I wish I could say that I ended up dimissing what Cai had said, but I couldn't. To me he had raised some really good points, enough that I was left thinking over it all on my way toward the suspected coffin crash sites. My ribs might have been broken but if I could at least get a battery or even two out of today then I'd take it as fair trade. Two ribs and a step or so closer to getting off this rock was a fair trade in my book.

As I walked, following Cai's directions, I was forced to examine what had gone well for me in the last fight, as well as what had gone badly. Cai insisted, and when the voice in your head can't be tuned out you're kind of forced to go over it all.

"I admit that maybe trying to cut those stingers off was what got me hurt but I still say that if I hadn't gotten them off then my chances of being here would have been all but nil," I told Cai in another fruitless effort to shut him up.

"There is no 'maybe' to this Rickshaw," he said. "If you had chosen to open distance from the Guardian, then you would likely have avoided injury and perhaps have been able to injure the Scourge without trading such a damaging blow."

"You don't know that Cai," I protested. "I could have just as easily have opened myself up to a hit from the stingers. You know they almost got through the suit this time, what if they actually had succeeded? I wouldn't be here for you to chew out about this."

"And it was a Cerberous," I reminded him before he could protest or answer. "Cerberous. I already told you that."

"Your insistence on naming the various classifications of Scourge is not something I understand," Cai said before relenting, "but if you insist that I call them as such as well for your own reasons, then very well. Regardless of the name you have chosen for it though, why are you so insistent that you would have been unable to harm the creature without your armored suit being penetrated? All probabilities I have calculated favor you quite heavily in this scenario."

"If I trusted in probability then I would have married my first two girlfriends," I shot back. "One of them was bound to stay with me rather than leave me."

"I am afraid I do not understand what you speak of," Cai admitted.

As we went back and forth like that, we did manage to find a wrecked coffin with a working battery. Nice, two more and I would have the minimum number that Cai needed to send a signal to the Wardens in space and then reuse them for my present for the Queen. Fifteen or more was ideal he had told me but I could use thirteen and my signal would reach the Warden ships waiting for us to accomplish our mission. Well, the one before the other coffins were totally wrecked.

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Anyway, if I used thirteen and sent my signal, I would run most of the batteries dry and be able to use the rest of them for my bomb. I just wouldn't know if the Wardens of Life got my signal until I saw the shuttle land to grab me. Cai assured me that his calculations were correct and that we were all but sure to succeed at getting a signal to the Warden ships.

"Rickshaw," Cai interrupted my break from the pained walking I was having to do as I searched for another coffin.

"What's up buttercup?" I answered, taking the opprotunity to set the battery down.

"I am detecting a Scourge lifeform ahead of us," he told me. "If I am detecting correctly then it is the Queen."

I wish I could say that I heroically charged ahead jury-rigging the battery into a bomb and then, after a fierce fight and no small amount of luck, killed the Queen. But I can't. I also can't say that I immediately booked it back to my safer zones where I knew how to lose a Scourge and where to hide. I can't say any of that because the Scourge that Cai had mentioned appeared in front of me.

This one was definitely not a Hellhound or a Cerberous. Rather than using four legs to move and having a mane of tentacles, this one stood on two legs like me and had armor over its torso and limbs. The armor had a natural look to it like a beetle's shell and was ridged for added durability or something. Its legs ended in clawed feet like chickens and birds had, but I knew looking at them that there was no way they were decoration. The talons that seemed to reflect the light of the sun back at me put the Cerberous' claws to shame by sheer size. The hands only had three fingers that were also tipped with similar talons as the feet.

The part that really scared me though was the massive set of wings on its back. If you've ever talked with someone who spends way too much time imagining what having wings would be like, then you might have an idea of how big these were. Easily they stretched out nearly twenty feet on each side and I nearly lost it when I saw, yet again, talon claws tipping the wings where they bent to fold behind the Scourge's back and again at the very end of the wings.

Before I knew what I was doing I had drawn my sword and swung it in the vague direction of the Scourge's neck. I was impressed I hit it; I felt my sword catch on something and saw blood on it when I moved back to open distance from the Scourge. No way I killed it I thought.

Then its head began to fall to the side and it fell to the ground like a puppet without strings.

"Congratulations, Rickshaw," Cai said while I stared stupidly at the lifeless body of the Scourge. "You have infact killed a Scourge Queen, but this one was very young and possessed no Guardians or even a swarm to protect it. It is almost as though it was meant to take over this planet if the old Queen passed on. Curious, the Wardens of Life have no such data on this matter. Furthermore, you have succeeded at an endeavour that all Warden Commanders wish they could claim. You are the first to kill a Scourge Queen."

"You've got to be joking with me," I said.