Thruster running was something that had been proposed by one of my Wings several months back when we were told about an upgrade to the thrusters in the armor that would make them more powerful and give us better control of them. Since then, no one was able to claim they had mastered it except for short sprints. I had been practicing a lot with using all the thrusters in the armor to give a more controlled boost, and had almost stumbled on the idea of using them all in sequence for various parts of the run. I didn't claim to be a master of it, but compared to the problems Carrie had, I was pretty damn close. Poor Armstrong had it even worse, he was a newer recruit and hadn't even been with the Nephilim Army for more than five months. One of the newest on this trip to Earth; I'd left everyone else back with Julio on Rallypoint.

Luckily for both of them, they were able to get the hang of it pretty quick with me there to point out their mistakes, so when the hour I'd given them was up we set out for the Screecher's blast zone. The sergeants weren't happy about our choice to leave them and their squads, but with the closest Scourge over eighty miles away from them, I wasn't too torn up about it. They needed to return to their base camp and resupply anyway.

As we cruised along at speeds that we couldn't have achieved without cars before becoming Nephilim and gaining access to the armor we had, I went over the plan of action with Carrie and Armstrong.

"Vincent, you'll be in charge of directing us until we hit the blast zone," I ordered. "Carrie follow his orders without any lip and if there's a problem then I'll take over command. Clear?"

"Crystal, sir," Armstrong said, his nerves over having command of the two highest ranked Nephilim showing a bit.

"Yeah, yeah, I get it," Carrie said with much less concentration on what we were talking about and more on keeping her footing in the sixty-plus mile speeds were running at.

"What's the first thing we'll be doing in a fight, Vincent?" I quizzed him. I wanted to make sure he at least had a plan of what to do before we encountered something.

"Principality Applewood will engage anything hostile directly," he immediately said. "Her shield will allow her to keep whatever we're fighting at bay. Commander, sir, I'd like you to use the Principality's distraction with her shield to flank any enemies and either whittle down their numbers or cause injury to them until they've been killed. I will use my spear to support Principality Applewood and help her keep any of the Scourge distracted or engaged away from her flanks."

"Sounds good to me," Carrie said before speeding up. "Why didn't you tell me about doing it like this before, Commander?"

"I thought you'd have figured it out before me and didn't want to look like I was behind the curve," I admitted.

"Commander, if you think you're behind the curve on this stuff, then I'd hate to see what you're like when you think you're ahead of the curve," Armstrong said

"Since he's been the one making the curve this whole time, I'd have thought he'd be used to it all by now," Carrie said before giving a whoop and speeding up more.

"Better keep pace before she leaves us behind," I said to Armstrong as I started to speed up as well.

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We didn't encounter any Scourge on our run, something that Carrie quietly admitted she was upset about. As we coasted to the edge of the blast zone, I took control of our group back from Armstrong; he seemed very happy to have me be in charge again and I don't know why.

"Damn, Commander," Carrie exclaimed as we entered the area that the explosion hadn't reached but the blast wave had. Scattered around the ground were the remains of Hellhounds, Ghouls, even Kongs. Each of them looked as though they had been killed by the blast from liquified organs and shattered bones. I couldn't help but want to echo Carrie's words.

"Cai, open a line to Wings Yamato and Eriks," I told him instead. Again he used a short tone to indicate his completion. Wish he wouldn't do that.

"Commander," Wing Yamato's accented voice sounded through my helmet. "Where do you want to meet us?"

"I want you both to take your squads and make your way to the area the Queen was in before the Screecher exploded," I ordered. "From there I want you to evaluate the footage taken that indicates the direction the Queen came from and make your way in that direction. I'll be heading that way from here."

"Good luck, sir," Eriks said before cutting the connection.

"We won't let you down, sir" Yamato swore before cutting her own connection.

"Cai using our location, the Screecher's footage, and the Queen's direction, what heading are we on?" I asked my trusty Cyber.

"You will be moving in a south southwest direction," Cai answered. "I suggest a triangular formation spaced approximately fifty meters apart."

"I call the right side," Carrie said before immediately jumping that way. I guess Cai had told them too.

"I'll cover the left side Commander," Armstrong said as he made his way the correct distance. Guess that left me with the middle.

"Both of you keep an open comm line between us all," I ordered. I was guilty of cutting the connections to vent my own little mutterings and to laugh at times so they probably were too.

"Yes sir," Carrie said. "So Vince, what do you look for in a woman?"

That poor man, she didn't leave him alone with her chatter the entire time we searched. At least she wasn't hounding me with questions like that.

Eventually we left the graveyard of Scourge behind and made our way further to the south, following Cai's directions. Every hour or so, I'd check in with the Yamato-Eriks team and get an update from them. Before long we were seeing signs of Scourge in the area and they really picked up on the road. Since Cai had told us to follow the road for now, we ended up running into more Scourge than I was happy with and before long we were looking toward a city; Springfield, Missouri if Cai's label was on the mark.

I was sure that this city wasn't supposed to look the way it did. There weren't any buildings over three stories tall and the area that likely had them before everything was happening was completely flattened. Any building taller than the three story limit was laying on the ground like a child's toys after playtime. Haphazardly thrown everywhere without any care for where they landed.

"I hope everyone evacuated in time," Carrie said quietly as we looked toward the city from a small hill we had climbed for a better view. I wasn't sure they had, but I kept that to myself.

"Cai are we still on track?" I asked. I didn't want to explore a ghost town filled with Scourge unless I had more backup than twelve Nephilim with me.

"Indeed," Cai answered. Great, couldn't have guessed that. "The projected flight path the Queen took, and its projected condition, put within the city as the limit of where it could have come from. Anything beyond this is beyond the limits of the Screecher device."

That meant that if I was right about there being a new Queen on the run, it would have set off from here if it was able to. I hoped we'd find the damn thing without having to resort to levelling the ruined city.

"Let's go, you two," I told my Nephilim. "Keep a tight formation, we don't want to be seperated down there."

"Commander," Yamato's voice sounded before I could move forward. "I think we see you. You're the three figures on the hill right?"

"Yeah, that's us," I answered.

"We'll be there in twenty minutes according to Orochi. Please wait for us."

I could do that, more friends for this party would be great.