Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Alamo, Lone Star System, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Coop walked into the hangar pissed off and with the worst case of swamp ass. He’d had to catch a flight from the burgeoning equatorial town to the main military installation; which meant waiting on scorching concrete for twenty minutes while some poor PVT tried to find a Spyder with enough spare room on it for Coop to catch a ride. All the while, the sun beat down on him like he owed it money.

The AC on the Spyder was short-lived. The base, which was cradled in a canyon complex about a hundred kilometers north of the equator, didn’t take long to reach; and then, he had to find the hangar his orders sent him to. That took another twenty minutes of walking around in the sweltering sunlight. If he hadn’t sprayed himself with the government-issued sunblock nanites, he’d probably be a nice medium well by now.

Finally, after wandering around like an idiot, he found his destination; and because the universe was a real bitch, it was a hangar open to the elements. He heard yelling from inside, and was glad someone was as pissed off as he was.

“Private, follow the fuckin’ load plan,” someone bellowed as Coop walked through the open doors.

It was organized chaos inside. A handful of military personnel, and civilian contractors, were busy loading supplies into a trio of Spyders. Off to the side, Coop saw a quartet of M1 MOUNTs in charging racks. They had to be right off the factory line because they didn’t have a scratch on them. Even the sand from the desert planet hadn’t had time to settle on their metallic shells.

Coop grumbled.

Instead of doing an inspection, change of hand receipts, and all the other administrative hoopla; it seemed the base brass were just going to give him a new suit. That was not a good thing. Despite all having the same schematics, every suit was different. They were like people, they all had their little quirks, and it took time to get to know them. Since they weren’t cutting Coop’s time with his family short for shits and giggles, that meant shit was going down. The last thing he wanted was to go into combat in an untested MOUNT.

Coop wasn’t great at first impressions to begin with, but going into a first encounter with a head full of steam and an ass full of sweat wasn’t going to help things. He found the guy yelling the loudest. In his experience, that was usually the NCOIC.

“Master sergeant,” he practically growled as he came to stand behind a large tan man.

“Chief,” the MSG’s face was flush, and it had a lot to do with the baby-faced kid running crates up into the Spyder.

“Come on, Sergeant. Why does it matter so much?” the kid had a whiney voice, which immediately made Coop wince.

“Because, dumbass, if we land in a hot drop zone, the first thing out of the Spyder doesn’t need to be your fuckin’ cheese tortellini. We need bullets and energy packs. If I have to explain this to you, I’m going to send you back to school and have you take the training all over again.”

Coop groaned. Whoever the PVT was, he hadn’t been in Coop’s class; but the idea of more training iterations with that voice was going to make him look for a landmine to step on.

“What’s the situation?” he asked instead of fantasizing.

“It’s your usual clusterfuck, Chief.” Coop was starting to like this MSG. “I don’t know about you, but I just got the call a few hours ago, hauled ass here, and found the civvies loading up. From the looks of it, we’re just a four-man squad. You’re OIC, I’m NCOIC, and we’ve got a SGT around here somewhere and PVT Shit-For-Brains. Orders say we need to be loaded up and in the air by 1700.”

Coop checked his IOR. They had less than an hour to get everything onboard and in the air. That was a tall order with what he saw. The suits’ cradles were even packed yet.

“Any idea where we’re going?” Coop probably should have read his set of orders more carefully, and it probably wasn’t making the best impression with the MSG, but he really didn’t give a shit right now.

“Says, Pride of Summer is picking us up, and we’re hitching a ride. Something about a dust up on some alpha-numeric. I guess we’ll be dropping to evict some people, or we’ll just sit on our ass if they talk it out.”

Coop nodded, and devised a plan. It was easier to act like you knew what the hell you were doing if you had people working. “Have the civvies handle all the rest of this shit,” it looked like they were loading enough supplies for a month of sustained combat operations. “Have our people back load the cradles, and let’s get the suits onboard. If we need to make our time hack, I can live without my meatball sub. MOUNTs and class five first, everything else second.”

“Roger that, Chief,” the MSG nodded and went off to yell at everyone.

Coop approached the MOUNT that his IOR identified as his.

***

Benjamin Gold

Location: CCIWS Stakeholder’s Views, Contested System, Unaligned Space

Ben got overconfident. He had too much faith in the Confederation’s superior technology. He forgot that the Commonwealth fleet had been the big dogs for a long time, and there was a reason for that. In short, he let the skipper of Red Tides sucker him.

Another wave of missiles bore down on A1, and Ben relied on the same tactics that had been working as his ship closed the range to a little under two million kilometers. So far, his point defense or bow shields had defended the ship perfectly. The destroyer didn’t even have a scratch. Of course, neither did the enemy.

In a heartbeat, that all changed.

New protocols had been written into the missiles of the last wave. That was impressive. Whoever was in EW over on Red Tides knew their shit. Instead of trying to evade the point defense, and being herded toward the powerful bow shield, the new programming instructed the Commonwealth’s missiles to drive through the deadly spray of lasers.

Ben only had a couple of seconds to react.

“Increase port and starboard . . .” was as far as he got.

If the ship had still been wireless, he could have reconfigured in a heartbeat, but EW protocols were in place. The Commonwealth had already tried one cyberattack, and it had failed. In response, everything was done through hardwired terminals. That was the protocol. Ben knew it, Red Tides skipper knew it, and the other captain used it against Ben.

About twice as many bomb-pumped lasers detonated as in any previous strike, and only a handful wasted their discharge against the overpowered front shield. Dozens of blasts struck at A1’s flanks. The ship bucked under Ben’s feet, and if he wasn’t strapped in, he would have been tossed like yesterday’s leftovers.

“Breach!” Comms yelled, as damage reports started to stream across the holo-tank. “Multiple breaches on Decks one and two, section thirteen through fifteen.

A schematic of A1 appeared in Ben’s mind with the damaged section highlighted. His fingers flew across his command terminal, and he brought up any footage he could of the affected area. Only a few were still operational, and they revealed the carnage. Everyone was at battle stations, but one of the blasts had torn through one of the starboard energy cannons. What was left of the gun crew looked like hunks of black welded to the floor.

Ben tried not to let the crew see how much that devastated him. He’d never lost a person under his command. He’d lost infantry assigned to him that went ashore, but never a member of his naval crew.

It was a brutal lesson of command no academy could ever prepare you for, and worst of all, Ben didn’t have time to dwell.

“Tactical?” he looked at the women who helped fight the ship.

“We’re analyzing, sir,” her face was a neutral mask, but he could see the anger in her eyes. “They won’t pull that one over on us again.”

“Good,” he watched the range finder tick close to a million klicks.

“Power up cannons one through four,” he ordered, and a flurry of ready messages came his way from the various gun crews. “I want to make the Collies dance. Start bracketing them. Guns, hit them with a double volley within the brackets. Let’s put them on the defensive until we can get a little closer.”

Twenty seconds later, A1 vibrated as missiles launched, and the lighting dimmed as the energy cannons unleashed their fury. At a million klicks, it still took three seconds for those beams to cross the abyss, which was plenty of time to manuever. Firing four at once, increased those odds, but likely wouldn’t get through the Collie’s shields at this distance. What it did was put pressure on them and make them start playing defense; especially when eight missiles sped toward them. They had to switch to countermissiles, and that gave Ben some breathing room.

“Hit!” tactical screamed with a savageness that surprised Ben. “One of our missiles got through.”

Compared to what Ben had seen so far, his missiles were weaker and had a shorter range than the Collies; but their shields weren’t as good.

“I’ve got engine fluctuation,” someone else yelled, and Ben saw his opportunity.

“All energy cannons, fire at will. Hit’em and hit’em hard. Now . . . now . . . now!” he yelled, and the lights practically went out as all non-essential power was rerouted to the thirteen operational cannons. At eight hundred thousand klicks, it still took time, but without the ability to maneuver, Red Tide was fucked.

It still took several minutes. The Commonwealth destroyer fired their maneuvering thrusters to dance around, but it only did them so much good. A1’s gunners were green, but their training paid off. Soon, sensor readings showed multiple hits striking Red Tides.

“We’re kicking the shit out of them,” tactical grinned, as a flash showed they’d finally hit something critical.

Red Tides didn’t have a course now. They were spinning around in space. “Cease fire,” Ben ordered.

Tactical looked at him like he’d grown a second head, but she followed his order. He wasn’t about to blow a hamstrung ship, with a few hundred souls on board, into space dust. It was bad enough that they’d duked it out. It would be even worse if he executed them.

“Hail Red Tides and inform them that if they surrender under standard protocols, I will provide search and rescue,” he ordered into the jubilation flooding through his crew.

They’d been in their first fight, and come out on top. There was no better feeling in the galaxy, but this wasn’t over. The Commonwealth and Confederation had started shooting at each other, and that wouldn’t lead to anything good.

“Comms, make sure HQ knows the pile of shit we’re in over here.” The last thing Ben wanted was a Commonwealth battleship showing up and stomping on his destroyer like a bug.