We exited our jump in orbit of the first planet that our Rif'nay'fex prisoner had given us the coordinates of, immediately unloading all ships from the Galaxy-Jumpers and flooding the orbit with a swarm of nearly ten thousand starships.

"Give me scans of the surface," I demanded. "I want to know what we're dealing with. This is the correct planet yes?"

I'd directed the last part to the prisoner, whose name was Tal'ryv, and I awaited her answer.

"It is," she confirmed. "Why you are unmolested, I do not know. Perhaps the Upper Clergy evacuated the people here and relocated them to a safer planet."

"We'll find out soon enough," I said, turning my attention back to the viewscreen which showed the incoming data from the scans of the planet and a few images of its surface.

"Demigod," Benjamin said, "I have an idea where the people here went. I don't think anyone will like it."

"Let's hear it then," I said.

With a nod, Benjamin began to show images of the planet's surface and magnified the views of the cities we could see before speaking.

"My scans are showing signs of intense Scourge activity," he said as a group was highlighted in one of the cities and shown to be a pack of Hellhounds. "These scans also show a lack of anything Rif'nay'fex, except the buildings and other infrastructure. I believe it is safe for us to assume that the Scourge either invaded this planet, or the Rif'nay'fex evacuated and left a Scourge horde behind."

"Either way, it's troubling," I said. "What are the chances you can determine how many higher tier Scourge are down there?"

"None," Benjamin answered. "All Scourge appear as Scourge. We don't have equipment sensitive enough to divide them by tier. We can only divide them by type with visual efforts, scans can't seperate them without a significant margin for error."

"I see," I sighed looking at the planet that I'd hoped would have answers for us.

"Tal'ryv, are you able to show us the city that was treated as the capitol of this planet?" I asked eventually.

"For what purpose?" the alien woman asked carefully as she turned her three eyes toward me.

"Ideally, the people in charge would leave a cache of data behind that we would find and use to determine where they went, what happened, or even what they plan to do," I explained. "For us, that cache would be in our capitol city."

"Why would you be so foolish as to leave such important knowledge for others to find?" Tal'ryv asked.

"We wouldn't leave it behind on purpose," I defended us. "In the scramble to evacuate quickly, we'd have some pieces slip through the cracks and leave a trail of where we went or what we planned. We call it human error."

"Given the name, I would guess this to be a phenomenon that is experienced only by your species," she said imperiously. "However, I must admit that such a thing has happened to us at times. Perhaps there is merit in your idea that such a thing might have happened."

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"Then, the capitol city?" I asked.

"Yes, it will be the largest city on one of the continents," she said. "Show me the map of the world and I will show you the continent."

As Micheal began to draw up a holo-display with the planet on it for her, Carrie turned to me and asked a question that had been burning through her since we showed up.

"Are we going to clear this planet of Scourge?" she asked.

"No," I answered. "Not yet anyway. We might leave a few dozen starships behind for that, but we didn't start this hunt to kill Scourge. We started it to kick someone's teeth in. Be kind of dumb to pause in the middle of it to clear a planet that the people we're hunting after abandoned."

"Maybe, but it is what we're supposed to do," she pointed out. "You started all this to fight Scourge, not to wipe out an ancient race of aliens that have somehow had billions of years of history."

"I'm not sure they had billions of years the way you think," I told her. "I think it's safe to say that eventually they hit a point where they lost most, if not all of their history and technology and now what they have is just a fraction of that."

"But what about what Tal'ryv said?" she asked quietly. "They have the true history of what happened and still chose to do things this way."

"But how much of that history has been muddied by others coming in and changing things to suit them?" I asked her. "It happened on Earth and it happened with the Wardens of Life too. At this point the only reason it hasn't happened with the Nephilim and the Deva is because of people like you and I. We were there and we lived through it, so when people try to change things and twist them to suit their purposes, we can come in and set it all right."

"Their true history might have been muddied and changed through the millenia and now we're really painted as the bad guys, the genetic strain that the great pioneer, Hyn'bel was forced to create so that the governing body of the time had a future weapon they could control. There's no telling how things changed with them, only that certain things like Hyn'bel and the creation of his two genetic strains was important enough to be given a place of honor in their history. One that never wavered."

"Does that mean you think we can save them?" Carrie asked softly, barely above a whisper.

"Unfortunately, I know that we can," I told her. "Give them access to the obelisk and let them know the history we know and they'll work things out from there. But I also know that to get to that point we need them willing to talk with us. All of them. The zealots and the stubborn won't care what proof we show them, they'll just keep trying to kill us. It pains me to say this, but we're going to have to kill all of them anyway. Not for revenge or some misguided idea that their time is over. Because the rot that holds them up is crumbling and no matter what happens, they'll be violent and we'll need to protect ourselves. But that's all justification for me to order the genocide of an entire race. There's nothing good or right about any of this."

"Well, if it makes you feel better," she said, grabbing my hand and smiling at me, "I believe in whatever path you pick out. After all, it's not on my head."

"Of course, you'd think like that," I said with a small smile even as more weight settled onto my shoulders.

"Demigod," Micheal said, turning to face me as he finally finished the preparations with locating the capitol city. "Who's going down there?"

"We are," I told him. "We'll have someone leave the lights on for us, but we're going down there and we're finding what we need. You and Benjamin are good with interfacing your Cybers into tech and I'm not leaving you two without backup I know will keep you safe. That means me and Carrie."

"Someone's full of himself today," Carrie said. "I'll send word to Sarah and Bunny to suit up. You get new Paladins in here and pick out a Wing to watch over everything."

"Yes, ma'am," I said before turning to Tal'ryv. "I'd like you to return to the brig. For the safety of everyone onboard and yourself especially."

"I understand," the Rif'nay'fex woman said. "I wish you luck in your endeavours on the planet."