Three in the afternoon.
A strange group of around thirty people had assembled in the plaza before the administrative building.
There were no neat formations, no rousing slogans.
A group of people in bulky, tattered protective suits looked like scavengers who had crawled out of a garbage dump.
Rovi stood before the group, his gaze sweeping across every face.
At the very front stood Buck and the Defense Force elites under his command.
His head was wrapped in bandages, and the ear fitted with a secondhand cochlear implant was still bleeding.
Yet he stood ramrod straight, his eyes fierce.
Behind him stood Priest Alpha, carrying a heavy toolbox, with several maintenance Servitors following behind him.
Further back were three women.
The widows of the three recruits.
They carried no guns, only portable detection equipment and medical kits on their backs.
Rovi had approved the three widows joining the team not merely because manpower was scarce and they had volunteered, nor out of any unnecessary pity.
He certainly did not expect the three frail women to charge into battle with laser rifles in hand.
In this hastily assembled team, Buck and his men were nothing more than brutes who knew only how to pull triggers and swing Chainswords.
Asking them to watch fluctuating radiation readings the entire time, fine-tune precision cooling valves, or distinguish subtle changes in complex biological radar patterns was like asking an Ogre to embroider.
Although Priest Alpha could handle such data work as well, he needed to maintain the two Chimera Personnel Carriers and keep the modified vehicles from breaking down.
He also had to constantly monitor the condition of the living metal armor, leaving him unable to attend to everything.
At a time like this, the three women became highly cost-effective "precision operators" in Rovi's hands.