Hailey Armstrong

Location: Oglethorpe’s Paradise, New Savannah, United Commonwealth of Colonies

“Please,” the young man shook with fear.

Another man advanced on him. He wore expensive smartcloth, his breath reeked of whiskey, and he didn’t stop. He grabbed the young man by the wrist tight enough to elicit a whimper.

“Please,” the young man repeated as he tried to pull back, but couldn’t. “You’ll regret this.”

Hailey saw the predator’s reaction to his prey. Hailey knew a lot about what was happening less than twenty meters from her. It was about power and control more than sex. The older man was rich and powerful. He was used to taking what he wanted when he wanted it. Today was no different in his eyes…except he’d picked the wrong victim.

“What did you say?” The man spit out his words and slapped the young prostitute with the back of his hand.

Hailey caught a flash of blood in the holo-sign’s light as the man’s ring cut the cheek of the working man. “Ok, that’s enough.”

She’d been standing motionless in the shadows watching the scene unfold. It was her job as Asset Protection to protect the merchandise; whether that was drugs, weapons, money, or people, but there was a fine balance to that Hailey hadn’t considered until she’d started doing fieldwork. When it came to people, appetites of client and worker varied considerably. Some liked it a little rough. Sometimes a slap was playful, or a choke was sensual. Hailey had to weigh the profits and repeat customer potential against any slight damage to PFH’s property. Medical technology was able to repair a lot of damage in a few hours.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t one of those situations. The older man was making unwanted advances. He’d promised to pay, but hadn’t paid upfront yet which was company policy. Above all, this was clearly a hard no, and for a street worker like the young man, he could make that call if he thought the john wasn’t going to pay up. Even the street workers were taught to do a cost benefit analysis, and Hailey agreed with the young man in this instance.

“Let’s take a step back and go about our night. We are still hours away from last call, so let’s go grab another drink.” She attempted to defuse the situation while still making her organization more money.

After the issue with Coop back in Savannah City, Hailey had been rotated out to Oglethorpe’s Paradise, a resort city where PFH had vast interests. On the legal side of the fence, PFH operated a majority of the clubs in the city; it sold a lot of booze, and even owned a few craft beer breweries specializing in tropical brews. They pushed their products at the bars and controlled the whole production and revenue stream from start to finish. For most organizations, that would have been enough. It wasn’t for PFH.

PFH pushed more than drinks in their clubs. Dealers with patented synthetic drugs rotated through establishments at random to avoid detection by the police. Working girls and boys also made their rounds and brought in another chunk of revenue. PFH made sure to hit tourists from every angle when they hopped off the shuttle.

“Sell, sell, sell.” The Boss for the city held an orientation back at HQ when Hailey first arrived. “Make their fantasies come alive. Do they want to drink and party like they’re on New Vegas? Make it happen. Do they want to get high as a kite and fuck someone who looks like their daughter’s best friend? Make it happen. The customer is always right!” The man’s shrieking had driven Hailey midly insane, and she was glad she didn’t answer to him. Asset Protection was a different department from Sales, and she had her own boss who was much more down to earth.

“Your job is to protect the company’s assets. Be able to rationalize the choices that you make, and if they’re common-sense decisions then I have your back. If not, then you’re fucked.” The woman had given her own little introduction.

In the situation before Hailey, it was pretty basic common sense, but the problem with drunk people, with pupils as big as a dinner plate, was they lacked common sense.

“Fuck off, bitch. Or you’re next.” The man dismissed Hailey, which only made her sigh. Normally, people looked as her balisitcally-reinforced smartcloth and slight bulge on her hip and knew to back off.

“Ok, let’s go.” Hailey continued to walk toward the man.

“I said,” the man’s balled into fist and he telegraphed his punch like he was running a thirty-second commercial on a holo-show, “fuck off!”

Hailey easily ducked under his wild haymaker, and delivered a quick blow to the man’s jejunum. The precise placement made the man double over in pain and puke up a fountain of high-price vodka.

“We done?” Hailey asked as she stood calmly next to the man as he emptied his stomach.

“No!” The man replied as he tried to tackle her.

Hailey sighed, twisted out of the way and came up behind the man while slipping her arm underneath his chin and applying pressure. The man tried to fight her, but she kicked him in the back of the knee and and knocked him down.

“A little more pressure and this night ends with you in the hospital or in the morgue. It’s your decision, so make a good one.” Hailey’s voice never rose above a mildly-bored tone, and that drove the man crazy.

He continued to struggle, so she continued to apply pressure until he went limp, and then she dropped him face first onto the ground.

“Geez, you could have moved faster on that,” the young man touched his bleeding, bruised cheek and stalked off.

“You’re welcome,” Hailey called after him. “Make sure to take our customer satisfaction survey after you finish taking dicks up your ass.” The man disappeared around the corner, but not before giving her the finger.

Hailey gave the unconscious man a parting kick before walking around the another area of her sector of responsibility.

The only reason Hailey was on hooker patrol was because of the radio silence from Coop and his people over the last month. She’d given them a solid lead on the guy who’d humiliated her, and put a hole in their teammate. She expected to hear back right away, and maybe even participate in the takedown, even if that was a long shot. She didn’t expect to not hear anything back at all. That got her bosses worried about the uneasy truce between PFH and Coop’s people. Someone up the chain went into damage control mode and packed her off to the resort town as a result.

It not only hurt her credibility in the Asset Protection community, but it hurt her bottom line as well. She made commissions of the raids she’d done on the drug labs, and a small cut of the new chemist’s profits since she was the one that brought him into PFH’s fold. She was still making cash on PFH’s dealing in her PHA back on Earth, but that barely put a dent in her monthly payment. To avoid interest racking up on her loans, she needed to bring in more cash, and that wasn’t going to get done protecting the hookers. If she really wanted to, she could get all dressed up and sit at one of the upscale bars to attract a few clients of her own, but she had to get her department head’s approval for that, and they were too short staffed right now.

She promised herself as she walked the streets full of drunken revelers. She got a few catcalls along the way, but she ignored them. She had a job to do, even if it sucked donkey nuts right now.

***

Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Argo

“I can’t wait to get back.” Coop collapsed ass first onto his bunk in Argo’s ever-crowded grunt country.

There wasn’t much for the SRRT to do on a three week voyage back to the Commonwealth. The SGM tried to keep them occupied, but the tasks available were menial and tended to make the combat soldiers more frustrated than anything. Coop had helped clean the ship, bow to stern, three times, he’d spent countless hours in VR, and he’d even qualified on Argo’s energy cannons if the ship’s AI ever lost control and the targeting needed to be done manually.

He even hit the small gym as often as possible, but with the lack of activity, the small compartment was always packed. He found that nothing pissed him off more than the diplomats sitting around chatting when they should be working out.

“You and me both,” Eve muttered from her bunk beside his.

After the light flirting, Coop had given up his prime sleeping spot to be closer to his old fuck buddy. The flirting had continued over the last few weeks, but nothing more than that. They’d reached an acceptable detente in whatever their relationship was.

Eve was sitting on her bunk, with her hands behind her head, and starring up at the bulkhead. She barely blinked, which Coop knew to mean she was accessing something through her IOR. Knowing Eve, she was probably reading some sort of manual, or taking some class to gain points toward her next promotion. They shouldn’t be sergeants, but that didn’t mean the overachiever in her wasn’t already preparing for staff sergeant.

“Um…Sergeant.”

Coop pulled his attention from Eve’s attentive expression and turn to look at the speaker. It was the diplomat Coop had first beaten up, and then saved from getting face fucked by an alien.

“Sir.” Coop got to his feet respectfully.

Ever since his abduction, the diplomat had been subdued and withdrawn. The GYSGT had passed the word for the soldiers to subtly keep an eye on him. The NCO had been around long enough to see the indications of PTSD, and until they could return him to a Commonwealth medical facility to look at his mind and alter the pathways created by the trauma, they didn’t want him doing anything to himself.

“I just wanted to say thanks…for…you know…” he couldn’t even talk about the trauma he’d gone through, and Coop had no desire to put him through that.

“It’s ok, Sir. It’s my job.”

“Still…” The man held out his hand, and Coop took it. When Coop released his grip there was money chip nestled securely in his palm.

If the diplomat had given the chip to anyone else on the team, except for Mike, Coop was sure they would have given it back and said something about duty. Coop wasn’t the rest of his team. He smiled and assured the diplomat he made sure the rest of the team knew about his gratitude, because that was what the money was for. The rich thought in those terms, and if that was how the guy wanted to thank them, Coop was fine with that.

“You’re not keeping that are you?” Eve asked, although her expression hadn’t changed.

“I’ll donate it to charity,” Coop replied, which only got a scoff from the other SGT.

Coop looked at the chip so his IOR could translate the data and give him the value. He nearly dropped it when 100,000 appeared in his vision. Coop grinned at the small piece of tech, and with a slight of hand he’d learned long ago in the PHA, he made it disappear.

Less than five minutes after the GYSGT appeared with a sour look on her face. At first Coop thought it was because she knew about the hundred grand chip, but when she didn’t walk right up to him, he knew something else was going on.

“We’ve got orders,” she announced to the rest of the team.

Coop hadn’t even thought getting diverted was a possibility.

“We’re dropping the diplomatic team off at Thurgood Station where Gold Technologies reps will be waiting with replacement LACS. We’ll get a brief on upgrades before we head back out.”

“What’s going on, Gunney?” Coop had to ask. “We’ve been on mission for nearly two months. Didn’t anyone tell the brass we deserve a breather?”

“That’s exactly what the Lieutenant and Sergeant Major relayed to the powers that be, but shit has truly hit the fan in our absence. We’re at war with the Kingdom of Windsor, and there is a mission on the table that only the SRRT can handle.”

“Last time I checked we were already at war with the Windsor’s,” Coop deadpanned. “I was at New Lancashire after all.”

“This is war with a capital W, Cooper. The Kingdom attacked the Commonwealth. We suffered several military defeats, and to add insult to injury, the Kingdom annexed half a dozen of our planets. I’m sending you the brief now. Read it and don’t ask any more stupid questions.” The GYSGT marched out of the bay without another word.

A ding in Coop’s head announced the document’s receipt over his IOR, but he didn’t open it right away.

{Out of the fire and into the furnace.} Eve had pretended to be asleep during the confrontation. {We’re an indispensable asset, Coop. We don’t work 0900 to 1700 anymore. Get used to getting pulled away at a moment’s notice.}

Eve might be right, but that didn’t make Coop feel any better. He wondered as he closed his eyes and brought up the briefing.

The GYSGT was right. Things really had gone to shit since they’d left.