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.

My new squad was led by Staff Sergeant Salvatore Agnelli, who despite the name had blonde hair and looked more German than Italian. In my fireteam, I lucked out, and both Agnelli and I knew it. Privates Chen and Baker, and Specialist Sanchez, were all veterans of Nigeria, and Sanchez had served briefly in Korea before that. Greg Chen was an ABC from suburban Maryland, he had to explain that ABC meant American Born Chinese, since I had no idea what he meant. Jeron Baker was raised on a farm in Alabama, which he was immensely proud of, and he was immensely grateful to get away from. And Pete Sanchez was from eastern Kansas, his parents had a small farm but his mother worked as a nurse and his father at a car dealership, their farm not being big enough to provide a living for a family. Their previous sergeant was now a staff sergeant, leading a squad in 2nd Brigade. We got off to a great start when none of them made a Barney joke, or asked about or seemed in any way curious about what I'd done the first time I saw a Ruhar. They'd read all about it, it was ancient history, and it didn't mean squat now. The four of us got to know each other in drills and combat exercises over the next week, I was collapsing in bed each night completely exhausted, and I hadn't been happier in a long time. I had a great team, and we were honing ourselves for battle with an enemy that had threatened our home planet. What we needed was a real mission.