Stigmata Invicta: Knights 15 13, #1

By Carl Michael Curtis

On a backwater planet in an otherwise barren solar system, an underground church thrives. For generations, the tyrannical world government has tried to stomp it out. But now, an elderly nun has brought hope to her suffering people when she begins experiencing a genuine stigmata. Her bishop requests her be rescued and taken far away. The Knights 15 13 send a spec ops team to do just that.

But these missions never go easily.

Discovered and assaulted from the land to the atmosphere, the Knights 15 13 rush to save the nun from the clutches of their enemy. An enemy who has much more sinister plans in mind. They don't want to just kill her. They want to force her to help them kill everyone.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cape and Swordstick Press
• Release date: Feb 19, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224626502

Book preview

Rescue the lowly and poor;

deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

Psalms 82:4

Site of operations:

Arithraw, fourth planet in orbit of G-Class star Geti-12, Hurivok solar system

On site resources:

Spec Ops Unit #7-1a, Brigid, F. Commander

St. Joshua, Eidolon-class stealth cruiser, Bernhard, A. Captain

3rd Commandry of the Knights of Those Washed in the Water and Blood from His Side (Knights 15 13)

Mission details: stealth extraction of asset from planet’s surface by any just means necessary in accordance with Knights 15 13 Rule of the Order, CLASSIFIED location coordinates

Mission designation:

UNSANCTIONED by the Federal Interstellar Governmental Network/FedNET

UNSANCTIONED by Arithraw planetary authorities (National Civilians’ Authority Council – officially designated as hostile)

SANCTIONED/UNSANCTIONED by local solar system governmental authorities is not applicable/none exist

SANCTIONED by Knights 15 13 Supreme Commandry in accordance with Christ the King’s commandment to LOVE THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF and TO RESCUE THE LOWLY AND THE POOR; TO DELIVER THEM FROM THE HAND OF THE WICKED

COMBAT PERMISSIONS:

Granted in full

Patron Saint(s) assigned to ops to request intercession from:

Saint Michael the Archangel (Angel, eternal)

Saint Martin De Tours (Homo Sapien, Earth, 316 or 336—397)

Saint Xohig SomphambiXo (Quasi-homo/anthropomorphus Gecarcinus, Ionus 7, 2704—2769)

Part One:

Surface

Mission Briefing

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, the six Knights of The Brotherhood of Those Washed in the Blood and Water from His Side, recite in perfect unison as they kneel. The supplicating position is difficult because they all must shift their heavy-caliber weapons out of the way to honor and praise God.

In the ready room of the St. Joshua, an Eidolon-class stealth cruiser, the warrior-monks gather for the last time in peace. The rays of the solar system’s sun crest a wave across them as they keep station behind the largest moon to an antagonistic planet. Called Arithraw by its lone species of inhabitants, the small and desolate backwater place unfolds beneath them like a ring of Hell in Dante’s Inferno.

Arithraw’s largest moon glacially rolls along its axis. The moon is nothing more than a dead gray rock bespeckled with red, glass-like shards of frozen liquid that was the result of a comet impact thousands of years prior. A color palette like an adorned skull. The St. Joshua banks with jets of positional thrusters as the crew finish their preparations.

In ten minutes, the ship will cloak and enter the upper atmosphere of the planet. All of this surreptitiously; Arithraw despises everything these men stand for.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. They all make the Sign of the Cross in reverence and stand. The clink of their gear resettling is like a thousand bolts cocking back. Dressed in high tech, close-fitting armor, each with the emblem of his Order and rank above that adorning his left chest plate. A few have cups of coffee in one hand. One, his Rosary. Each with the quiet confidence of tried and tested operators. Each with the greater confidence knowing his Creator loves him.

All right, brothers, Commander Brigid says as he taps on his podium console. Let’s go over the particulars one more time before we roll. Pull up the mission details in your Visuals with me real quick.

The Knights put on their helmets and queue up the mission dossier. It unspools along the inside of their visors, and Brigid gives his men a moment to orient themselves. Pretty basic stealth op on paper. He pauses. "On paper. We insert into the infil location. Local time, it’s late and we’re dropping into a field outside a farming community. Sweep it, make contact with our guy. Move to the cargo point, take possession. Brother Gonzaga, that’s on you."

Gonzaga, who, on the last mission, pulled a rotting tree out of the ground and used it to batter open a door they needed to get through, simply nods. Roger, sir.

"Then we move to the exfil site, take liftoff. Rendezvous with the St. Joshua. Then our part is done. Anything changes our plan, we react accordingly. Any questions?"

Each man shakes his head. As the commander said, on paper the operation is basic. Brother Santa Cruz clears his throat, What potential problems are we looking at?

Getting seen by local authorities is the biggest risk, Brigid says. "The bridge has reported there’s a military patrol down in our location, but I guess there’s a patrol in every settlement no matter how small. Governmental iron fist, I guess.

So, that’s one thing. Intel says patrols are commonplace, but I don’t like seeing them pop up where I’m getting ready to go. He shrugs. The main thing to remember is stealth. The planet is small, consisting of only two continents, and neither are all that big. The Thraw live as hostile to most other species and especially guys like us. So, if we get picked out, we’re not getting back to the ship with much ammo left.

The small cadre of Knights—Commander Brigid, Santa Cruz, Gonzaga and Brothers Cleopas, Pio, Nonnatus—stand in silence for a moment, the tension of their mission beginning to sing within them.

Cleopas rolls his Rosary through his hand. The beads are a dull iron color, crudely cast; droplets of slag allowed to fall into a quench and then drilled through to tie the cord. The crucifix stands out in sharp contrast, a meticulously detailed image of Our Savior during His Passion.

Santa Cruz asks, The Thraw are the ones who martyred something like seventy-seven Catholics on a humanitarian mission there... oh, a few years back? Is that correct?

Yeah, it was them, Pio answers from two seats over. "Eventually they martyred them. Word on the intel network was it took a while."

Nonnatus says, The Thraw government will martyr any Catholic. Any and all. Always have since they first heard the Gospel.

Correct, Brigid nods, shuffles through their mission details and highlights a portion. I’ll summarize here: the government—a single oppressive regime across the entire planet—is virulently atheist. Rule with a rod and sword. Dissenters get the usual treatment—hard labor, starvation, execution. Arithraw has a decent-sized underground church and the government hates it. Wants it dead. Intel network says it’s hidden well enough, but anytime the government gets its hands on a Christian it tortures to try and get info. Other members, church and holy locations. Mass times. Anything. I guess they’re not doing too well on rooting it out. Never have.

Why don’t we just get word on the intel network to rescue whoever’s left and then glass the planet? Gonzaga asks. Young, bald with dark eyes and a face full of scars already, he towers over his brothers in both stature and anger. You guys know when I was a kid that Neo-Gnostic Movement, they did that to us when we wouldn’t convert. Folks like this, that violence, that’s what they understand. He scratches his neck and shrugs. That’s all they understand.

Gonzaga looks down at the filial ring tattooed on his left hand, the ink barely two years old. He remembers getting it the morning after taking his final vows into the Order. The insect pinprick of the needle amidst the constant buzzing of the implement itself. I should have gotten this the day before my vows, not the day after, he lamented to himself as the artist-brother working the tabooing machine made a swirl along the patch of skin.

I wouldn’t have done it then, the artist said, wiping the work clean and continuing.

Why not?

I’m not tattooing a man with his filial ring just to have him back out last second. You get this emblem after you commit. Not near it.

I’m not going to change, Gonzaga said with a grunt.

Then you need to let Christ work in your heart some more.

Gonzaga grunted again and started thinking about something else. The artists finished the ring, and the newly minted member of the Knight 15 13 needed to move on because another newly minted brother was waiting for his turn in the artist’s chair.

After being received into the Special Operations division, Gonzaga trained for eighteen months and was assigned to Brigid. This is his fourth mission with the team.

The filial ring was on the same finger he jammed as a child when falling and bracing himself while fleeing. One day at his old colonial settlement’s school, the sky was sandy yellow and orange with the noonday sun. Then it was black with falling bombs.

The Neo-Gnostic movement entered the Verities System, his system, and bombarded them from the lower atmosphere. School buildings exploding one by one. Fires, craters. The chaos of his playmates running around frantic. The hopelessness of it all and his lefthand ring finger swollen and throbbing.

But then his father, by divine providence a maintenance man at the school, plunged out towards him from a thick, drifting cloud of debris smoke. Bleeding from his scalp. Grabbing him mid-stride and running to shelter. He did what he could to herd other children as well, but the constant barrage of new explosions killed any higher thought in those moments. It was all basic survival instincts, and the children scattered. How many of them never saw their parents again?

The warm colors of the sky were blotted out by the ashen smoke of the attack, and it only became red with blood as the neo-Gnostics set their boots to the ground. Gonzaga was orphaned in the following weeks and filled with rage at their tyranny.

He was always bigger than his schoolmates, and clever. He could read others. After his father was injured when an explosion knocked him off his feet and never woke up a day later, Gonzaga was alone. By then the new dawn, one glazed over with the smoke and dust plume of ruination, was cold. Dew helped ash cling to every low surface. Gonzaga huddled under the meager cover his father found and died within. Knees drawn to his chin, he wanted nothing more than resolution.

Staring at his father’s still face, eyes closed, and lips sealed in what would otherwise be a simple slumber. The Neo-Gnostic Movement tromping around the landscape, killing those who would not covert. Gonzaga wanted a cleansing fire against his enemies. And what child would not? Newly orphaned and hurting. Gazing at the last of his family connections, passed away.

But a single dot in the sky floated through the blood red skies, light shimmering across it as it came nearer. A lone ship, filled with warrior-monks, come to answer their prayers. Directed by God, out of love, to bring what was needed.

The Brotherhood of Those Washed in the Blood and Water from His Side, or the Knights 15 13, had rescued what was left of his colony during their purge years ago, fought the Neo-Gnostic Movement back to the gates of hell from where they’d come, and raised the orphans as their own sons. Brother Gonzaga was still tamping down the embers of his fury as he took his final oaths to God and the Order.

No, Brigid says now. You’ve seen how much good comes from them, if they only accept Christ. How many have come to believe the Gospel? It was wrong of those pagans to slaughter your colony for not accepting their beliefs, it is wrong of the Thraw to slaughter their own for having our beliefs, and it would be wrong of us to slaughter the Thraw.

I know. I know.

Brigid watches Gonzaga for a moment and then clears his throat. Okay, if you’ve never seen a Thraw in person, check the mission brief. They’re an ungainly race. Bizarre movements. Even the way they turn their heads is strange. Before we left on this mission, I got to meet a Benedictine priest from down there. He was smuggled out about a decade ago, now. The Roman collar on him was neat. They had to adjust the fit of it because of the triangular shape of the throat.

Commander, what are these huge things? Cleopas asks, quietly going over the mission details in his Visuals. He sends a digital marker of the being in question to Brigid.

The ones labeled Skreeve?

Yes.

The Skreeve, Brigid says as he crosses himself in sadness. The Skreeve are mutated Thraw. Real quick, the Thraw are oviparous; they lay eggs. The eggs develop and hatch fairly quickly—in about four to five weeks.

That is fast.

But, since they recognize no God, they have no fixed source of morality. During what’s called oogenesis, as the egg develops, they’ll inject it with a serum of some kind to mutate the child into one of those things.

The Brothers shake their heads, sink inwardly. The digital image in the mission dossier is a semi-blurry photo, shows a single Skreeve in mid-attack. The thing is easily three times the size and girth of the unmutated and relatively lithe Thraw. The look on its face betrays its insanity, its abject bloodlust. Mindless.

Brigid says, Intel says the Skreeve are feral. They don’t use a language. Nothing as sophisticated as using utensils; they cannot be educated. Absolutely violent. Their lifespans are severely limited. A few months, usually. Kept in cages, fed from slop tossed onto the floor next to their waste. Otherwise, when sent into battle, they’ll just keep charging and beating and destroying whatever they’re pointed at until their bodies literally quit. They collapse, DRT.

Gonzaga raises an eyebrow. DRT?

Dead right there.

I’ll say it again. Glass the entire planet, Gonzaga murmurs. His brothers ignore the comment.

Tech? Armament? Santa Cruz asks.

Intel is sketchy on that. Brigid says as he sifts through digital reports. The better ones include pictures. "Seems like down on the planet, they’ve got the universal basic guerilla package. Hand-me-down firearms, some explosives. Their maintenance kits are mostly tape and bubble gum, so that’s their level of sophistication. Whatever has four wheels and can go vroom they’ll retrofit with a gun and brush guard. Maybe some helicopter-type stuff."

We’ll have superior firepower, for sure. Nonnatus says. Although I was reading in—hang on... here we go. He flips through some of the intel reports in their dossier and finds the one he wants, sends his brothers a tag for it in their Visuals. The Thraw have been inquiring about buying tech from other civilizations. It’s open-ended. We might be in for a few ugly surprises.

Buying? With what currency?

Brigid clears his throat. "Everything I’ve heard—mostly from that Benedictine priest—is they’ll pay in flesh. Sell their undesirables as slaves, whatever. Their entire society is based on a caste system, and one cannot move upwards from where he was born. Although I guess one can always be dishonored and moved down. Doesn’t matter. Just be ready, as we always should be. The group nods. Then, Questions that don’t pertain to glassing the planet?"

No one responds. Brigid says, Pio, check with Father Cho and see if he’s ready to hear our Confessions. We’ve got eight minutes to go stealth. I want silence when we throw cloaks.

Yes, sir, Pio says. He heads out the hatch into the passageway. The others finish their coffees and begin last-minute checks.

Now, Brother Gonzaga. Brigid says, approaching the new Knight as the others leave the room. Just the two of them, Brigid leans in and places his forehead near the young brother’s. With the kindness of a father consoling a child who has scraped a knee but with the firmness of a military officer speaking to someone who should know better, he says, When God blinks, who vanishes?

No one, Commander. God does not blink.

God, with the universe on His shoulders, when He shrugs, what falls off?

Nothing, Commander. God does not shrug.

So, God has made us?

Yes.

And we respond to His graces by trying to live by love?

Yes.

And we are to love, in accordance with the second greatest commandment, as God loves?

Yes, Commander.

God loves the Thraw, despite their evils. He does not blink and let them vanish. He does not shrug and let them fall. And while He does not love their sin, He loves them. He loves us, but not our sin. I hope to avoid killing any of the Thraw, but if we must, it must be accordance with His justice. Glassing the entire planet is no way to show them the love of God. There are plenty of innocents there.

I know, Commander. I’m just— I’ve got a long way to go.

We all do, in our own ways. And you’ll get there. You’ll—

Pio swings back into the room. Confession. One minute each for whoever needs it. Strict. We’re getting ready to throw cloaks and move in.

Pio ducks back out the doorway. Proudly etched into the arch over it is a passage from the Gospel according to John, chapter 15, verse 13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Brigid slaps Gonzaga on the shoulder. We are warriors, he begins, We defend those who cannot defend themselves. I will not hesitate to use force. But it must be acceptable to God, through His teachings.

Yes, Commander. I’m working on it.

I know, Brigid says as he touches a double pendant around his neck. All the time, I am too.

He breaks away and withdraws his TechHaft. Ignites it. A large Merovingian battle axe blazes forth, crackling with the contained energy particles used to forge it on command. He examines it with a smile, rotating it about as thin streams of energy crawl up and down it; Gonzaga admires it as well. Brigid swings it once casually, just to feel it move, extinguishes it and the particles dissipate into nothingness, leaving only the haft. Gonzaga instinctively reaches down and grips his own TechHaft.

Brigid nods, says, Now, if you have mortal sin, confess it, so you may better prepare for war.

Throwing Cloaks

The Knights secure themselves inside the St. Joshua’s combat dropship seating, their backs to the port and starboard side walls, facing inward towards each other. Sliding doors are situated on either side for rapid deployment. This dropship is more spacious than others they’ve been inside, with enough room for ten Knights in their armor. RADAR-absorbent coating along the exterior to complement its fractal shape helps deflect sensory equipment. Wings with rotors built into them, pivoting with their turbojet engines next to the body. Aerodynamic nose cone. Weapons systems. A two-meter-tall print of Jesus and His Sacred Heart on the forward bulkhead. Nothing else.

The dropship itself is drone-piloted and the Knights are the only souls on board. Commander Brigid likes it that way; it’s better if he only has to worry about his Knights and not a pilot and crew if things go south.

The St. Joshua buzzes with its cloaking measures. The sound is unsettling on a subconscious level as the skin of the craft starts actively trying to defeat both