That wasn?t necessary. Fire from the mine itself further scattered the enemy troops and a small, but effective group of armored ground troopers swarm...ed out to surround the worn, but successful group that had lifted the siege. The remaining Cheryii were wiped out in seconds and Morgan?s squad breathed a collective sigh of relief.The quiet was unnerving as an armored figure limped forward and saluted the group in general. ?Thanks people, that move save our asses. Those damned Cheryii almost. I shrugged. “They’ve been on the outside looking in for too long,” I said. “We’ve been extremely bad at finding good footing since this all broke up. Christmas is a good time to mend those fences. I wish I could have you here, but I’ll settle for making sure you know I’m not gonna mope in our room while you’re gone.”She nodded and kissed me. “Good. I was gonna talk to everyone to make sure they kept you active and out of your own head for the holidays. I’ve also been taking pictures of your. One surprise was Eric'swillingness to promote women into a number of the nowvacant department head jobs."Why the surprise?" he asked when she queried this. "I wasserious about improving the position of women and my nowbeing male hasn't altered that. When I was doing your job,I got to know most of the women who work here. You weren'tthe only one being kept afloat by a secretary who coulddo your job better than you could. I know which women herehave what it takes, so of course I'm going to. ” Xan took her hand and led her to one of the café tables that the kids cleared for her. I brought her a cup of coffee and one of the breakfast crepes Dani had prepared for the kids’ breakfast this morning.“What’s taking you back this time?” I asked.“Conrad has acquired two more agencies and merged them into Agence Portes du Ciel. That means that I have two more staffs to weed out and a hundred new models to interview and assess. And while I’m in Paris, he’ll be buying another agency or two in.