in front of De­gorsk, ready to de­fend his clan­mate.

  A tiny white fig­ure ran out of the spired build­ing, its feet thud­ding heav­ily as it dashed onto the main con­course. Ev­ery Kalquo­rian froze and stared at the pale, rounded hu­manoid rac­ing in their di­rec­tion.

  The lit­tle Earther no­ticed them a sec­ond later. She froze in mid-step with a lit­tle scream and stared back.

  De­gorsk had never seen an Earther fe­male up close. He’d been off Kalquor so long, he’d not had the op­por­tu­nity to meet any of the two thou­sand or so who’d clanned with his peo­ple these last two years. He wasn’t sure what he’d ex­pected one to look like de­spite vid footage. A recorded im­age was worlds away from the real thing, and this alien woman cer­tainly proved that.

  His eyes drank in the crea­ture star­ing at them. A pale minia­ture ver­sion of the few Kalquo­rian women left alive, this fe­male would barely come up to De­gorsk’s chest. Her hair, if she had any, was cov­ered by a white hood of fab­ric. It left her cheru­bic face bare. It was a face that, de­spite be­ing drawn out in an ex­pres­sion of ter­ror, was the loveli­est the Imdiko had ever seen.

  A lit­tle nub of a nose and pouty pink lips left the Earther with an al­most child­like ap­pear­ance. In con­trast, the heavy-lid­ded blue eyes gave her oth­er­wise in­no­cent fea­tures a se­duc­tive cast. Yet she was un­doubt­edly young, maybe un­der Kalquo­rian clan­ning age. How­ever, De­gorsk knew women on Earth mar­ried seven years younger than their coun­ter­parts from his home. This girl might be old enough to court by her own species’ stan­dards. She would there­fore be le­gal to clan and breed with un­der the Kalquo­rian war code of con­duct.

  The huge swath of cloth drap­ing her body couldn’t mask the gen­er­ous curves swelling be­neath. De­gorsk went hard at the thought of the warm yield­ing flesh of the girl/woman be­fore him. By the an­ces­tors, she was mag­nif­i­cent. He ached to hold her and dis­cover if she was as soft as she looked.

  Her sud­den scream shat­tered the air. The young woman be­gan run­ning again, rac­ing to­wards one of the build­ings across from the struc­ture she’d ex­ited. She gath­ered her vo­lu­mi­nous skirts to run, dis­play­ing heavy blocky shoes and a tan­ta­liz­ing glimpse of white calf. De­gorsk sup­pressed a groan at the sight.

  She got to the build­ing and the door slid open for her. Cast­ing one last fright­ened glance over her shoul­der at them, her pretty face lit with the in­te­rior’s golden glow, she dis­ap­peared into the build­ing. A high thin wail of a voice car­ried through the air: “Lock your doors—.” The clos­ing door cut off the rest.

  There was a stretch of si­lence then, as if ev­ery Kalquo­rian in the in­va­sion party had been frozen in place. It lasted prob­a­bly less than a sec­ond. To De­gorsk, it felt like an eter­nity in which he played the Earther girl’s ap­pear­ance and es­cape on a con­tin­u­ous loop in his mind.

  Li­don re­cov­ered first, his gruff voice bring­ing the men out of their shock. “I’m guess­ing most of the women are in the build­ing where the girl ran. Osopa, change of strat­egy. ”

  “Yes sir. We’re two par­ties now. You five will come with me and take the build­ing the male went into. The rest of you fol­low that fe­male.”

  Tra­nis said, “Li­don and I are with you, Osopa. De­gorsk, your choice.”

  De­gorsk heard the re­luc­tance in his Dramok’s voice and knew Tra­nis wanted to catch the de­lec­ta­ble lit­tle Earther as much as he did. They des­per­ately needed Mataras be­fore the na­tive Kalquo­ri­ans suc­cumbed to ex­tinc­tion, and De­gorsk’s first in­stinct was to hunt down the lit­tle pale beauty they’d just en­coun­tered. Un­for­tu­nately, the spy­ship crew’s main ob­jec­tive re­mained cap­tur­ing Gen­eral Hamil­ton and get­ting the codes to dis­arm Earth’s de­fense grid.

  “Duty be­fore plea­sure,” the Imdiko medic grouched to his cap­tain and clan­mate. “Damn, that’s a lot of plea­sure to give up though. Some­times I hate my rank.”

  Tra­nis and Li­don quirked grins for a bare sec­ond be­fore sober­ing again and bark­ing out more or­ders to the rest of the group. It made De­gorsk feel bet­ter that he’d amused the too-se­ri­ous pair.

  Push­ing the pretty Earther to the back of his mind with ef­fort, he joined those run­ning into the spired struc­ture to hunt down Gen­eral Hamil­ton. He only once glanced with long­ing at the build­ing the girl had run into.

  * * * *

  In the as­pi­rant’s wing where her own room was lo­cated, Cas­sidy smashed both fists against the first of the cell doors. She drummed a fran­tic tat­too to wake its sleep­ing oc­cu­pant. “It’s a Kalquo­rian in­va­sion! Lock your door!”

  She whirled and at­tacked the door across the nar­row, fea­ture­less hall. “Kalquo­rian in­va­sion! Lock your door!”

  The door be­hind her, the first one she’d beat on, opened to show Ruth Mered­ith sleep­ily rub­bing her eyes. “What’s go­ing on?”

  Cas­sidy was al­ready run­ning to the next cell. It opened be­fore she could re­peat her mes­sage, and Mary An­der­son stepped out with a scowl, her dark hair tou­sled. “Who is bang­ing on doors at this hour?”

  More doors opened down the hall, and more girls stepped out into the hall. “It’s a Kalquo­rian at­tack! We’ve been in­vaded! Get back in your cells and lock your doors!” Breath­less and fran­tic, Cas­sidy rushed to beat on the still un­opened doors.

  “Cas­sidy, have you gone mad?”

  “Kalquo­ri­ans can’t get this close to Earth.”

  “This isn’t funny. I’m telling Mother Su­pe­rior.”

  Cas­sidy con­fronted the crowd of an­gry as­pi­rants fill­ing the hall. “It’s not a joke! For the love of Je­sus, Mo­hammed, and Moses, hide!”

  Twelve-year-old Darci Soames burst into tears. Her younger sis­ter Marci, hud­dled at her side, joined her sobs.

  Mary huffed. “I hope you’re happy, Cas­sidy. Your prank has up­set the lit­tle ones. When Mother Su­pe­rior hears—”

  The door to the out­side slid open. The first im­pos­si­bly huge Kalquo­rian swept in. He paused as he looked at them, his pur­ple cat’s eyes tak­ing in the throng of young women and girls in their long white night­gowns.

  High-pitched screams erupted. Cas­sidy didn’t wait to see more of the mus­cu­lar, dark-skinned aliens en­ter the dorm. She raced to her cell, push­ing pan­icked girls out of her way. It was too late to help any­one now. All she could do was try to save her­self.

  At any mo­ment she ex­pected to be grabbed or shot down by the Kalquo­ri­ans as she raced down the cor­ri­dor, shov­ing her way to the du­bi­ous safety of her cell. Cas­sidy could scarcely be­lieve it when she made it to her room safely. Shrieks filled her ears as the other girls raced down the hall, for­sak­ing their sleep­ing cells in a des­per­ate bid for es­cape. They headed to­wards the in­fir­mary and the nuns’ wing, scream­ing for help as they went. The shrieks re­bounded against the cold, blank walls. The ca­coph­ony made Cas­sidy’s ears ring. Then her door shut, mut­ing the din out­side her cell.

  “Lock!” Cas­sidy yelled, and the door obe­di­ently beeped.

  She wasted no time in trust­ing it to keep the en­emy out. If the Kalquo­ri­ans had seen her come in here, they would fol­low. She knew her voice-ac­ti­vated lock could not stand against such men. Even if they hadn’t sported bi­ceps that would prob­a­bly al­low them to punch her door down, the aliens were known for their tech­no­log­i­cal ad­vance­ments. Fre­quency-de­pen­dent lock­ing mech­a­nisms would pose no more than a de­lay for such crea­tures, per­haps one of less than a minute.

  Cas­sidy did not cower in her cramped room, wait­ing to be cap­tured. In­stead, she leapt on her bed and yanked sav­agely at the vent cover over­head. The metal grate came out with a protest­ing squeal. Hang­ing onto it with one hand, she jumped into the open­ing and squirmed into the shaft where she’d hid­den so of­ten to read.

  The other girls’ cries echoed in the con­fined space with chill­ing hol­low­ness. Vent open­ings through­out the dorm fed the sounds of their ter­ror into the shaft. Do­ing her best to ig­nore the screams and to deal only with what she could ac­com­plish right now, Cas­sidy wrig­gled around. She strug­gled to get a bet­ter an­gle so she could re­place the vent cover.

  She rea­soned that if the aliens didn’t know her hid­ing place and didn’t re­al­ize one of the con­vent’s in­hab­i­tants had gone miss­ing, she might get away. She could hide un­til Earth sent help or the aliens left.