Two Worlds – Chapter 261

Mark “Coop” Cooper

Location: Harper’s Junction, Star Kingdom of Windsor

Harper’s Junction wasn’t what this planet should be called. Shit World was much more like it, and it wasn’t all because of the clusterfuck the mission had turned into. Coop had spent more than his fair share of time rolling around in shit. He’d been in the manure truck before the ambush on the checkpoint, and after the ambush launched against the arms smugglers, he’d been forced to wade through a literal river of shit without the benefit of the breathing mask.

He’d been lucky enough to escape the noose the SWAT team and Windsor soldiers tightened around the few remaining rebels and smugglers that were still in the fight. The second the mech touched down it was all over, and it was only Coop’s enhancements that allowed him to put enough distance between himself and the warehouse before it abruptly ended.

He’d sprinted for his life and taken refuge in the refuse. The exit plan was to get to the river of crap that had developed in the dump and ride that for the few kilometers until it reached the exit grates. Ideally, they’d have some sort of tool to help get through those grates, but he could muscle through them if need be.

The problem was causing a disruption while the area was on lock down. Sensors tied those grates to the central processing center, and while their intel showed that those sensors went off frequently when shit built up and started to leak through, the techs only came around to check the readings occasionally. When a competent military command was present, it was a given any anomaly would be investigated, so Coop had to bide his time.

For two days he’d hidden in the shit, and he’d had several close calls. Sheer dumb luck was on his side. One time, a couple of cops had come within a few meters of his hiding place. The sensor must have triggered, and it got checked like he thought it would. Like any other organization in existence there was a hierarchy. Whoever was handling the cordon of the facility probably delegated the task to one of the military commanders on site. That commander, like any good commander, didn’t want his troops wadding through shit to check on a frequently faulty sensor, so that person probably farmed out the task to the local cops. The local cops, probably pissed that they had to do literal shit work, didn’t thoroughly check the area, or didn’t have the technology to check it as well as the soldiers would have. Thank god for that, because Coop would have popped on some of the higher-resolution scans. Instead, the cops came, ducked their head in to casually check the drainage pipe, and that was it. He got off lucky.

After getting out of the dump, he had to make his way back to the HQ with no supplies or backup. It wasn’t too far, he’d easily ruck marched farther than that in a day, but it was something entirely different to walk all that way sticking out like a rotting, sore thumb. His first task was to get something new to wear.

He relied on his skills as a former Rat to complete that task. On the downside was that they didn’t have clothes anywhere near his size, and getting the more expensive smartcloth garments was a no go. That was an easy way to get caught, so he ended up looting a big and tall store that wasn’t nearly big or tall enough. He made up for the absurdly short pants and shirts with boots and gloves, but a few centimeters of skin still showed at his wrist and calves.

He felt like a fool scuttling through the streets like a hunchback, and people seemed to be picking up on his awkwardness. That, or he hadn’t quite washed off all the stench. More than one person crossed the street to get away from him.

Taking it slow and steady, it took him another day to get back to headquarters. His night sleeping in a homeless shelter had actually been better than the nights at the HQ. No one asked him any questions, they didn’t ask for ID, and they didn’t care what his story was as long as he was up and out by the morning.

He reached the HQ warehouse around midafternoon, and despite wanting to report in to the SGM, he sat back and waited. He’d spent a lot of time thinking about the GYSGT when he was alone in the drainage tube, and that wasn’t doing him any favors.

He wasn’t willing to admit it right now, but the Cunningham’s last transmission had shaken him to the core. He watched soldiers die right in front of him before. He’d killed people with his bare hands and watched the life leak from their eyes, but this was different. It was like having God die right in front of him. The GYSGT had always been a mythical figure for him, even more than the SGM. She’d trained him in Basic. She’d helped hone him to the finely tuned weapon he was now. He knew she’d been injured before, but she never showed it or let it influence her decision making. It didn’t seem possible that one second, she was there giving orders to him, and the next she was dead at the hands of a multi-meter mech and he was running for his life.

The darkness of the pipe had left this mind to wander about all the horrible ways the mech could have killed her. A drug-induced sleep would have been nice then, only because he wouldn’t see her face as those rounds tore into her and her chance of escape dropped to zero. He didn’t think he’d ever forget that.

After watching the building for several hours, he made his way to the back door. He didn’t meet any resistance as he pushed through, which was his first sign something was wrong. The doors were supposed to be magnetically sealed. He moved as quickly and quietly as he could. He had no weapon, so he hoped if he did come across someone, he could close to hand-to-hand distance fast enough to keep living.

As he moved through the offices in the back that had been makeshift sleeping quarters for the resistance, he noticed everything was gone. Moreover, everything was clean. By the time he pushed into the main open area he knew he wouldn’t find anything.

<They bugged out when they heard the supply run went to hell.> It was SOP, but Coop wasn’t sure if they’d gotten word yet. Plus, he still needed to come back to see where they were going.

It was also SOP that they would leave a code to where they were going next. He looked over the main door where G2 had been spray painted. If any Windsor cryptologist came in, they’d have a hell of a time figuring that out. The simplicity was the key. Coop and the rest of the SRRT had developed a simple but uncrackable code to let each other know where they moved the HQ to.

The G referred to a reference book, in this case the Guttenberg Bible. He had the information stored on his IOR, so he easily pulled it up. G was also the seventh letter of the alphabet, so he flipped to the seventh page and went to the second word on the second line. Three was the word in that space, which meant they’d relocated to the third of their possible backup HQs. In this case, it was an under-construction high-rise in the business district with commanding views of the surrounding area. To Coop, it was the least practical of HQs, but the SGM must have had his reasons. It was another three kilometers away, so Coop waited for rush hour to hit the streets with as many bodies as possible. He still didn’t know if he’d been IDed while casing the palace, but better safe than sorry.

<Would be better if I had some nanites to shift my appearance.> Harper’s Junction was a little behind the times, but CC TV cameras running facial recognition software was pretty standard throughout the galaxy.

He set out and got to the new HQ just before the tide of people heading home subsided. He took a few laps around the building and spotted the rebel lookouts that had already spotted him. He didn’t pay them any more attention. They would have already radioed his arrival upstairs.

He took the grav lift up past the already completed sections. Some construction crews were still working late, but they looked sympathetic to the rebellion, because they didn’t bat an eye as they waved Coop to a utility elevator that took him up the back way to the top few floors.

When they pinged open, he was met with weapons drawn and a hard look on the SGM’s face. Their IORs must have synched because he waved the rebels off. Coop walked straight to the SGM to give his report. The NCOIC listened thoughtfully as Coop recounted the meet, brief engagement, and his flight to safety. He asked several questions about the GYSGT, and Coop had to give him the bad news.

Coop expected some reaction out of the man who was leading their team. He’d worked with the GYSGT longer than Coop had, and they both had a longer special ops background than him. Coop at least expected the older man to bow his head in a moment of silence, but he got nothing. That pissed him off.

“What, Sergeant?” The SGM noticed his attitude.

“You just lost your number two, Sergeant Major. She sacrificed herself for this bullshit mission and you’re acting like I forgot to bring home milk from the corner store.  I expected a little more for a fallen hero.” He wanted to scream but he kept his voice down. He knew the rebels wouldn’t take too kindly to him calling their fight for freedom bullshit.

Even more upsetting was the lack of a response he got from the SGM. <That’s just cold.> He was about to turn away.

“She’s not dead,” the SGM’s words stopped him in his tracks.

“What?”

“Gunnery Sergeant Cunningham didn’t die at the warehouse. She was gravely injured, but the Windsor’s took her alive.” He didn’t even break stride on what he was doing. “While the rest of you have been working on getting munitions and supplies for the upcoming fight, I’ve been trying to crack into the Windsor’s comms and break through some of the jamming they have going on around the city.” He pointed toward his LACS, which was sitting open in the corner.

Coop knew the command LACS had special capabilities his own V4 didn’t, but it hadn’t occurred to him what the SGM had been working on.

<That’s the different between sergeant and the sergeant major. He’s thinking big picture while I’m just focused on keeping my own shit squared away,> Coop wasn’t egotistical enough to dispute it. He wasn’t keeping an eye on anything other than keeping his ass alive and eventually saving Eve’s. Anything else wasn’t his job.

“I’ve made progress. My LACS’ AI had cracked some of their comms, and I heard about the GYSGT’s capture. I also was able to boost my signal enough to break through their jamming for a few seconds, which is all I needed to get an incoming QE message.” He paused for dramatic effect. “The fleet is on the way. They’re coming to retake Harper’s Junction with four brigades.”

<Four!> Coop felt positively giddy at having forty thousand people fighting on his side for a change.

“They’ll be here in under a week, so that gives us limited time to work. We’ve got a task list a mile long from the brass. We’re going to need to prep for their landing as much as possible, which means disrupting communications, logistics, knocking out any of the land-based surface to air and space weapons that we can, and just causing confusion in general. I’ve already alerted the resistance to the timetable, and they’re coordinating attacks to all go down when the fleet arrives. Our mission is to make sure we lose as few troops as possible in the drops.”

Coop personally hadn’t done a drop, but he would feel better if he knew an advanced recon team was sabotaging the enemy’s capabilities while he was helplessly flying down from the ships.

“I’ve got you set up with taskings over there,” the SGM pointed to a corner. Coop turned and stopped dead in his tracks.

The SGM’s finger was pointed right at a V4 LACS, and it wasn’t Coop’s.

“Don’t worry, Cooper. I’ll tell the GYSGT I let you use it. It’s not like she can use it right now anyway.” Coop swore he could see a smirk on the other man’s face.

All he could do was gulp and nod as he headed over to the GYSGT’s LACS and powered it up. The SGM had already reset it to factory mode so it was ready to accept Coop’s IOR and preprogrammed settings. Coop hopped in to run diagnostics and get a feel for it. The V4’s were fit to the soldier, but they had some capability to shift around. It was a little snug in the armor’s confines, but it was better than wearing flimsy smartcloth.

<It’ll have to do,> he sighed and pulled up his taskings.

He was going to be busy for the next several days.

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