It was almost a year after that first outing was fiished that I recieved the message from Hyell and Krnnmt. My first fleet of starships was finished and only needed names and crew.
Hearing that, I was rather excited, it meant that I could carry the now less than a million humans back to Earth and attempt to recruit others to join my army of nearly twenty thousand Nephilim. In the time that I had spent training and evaluating them all, I had managed to find another twenty Wings and had promoted Carrie to be the first Principality. In my eyes she'd earned that position by stepping forward and managing the seventeen thousand Cadets that had joined after she'd become a Wing. She and Julio had been the two I'd been forced to choose from and she won by a narrow margin.
Now that my first fleet was ready, I just needed to prepare everyone for a trip back to Earth; everyone going back anyway. This coming trip would be the test I gave Julio to determine if he could hack it as a Principality, while Carrie and I returned to Earth with around five thousand Nephilim, he'd be responsible for the remaining fifteen thousand on Rallypoint.
"You have repeatedly stated that you believe this to be a difficult challenge," Cai said as I stared at my tablet with the numbers of ships in my first fleet. "I must admit that I do not understand why you claim this to be a difficult thing to do. You have already named your Nephilim Army, you have chosen the titles for all members, from the newest Cadet to the highest Demigod, and you have named this planet as Rallypoint. Why is naming a fleet of starships, or simply your flagship, so difficult?"
"For the same reason that I put thought into the names for the Scourge classes," I answered. "If I choose a bad name, then everyone who sees it will belittle the name and it will make it difficult for anyone who actually serves on it to hold their head high when they say they serve on the Nephilim Flagship Shippy McShipperton."
"Have you chosen 'Shippy McShipperton' as the name for you flagship?" he asked.
"No, Cai. I haven't chosen Shippy McShipperton as the flagship's name," I sighed.
"Are you talking to Cai about what to name a ship? Again?" Carrie's voice made me look up to see her smirking at me and the ridiculous conversation I was having with Cai. Again, like she said.
"You know I am," I told her as she walked further into the office I spent most of my working hours in, trying to make certain that the logistics of running an army were worked out.
"Did you at least decide if you were going to name all of the ships or just the flagship?" she asked, sitting in the chair that she had placed a while ago for these talks we had.
"I did," I told her. "I was going to name the flagship and the three Galaxy-Jumpers and then I was going to leave the rest of them up to whoever was captaining the ship or the admiral overseeing the fleet the starship was a part of."
"When do I get to name a flagship?" she asked. "You said that Principalities would oversee planetary campaigns, doesn't that mean that I'd have control of a fleet?"
"No," I told her, squashing who knows how many dreams she had. "Fleets will be overseen and commanded by Horsemen, Principalities will be able to claim one starship, maybe two depending on the size of the planet that they'll be fighting over. Horsemen will be overseeing anything from Galactic Campaigns to something as small as a quadrant of space within a galaxy and the campaign to take it."
"So, I've gotta get Horseman before you'll let me have my own space ship?" she confirmed.
"Yes," I answered. "Don't think that it'll be as easy as your rise to Principality though, I'll need more Principalities before I can justify having a Horseman. Depending on everything from your performance to your competence you may not be able to reach Horseman."
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"Boo," she raspberried. "You know that Julio isn't happy that you're eyeing him for a promotion right?"
"Your point?"
"He doesn't want to have control of the amount of Nephilim needed to take back an entire planet," she answered. "I don't either, but you're doing your best to teach me, and it's kind of fun being able to control whether or not everyone wears a cape or not."
"We've been over the cape thing," I groaned, cradling my head in my hands. "I think it would look stupid and just get in the way."
"But it would let you mark anyone who's a certain rank or higher with a glance," she pointed out. Dammit, I'd told her that was an issue and now I was regretting it. "Besides, I've got an idea that works and let's you control the size better."
"What's that?" I asked to humor her, she seemed excited about this for some reason.
"Half-capes." Not the answer I expected but one that I should have seen coming, even through the explanation.
"They'd either be from the shoulder or from the waist and they'd let you see everyone above Wing so that when the head honchoes take the field you could tell at a glance," she said, picking up steam when I didn't stop her immediately. "Horsemen would be able to pick a logo or whatever to mark them out from everyone else, and that way, you'd have an easy way to see, not only who's in charge, but also who they take orders from. It's perfect!"
"I can think of a few reason's why it isn't," I said holding up a hand to slow her down. "Say they're from the shoulders, what about weapons, the cape would get in the way. It would make it more difficult for you to grab a weapon or sidearm without getting it caught in something. And if it's from the waist then, you'd constantly be tripping over it or you'd have to worry about it snagging on a bit of brush or foliage or something. Having to deal with that kind of thing is how you lose people."
"But what about if we made them a part of the ceremonial uniforms?" Carrie asked. "I'd think it would look awesome if you just let me go wild with it and pick it all out. We'd all look so badass in and out of armor that everyone would take us seriously."
She'd been hounding me about a ceremonial uniform for a while now. Apparently, if all military bodies from Earth and the Wardens of Life had a set of dressier uniforms that meant that the Nephilim Army needed one too. I didn't get it, I just wanted her to stop trying to convince me to have my armor changed to a different color. That and to have her stop bugging me about the cape thing.
"Fine, I'm going to regret this but, fine," I said. "You can design a dress uniform and a ceremonial armor for the Nephilim. Just please make sure that the armor can actually be used in a pinch if needed."
"Yes!" she jumped up and danced a bit as she chanted, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"
"Calm down now," I said, chuckling. "There's no reason to be so excited. All your designs will still have to go through me."
"Man, that sucks," she sighed. "Don't worry, I'll make sure that your Nephilim suits look great, Commander!"
As long as she was happy to leave me alone about all this from now on, I was happy to leave it up to her.
"Demigod James!" My door flew open and Gul-fen practically ran into the room with Mult and Rinta following after him soon after.
"What's the matter?" I asked as I stood and my levity faded as Carrie snapped to attention to the technically commanding officers.
"We sent a small scout ship to Earth nearly two months ago, as we told you we would," Mult began. "They've just returned much earlier than they planned to."
"Why?" Carrie asked, fear creeping into her voice. I knew I wasn't going to like the answer I was given so I let her breach of conduct slide.
"They've brought news that the Scourge have landed a Queen on Earth," Gul-fen said staring at me.
I felt my heart drop past my stomach. This was more than the worst case scenario, this was the absolute halt to all plans that had been made so far.
"How did they manage to land a Queen?" I demanded.
"There was a starship of Warden make," Rinta said quietly. "It bore a name that was used by the race Ythnw. It was their only starship and from scans and observations made before the scouts returned, the ship was carrying the Scourge Queen and her horde when it crashed. There are no Ythnw anywhere to be found and the Scourge presence had been pushed back at a cost of nearly fifteen percent of Earth's population. It is estimated to have risen to nearly twenty percent now and will be approaching thirty by the time you arrive."
"The Scourge Queen was captured alive and it managed to escape into a population zone and recreate its horde," Gul-fen added as I nearly lost my lunch.
"Cai, patch me through to every Nephilim in a full broadcast," I commanded. "Add in the other humans."
"Done."
"All Nephilim under the command of Wings Jonson, Long, Parham, Roberts, Eriks, Chen, Yamato, Andreas, and Alexander, grab your gear and report to the landing pads at 0730 the day after tomorrow. All human civilians will be making a choice. Be at the landing pads by 1100 that same day or stay here until word has returned. The Scourge have hit Earth. We're going to clean them off it before they can take our planet from us."