Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Unnamed Planet, Contested System, Unaligned Space

They didn’t take any fire on the way down, which is always a pleasant way to start off the operation. Coop, the SGT, and a company of grunts set down about five klicks from what their sensors told them was the main enemy installation on the planet. They put some pretty serious terrain features between them and the enemy because five clicks was spitting distance for artillery.

Coop and the SGT were the last to arrive, and the LT in charge of the company practically had a forward operating base up and running. PVTs and PFC were scurrying around like worker ants to remove the extra ammunition and supplies from the Spyder as Coop lumbered down the rear ramp and scanned the area.

A ring of swatters and entrenchments encircled the wide perimeter that contained the temporary LZ. The Spyders wouldn’t stay on the ground for long, but right now there didn’t seem to be any threat. He spotted two dots in the sky running overwatch and gathering intelligence.

he was mildly impressed with what the LT had been able to pull off while Coop made the flight down.

“Chief,” the young officer in question came marching up. He didn’t even come up to the big MOUNTs waist. “Let’s talk.”

Coop nodded his big metal helm and followed the LT to a portable node that had been established under some cammo-netting. Coop was forced to squat down like a baseball catcher to even see inside. Projecting out of the node was a 3D rendering of the space between the camp and enemy outpost. It looked like it was getting real-time data streamed to it, but even then, Coop wasn’t seeing much. Whoever the enemy commander was, he wasn’t an idiot.

Coop would give his left nut to fight against an incompetent, prideful asshole.

“Our best estimate is that we’re going to be facing off against a few squads at the most. They’ll be entrenched here . . . here . . . and here,” he pointed out likely positions. “I’m expecting heavy weapons likely here and here,” two spots were highlighted in an angry red color. “Those are going to be your job.”

Coop figured as much. The Commonwealth might have the numerical advantage, and more firepower if the Confed’s didn’t have MOUNTs, but the enemy was using the terrain wisely. The outpost was only a few thousand square feet, but it was on a plateau in a mountain range. The LT had set up camp on the nearest plateau, but it was going to be a hell of a trip to get there. Ideally, some sort of air assault would be better, but that would put lives at risk. A Spyder on approach was a juicy target, even with recent upgrades. The assault shuttles’ shielding wasn’t great compared to something a ship could pull off, and its greatest asset was still its maneuverability. A few good hits could bring it, and every soul on board, crashing into a mountainside.

Since Captain Berg was a stickler for proper resource allocation, and didn’t want any risk involved in the operation, all the grunts were going to hump it a couple klicks through the mountains to assault the enemy stronghold. It sounded something from a fantasy movie, not twenty-fifth century combat.

It was going to royally suck for the grunts.

The LT went over the proposed routes, a few alternatives they could divert to if the enemy came out to fight beforehand, which Coop fully expected. He went over the order of march. Coop would be with his lead squad, not on point, but close enough to help deal with anything that popped up, and the SGT would be in the rear as a reserve or fire support; whatever the LT wanted. All in all, it was a solid plan. In Coop’s experience, good plans stood a better chance of not going to shit when the bullets started to fly; but it was still a coin toss.

“We’re setting out in thirty, so do any last diagnostics or maintenance you need,” the LT informed before dismissing him.

He sent a brief message to the SGT with all the important bits, and went to focus on his loadout. This looked like it was going to be an infantry-on-infantry scenario. The enemy didn’t have any air assets, and the heavy weapons described were pretty typical. Maybe there would be some mortars they’d fire to harass the Commonwealth on their march, but other than that it looked like this was going to be a simple brawl.

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Coop made sure he had plenty of 6mm ammo. This was an operation where the dual 10mm cannons on the old MOUNT would have come in handy. His graviton cannon and magnetic accelerator were both in the green as far as diagnostics were concerned. His mini-missile loadout was full, and all the warheads were just waiting to be calibrated. Lastly, he doublechecked his cyber status. He’d done a recent download onboard Summer, but he made sure to do some final function test to make sure there weren’t any glitches that would fuck him in the middle of a firefight. All that came back good, so when the seven squads of grunts started to move out – the other three squads were staying to hold the mini-FOB as a last line of defense, and keep the Spyders secure – toward the enemy position, he was good as he was going to be.

This would be the first time fighting the new M1 MOUNTs in an actual operation. The designers were practically salivating for the data. Coop’s only hope was to live long enough to give it to them.

Bounding overwatch where you could have the enemy firing down on you from a concealed stone outcropping was nerve-wracking as hell, but over the first two kilometers no one tried to kill them. That changed about halfway to the objective.

His MOUNT identified the sonic warble of something coming at them through the atmosphere, and his swatters automatically reacted. They swiveled onto target and opened fire, then they shifted, fired again, and repeated that process over the next eight seconds.

Coop felt his heartrate increase. He caught some explosions in the sky, but he wasn’t sure how many tubes the enemy had, or how many rounds were bearing down on them. His sensors identified them as pretty standard 100mm mortar rounds. He could take a direct hit and it wouldn’t even scratch the paint, but if a pair of those detonated too close together it could cut through a grunts personal shield. In the background, he heard the officers and NCOs yelling for people to make sure they were inside the squad shields, but that wasn’t his job. He concentrated on the explosive warheads falling out of the sky to kill them.

Thirty minutes of walking, followed by fifteen seconds of pants-shitting terror, was a pretty accurate description of the life of an infantryman. As the second to last mortar exploded about two hundred feet overhead, Coop thought everything was going to be okay. Then, his swatter stopped firing.

his eyes skimmed for malfunctions or damage, but there was nothing.

It took him about three seconds to figure out where he’d fucked up. Swatters were set to engage everything that was a threat to the MOUNT or what he designated. In this case, that was the seventy grunts all around him. For all the good that AI’s were, they still operated within parameters that people set, and when people fucked up . . . well . . .

There was an explosion overhead, far enough away that it wasn’t even remotely a threat to the Commonwealth soldiers . . . at least directly. Indirectly, the explosion knocked some pretty big pieces of the mountain loose, and those bits, enough to squash a man, were going to tumble right down on his head.

“Rock slide!” he yelled out over the net, and threw his bulk over the nearest gathering of soldiers.

Shields would help, but it was a crap shoot at this point. He just hoped he hadn’t killed more of his people by not truly understanding his environment.

***

Benjamin Gold

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

He was running . . . again. Ben didn’t let his crew see his clenched jaw as A1 put kilometers between it and the hulking behemoth that would blow them into stardust if he strayed too close. He knew it was the right thing to do, just like it had been when he’d captain Argo at Harper’s Junction.

He had momentary flashbacks to him and Aiko running for their lives, pushing the gunboat as hard as they could to avoid the enemy’s engagement envelope. They’d singed the ship’s tailpipe getting away, but they’d lived, and even better, in the end, they’d won.

he reminded himself. There was no way the Confederation was going to leave behind troops to hold a position if it was impossible.

Afterall, it was run by corporate fat cats, they understood profit, loss, and wouldn’t just waste resources for no reason, It was a maddening feeling not knowing.

“Tactical,” he kept the exhaustion out of his voice as much as possible. They’d been on their feet for close to a day, with a battle under their belts, and the A team needed a break.

The tactical OIC was gathered with the chief navigator, and they were working possible courses. She threw the data to his IOR, and he threw it on his personal holo-tank. There were a lot of options depending on how things played out: timeframe, emergence, strength, his officers had taken it all into consideration. He’d trained them well.

“Sir!” the comms OIC yelled, the first sign of cheer in the man’s voice since they arrived in this god-forsaken system. “Look!”

The icon for a portaling blared on the central holo-tank. There was no data yet, they were pretty far away and the new entrants to this game of galactic chess would want to make sure no one was going to shoot them in the ass before sending a hello.

Over the next thirty minutes, Ben got a good look at how things were shaping up; and his orders.

“It’s not as good as I expected, but it ain’t terrible. Let’s make it work,” he ordered his people and they went to join with the reinforcements the Confederation had promised.