Rachel ran her fingers through her striking red hair and replied, "Five days ago, when I gave my last status report. I'm due to give another in two days." She regarded the blonde Canoness for a moment and asked, "What has happened?"
Katherines eyes brimmed with tears, but she sternly held them back with effort, "The Convent was attacked…by a host of Daemons. Daemons of Slaanesh."
Rachel stared, her jaw dropped, "What? How is that possible?" Before Katherine could answer, she asked quietly, "How…how bad is it?"
"A hundred of our sisters martyred, give or take…we didn't have time to make a full account of the dead."
"Emperor's Balls!" Rachel cursed, then immediately made the sign of the Aquila, palms against her chest, thumbs interlinked, as a sign of contrition, "I'm sorry, Mother Superior."
"I had hoped Rebecca and the rest had come here," Katherine sighed.
Rachel raised her eyebrows in surprise, "Wait, you don't know where the others are?"
"No. They have gone missing…vehicles still in the yard," Katherine shivered slightly, and not from the cold mountain air. "They've vanished."
The Palatine was silent, her mind churning with this new information. Katherine looked up to the sky and spoke, "That means there are no Orders Militant to protect the Ecclesiarchy here on Byzantium…save the dozen sisters I brought with me, and those you have here."
"And I have precious few," Rachel shook her head. "Only my Celestians…not enough to make a viable strike force."
"And the Adepts?" Katherine asked. Four years ago, she had the Abbey built as a training facility to forge young girls, orphans and devout volunteers, to become Sororitas sisters. The Order of Saint Magdalena was a new order, and not yet close to their full complement of sisters. A typical Order was composed of three Preceptories, each of which has four Commanderies of two-hundred fifty sisters. Thus far they had gathered only one Preceptory worth of recruits and sisters transferring from other orders. Three such abbeys Katherine founded, on Pentateuch, New Canaan, and Byzantium, to train the future of the Order. The Canoness met Rachel's eyes with an intensity that held the Palatine spellbound, "How many of your girls are ready for combat?"
Rachel stood wide-eyed, transfixed by the will of her Canoness, "Twelve perhaps? I have twelve girls who are eighteen…I was intending on presenting them for the trials and rites of sisterhood in the spring."
Katherine opened the door to the chapel and stepped inside with Rachel trailing her, "And you have arms and Vestments for them?" Rachel nodded, as the Abbey had suits of the power armor and bolters there for the girls to train with. They walked down the isle until they stood before the Simulacrum Imperialis, the statue of the Emperor on the Golden Throne. The Canoness gazed up at the face of the Emperor then turned to Rachel, "Show me."
The chamber was filled with the reports of gunfire, echoing among the stone walls. The huge chamber underneath the Abbey shook with the raucous sounds of gunplay and the shouts of the girls training within. Some were standing or kneeling along the firing line at target practice. Some were sparring, training for deadly close combat. Other were moving carefully in small squads, studying the strategies of the Tactica Imperialis.
The youngest were eight to twelve years old, dressed in tabards of burgundy over loose tunics and leggings of cream color. Most were on the firing line, with small-bore rifles learning the first elements of fire combat. The combat training of the Sororitas started at the longest ranges, where the target was furthest from the sister and thus less dangerous. Once that had been mastered, weapons of shorter range, such as the pistol and the flamer were taught. Finally the arts of close combat were learned, when they were ready to stand face to face with their adversaries.
Chapter 9: The Children's Crusade
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