Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Harper’s Junction, Star Kingdom of Windsor

Coop grumbled as he made his way through the afternoon lunch crowd.

The remaining members of the SRRT had arrived in the capital a few days ago and were starting to recon the area. The majority of the recon was completed by the rebels that gave them shelter in an old, abandoned factory in the dying industrial district. Their teams would go out early in the morning and come back late at night. Part of their job was to take a sensor back that the GYSGT put together that helped identify IOR signals. That was the quickest way to find their captured team members.

It took the rebels two days to find a clue, or better yet, a lack of a clue. When they walked within the sensor’s radius of the Governor’s Mansion – what the locals were now calling the Royal Palace – the readings dropped to zero, which could only mean on thing.

“Jammers,” the GYSGT’s smile was refreshing after running and hiding for the last week. Now, they could finally start to plan.

There was one problem with that. The rebel spies might be good at walking around with sensors, or keeping an ear open in the city’s various drinking establishments, but scouting a hard target secured by Windsor tech was something they weren’t trained for. Ultimately, the task fell to the SRRT, which was a problem in and of itself.

Coop had thought it before, multiple times, and he was feeling it again right now. There was a critical flaw in the SRRT concept. On one of the Core Worlds, that had been around for centuries, and even the middle class could afford some sort of enhancement, a 230 cm man wouldn’t stand out as much. On a backwater colony like Harper’s Junction, tall was 180 cm, and Coop looked like a literal giant.

his mental bitching continued as he kept walking. The end of the thought brought at a brief chuckle, which made a woman walking the other way put space between them.

Coop turned his eyes back to the target.

The Governor’s Mansion/Royal Palace was large, luxurious, and heavily defended. A five meter wall separated it from the main street outside, and judging by the carvings it was meant to be decorative, but Coop saw the subtle flicker of energy indicating a shield. Two large, duro-steel gates, spaced about two hundred and fifty meters apart were the only entrance and exit on this side of the compound. Those gates had two Windsor marines in full battle rattle standing at attention, and Coop knew there was at full squad in the gate houses on the inside.

This wasn’t Coop’s first look. He’d done some scouting from nearby buildings, and being very careful, he’d catalogued half a dozen snipers on the roof, and four heavy weapon’s teams at the four corners, plus a roving patrol of a duet of mechs. Those two could fuck up everything without the rest of the security.

On top of all that, half a kilometer down the street was a barracks. Coop had watched it for a day, and he knew at least a company was stationed there as a quick reaction force. That was approaching a hundred and fifty men that Coop had seen guarding the mansion. That didn’t account for the security inside. Since it was now called the Royal Palace, he was sure there would be a heavy number of personal bodyguards for the planet’s new rulers. He’d yet to see the Queen, but he’d seen holos of her posted on the planet’s new and improved internet. The Windsor’s were taking credit for that, along with the banners with the Queen’s coat of arms that seemed to flutter from every pole within five kilometers of wherever she was.

Coop would have wondered if she was home, but a quick dip into Windsor history answered that for him. When the monarch was in residence a special flag was flown over the residence. That flag was flying.

Coop doubted himself, but ultimately thought that Windsor’s weren’t going to put off a big tradition because of a little rebellion.

All of that flew through Coop’s mind as he walked the perimeter. His mind worked out the heavy weapons fields of fire, what areas of responsibility the snipers were deployed to cover, and what a response time from the barracks would looks like. All of it made whatever the GYSGT and SGM were cooking up seem nearly impossible.

He sighed as he kept on walking.

He checked the reflection in a restaurant he was passing and saw one of the sentry’s heads tracking his movement.

He kept his pace even and his eyes forward. This time there wasn’t a joke attached to it.

He understood why they needed to be big. You couldn’t be a regular human and operate the LACS effectively, and an SRRT team in their V4 LACS could probably hold off a standard infantry battalion if Coop’s own experience meant anything. The SRRT team could be sent in advance of regular combat forces to fuck shit up, but again, snooping and pooping on a backwater planet like this was just going to get them all killed.

He took the second right after spotting the sentry’s wandering eye and headed down a side street. His rendezvous point was a rebel friendly bar four blocks away. It had tried very hard to not be known as a rebel friendly bar, so it was only supposed to be used as a last resort. With each step he took the unease in his gut grew. Something was wrong, and he desperately wished he could use his IOR to play back footage of his walk by the palace.

Since the team now knew the Windsor’s could track close range IOR coms, all their units were in standby mode. They could send or receive any data, but since the IOR was tied into their neutral system there was no way to actually turn it off. The SGM made it simple on them and said they couldn’t use any function unless they were back safe at HQ or well away from any enemy forces.

That was not Coop’s current situation, so he was going to have to do things the old-fashioned way. Half way down the block he darted into the street and between two cars. The cars honked at him, but he ignored them. He darted into the alley behind a bar, not the friendly bar, and made for the back door. The door was locked, but Coop was a big boy, and enough pressure made the flimsy material yield to his will.

He made his way into the kitchen where a surprised-looking chef’s eye bulged at his size.

“Delivery,” Coop said lazily coming up with the excuse on the fly. “I need your manager to sign for it.”

“He’s out,” the chef just looked confused.

“I’ll wait,” Coop pretended to be bored and plopped down on the edge of the counter.

The chef watched Coop warily for a minute, but when Coop’s bored demeanor didn’t crack, he turned back to his work. That’s when Coop slid the ceramic knife out of the back of his pants. The non-metal blade was key to avoiding any sensors the Windsor’s might have sweeping outside the palace for weapons. This was the only one Coop was carrying.

For an HI trooper, having nothing but a nine cm knife made him feel like he was completely naked with nothing but a small piece of cloth to cover part of his junk.

His instincts had been right on. Only a few minutes after he barged into the kitchen he felt the pressure change as the door opened again. He heard the footsteps coming down the narrow hallway that opened up to the kitchen itself.

Coop took a deep breath to fill his body with much needed oxygen. He launched himself toward the hallway just as the first of the men came into view.

They’d clearly identified him as someone surveilling the palace because his weapon was out, but pointed straight ahead. He pivoted to target Coop, but was to slow. Coop knocked his arm aside and buried the blade into his throat. Coop felt the protective vest the man was wearing as they collided, but it didn’t do anything to stop the blade from cleaving his jugular in two.

The second man was clearly stunned at seeing his partner cleanly filleted right in front of him, but he recovered quickly. He pointed his weapon straight ahead and fired, but Coop was already moving. He’d grabbed the dead Windsor by the shirt and vest and lifted him up to use as a shield. The round fired from the second man’s weapon hit his dead buddy right in the back of the vest. Coop didn’t know if it penetrated, but he knew the little pocket pistols the pair were carrying weren’t enough to go through one side of the vest, through a person, and out the other end.

Coop ended up throwing the dead body at the second man who fired again with the same results. Having eighty kilos crash down on you was something Coop could have shrugged off without a sweat, but it wasn’t something a normal person could deal with. The two Windsor’s went toppling backward and landed in a heap.

Coop rode the momentum of the fight and pinned the man beneath his partner so he couldn’t bring his weapon on target again. The ceramic blade flashed again and the second man’s femoral was opened in his leg. He got out a short scream before the blade found his throat and turned it into a death gurgle.

Barely fifteen seconds had passed. Coop exhaled slowly as he turned back toward the kitchen. The chef was standing there, shaking, with a butcher’s knife in his hand. As Coop took a step toward him, he shook so hard he dropped the weapon. Coop reached toward him and smelled urine as the chef was sure he was going to die. Instead, Coop grabbed a sterilizing towel and wiped it across himself. The fabric clung to the blood splattered across his face and chest and left him looking spotless. Lastly, he used it to wipe down his knife.

He didn’t even look at the chef as he left through the front of the bar where the day drinkers didn’t even lift their heads out of their glasses to acknowledge him. He wasn’t sure who the two Windsor’s were, but he constituted this as an emergency, so he headed straight for the rebel bar. From there, they’d be able to get him back to the rest of the team.

They were backing up the rebels with a weapons buy later this evening and he needed to report in before they met the arms dealer. They were doing to need some serious hardware if they wanted to even put a dent in palace security to get their teammates back.