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guys so quickly. He sensed the bond we already had. Roman raised me as best I would let him after my parents died. He treated me exactly the same as he did his own children, loved me just as much. He’s truly been like a second father to me”.
    Adrian shifted around to face the men more fully.
    “Okay guys, we’ve apparently got some raiders headed this way. A bunch of them, maybe up to two hundred. We don’t know enough about them yet. Getting good, solid information is absolutely essential. I’m going to be organizing a fighting unit here with the men from the village and surrounding area. My first thought was to put each of you in charge of a group. It makes sense because you have the most experience. But our first priority is intel. We need detailed, rock solid intel. I trust you guys to find the raiders, scope them out, and report back what needs to be known. I can’t expect anyone else in the village to provide the in-depth quality or type of information that you guys would. You know what we need to know; anyone else would have to be trained and there isn’t time for that.
    “I also considered having you guys take over the fighting groups when we have the information we need, but there’s a problem with that. I’ll be training the fighting groups while the information is coming in. That means each group will have a leader, and they’ll get used to that leader while training. Even though each of you would be ten times better at leading them, there would be a lack of that comfort the men get training together. You wouldn’t have shared the training with them, wouldn’t know what to expect from each individual, and they wouldn’t know what to expect from you.
    “So what I’m thinking is that initially, you men will do the scouting. When the scouting is done, I won’t put you in charge of a group, I’ll assign each of you to two groups—maybe three, depending on how many men I can round up. To keep the group leaders from becoming jealous or resentful of you being put in charge, I’m going to call you ‘combat advisors.’ I’ll explain how we have been sent out on many missions to advise indigent combat groups, how we fought beside them and provided them with technical expertise without being in command. I believe this will prevent potential misunderstandings, and provide the best possible way of assisting them. In many ways, this really is just like those advisory missions we went on. I’ll have the confidence of knowing you’ll be in the thick of things, able to adjust the men to adapt as necessary to any given situation.
    “What I don’t want to do is cause any of you to wonder why you won’t be given a military rank for this operation, or to feel slighted in any way. Everyone else will have rank—you guys won’t—but it’s you that I will be fully dependent on to bring this thing off. What do you think?”
    “Bollinger, you tell him,” Clif said. Adrian smiled; that was more like the Clif he knew.
    Bollinger said, “Sounds like a good plan to me. It takes everything into account, and it’s a smart move.”
    Adrian waited to see if there would be any more comments. There weren’t. The men just looked steadily at him, waiting for orders. Adrian thought, just like old times. God, I miss those days.
    Adrian finally spoke again. “Tomorrow, two of you will go out and get the information on what we’re going to be dealing with. Any volunteers to be first?”
    March 3, morning
    John and Isaac left before daybreak, promising to be back as quickly as possible—which was most likely in a few days—with the information. The other three were a little let down that they hadn’t been the first to go, but they knew their turns would come soon enough. Waiting was a skill soldiers develop, so they waited the way soldiers usually waited: bitching and crabbing amongst themselves. A soldier that didn’t bitch about a soldier’s life was a soldier with low morale.
    Adrian walked the village to get