Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Unnamed Planet, Contested System, Unaligned Space

“Clear,” the SGT’s voice echoed over TACCOM.

Coop had been watching his battle buddy closely. The MOUNT was hard to miss passing over the battlefield. Currently, the big metal war machine was standing at the last trench before the settlement itself. The trench had been torn apart, with large gouges dug into the earth around it. After seeing what happened to the last grunt squad that made it into the trench, the SGT might have gone a little overboard. Not two minutes ago, he’d fired his next gen accelerator into the center of the trench.

That triggered the mines, and boom. It looked like some angry monster had torn the earth apart in a rage. Not that anyone in the Commonwealth attack force gave a shit. If there were Confed marines in the mix, all the better.

“Moving,” the LT and the main body of what was left of his people started moving forward.

Coop kept his missiles primed, and accelerator scanning for targets. While the force was moving across the open ground, they were vulnerable. As everyone had learned today, shields didn’t stop people from dying, they just made it harder to kill or be killed.

No shot rang out off the mountain walls as the troops moved forward, and Coop brought up the ass of the formation. The battle wasn’t over yet. They still had the enemy settlement to get through. It wasn’t much. A few clusters of prefabbed buildings, but that almost made it worse. If they were operating in the mountains, or even a city, the MOUNTs would be able to operate with impunity. With small, flimsy buildings, the grunts would be taking the lead. After what he’d seen of the Confed marines, that wasn’t a recipe for success.

“Get me full-spectrum scans,” the LT was saying when Coop joined him at the modified command post the LT had set up.

It basically consisted of the young officer standing in the SGT’s shadow, in a one-meter hole, talking with his NCOIC, while the communications specialist hauling the node made sure he was well inside the command group’s shield radius.

“I want to know where they are so we can fix them in place and finish them,” the LT continued. “Assign your heavy weapons where you think they’ll do us the most good.”

“Yes, sir,” the NCO headed away, and Coop squatted down next to the LT. He was still a head taller than the man.

“What’s the next play, sir,” Coop asked.

“We’ve got to go door to door and smoke them out. We’ve probably already taken down half their force, but we want to minimize casualties if we can,” there was something else in his voice Coop couldn’t totally place, but the LT didn’t make him wait for it.

“Summer was hit bad upstairs,” the officer pointed up. “They had to retreat and call for reinforcements from Alamo.”

“Motherfucker,” it didn’t take Coop long to do the math on that.

“How long?”

“Last we heard, about six hours until the closest Confed vessel can make orbit and send down their own reinforcements.”

Coop nodded. “So, we’ve got a few hours to take this place, grab a few hostages, and have our human shields in place before the roles in all this get reversed.”

“Chief, we’re Commonwealth infantry. We don’t take human shields,” the LT’s voice was hard.

“Of course, sir,” Coop nodded, but knew full well the LT was full of shit.

When reports were written, they’d dress it up all nice and call it something like securing valuable resources and leverage to counter enemy movement in the area of operations; but it was essentially the same thing. They’d fight here, take the civilians and whatever marines were left alive hostage, and use them to make sure the Confed’s didn’t bomb their little force to dust.

“There is another option, sir,” Coop spoke up.

His job, as much as the NCOIC’s, was to alert the young officer to possibilities he might not have discovered yet.

“What?” the man’s voice told Coop he was desperately trying to figure out a way out of the shit they were all about to be hip deep in.

“We scamper,” Coop stated plainly. “We’ve got Spyders circling. We call them down, load everyone up, and get find somewhere to lie low. I doubt the brass back at Alamo are going to take this shitshow lying down. They’ll send an entire squadron of battleships when they realize how bad the fighting has been. We find a nice cave, eat the MREs stored in the Spyder for a few days, and wait this out. No one else has to die, and if we move fast enough, the enemy will never find us.”

The last part was true. However, advanced their tech might be, if the Commonwealth shut everything down and hid in a big cave somewhere, the Confed’s would never find them. This wasn’t a big planet, but it was still a fucking planet. It’s not easy to search this much space on the ground, and the Confed’s wouldn’t have the troops to do it anyway.

The LT was quiet for several seconds; chewing it over. Then, he was a typical LT mistake. “We have our orders. We’re to take this compound. We’ve got a few hours to do it, and then we’ll have a solid negotiating position.”

“Stupid,” Coop shook his head inside the armor.

Orders were always subject to change based on the situation on the ground, and it was so like a naval officer to forget to radio down to the ground pounders about change of missions as they ran for their lives.

“Damnit, Derrick,” the little shit was going to get Coop killed, and a bunch of good grunts as well.

“At least get the reserves moving, sir,” Coop pressed.

There were a couple of squads and half the MOUNT squadron back at the FOB they’d quickly established. It would take them time to hump it to the settlement, but they could have the Spyders swoop in, and pick them up quickly.

“We could use them here, and its better to have our forces consolidated when the Confeds come calling,” Coop pressed.

“You’re right,” the LT nodded, and started sending messages over TACCOM. Coop could access them if he wanted, but there were other things happening.

A loud explosion echoed from the far side of the settlement, and small arms fire started to ping around a few of the positions where grunts had taken cover.

“They’re destroying servers so we don’t get any data on their operations,” the NCOIC announced.

Coop gave zero fucks about some server farm with mineral ratios and shit like that. He cared about the people shooting at him, their fields of fire, the ordinance they could bring down on his head, and the friends they were going to bring to the party in a few hours.

A few rounds pinged off his shield, but it only dropped a percentage point or two. He kept his attention on his scanners, looking for anything out of the ordinary. Whoever the enemy commander was, he was as wily as a fox, and Coop hadn’t been able to predict what he was going to do next. Coop wasn’t arrogant enough to think he was going to miraculously pull something out of his ass now.

***

Benjamin Gold

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

“Are we clear?” Ben asked as he studied his holo-tank.

“Another twenty minutes and we should be out of their hypothesized maximum engagement envelope,” tactical informed.

In twenty minutes, he would breathe a sigh of relief, but it was only the beginning. His marines were still on the ground, fighting for their lives, and likely dying. Twenty minutes to get out of their engagement envelope, and several hours to get back into orbit; he had a decision to make.

“Start making for the planet now, least time course,” he ordered.

Spacers who’d been starting to relax felt the pucker factor reassert itself. “Sir?”

“Do it, they’re running, and won’t waste the missiles. We’ll see plenty of their friends soon enough, but they want to get to a safe distance and affect repairs. We’ve got to start worrying about our people on the surface. If we wait twenty minutes, that’ll add more than an hour to our return time. We turn back now, we can help sooner,” Ben explained. Then added, “Last time I checked, I wasn’t asking for your approval. Get it done.”

“Yes, sir,” came the chorus of responses as people made it happen.

Ben saw his holo-tank blink with an incoming message as soon as their course changed. He’d deal with the task force commander, but he wasn’t going to wait to get back to his marines.

If he didn’t, the fight would be over by the time they go there.