I crossed paths with her once—just once. I was leaving a cult meeting through a back stairwell, pockets full, feeling smug. She was coming up that same stairwell, armor on, jaw set, eyes glowing like a furnace. I cleared the building twenty-five seconds before it went up. I’ve never run so fast in heels.”

— Soki Noles

Origins in the Mercy House

Claire Caldwell never knew her parents. She was one of the many children shuffled into the Mercy House system across the moons of Saturn—fed, clothed, and educated by patient sisters who did their best with too few resources. Some orphans clung to the fantasy of their lost families. Claire did not. Her parents were a line in her intake file; the Mercy House was her whole world, her sisters her kin, the chapel her grounding presence.

What she did have was potential. She was bright without being studious, athletic without committing to any discipline, and thoughtful without being timid. Her teachers described her as balanced but under-directed, a girl who could go anywhere but had no idea where she should. And when her mandatory education ended, that undefined horizon terrified her. Freedom—beloved by most orphans—felt like a void.

She sought out Father Bill Hopkins for guidance the morning after her first “adult” birthday. He spent hours walking her through options, spinning paths for her life like threads on a loom. None fit. None mattered. None sparked. And then, on that same night, the world broke open.

The Night of the Breach

Claire had followed Bill to the outer ring of the crowd gathering around the Stellaris Mining Consortium facility on Deimos. She expected a chemical leak, a fire, perhaps a quarantine alert. What came instead were the bodies—once researchers, now riddled with multitudes of invading Redspace entities. The breach rolled outward like a shrieking tide, and Claire watched realspace collapse into madness.

She didn’t freeze.
She didn’t panic.
She didn’t pray.

She fought.

Not because she knew how, but because she refused to stand still. Bill dragged her back to the Mercy House, and together they barricaded the doors. They fought side by side—security guns scavenged from the fallen, makeshift spears crafted from broken furniture. Bill invoked catechisms he barely remembered; Claire invoked only her fury.

Her Nemain blood sang in the violence. Beneath the righteous anger—anger at the violation, at SMC’s hubris, at the annihilation of the innocent—was something more primal: she liked it. The adrenaline lit her veins like wildfire. She found meaning in the violence, clarity in the chaos, direction in the fight.

By dawn she knew what she would dedicate her life to.
She would wage holy war against Redspace.
She would do what she had done instinctively all night: destroy monsters.

Bill’s Student, Bill’s Partner, Bill’s Vanguard

Claire asked Bill to train her. He tried to demur—she was young, she was angry, she was too raw—but she wouldn’t be denied. What began as physical conditioning became martial discipline, then strategic instruction, then doctrinal study. Bill continued teaching long past when she had “caught up.” His faith deepened and sharpened; hers solidified into conviction.

Their first mission—hunting down a Lechwight cult in the Wolf System—cemented their partnership. They returned not with death or corrupt spoils, but with a trophy: the literal skull of a Wight. The Seekers of Wisdom had little choice but to grant them a Templar license.

They rose quickly, becoming the driving force of the Order of Saint Sarah. Bill is the spiritual anchor; Claire is the sword. Together, they have become whispered names in the exorcist circuits. They are the ones who go where others falter. They do not run. They do not compromise.

They even refused the vow of chastity—choosing instead to marry, binding themselves to each other and to the crusade with a zealous certainty that unsettles even their allies.