I wanted to cry. Again. Ever since we had set off for Earth, Carrie had managed to make certain that everything I wore that could be seen by everyone else was exactly the way she wanted it all to be. I still don't know how she did it. Those damn uniforms even extended to the casual uniforms that were worn in everyday life. Thankfully they weren't something I felt the need to intervene in; mine were black with gold trim and everyone else had white with trim that matched their rank color. Why I had given her this power over me I had forgotten and I was still regretting.
The armor was much the same as the uniforms. The armor that everyone else wore was the same as the uniforms they wore, and mine was the same black as my uniforms except it was white trim instead of gold trim. She never did tell me why the change.
Also on the trip, I was able to get some actual work done; whenever Carrie wasn't hounding me about adding in designs on the helmet faceplates for Pricipalities and above that is.
Kiv-mel and his team had officially moved onto the Phoenix and were working to develop new avenues of weaponry and tools that the Nephilim Army would use to fight Scourge. I was happiest with the explosive axes they made after I'd discussed the idea of having something that would cause more damage in a fight than the throwing axe I used to blind the Rampager on my first Paladin scouting trip I made. The explosive they decided on was stable and would remain something nearly harmless until the weight at the back of the axe was sent forward by the sudden stop that burying the axe head in something would cause. The testing of them was fun and I spent hours throwing their prototypes until I was satisfied with the size fo the explosions. And then I threw even more until I was just satisfied.
The big thing that Kiv-mel and his team were doing though was something that seemed straight out of a sci-fi show to me. They were using magnetic forces and the charges from electro-magnets to propel bullets at high speeds. Mag-rifles, I think they were calling them. I was ready to play with those toys but they weren't able to make them small enough for anyone to hold them. Thankfully the sizes they were building were small enough to fit on my new starships and so after they stopped them from exploding due to the round flying off course, they were sending the schematics to my build crews from the Wardens of Life; specifically Commanders Hyell and Krnnmt who were even now working to build even more starships for me.
There was a small worry that having a completely new weapon type that could hurt Scourge would undermine everything I was building with the Nephilim. At least, there was until Yurnel and her team told me something that completely changed the dynamic of my plans. Apparently if Scourge were allowed to completely take over a world the Queens would continue to build their hordes and raise new Guardians until they achieved what was referred to as second tier Scourge. It was also theorized that the Scourge would continue to rise until they were beyond what second tier could encompass. That meant that eventually, every Scourge that was on a planet would be able to take multiple hits from the current mag-rifles and even be able to penetrate the armor that was built with Scourge damage in mind. So that was something to look forward to.
As we approached the Solar system, my Nephilim were working themselves to the bone to ready for the fight that was coming. A fight that would see Earth changed completely and reveal something that I wasn't sure everyone was ready for. I just hoped that everything was going to be rebuildable when we finally arrived.
"Rickshaw, we have officially entered the Solar system," Cai told me as I was marking out the timelines that I expected Kiv-mel and Yurnel's teams to follow as they created new toys and studied more about our enemy.
"Good, alert all Nephilim to prepare for combat in...." I trailed off as I tried to guesstimate when we were due to arrive at Earth.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
"Sixteen hours twenty-eight minutes and forty-two seconds," Cai filled in for me.
"Make it seventeen hours," I said. "I want to stop and take some scans for any Scourge lifesigns. If there aren't any then we can see about sending people down for a more diplomatic talk. If there are only a few then we can use the shuttles to drop squads in while using diplomacy to make contact with any remaining governments. If it looks bad then we'll be making more decisive drops from orbit and sending everyone down where they'll do the most damage to the Scourge or the most good to the people left alive."
"Very well. Will you be joining the first wave of Nephilim drops?" he asked.
"Most likely. As the highest officer, it's my duty to be there for anything diplomatic and if we need to drop from orbit then that means that it'll be all hands on deck," I told him.
"Pricipality Applewood's Touka has also sent something troubling," he said. "Shall I tell someone to fix it?"
Before I could ask what he was talking about Carrie burst into the office I was using and demanded that I look at my viewscreen. I chose to humor her this time rather than bring up whatever her Cyber had sent to me and looked toward the viewscreen that was now showing a comet racing beside us as we flew through space. It was something that I'd never spent much time staring at even after I left Rallypoint for the the Last Life of Cal-nok; space that is. I'd been spending so much time worrying about how to make my idea a reality and how to keep everyone that I knew and loved safe, that I'd never spent any time enjoying the sight of all those twinkling stars and the planets they hid from view as I raced to bring my vision to life and do what I'd decided to do nearly a year ago now. Give Humanity the tools they needed to carve our name and legacy into the stars and leave a mark on the Universe that would never fade away whether we failed or were there until the end. Watching that comet race beside us as we hurtled toward an Earth that was already so different from what we remembered made me even more certain that I'd chosen the right path; especially now when I could hardly see it enough to place one foot in front of the other.
"Commander, we're approaching Earth," Paladin Eric Swans, the Nephilim that was in charge of piloting and controlling the Phoenix whenever I wasn't on the command deck or the ship itself, said as I entered the bridge and took my seat in the commander's chair.
"Excellent," I said to him as he took his own seat beside the other Paladin on the bridge. "Let's see some scans of the planet. I don't want to go guns blazing when there's no reason for it anymore."
"Scanning," Paladin Yuki Ito confirmed as she began the scans for Scourge lifesigns and its concentrations. "Scans will appear on holo-screen, Commander."
We waited with bated breath as the first image scans appeared. They weren't good.
"I'll get my armor on," Carrie said. "Paladin Swans, Paladin Ito, you will stay with the ship with Wing Alexander and his Paladins. You will be coordinating with all Wings on the ground as well as myself and the Commander. Don't let us down."
Where did that come from? Carrie usually left me to give orders when we were in the same room, this was unexpected and welcome.
"Yes, Pricipality Applewood," the two Paladins said as they began to type orders into their console and preparing for what was looking to be a difficult ground campaign.
Put simplest, North America was gone. Everything from Panama in Central America and up was under heavy Scourge control. That wasn't good from everything I remembered. Across the Pacific, Asia was the only continent that had any Scourge lifesigns showing on it and then it was only the northeastern area that was closest to where Alaska is, or maybe was is a better term. South America had managed to halt the Scourge advancement as it tried to cross completely from the narrow strip of land that was Panama, into the widened area that the few nations there broke into. I didn't have high hopes that they would manage to push them all back without help. All that wasn't something that I was worried about though. Interspersed throughout the Scourge controlled North America were zones of heavy human population. The cities that they'd evacuated the rural and suburban areas into I guessed so that they could better protect everyone from the Scourge horde that was running wild across the rest of the continent. Australia, Europe, and Africa had no Scourge lifesigns and I knew better than to expect that to hold true for much longer.
The Nephilim needed to drop. Now.