Among the chatter of her team mates, she flipped the page again.

Turns out my squad was the only one that didn't suffer a single casualty, everyone else had one or two wounded guys in the best of cases, some squads were even reduced to just one man. Apparently the commanding officer on site thinks that's worthy enough to send reports of me off to the promotion board. Leadership like mine needs to be properly acknowledged and rewarded, according to him. I don't know, I don't think the board's going to pay me much mind. Something tells me a Sergeant, a Grunt no less, isn't going to rate very high on their list of importance.

I discovered another, more important, detail about my squad today. With Captain Moore and one other Pilot KIA, the IMC had a large host of Grunt squads now without a commanding officer. Some of them had already been sorted out, but a majority of them are still; "without the guidance of a Pilot", as the higher ups put it. My squad is one of them too, so the promotion thing might work out in my favor. If I can get the promotion to go through, I'll be a Staff Sergeant, at that point, a Grunt can request whom they wish to serve under, and I already have a few ideas.

I still don't know that one Pilot's name, but knowing the serial number of his Titan certainly will help. I'm hoping, that with a bit of luck, I can get my men and I transferred to that Pilot's command. I don't expect that to happen, but I'm hoping against my better judgment that it could. My squad has a bad reputation among the civvies in the Frontier. Come to think of it, all the squads serving under Moore did. No one was really a fan of the guy, to be honest. Regardless, getting put under the command of a Pilot with a moral compass would really help get my guys better reputations. Heck, some of us might even be seen as good men, not monsters.

A Grunt can dream, can't he?

- Price