"Fuck. Hell, in that case," Cornpone said grumpily and reached out with his fork, "I'm taking the rest of your French toast."

My zPhone beeped one morning while I was on the rifle range, it was a message from my platoon, ordering me to report to a Captain Andrews on the other side of the base. Andrews commanded a company in another battalion of our brigade. The message didn't say 'on the double', that was implied. When I found the tent Andrews was using as company HQ, I stepped inside and saluted. "Specialist Bishop reporting as ordered, sir."

"Bishop," he barely looked up from his laptop, "sat ease. I'm sure you know we left Earth without a full complement; if people couldn't get to Ecuador by the departure date, they got left behind."

I nodded. Transportation to Ecuador had, ironically, been more difficult than transport up to orbit and across the stars. Because of manpower shortages, we had sergeants in charge of squads, staff sergeants filling in for first sergeants, lieutenants acting a captains, etc. The other fireteam in my own squad had only three soldiers, and the battalion had scraped together new squads from understrength units. Overall, the 10th Division had fourteen percent less manpower than authorized, and that didn't even count the field artillery battalions that had been deliberately left behind. Or most of the sustainment brigade that had also been left behind, so we didn't have our combat engineers with us. It was a big problem that Division was still sorting out.

"I've got your personnel file here," Andrews continued, and my face fell.

I’d seen my personnel file, the original one on paper, still in official Army triplicate. Coming out of Nigeria, it said ‘bad attitude’ on it, all capital letters, and it’s underlined twice. There isn’t even a smiley face as the dot over the 'i' in 'attitude', so you know it’s serious. I hoped Captain Andrews wasn't going to underline it again, and circle it with a big angry face. Running frantically through my memory, I couldn't think of anything I'd fucked up more than usual since we left Earth. Balanced against my alleged bad attitude was a Purple Heart that explained the scars on my left arm, and paperwork started to award a Bronze Star. That paperwork had stopped at the brigade level, which I could understand considering the circumstances. I appreciated the gesture anyway.

"You know Staff Sergeant Agnelli?" He asked, and I nodded again, then he said something unexpected. "There's an opening for a sergeant in his squad, and you've been recommended." He didn't say who had recommended me. "It's yours if you want it. We don't have time, or resources, for a regular training program, so you'll learn on the job. If you're interested, report to Agnelli, and I'll handle the paperwork."

Shit. I didn't know if I was ready to command a fireteam, three guys I didn't know. Andrews cleared his throat. "That was me waiting for an answer, Bishop. I know this is unusual, we don't have time for the normal process out here."