He shrugged. "If she wants to. Certainly don't have any plans on retiring myself."

Sonya had to laugh at that. "Too many soldiers he wants to keep an eye on. I swear, during Bootcamp, he had some sick pleasure in pissing us off."

"Hey, got you ladies through the course, didn't it." His smirk showed no regret over the methods. "And...special forces."

He faced Athelstan and pointed to a second on the wall. Among the many photos was a picture of Sonya among a group of ten other men, all beaming and in green berets. "Picture right there is her graduation class from Specwar school, not ashamed to admit I point it out to all the former soldiers I trained."

Sonya suddenly found that her fries were extremely fascinating.