Quick A/N: For the sake of action and simplicity, all aircraft carry a batshit insane number of munitions much like in the game, and unlike in my other works of fiction.

March 10, AC 426

Airspace west of the United Kingdom

He had no idea how he of all people had gotten accepted, but Munroe wasn't going to argue the fact that he now had something to do, sitting at the cockpit of an F/A-18E Super Hornet. Externally the Hornet was featureless for the most part, painted a dark gray with the wolf's head of Sicario Corp aft of the nose.

AIRCRAFT:

Hitman 1/Talon: F-16C Viper

Hitman 2/Diplomat: MiG-35D Flanker

Hitman 3/Ranger: F-16C Viper

Hitman 4/Monarch: F/A-18E Super Hornet

Hitman 5/Comic: F-15C Eagle

'Here comes the cavalry.' Over the radio was the voice of an old grizzled man, presumably their air-to-ground coordinator, a Combat Controller or CCT for short. "Hitman Squadron, Lancaster, check in.'

'Hey Galaxy, can you do the check-in? Don't feel much like talking today.' Hitman's squadron leader, an old man going by the callsign Talon, asked their nearby AWACS orbiting around the AO. His F-15C was painted in the atypical air superiority gray that was used by much of the Federation Air Force.

'If you insist. Lazy bastard… Lancaster, this is AWACS Galaxy, airborne control for Sicario personnel. Hitman Squadron is entering from the south, five-ship, as fragged. All are available for tasking.' Galaxy relayed the relevant information to the combat controller.

'Five-man? I welcome the new-comers to the party. The situation's kinda gone to shit. The insurrectionists have sent the bulk of their front-line units through the city and across the bridge. We don't have much in the way of support on the ground so we need your help softening up their defenses for the infantry to get through.' Lancaster explained the situation.

'Acknowledged. Linking IFF data with our aircraft. Anything else for us to know?' Galaxy pressed for additional information.

'Apparently the Innies seized a small reserve air corps dirt strip? Watch out for hostile fighters coming in from the north.' Lancaster gave what little he had.

'Good enough for me. Hitman, you are cleared hot on targets across the river. Monarch, Comic, this is your first contract with us. Let's see what you can do.' Galaxy encouraged the two newest additions to Hitman to perform. Munroe grinned behind his oxygen mask and lowered his visor.

'Hitman 4, ack. Engaging.' Monarch pushed forward on the throttle and zoomed off towards the city in front of them. In contrast to the greenery of the land surrounding it, the city itself was throwing up massive smoke plumes. Much of the city right in front of the river had been heavily damaged or destroyed. On his HUD, Monarch saw armoured personnel carriers. With the help of AGM-65 Maverick multi-lock missiles, those APCs didn't last long. In flashes of flame and smoke four were eradicated in an instant. While waiting for those pylons to rearm themselves, Hitman 1 and Hitman 3 got the other eight protecting the biggest bridge into the city.

'Hot damn, that's a lot of smoke.' Comic mentioned upon laying eyes on the now-burning wrecks that had been APCs.

'In theory, infantry should be able to mop up the rest.' Hitman 3, Ranger, a young but intelligent man flying an F-16C said.

'One would hope so.' Talon pointed out. 'Oi Monarch, hit up that tank column-'

'Already a step ahead of you.' Monarch replied after firing off another salvo of air-to-ground missiles specifically targeting the four tanks rolling up to the front line. Three of the four were destroyed as their ammo storage racks detonated. Monarch originally thought that last tank to be dead as well but when he came back around to verify the run he saw it was still active. A quick burst of twenty-mil cannon fire fixed that.

'Never mind then. Carry on.' Talon seemed happy enough with Monarch's performance thus far, himself targeting a series of gun emplacements in the few standing buildings across the river. A Mark 82 bomb drop sorted out that problem real quick, blasting through and knocking down anything that was still left standing.

'Well I'll be fucked, nice going, Hitman. Ground forces are crossing the river.' Lancaster reported. Monarch looked around and confirmed that fact; British ground troops and vehicles were crossing over into the city. The insurrectionists protecting the main bridge, disorganised and now lacking any heavy weapons, were swiftly cut down by the attacking troops. Meanwhile, the next target on Monarch's hit list was an artillery battery on the opposite side of the city. A minor problem, it was protected by 40-mil anti-air autocannons. No matter. Monarch ascended to five thousand metres, above the effective range of the triple A, and laser-guided his Mavericks one-by-one onto the ammunition storage behind the guns. One-fifty-five mil shells packed a lot of high-explosive filler; the resulting explosions were enough to both eliminate the crews of each individual gun as well as the guns themselves. After spending three sets of four Mavericks, there was no artillery threat to worry about since that entire area had been glassed by Monarch.

'Enemy field artillery is gone.' Monarch reported as such to his team.

'Good work.' Talon gave him a compliment. 'Hey Comic, any airborne over your way?'

'No planes, but I do see what looks like logi trucks running out of the city, if that's of any interest.' Comic replies almost sarcastically. 'Military paint and all.'

'Sounds like a target of opportunity in my books. Lancaster?' Ranger wanted to attack the trucks.

'If they're not marked as ours, they're probably hostile. Engage at your own volition.' Lancaster gave the rules of engagement. Monarch took that as a sign to attack. He swooped in, away from the previous AA guns, and bled all of his airspeed to get enough time to gunrun the convoy of six trucks. 20-mil tore through them like a hot knife through butter and in that single run all were either disabled or destroyed. Either way, all six stopped moving and anybody who survived was frantically abandoning the vehicles and running for their lives.

'They aren't going anywhere.' Monarch had made sure of that.

'Jeez Monarch, save some cash for the rest of us.' Diplomat jokingly teased Monarch. Monarch scoffed.

'Get in here, then.' He retorted as he pulled out from the rear end of the city and back towards the front line. British infantry fighting vehicles were in very close contact with Innie improvised armoured vehicles. Those vehicles weren't well-enough armoured against air attack; Mavericks followed up by a high-angle gun run destroyed the vehicles and injured or scattered the infantry surrounding them, allowing for friendly forces to push forward. Further inside the city was a roadblock manned by Innies on static heavy machine guns. Monarch was going to gun-run it, but Diplomat beat him to it by dropping a bomb on the checkpoint, eradicating it from existence. Monarch snickered.

'See Dip, there you go!'

'Don't get complacent or lazy. Or both.' Diplomat had a snappy remark for Monarch. Rolling his eyes amusedly, Monarch scanned around for more targets. Nothing that the other members of Hitman Squadron weren't already dealing with. Ranger took care of a pair of backup main battle tanks. Talon rocketed an apartment complex that an infantry unit was holding up in, taking the whole building down. Comic was being delegated to anti-air duty when there was virtually no threat from enemy fighters, and Diplomat had just bombed a checkpoint. So far, all was going well and soon enough Hitman Squadron was out of targets to attack.

'Alright guys, good going, that's everything.' Galaxy picked up on that fact. 'Lancaster, all significant points of enemy resistance have been eliminated.'

'Roger that, Hitman! Stand by to the north of the city, good chance I'll have a fire mission for you in time.' Lancaster replied enthusiastically over his grizzled voice.

'Understood, holding north-' Talon replied.

'Hold that thought, boss-man. Contact, six bogeys, straight north, not flashing IFF.' Comic cut Talon off to announce the presence of unknown fighters entering the AO. 'They're coming straight at us.'

'There's a chance they could be RAF, don't shoot them just yet.' Galaxy clears his throat. 'Unknown six-man flight of Typhoons in the airspace forty kilometres north of Yorktown, this is AWACS Galaxy of the Sicario Mercenary Corps. Squawk your IFF and state your intentions or you will be subject-'

'Too late, they're shooting at us.' Monarch mentioned calmly to his team as the radar warning receiver went crazy beeping informing him that there were missiles being fired at him.

'Hitman Squadron, engaging!' Talon announced as he started climbing to evade a missile, successfully at that. Monarch, Diplomat and Comic both charged the approaching fighters head on at the same altitude, exchanging missile fire. Appropriately the enemy Typhoons went evasive. As a result only Monarch's missile connected with its target, bringing the fight to a five-versus-five. The two formations merged and Monarch immediately took on the leader of the enemy flight. Monarch took the attacking position the first chance he got, forcing the Typhoon lead to climb up in a vertical rolling scissors maneuver that wasted the kinetic energy of the bandit. The pilot tried pulling the turn down, but Monarch lasered through the aircraft with cannon fire, shooting him down. Monarch then brought the aircraft down to assist Ranger, who appeared to be on the backfoot against his attacker. A quick IR-guided missile to the spine of the attacking Typhoon solved that problem.

'Thanks for the save, Monarch.' Ranger thanked his saviour.

'Deal with the rest first.' Monarch retorted to Ranger. He came in from the side looking to swipe Comic's kill from her, but Comic had outmaneuvered and destroyed the Typhoon before Monarch got a chance to fire, so he instead lined up on the next available target, which was the Typhoon on Diplomat's tail. Dip had stalled the fight long enough to be able to pull off a Cobra to get behind the second-to-last Typhoon. Unfortunately for Dip, Monarch got a missile shot off on that aircraft and blew it out of the sky, much to Diplomat's chagrin.

'Oh come on Monarch, I almost had him!' Diplomat complained to Monarch, to which he received a devious chuckle. Monarch looked around for the last hostile fighter, Talon's target. It was already gone, Talon had dropped him out of the sky with a single well-placed missile. All six attacking fighters were down and it wasn't even that hard of a fight.

'All aircraft down, good job Hitman.' Another compliment from Galaxy.

'Sheesh, that quickly? No wonder we're paying top dollar for you lads.' Lancaster remarked. 'New tasking. Our recon found an insurrectionist communication station in the city centre. Area's devoid of civilians, they'd like you to drop some bombs on it and destroy it.'

'Ack. Come on, Hitman.' Talon ushered his squadron to follow him over the city to where they had been summoned. Monarch looked through his aircraft's targeting pod to get eyes on the city centre. There was a makeshift communications relay as had been described.

'Hitman 4, tally.' Monarch reported to indicate that he had seen it. 'Jeez, they've got a lot of cabling on the deck. Sure we're not gonna cause a city-wide blackout?'

'Ahh, not our problem.' Talon dismissed Monarch's concerns. 'Lancaster, tell recon troops to pull out, there's gonna be one hell of a boom.'

'Already a step ahead of you Hitman. You're cleared hot on the target.' Lancaster had already ordered the recon units to pull away for Hitman Squadron to level the relay.

'Sweet as. Hey Monarch, lead us on.' Talon directed for Monarch to drop the first bombs on target.

'With pleasure.' Monarch didn't hesitate to eradicate the place. He dipped towards the relay and dropped two two-thousand pound Mark 84 bombs once the CCIP marker was in a desirable position. With so much tritonal explosive filler those Mark 84s made quick work of the relay. When the debris, dust and dirt stopped falling so that Monarch could get eyes back on the relay, it was gone, shattered, destroyed.

'Hmm, that was easy.' Diplomat said. 'Hey Galaxy, do we still hand out those little MVP medals? I think Monarch's won it today.' '

A chuckle from both Monarch and Galaxy. 'I might have one in the back of the van.' Galaxy replied.

'You're not fucking kidnapping me, Galaxy.' Monarch joked, earning laughter from Galaxy.

'Jesus christ… Hitman, Galaxy, I believe we've got it from here. You are clear to RTB.' Lancaster cleared the mercenary gang to leave the mission airspace and return to base, something that was very quickly done by the five fighter aircraft and singular AWACS.

'Hey Galaxy, y'know what I think of all this?' Talon probed the AWACS operator.

'Hmm?'

'I think we're gonna have a good time with our two new recruits.'

'You know what, Talon? I think so too. Comic, Monarch, welcome to Sicario.'