Minutes flew past, and between them Eric, Granger, and the members of the “old crowd” got everyone facing the right direction. They had more men than armor, of course, but luckily there were enough guns to go around. Plus each of the assault landers had a heavy cannon mounted, so he put drivers and gunners in those, and would worry about getting them through traffic when the problem presented itself.

He would have worried, actually, since an answer announced itself before he could properly frame the problem. Eric had been walking by the loader he’d used to escape the Odyssey when one of the men caught his attention and jerked a thumb in its direction.

“Hey, Admiral,” the man asked, instantly getting on Eric’s bad side. “What about that?”

Eric glanced at the big machine and shrugged. It was powerful, sure, but too damn slow in an open fight to be of serious use. “What about it?”

“I used to work construction. We had a couple older models than that,” the gruff man said. “I know from experience, it can pick a car up and toss it a good distance.”

Eric froze, then nodded slowly. “Right. You certified?”

“Used to be.”

“Close enough. We’ll cover you. You clear the road for the landers and any tanks we run across. Clear?”

“Clear. This thing use standard fuel cells?”

“It should.”

“Then I’ve got my ride,” the man grinned, climbing up into the cab of the big machine.

That settled one problem. The loader would be slow, but faster than lugging all the ammo and supplies still packed into the landers if they had to haul it on foot. With that settled, they were as ready as they could be.

“Captain,” Granger said as he joined the man at the head of the rough convoy, “the men are ready.”

“Is that so?” Eric asked, checking the action on his Priminae GWIZ. “Colonel Blake?”

“They’re not up to our old standards,” the burly retired colonel grunted, “but I warrant that the ones who live through the day will come close.”

Eric’s eyes flicked quickly to make sure that Blake had been speaking on the command channel and not openly to the group, but he needn’t have bothered. It wasn’t Ronald’s first rodeo.

“Let’s try and make that number as high as possible, shall we?” he responded dryly, while mentally accepting that his old friend had a point.

“That’s the goal, son. Let’s do this.”

Eric nodded, ticking over to the general squad channel. “Ready to move out. Directions are on your HUDs.”

He tensed. “Move out, on the bounce!”