Mark “Coop” Cooper
Location: North American Eastern Seaboard, Earth, United Commonwealth of Colonies
“You’re on my sensor,” Coop grumbled and tried to shift the SSG and the man yelled in protest.
“Fucking careful you big metal dildo,” the SSG griped as he tried to get comfortable in his new position.
“How about you keep your fat ass where I tell you to,” Coop shot back.
Morale had deteriorated over the last few hours as Coop led what was left of the squad north toward the naval hospital. For the most part, the journey was uneventful. They made their way through small towns far away from the metropolis’ that had been long evacuated. The empty urban jungle helped hide them from enemy sensors, or at least Coop hoped so, but the lack of activity and life was freaky to say the least. After losing most of the squad in the missile strike, and the long trek north, everyone was starting to fray around the edges.
With each lumbering step, Coop covered ten times as much distance as a normal human, but that just turned a mind-numbing walk into a torturous journey. It was made even worse that the grunts were on edge and trigger happy. Since setting off, they’d seen enemy ships fly overhead twice. Both times they were able to get undercover and avoid detection. That, or the enemy detected them and didn’t see them as a threat. The only kill the grunts had scored in their favor was a startled rabbit that got spooked when Coop tripped over an air-car. Since no one knew how to skin and clean the hare, the grunts were going hungry.
Hunger was another big war-boner killer. The grunts’ supplies had been obliterated during the missile strike. They hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, which when trapped in enemy territory, felt like an eternity. Fatigue and sloppiness were a real danger now, so Coop was picking up the slack. He had his food and water tube with enough nutrients to keep him going for a week; more if he rationed. As far as he was concerned, he’d go stir crazy in the MOUNT before he ran out of food.
Now that the SSG’s aforementioned ass was off his sensor array, he had a clear view of his surroundings. From hard-learned lessons, he kept his sensor sweeps contained at one hundred meters, with a built-in shutdown if anything that couldn’t be catalogued was detected. Audio and visual would have to do for anything over that distance. He’d suffer the first few seconds of a fight without the data, but that was better than corrupting his MOUNT or more of his weapons systems. He was still bitter about losing his missiles.
Coop was careful to put his size million metal boot down to avoid crushing the air-cars that were packed close together on the street. Apparently, people had been trying to evacuate whatever town this was when the attack hit, and they opted to use their feet for once instead of technology. He didn’t know if they made it, but if they left in a rush then there might still be something the grunts could use. He scanned left and right, looking for anything useful, and his sensors sent back a positive chime.
“Let’s take ten,” Coop stated. “There’s a cantina across the street, and I’m reading food fabber stock. Whip up some nonperishable supplies and grab a bite to eat. Make sure to take a shit too, because I don’t plan on stopping again until we hit Bethesda.” With STRATNET still offline he was relying on his suit’s digital archives. If he was reading that correctly, then they were still a hundred and fifty kilometers from their destination.
“You heard our big metal friend, get to it,” the SSG hoped down the five meters from his perch and did a combat roll to prevent breaking his ankle.
They hurried into the fabber shop, while Coop turned his attention to their surroundings. The buildings here were low, if packed closely together for another ten blocks as part of the urban planning. Between them, and a grouping of hundred-plus-meters towers five kilometers in the distance, were warehouses and plants. It was standard urban planning: homes on the outskirts, support infrastructure, manufacturing and fabrication, and at the center was the financial and administrative district, along with where most public services were located. Eventually, if things got too crowded, PHAs would be constructed.
As he stood, Coop had a commanding view of the area with his head being a meter higher than the tallest building. That was how he spotted the incoming shuttles in the distance.
“Take cover!” he yelled, and searched for cover. The grunts were clear in their shop, but he was out in the open with nowhere to go.
He circled, looking for cover or concealment, and tripped over two parked air-cars as he did. He tumbled backwards and into the face of a building. It held for a moment, as he skidded toward his ass, but then it gave way. He collapsed inward and crushed whatever goods were on the shelves of the convenience store.
“That’s not inconspicuous,” the SSG stated as he bounced an IR laser off a comms panel on Coop’s leg.
He had a point. Half of Coop’s MOUNT was laying in the street, with its boots up on top of two crushed air-cars, while the other half was lying in the store. The one bit of good news was that the roof was still intact except a small portion near the entrance. That gave Coop an idea. Making sure to stay low, he crawled further in the shop. It completely destroyed the interior, but as far as he was concerned, if the owner was still alive, he could bill the Ministry of War.
It was cramped in the store, but Coop did his best to orient his weapons toward the ceiling. While he waited, he replayed the footage to see what was headed his way. It looked like the same formation he’d seen back on the coast: fighters flying escort, a troop transport, and a big cone thing they were all protecting.
“They’re angling away from us. Looks like we’re not on their flight path. Maintain cover for a few more minutes. Make sure it isn’t a feint.” The last thing they needed was to come out to early and find multiple fighters engaging them.
A few minutes passed and the SSG signaled it was still all clear, so, one grinding meter at a time, Coop scooted out of the store.
“That was uneventful,” the PVT was nervously flipping the safety of his weapon on and off.
Coop gave the PVT a hard stare, but no emotion was conveyed on his metal exterior, so he didn’t get the message. With a sigh, Coop turned his attention to the horizon. They still had a hundred and fifty kilometers to go, and based on the direction of the squadron’s flight, they were headed into the lion’s den.
“Okay,” he brought up the old digital maps and tried to plan a roundabout route. “If we…”
His planning was interrupted as something flickered in the distance.
“What the hell,” everyone in their small group said as one.
Coop rewound his sensor footage and played it again in slow motion, while streaming it over tight beam to the SSG. It was only a split second on the slowed down version, but it was there. The blue flash of a shield powering up.
“Do we have any PDCs anywhere around here?” Coop asked the question, but he already knew the answer.
“No,” the SSG replied. “The nearest PDC is behind us.”
Coop almost reached up to scratch his head but stopped. The grating of metal on metal could alert the enemy to their presence. His range finder pinged off the new shield, and it was roughly five kilometers away,
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“Staff Sergeant, are there any bunkers in the area?”
The SSG was slow to respond. “Over there,” he pointed toward where the shield had emerged. As the NCO pointed weapons fire erupted.
Normally it would be incoming fire trying to penetrate into the shield, but Coop’s sensors quickly sorted out the truth. The shield was hundreds of meters high, engulfing the central district. A PDC would have that kind of juice, but not a civil defense bunker. Their only job was to cram as many civilians in as possible and feed them until a threat passed. Hopefully in a couple of weeks. This shield didn’t belong to the Commonwealth, and judging by the explosions of heavy ordinance against it, whatever unit had been stationed to guard the bunker was firing outward.
Even more confounding, was that randomness of the fire. There was no target. Mortars, artillery, as well as small-arms fire seemed to be erupting all across the shield’s face. It just looked like they were trying to bring it down; not actually targeting the enemy.
“Sir,” the SSG interrupted, but Coop didn’t need the heads up. He saw it too.
Everything inside the shield seemed to be shimmering. Like a mirage in the distance.
“What the fuck?” Coop queried the AI to figure out what the hell was happening.
A minute later he had the report. {A long-range ping of the shield’s surface indicates a gradually rising air temperature within the shield. Currently, it is 50 degrees Celsius, now 51.5 degrees.} The AI updated.
“Holy shit,” Coop’s jaw dropping inside the MOUNT. “It’s a giant microwave. They’re cooking the people inside.”
“Why take POWs when you can BBQ them and eat them. Fucking aliens,” the SSG spat, but Coop was already moving. His stride increasing as he broke into a run.
“Sir, what…”
“We can’t just leave people to become some ET’s dinner!” Coop shouted back, leaving the grunts behind.
It wasn’t good for his health, but he couldn’t just sit there and do nothing while the alien invaders tortured humans like they were ants under a microscope.
***
Benjamin Gold
Location: Venus Lagrange Point, Sol System, United Commonwealth of Colonies
“Make a hole!” Ben yelled as he came to another crowded passageway.
“What?” a slightly balding man in an expensive smartcloth suit looked over his shoulder with an annoyed expression.
“Move!” Ben growled and barrled forward with his shoulder lowered.
“Hey…owww,” the man grunted as Ben’s mass threw him aside.
The refugee fleet had been on the run for hours, and the Lagrange point they were approaching was on the opposite side of the sun from Earth, so they no longer had a visual on what was occurring. Depite the distance and inconvenience to get to this jump point, the Lagrange points were obvious choices to place the new alien tech. They were essentially parking spaces in space, which held their orbit despite all the gravitational force of the system being exerted around it. That was where the launchers had been located, and now they were where the beacons and infrastruutre needed to facilitate portaling were being installed.
The last images of Earth had not been good. First Fleet had lost thirty percent of its strength, the Blockies were pretty much floating debris, and the Euros were powering up their engines in an apparent retreat from Luna despite the moon’s impressive defensive armaments. They’d taken some enemy ships with them. Apparently, the Blockie’s kamakazi charge had been able to do some damage, but the loss of an entire fleet wasn’t worth the price in blood. The enemy still had full control of Earth’s orbitals, and had been landing troops and supplies for the better part of an hour before the refugees slipped behind the cover of the Sun. None of the enemy ships looked to be in pursuit.
Ben finally reached the end of the corridor, and pushed through the open double airlock onto the battleship’s massive flight deck. Spacers and civilians comingled everywhere as the ship’s captain was still trying to get a full accountability of everyone and figure out how to get them to safety. The Lagrange point the Gold Technologies carrier fleet was holding was only set up for portalling. The point being such a long flight from Earth or Mars made it uneconomical to develop before now. The inner system of Sol was much less populated and industrialized than the outer system. There just weren’t as many resources to attain, and terraforming Venus wasn’t worth the cost. Although, that might be changing depending on how Earth came out of this invasion. Mars was going to take decades to fix, maybe Earth too, and as the only other habitable planet in Sol’s goldilock’s zone, Venus was looking pretty good right about now.
{Location?} he pinged his IOR again, and saw his target was only fifty meters to his southwest.
He spotted the shuttle with the distinctive Gold Technologies logo on it over the heads of the spacers and civilians, and used his mass to push forward.
“Ben?” Jacobi was the first to spot him, and blazed a trail in his direction. They collided like a thunderclap and embraced. “I was so worried,” she hid it well, but he could see it in her eyes. “I knew this was your ship, but everything is just a clusterfuck and…” she left the rest unsaid. Way too many people had died today, and were still dying.
“Ben,” his mother was the next to reach him. Miranda Gold wasn’t easy to rattle, but she looked frayed as she looked him over like any concerned mother would.
“I’m fine,” he assured her as his father approached.
A posse of people were huddled around him, but the field of holoscreens he liked to keep around his person were absent. It made sense. If TACCOM and STRATENET were down, so was the civilian net. He motioned for the small group to stay back, but one woman continued along with him, it took Ben a moment to realize it was Hope. Her face was puffy and red from crying. Something had happened.
“Ben,” his father’s voice was solemn. No other words needed to be said.
“Dad,” Ben nodded back.
“I’ve spoken with your Captain and Admiral Berg; you’re being detached from the ship to act as a liason with Gold Technologies. We need to get as many people to Alpha Centauri as possible,” he lowered his voice, “and there aren’t enough portal-capable ships to carry everyone. The chain of command is making the decision about who goes and who stays. Those that stay are going to board the outdated vessels and make for the nearest launcher.”
Ben went over the map of Sol System in his head and the blood drained from his face. Based upon the current orbital positioning what was left of the refugee fleet was going to have to pass Earth and Mars to reach the closest launcher, as well as the enemy fleet that had turned Sol’s greatest forces into swiss cheese.
“They can’t do that,” Ben hissed. “That’s suicide.”
“They aren’t even getting any data back from the launcher when they attempt to make contact. Whatever took down all the nets could have corrupted it too. They could be walking into a trap,” Jacobi stated, in what sounded like an argument she’d made to the titan of industry already.
“They can either try or wait here for everyone to make a round trip, but I’m not sending my ships back in here blind,” he gestured to the carrier group they were approaching.
Ben felt rage build in his gut and he wanted to punch his dad square in the nose, but Jacobi’s hand on his arm stopped him.
“Don’t think I like doing this,” Thomas saw the movement. “The evacuation notice came so quickly that we have no idea where Dillon or Lillian are. We don’t even know if they made it off Earth. I’m not making this decision lightly. I have to weigh the lives of the tens of thousands of people in my fleet with the tens of thousands that won’t be able to come with us. You’re a naval officer, what call would you make?”
Ben ground his teeth, but reluctantly acknowledged his father’s point. Without proper intel, you could lose the fleet and civilians. Commodore Zahn was already taking on as many people as he could without burning out the life support.
“Fuck,” Ben exhaled. He really wished he could just hit something.
“I see you’ve come to your senses,” Thomas glowered. “Let’s go, we’re on the next shuttle, and the Commodore wants to meet with us to go over details. I’ll put you on that. You’ve got the experience now.”
Ben was shocked at that. He’d thought his father would want to be deeply involved in the process for nothing more than the PR this entire situation would generate. Ben could already see the headlines: Gold Technologies to the rescue . . . or . . . Tens of Thousands saved by the Golds. The more cynical side of Ben wondered if his father was distancing himself if everything went to hell. That way he could blame Ben and Zahn and point to them as the naval officers in charge.
Jacobi clearly thought the same thing based on her frown, but she grabbed his hand and held on tight. Even pulling him toward the waiting shuttle like every moment they were on the battleship put them in more danger. Ben looked around at Jack Frost as he made his way up the shuttle’s ramp. His IOR had confirmed his new assignment, but it still felt wrong to leave the battleship at this moment of crisis. With everything that was going on, he had a nagging feeling he wouldn’t set foot on her again.
The moment he set foot off the ramp, it began to whine closed behind him. He looked around the luxurious seating area, and noticed only five of the twenty-five seats were filled. He shook his head, and saw his fiancé doing the same thing.
His father was nothing if not a hypocrite. He would allow his ships to be used to ferry thousands to safety, but if those people thought they were going to ride with the Gold’s themselves, they were dreaming.