Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Harper’s Junction, Star Kingdom of Windsor

Coop thought the moment he let go of Eve. She wasn’t a football of baseball, and they didn’t exactly teach human chucking at Basic, so her flight across the hallway was less than graceful.

Cold fear gripped his chest as Eve approached the shield. Either she was going to go splat on the shield where she would be an easy target from the HVT’s bodyguards, or she was going to make it through. In that case, she’d be face to face with the armed and armored guards, which wasn’t any better.

Revenge on someone who’d wronged you was all well and good, but this was suicide. He cursed himself and his dick for getting himself into this situation.

Before he knew what was happening his feet were moving forward and he was charging the shield. The moment he started moving was the moment Eve hit the shield…and went right through.

The guards, who’d been cornered by the additional fire from GYSGT Cunningham and Sullivan, swiveled their attention to her. Coop tried not to look as he charged into the shield right behind her…and bounced off like a pinball.

His LACS tried to keep him on his feet, but even those servos were overcome by the sudden stop. He bounced backwards and landed on his ass.

{They’ve stopped firing,} the GYSGT relayed as she continued to pour fire into the shield.

{They solidified the shield. Nothing in or out, but Eve is already in there!} Coop scrambled to his feet and punched at the barrier. He might as well be striking the side of an assault carrier.

Calm had settled outside the shield, but inside was a whole different story. Eve had some mismatched, stolen armor, two nano-bladed knives, and she was wrecking havoc on the Windsor’s. She struck like a snake: quick, strong, and deadly. Coop watched as she plunged one of her blades deep into a soldier’s chest, ripped it out as she spun away, and simultaneously used him as a human shield as she charged forward into another enemy. She pushed the mortally-wounded Windsor into their partner to throw him off balance, and then turned to face one of the bodyguards. The woman had moved around the battling soldiers to get a clear shot, and she would have had it if Eve didn’t sacrifice one of her weapons.

Where she learned to throw a knife didn’t matter, but the bodyguard ended up with it hilt deep in her sternum. She toppled over dead, as Eve turned to face the officer protecting the shield. He had a pistol, and no armor, but a clear shot at her.

{FUCK!} Coop screamed as she charged and he fired. He couldn’t watch. All he could think about was getting to her.

Without thinking he drew his sword and activated the chainsaw function. The nano-blade hummed with deadly intent as he smashed it into the shield. He focused on the blade struggling against the shield. He didn’t see Eve get hit one…two…three times before she reached the officer.

The man was big, but not as big as Eve, and he might have had some enhancements, but they were nothing compared to the Ranger work she’d had done. She connected with the man like a linebacker and they both went tumbling to the ground. The man’s fist connected with her face, snapping it to the side, and he was rearing back to kick her, when her blade slashed down. With nothing but his smart-cloth uniform she severed his kicking leg just below the knee.

Blood fountained all over her as the cleanly sliced femoral sprayed the man’s life essence everywhere. The officer’s face went from red, pissed, and in fight mode to a pale white when he started to bleed out. His uniform was smart enough to try and seal off the wound, but with a bleed like that his chance of survival was getting smaller and smaller the longer he went without medical attention. Eve followed through with a kick to the side of the head and put the man down.

She turned and caught a flash of gold heading for her. She brought up her blade to parry and…

{NO!} Coop screamed and put everything he had into pushing his sword through the shield.

The HVT had dashed forward when she saw the opportunity, a nano-blade in her own hand, and struck at Eve while she was finishing off the officer. Eve tried to block, but she was slow as her own blood trickled out onto the floor where the one of the officer’s shots had punctured her makeshift armor.

Now it was Eve’s turn to stumble and fall back as her arm holding her final weapon flopped to the floor. The HVT had caught her midway between the elbow and shoulder. The armor there did nothing against the golden blade. Eve landed hard on the ground next to the unconscious officer. Their blood mingled as Eve’s own CMU’s constricted to form a tourniquet, but Coop could tell the fight was flowing out of her faster than her blood.

The HVT stood triumphantly over her. Her mouth moved, but he couldn’t see what she was saying. He focused on the shield and threw his full weight and power into it. It held like it had every other time…until it suddenly didn’t. His blade disrupted the integrity of the shield, opening a hole which he promptly fell through.

The crash of his armor hitting the floor made the HVT turn. Eve lashed out and kicked the woman in the shim, throwing her off balance, as Eve lunged for the portable shield generator that was making this situation so fucking complicated.

The HVT stabbed down to presumably finish Eve off, before turning to deal with Coop, but she only succeeded in pinning her to the floor through her calf. Eve screamed out in pain, but that didn’t stop her from smashing a fist repeatedly into the generator.

Punching a block of duro-steel, even from an HI trooper, wasn’t going to do anything, but fucking up the control panel was bound to do something. In this case, the shield flickered and the bottom half disappeared.

Coop thought as he trained his Buss on the HVT who was already moving.

{Freeze bitch! You fucking move and I’ll paint this nice hallway red.} The woman had been going for a side door, but stopped upon his command.

She held up her hands dropped her sword and kicked it away toward him. he breathed a sigh of relief.

The universe’s grand plan to fuck with him continued as the wall behind them exploded inward. Ironically, the top half of the shield still working stopped most of the incoming debris before failing the rest of the way. Pieces of stone and mortar still fell on Eve and the woman as Coop came face to face with the thing that had destroyed the wall.

The Windsor mech loomed over the HVT like a protective mama bear defending her cub. It was also swinging its other forearm to target Eve, the GYSGT, and Sullivan. One blast from that thing and Eve would be nothing more than a fond memory.

{Get out of there, Cooper!} The GYSGT ordered as she and Sullivan fell back to get better cover from the mech’s weapons.

Coop told himself. He’d let the Gunney go once, and he knew the guilt he felt for that would eat him up over time. He wasn’t going to let the woman he loved go down to this hulking piece of shit.

So he did the only thing he could think of…he upped the ante. He could do it quickly with his HUD, but the IOR’s connection made it effortless. Truth be told, none of this would have been possible if he wasn’t in the GYSGT’s armor. They didn’t let people like him get their hands of what he was about to use as a bargaining chip.

“How about everyone calms the fuck down, ok,” Coop announced over his loud speaker as his armor ejected an artillery shell into his hands and he held it up. The symbol on it was unmistakable. Anyone knew what a mushroom cloud on piece of ordinance meant: antimatter.

The five-kiloton yield of the round the armor packed was really meant to be used as a city shield buster in coordination with other assets. What it would do to everyone in the hallway, palace, and inside the cities shield was going to make all the limb dismemberment clean and tidy in comparison.

Coop could see he’d gotten through to the HVT when her eyes went wide. He couldn’t read the mech, but he wasn’t moving, which meant he was waiting for orders.

“Who do I have the pleasure of speaking to,” the HVT relaxed her posture and put her hands in front of her where he could see them.

“You can just call me Boss Man,” Coop replied. He knew better than to give out his name and rank.

“That’s rather impolite,” the woman replied. “If we’re going to negotiate a way for everyone to get out of here safe and sound then I really should know who I’m speaking with.”

Coop’s mind whirled for an answer. “I’m Sergeant Clint Eastwood, United Commonwealth of Colonies Infantry.”

Coop stole the name for an old-timey actor his father loved to watch on the holo back in the PHA. Coop never got the interest when the footage was low quality and there were no special effects, but if he said that to Walter the man would slap him on the head and say, “do you feel lucky, punk,” before laughing at something Coop never understood.

“I’m Sergeant Madeline Albright, Royal Marines,” the woman replied.

“Whose got two thumbs, is full of shit, and a hypocrite…you do,” Coop shot back, which got a weak laugh from the too-pale Eve.

“Very well, I am Baroness Isabella Montegro, High Nobility of the Star Empire of Windsor.”

Coop thought she was probably still full of shit, after all, he’d still lied, but he let it slide.

“Ok, Izzy, how about you get your mech to step outside or I drop this and we all go boom,” he purposefully jostled the artillery round.

“That is unacceptable. If the Color Sergeant left you’d simply kill me and retreat. How about you let my soldier take me, and you can take you compatriot. We all leave her to fight another day,” she countered.

It was what Coop wanted to do, but it was the execution that was tricky. “Have your mech step back to where he busted in the wall. You and I will do a step at a time. I’ll get to her at the same time you get to your mech. Then you’re free to go. You try anything when you’re out of sight, I’ve still got the goods that go boom, so don’t be an idiot,” he ordered.

She nodded in agreement and they set the plan in motion. The whole thing was tense. Each step everyone expected everyone else to break the truce, but thankfully no one did. He got to Eve right as the HVT reached the mech. The mech scooped her up, with his shielded and armored back to Coop and ran off.

“What the fuck were you thinking,” Eve’s words were a little slurred. There was still blood leaking from her severed arm, and the bullet hole in her wasn’t helping.

“Shut up,” he snapped as he got out his first air kit to administer nanites, sterilizing agents, and Insta-Flesh. “I just saved your life.”

“Yeah,” she chuckled weakly. “Nice bluff. You and I both know that you need a code to arm the antimatter shells, and the Sergeant Major sure as shit didn’t give on to you.”

“They don’t know that,” Coop blushed behind his helmet. What she’d said was true. He’d bluffed his way through the whole thing. A trip to New Vegas might be in order once he got off this shit world.

“Pretty smart,” her lids were growing heavy. “Good think I fucked you right and good after Basic, or else you might not have done that for me.”

Coop didn’t know if he should be pleased or insulted, so he decided not to think about it. The GYSGT and Sullivan were approaching and setting up security. Pretty sure the SGM was on his way. They might of missed out getting Baroness What’s Her Face, but he saved Eve, which mattered a hell of a lot more in his book.

Hopefully, they’d get to go home now, but the infantry seldom let anyone do what they wanted to do.