Chapter 2
Ryans father was one of those husbands who showed commitment to his wife. They married and produced Ryan later. But at age 14, mom was struck down with cancer and died shortly afterward. In the 22nd century, they could cure cancer but dad didn't have enough money to get the right treatments before it was too late. After that, everything became difficult. The relationship between father and son soured like a lot of single parent families did.
Ryan struggled with a number of classes in school but managed to come up with C's and B's. After barely graduating, he went straight to the Army recruiter station. His time with his father did have its downs like blaming dad for not saving mom and dad being aggressive when Ryan slipped up with school and other bad choices Ryan made. Ryan figured what better way to settle his anger than getting out on the front lines to do some constructive destruction. To prove his confidence, he immediately signed up for Delta force.
Boot camp was always a bitch as the officers and movies depicted, and being in Delta meant more intense training. Ryan didn't put thought into the brutality of the training. He only set his mind to endure the pain and physiological stress put on him and get through it. In the end, Ryan's determination was vindicated when he managed to make it along with the 30% of the soldiers who earned the achievement. With most of the hard stuff finished, he was now able to get through the rest of training and be issued his weapon and be ready to fight.
The U.S. armed forces, including Delta Force, did have uses around the world with the ever expanding unrest between nations and extremist factions popping up and threatening the safety of the United States and its allies. In the global situation, Private Military Contractors ran rampant with mega deals with countries and corporations under heavy attacks from extremist factions emerging all around the world. For PMCs, the job was to find the clients' enemies and use whatever force that was required to eliminate their enemies. The terrorist and revolutionary groups mostly rose from corporate occupation of land and their influence on the governments of second- and third-world countries. People began to bring up arms against the changes only to be singled out and crushed by the unimaginable fire power the contractors and government military brought against them.
The U.S. government's enemies were the ones who brought harm to its allies and its people. Because big businesses and grand scale capitalism were mostly American in nature, terrorists blamed the nation and its citizens with their problems. The PMCs were always reluctant to work in tandem with the U.S. armed forces or other first world country government military because their profits and stocks would diminish if they weren't the ones cutting the heads of the vipers for their clients. But when they were forced to comply, they tried to provide the minimum amount of support possible while focusing all their power and ordinance to the untouched clients as to maximize their profits.
Units like Delta Force were deployed on raids on enemy camps for Intel, destroying weapon stockpiles and killing or capturing the terrorist leaders. Ryan's unit was deployed frequently and he saw quite a bit of action during his tours. He had his own thoughts on the PMCs, and he did believe at first that the soldiers in Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines were fighting to keep the homeland and the people of the world safe.
That part was true in a way after getting through the bloodshed, but the thing that discouraged Ryan was how much fighting he and the soldiers put up. No matter how much damage they did to each terrorist group, another group would arise to take a previous one's place. Aside from the seemingly endless fighting, the fact that many of the enemies that Ryan fought against were just kids was one of the realities that took the toll on him. Ryan hardly noticed the toll as he drank heavily to drown it out.
But halfway through his service, in between his tours of duty, he met Katherine. One day at the local bar, he found her and decided to try and woo the little woman. She was rather beautiful but what set her apart from the other women he talked to was that she was sweet and not very demanding like the others. When their relationship started, it was after the third date, a movie; they decided it was time to sleep together. After that, Ryan knew it was love that pulled them together. Katherine loved him for being a devoted man and how he fought for the people of the country they were born in. She believed he was a man worth waiting for after being sent back to the frontlines.
The engagement ring was hard to get but he managed it and when he proposed, it was the moment she was waiting for and she immediately said yes. In the middle of the constant fighting and bloodshed he stood in the middle of, this would be the part of his life that could humanize him. It was the thing to look forward to after each of his tours was done. A family was a person's dream and his would come true.
But the car accident that came a week before the wedding ended all his hopes. Ryan felt shattered when he saw the body of his fiancé hanging from the seat of the upside down car after he crawled out still alive. When he watched the cremation at the furnace, he felt all the happiness he had as a child and what he held onto to burn away with Katherine's body. To only add to the broken glass, his father died of bronchitis shortly after Katherine. Ryan never spoke to him ever since he left for Delta. He would have felt terrible but in his state, he felt completely hopeless and drained of all hope. He had lost everything that could humanize him.
Once his service was finished, he felt he didn't have anywhere else to go. He knew about Pandora and the great pay and benefits for the soldiers who worked up there. He didn't have much else to go so why not try to get up there to earn a few extra dollars when money was hard to come by in the times. He signed up and he was chosen to ship out on the shuttle. He was put into the cryo-chamber; he closed his eyes and felt himself in a total freeze frame as the chamber activated.
