The Scarlet Bastards - The Cardinal of Gleann Ceallach

"Fight this day the battle of the Lord with thy legions of holy Angels, even as of old, thou didst fight against Lucifer, the leader of the proud spirits and all his rebel Angels, who were powerless to stand against thee!"

2098 - Alexander Rutherford Armstrong, hollow chested, thin limbed, 17 year old runaway, was in fear and awe of the men and women of the United Nations Off-World Legion he had joined out of a thirst for adventure. Roughnecks, criminals and murderers, his colleagues were the thin scarlet line of poorly trained and downtrodden bastards that protected the United Nations colony of Samsāra some 20 light years from Earth. Much abused by the third world refugees who joined the ranks, the teenager from British Columbia, nicknamed 'Sikunder', recalls in the years of his retirement, the day he was thrust unwillingly into a column of constables and hired guns to show the UN flag in the gleann of Ceallach and the horrific and bloody events with the tribes of Gliesiuns, long relocated from their home planet of Gliesium, that followed. It is the most fortunate encounter with Reverend Mother Coulthard, better known as the Cardinal of Gleann Ceallach, and her convent of fighting nuns of St Brigid that allies the Legion and the nuns before one of the most merciless and terrifying threats to the burgeoning colony.