Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: CWS Breckinridge, System 1776, New Lancashire, United Commonwealth of Colonies

“AHHHHH…I love drugs.” Coop sighed as he lay awake on the operating table.

He’d been out of it for a little while, but the pharmaceutical cocktail in his system made it too dangerous to keep him out for too long. With the metabolic needs the drugs and nanites were demanding, he could slip into a coma and die.

“Easy there, soldier.” The doctor hovering over him with a computer-operated laser couldn’t smother his grin in time. “Stay with me here for just a bit longer.”

Part of the reason they’d had to wake him up was so he could put his LACS in MAINTENANCE MODE and they could get to work. Without his LACS in that setting they wouldn’t be able to fire lasers at it without the scales reacting and throwing high-intensity energy beams all over the place. They needed sustained, powerful bursts to get through the LACS armor. That and time.

“We’re almost through the one side. Is local anesthetic applied?”

“Oh yeah,” Coop replied dropping his voice a few octaves before bursting into laughter.

“Kid’s high as a fucking kite.” The nurse was resting her hand on his armored chest. Not that it would do much good.

“Ok, we’re through.” The doctor gave Coop a pity-filled look. “This might suck a little. We’re only a destroyer sick bay, you’re doped out of your mind, and we’re not exactly equipped for this…” he stopped talking there. It wasn’t exactly good bedside manner. “This might tingle a bit.”

It didn’t tingle at all. If Coop was being honest, he was only fifty percent sure he wasn’t dreaming this whole thing. Images of his weekend sexcapades with Eve kept flashing through his mind’s eye. Once, she even started making out with the experienced whore he’d dabbled with back on Mars, while he got to watch. That was hotter than hell.

that thought, along with a pungent scent ended the imaginary threesome.

Coop was no stranger to the smell of burning metal scorched by explosions, but the scent of burning flesh was something entirely new for him. He could feel his body reacting as he put two and two together.

Abstractly, he knew that was what was going to have to happen after the grav-grenade flattened it and then crumbled it up into a ball like it was old-fashioned paper. The smell just made it all too real.

“Hold still.” The nurse grunted as Coop started to sit up. She couldn’t stop him from getting halfway into the seated position.

“Private Cooper, sit back down NOW!” someone yelled, but Coop didn’t give a shit. He was drawn to the repugnant smell of his own flesh being sliced through.

“Grab him!”

Coop felt multiple hands start to pull him back down, and a few of them had to be the reinforced bodies of marines, but it wasn’t until a golden head of hair came into view that they were able to push him back down.

“I’m through,” the doctor gave a huge sigh of relief. “All we have left is the far side of the armor and then we’ll be able to get the Private out of this and into a proper medical bed.

“I’m not getting out of this.” Coop clutched the chest plate of his armor with both hands. “The miners and pirates out there are fucking savages with modern guns!” Everything seemed to be melding together in his mind.

“Shit.” The doctor’s face appeared along with some mutli-spectrum light thingy. “He’s overdosing. Hold him down, Sir, I need to finish this fast.”

The smell of burnt flesh was quickly replaced by burning metal, and all Coop saw was blue eyes and golden hair.

“You hang in there, Cooper. We did not go through all of that just to die when we got to safety.”

“Hey, Gold. When did you get here? Where is here?” Darkness was starting to creep into the edges of Coop’s vision.

“Listen to my voice, Cooper. Stay with my voice. Don’t go toward the light.”

“What light? There’s no fucking light. All I see is your quaffed hair you dumb shit. I swear to god you could punch a hole in a battleship with the glare coming off that hair of yours.” That got a few laughs just as the cutting stopped.

The medical team and LCDR Gold quickly got Coop out of his armor. He was missing his one leg below the knee, but that was something modern medicine could easily fix. He’d be out of commission for a few months, but that meant he would get assigned to some ground-based medical facilities for regen and therapy. That meant local girls, legit bars, and maybe he’d even get to see his good old buddy Mike again.

Those were the happy thoughts that lulled him to sleep after he got juiced up with a shit ton of nanites that would keep any infection from setting in and purge the drugs from his system. When he woke up in a few hours he’d have to piss like a race horse.

Commodore George Zahn

Location: GSFS King Midas, York Sector, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Commodore George Zahn, the Mad Captain of the Intrepid, and a whole bunch of titles imposed by others sat on the bridge of the pride of the Gold Technology’s Fleet. King Midas was smaller than its Commonwealth counterparts, but he knew she was a fighter. He’d put her through her paces right out of the shipyards on Gold Prime, and he was confident she was the finest warship in the galaxy.

Automation was taking a giant leap forward in the next generation of Gold Technology designs, and Midas was its poster boy.

The holo-tank at the center of the flag bridge was better in the CMDRE’s opinion than what was on the Fleet’s ships. The crew was something else entirely. That was the one thing Zahn missed about the military. It had more stability than the corporate security fleet. He would lose talented officers to other commands, department changes, or straight up being stolen by competitors. In the Fleet, he could at least count on some semblance of stability for the duration of a cruise.

It was hard to build a crew, to fight a ship, and to defeat the enemy when you had to change department OICs every other week.

A smile crept onto the CMDRE’s lips.

Zahn was not a handsome man, and his smile might have led credence to his title the Mad Captain more so than his deeds. Just because he’d taken a cruiser headlong into the might of a pirate armada did not make him mad. In his opinion, when someone was confronted with no good options, then the best option was to go down swinging. Half of the Intrepid and the entire convoy of merchant ships owed their lives to his mentality. He’d only had to inflict thirty percent casualties on the enemy before they turned tail and ran. He knew they would. They weren’t real soldiers.

This mission was different. He’d been given his orders directly from the CEO. He’d sat in the titan of industry’s office and been given two data chips. One he was ordered to open when his carrier group departed for New Lancashire. The chip contained only three words: RECOVER THE HEIR. He thought the wording was weird, but who was he to judge the man who paid him significantly more than the Fleet ever did.

The second chip he held in his hand as King Midas rocketed through space faster than the speed of light with his small carrier group in tow.

“Transition in five minutes, Sir.”

“Thank you.” The CMDRE held the chip tight in his grip.

No one else knew he had it. He didn’t even know what it said, but he had a sinking feeling in his gut. Thomas Gold could smite a planet if he wanted to, and while the CEO had been composed during their short meeting, George could see that he was fuming with anger that someone had kidnapped his son.

He squeezed his fist, but there was no danger of crushing the mixture of polyplast and circuitry.

“Three minutes, Sir.”

The CMDRE just nodded as he unclasped his hand and stared at the chip.

King Midas shuddered only slightly as it dropped out of Alcubierre several light minutes from Cobalt Mining Station. George watched as the light-minute bubble expanded. There was no one within range for over an hour until the CWS Breckenridge popped into existence. A brief communication with the destroyer’s captain lifted a tremendous weight from George’s shoulders. Lieutenant Commander Gold was unharmed aside from a few scrapes and bruises. He was being transported back to New Lancashire while his gunboat Argo maintained security until George’s group took charge of the system.

A loud cheer went up from Midas’ crew when the transmission was completed. The CMDRE smiled and nearly forgot about the chip in his hand. Three hours later he relieved Argo and took up position around the rebellious space station. It was only then that he inserted the second chip into his PAD and saw the second part of his orders:

KILL THE REBEL SCUM