Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: CWS Pride of Summer, Lone Star System, United Commonwealth of Colonies

They missed the time hack. Coop stewed as the Spyder’s landing gears set down aboard the Commonwealth battleship.

The pilot had skill, the bird barely jostled as its hydraulics took the load, and the engines started to power down. “Let’s go people,” Coop stood up in the troop compartment. “Wrack ‘em and stack ‘em,” he ordered.

The M1 MOUNT responded to his commands, but it never had the fluidity of the one Gold had produced. It was clunky. If his IOR told his leg to raise, it rose, but it wasn’t smooth like butter. When you were fighting for your life and every nanosecond mattered, you wanted it to be smooth like butter.

He stomped down the Spyder’s rear ramp into the cavernous space that was battleship’s flight deck. Word had gotten around that they were putting together new classifications of ships; something that would seamlessly adapt all the new technologies, and be able to implement all the new tactics learned at Sol and in the Commonwealth’s conflicts against the Windsor’s. Pride of Summer was one of those new builds.

A little longer and sleeker than previous battleships, the configuration was still the Commonwealth’s preferred dagger shape. The differences were along the hull; more energy mounts and less missile launchers. Ideally, if someone was ever able to design a convertible platform, they’d be golden; but that wasn’t the case, and didn’t look like it would be for anytime soon. The ship also moved away from the early bubble shield configuration. Coop just hoped the people who built this metal tub did a better job with overlapping shield coverage than they had on the new MOUNTs. It was hard enough do aftermarket configurations on a four-meter war machine. He couldn’t imagine doing it on a multi-kilometer warship.

Whatever the new changes might be, it didn’t look like the ship’s flight deck had changed a bit. Spyders, drones, as well as a handful of space and atmospheric fighters were specifically arranged to be able to scramble quickly and efficiently. A quick count told Coop, they’d be able to land the entire half-battalion on the ship’s manifest.

Coop whistled in his suit as his IOR connected with the ship’s AI, his permissions were validated, and he was able to look over everything he was working with.

He knew it wasn’t his place to question, but he just couldn’t help it. He was about to take a team he didn’t know, in armor that wasn’t combat tested, out to fight a nation that shouldn’t be their enemy, and all over rocks. he sighed as he noticed the welcoming committee.

A lieutenant stood nearby tapping his foot. He had fleet markings on his CMUs, not infantry. This guy worked for the skipper. Despite the man’s impatience, Coop had shit he had to do first. He helped the support crew that was hauling all the shit a MOUNT needed to function off the Spyder. There was no other place on the ship big enough to house the armor, so they’d sectioned off a portion of the flight deck for his squad. Along with the annoying PVT, he hauled the charging cradles over from the Spyder.

Once the first one was set up, he maneuvered his MOUNT into it. He made sure all the charging parts were lined up, and had a good connection, before he started the dismount process. Slowly, much slower than the Gold MOUNTs, the armor peeled away to reveal an exit he constantly scraped his back against. You didn’t necessarily have to be a big ass motherfucker like Coop to pilot a MOUNT, but all the first-generation pilots were HI. The designers hadn’t really taken that into account when they built the new MOUNTs. If Coop ever had to dismount and haul ass, he was dead.

A final wiggle, and be popped free of the MOUNT, worked his shoulders and neck around a few times to loosen them up, and then headed for the LT. The man, more like a kid, looked fresh out the academy. He might even have had an accelerated graduation to get his ass into the fleet to fill the hulls out. On-the-job training was probably better than what they taught in school anyway.

Coop thought. He hadn’t even graduated high school, and he had the highest medal for valor the military gave.

“Sir,” he nodded as he approached the kid. He might be a CW2, with two black stripes down his CMUs, but the LT technically outranked him.

“Chief,” the LT nodded back. At least he had the lingo down.

Warrant Officer were still new to the infantry. Ninety-nine percent were still in the armored cavalry corps, but there was a study underway to see if having the rank available elsewhere made sense, and/or motivated soldiers to better results. When the ranks came back, they had to look all the way back to early twenty-second century for naming conventions. WO1s were just addressed as Mister. Why? Coop had no fucking idea. It sounded stupid to him, but the infantry had this thing about tradition, and if it could dig up some old shit and make it new again, they would. CW2 through CW5 were all called Chief, because that’s what they were. They were chief subject matter experts in whatever their specialty was. For Coop, that was driving big, metal war machines and killing who the Commonwealth told him to kill. Not a bad life, and definitely one that kept him on his toes. Something the fleet LT knew nothing about. Thus, being a kid in his eyes despite being close to the same age.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I’m here to take you to the skipper,” the young man turned on his heel – a move that would make a parade ground NCO feel proud – and marched off.

“After you,” Coop muttered under his breath and followed.

People instinctually moved out of the way as Coop walked past. There were maybe a handful of people out of the crew of three thousand who were as big as him, and humans naturally avoided a bigger predator.

Coop had been on battleships before, and from what he remembered, they weren’t heading for the bridge. He was quickly proved wrong when they reached a door guarded by a pair of marines. The door chimed as the ship’s AI validated their IORs and acknowledged they had access to the inner sanctum of the warship. A flicker of energy told him a shield was deactivated, and then a meter-thick door slowly slid open.

Coop gave the new designers some props. The Corpies sure as shit knew where to hit the older models to do the most damage, so it was smart to move stuff around a bit.

The LT led him through the doorway to the controlled chaos of a ship this size getting underway. Tactical wasn’t doing much, but communication and navigations were talking with planetary traffic control to get out of the yards without running over something smaller and more fragile. The holo-tank was populated with the surrounding space, and was showing a lot of green, friendly contacts. It was Coop’s first look at the Lone Star system since arriving.

Space was bustling with commerce. Most were headed for the yards, but maybe a third was directed toward the planet. Below, Alamo looked like an angry yellow-orange ball, but despite the environment’s challenges, humanity was thriving. The Commonwealth might have been knocked down a peg or two, but it had set up shop here in record time.

“Lieutenant,” a voice called out from the raised command dais at the center of the bridge.

Coop had heard the voice before. he followed the LT forward to where Captain Derrick Berg was standing with his hands behind his back.

Judging by the look on his face, he was either unhappy to see Coop, or severely constipated.

“Chief Cooper,” he regarded Coop with cold eyes.

“Sir,” Coop couldn’t help the word sounded more like a growl coming out of his throat. The LT noticed the tension in the air, and found something better to do.

“I don’t like that you’re here, but I have my orders,” Derrick started. “Our mission is to check on the distress call in . . .” he had to look up the alpha numeric of the system. “Summer will make sure that the discussion comes out in the Commonwealth’s favor. You and you tin men are a last resort. I want you to stay out of my way, but be ready to move at a moment’s notice. Am I clear?”

“Like a well-hydrated piss, sir,” Coop smiled at Derrick’s expression.

“Get back to your people,” he ordered.

“With pleasure,” Coop mumbled and got out of there.

As he did, he composed a message to be relayed through the yard’s transceivers. {Guess who has two thumbs and gets to hang around Uncle Derrick for the next few weeks . . . this guy,} he used a nearby mirror to take a picture of himself. He then used his IOR’s editing tools to draw a gun blowing his own brains out. He made it extra bloody before sending it off the Eve.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t kill her brother out of sheer frustration. The dude just rubbed him the wrong way.

***

Benjamin Gold

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

Ben would always think of them as Spyders. Half the Confederation’s air lift capability was the old Commonwealth design, but Gold had manufacturing up and running on the next generation of the transport/close-air-support within a week of the Confederation declaring their independence. Like everything else Ben’s new nation developed, it was more technologically advanced, but smaller than what the Commonwealth built. Part of that was because the Confed armed forces were just smaller. They didn’t have the systems and bodies to pull like the Collies and Blockies. They were nowhere near as strapped as the Windsor’s, but they were leaning into their technological advantage to level the playing field.

The new and improved Spyder – despite officially being named after some bird of prey on Aurum – cut through the thin atmosphere and banked around the makeshift POW camp that had quickly been established. The survivors of Red Tide had been evacuated down to the planet, on the continent opposite where the survey team was investigating some rich mineral deposits. They were given some temporary prefab shelters, and enough food and supplies to be fine until Ben received orders of what to do with them.

The destroyer only had two Spyders in its inventory, and with the prisoner transport, both were in continuous use. Ben went down with the last load of prisoners to oversee everything and meet up with the surveyors he was supposed to coordinate in the first place before this shitstorm landed in his lap.

A dozen enemy crew, along with the captain – who looked like he’s taken a bite out of a lemon – sat less than five feet from him. If they wanted to, they could bum-rush him, but they’d have to get through the hulk in battle armor first. Half a squad of Confederation marines were playing bodyguard.

The individual soldier was a key place where you saw the difference between Commonwealth and Confederation. With a trained force of less than two hundred thousand deployable soldiers, the Confeds put their money where their mouth was. Their regular grunts were closer to the HI troopers than Collie infantry.

Confed marines wore an exoskeleton with a personalized shield generator on top of armored anti-ballistic plating, and a secondary laminate layer to disperse energy attacks. Unlike Collie HI, they didn’t have spine-mounted artillery or swatters, but the extra power did allow them to carry a big-ass gun. A Confed marine’s weapon was designed to fire either a six-millimeter solid projectile or energy beam. Gold Technologies spent time and money making sure the weapon could do either. All it required was a battery pack or ammunition magazine. At the moment, the weapons all had magazines in them; so, if the Collie crew tried anything, the marines would make the back of the bird look like a Jackson Pollock painting.

The crew didn’t say anything. They knew when they were beat, and Ben was glad they sat there in silence. He was glad they did, because he didn’t feel like rubbing anything in anyone’s face. He’d lost people in the fight. Not as many, but dead was still dead. It was the first time he’d lost anyone, and it was a feeling he didn’t want to experience again.

The Spyder touched down outside the POW camp with a small jostle. The back opened and the Collies started to stream out. The captain looked over his shoulder to give Ben one last look of deep hatred, before following his people onto the barren landscape. The little tent city they’d erected was a short walk away. There were no guard towers, or even guards. That was the great thing about a mostly deserted planet. You could abandon people in the middle of nowhere, and the planet itself was the prison. It allowed him to put his manpower and limited resources to better use.

With FTL communication, portaling, and everything else that mankind had learned about interstellar travel in the last few years, he knew he’d have his hands full sooner rather than alter.