Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: New Lancashire, United Commonwealth of Colonies

“Fall in!” Chief Yates roared.

The crew of Argo, and its Marine contingent, rushed out of the ship carrying all of their earthly belongings. Everyone was dressed in the duty uniform of the day, which for Coop meant he was in his LACS armor.

“Stand by for inspection!” The CPO did an about face to where LCDR Gold was standing. Gold took command of the formation, and did another about face to where a stern-faced MP Officer was waiting.

“Ready for inspection.” Ben announced, and Coop couldn’t help but gulp.

This wasn’t the first step of the inspection process, the first happened back on the ship before they suited up. CPO Yates and SGT O’Neil roused everyone up once they popped out of Alcubierre back in New Lancashire. The two NCO’s did a visual inspection of each marine and spacers’ personal items, ran their own sniffers over everything, and did a pat down.

Coop was good with everything but the pat down. He and Aiko had successfully stored the guns and drugs where no one would find them, hopefully, but there was still the issue of the money. Coop had about five grand in chips that he needed to get off the ship. He trusted Aiko as a fuck buddy, but he didn’t trust her to hold onto even more cash. She already had the job of going back to get the guns and drugs after the MPs finished their search. It would be way too easy for her to say the MPs picked up his cash during the search, and he’d be shit out of luck.

So, after politely refusing her offer to hold onto it she dropped some more wisdom on him. “The way to beat the pat downs it to put whatever your hiding where it can’t be found, or make it look like its part of you.”

“I already told you I’m holding onto it,” he shot back.

She held up her hands to ward off his growing frustration. “You’re not getting me, Coop. I’m not saying someplace they can’t find it in the ship. I’m saying someplace they can’t find it on your person.”

“On my person? What…” It took a second for the lightbulb to go off. “Oh no…no…no…no…no. I’m not shoving these chips up my ass.”

Aiko just shrugged. “Then you need to disguise it to look like its part of you.”

That turned out to be the more complicated of the solutions, but it was going to cost a lot more than five thousand bucks for Coop to get violated like that. He’d put that number in seven figures if ever.

The solution to that was in sick bay, so Coop quasi-faked having some leg pain and went to get checked up. Having so many guys dead and injured actually helped, because things weren’t locked up and stored properly. There was just too much going on, and the medicals needed supplies readily available. They couldn’t be going back and forth to the supply closet locking things up every time they left the room. So, while the medics were poking, prodding, and scanning Coop’s newest appendage, Aiko slipped in and stole some Insta-Flesh.

Insta-Flesh was a concoction of nanites and stem cells that was sprayed on wounds with the primary purpose of sealing them. There were some coagulative attributes that stopped the bleeding while nanites bound the cells to whatever other flesh cell they were trying to fix. It could be used for scraped knees or a bullet that tore through part of an internal organ. The stuff had virtually eliminated soldiers bleeding out on the battlefield. Half a dozen companies made a variety of them, but the one they stole from sick bay had the Gold Technologies G on the bottom of the bottle.

“Ok, what now?” Coop asked when they got back to the privacy of her quarters.

“I see one of two options,” her eyes gravitated below the belt. “One, you tape this to your dong and just say your thick when the Chief feels you up. Two, you stick it to your gooch and spray a crapload of this stuff on over it to fool scanners when he gets all up in there, and believe me he will. He’s close to retirement and he’s not going to get fucked by a couple junior enlisted smuggling shit.”

Coop looked at his stack of chips, and they made the decision for him. Stacked together, the five grand in chips was less than eight centimeters.

“I can’t do number one, and you know why.” He pointed at his crotch. “I’m three times the size of that. What am I going to tell him when he pats me down and sees only the bottom third is thick? ‘Sorry, Chief, I’ve got a dick tumor’. Yeah, that’ll go over well.” He rolled his eyes. “We’ve got to do number two.”

“Fine by me.” Coop didn’t like the glint in her eyes. “Bend over, Cooper. This is about to get interesting.”

Coop spent the whole process worried she was going to try and stick something in his ass, but they were short on time, and he couldn’t hang around in her quarters for too long. The NCOs might be turning a blind eye to their extracurricular activities, but if they started to slack on their duties they wouldn’t be so accommodating.

So now, Coop stood in formation with the rest of the crew and marines with five grand secured by tape and sprayed with a healthy amount of Insta-flesh between his nuts and asshole.

Thankfully, Coop was in full armor now. He’d passed the CPO’s pat down, and now he just needed to beat the MPs.

Like a good leader, Ben submitted to the testing first. They ran two wands over him. The first was a standard sniffer, but he didn’t recognize the second.

“Stand with your arms spread above your head and your feet more than shoulder-width apart.” The MP Officer instructed.

Ben did what he was told, and they ran the second wand meticulously over his body – including over the gooch area.

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Coop didn’t budge since he was still at the position of attention, but he felt stress-induced diarrhea building in his gut.

He watched the MPs go person by person through the formation, and it was torture. Coop was in the middle of the rear squad of marines, which meant he was able to envision every possible shitty scenario of how this was going to play out while the MPs went through Argo’s crew and the two other marine squads.

Once a person was cleared they were free to leave. Argo’s people went back on board, but the attached marines took off. Coop watched as Aiko passed her inspection and went back onboard. She didn’t even glance in Coop’s direction.

“Private First Class Cooper.” An MP SGT was the one who finally got to inspect Coop. “I see you’re promotable. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.” Coop kept his tone as calm as he could.

He thought to himself to instill a little positive motivation in the moment.

“You’ve seen everyone else do it, so spread’um.” The SGT started directing the sniffer wand over him before he’d even complied.

Coop had meticulously cleaned his armor as ordered by SGT O’Neil. There were bound to be particles of something illegal on it after the firefight, and the NCO didn’t want Coop testing positive. That cleaning paid off when the MP SGT pulled the wand away with a satisfied nod.

“Open all compartments and hatches.”

Coop had expected this next command. He hit the OPEN ALL PORTS function on his HUD, and the escape of released air sounded like a long, high-pitched fart.

“Damn, Buddy, you need a shower.” The MP waved a hand in front of his face.

With all the work that had to get done, and catching a few Z’s, Coop hadn’t had time to shower since the battle.

“That’s the first thing on my to-do list.” He grinned back.

The MP was thorough. He stuck his hand in all the compartments and used the second wand to scan them. He even looked down the barrel of his 125mm artillery piece. Coop knew for a fact that thing was spotless.

“Ok, almost done.” The MP had Coop close all of the ports and stand there with his arms and legs spread while he did another pass with the second wand. He traced Coop’s body with the device, and when he got to the crotch area Coop held his breath and waited.

The MP passed right over the area and ten seconds later… All clear. You’re free to go, Cooper.”

Coop gave the MP a nod, threw his bag of belongings over his shoulder and walked toward the hangar bay’s exit.

He gave it five minutes and several decks before he pulled out his PAD. He’d only been gone a few days but he had hundreds of messages. Most of them were marked routine company mail and he scanned them to get a look at what Charlie Company 2223rd Infantry Battalion had been doing in his absence. It looked like weather had pushed back their range qualification, so he was going to make that after all. After shooting at people and large, antiquated naval artillery pieces he was down for shooting at some holographic imagery in a calm environment.

There was an email from LT Wentworth telling him to report to her at his earliest convenience. It didn’t say anymore, so he looked at that coming meeting with trepidation. He continued to scroll up and found an email from Sandy. He gulped when he saw the title was in all caps. He had hacked into her PAD while she was asleep and raised his MEDPRO status to green so he could get paid and go on this mission with LCDR Gold. It had been worth it, but he’d probably burned the bridge.

He opened the message and nearly walked right into a wall. It was a picture of Sandy…naked…with a come hither look in her eyes.

Coop knew where his first stop was going to be.

While he continued to look at the photo his PAD pinged with a new message. It was from Aiko. All it had was an address and a time. Coop looked it up and his smile grew even bigger. It was one of the raunchiest strip clubs in Town Center.

Coop thought as he planned out the evening. He could make that work by taking a late shuttle, but he’d still have to sign back in with CQ.

Coop wasn’t someone to count his chickens before they were hatched, but he had a good feeling about this. What wasn’t feeling great was the cash hidden where the sun didn’t shine. That shit was beginning to chafe.

Eve Berg

Location: CWS Agincourt, Uncharted System, Eastern Block

“Come on, Bro. Don’t let this bitch beat you!”

Eve didn’t let the comment get to her. She had her hand wrapped around the hand of the soldier in front of her. He had a Marine Recon tat on his upper bicep that was engorged with blood, stretched taught, with veins popping out.

“Don’t listen to that chicken shit, Berg. Beat his ass!”

There was only so much a human being could do on the long voyages between the stars, and that was true for the special operations soldiers aboard CWS Agincourt. They had to make their own fun. The simulated ranges, working out, and dry runs of the assault on the Blockies’ Alcubierre Launchers that they were going to be engaging in had gotten old fast. So, some ingenious NCO had the idea for a tournament – an arm wrestling tournament.

Since they were all receiving combat pay, and that money was burning a hole in everyone’s pocket because they were sitting in Alcubierre most of the time, the stakes on this match were high. Eve was a big girl, but the Recon marine was bigger. She’d found he was also overconfident and thought he could brute force this whole thing. He was wrong, and she was about to make him pay. She had the better grip, the leverage, and she was slowly driving the guy’s hand toward the opposite side of the table.

The table was reinforced, bolted into place, and padded to keep it from shattering under the force of the two soldiers going at it.

She could see the guy’s eyes bulging out of his head. He had no idea what he was going to tell his buddies. He was about to lose to a Ranger, and a girl at that. A few more centimeters and she pressed the guy’s hand into the pad.

“That’s game!” A Fleet petty officer was refereeing in an attempt to keep the games honest between the different SPECOPS branches.

Cheers went up from the Rangers. The Recon guys all looked sullen, while the SAS and SEALs studied her win and planned accordingly. They’d figure out her strategy, and she wouldn’t be able to pull it again.

“Way to go, Berg!” It didn’t matter at the moment because right now she was the champ.

The money rolling into her account proved it. She’d been 9:1 odds, and she’d put five hundred down on herself. She was seeing dollar signs in her vision.

“All Hands, five minutes until transition. I say again, All Hands, five minutes until transition.” The ship wide intercom announced.

“One more!” The gathered operators yelled, so a SEAL and SAS guy took their seats at the table and went at it.

Eve didn’t pay it any attention. She’d brought honor to her branch, and now it was time to get her head back in the game. She pulled up the operations order on her PAD and scrolled down to their current phase of operations.

They were about to enter an unnumbered and uncharted system deep in Blockie space. It would take eighteen hours to reach their next departure point. During that time the attached supply ships would make their final resupply of the Third Fleet. They were scheduled to conduct those operations over forty-eight hours. During that time, all of the final readiness checks for the attached Infantry division would be conducted, because they had a sixteen hours Alcubierre transit before they arrived in Yangon. Then it was show time. The biggest invasion in recent history would be underway, and Eve was right at the tip of that very big spear.