Damn it he wished his head would clear faster. He’d just gotten to engineering when the ‘special’ communicator went off.“Yes Sire, not too goo... right now hung over as hell.” Dempsy said into it.“I don’t give a crap! Get your ass ready! I am transferring you to the emperor’s command ship. Damn it! I said step up sergeant!” Hartwell’s voice was barking out orders over the communicator.“Damn it sir!” Dempsy was whispering into the communicator. “You promised you wouldn’t bring that up! I’m happy. Monstrous quantities of ammunition were fired in barrages lasting days, to soften up a target and allow the infantry to attack. That sounded great in theory, but by the end of the war evidence had been found that these types of attacks didn’t kill any more soldiers than barrages that lasted only a few minutes, or maybe half an hour. Most of the damage done in a heavy barrage occurred in the first five minutes or so. After that, everybody had managed to duck into foxholes or trenches. All that. Tony was rather embarrassed at all the fuss, and once again his photograph was in the papers as the investiture list was announced. Much fuss was made about him taking Joan and despite the fact that Tony had made it clear that although he had a fiancé; Joan was a long standing friend and deserved to be present on the occasion, as her husband had died in the same attack. To his surprise on reading Joans mind he found that she was relieved that he had found someone else, and that she had given up. ”Deacon’s face was scarlet red and he wondered if she could feel the heat from across the table. He watched her face, hoping she would not take offense.Wide-eyed, she started off with a giggle, and that devolved into a full-blown attack of side-splitting laughter that left her breathless and with tears running down her cheeks.While Deacon waited for her to wind down, he was very relieved. That could have gone either way and tears of laughter were better that anger any day of the week.“Deacon,.