"Why can't I just have one night without work or something world ending getting in the way?" Carrie demanded. "Just one night!"

"I know how you feel," I told her as I lead the way to the shuttle that had just landed. "And it was going so great too."

"Where do you need us, Demigod?" Kyouka asked as she and Matt followed after us with their children in tow.

"Get those kids of yours to safety," I ordered. "And then, I want you two to help coordinate ground efforts for search and rescue. Save as many people as we can."

"Yes sir," the two of them said before guiding their children to the nearest shelter.

"Sarah is going to be as pissed about this as I am," Carrie said. "She and Bunny were taking bets and I was stupid enough to join in and make one of my own. Didn't think I'd win."

"What was the bet about?" I asked as we boarded the shuttle.

"Best you don't know," she said.

As I stepped off the shuttle onto the Phoenix's hangar, I was immediately surrounded by pilots, engineers, and other workers moving from one end of the hangar to the next with all the fervor of people used to high-risk situations. Guess those years of drills had paid off.

I lead the way from the hangar to the bridge with Carrie following behind me barefoot and holding her heels to give her feet a rest and keep up with my quick pace. As I stepped onto the bridge, I noticed Sarah and Bunny standing together looking toward the viewscreen that showed the incoming data from the fight that had broken out and the small holo projection of the ongoing fight.

"I think we should send some ships around this side on this movement line," Bunny was saying while moving her finger and highlighting the ships and places she meant. "They can force the enemy fleet to break their massed fire on our ships and give some of them a reprieve while forcing them to focus on guarding their flank."

"I like it," Sarah said. "Clark, send the orders."

While her Cyber relayed the neccessary orders, I approached my captain's chair and sat heavily before speaking.

"Who in all the burning stars is shooting at us?" I demanded.

"We don't know, sir," one of the Paladins piloting the starship said. "All scans we've taken don't match with any known factions. We've tried hailing them but all we get in return is a language we don't recognize."

"Let's see it," I said as Sarah and Bunny moved to stand beside Carrie.

The words that had been sent were shown on the viewscreen and I heard Carrie suck in a breath as we saw the words.

"Cai send Rif'nay'fex translation data to all Cybers in the Nephilim Army," I ordered. "Carrie, I want Touka to translate this in the meantime."

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"It's done," she said. "She'll have it on the screen soon."

Almost as soon as she finished speaking, the words were translated to our native English and I read out what had been sent to us.

"The Children of Hyn'bel shall undo his shame and remove the Grand Enemy from the stars so the Glorius Creation might sweep all away on its tide of expansion. All shall return to blood."

"Cheery," I said. "Something tells me we're the 'Grand Enemy' in that."

"What do we do?" Carrie asked.

"We kick ass," I said. "Rif'nay'fex have similar advantages that we and the Scourge have, so this is going to be bumpy, but we'll get through it. Cai open a line to the fleet."

When his tone sounded I spoke again, giving orders and preparing to end this false remnant of the Rif'nay'fex Empire.

"All starships, coordinate with one another and we'll get through this. These bastards are asking for an ass-kicking so we'll give it to them and then we'll make them regret trying to come after us. Fire at will. Mark every kill. The starship that lands the most kills gets a prize from the Demigod. For the Lost."

As I ended the line that connected me to all the starships in the fleet, I began to give orders of my own to the Nephilim on the Phoenix.

"I want all rail batteries to open fire on the same ship," I said. "Leave any missiles or other weapons to our point defense systems, shields, and armor. All missile launchers, open up and send our torpedos firing on spiral pathways, keep them moving fast to avoid their own defenses. Once you've punched through the shields and armor, send coffins, packed with explosives, as deep into those starships as we can. The goal is their total annihilation. If there's even one of their starships left floating, it had better be because it's missing it's teeth. Get me?"

The chorus or "yessir's" was enough to deafen me as I began to send movement orders to the rest of my fleet and we began to dance with these Children of Hyn'bel.

I tried not to flinch as the sparks from the blown power line flashed, again. We'd been fighting for hours, Carrie had gone to change from her dress into her armor almost five hours ago. The sun was rising on the part of the planet we'd been eating dinner on. Finally, we had managed to destroy what remained of the Children of Hyn'bel's fleet.

I was exhausted.

"Cai send orders to the fleet to begin cleanup of this mess," I told my Cyber, fighting a yawn. "Carrie, I guess you want to get down to the ground and start helping with search and rescue down there?"

"Yeah, I'll join up with Kyouka and Matt, maybe send one of them off to be with their kids," she said. "I'm taking Sarah, Bunny, Micheal, and Benjamin too."

"All hands on deck," I told her. "I'll stay up here and keep everything going without any problems."

"No," she said. "You're going to get some sleep. I took a power nap, so I'm good for a while still, everyone else has rotated a time or two since this started. You've been in that chair keeping everything moving smoothly. Now you're going to bed. You can leave someone else in charge of clean up. They know what they're doing. You've made them all train for this. Go."

The various Paladins and Wings on the bridge nodded in agreement with her as I looked around.

"Alright," I sighed. "Mutinied by my own crew. I'll take you all up on that sleep thing for a bit. In the meantime, Wing Yarnick, you're in charge. Don't let anything happen to our teams out there."

"Wouldn't dream of it sir," he assured me as I stood and began to make my way to my quarters.

"Cai, were we the only ones attacked?" I asked as I entered my room and began to pull my clothes off.

"All planets in the Milky Way galaxy with a Human, Nephilim, or Aasimar presence have reported an attack upon them. All of them were able to drive the attacking fleets away but many report heavy damage to their fleets and the planets they protected," he told me.

"Start evacuating the planets with the heaviest damage," I said. "We're not leaving those people without food and water with the fleets in orbit shot to hell. Send them to the least damaged worlds and have them start ramping up their food production. We're going to need that."

"Also," I yawned, "start plotting the direction these assholes came from. No one sucker-punches us and gets off easy."