“I’m not sure how deep you were, but there’s a war on, and for once it’s not about the Remnant.  I put out a call to get everyone I could back here, but I’ll be damned if I got as many as I’d hoped.  A few are tied up, can’t leave their current postings for reassignment.  Few I couldn’t find—I’ve got Tag on that, now, thank the Force she’s back—and then a few are dead.  You were in the latter category.”  She stood up and began to pace.
            The hell were they thinking?  How low can we stoop?  She exhaled quietly through her teeth, pinching the bridge of her nose.  “I need experienced commanders.  I’ve got children.  When we signed the peace with the Remnant…most of the veterans retired.  I didn’t blame them—I still don’t.  But they were replaced by a generation that’s half trained and wholly unready for what we’re looking at.”  She managed to smile.  “Hell, I’m not even sure that I’m ready for what we’re looking at, to be honest.  But it says a lot that one of my best commanders is someone I chased out from under my desk when he was five.”  She stopped pacing, stared out the window for a long moment, then looked back to him.  “What do you say, Major?  Want to get back in the saddle, or do you just want to be some sort of grunt on the front lines, in the trenches—wherever they end up being?”

~ Erin