Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Unnamed Planet, Contested System, Unaligned Space

“Hold . . . hold . . . move!” Coop yelled as he popped up and opened fire.

He’d been running around like a chicken with his head cut off, reinforcing the lines where they were weakest, and generally keeping the Commonwealth’s war effort above water. Just like every time, it felt like this was the time the dam was going to break, and they were all going to drown in a river of blood and bullets. But every other time he’d survived, and kept the grunts alive with him.

This time, he’d been crouched among the soldiers in their dragonscale armor, and was giving them another fighting chance to get out of here alive. On his command, they jumped up from the trenchworks encircling the settlement, and ran for it. Coop didn’t run, he stood and faced the tide.

His shield sparked and lit up like the surface of a pond in a thunderstorm. The flashes were so bright and continuous, he could hardly see. Not that the MOUNT needed his eyes to fight. The battle AI took over, and directed his movement like a symphony conductor.

he was going through ammunition like crazy, but what else was there to do? Let all the grunts die?

Coop was a cold-hearted bastard, but even he couldn’t bring himself to do that. If there was an afterlife, he didn’t want to be a dick right at the end. That wouldn’t look good.

“Set!” the squad leader sent as the grunts got to the next set of trenches.

The Commonwealth’s perimeter was steadily collapsing. The Confed hordes were doing the same thing Coop and the Commonwealth had done when they took the place; push, push some more, make them fall back, until you had their balls in a vice and were fighting house to house. It was how these things were done. There was nothing nice about it. That’s why they called it war.

“We’ll cover you, chief,” the SGT radioed as Commonwealth weapons started to add their fire support to suppress the enemy focusing on Coop’s MOUNT.

It was much appreciated. His shields had dropped below fifty percent since he started taking the pounding.

“Moving!” Coop didn’t wait. He turned his back on the enemy and ran.

“Chief, we need you in sector two. We’re about to . . . ahhh!” the LT’s voice cut off abruptly.

“Shit, LT’s down. I say again, LT is down!” the NCOIC came over the net.

Coop grunted, as he angled toward sector two.

The radio call saved Coop’s life. The next-gen accelerator round came screaming in through burning atmosphere before his AI could even squawk a warning. The shockwave nearly blew him over, but he turned it into a combat roll. It would suck to look like an idiot in front of the grunts.

A person can think of the weirdest things in a life of death situation.

Coop came out of the roll, his own weapon at one hundred percent power, and fired back toward the source of what nearly made him piss myself. Whoever the other pilot was, he had too much confidence in his MOUNT’s camouflage abilities. Why shouldn’t he? He’d got within five hundred meters of Coop without him knowing any better. The only problem, the EM spike from the monster gun was the equivalent of a “please shoot here” sign.

The armor bucked as Coop’s round flew downrange. he growled when there was a spark of a shield overloading, and the cammo failed.

There it was, a Gold Technologies MOUNT; in the flesh . . . sort of. All Coop knew was that it was a better armored, better armored killing machine than the knock-off he was wearing. If he wanted any chance of surviving, he had to ignore that and believe in himself. That might sound like some self-help bullshit, but it was really all he had working for him.

He also had decisions to make. He was in the open between the MOUNT and the new defensive lines. The squad currently shooting at the new arrival on the battlefield had a better chance of growing wings and flying away than defeating the enemy war machine. It was either give up this section of the perimeter, and retreat into the settlement’s structures, or fight.

That wasn’t a hard decision for Coop. He reoriented himself and charged right at the other MOUNT. Again, the pilot showed how green he was. He took a step back and hesitated. He’d likely been the biggest kid on the block until now.

Coop grinned. Unlike the Gold mech, he’d been the underdog plenty of times.

Coop let loose the last of his missiles at the enemy to buy him time to cover the distance, and recharge his accelerator. His was underpowered compared to the Gold model, but he should be able to get a second shot first . . . hopefully.

The enemy’s swatter came to life and started knocking them from the sky. That wouldn’t do, so Coop detonated the last couple prematurely. A small slice of hell appeared in between the MOUNTs, blotting out their sensors. That helped Coop, not the enemy. He took a chance, and hoped the enemy MOUNT wouldn’t fire along the same trajectory. After all, this was the perfect opportunity to reorient your angle of attack. That’s what Coop was doing, just not in the typical way.

The Gold pilot was at least not stupid enough to waste ammo firing blindly into a firestorm, but likewise, Coop didn’t have any idea where the other guy was.

he took one more leaping bound, and hit his boot thrusters.

He rocketed up and over the dying ball of fire, with his recharged accelerator ready to go. The surprise advantage bought him a few, critical seconds. The Gold MOUNT was sweeping back and forth, waiting for Coop to burst through the flames, so it took the enemy AI a few digital heartbeats to register him in the air, and then tell the pilot.

Coop had to give it to the other pilot, he reoriented quickly, but Coop was already pulling the trigger. The accelerator going off fucked up his flight path, but it was worth it. The heavy round smashed right into the other MOUNT’s chest plate. There was a shower of sparks as shield and metal failed, while the machine got knocked on its ass.

Despite the power behind the hit, and the damage done, the Gold MOUNT wasn’t out of the fight. Coop saw it trying to sit up as he crashed to the ground. It wasn’t a graceful landing, but there was no time to worry about that. He scrambled to his feet and charged the damaged machine.

It seemed Coop still had a little luck left in the tank. The Gold MOUNT got its accelerator aimed at him, but nothing happened. He practically heard the proverbial click as something broke down in the weapon’s firing sequence. Then, Coop was on him. Out came the blades, and the injured pilot didn’t stand a chance.

Coop lost track of what he was doing for a second. When he came back to his senses, he’d chopped off all the MOUNTs major limbs, and driven a blade repeatedly into the hearth of the machine; right where the pilot was stationed. He looked at his blade; it dripped black with vicious fluid with a slight tinge of red mixed in.

“HA!” his exhausted laugh echoed inside the armor.

he staggered back away from the destroyed MOUNT; his exhaustion translated into his own MOUNT’s movements. he told himself, and turned back toward the lines.

If the LT was down, Coop was the ranking officer. That was some scary shit; scarier than going up against the superior MOUNT.

“Chief, what are your orders?” the NCOIC asked. The guy had more experience, but they were both up shit’s creek right now.

Coop hesitated. The lives of the entire garrison were now in his hands. “Hold the perimeter,” he replied. He didn’t have any better solutions, and until a good one presented itself, he’d keep going with the LT’s final orders.

He hustled back toward the settlement. Ignoring the smaller impacts of his shield as he headed back to protect his men.