Mark “Coop” Cooper
Location: Cobalt Station, System 1776, New Lancashire, United Commonwealth of Colonies
Video games had been a past time of young teenage boys and girls for centuries. Coop was no exception. Being a PHA Rat, his options were limited to the shit people tossed out after twenty years. It was what those burbanites called “generous donations to the less fortunate”. He really didn’t care how he got them, he just cared that he got to play them.
They were never the fully-immersive virtual reality models. The PHA didn’t have the machines for that kind of stuff, but they got all the other ones that measured your movements and mimicked them onto the characters. Coop had been particularly fond of the Duty Bound series. The collection of first-person shooters had been around for decades, and often mirrored real-world events. It let kids fight alongside the Infantry and Fleet as the Commonwealth fought the evil Blockies across the explored galaxy.
Looking back on it, Coop saw it as one hell of a propaganda tool. As he and Lieutenant Commander Gold did their best attempt at a three-legged-man race, he had a momentary thought of how much bullshit those games had fed him.
The rumble of his armor as his rail gun pinned half a dozen pissed off, rebellious miners behind the bend in the corridor snapped him out of it. Their retreat to the hanger bay was slow and cumbersome, and a big ass LACS was hard to hide when the place was swarming with people looking for it. Now, the miners had their location and they were doing everything they could to bring him down. The officer whose ass he was trying to rescue wasn’t being much help.
“We can take cover in here.” Ben sidestepped into the protection of a doorway and hit the panel to open it up.
“No!” Coop grabbed him with on hand while holding the M3 with the other. The rifle’s ammo was running low and he’d need to reload soon. “We need to keep moving. If we stop we die.”
It was not an exaggeration.
Rounds pinged off Coop’s armor as he hugged the wall. His rail gun spit out steady three round bursts at the people behind them while Coop aimed the M3 at the people in front of them. The pirate-led miners were shooting around corners to stay behind cover, so their aim was shit. That was the only reason Ben wasn’t full of holes yet. That, and Coop making sacrificial moves every once and a while.
“Push forward!” Coop bellowed, hauling the warship captain out of cover and struggling toward the next bend.
Coop aimed where he thought the guy was going to be. The miners didn’t vary their tactics much, and it had led to more than one body littering the HI trooper’s path. The weapon, hand and forearm appeared around the corner a little higher than what he’d anticipated. The miner got off two rounds before Coop adjusted. The first round missed Coop, hit the opposite wall, and ricocheted down the hallway. If Coop had his way, it would hit one of the assholes trying to shoot him in the ass.
The second round hit his still-functioning armored leg. The nanite scales did their job and the round bounced away after making contact. As that miner’s round sparked off the floor and flew downrange, Coop’s first round hit home. It hit the M3 dead-center and disabled the weapon. The second round hit the miner’s forearm, causing him to the yell out in pain, and grab the forearm with his opposite hand. Coop made his third shot count and put a round through that hand. The lower velocity round got stuck in the forearm behind it, but the nanites were already going to work and doing their deadly job. The miner screamed, fell forward, and Coop ended his misery with a mercy shot to the head. If there was another miner with that guy he was gone by the time Coop and Ben rounded the corner and got a short reprieve.
Ben was breathing heavily next to Coop. It wasn’t an easy task fighting, and half carrying an HI trooper in full armor for hundreds of meters. Ben’s in vitro enhancements were being put to the test, and he was being reminded of why he’d chosen to go into the Fleet rather than the Infantry.
“We’ve got to keep moving.” Coop didn’t let them rest for more than five seconds. Even if he was the enlisted of the bunch he was the subject matter expert, and Ben bowed to his authority. “A few more corridors and we’ll be there.”
Coop’s rail gun stayed locked in the rear position as they hustled down this corridor. It didn’t look like the miners were prepared yet so they tried to cover as much distance as possible. Halfway down the hallway the rail gun started firing, and they made it another twenty meters before weapons popped around the corner in front of them and fired blindly.
Coop added his own weight of fire to the turn ahead of them. He knew from his HUD that around that turn was a straight shot to the hangar bay.
“Eagle-One, you ready for us?” Coop split his attention between cover fire and talking with the Spyder.
If the miners and pirates had access to their coms it made sense to keep the chatter to a minimum. As for avoiding it altogether to keep their location a secret…that ship had sailed half an hour ago. Coop had only sent two messages to the damaged Spyder so far. The first told them to get ready for two friendlies, and this was the second. He’d send a third when they got to the war machine so their cannons didn’t blow this shit out of them.
“Roger that, Ballboy.”
Coop was so preoccupied with staying alive he didn’t have time to grimace at the unwanted call sign.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Ok, Sir, we’re almost there. We just need to…”
Just when Coop felt he had a grip on the situation, the miners did something unexpected. The doors on one side of the hallway opened and over a dozen miners in heavy protective clothing charged out. A few were holding plasma torches in their hands as they gave a guttural war cry. Ben froze at the sight of men less than five meters away charging at them. Coop only gaped for a moment before he turned his M3 on them, and then gave a one-legged spring to meet them.
It was the cardinal rule of surviving an ambush: you fought into it like your life depended on it. Coop never saw what Ben did, but he cycled his M3 as fast as it could. He took down four with point blank shots before they collided. He was like a bowling ball hitting pins. Even glancing blows sent the remaining miners flying.
The M3’s magazine ran dry and he used it like a baseball bat. One miners head exploded from the force of the blast. Another – one of the ones with the plasma torches – tried to sneak behind Coop, but you couldn’t sneak behind a person with three hundred and sixty degree sensors. Coop’s rail gun swiveled and put a three-round burst in the man’s chest before returning to the task of keeping the other people behind them pinned.
The remaining six miners had recovered and dog-piled him. Normally, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but with only one leg it forced him off balance and sent them all crashing to the floor. Training took over, and the blades came out. Coop bisected two of the men as they rolled. Their blood and guts flopped out onto the floor, and made everything slick. Another miner with a plasma torch got to his feet with the intent of trying to cut through Coop’s helmet, but he slipped on his friend’s liver and landed with a skull-rattling CRUNCH. He didn’t get up.
That left three. One had a plasma torch, and Coop went for him, but he rolled away. The other two miners – both pretty big guys – grabbed Coop’s bladed arms and tried to hold him.
That was the stupidest thing they could have done. Coop brought them crashing into each other like a pair of cymbals. They collapsed in a tangle of limbs, and Coop speared them both in the gut. They might live if they got medical attention, but Coop couldn’t care less. When they tried to kill him, Coop stopped giving a shit about whether or not they lived or died.
The last miner made a suicidal lunge. The plasma torch made contact with Coop’s shoulder and immediately warning sensors started going off. The nanites held for a few seconds, but the intense heat of the torch – meant to cut through just about anything with enough time – wore them down. The scales blackened, and then sparks started to shoot from the mechanism underneath it.
It was a small victory for the miner until Coop grabbed the guy by the head and smashed it into the floor. It exploded like rotten fruit, and little chunks of brain flew in every direction.
“Jesus Christ, Private!” Ben was alternating firing between the group in front and behind them from the cover of a doorway.
Coop ignored the black scorch mark on his armor and crawled back over to Ben’s position. The officer helped Coop to his feet while his rail gun took over cover-fire duty. The look on the officer’s face told Coop he wanted to say something, but the older man kept his mouth shut.
Ben got under Coop’s shoulder just as the heavy booms of 3mm rounds started whizzing past them.
“Shit!” They squeezed behind cover as much as they could.
“On three we run for it, Sir. Down this hallway, make a right, and down to the hangar bay doors.”
“What?” Ben’s pissed off look from Coop’s action was replaced with surprise.
Coop didn’t have time to explain. “THREE!”
Coop led the way into the hallway as his railgun went into full auto to keep the pirate with the Buss pinned. They moved as fast as they could to the next corner while concentrating all of their fire on the corner ahead of them. They drove the miners back enough as they rounded the corner that the poor bastards were caught in the open and gunned down. Ahead of them was the hangar bay door. The railgun continued to spit rounds behind them and the counter on Coop’s HUD spiraled down. He was only at two hundred rounds by the time they reached the door. Thankfully, operational security wasn’t something miners took into consideration. The door was open. Coop and Ben stumbled into the giant hangar bay and kept hustling.
Coop did his best to put the containers of raw materials between them and their pursuers, but every once in a while his railgun would roar to life again to keep the enemy’s heads down.
“Eagle-One, we’re coming in hot!” Coop announced when they were fifty meters out. He pinged STARTNET the whole way in so the Spyder’s 30mm cannons didn’t gun them down.
They broke into the open and rushed toward the bird. It was still lying awkwardly on its side, but the injured marine was guarding the door and gesturing wildly for them to hurry inside.
“Package aboard!” The marine called out as Coop and Ben collapsed onto the floor of the troop compartment. “Sir, get this on now!” He shoved a helmet into the officer’s hands. Sir, are there any breaches in your uniform.” The marine started patting down Ben and looking for any tears.
It took a few seconds for Coop to realize what they had planned.
His LACS had no fewer the half a dozen breeches from the fight. Most were around the stump of material that used to be his leg, which he thankfully still couldn’t feel. The plasma torch had also compromised the integrity of the armor in one spot. He needed to get those all plugged before they took off.
From his HUD, Coop commanded the LACS’ nanites into action. He programmed them to seal the holes in his armor and showed them were to start. They went to work, and within thirty seconds he had a good seal. It was in the nick of time too. The Spyder rumbled to life and didn’t waste any time in making a dramatic exit.
The Spyder had been hit by a rocket at the beginning of the battle. The engines were damaged and couldn’t successfully conduct flight operations, but this wasn’t an operation. They had the package, and they just needed to get off of the space station. The miners weren’t going to nicely open the hangar bay door for them either, so the pilot made his own hole. The 30mm cannon blasted away at the door. It buckled, crumbled, and finally exploded outwards. Crates flew all over the places as air blasted out of the station and into space. If anyone followed Ben and Coop into the hangar bay they were going to be human popsicles soon.
A few bursts of the thrusters and the pilot was able to maneuver them through the hole and into the abyss. It wasn’t a clean exit, and they took a few glancing hits from more crates, but it was the fanciest bit of non-flying Coop had ever seen.
“Breckinridge is inbound. They’ll pick us up in ten mikes.” The pilot put in his two cents as they drifted aimlessly into space.
The crew had done their best to patch the holes in the bird, but they hadn’t gotten them all, so they spent the next ten minutes trying to find the leaks and plugging them. It was something to do until the destroyer arrived and sucked them back into its belly.
One look at Coop and they had him on a grav-stretcher and headed for sick bay. He didn’t have the slightest idea how they were going to get him out of the armor, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to be awake for it. As it turned out, they didn’t want him awake at all after what his body had been through and all the drugs pumped into it to keep him combat ready.
All it took was one simple shot and he was out like a light, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to wake up to.