Free Just Another Day by Isaac Hooke

Just Another Day
    Name's Facehopper. Well, that's my callsign really, but it might as well be my name. I've embraced it.
    Killed with it.
    I'm the Leading Petty Officer, or LPO, of Alfa Platoon, MOTH Team Seven. One of the most elite special forces units in the galaxy. MOTH stands for MObile Tactical Human. We're tacticians, corpsmen, snipers, astronauts and commandos rolled into one. Our specialty is what is known in military circles as DA, or direct action: we perform short-duration operations of surgical precision conducted in hostile, denied, or diplomatically sensitive environments. You want someone seized, recovered, or terminated quietly, and without stirring up a political shitstorm, you call us up.
    Let me tell you about this one time when...
    *
    I was crouched in the cargo bay of a bulk carrier, in Tau Ceti system, deep in SK (Sino-Korean) territory. Aka enemy space: If we were caught, we'd be executed as spies. I suppose that's why I was dressed for a night on the town in my all-purpose combat jumpsuit.
    For the past eight months the intelligence boys at the Special Collection Service had been tracking a high-payoff target, Mao Sing Ming, one of the most infamous privateers this side of the galaxy. Known as the Malefactor of the East, this guy captured passenger liners for salvage, killing off the entire crew complement for laughs. Anyway, a few weeks ago the military brass finally gave the go ahead to perform a surgical strike against him.
    Special Warfare Command chose me and three others from Alfa Platoon to perform the "surgery." A fire team of four guys. Half a squad. Me, in command. Big Dog, my heavy gunner. Trace and Ghost, my two snipers.
    The cargo hatch opened up into the void of space. The cargo bay had already been depressurized, so there was no explosive decompression or anything like that.
    We still had the artificial gravity of the carrier to contend with, so the four of us walked calmly to the edge of the hatch.
    The backdrop of stars stared back at me from the vacuum, spiraling, beckoning.
    "Just another day in paradise," Big Dog sent over the comm.
    "Thanks for the cliché, mate," I said.
    "Anytime."
    I could see our target, asteroid 99-Herculina, biggest asteroid in the Tau Ceti system, floating there in the vacuum. At its current distance, it was about the size of my thumbnail.
    "Good luck, Facehopper," Chief Bourbonjack sent on the comm line. As my chief, Bourbonjack operated the platoon, while I ran it.
    "Thanks, sir."
    "Wish I was coming with you," Chief Bourbonjack sent. I could hear the jealousy in his voice.
    "I know." He was a warrior, like the rest of the platoon. Everyone wanted to go. This was our job. This was what we trained to do. I almost pitied the Chief and the rest of the platoon.
    Almost.
    "Go go go!" Chief Bourbonjack sent.
    I leaped forward through the opening and activated my jumpjets, thrusting out into the void.
    I didn't have to look back to see if the rest of my fire team followed. I could see the green dots indicating their positions on the HUD (Heads-Up-Display) map overlaid in the top right of my vision. Like me, every member of the fire team wore standard MOTH jumpsuits. We didn't have any ATLAS mechs with us this time round: The mission profile specifically excluded them. Kind of too bad, actually. We were one of the few teams with the training and authorization to use them. Wrapped up inside an ATLAS mech, you were one sick killing machine.
    "Gear launched," Chief Bourbonjack sent.
    On the HUD map, I saw the dark red dot that indicated the gear payload slowly gaining on my group. With my jumpjets, I accelerated to match its speed, then navigated beside the payload, which was a metal box roughly the size of eight sniper rifles stacked together. I attached the payload buckle to my belt and wrapped an arm around the metal so that any course corrections I made would be transferred to the payload.
    "Settle in, boys," I sent over the comm line. "We got a long wait