"It seems your co-pilot needs more than just flight hours." Jin returned to the helicarrier platform as he thanked 2LT Cloudie.
"He only had 20 hours of flight experience. You cannot blame him for that. Archduke Dyke asked me to take this job mainly because I am actually out of service due to a partial health injury.
"So, you are somebody out of the register?" Jin asked as he dusted off his clothing a little as the helicarrier went back into stealth mode and prepared its return to Daimon City Airfield.
"Yeap."
"And then I guess, the co-pilot is also someone who did not complete his flight training hours that is why he is here as an unregistered pilot?" Jin added and the co-pilot nodded his head, now understanding why he did not really want to name himself out or why his nametag on the uniform is blanked out.
"Why did you offer me your name, Cloudie?" You could get into trouble.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"Heh. I wouldn't have but you gave me food and money. Lots of money. It would not be a courtesy if I didn't give you mine back. Besides, it's not that bad, I get to experience flying once more and earn quite a fair bit for my family too."
"I am…" The co-pilot struggled to say it out but Jin stopped him.
"Don't. For now, I thank you for your service. To you two, this is considered as a black ops, so you have no need to put your name out in case someone identified you two and either hunt you guys down or blacklist you."
"I have no worries about that. My family knows the struggle I am in and they understand why I am risking this for. Ultimately, if you overthrow the Empire, I can stay free, right?" Cloudie said and Jin who walked himself to the cockpit nodded his head with a soft yes.
"Then my skills will be yours to purchase until the end of this coup d'etat." 2LT Cloudie raised his fist and Jin returned the gesture. In the meantime, the co-pilot was still at odds with himself unable to raise the very same conviction as his mentor.
"Worry not. I will not force you. Like I said this is a black ops mission. Once you are safely out of this place, there will be no records of you working with me. You can return to service without any problem." Jin said to the co-pilot but with a more serious manner that he really had to keep silent about this.
All the co-pilot did is to nod his head and continue concentrating with the flight. Jin turned his back away, stating he would rest for a while but suddenly a gunshot was heard. 2LT Cloudie quickly reached for his gun in his chest holster yet it was too late.
But what he was more surprised about was not the gunshot but the bullet that was floating right beside his head as he slowly turned to see that it was still rotating rapidly against some sort of magnetic field. And there was already an icicle that was going through the co-pilot's neck.
He tried to breathe and hence dropped the pistol and struggle to hold his neck in place.
"Why…?" The 2LT's body was still focused on driving the helicarrier back while his mind was trying to make sense of the situation here.
"All …hail…King and… country…" Eventually the co-pilot died not knowing that he had already been seen through by Jin all this while. The Interim leader's chi sense had already seen the co-pilot's heart rate exacerbating to extremely high levels of tension as Jin walk into the cockpit. The movements of his hands were predictive of him moving towards his holster.
Jin only did not expect that he would shoot his 2LT first before hitting him. Perhaps, the co-pilot thinks that killing the person who could drive the helicarrier and later self destructing the helicarrier could only be the way to go. That was especially after he had seen Jin single handedly pull off a kill that slaughtered 3-5 enhanced Forest Trolls in one go.
From wanting to kill Jin when he was most vulnerable to realising that the assassin himself is the weakest. But neither Cloudie nor the co-pilot had expected that Jin was capable of so much more than just conjuring a battleship cruiser out of nowhere.
"Looks like we had a killer in our midst. Thank goodness for the fist bump." Jin said as he tapped Cloudie's shoulder as both adults can only sigh at how foolish this entire skirmish went.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"You knew from the start?"
"I had my suspicions but I never expected him to go for you first. Lucky, I put up a barrier on you mainly due to the fact that you will be hit by ricochet. But if you come to think of it, kind of make sense. There were still explosives at the back and self destructing along with the explosives would no doubt be a good idea. The loss of the interim leader through helicarrier management or maybe they will pin it at the Archduke and the Empire Royal Family can blame him even further…"
"What about that ice blade? Where did it appear from? There is no way you could find such a pure, thick icicle at these parts and no way those Forest Trolls could have it even if they dropped it as a loot."
"I made it, is that such a surprise?" Jin asked and the 2LT was flabbergasted. (It was a good thing his was so trained that his body continued to fly the helicarrier with the help of AI.)
"Then that means I owe you my life as well as services." 2LT Cloudie said and Jin chuckled.
"Do not worry too much at the moment. Let's get back clean the helicarrier of the mess and continue. I fully expect you to render your service at least till then end of this operation."
"Yeah, for the amount you paid, I would gladly do so without hesitation as well." Cloudie said as he took another glimpse at the dead co-pilot to see that Jin had closed the fellow's eyes before stepping out of the cockpit.
War is an ugly sight.