Perkins looked out the window, which gave a good view of that crater. "The Ruhar commander of the attack here, we interrogated her, she says the strike on the DFAC, the main barracks and the admin building were deliberate, and they thought the DFAC and the barracks would be mostly empty in mid afternoon. If General Gupta hadn't been visiting, the DFAC would have been empty, and there's no way the Ruhar fleet could have known that before they jumped into orbit. She said it was bad luck the DFAC was packed with people, that they didn't want to cause casualties unless they needed to. I don't know whether to believe her or not, G2 will be the judge of that. Or the Kristang, we're handing her over to the Kristang tomorrow. That's why the Ruhar are so pissed about you shooting down those two Whales, they each had almost five hundred troops aboard, plus the crews. The Ruhar apparently didn't realize they'd killed half that many at the DFAC, it's a crater and they weren't taking time to examine it for remains. To the Ruhar, until we told them about casualties at the DFAC, your actions needlessly escalated the conflict here, at a time they were offering a cease fire."

"It didn't look like that when their gunships were strafing every human in sight, ma'am." I said hotly.

"Understood, Bishop, keep in mind our people here were shooting at them, so let's chalk it up to the fog of war. I have no problem with your actions, in fact, I put you in for a commendation. Our, uh, friends upstairs had a different idea. They want UNEF to promote you." She got a sour look on his face, like she didn't agree with the idea.

"First sergeant? I've only been a sergeant for-"