"Attention forces of the Solar Empire," my magnified voice rang out to the gathered men and women that had entrenched themselves to protect the Capitol Building and the people inside, "the Nephilim Army is not here to fight you. We are here to stop the Empire's participation in the larger war that has engulfed the entire Milky Way. The Empire entered this war to honor an agreement with the Alliance of Galaxies and has forced the Wardens of Life to desperately retreat or die. I am here to end that war and I want to do so with as few lives lost as possible. Lay down your weapons and surrender and you will all be allowed to return to your homes by the end of today. We will allow two minutes for you to consider this."

"You sure it's a good idea to tell them that we're attacking in two minutes?" the Wing that was working closest with me asked.

"It's not, but I don't want them to say we never gave them the chance to surrender," I said.

"Think any of them will?" he asked.

"Unlikely," I answered. "They're defending their home from invaders. Most everything I've read in history says that they'll fight harder and for longer than anyone else will."

"Damn," he said. "I'm not looking forward to this."

"None of us are," I agreed.

We stood there waiting for the rest of those two minutes while the assembled forces of the Empire moved into better positions and prepared better weapons. Finally, the timer Cai had supplied me with at the start hit zero and it was time to begin.

"Non-lethal takedowns everywhere possible," I told my Nephilim as I began to walk forward. "Don't hesitate to save your life, but don't go for a lethal takedown if you can help it. Take them out."

When I finished speaking, I broke into a run as the Nephilim behind me raised their shields and the first of the Empire's defenders opened fire with their mag-rifles. I felt more than a few rounds scrape off my armor and saw even more of them eat into the street I walked on, but none hit me directly enough to do more than gouge my armor. Before they could let loose with more dangerous weapons, I leapt into the air and flared my Seraph Drive to shoot forward at a speed they couldn't keep up with as easily. With a pained grunt, I crashed into their front lines and knocked three or four of them down before I moved through the ones left standing and began to knock them unconcious or disarming them.

While most of the Empire's guns targeting me, the Nephilim were able to quickly close most of the gap and more of them began to follow my example with a Seraph Drive-boosted jump that allowed them to enter close combat with the Empire's men and women. While we laid into them and left more and more of them laying unconcious on the ground, more and more of them began to either lay down their weapons and surrender or run away from the fighting. I let them go, fewer people fighting meant fewer chances for mistakes to happen and lives to be lost.

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It was nearly ten minutes of fighting the Empire's remaining forces before there were none of them left standing and fighting against us. The entrance to the Capitol Building was ours.

"Cai, we're certain that the Chancellor is still inside the confines of the Capitol Builidng?" I asked my Cyber.

"Completely," he answered. "It is likely that she will be in a subterranian bunker, or a reinfoced and secured panic room, but she is still here. None of the surveillance devices within the building or the surrounding area have seen her leave."

"Good, let's get to it," I said before turning and giving orders to the much reduced Order that had come with me. Their job was done and now it was time for a smaller team to take over.

"Squad, gather on me. Order, secure the area and the prisoners. Wing, keep this place the way I left it, you hear me?" I called out.

A scattered chorus of "yes sir," answered me as the squad that was moving with me for this gathered on me and we prepared to enter the Capitol Building and search for the Chancellor.

"We're going to the lowest possible area of the building and we're going to move up floor by floor," I told the assmebled nine Nephilim. "We'll move in two teams of five, one member of each team will guard and stairways or other exits we find, the Cybers will be disabling the elvators and keeping them dead. Rules of engagement have not changed; non-lethal takedowns unless it costs you your life. The one we're searching for is the Chancellor of the Solar Empire. Your Cyber will have her image and be able to alert you if and when you find her. Keep your eyes open and ears clear, we don't know what we're walking into. Get me?"

"Yes sir," they answered.

"Excellent, let's get to it. Watch each others backs in here," I said before turning and entering the large eighty story building. Excessive for just being a capitol building, but when you've got more than fifty planets all sending data, trade numbers, and population statistics, I guess you might want more than a few little offices in a three story building.

The first thing I noticed when we entered the large public lobby was that the entire thing was empty except for a series of desks and decorations. People enter, go to a desk, tell them why they might be there, and were directed to the correct floor. I moved to one of the desks with a computer connection and plugged Cai in to shut down anything that he couldn't access over the wireless network that covered the building. It also let him find the places that they might have hidden an underground bunker or two.

As I'd asked him to, Cai also moved and opened the elevators to let us check that there was no one caught inside of them when the Cybers took over the building. Two or three interns that had been on coffee or lunch runs were the only occupants, but from the hastily tucked-in shirts and the messy hair, I guessed they'd been doing something else. They were taken into custody and escorted outside to wait with the other people.

Moving quickly, I divided my squad into sets of five and we moved to the bottom-most floor in the building and began to move upward, clearing each floor thouroughly and sending any people found to wait outside under the guard of the Wing there. We reached up to the tenth floor before we encountered any resistance that forced us to engage in combat. The security forces for the building had spent the time we'd given them to coordinate with any military forces left to build up a barricade and prepare for our arrival. The entirety of the tenth floor had been turned into a simple maze that allowed them to keep us in single-file and unable to react as quickly to their guerrilla tactics. I took a shot to the arm but we were able to clear the floor and take all of them prisoner quickly enough. That was about the time I looked at the time available to us and the time we'd taken to reach this far.

"We're going to be at this for a while," I muttered to myself. "Great. Not like I had any other plans."