Above the dilapidated rooftops of what was once the capital of the United States of America, a vertibird noisily soared. The distinct noise and silhouette of the Enclave transport was immediately recognizable by those below it, and whatever wastelanders that were scavenging in the ruins quickly ducked out of sight. The vertibird was not coming for them, though. Not today. It had a particular mission today: the eradication of one of the few surviving pockets of super mutants in the D.C. area. There weren't many left, but out of all of the blights still left on the Wasteland, the super mutants were considered by the Enclave to be among the worst.

Within the vertibird, a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk35B3OyjJg]jazzy pre-war song[/url] played, and Enclave soldiers prepared for their mission. Fueling incinerators, calibrating plasma weapons, syncing comms and fine-tuning power armor, the "black death" calmly performed these last-minute preparations. Greener soldiers may have had some degree of trepidation toward their coming mission, but not these soldiers. This team, known as "Vulcan Squad," was among the most decorated in the Enclave, and this was no less than their twenty-sixth sortie.

Sergeant Scott, one of Vulcan Squad's two Hellfire Troopers, sat complacently with his helmet in his lap, polishing the optics. This was all old hat to him, really. He wasn't the highest-ranking member of Vulcan Squad (that distinction going to their pilot, Warrant Officer Bradley), but he was the seniormost soldier, and that brought him a strange sort of ease to him before a mission. It never really got better, but it never got worse, so one usually just got used to it.

Corporal Haverty, sat across from Scott, seemed to think that the veteran soldier was feeling down, and decided to cheer him up a bit, "Hey sarge," he started, his voice modulated by his power armor helmet, "Here's a good one: what did the shrink prescribe to the depressed lesbian?"

Scott looked up from his helmet with a half annoyed, have bemused expression. "What?" he humored Haverty.

"Trycoxagain!" The junior soldier delivered his punchline excitedly, and then laughed to himself. A couple other soldiers in the vertibird chuckled, but most (Scott included) groaned and shook their heads. "Ah, fuck you guys, I thought it was funny."

"Don't sweat it, Haverty." Another soldier, Specialist Crenshaw, said from his corner seat. "Sarge is just sweating his promotion to Ess Eff See, and his imminent retirement following it." More soldiers laughed at this, Scott included.

"Sounds about right." Scott put his helmet on, giving it a moment for the life-support systems to connect and calibrate. "Soon as I get another stripe, bam, they'll have me training up fuckin' recruits back at Andrews. I ain't no fuckin' pogue, that's for damn sure." The other soldiers gave a "hooah" to this.

Bradley called Scott over the radio from the cockpit, "Hey Sarge, come look at this."

Having to duck down to move forward in the cramped vertibird, Scott slowly moved forward to see what their pilot had wanted to show him. Looking out the window in the direction that Bradley was pointing, he noticed a sort of humanoid shape on a rooftop. From what he could tell, though, it was much larger than a normal human. His optics zoomed in on it, and the unnatural skin color and scrap armor confirmed his suspicion.

"Guess one of the mikes we're here for came out to greet us personally," Bradley mused, "That's the building we're supposed to be clearing out."

"He's in our Ell Zee, though," said Scott, "Need one of us to take him out?"

"If you'd be so inclined." Bradley turned his attention back to the controls, maneuvering the vertibird to give one of the soldiers a shot at the mutant.

"I just might." Scott said, returning to the cab of the 'bird.

Picking up his heavy incinerator, Scott signaled his soldiers to strap into their seats, which they did. He hit the lock for the cab door, sliding it open and letting the harsh, hazy sunlight of the wasteland flood into the cab. Bradley had the door about level with the mike, and so Scott took aim with his incinerator and loosed a short volley of fire at the mutant. The vertibird jerked, and his shot went wide. He radioed the Bradley to keep her steady, and received a sarcastic reply. As Scott turned back to the mutant, he now saw what it was armed with. Not a cheap rifle like most of them. Not even a laser rifle or minigun, like the nastier ones. That was a rocket launcher. Scott, alarmed, immediately tried to radio Bradley to pull up, but by the time he had gotten the message across, the mutant had already taken its shot.

Bradley had pulled the 'bird back some, but all that did was cause the rocket to hit one of the engines. The vertibird spun wildly, Bradley desperately called mayday over the radio, and the other soldiers Braced for impact. The momentum of the spinning vertibird yanked Scott right out of its hatch, and though he clung onto a safety handle, he weighed too much in his armor to hold on. He was violently flung into the building next to the one the mutant stood on, crashing through glass and rotten bricks and plaster. Scott soundly banged his head on a wall, and the last thing he heard before he blacked out was a deafening explosion in the building right next to him.