One hundred men and women strong.

Under the Artificial light of the Arcadia suns , ninety soldiers stood under the watchful eye of a spartan commander. Once those first SE soldiers had returned at 100% success rate, other colonies and planets had begun sponsoring a soldier for the risky surgery.

Adam had no doubt that, if it wasn't for Krill performing the surgery, then that success rate might not have been so impressive, but he had done a good job, and for the first time in so many years, Steel Eye had returned, but this time in greater force.

The original Steel Eye program had covered only 40 individuals, augmented in back alley field surgeries, Few had returned alive, and even fewer had retained their sanity. But it seemed, for some of them, Steel Eye would never go away. It was a part of him now, that he had accepted, A horrible part of his past that he could not let go, and could not let go of him.

Steel eye would forever be that horrid little gremlin that followed him everywhere, keeping just out of sight until he needed a good reminder of where he had come from, but that was fine by him, if SteelEye wanted to stay close, then he would hold it hand and walk clear-eyed into hell.

He wasn't the only one who had returned to Steel Eye.

Lindsay, and Jane had returned as well; all three of them having followed the same course: Steel eye, suffering, Iron eye, suffering, and now SE. He had pleaded and protested with both of them, but they were just as stubborn as he.

Out of all of them, he felt the saddest for Jane, who he had once hoped had put that past behind her, but at the end of the day she was a soldier, and had never truly been able to integrate herself back into society, even with help from the rehab center, even after the court case that made it a state of the art facility. He felt bad for allowing her to do this, but he would have felt even worse saying no.

He had no recourse to turn her away

She passed the psych eval and the physical.

It was time to move forward for all of them.

The Spartan commander stepped aside as the Saint of Anin took his place. Sunny wore her saint armor, pearly white sheen glittering in the light from above. The open face of her helmet curved gently upward into delicate horned points on her head. Her spar stood a good few feet taller than herself, its tip glimmering at a wicked point. When she walked, her armor rattled, the glittering pearl spikes jutting out from her heels glittering dangerously.

The affect was somewhat ruined by her companion, a little golden shadow doing his level best to emulate his mother.

Kay didn't exactly have his mother's gravitas, but what he lacked in pure raw power, he made up for in spunk.

Sunny walked up and down the line, inspecting the new SE soldiers, staring down their faces, prodding at them with her spear, and behind her followed Kay, attempting to clasp his hands behind his back brow furrowed in concentration as he stared thoughtfully at the soldiers.

"Good.... Good." He muttered as he passed each one of them.

Lindsay and Jane stood in the front middle of the formation, and this is where Sunny paused. Adam watched closely, from where he stood at the head of the field. This would be a good test for them. It had, likely, been a while since either of them had interacted with a Drev outside of a war context. Lindsay hadn't been off earth since the war almost a decade ago, and though Jane had found herself work as a cage fighter, she had only ever experienced Drev in an adversarial role.

Would this moment prove too much for them?

It had all been Adam's intention, of course. He needed to know his soldiers were in the right state of mind to handle themselves. That wasn't to say he didn't have some faith in them, otherwise he would never have let Kay follow Sunny onto that field, but at the same time, Sunny was the only person Adam could trust to take out a rogue SE soldier.

Sunny paused in front of them for a long moment, and Adam could imagine the cold stare of her honey gold eyes as she bore into them.

He kept watch of their faces, looking for any indication either might break.

This was a Drev, a Drev in full battle regalia.

A Drev with..... A tiny tagalong, who was now standing with one set of arms crossed and another set on his small hips, frowning seriously, which honestly looked more like a pout.

Sunny stepped forward, toe to toe with Lindsay now.

The older man didn't budge except to lift his chin.

Sunny moved onto Jane.

Her jaw clenched every so slightly, but otherwise she made no move. Sunny stepped away, and Kay decided to take his turn, marching up to Lindsy and glowering up at him, forced to crane his neck upwards at an uncomfortable angle. Lindsay looked down, and to his credit, he managed to keep a serious face, a contest that Adam himself did not win.

When Lindsay passed the test, Kay moved on to Jane, who seemed less sure of what to do.

Kay narrowed his eyes at her and backed away.

He would have been intent on doing that to each and every SE soldier on that field, were it not for Sunny, who had to turn back and grab his hand to pull him away as he glowered at the next SE soldier in line.

Sunny returned to Adam holding Kay's hand, long moss-silk cloak sweeping along behind her. Sunny was well along in her pregnancy, but you wouldn't have been able to tell by looking at her, and Adam could attest to the fact it didn't slow her down in the slightest.

Most of the time, he somehow almost managed to forget.

Almost.

But despite Kay's presence, and the underlying circumstances, she was a general today. She was a general, and he was an admiral, and though their son stood patiently at their feet, still frowning with all his might, neither of them acknowledged the other in that way.

Adam lifted his chin, "Thoughts?"

Sunny turned to face the field where the soldiers still stood, their NeoSpartan handlers walking between their ranks like hungry, prowling lions, "Overall, they look good, Iam impressed by the evaluations, and Riss tells me he sees no major areas of concern."

Adam knew she was talking generally.

He wanted something a bit more specific.

"Lindsay... Jane."

"As stable as you." She commented, glancing at him from the corner of her eye.

Adam turned his head to the sky, and let a deep sigh pass through his lips, "Architect help us all."

Kay looked up and frowned at nothing in particular.

When no one acknowledged how serious he was being, he put on a thoughtful expression and tapped his chin. Adam smirked a tiny bit, but didn't laugh, allowing Kay to participate in their somber moment

What he did not expect, was for their silence to be broken by running footsteps.

On high alert, the two of them turned sharply, brandishing their spears in one fluid moment, ranks closing before Kay, who wobbled unsteadily on his feet at the speed of his parent's movements, their sudden agitation scaring him out of his seriousness as he clutched onto Adam's leg.

He might have done the same to Sunny, but there was a pig pointy thing on the back of her foot, and he wasn't interested in getting poked in the face.

They didn't hold their guard long as they found Dr. Katie jogged up the thoroughfare, her long white coat billowing around her light green scrubs. Her glasses were partially askew on her face, and her hair fell in loose tangles around her face from where strands had slipped from her bun.

She looked exhausted.

Concerned, Adam stepped forward, "Katie, what is."

She skidded to a halt panting lightly, "You aren't going to beehive this."

In her voice, it wasn't worry he sensed, but a sort of feeling of wonder and awe.

"What..." He began but she shook her head.

"You just have to see for yourself."

Adam and Sunny exchanged a look, and after a moment Adam scooped Kay off the ground, allowing the boy to climb onto his back as he began jogging after Katie. She wasn't exactly running, but it was close jogging in front of them as Sunny clattered along behind.

The hospital was alive with movement when they stepped inside full of doctors and nurses scrambling in all directions. Adam might have assumed something terrible had happened, were it not for strange atmosphere that seemed to permeate the air....

Excitement.

He could see the smiles, and hear the whispers.

"Katie, really what is going on."

He did not expect what came next as they were directed down into the basement.

The lowest floor of the Arcadia hospital was used primarily for storage, and contained a few of their larger imaging machines, but its third function was a vast space dedicated primarily to the incubation of the Kree eggs they had saved from a dying planet, a venture that had started seeming fruitless after a year, and became almost an afterthought after two. All of this to the point where Adam had almost forgotten about his last encounter with the kree, which occurred before kay was even born.

"Holy shit" he muttered staring into the red-lit room, where Kree eggs appeared to be hatching left and right.

Doctors and nurses streamed steadily n and out of the room under the supervision of Dr. krill.

"Look there." Sunny said, directing Adam's gaze towards an egg not so distant from their window.

It wiggled once before suddenly splintering, causing a delicate pattern of hairline cracks to branch across the surface. Adam stared in awe for the next few minutes, as a tiny beaked head poked its way through the shell. The creature that pulled itself out was a soft sort of gray in color, and looked very similar to a duckling or a a chick in some way or another.

The little hatchling was scooped up by one of the waiting nurses, and toweled dry as it chirped and wriggled. From there the tiny hatchling was carried from the room, still resting in its towel.

Adam and Sunny clustered together to get a better look, and the nurse paused upon seeing them.

"Can we look" Adam asked, and she agreed, holding up the tiny alien creature for their examination. It was damp, downy feathers sticking to its body, and it chirped often and, seemingly in great annoyance.

"Wow." kay said, "What is that!"

"That." Adam said, "Is the last hope for a species."