I stared back at him blankly, unsure of what to say in response. I still wore all of my combat equipment, having been summoned to his chamber as soon as my section returned through the patrol warren airlock. I was coated in mud, the result of several days living in a hole, followed by a lengthy fire fight. I was also exhausted. After leaving Gritt in the capital, we had been dropped several kilometres away from the warren and left to patrol back - a purposeful act intended to avoid giving away our location. The warren was on the western fringe of the Paraiso province, where it bordered with Edo. There was still a threat from Edo itself, which up until recently had been fighting a guerrilla campaign against Paraiso, sabotaging maglev rails and attacking factories. The Loyalist attack from the north had ended the campaign, but we still needed to be careful, the Bosque was a wild and dangerous place where anything could happen. The sergeant major had been eating, but despite having a spoon in one hand and a horror bag in the other, he still looked like a nasty piece of work in the dimly lit burrow chamber.
