"Please Commander, I must insist that you allow me to keep a copy of these plans," the Tar-en-fil in charge of creating the armor and other toys the Nephilim would use begged. "If you were the only one to have access to these, then if something were to happen to you they would be lost or fall into the wrong hands! If that happened, all my work would be for nothing!"

He's been saying that in different ways for the last hour. I was doing my best not to threaten him or try going to Gul-fen; I didn't think either would work or let me leave his workshop/office without hating myself. I was already beating myself blue over taking Yurnel's data, no need to start helping that along.

"I've told you Kiv-mel, I can't risk leaving any of this where the Commanders that wanted to control the Nephilim can see it or get their hands on it," I told him, massaging my temple and trying to alleviate the headache he was giving me. "If they can see how my people's armor and tech is put together, then they can aim for any potential weak points in the infrastructure. If I know I have the only copy of the plans, then I can guarentee that only Nephilim have access to them."

"Then why don't you allow my team and I to join under your command?" Kiv-mel asked. He raised a point I had already thought through. "If we were to declare our allegiance to the Nephilim, we'd be able to help you and you could guarentee the safety of my work."

"It would also alert any of the other Commanders that I didn't trust them," I said. "If that happened then they'd stop at nothing to infiltrate the Nephilim Army and your team so that they could have access to those plans. After that it would just be a matter of them waiting; eventually they'd be able to take control of the Nephilim from the inside and my people would be slaves in all but name. I will not allow that to happen."

"Then would you please allow me the chance to review your false data and plans that you will be inserting into the Warden database to leave them uneducated?" That was something I could do. I'd had Cai's virus set up so that it would erase and replace key parts of the data and the plans to hopefully throw the other Commanders off the scent and let them think that everything to do with the Nephilim was what they wanted.

"Cai send only to Kiv-mel a copy of the false plans," I said.

Once he had recieved the plans, Kiv-mel spent nearly twenty minutes studying them before turning to me and extending the hard drive with the real plans. I accepted it from him and thanked him for his time. Now that I could guarentee that the Nephilim were safer, it was time to start raising more of them. Carrie was eager to see how the process changed her and had spent a good portion of my testing earlier bugging me about it.

"Dr. Yurnel, it's good to see you," I greeted her as I stepped into the room that would make Carrie into a Nephilim.

"Commander," she greeted me. Any goodwill she held for me was likely dead after I'd forced her to hand over the Nephilim genetic data.

"Did you recieve the testing data?" I asked.

"I did," she answered, tapping on her tablet and directing her team to finish setting up everything needed for Carrie's transformation. "It was enlightening and from it I have made several projected calculations for the Cadet Applewood's transformation."

"That's great, thank you." We stood there in silence for several more minutes until Carrie walked in escorted by Angie and Gul-fen.

"Commander, Cadet, Angie," I greeted them.

"Commander James, it is good to see you," Gul-fen said. "Kiv-mel was rather upset about your actions earlier and demanded that I take action to stop you."

"And will you?" I asked him. If he was planning to then he'd need so many more men than just himself.

"No," Gul-fen assured me. "Were I in your position, then I would likely have gone to such lengths myself. I must congratulate you on the idea to leave false data behind to assure the other Commanders that you were under their control. Quite wise of you, if I must say so."

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"Thank you. Are you here to observe the Cadet's transformation?"

"I am. I hope that will not be an intrusion."

"I don't think it will," I told him with a small smile.

"Cadet Applewood," I said, snapping Carrie's gaping face that was looking around into one of schooled coolness as she stared straight ahead. "Dr. Yurnel will be in charge of your change. She will tell you what she needs you to do and you will do it without any hesitation. Get me?"

"Yes, Commander," she said clearly. "What do you need me to do Doctor?"

"I need you to take off your suit. It will not stretch when your body grows," Yurnel said without looking up from her tablet as she finished setting last minute orders in motion.

If Carrie was willing to kill Scourge and play soldier, then she wasn't ready to hear that the alien doctor needed her to strip in front of an entire team of aliens. I felt for the girl, even if I was trying not to laugh at the look on her face.

"Can I leave anything on?" she asked quietly. I hoped the Doctor said yes this time.

"I do not have anything for you to wear. I will have something for the females who follow after you, just as I have something for the males now that Commander James has undergone his transformation," Dr. Yurnel told her. "I do not need you to perform any extra movements though, you simply need to lie on the transformation table and allow me to inject the serum."

"If it makes you feel any better I had to do this without clothes too," I told her. "I'll even turn my back if you want me to."

"I just wasn't expecting it," Carrie said to me. "You'd think that if they can do all this, then they'd be able to make something to cover me while I'm laying there."

"They're going to dip you in that solution there underneath the table," I told her. "It's supposed to be a nutrient bath and will help your body when it grows and has the new tech implanted. Without it you'll wither and cause your body more problems. They can't cover you with a sheet or anything because of it. Sorry."

What the hell else was I supposed to say? I'd told her that the aliens needed me to be naked when I was changed, did she think that they'd risk missing anything in a transformation from the opposite sex?

With a deep breath and a face red as a tomato, Carrie began to take her suit off. I made sure to stare straight ahead and give her as much privacy as I could in the room, I'm sure she was having her own trouble with this situation, she didn't need me adding to it by making a big deal about it. Once she was out of her clothes, Yurnel led Carrie to the mesh bed and guided her to lay down. After a moment of speaking to her softly and answering any questions she had, the doctor inserted the needle that would send the sedative through Carrie's blood and signal the start of the change.

Once she was done with that, Dr. Yurnel indicated to her team to begin. The first thing they did was pull out syringes filled with dark gray fluid, eight of them. With the syringes in hand, the team members approached and began to insert them into specific points on Carrie; calves, forearms, breasts and hips. All eight syringes were insert quickly and the fluid inside began to inject itself into Carrie's body. The doctor's assisstant came up to me and told me that they had begun with the nanites that would bond with and reinforce her bones. Apparently they chose to do them first because, if they waited as they did with me, then the Nephilim would be in pain. After the bone nanite injections, they pulled out another six syringes filled with more dark gray fluid. These were the nanites that would bond with her Cyber, Touka. I still wasn't sure where she picked that name from. Those nanites were injected into Carries thighs, biceps, and torso; they flooded her body faster than the others had, and, after they were injected, the doctor told her team to begin to lower her into the nutrient bath.

As the table sank into the solution, the doctor rushed forward and jammed a syringe into Carrie's chest where her heart was supposed to be. The assisstant told me that the genetic solution was injected into the heart so that they could ensure it quickly spread throughout the body and caused no complications. Soon after Carrie was submerged in the tank, she began to move like she was seizing. I wanted to rush to her and help but the assisstant and Gul-fen held me back as Yurnel explained that she was fine. Apparently the movements were a good sign; they told the doctor and her team that the serum was starting to work.

As I watched, anxious about the young girl who had been the first to put her trust in me, I saw as Carrie's arms and legs began to lengthen, her torso stretched with them to keep her body's proportions, and gradually she grew until I was looking at the first Nephilim Soldier that would follow me. Even in the nutrient solution that was even now feeding her body the nutrition she needed to fill out her new figure and not be a walking skeleton, I could see it. The strong, young woman who would carve a path through the Scourge and leave the planetary wastelands they had created free for the desperate aliens that would follow after her. Now I just needed to give her the last test of her resolve.

It was time to send her against Scourge.