Mark “Coop” Cooper

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

“Welcome, ladies and gentleman, to your final field training exercise,” Coop announced over the net. There were some cheers from the class about to embark on the three-day exercise, but he knew they wouldn’t be cheering again anytime soon.

In his oh so humble opinion, the few months the new cavalry officers put into their MOS-specific training was not enough. Coop, and he was one of many, believed the green FNGs shouldn’t be coming to MOUNT school at all. He believed, like the first MOUNT pilots, that they needed to recruit only from seasoned HI troopers. The right way to do it was Basic, HI school, a few years as a trooper, and then you could apply to pilot a MOUNT.

Coop knew that was the truth. They made a big hoopla about the medals they’d pinned to his chest, but after that, it was shut up and go back to doing what we tell you.

Now, instead of NCOs with a couple years of experience fighting in armored suits, they had wet-behind-the-ears babies piloting millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. Some of the equipment went boom, and Coop wasn’t the only one a little squeamish about giving the kiddies so much firepower.

and even better, he wouldn’t be anywhere near them.

For the FTX, Coop would spend the duration in a mobile command post with AC and a food fabber to spit out anything he could think of. He’d watch from twenty klicks away as the kids blew the shit out of everything the Commonwealth threw at them. It was all simulations, but the ordinance was very real. Coop and the veteran group of warrant officers insisted on that at least. The next generation of MOUNT pilots weren’t going into battle without having ever fired a shot in anger. That had failure written all over it.

“We’ll be starting with a movement to contact mission. The battalion operation’s order is being transmitted now, be ready to brief your squads no later than 0900,” he tried not to sound bored, but it was hard.

“Roger that, sir,” the class leader replied all gung-ho and shit.

Coop was playing the role of the high and mighty battalion commander. He’d sit in on the briefs, watch the tactical data streaming in, monitor the new and improved TACCOM and STRATNET, and then do everything he could to ensure the safety of the troops. Mistakes could always happen, this was the infantry, but he didn’t want to have to deal with the paperwork of having one of students nearly killed.

Right now, that didn’t matter. All Coop could do was sit back for the next ninety minutes and wait for the assigned squad leaders to break down the battalion level order to the company and squad levels; and then brief him. He leaned back in his chair, kicked his feet up, and pulled up personal files on his IOR.

He’d purchased and downloaded half a season of the latest and greatest holo space opera, which had aired during some of the more intensive training iterations. He watched, listened, laughed, loved, and pointed out all the parts that were complete bullshit. Normally, he watched it with Eve, but he didn’t think she’d mind. What was on the holo was the last thing on her mind.

***

Eve Berg

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

“She won’t stop crying,” Derrick’s tone was dry, and Eve could see the vein in his head start to pound. She’d seen these symptoms over the last month. It started like this, and then it escalated. Soon he’d start pacing, muttering to himself, and if she kept crying, he’d start screaming.

“Take a walk,” Eve felt her newfound maternal instincts rear up. It helped that she towered over her brother, out massed him, and could tear him to pieces if he actually posed a threat.

That was a lot for Derrick Berg to take in. Not only where it concerned his little sister, but his own circumstances. The battle for earth changed him. He had his ship blown out from under him, most of his crew KIA, he’d lost several limbs, and been in a regenerative medical coma for months. After that, it was weeks of rehab to use his fingers and toes again, and more months to get full range of motion. Once they finally cleared him for duty, they shipped him out to this hot asshole of the universe. Alamo was quickly getting a reputation, and not a good one with the fleet and infantry.

Once he got to Alamo, he was assigned the barebones pre-fab quarters that were popping up all over the barely habitable equatorial zone. On a good day it was thirty-seven degrees Celsius and humid as a Georgia swamp. Just walking around town could put someone in a bad mood. They’d had to bring in another MP battalion to keep the peace. The first thing aside from the base to go up were the bars, pawn shops, and whore houses. The naval intelligence people were already reporting the syndicate moving into town, and fighting between infantry, fleet, and civilians was up thirty percent in the last month. Tempers flared with the looming war between any number of factions, and Derrick wasn’t immune to that growing tension.

The fleet had lost a lot of officers to take back Sol. Entire fleets were dead, along with the millions of man hours, training, and experience it took to crew those dead ships. The new Michael Ward Yards above Alamo – named for the Hero of Yangon who died retaking Sol – were churning out warships as fast as possible, but it was crewing them that was causing a problem.

Derrick had commanded a battlecruiser. His next positing should have been a tactical officer on a battleship, an XO slot if he was lucky, or a place on an admiral’s staff to build connections. With the shortage, he was being given one of the new battleships coming out of the yard. He’d been promoted to Captain far ahead of schedule, and was getting a command crew that didn’t belong on anything bigger than a cruiser. That’s how a lot of the new ships were filling out; crews too green to handle punching in their weight class. It was going to be a steep-as-fuck learning curve. Even steeper than the infantry had to deal with. He’d never tell Eve this, but he thought his job was much more difficult than pointing a rifle and shooting.

“I said, take a walk,” momma-bear Eve loomed over Derrick before he could start pacing.

“Fine. Tell that no good, absent father of yours to get in touch with me when he gets in. Mom sent word,” he stomped out the door with a gust of humid air before she could respond.

The moment he left; Emily calmed down. Eve smiled down at the baby girl with a warmth that would surprise anyone that knew her. She hadn’t carried the baby in her womb for nine months; Emily had been decanted from an OBGYN facility on Alamo after being sent through a portal hundreds of light years away. That made Eve anxious at first, but the doctors had said there were no issues with a fetus portalling.

Even though she never carried the baby to term, there was no less of a maternal instinct to kick the shit out of anyone that upset her little girl; even Uncle Derrick.

“It’s okay,” she cooed as she picked up the baby and started to rock her. She could tell from her cry that it was a hungry cry, so she busted out her boob.

When delivery was imminent, she’d taken the hormone treatments necessary to get her body producing milk. Most people just used the formula you could get out of any food fabber, but she wanted to feed the baby herself. It was an argument over five hundred years old; breast milk vs. formula, and ultimately, she just didn’t care. She’d fed the baby for a few months, and would transfer to formula when she went back on active duty. It would be a change, but her life was full of changes recently.

She still had a couple weeks of maternity leave left, and that didn’t feel like enough, but her orders were already in. She was being given a command of MOUNTs to do who knows what. She didn’t have concrete numbers yet, or names, but it was going to be some sort of strike force. The armored cavalry branch was still extremely small, and could only be a few places at once in any significant numbers. She guessed most of the MOUNTs would be held in reserve for an actual battle, while select teams would go out as hot spots developed and put down whatever needed to be put down.

Already, word of insurgencies against Commonwealth rule were flaring up. People felt emboldened after the Corpies’ treason, and they wanted to do it themselves. The PM wasn’t about to abide any of that shit. The military was going to be putting out fires for the foreseeable future, and all of that on top of increasing skirmishes with the Blockies, and probing from the Corpies. There had been no word from the Hegemony since the battle for earth, and as far as most people were concerned, that was for the best. The human species’ attitude toward aliens at the moment was kill first, ask questions later. Eve had seen enough of the ETs to last a lifetime, and humanity had its own problems to deal with.

At the moment, the only problem that mattered was the crying baby girl in front of her.

“Hush little baby . . .” she started to sing a song older than the Commonwealth as the baby began to eat. “Daddy will be home soon,” she smiled.

Coop was coming home for a full two weeks. They’d get some quality time together before the infantry pulled them back into the grind and someone else would raise their kid. Normally, if both parents were soldiers, then one would be on garrison duty, but with the needs of the service right now . . . fat chance of that.

She’d just have to wait and see. She was used to that, and so was Coop. Having worked her way up from a lowly PVT, she had a better handle on embracing the suck than her older brother did.

Of all the uncertainty in the galaxy right now. One thing was for sure: things were going to suck for the foreseeable future.