Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Savannah City, New Savannah, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Surveillance was part art, part science, and Coop had spent the last two days getting a crash course in it. When they’d arrived at their observation point, in the middle of the night, and in an inconspicuous minivan, he thought they were going to spend a few hours on target at most. He thought they’d show up, set up all their fancy optic suites, and catch the bad guys red handed doing some shady shit.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

“New target.” Coop did his best to stifle a yawn as someone new walked into his view. “Caucasian male, brown hair, hazel eyes, one hundred and seventy-one centimeters, eighty-seven kilos, trying to tag him.” Coop angled the lens to get a clean shot of the man’s GIC on the underside of his wrist, but despite the heat, the target was wearing long sleeves.

“Designated Tango-Eighteen.” GYSGT Cunningham sat in a chair at the opposite end of the room, while Eve was in a similar position at another window. “Berg?”

“Couldn’t get it,” the long, slender rifle tucked into her shoulder could hit targets up to several kilometers away, but today they were just using it to get high-def pictures to compare against local databases. “Sending you what I’ve got.”

A holo appeared in the air in front of the GYSGT. She placed her hand inside the image and swiped until she found the best photo to attach to her report. “What did you see, Cooper?”

This was the part of surveillance where it became more art than science. The tech they had could tell them a shit load about the guy from nearly two kilometers away without him ever knowing they were there. Coop got his height, weight, eye color, hair color, and if he’d gotten the GIC they’d have the man’s complete records. But that only told half the story.

“He was alert but confident.” Coop had watched the man approach the house since the time he turned the corner. Coop had seen people walk like this before. “Maybe system militia training,” Coop hypothesized, “but he definitely just scored. It could be drugs, poon tang, or another insurgency plot, but he’s got something that’s giving him a hard on for life.”

“Poon tang?” The GYSGT raised an eyebrow. “I’m not putting that in the report.”

“Sorry,” Coop shrugged, which took the lens off the target house for a second before settling it back down. “I didn’t want to offend your sensibilities.”

“I’m going to shove my boot up your fourth point of contact and we’ll see how your sensibilities fare.” Eve threw in her two cents.

“Fine,” Coop sighed. “Looks like he might have gotten some tight New Savannah ass recently.”

“We could all use a little tight ass about now.” Eve grumbled, and Coop couldn’t help but laugh.

“What else, Cooper?” The GYSGT cut in.

“He’s got a pistol on his hip,” Coop got that from the optics, but that wasn’t what the GYSGT wanted to know.

“On the surface that could peg him as an insurgent, but the analysis shows there’s a ninety-three percent chance it’s an authorized personnel defense weapon. Can’t tell from here if it’s been modified, but with all that’s happened on the planet in the last few days, I don’t think it’s unusual for people to be walking around with a little more protection,” Coop answered.

“We have an ID yet?” Eve asked. This might be a training opportunity for Coop, but Eve had already gone through this at Ranger school. To her, this was a refresher that got old about six hours in.

“Yep.” The GYSGT didn’t bother to show them. “Anything else, Cooper?”

“He was looking over his shoulder a lot, like he was expecting to be followed. My vote is he’s an insurgent who just got laid and is heading back to his lair,” Coop gave his impression.

“Berg?”

“I agree. Not necessarily with the laid part, but he does give me the impression something is going to go down soon.” Eve shot Coop a little glare.

That was the other tough part about these surveillance ops. It involved long periods of time stuck together in confined spaces. For people at odds, it could lead to two outcomes. The first was shit getting even more tense and awkward, and the second was them working through stuff. Coop wasn’t really sure which group they were in. She’s snapped, glared, and laughed at him during the last two days, so the jury was still out.

“You’re both right.” Cunningham projected a new holo into the air between them to show Tango-Eighteen. The picture and brief description told them he was fairly high up in the New Savannah Liberation Movement. “That’s nearly twenty confirmed members that we have in a single location. I’m sending my report up now, and I suspect with the current threat environment we’re going to get the green light to go in soon. We’re going to relax our posture until then. One on watch while two grab some chow and Z’s.”

“I’ve got the first watch,” Eve volunteered.

“Thanks,” Coop hopped up from the thin mattress he’d been lying on for the last several hours. “I’ve got to take a shit.” On the bright side, the apartment they’d taken over was newly renovated, so it was a clean crapper, not some dump. No pun intended.

When he got back to the main room, Eve was where he’d left her, and the GYSGT was chowing down on a high-protein, high-calorie energy bar from her MRE. The life of any enhanced human was a life of caloric intake to feed their enhanced bodies, so wherever Coop went he made sure to pack extra food. He had no idea how long he’d been on the recon, so he packed as many MRE’s as he could without looking suspicious. Two days in, he still had variety, which was the most exciting thing in his life at the moment. Except for talking to Eve again.

“Do you want Chili with beans or shredded barbeque beef?” Coop popped a squat next to Eve and took two MREs out of his pack.

“Barbeque.” Eve stated without taking her eyes off the rifle’s scope.

“Ohhh,” Coop sucked in air between his teeth. “I want the barbeque.”

“Then why’d you ask?” she snapped.

“I’ll tell you what,” Coop stroked his chin like he was deep in thought. “If you play a game with me, then I’ll let you have the barbeque.”

“Pass,” she replied immediately. “I’ll just have whatever else is in the pack.”

“All I have left is Lemon Pepper Tuna,” Coop was ready for her reply, and stopped short of grinning as she grimaced.

“Fuck it, fine,” Eve grumbled, “but if you make it weird I’m going to chop little Coop off.” She pulled a wicked looking knife from her side and twirled it between her fingers without even looking.

“Don’t worry.” Coop tried to act like the knife didn’t bother him. “We’re going to play a game that had been around for hundreds of years. It’s a game that people in our positions have played millions of times. It’s a game that…”

“Coop, stop blowing smoke up my ass and get to it.” Eve cut him off with an eye roll.

“Fine.” Coop coughed for dramatic effect. “We’re gonna play marry, kill, fuck.”

“Ah for fuck’s sake.” Eve made a casual swipe at him with her knife. It was slow and telegraphed enough that if Coop got cut it was his own fault.

“So, let’s meet our contestant Eve Berg.” Coop put on a holo announcers voice. “Resident bad ass, Eve Berg was the top graduate of her Basic class, which had some other top performers if I may say so myself.” Coop deftly dodged another swipe and continued. “A kick ass ranger, with combat experience and a fetish for sharp objects…” this time he nearly got tagged by the blade, “…Eve Berg has an important choice to make today; a choice that will affect the rest of her life. Who would you fuck? Who would you marry? And who would you kill?”

“What are my choices?” There was resignation in her voice, but Coop also thought he spotted a slight smile on her lips.

“Your three lucky, or unlucky for one of them, contestants are Sergeant Major Queen, Gunnery Sergeant Cunningham, and the ruggedly handsome, brilliant, and savvy Sergeant Mark Cooper.” Coop made it sound like an imaginary crowd was going wild, so this time he missed a fist that solidly connected with his ribs.

“Ugh,” he grunted from the impact. “Choose wisely.”

“I’d marry the Gunney,” Eve answered quickly. “Having another woman around the house, and not having to deal with any of your kind’s shit, Cooper, talk about Heaven.”

“Half the universe just gave a collective moan,” Coop sighed dramatically. “You’ve still got two choices left.”

“I’d fuck the Sergeant Major. Rumor has it he has a huge dick.”

“That’s an image I’m never getting out of my head,” Coop grumbled, but not only because of the NCOIC’s anatomy.

“That means I’ve got to kill you, Coop,” Eve shrugged, and turned her attention fully back to her scope, and put a hand out for her shredded barbeque beef. “Next time, give yourself a fighting chance.”

“Thanks,” Coop pouted as he tossed her the MRE. His plan had royally backfired.

“Stop grab assing you two, and get over here.” The GYSGT cut off any further pleasant thoughts. “Command just gave us the green light. We move in two hours to take the house and any prisoners inside. Bravo Team is hitting a second location at the same time. Mission objective is to round up most of the liberation movement’s leadership. If we can cut the head off the snake now, then the rest of the movement’s violent faction should wither and die. Plus, it gets the SRRT concept a gold star along the way. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

Coop didn’t point out the obvious, or that fact they weren’t going in with their LACS or usual weapons set up.

In fact, they looked more like corporate mercenaries than Commonwealth troops. Coop realized, as the GYSGT started to gear up. Again…she stripped out of the civvies they’d been wearing for two days, right in the middle of the room, and shrugged into her SEALs skin before putting on the exo-steel body armor.

It was the second time Coop had seen her body in three days, and he had to admit, he’d probably make the same decision Eve did. Unfortunately, Eve had a better chance of getting with Cunningham than he ever did.

Coop decided to give the two women a modicum of privacy, because he was a gentleman, so he went and geared up in the bathroom. When he returned, they got to work planning the op.