"Anyway, you won’t be a general, we told them the role of generals in our armies is mostly administrative, that colonel is the highest rank directly involved in combat. True enough. They understood that, so they're satisfied with you being a colonel. That rank," he nudged the box with the silver eagles, "is high enough to show that UNEF values success in combat as much as the Kristang do. It's important to keep our allies happy."

"Uh," I mumbled, mesmerized by those pretty silver eagles. Damn. Before the Ruhar attacked, all I wanted from my military service was to pay for college somewhere, and get out. Now there was a pair of silver eagles sitting in front of me. "I'm not good at writing letters and stuff."

"Letters?"

I broke my gaze away from the eagles to meet her eye. "You know, thank you, this is a great honor but I can't accept, the US Army doesn't work this way-"

"Sergeant, I'm not getting through to you, so I'll break it down for you Barney style." She spat with exasperation and not even a hint of a smile, so I knew she wasn't using 'Barney' ironically. "This is the last time I can give you an order anyway, before you outrank me. UNEF doesn't want you to politely refuse the promotion. We need you to accept eagerly, accept the promotion as your right for killing a lot of Ruhar. We need you to tell the Kristang that you're only sorry you couldn't have killed more hamsters.  Be confident, be bold, be bloodthirsty. Be what the Kristang want humans to be, because garrison duty on Paradise may be a shit job, but it's the job we agreed to, and our allies are our only ride home. And our only source of food."

"Holy shit." I repeated. I didn't know what to say.

Me. A colonel.

A fucking bird colonel.

Me.

"What am I going to do? As a colonel?" A colonel in the US Army could be commander or deputy commander of a brigade, that was thousands of troops. No way in hell was I qualified to do that.

Major Perkins shrugged and avoided my eyes. "Damned if I know. UNEF will figure it out."

Shit. It hit me. UNEF was going to use me as a publicity stunt, trot me out for the Kristang as an example of the ideal warrior human, while behind my back, all the humans would be laughing at me. I couldn't keep the disgust from showing on my face.

"Bishop, UNEF needs this. You don't have to like it, you do have to do your duty." Major Perkins admonished.

"Sure. I'll wear medals on my chest, talk to the troops and maybe sell some war bonds. Shit." A promotion was supposed to be a good thing. "Am I going to be the only puppet UNEF is promoting?"