“Sir!” the Keldara said, sitting bolt upright. He’d been bent over talking to the Keldara next to him.

“Three hundred and eighty-six rounds?” Nielson said, clearly amazed. “How in the hell did you expend three hundred and eight-six rounds?”

The day after the hot-wash they took all six teams out and walked the ground, looking over what they could have done better. Mike determined that Nielson was just better at picking out details on stuff like this than he was. Everything from the timing on when he’d pulled in Vil to when he’d sent Killjoy and Vanim down the hill was reviewed and critiqued.

The third day was a final review held in the main dining room of the serai. Mike had had more tables and chairs brought in and there was just barely room for all the militia and the trainers. They’d even brought in the females from the mortar section who were sitting at a separate table with their trainers. The girls were looking smug as cats at being included in “guy talk.”

“Kildar,” Nielson said. “Could you stand up?”

“Here it comes,” Mike noted to Adams, standing up at the head of the table.

“The recon movement to the observation point was good,” Nielson said. “No major flaws there except a lack of putting your point out far enough during the movement. No trash found at your bivouac of the first night although there was debris at the main OP on the hilltop. I won’t get into your choice of targets for the sniper operations; that is idiosyncratic and depends upon human factors I won’t argue. However, your timing on withdrawal was quite bad. You very nearly got flanked by the pursuit party; you’re aware of that?”

“Yes, I am,” Mike said, nodding. “I took a few more shots than I should have.”

“Arguably, you should not have been shooting,” Nielson pointed out. “You should have been spotting and controlling and let Lasko shoot.”