Sister Katherine Read Online Free PDF Page B

wake up.”
    She opened her eyes.  One of the older aspirants, a 19-year-old named Tina, crouched over her.  The scatter of freckles across the redhead’s nose was shockingly dark against her paler-than-usual skin.  The girl’s soft brown eyes were shimmery with tears.
    Seeing Katherine waking sent those tears dashing down Tina’s cheeks.  Her shoulders sagged in a small signal of relief.  “Thank God you’re awake, Sister.  We’ve been invaded.  We’re prisoners.  What do we do?”
    Katherine shook her head a little, trying to clear the drowsy fog from her mind.  The nearby cry of terror and desperate shushing helped chase the dazed feeling away, bringing things into better focus.  Moans and weeping filled her ears.  The sounds of loss and hopelessness.  And she smelled … food.  Old remnants of meals past.
    Why was she lying on the floor in a dim room?  Katherine struggled to sit up, and Tina helped her with shaking hands.
    Katherine looked about.  They were in the convent’s dining room.  The tables where everyone sat for their meals had been shoved up against the soft blue walls.  More white-gowned sisters and aspirants lay all around her on the linoleum floor.  That shocking oddity receded to the back of her consciousness when she saw the fierce-visaged Kalquorians surrounding them.  She gasped as her heart nearly stuttered to a halt at the sight of about a dozen of the huge alien males watching the women slowly regain their senses. 
    Tina clutched at her shoulders, huddling close in her fear.  “Sister, please?  What do we do?”
    Katherine dragged her gaze from the men apparently guarding them.  She looked over her fellow nuns and the few adult aspirants crowded in the center of the room.  Most were unconscious, apparently still under the effects of the sedation they’d been given during the invasion.  The few who had wakened cowered and clutched at one another much as Tina was doing to her.
    Katherine looked for Mother Superior or Sister Bernadette and saw neither in the dozens of women surrounding her.  That meant she was the ranking nun here.  She was in charge.
    Katherine swallowed and looked again at the aliens watching them.  Her first panicked impression had been of them looming threateningly over the women.  Now that she forced herself to breathe calmly, accepting her responsibility over the others entrusted to her care, she saw they actually stood several feet back from the women.  The closed doors that led out of the dining hall were guarded the most heavily.  The exit into the hall and the one to the kitchen each had two aliens standing before them. 
    The Kalquorians weren’t nearly as demonic as the government vids had depicted them.  They were Goliaths, bulging muscle against the skintight black formsuits they wore.  They did look feral and savage, but Katherine could also see great intelligence in their strangely beautiful purple eyes.  Most even seemed to be carefully composing their expressions as more women came around.  Heavy brows drew tight at the screams that issued forth in intermittent intervals.
    It’s as if they don’t like us fearing them , Katherine thought.  The Kalquorians seemed uncomfortable with the cries of terror and sobs.
    She saw no percussion blasters on the aliens’ belts, though all had empty holsters for such weapons.  She did see knives, their dark handles poking out of sheaths.  Some of the men had as many as five secured on various places from waists to arms to thighs.  Yet no one had a hand near any blades.
    The men kept their distance.  Earth had proclaimed the Kalquorians were after Earther women to make into their sex slaves, determined to breed to create even more slaves for their empire.  Yet none were raping the helpless women they guarded.  As far as Katherine could tell, no one had been harmed except for being tranquilized.
    She put her arm around the still crying Tina and whispered, “Hush a moment, child.