Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: New Lancashire, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Coop grumbled as more guardsmen flooded the space between the spaceport’s perimeter and the landing craft.

They glowed bright red on his HUD. Coop had toggled through all of the different views, and the best one with all the debris in the air was IR. The Kingdom’s ship glowed molten-lava red in the swirl of darkness, and the guardsmen were little pinpricks of heat around it. Unlike Coop’s LACS, there were no thermal dampeners in their antiquated armor. In this case it was working out for the best. There would have been blue-on-blue for sure if the guardsmen were in Dragonscales.

“Something is happening.” LT Wentworth was on the channel. “Let the guardsmen take the first crack at it.”

Coop grumbled even more at her order. The ship had smacked into the ground about thirty seconds ago, and for that time everything seemed to have slowed to a crawl in the spaceport. The civilians who’d been pushing forward to get to the waiting Spyders had ducked for cover, but now they were starting to stir. They poked their heads up and looked around expecting to see bullets flying. When they didn’t, they got bolder and started to move forward. The plan had been to shut the gate and collapse the perimeter, but there were about forty people standing in the way of that and no one was paying attention to them.

Coop certainly was, especially when he knew it was between them and him who’d get the last seats on the flight of Spyders. “Staff Sergeant, we shutting these gates or what?”

“Cooper, pay attention to…” that was as far as the NCO got.

The enemy ship shuddered as compressed air spouted from seams that no one had seen before. They created an eye in the dust storm a hundred meters across that gave anyone looking a perfect view of what was happening. Sections of the ship’s armor were pulling outward and things were being ejected from within.

Twelve things in total hit the ground on the near side of the ship and kicked up more dust into the already collapsing eye. Coop got a clear look at them. Standing next to the ship, and five hundred meters away, they didn’t look that intimidating, but his LACS catalogued weapons and dimensions automatically. An outline of the enemy appeared in a minimized box at the bottom of his HUD and began to spin.

They were hulking, armored, mechanized behemoths, at least five meters tall. Weapons bristled across the exoskeleton, and the LACS neural net was only able to deduce some of them. Just that data showed they were more heavily armed than Coop’s V2, and there was an unidentified energy signature registering from them. They were painted the color of rust, and had a giant, black V painted over their left breast.

Coop couldn’t stop a laugh.

If any of the civilians heard him they would have thought he’d lost his shit, but that wasn’t the case. Coop wasn’t looking at these new enemies as the armored boogiemen that the civilians definitely were. He was looking at them like a seasoned HI trooper who knew a little more about the history of warfare and combat tactics. He had no doubt that those big armored mechs could unleash a world of pain and suffering on troops they went up against, but that wasn’t the point. The Commonwealth could have easily made LACS that big and heavily armed. It wasn’t hard. The reason they didn’t was the same reason things like tanks weren’t in use that much anymore.

The name of the game in modern infantry warfare was mobility. That meant putting as much firepower as possible into a mobile platform that wasn’t going to be easily targeted and destroyed. Coop looked at these five and six meter tall Kingdom mechs and saw a target rich environment.

Town Center had taller buildings, but they were in the downtown business district. Most of the stuff out near the spaceport was two or three stories. The heads of the larger mechs were cresting those buildings. That meant they didn’t have cover and concealment, which meant…

“Open fire!” The command went out across all of the nets.

Coop didn’t really have to worry about blue-on-blue when targeting coordinates were being given to everyone for different sections of the mechs’ bodies. Coop’s targeting computers highlighted the upper torso of the mech right in the center of everything. It was the biggest one there, nearly six meters tall, and Coop would bet the chip in his pocket that it was the commander. So, Coop did what he thought was best. He toggled to his weapons platform, selected two of his eight missiles, and launched them right at the mech’s face.

They screeched across the five hundred meter distance in the blink of an eye as M3s, Busses, more missiles, and even a few 125mm artillery rounds roared in to destroy the invaders. Coop knew there was no way those things – no matter how big they were – could survive the attack, but then something tickled the back of his mind as fire and dust swallowed the enemy mechs.

Less than a minute had passed since the ships appeared in the sky, stabbed into the ground, and ejected its occupants. That was a lot of information to digest in such a short time, especially when Coop was also trying to compute his odds of getting on one of those Spyders.

Coop’s brain caught up to what was happening, and he knew what was going to happen…and it was going to suck donkey dick.

“We need to fall back.” Coop sent to SSG Hightower as the NCO launched another artillery round at the enemy. “Cease fire and fall back!”

“Stop being a chicken shit, Cooper! You should…” that was as far as the SSG got before a ripping noise rolled through the area around the spaceport. It coincided with several dozens of guardsmen’s medical statuses going from green the black.

“What the fuck?!” That message was from LCDR Benson over the high-level channel. “Someone give me a SITREP!”

The channel immediately clogged with information, but Coop tuned it out. Another ripping sound cut through the dust storm and more statuses went black.

“Take cover!” Coop didn’t wait for orders or permission. He ran for a nearby hangar with the express intention of putting its bulk between him and whatever was obliterating guardsmen.

His HUD told him Mike was following his lead. The SSG was too, but he was going for something closer to the battle line the collection of Infantry units had drawn between the enemy and the spaceport. The cover wasn’t as good, but it gave him a better view of the battlefield.

Coop skidded to a halt and put his back to the sturdy building. His heart was racing even though he’d taken craps more strenuous than that run. The ripping sounds were coming more frequently and more and more guardsmen were showing up as black. Coop wasn’t a fan of their tactics, or their lack of situational awareness, but that didn’t mean he wanted them dead. As of now, the number had climbed into the triple digits.

Coop’s HUD showed the blue icons of the guardsmen scurrying around like ants. They were running. Whatever was tearing them apart was too much for them, and they were getting the hell out of there. Despite that, the enemy wasn’t showing them any mercy. Coop watched as men and women were cut down as they rushed between buildings in their quest to escape. When he looked around the building IR wasn’t showing him a great view. His vantage point was bad, but he did see the civilians freaking the fuck out. They were all scrambling to get away from the sounds of death approaching. Most were kicking down doors or breaking into anything that would put something between them and certain death.

It didn’t work for all of them. Another nearby ripping sound echoed through the spaceport, and Coop saw dozens of civilians die. It wasn’t the spurt of pink mist from a bullet hole or limbs being blown off by mortars. Some unseen force was hitting the civilians and they literally exploded outward. Coop had never seen anything like it, and he definitely didn’t want to be on the other end of whatever the hell was doing this.

“Corporal…?” PFC Nickelbaucher asked over the net, and Coop could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

Coop knew exactly what to do. He needed to get the hell out of there, and that meant making it to the Spyders. He just needed to make that happen.

“All HI, this is Ballboy, concentrate artillery fire on the following coordinates.” Coop used his codename and toggled so any HI in Town Center could hear him. He was jumping the SSG by doing this, but he didn’t care.

He held back as his body dumped more adrenaline in his system. His fight or flight instinct was kicking in, but he’d have to fight now so he could flight later. Evolution and reality didn’t always match up.

“Use these coordinates.” The SSG overrode Coop’s transmission with better coordinates. It seemed like they were on the same page, at least in terms of stopping the enemy advance. “Fire Package Delta in three…two…one…FIRE!”

Coop went down on one knee and felt three thumps as his 125mm cannon spit out three rounds. The first was a high explosive round meant to do damage or at least weaken the enemies’ armor. Those were patterned by the LACS’ neural net for maximum spread and destruction. Those rounds would self-correct in flight for maximum effectiveness.

Round Two was anti-personnel. The rounds would fill every square inch of space in the kill zone with ceramic particles that were lethal to unarmored soldiers. They were less effective against HI, but they had a better chance of penetrating damaged armor with precise penetration rather than another general high-explosive strike.

Round three was the kicker. Thermobaric rounds would fill the area in a heartbeat with explosive fuel before kicking it off with powerful explosions. Those rounds were the next best thing to going with antimatter. A few of those rounds coming at once, and reinforcing each other’s explosions, would kill just about anything. Or at least that was the hope.

The ripping rounds were drowned out as a wave of loud booms cleared the dust and replaced it with fire. A second wave of boom was more subdued but followed by the distinctive pops of things slicing through the air. Coop didn’t have time to think about their effectiveness before the biggest boom he’d ever heard cut through the spaceport. Even with a sturdy hangar between Coop and the enemy, he was still knocked off his feet by the wave of pressure.

His helmet had shut down external stimuli from the final explosion, but he still had to shake his head to ward off the creeping vertigo.

He was on his ass, and he had to get back to his feet to peek around the edge of the building as the sensors rebooted. His eyes fell upon complete destruction. Everything from the spaceport gates to the enemy ship was burning wreckage. Most of the buildings had been knocked flat, and any civilians or guardsmen who hadn’t gotten the hell out of dodge were finely dispersed ash at this point.

Coop didn’t pity them. If they weren’t smart enough to run as fast and far as they could then it was evolution of the fittest. Humanity didn’t need them passing down their traits to another generation.

There was also no sign of the enemy mechs. “Now that’s what I’m fucking talking about!” Coop whooped as heads started to pop up along the defensive line. Soon cheering was ringing out over TACCOM.

“Can we get out of here now?” Coop pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the waiting Spyders.

“I’m game.” Mike was back on his feet and watching the fires burning in front of them. “We just need to…”

The cheering stopped abruptly. TACCOM went completely silent, which was something Coop hadn’t heard before, and it quickly became visible why.

One by one, red icons started to repopulate on STRATNET until twelve hulking enemy mechs stood less than two hundred meters from the spaceport gates. It seemed the overwhelming show of force had only been enough to knock the mechs off their feet and bury them in debris. Now, they were shrugging off the scorched duro-steel support beams and crumbling polyplast to resume their advance.

The professional soldiers didn’t hesitate to return fire, but M3’s were about as effective as spitballs at this point, and for the first time Coop saw why.

As the 1mm rounds smacked into the mechs, sparks of blue radiated out from the impact points. It wasn’t quite the same thing Coop had experienced only a few hours before, but it was close enough.

It was obvious. The ships coming down had survived because of shields. The enemy mechs had survived because of shields, and Coop was probably going to die because he didn’t have a shield.

It didn’t matter now. The unstoppable enemy was advancing, and there wasn’t anything Coop’s LACS could do to stop them. Instead, he did the only thing he could think of.

He ran.