"Oh, yes, sir. Thank you. I mean, yes, I'm honored. Yes." Promotions were supposed to be a more formal process, I was taken completely by surprise. The Division had holes that needed to be filled.

"Uh huh." He sounded less than convinced. "Agnelli will keep you out of trouble. And, Bishop?"

"Yes?"

"Stay away from ice cream trucks." He wasn't smiling.

Taking command of a new fireteam wasn't the most difficult part of my promotion, my three guys all had experience in Nigeria and knew what to do without me needing to tell them much. Staff Sergeant Agnelli was patient with me and, other than the administrative part of the job that was overwhelming at first, I didn't have much trouble adjusting. The Army didn't have time to put me through the standard training, which saved me from memorizing a bunch of crap, and I'm sure that would come back to bite me in the ass later. The most difficult part of being promoted was leaving my old unit; Sergeant Koch, Ski, and especially Cornpone. Cornpone had a tear in his eye, which he said was caused by blowing sand, and my eyes teared up too. "Damn," Cornpone said, "think how much stupid stuff you get into when I'm around. What are you going to do without me? And the Army put you in charge of a fireteam?" He shook his head sadly.

"If I see an ice cream truck, I'll run the other way."

He snorted. "Bish, that takes care of, like, ten percent of the problem. You get into a situation, you should think 'what would Jesse do'?"

"And then do the opposite?" I laughed.

He made an exaggerated shrug, then gave me a back-pounding hug. "Take care of yourself, and don't forget to write."

I pulled out my zPhone. "Write? With this thing, I can see your ugly face whenever  I want."

"Oh, damn," he rolled his eyes, "I forgot about that." He pulled out his zPhone. "How do I block people from calling?"

The Kristang didn't have faster than light communication, but the US Army rumor mill did. "Sergeant Bishop?" Shauna was the first person to call me about my promotion. "Man, they'll promote anybody."

"True enough."

"Seriously, good for you, Bish."

"Confession? I have no idea what I'm doing."

"Bish, we'll be fighting aliens. Nobody knows how to do this.  We’ll make it up as we go.”

Damn, it was good hearing from her. Which reminded me, I needed to review the Army regs about fraternization, Shauna wasn’t under my command, she was in a different battalion. Did that mean I was Ok to continue being with her? I sure hoped so.