The Stork was a loud machine. The dual rotors were the loudest thing he had ever heard – which is why he was grateful at the moment for his cockpit being mostly sound proof. Such was the blessing of owning his own Core designed to his specifications. He sat in his seat, a book from a time not so long ago within his lap. Everything was black around him (save for the little book-light), his systems set to reserve power – he couldn't even see the outside of his machine.
The Stork was bulky, but that was for its purpose. Below the two giant rotors on the sides were large compartments that held the parts of his Core. They were in the air, tethers suspending him below the Stork. They were flying to a city, though he wasn't sure which city it was; he didn't care enough to know the name of the city, all that matters is that he received payment for this mission.
Apparently every mercenary was being called to defend the Corporations. Every other mercenary was being called to attempt a coup in the city. They wanted the blood of some guy named 'Father'. It didn't matter; nothing mattered except for the pay.
One of his screens lit up suddenly and a dialog box popped up. The heading of the box was titled 'Elegance.' It was an audio only transmission from his companion, being carried on another Stork some distance infront of him. The line in the middle of the box began to spike as his companion spoke and he was greeted by that familiar female voice.
"Zeal," she began by saying. There was silence over the link as if she was waiting for him to respond. He counted the seconds it took for her to say anything else: one, two, three, fo-. "Zeal, we're almost there. How are you holding up?" He slowly closed his book and shrugged, reaching for the monitor and turning on the video. He was better at lying to someone's face.
"I'm awake, so I'm fine," he said in a tone that was supposed to mock his fake visage of exhaustion. Light assailed his eyes, one hand reaching up to rub his left eye as he issued a small yawn. He was attempting to lie to her. Her video loaded up, a small bar in the lower left corner filling quickly as the video was buffering to be real-time. She looked to believe him, at least he hoped. She wasn't a bad liar, either.
He stared at the face of a woman who looked too stressed for her own good. Her skin was pale (but that could have easily been from the bright light the visual feed). Her eyes were a dull green and her face was slowly becoming wrinkled. Some would be surprised to find that she was half-way through her thirties. Years as an operator took their toll on her, and she was cursed to wear the stress on her face and in her troubled dreams. Still, she managed to smile and that was all that mattered. He guessed, anyway.
He could almost feel her sincerity in that smile, but he knew she only did it because she thought it would make things better. It wasn't like they were killing people for a living. He managed to smile back, however. He was no-where near as aged as she had looked; in fact, he was not bothered by the mass executions they had taken part in. He was a borderline sociopath, but he realized that if he would not kill, he would not eat. If he did not kill, he would be killed. That and he wasn't in charge of other people's lives – only his own.
"That's good," she finally responded after a good ten seconds. He found that odd as it was longer than usual. She was pretty quick with her responses most of the time – not today, apparently. "You know, we may die this time. This is different than other missions we have taken on. We are fighting against actual pros this time. I'm cutting video feed; keep strictly to audio until we finish our mission." He nodded and his arms stretched upwards, his back arching inward as the video feed was cut, along with the rest of the comm-link.
He finished his stretching and reached forward in this prison he made for himself and flipped a few switches up. The inside of his machine began humming to life as he was assaulted by sounds from the outside. He could hear booms from flak and missiles exploding. He was thankful his pilot had been smart enough to buy plenty of flares for this mission, as well as an entire payload of Interceptor-class missiles. By the sounds of it, he was using some of them.
The cockpit lit up with a visual feed of the outside. His eyes stared forward and two targeting circles moved towards the Stork infront of them, targeting on Elegance and her pilot. There were flashes of light from all around as flak exploded and interceptor missiles smashed into surface-to-air variants. Bullets whizzed past, but there was very little they could do right now. He saw Elegance's Stork fire a creeping barrage of missiles which shot out and arced downward in an elegant manner (or at least as elegant as missiles killing people from above could be). He stared down at his book in his lap and gave a sigh, leaning forward to slide the hard-back tome under the seat. The audio feed opened back up again and his companion spoke once more.
"We're at the drop point," she called. Her voice was shaky and for a moment, he felt bad about their new operator making her come on his mission. Five seconds and she began to speak again. The Storks began swooping down and his hands reached forward to grab the control shafts of his machine. "We're dropping," she finally said as they rapidly reached ground level.
He felt the Stork yank up and gravity took over as the clanks were released. On the main screen, a red box popped up and a countdown began running as they got closer to ground. He engaged his boosters and his descent was slowed, though inertia caused his stomach to shift uncomfortably. The feet of his machine smashed into the ground and the frontal boosters engaged to slow his advance. He was scowling, he realized. In fact, he was downright pissed off.
"I hate this job," he said to nobody in particular, his stomach not yet settled. A few seconds after he said that, the audio feed suddenly clicked closed. He felt a little embarrassed, hoping he hadn't irritated his companion. The boosters in the back engaged and Zeal began moving forward. She had a light-weight type and he had a medium-weight type, so of course she had the advantage of mobility. In fact, her job was to run decoy for the majority part of the mission. The more kills they racked up, the more pay they would get.
Looking up, he saw both of the Storks turning away and beginning their retreat towards the left – the East. They had agreed on a pick-up point, but it was going to take a while to get there after the mission, relying on old maps from decades ago. Granted, they had to survive first. The Storks were instructed to wait for three hours at the rendezvous point after a certain time. Hopefully they would both make it there in time, if at all.
As he watched their pilots climbing in retreat, he saw other aircraft flying ever forward, seeking to get deeper into the city. He watched as one zoomed overhead, low to the ground. Suddenly, the tail exploded and began losing altitude, the AC it was carrying smashing into a nearby building. The pilot probably died upon collision while the Stork operator continued to fight for control. His fight was ended as a missile crashed into the cockpit, setting off a chain reaction and causing the entire craft to explode.