Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: New Lancashire, United Commonwealth of Colonies

Coop ran, and he wasn’t the only one. The regular grunts that were holding the perimeter were starting to fall back. Some listened to their commanders and NCOs and reverse bounded back toward the waiting Spyders. Some were just turning tail and fleeing from the approaching Kingdom mechs. Civilians that had been shell shocked and frozen in place were starting to get their wits back and seeing the futility of the situation.

But humanity hadn’t survived as long as it had by just giving up. Unlike other species on Earth, humans didn’t survive because they were the biggest or the strongest. Neanderthals had them beat there. They also didn’t have the biggest claws, or sharpest fangs, or any fangs for that matter. Humans survived because they were the smartest. They survived because they made claws and fangs out of metal and hunted in teams to bring down the stronger prey. If humanity’s ancestors could see the people on New Lancashire now they would be in awe of mankind’s ingenuity, but they’d also be ashamed at what had been lost.

Coop saw it all play out in the rear one-hundred-and-eighty-degrees of his LACS’ sensors. Once the civilians knew it was run to the Spyders or die, they surged forward like madmen. Husbands threw wives aside, or wives elbowed husbands in the balls and sprinted forward. Babies in modern hover-strollers, or old school wheeled ones, were simply left behind as their parents dashed for safety. Survival was a powerful instinct, and in most it overrode modern civility and morality.

Despite what Coop was seeing, the people of New Lancashire weren’t all assholes. He saw a father pick up his infant daughter and carry her like a football; protecting her and rushing toward the Spyders like there was a lot more than six points on the line. Men and women held hands despite the onslaught of elbows, knees, feet, and fists flying as the mob surged forward.

It was chaos, and it was only going to get worse. The soldiers executing proper withdrawl tactics got caught up in the surge of bodies when the civilians ignored their fields of fire.

“Cease fire!” The call went out, but it was too late.

One of the mechs was leaping over the remains of a building when more than two dozen panicked civilians ran diagonally between it and the infantry soldiers trying to escape, and the result was more than a dozen people getting torn to shreds by 1mm rounds and more than a dozen more getting chunks blown off. They screamed for help, for their parents, or their loved ones, but didn’t receive any of it. Modern warfare was fluid, and there was no going back to help in this dire situation.

“Lieutenant you’ve got incoming!” Coop sent forward to LT Wentworth. Charlie Company had consolidated into a final defensive line around the Spyders.

Coop’s legs were pumping as he quickly made his way toward his means of escape. The HI had dropped a big-ass whooping on the enemy mechs, and they hadn’t even scratched their rust-colored paint.

At the moment, Charlie Company’s problem wasn’t the enemy, it was the people it was charged with protecting. Coop would have been through the perimeter by the time the civilians reached it, and maybe even strapped into a Spyder already, but the universe couldn’t resist the opportunity to butt fuck him again. One moment he had open tarmac between him and the Spyders, and the next one of the big-ass mechs fell from the sky less than twenty meters in front of him. It was the big fucker too. The one Coop thought was probably their commander.

If Coop didn’t have the enhanced fast-twitch muscle fibers of his HI body he’d probably have collided with the mech at his current speed. Since the mech looked more like an immovable object than Coop was an unstoppable force, that wouldn’t have ended well. Thankfully, Coop was able to throw himself to the side and skid out of the way.

Sparks flew from his armor as he skid shoulder first across the tarmac. He’d succeeded in taking the mech by surprise, because a mildly-terrifying sword cut through the air where Coop would have been if he didn’t change direction.

Even over the horrible shrieking of his LACS’ skid, Coop could hear the hum as the half-meter-thick blade cut through the air. Coop absentmindedly thought as he shifted his weight and was able to leap to his feet mid-skid. Somehow, Coop thought the armored behemoth would take offense to him pawning his big death device.

The six-meter mech had already reacquired Coop and was advancing. Twin blades shot out of Coop’s armor, but they looked like toothpicks compared to the monstrous broadsword in the mech’s hands.

Coop frantically thought of a way out of his current conundrum.

He got a short reprieve when a missile slammed into the mech’s back. The shield caught the blast, so it didn’t do any actual damage, but it hit the mech mid-stride. It caused the big thing to stumble. Coop immediately took advantage of that. He sprinted toward the opposite side of the mech’s stumbling hulk and tried to get around it and to the Spyders that were getting loaded up. While he tried to slip around it, he cycled through his Buss, selected the 40mm grenades, opted for smoke, and rapid fired three rounds. They exploded against the big thing’s shield, just like the missiles, but a thickening coat of sensor and visually blinding smoke quickly enveloped it.

Coop pumped his legs hard in the few second opening.

“Haul ass, Cooper!” SSG Hightower urged him on. The SSG’s STRATNET icon already had him at the foot of one of the Spyders.

Coop didn’t need to be told twice. He’d hauled his ass like he’d never hauled anything before… and it still wasn’t enough. The mech burst through the smoke like some ancient warrior god directly in Coop’s path. Coop didn’t need to do the math, instinct told him he wasn’t going to slip through that gap in one piece.

This must have been what his ancient ancestors felt when they stared down the predators of prehistoric Earth. Coop was looking into the jaws of death and he wanted to shit his pants.

No one wanted to die, so intellectually Coop knew his thought was stupid, but people had been saying it for millennia anyway. In the second before the mech bisected him, Coop could only think of two options. First, he could let the mech just cleave him in two and this whole horrible experience in the armed forces of the United Commonwealth of Colonies would come to an end.

Images of Sandy, Aiko, and especially Eve grinding up against him flashed through his mind. Hailey was there too, and a few of the strippers who’d gone the extra mile for him back on Mars. Then there was the small silicone chip in his pocket. On it was tens of thousands of dollars that he needed to spend, even if it was on booze and bitches.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

To many people it wouldn’t have been a lot of motivation, some would even call it morally-compromised incentives, but like most things, Coop didn’t give a shit what other people thought. Getting his dick wet and drinking until he passed out was his version of a baby, and if one civilian was fighting through the crowd to protect his infant daughter, Coop sure as shit could too.

That left option number two: shoot the mech in the fucking face and hope for the best.

There wasn’t enough time bring his Buss to bear, so Coop relied on the faster reflexes of his rail gun. The gun was already tracking threats and was just waiting on a command to fire. Coop gave it.

Twenty-five military-grade duro-steel rounds a second smashed into the mech’s face, or more accurately, the shield in front of its face. At the same time Coop zagged to change his angle of approach. He was operating off a hunch, and literally putting his life in its hands. Coop was the only human in history that could claim he was an infantryman who’d taken fire while equipped with a personal shield. That gave him a drop of perspective that no one else had, and he hoped that perspective would save his life.

The mech kept charging through the hail of gunfire. It looked like a Veteran’s Day fireworks display was going on right on the thing’s face as the shield flared from the fifteen hundred rounds a minute that were punching into the energy barrier, but the enemy didn’t stop. He surged forward, brought up his sword, and brought it crashing into…the ground. The blade meant to kill him missed by less than a meter. That might seem like a lot, but when you were on the receiving end of a deathblow anything within a kilometer was too close for comfort.

“Everyone,” Coop toggled into the brigade-level channel he wasn’t supposed to have access to, “shoot them in the face it blinds them!” He didn’t wait around for the officer to bitch at him for using the net.

The mech’s blade cut deep into the tarmac, deep enough that it required effort for the big mech to pull it out, which bought Coop critical seconds as he skirted around the edges of the mech and ran like a bat out of hell. The mech reached for him with a giant, gauntleted hand but there was already a trail of dust in Coop’s wake drawing a beeline to the Spyders.

Half of them were already in the air; they were taking turns providing air support while the others launched up into the atmosphere. Coop hadn’t been paying attention to the STRATNET feeds beyond the spaceport, much less the planet, but a quick peek showed that the landing craft that had birthed the monstrous mechs had been launched ahead of the main fleet as a vanguard. The Kingdom’s main force, including the second biggest ship Coop had seen beyond Bob’s weird vessel, was still over ten million kilometers out, which meant there was still time to escape before the armada came into weapons range or settled into orbit. Coop didn’t know the Kingdom’s plan, but he always assumed the worst-case scenario.

Coop remembered what Bob had said about the interdimensional network that could travel a hell of a lot faster than Alcubierre. The enemy could be waiting for them when they transitioned hundreds of light years away. Coop made himself focus on what was ahead of him.

Only two Spyders were still on the ground. A few squads of Charlie Company were holding a thin line between them and a bunch of civilians and soldiers trying to get aboard. The ships could hold a hundred, maybe one-twenty if they abandoned all safety regs, and there were at least three times as many people clustered around them. Even from fifteen meters away Coop could hear the shouting, cursing, and pleading. That was shit Coop didn’t have time for. He put his hands in front of him like a spear and jogged into the cluster of civilians. He swept his arms back and forth, easily sweeping the smaller, feebler people aside.

People were pissed about that. He heard more screaming and curses directed at him, a few people threw stuff, and he was pretty sure one had an old chemically-propelled gun with a silencer on it. All it did was ping off his armor, but Coop had to resist turning around, bringing his blades back out, and skewering the fucker who shot at him.

“I’ve only got a few spaces left. Women and children first!” LT Wentworth was at the bottom of the Spyder’s ramp directing traffic. “Stay calm or I will shoot you.” She leveled her sidearm at a man who didn’t take kindly to the women and children first message.

The guy glared at her, she held the weapon steadily in her hands, but neither got a chance to do anything. Coop’s arm reached forward, caught the guy by the shoulder, and spun him back out into the crowd.

“Sorry I’m late, Ma’am.” Coop couldn’t keep the smile off his face. He’d dodged death a few times on his run to this bird, and it felt good to finally get his just reward.

“Pop a squat, Cooper,” she ordered and pointed over her shoulder at the stuffed Spyder’s cargo hold.

Coop’s LACS counted heads for him. That was well over safety standards, which meant…

“That’s it people. She’s full, back up and clear the ramp!” The LT shouted and waved her pistol.

If people were screaming before they were roaring now.

“No! Please…!

“You can’t do this…!”

“Take my baby!” The last exclamation made Coop turn.

It was the woman standing right next to him, which was probably why it registered among the torrent of cries. She was young, pretty but not beautiful, with no blue in her eyes. She looked like the wife of low-mid level corporate employee. Or maybe she was the corporate employee. Coop didn’t know. What he did know was the absolute look of terror in her eyes, and the eyes of the little girl in her arms.

The girl’s eyes were such a brilliant shade of blue Coop thought enhancements had to be involved, but the girl and woman’s clothes didn’t show money. They were sturdy worker’s smartcloth. The woman was yelling at LT Wentworth, but the girl was looking straight up at Coop. Her eyes were as big as saucers with tears in them. Her little hands were shaking as they clung to her mother’s blouse. Through all of the terror, Coop saw the little girl’s developing mind come to grips with mortality. Coop had been forced to do the same when his mother leapt to her death in the core of the PHA building. It was a shitty thing to have to do, and a shitty weight to have to carry for the rest of your life.

Coop exhaled. He had one foot on the Spyder’s ramp and another on the ground. He removed his foot from the ramp put his hand in the small of the woman’s back and pushed her forward.

“She can have my seat.” Coop turned his back to the Spyder and became a wall of duro-steel between anyone trying to surge forward and bypass the LT’s orders.

“Thank you…thank you so much…I can never…thank you….my little girl…thank you…” the woman’s thanks rolled over him like a comforting breeze tinged with the stank of rotting shit.

Coop told himself as the whine of the ramp lifting sealed his fate behind him. he thought when the whining stopped and he felt the pulse of the grav-thrusters lifting the Spyder into the air behind him.

“That was a hell of a move, Cooper. Looks like you’re not as big of a piece of shit as everyone says.” LT Wentworth stated from where she stood beside him.

“What the hell are you doing here, Ma’am? You’re an officer. You could have gotten a seat easy.” Coop couldn’t hide the surprise from his tone.

“I sure could have, but it’s my job to protect these people. Taking a seat when a mother and daughter could have it is against what I believe in.” Her voice was calm and controlled. Coop called it Officer-speak, and it was something they must teach in Officer School or wherever these people came from.

“Well, we’ve both got a few minutes to live, so I’m going to speak freely and say we’re both a bunch of heart-throbbing dumb shits who just threw away our lives for some people we didn’t even know. We aren’t Heroes; we’re retards with a complex.” Coop huffed as he looked back over the battlefield.

The Spyder’s air support was keeping the mechs back for the moment, so the mechs were taking it out on the soldiers and civilians that hadn’t been lucky enough to make it into the protective area. Some mechs had encircled groups and were taking them prisoner. Others looked like they were hunting. Blossoms of sparks and color flashed around mech’s faces. It looked like Coop’s message got through, but it didn’t do much but buy a few more seconds.

He was already kicking himself for being so stupid.

“What now, Ma’am?” With nothing to do but do and die, Coop waited on orders.

“Now we haul ass to Landing Pad One.” The LT was already sprinting away, and after a moment’s hesitation, Coop followed not knowing what new hell he was about to get in to.