“Watch your feet,” he ordered again. “I lose anyone else out here and I’m going to be testy at supper. Don’t ruin my meal, got it?”

The men and women with him chuckled, but took the message to heart and proceeded with extra caution as they continued to clear the ruins of Detroit.

From the dirt I began, and to the dirt I have returned, Eric thought with more than a touch of irony, thoughts straying back to his early training as a rifleman in the U.S. Marine Corps.

Somehow it just didn’t surprise him that things had come full circle for his life and career. Even the very heights of space itself couldn’t keep gravity from pulling a man back to his beginnings. That was as it should be, he supposed, and if nothing else he would relish the chance to teach the Drasin the true meaning of fidelity.

“Semper fi, you glorious bastards,” Eric told his squad. “Let’s wipe this place clean so we can go get smashed before doing it all over again. These things ain’t gonna kill themselves!”

“Manufacturing of the components is complete, Mr. President.”

Conner sighed. “Finally.”

“We’re sorry it took so long, sir, but we just didn’t have all the materials, and with the current situation . . .”

“Yes, yes,” Conner waved his hand. He knew this song and dance, and didn’t even disagree with it. It was just frustrating how long it took to get materials moved around the country, let alone the world, at the moment.

While the Drasin weren’t putting any serious crimp in Confederate control of the skies, they were wreaking all kinds of holy havoc on ground transportation. Most warehouses were deep inside disputed zones, not to mention that somehow many of the key components they needed had been “misplaced” by the warehouse owners and took days to locate due to outdated computer records.

He’d been told that was a ploy used by investment firms to drive prices up. Making product take a little longer to find created an illusion of scarcity in the market and could increase the cost by a few pennies per unit. This often added up to billions of dollars by the end of the year without actually having to do anything productive to add to its value.

When this is over, I’m going to make it treason to pull that kind of shit.

That was probably wishful thinking on his part, but President Conner could dream. Hell, at the moment dreaming seemed like the most productive thing he could actually do. Everything else was out of his hands for the moment, and in the control of people who, hopefully, actually knew what they were doing.

“How long for assembly?” he asked aloud, masking his thoughts as best he could.

“A few days, sir, but we need the nuclear shells before it can be deployed.”