Seniors officers ate well. That, I could get used to. My joy lasted until a US Marine Corps colonel thanked me for giving the headquarters unit an excuse for a feast; General Meers had senior officers at Fort Olympus on field rations six days a week, to remind commanders and their staff what troops in the field were experiencing. I didn't know much about Meers, but my respect for him climbed several notches after hearing that.

The steak was great. I was still craving a cheeseburger.

After dinner, General Meers wanted to talk to me in private. Me. The commander of all human forces on Paradise wanted to have a little chat with me.

"Serg-, damn it, Colonel, it's new to me too. Bishop." My last name was conveniently rank-neutral. "You've had a hell of an interesting career, for one so young. Nigeria, then the Ruhar crash into your home town and you capture one of them. My G2 tells me you were our gold source of intel here for a while. And then you pull together a squad on your own, and shoot down two Whales. Surprised the hell out of me when they told me you're the same Bishop that captured a Ruhar soldier with an ice cream truck. Those are some big goddamn coincidences."

"My mother said I was a trouble magnet growing up, always getting into one thing or another." I could hear her voice in my ear as I said it. "It's not all that much of a coincidence, sir. I was on leave when the Ruhar crashed in my hometown, that was luck. But it wasn't coincidence that the burgermeister-"

"The who?"

"The Ruhar mayor, or whatever she is, we called her the burgermeister, the one who fed me the intel about wormholes and all that. It wasn't a coincidence she picked me to talk to, she sought me out because the hamster I captured back home reported he was treated well, and she wanted to meet me. I was at Fort Arrow because, uh, I was told it was because the Kristang were sniffing around trying to find who was feeding us intel, so it was no coincidence I was there when the Ruhar attacked. And I probably would have been at the Fort Arrow DFAC with everyone else, except Captain Price there said he was tired of UNEF using Fort Arrow as a dumping ground, and he stuck me on convoy duty to get me out of the way. That's why I was off base then the Ruhar hit us." That was close enough, General Meers didn't need the details.

"One thing led to another, huh?"

"That's the way I see it, sir."

"I suppose you could be right about that. Now that you're here, don't expect you can screw off because you've got UNEF over a barrel. The Kristang promote based on success in combat, what you may not know is they can sack people just as fast."