"You take care of the Hellhounds," I told Carrie as I started turning toward the twenty-plus Kamiatachi that were making their way toward us and the people behind us, "your shield will do you better against them. I'll take the Kamaitachi."

"You got it Commander," her reply came quickly as she stepped forward and went to meet the Hellhounds that were charging towards us.

"Cai, can I get in touch with Phoenix?" I asked.

"Your armor's communications device allows you to patch into any and all broadcast frequencies that are currently in use on Earth," he told me. "You can use those frequencies to connect with any Nephilim across the world so long as they have their armor on. They can also be used to make contact with the Phoenix in orbit."

"A simple yes would have worked," I complained as the first Kamaitachi leapt at me with another two quickly joining it in the air. "Let me take care of all these and then I want you to put me through to the Phoenix."

"Very well." I barely heard Cai's reply as I moved forward and skewered the first leaping Kamaitachi. It wasn't dead, but it was about to be.

As I yanked my sword to the side and ripped it from the Kamaitachi, tearing open and even bigger wound than before, I pulled another throwing hatchet off my back and buried it in the Scourge's head before pulling out again and sending it flying at one of the ones on the ground. I didn't kill that one but I did make it scream and start trying to claw at the one behind it.

Before I could really capitalize on the chaos I caused, I was swarmed by three more and spent the next few minutes stabbing, slicing, and chopping at all of them around me until I was finally done and covered in Scourge blood. I looked around and saw that Carrie had managed to kill all but three of her Hellhounds in this time and the humans were trying to decide what to do for now. To help Carrie out and end things here a little quicker, I threw an explosive hatchet at one of her Hellhounds and nailed it just as it went by another and killed it while leaving the other one in such pain that it was easy prey for Carrie after another moment.

"I had that, Commander," she complained as she tried to flick blood from her axe.

"Just thought I'd help out a little," I told her before turning my attention back to Cai and what I was trying to do before I was killing Kamaitachi. "Open up a line to the Phoenix."

"Opened," Cai said after a second.

"Wing Alexander, do you copy?" I asked.

"Here, Commander," his voice sounded through my helmet after a moment. "What do you need, sir?"

"Tell Kiv-mel that it's time for Project Screech to be tested," I told him.

"Yes, sir. We'll send it down to your location?" he asked.

"No, send it about a hundred miles away from me further in Scourge Central and away from human presence," I said. The idea was to gather Scourge together and maybe kill some of them without spending human, or more accurately native, lives. Sending the new toys to areas close to human gatherings would just be asking the Scourge to dinner.

"Roger. We'll send the first package one hundred miles west of you then."

"Great, be sure to tell Kiv-mel and Yurnel that if they want any data from this aside from what they can get from up there, they need to put sensors and cameras on it too."

"Yes, sir. Phoenix out."

I let out a small sigh before nearly jumping when I heard Carrie speak.

"So what exactly is Project Screech?" she asked.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"When Yurnel and her team studied the Queen's corpse they found out that it uses a combination of pheremones and sound to control the horde. Everything from 'attack' to 'defend me' is transmitted through them. Lucky us, she and Kiv-mel got together and made some devices that perfectly replicate the sounds they hypothesize that a Queen is able to make and they think that they can use them to draw parts of the horde together and then cause an explosion that will wipe them out."

"Sweet," she said. "If we've got that kind of tech now then why'd we drop?"

"If it doesn't work, then we'd be dropping anyways," I pointed out as I watched a group of Ghouls stand up and make their way toward us. "Besides, we can't drop them close to cities without some serious tinkering, and we don't have many of them to afford changing their chemical makeup to avoid the fallout what they can do."

"Are they nukes?" Carrie asked as a note of fear and concern appeared in her voice.

"No. I made absolutely sure that there would be no nuclear fallout from these," I assured her. "They're just high-yield explosives and they can do more than what humans have available right now."

"That sounds like nukes! Alien nukes!" she insisted as the Ghouls came closer and she pulled her shield into a ready position.

"They aren't nukes!" I said before charging forward. "Come on! The faster we're done with this Zone, the faster we can move to the next and hopefully take out the Queen!"

"You better believe we aren't done talking about the alien nukes!" she told me as we met the charging Ghouls.

I was too busy to reply as I avoided the bipedal Scourge's claws and began to take their heads. That was easier done than you'd think, Ghouls were only about as tall as normal humans. That meant as Nephilim, Carrie and I had a height and weight advantage on them and we could use those to overpower them and cut their heads off.

Well, I cut their heads off. Carrie refused to since it apparently sent more blood and the head flying. Don't know if she was just grossed out by that or what.

After several hours of fighting for several minutes and catching our breath for a few minutes, I recieved a call from Alexander on the Phoenix.

"Commander, good news, sir!" his enthusiastic voice came through the helmet's comm. "The Queen has been killed."

"Who gets the promotion?" I asked, worried for the answer.

"The Knight who loaded the Screecher does, I guess," he answered. "We did just as you said and we fired it into the densest concentration of Scourge about a hundred and thirty miles west of you and after about twenty minutes or so, BOOM! the whole thing exploded. It wasn't until Yurnel and Kiv-mel went through their data that they found it. The Queen had gone to investigate the source of the sound that was attracting the horde and it arrived just before the detonation engulfed the area."

"Did they get a look at the Queen on the cameras?" I demanded. I don't know how long it took until a Princess was born but I needed to make sure.

"They did," Alexander said happily. "It looked just like you described. Winged, tall, and armored everywhere but its stomach."

I felt my blood run cold at his words.

"Send me the images of the Queen!" I ordered. "Now!"

"Yessir!" Alexander said, his words running together as though infected by my urgency.

"What's going on?" Carrie asked as I stood there waiting for the images or video to come through. I didn't answer before they did a moment later.

That was definitely a Queen. The wings were starting to extend as though it could sense what was coming, and the arms were thrown up as though to protect the face. The stomach was unarmored and sagged as though it had been taut and distended not to long ago. Shit.

"Commander, please tell me what you see," Yurnel's voice sounded over the open line to the Phoenix.

"Cai, open this up to all Nephilim," I ordered.

With a small tone he indicated his tasks completion and I spoke again.

"Attention, this is Demigod James." What else was I supposed to say?

"I am letting you all know that the Queen is dead." That would probably get some cheers.

"I am also telling you all to keep fighting. This isn't over." Duh, they weren't idiots, they could guess that no matter what.

"I have a strong suspicion that the Queen gave birth to a Princess," I worked to finish my announcement. "As I believe this was recent, the Princess is unlikely to be of a size that is capable of creating more Scourge. Do not think this means that it isn't dangerous. The Queen's Guardians weren't with it when it was killed. That probably means that they were with the Princess. With the Queen's death, those Guardians will likely do everything they can to hide the Princess and protect it until it is able to replenish the horde's numbers. All of you be on the lookout and keep an eye on your squadmates. I don't want to lose any of you to simple mistakes."

With that done, I ended the connection to everyone but the Phoenix before speaking to Nico. Yurnel's question was answered as far as I cared.

"Nico, tell our new Paladin that I want him down here with me tomorrow. I want to evaluate him."

"Yes sir, Commander," Wing Alexander said quietly before the connection was ended.

"So we've got some help tomorrow?" Carrie asked after a moment.

"Yeah we do," I told her before turning to the Scourge that were still making their way to us. "Let's make sure we don't have anymore Scourge where we don't want them before we make camp."

"Yes, Commander."