by: Kevin Skrepnek
Sergeant Roger Whyte, NSFD, stretched out in the cramped seat of his small Razor scout ship. Getting the job here on Ganymede was considered a dream job.
This planet had had been untouched in the CCA/Fury war, with only a small Soviet garrison the far side of the planet, the NSDF had almost complete control of the moon. He had personally not been in the CCA/Fury war, but he had heard the tales of gruesome machines, turning against their inventors like a pack of wild Hyenas. It was a miracle that the NSDF had destroyed the remaining Furies on Achilles.
He had joined the NSDF soon after the war, and was dispatched to the once illustrious Black Dogs, now a small Brigade after the beating they took from the Russians on Venus in the first Fury battle. The bulk of the Black Dogs were garrisoned here. He had heard some of the most violent war stories ever told well stationed here. The Black Dogs were known the outcasts of the NSDF, the beaten ones. The only platoon that still respected the Black Dogs, were the 4th platoon, the only surviving group (except the Black Dogs) to have fought Furies and survived. They knew the way the Furies fought, and the way they killed, and the 4th knew what fighting a Fury could do a man.
The commander of the 4th was the nameless soldier, "Grizzly1". After Achilles exploded, Grizzly1 was never seen again. NSDF command knows he got off Achilles in time, but after that, it's anybody's guess as to his whereabouts. There is rumors that he was sent straight to the Moon or some other NSDF stronghold, and kept there to become General Collins predecessor. Others say he somehow left the transport undetected, and went back to Earth, not wanting the attention of being the man to save the Human race. "The man to save the Human race", what a title, Whyte thought.
Then, breaking Whyte train of thought, his radio flared up in front of him, first he heard a distress signal. Then large bangs, sounding almost like the blast from an SP Stabber. Next he heard heavy radio chatter from what sounded like several Grizzlies mobilizing and giving chase to something, but what, he thought.
The signal was getting weaker, but he made out next that the Grizzlies stopped for a moment, as if they found something. Then the Grizzlies quickly dispersed, as if they were making a very fast retreat. He heard the unmistakable sound of heavy gunfire, 3 or 4 loud bangs, then silence, the bad silence, the type of silence that struck fear into men. Whyte quickly maneuvered his Razor forward, heading back towards base. All he saw was a reflection his window before his ship was destroyed in a flurry of gun fire, his body ripped apart by the storm of SP rounds. He would too become a nameless soldier, not because he was never found, or because he had done something heroic, but because in the ensuing war that erupted across this planet and others, no one bothered to notice that one Razor never came back from its patrol, and when the numbers where counted, he would join the ranks of thousands of other soldiers, whose families where told that that there sons, fathers and brothers, had died in mere "training accidents".♠