The combined fleet that Sarah and I led, coasted to a stop in front of a massive fleet of starships that circled the entirety of Earth and her moon.

"That's a few more ships than I expected," I muttered to myself as the numbers came in. Nearly seventy thousand ships, many of them the smaller ships that made up the majority of the Empire's space navy.

"Sir, many of those ships have tags that mark them as merchant vessels," Franks said. "They're the ones that are used to deter pirates."

"So Earth conscripted the merchant navies that buzzed around them," I said. "That's not really going to help them."

"Franks, send the offer of surrender," I ordered.

"Sending," he said. "Incoming message. Should I take it?"

"Let's see it," I said. The calling captain or whoever it was appeared in holo and began to speak.

"Attention Deva scum," he said. Charming right off the bat. "You are trespassing on sovereign territory of the Solar Empire. You will have only one chance to surrender."

"And who exactly are you?" I asked.

"I am Grand Admiral Tiberious August Snow," he said, puffing his chest like it would make him more imposing. "Who exactly are you?"

"Demigod Rickshaw James, Chief Protector of the Deva Collective," I answered. "This is where I offer you the chance to surrender."

"James is dead," Snow said with a sneer. "All that garbage about the Wardens making Nephilim live longer than Humans is fake. You won't intimidate me with a dead man's name."

"Demigod, sir," Franks said turning to me. "I have a lock on the flagship. Can I give the order to shoot it?"

"No, not yet," I told him while Snow began to splutter and turned red. "Let's focus a little more on the fleet before we go after him. Thank you for you time Admiral Snow. I hope that the next time I see you is when I board your ship to take it from you. Bye-bye now."

Before Snow could answer, the hologram was terminated and I was sending orders.

"Begin firing on the heavier ships," I told the Nephilim working the weapons on my fleet's ships. They called us scum, so let's make them regret that."

As soon as I'd finished speaking the larger ships in the Empire's fleet came under massed fire that broke through whatever shielding they had and began to chew into the armor. Only one of them was left untouched and that was the flagship that Snow was on. While most of the ships in my fleet were aiming for the heavier ships, there were several that I ordered to turn thier attentions to the smaller ships and start to soften them up for the incoming boarding parties that Sarah's fleet was currently preparing.

Snow was doing his best to offer a fight, but with all his heavy ships under the heaviest fire, he was being forced to either lose them or try to save them and that forced him on the back foot with orders being sent to all of them to retreat and open distance between the two fleets so that they could regroup and recharge their shields. I wasn't going to let that happen.

I ordered my faster ships to flank around the sides of the Empire's fleet and block their path that offered the fastest retreat from us, forcing them to make runs to the four sides remaining and regroup from there. While Snow's fleet was divided so much, Sarah rushed her ships in amongst the retreating starships and began to spew the shuttles that were packed with Nephilm strike teams with orders to disable or capture the enemy ships.

Nearly half of the heavy ships that Snow had, were unable to move quickly enough to avoid further fire from my fleet and they soon were disabled sitting ducks that barely had oxygen for their life support. I was gracious enough to offer them the chance to surrender and most of them took the chance.

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Of the massive amount of smaller ships that made up the majority of Snow's fleet, nearly a fifth of them were rendered inoperable and dead in the initial fighting that occured and forced him to lose more of his fleet to search and rescue teams that began combing through those wrecks for any survivors. Before he could begin to think of a counterattack, Sarah's strike teams came through. Of the nearly seventy thousand starships that made up Snow's fleet, he'd lost almost five thousand in the initial fight and then another three thousand in the retreat. From there another two thousand began to attempt search and rescue operations to the floating wrecks and that left him with just under sixty thousand with nearly fifteen thousand of them being damaged.

Sarah had landed strike teams on almost ten thousand of those injured ships and now that they were able to take over the ships, Snow was forced to watch his back when almost five thousand of them opened fire on his fleet and began to run to safety with my fleet. The remaining ships were rendered inoperable with no engines or communications and the shuttles on them were boarded and used to jump from ship to ship opening more and more of them up to being taken out of the fight. That was around the time that Snow sent another message to me.

"Admiral Snow," I greeted the man. He'd done really well in this fight actually, between Sarah and I we had nearly sixty thousand ships ourselves and he'd taken out five thousand of them with heavy damage that saw key systems destroyed and lost. Not bad for a fleet that was outmassed by nearly double when each ship's tonnage was taken into account.

"Is that offer for surrender still available?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Always," I said. "The Nephilim are meant to fight Scourge and keep them off planets like Earth. Not step in and conquer sovereign empires when they dedicate themselves to destroying another group. If things had gone the way I wanted them to, then this fight wouldn't have happened. Would you like to surrender now?"

"I would," he said as though I'd just asked him to give up his most prized possession. "I, Grand Admiral Snow, hereby offer my surrender to the Nephilim forces so long as they save my people."

"I was going to save them anyway," I muttered before speaking up. "I accept your surrender Grand Admiral. Prepare to be boarded and taken into my custody."

I ended the holo call and sent word to Carrie, she'd go with me and would have the squads of Nephilim there to escort us and the admiral back to the Phoenix where he would be kept prisoner while his fleet was moved to more appropriate areas for captured ships.

The shuttles that carried us over to the flagship, the America, entered the hangar and we were met by several men and women in uniforms that guided us to the bridge where the grand admiral waited. I wasn't impressed by the construction I saw as we moved. The Wardens had been forced to make use of every inch of space conservatively while they tried to slow the Scourge, because of that, all their ships were built with clean, flat walls and floors with bulkhead doors at every intersection and no pieces sticking up beyond maybe the inch that all their buttons were raised to mark them out. That design was reflected in all the ships that the Nephilim used.

This ship had bulkhead doors every twenty feet and reminded me of old submarines with the raised edge that the door fit into while forcing every few steps taken to be higher than normal. As Nephilim, we were also forced to duck to avoid hitting our heads when we passed through those doors. The walls were covered with raised edges and would stick out more than expected. Clearly the Solar Empire wasn't using the same standards that the Wardens of Life and the Deva Collective used. That was annoying.

Finally, we came to the door that opened onto the bridge. As soon as I stepped onto the bridge, all sounds and movement stopped as everyone turned and saw me. Snow, sitting in the command chair at the center of the bridge turned and looked at me without any emotion.

"I guess you were telling the truth about being James," he said. "Wish I'd believed you then."

"Why's that?" I asked him. I'd worn my armor for this as had the other Nephilim though I was the only one without my helmet.

"Everyone's got a story about Rickshaw James," he said. "They say that when you were just a human, you single-handedly cleared an entire planet of Scourge and then built a starship to give the Wardens an ass-kicking. Then there's the one that you dropped from fucking space with a bunch of your Nephilim and landed on Earth while we were fighting Scourge. I'm sure there's more, but I don't remember them. Stories like that say more about a man than history ever will. If I'd believed you when you told me who you were then maybe I'd have won or been smart enough to surrender and keep my people alive."

"We can't all predict how life goes," I told him. "Now, I'm on a schedule so if you'd be so kind as to come with me, we can get this out of the way and I can get your people all the help they need for this."

"Just another moment please," he asked. "I always wanted to have the Admiral's chair and now I've lost it in the first fight I had it in."

"I can give you a minute," I said. "No reason to deny that now."

"Thank you," Snow said before turning to look out at the vast, infinite expanse of space. I and everyone else pretended not to see the man cry.