Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: New Lancashire, United Commonwealth of Colonies

“Almost there…almost there.” Coop was breathing heavily. Not quite gasping for breath, but he was definitely out of practice.

“Give it to me, Cooper.” A good-looking woman looked him intensely in the eyes.

“You know I love it when you talk dirty,” Coop smiled and focused on the task at hand.

He was almost there. He was so close he could feel the satisfaction building.

With the last of his energy, Coop threw his foot forward and planted it at the end of the course. “Yeah!” He looked at his physical therapy specialist, who had a matching smile on her face. “Suck on that.” He made a vulgar gesture with his hands toward his crotch. “One hundred meters, in LACS armor, no power. You can cash that and take it to the bank.”

“Settle down, Cooper.” She made placating gestures but couldn’t stop smiling. “You’ve finally met the standard. Your medical condition will be updated to yellow. You’re still on limited duty until you regain full strength in your leg, but you’ll be able to start training in armor again for small durations of time. We’ll get the ball rolling and let the S1 know you’re ready to get reassigned.”

That was music to Coop’s ears. Despite what the doctors on Breckinridge had said, there was not a new leg waiting for him when he got back to New Lancashire. They had his DNA on file, but with the limited supplies of a newly colonized world, and the enhancements that needed to be done, there was a waiting list for new HI limbs. Coop ended up laid up in bed for a week before undergoing half a dozen surgeries to attach the new appendage.

He would give credit where credit was due. The docs had done a spectacular job. Aside from it being a scrawny chicken leg compared to his other one, it didn’t feel any different. It was his leg in every facet down to the tinniest molecule.

He thought getting the new leg attached would be the hard part, but like usual he was wrong. Within two weeks of getting back planetside he had a new leg, but it took three months to get where he was now.

Even having two legs again, he had trouble with his balance sometimes. The disproportion of the two was so great that it was hard to get used to, and when he finally did get the handle on it things were changing again. He underwent daily nanite injections to speed up the recovery process, and spent hours in rehab. He’d been assigned his own PT specialist: a cute brunette by the name of Sandy, and he’d spent the last few months trying to get in her pants.

She had expertly dodged his advances so far by citing regulation. She could not ethically treat him and fuck him at the same time, but now the game had changed. Coop had strengthened his leg enough that he’d be out from under that pesky ethical conundrum soon.

His leg still ached. It wasn’t quite up to his other leg’s perfection, but it was a start. Getting back into a proper LACS V2 was also a relief.

He was using his most charming smile on Sandy, and her growing dimples showed it might actually be working.

“What do you say? You, me, a nice meal, a bottle of wine, and thirty to forty-five minutes of some other physical activity? You’re always telling me I need to increase my cardio.”

A blush filled her pale cheeks and Coop was ready to put her in the win column when…

“Coop!” Mike’s booming voice filled the small PT clinic and snapped Sandy out of the trance Coop’s charm had put her in.

“Well…um…I’ve got to go and file the paperwork. I’ll talk to you later, Cooper.” With a shake of her head she walked off.

Coop fumed as he turned to fix Mike with his hate-filled glare.

The big HI trooper – still in his LACS – pretended not to notice he’d cock-blocked his best friend.

“Mike,” Coop returned the greeting through gritted teeth. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“I’m back, and do I have some shit to tell you.”

Coop couldn’t see the man smiling, but he could hear it in his voice.

Things had been pretty much business as usual for the Commonwealth over the last three months. Gold Technology’s Corpies had dealt with the bastards that took Coop’s leg, and that was the end of that. The Blockies hadn’t conducted any new raids in Commonwealth territory because Admiral Nelson was too busy keeping them guessing. Every couple of weeks the vaunted Strike Force would sail for targets unknown and return victorious. They’d gone on four separate missions and accomplished all of them. They were so successful that soldiers were starting to volunteer for the missions, and Mike had been selected for the last one.

“All I’m going to say is asteroid mining station,” Mike sounded particularly proud of himself.

Coop looked down at his sore leg. He’d had enough adventures at asteroid mining stations for his lifetime, but friends were supposed to listen to other friends boast about the shit they’d done, and Mike was Coop’s friend. Even if he wanted to plant his boot in the other man’s ass for the cock-block.

“You can tell me over a pint, but you’re buying,” Coop insisted.

“Fine by me. I got combat pay on my last paycheck.”

Despite Coop’s own unfortunate series of events on Cobalt Mining Station, he didn’t give his pound of flesh for nothing. Apparently, LCDR Gold was grateful to the HI trooper who saved his ass, and wrote him up for his actions during the rescue. Coop had a shiny new Meritorious Service Medal for his heroic actions against pirates and rebel miners whenever he turned his CMU’s to the Dress setting. An MSM was a pretty big deal for a PFC to have, so his military business card was looking pretty good right now.

Even better was the cash. A reward for the rescue of LCDR Gold had been posted by the officer’s rich daddy: a million bucks. Of course, when Coop brought this little fact up to his chain of command Gunney Topper had proceeded to stomp on Coop’s nuts and chew him out.

“A soldier doesn’t need a reward to do his job, Cooper!” The Gunney had stood over Coop as he lay in bed and laid into him in front of the whole post-surgery unit.

Thankfully, Coop had just been transferred out of the 2222nd and into the medical unit until he recovered, so when he replied with a resounding, “Go fuck yourself,” he wasn’t going to get court-martialed. Even better, Gunney Topper wasn’t Coop’s rater for the three months required by regulation, so the stick-up-his-ass gunnery sergeant wouldn’t be putting his dislike for Coop in an official evaluation.

Even though the infantry stomped on collecting the reward, Gold turned out to be a decent guy. He’d coughed up ten grand for Coop as a thank you, and Coop said “you’re welcome” by accepting. Coop still thought the big officer was a moron for getting captured in the first place, but he was a moron who paid his debts. That was the type of moron Coop could stand.

Life was looking up for Coop – aside from the blue balls – that sucked, but everything else was getting back to normal.

He cheated a little as he exited the PT clinic with Mike. He amplified the power a little bit to his recuperating leg, so he didn’t’ have to suffer the two-kilometer walk back to the armory. The clinic itself was one, squat polyplast building among the modular collection of buildings that made up the planets one and only hospital.

Really, there wasn’t much to New Lancashire yet. The planet might be the capitol system of York Sector, but it wasn’t much to look at. The system hadn’t been discovered and settled until ten years ago. In terms of terraforming processes, that was short. Initial scans showed a higher than average amount of ore on the planet, which would make it a good site for future shipyards. It was only eighty percent the size of Earth with 1.01 G - 1% more gravity than the homeworld. That was great from a colonization standpoint. No one had to undergo expensive treatment to simply survive.

Environmentally, it was still a work in progress. Over seventy-five percent of the planet’s surface was land, with quite a few ore-rich mountain ranges crisscrossing the surface. The twenty to twenty-five percent of the surface containing water could be loosely defined as inland seas that had mostly dried up before the Commonwealth arrived. Those seas were in the process of being refilled with water from wrangled comets while the atmosphere was tampered with. Currently, it was a survivable mix of oxygen and nitrogen, but there was a lot of dust in the air, so most people preferred to wear a simple breather and protective eyewear when outdoors.

For HI like Coop and Mike, that meant being in armor most of the time. It was a good workout for Coop in getting back up to one hundred percent.

Only a handful of Commonwealth settlements graced the planet’s surface with a total population around a quarter of a million. The capitol, Town Center – Coop thought it was a shitty name -was situated on the coast of the smallest inland sea, which had the most water when the terraforming process began. It was designed in a grid formation with multi-story buildings in the center for administration, science ventures, corporate interests, and necessary facilities like the hospital. Outward from that section were standard duplexes and single-family homes for the colonists. They were cookie-cutter, spartan designs, and you only got into more customized designs once you reached the outskirts of the city limits. Town Center’s population of a hundred thousand made it the largest on the planet, but a lot of that was devoted toward three things: the project refilling and populating the inland seas with life, the footholds of corporate interests like Gold Technologies, and supporting the growing military infrastructure. The latter held the greatest number of employees, so it wasn’t uncommon to see soldiers moving from the nexus of downtown Town Center to the military base and PDC at the outskirts of the city.

Mike and Coop didn’t draw much attention aside from people advertising their wares on the dust-covered street. There wasn’t much conversation as the two HI troopers took their sweet time getting back to base. Neither was in a hurry. About halfway back Mike finally spoke up.

“Sorry about that. I didn’t think you and Sandy were a thing until I opened my mouth.”

What little anger Coop had left deflated. “Don’t worry. I might still be able to turn it around, but you win some and you lose some.” He shrugged, as a gaggle of civilians parted for the large HI troopers.

A few of the women even looked over their shoulders at the large soldiers.

By the time they reached the base’s gates it was thirty minutes from quitting time. New Lancashire ran on a twenty-three hour day, so naturally the brass decided to keep the schedule the same as on Earth and just take the one hour from the soldiers’ free time.

Coop was going to miss being able to hit up a bar or flirt with the local women, but he was excited to get back to a twenty-four hour ship’s schedule and grab that extra hour of sleep every night. The gate guard scanned the projection of their GICs and waved them through. There were a few groups organizing for the final formation of the day, but other than that nothing looked like it was going on. Because they’d checked in so late, Coop and Mike had no intention of going to the final formation. They had to turn in their LACS for the day before shitting, showering, and grabbing that beer.

“Cooper!” The corporal at the gate called after him. “Report immediately to Charlie Company, 2223rd Headquarters, Building 1258.”

“But…” Coop’s reply fell on deaf ears.

“The 2223rd?” Mike sounded just as shocked as Coop. “That’s a whole different battalion.”

“Makes sense,” Coop shrugged. “They got some new replacements in last month, so they probably filled my old slot with the Quad-Deuce.” Truthfully, Coop wasn’t as bummed about it as Mike seemed to be. Getting out from under Gunney Topper’s shit details was worth the separation. They were still in the same brigade.

The two HI troopers parted ways there. Coop didn’t want to make a poor impression on his new boss because he knew how shitty that could turn out. The base wasn’t big – only a hodgepodge battalions-worth of soldiers from a variety of units were on the planet – so it was easy to find building 1258. A SGT manned the staff duty desk and immediately pointed down the hallway. Coop’s metal boots scuffed up the freshly polished floor as he walked down to a door marked C Co. LT Wentworth. He knocked and waited.

“Enter.” The voice was muffled, but the order came through.

Coop entered, marched up to the desk, assumed the position of attention, and…it was a good thing his LACS hid facial expressions because his jaw dropped. LT Wentworth had raven black hair done up in a bun on the top of her head, sun-kissed skin, full red lips, and intelligent green eyes with just a spark of mischief hidden beneath layers of focus. The CMUs weren’t designed to be form flattering, but even then Coop could tell she kept it tight.

The pause lasted about two seconds longer than appropriate before Coop snapped out of it. “Private First Class Cooper reporting for duty, Ma’am.”

“At ease.” She gave Coop’s blank visor a hard stare that only highlighted her symmetrical cheekbones. “I’ll keep it short and sweet, Private.” She steepled her hands on her desk and looked through the armor and at him. “You’ve been assigned to my company effective immediately. I know your medical status and your first job is to get healthy. You will make all of your medical appointments. Is that clear?”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Coop stood a little straighter.

“The company has our quarterly range qualification coming up at the end of the week. You will be present for that. There is nothing in your medical profile that states you can’t stand and shoot. We are also scheduled for field training exercises (FTX) with other parts of the battalion at the end of the month. If you are not medically cleared by then we will work with the medics to ensure you have transportation for your appointments. Those are the highlights on the training calendar for the next four weeks. After that, we’re to be ready for any operations battalion wants to assign to us.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Coop was too busy looking into those eyes to think of anything else.

“I’m going to be candid with you, Private.” She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back slightly. “I hear one of two things about you. I either hear that you’re a skirt-chasing ass, or that you’re a first class soldier who threw himself in the line of fire to save lives and complete the mission. I don’t know which is true, and I don’t much care what you did in the past. What is important to me is what you do while you are with my company. You will follow the standards set by this battalion, obey the orders of those appointed over you, and accomplish the missions I set. Am I clear?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good.” She gave him one last appraising look. “I’m going to turn you over to the HI NCOIC. You will coordinate with him as well as myself and Gunney Weitz depending on the situation.” She checked her watch. “Staff Sergeant.”

A door in the corner of the office opened and a large, familiar man stepped through.

“If it isn’t, Private Cooper.” SSG Hightower gave him a crooked grin. “I don’t know whether to call you a retard for thinking you were better than a grav-grenade, or a hero for saving an officer’s life. I can’t make up my mind so I’m not going to call you either. Be here tomorrow morning at 0600 for PT. I need to get you back into shape. Have a good evening, Ma’am.” He directed the last words at the LT.

“Goodnight, Staff Sergeant.” She turned her attention back to Coop. “Last thing you should know, Private. Your actions as documented by Lieutenant Commander Gold and your MSM gave you enough points to be eligible for Corporal. I’ve put your name forward to the Battalion Commander, and am expecting a response by the time we leave for the FTX. Do you have any questions?”

“No, Ma’am.”

“Then goodnight, Private. I’ll see you tomorrow bright and early.”

Coop gave the LT a crisp salute, did an about face, and marched out of the room. He waited until he’d left the HQ building before he let himself relax.

Now he’d be imagining that face when he got a lap dance later tonight.

It pissed him off all over again that Mike had cock-blocked him and Sandy.