Tell Our Moms We Done Our Best "And if they lay us down to rest..."
She remembered the graduation ceremony; uniforms immaculate and an inspiring speech. A sense of vindication, at having made it through training. The few, the proud, the defenders of the sea. Her first tour of duty in the Persian Gulf. Times, both stressful and relaxed. Those early days, when sleep seemed an impossibility against an audio backdrop of steam-powered catapults shooting planes off the carrier deck, only to later learn how to surrender one's mind to the mentality of 'just do it'.
She remembered that fateful night, ending in the voluntary termination of her career. An otherwise peaceful sunset in the sleepy South Pacific, suddenly deteriorating into something so much more. Captured glimpses of serving men and women being torn apart or, somehow worse, abducted into the jungle. Those were the worst. If she never saw their faces, then she could remember their screams and those never stopped. After a while, one could even identify some of those agonised cries, if they managed to sound for long enough - and plenty did.
She remembered the rescue. Only a few of them surviving the ordeal and some not even intact. Neither was she, at least in mind. The enforced switch from pilot to soldier had left her mind raped anything approaching good humour. counselling sessions were, of course, mandated, but there was no therapy powerful enough to help her deal with it. Some had not even been physically attacked, just somehow taken possession of, clawing at their skulls with all the rage of insanity, begging for 'it' to be taken out, even as internal changes ripped and sizzled across skin. There were times when she wondered if something like that might not have somehow unknowingly affected her, too. Just in a more insidious way. There was no training available to teach the base psychologists how to handle post-battle trauma of that scale. Mental scars from being under fire, were one thing. Undergoing what the survivors had, was quite another.
She remembered the subsequent adjustment to civilian life. The meandering between alcohol and compulsive need for suicide. Both offered her a conclusion to what then remained of life. One was slow and helped her to sleep. The other not quite able to be seized, almost always because of already having indulged in the first. An early attempt to shoot herself in the head had gone awry with misplaced bullets, ending in crying tears of laughter, as she attempted to put one in the chamber, only to turn into tears of anguish, then pain, before finally sliding into a hopeless slumber. Life had become a rotting excuse in lethargy and there was no longer any reason to care.
She remembered the call. People introducing themselves as having been directed her way by the US Navy and claiming to know of events on that island. The scepticism she felt, converging with bitterness and then curiosity, as an attempt to verify their alleged co-operation with former superiors came through. Their way of convincing her to allow them at least an explanation, somehow managing, over several weeks more, into an understanding that a new calling might exist. One which might yet help her to find a way to not merely deal with her condition, but to actively fight the root cause of it.
She remembered agreeing to be taken to a secure location. Being shown slavering beasts. Being told that any next steps would demand an agreement in contract. Telling them she had very little, if anything, to go back, which could even resemble a 'normal life', regardless. Signing the forms. Moving out for orientation. Accepting, even if only begrudgingly, that yes, perhaps this could help. Finding, indeed, that maybe she no longer needed the alcohol quite so much. Even getting to the stage where she could teach flying in her spare time, allowing her that long-lost sense of freedom, once more, in the skies.
She remembered the trip for Nevada. Helping out where she could. Getting a training facility constructed, to assist would-be young warriors fight the good fight. Even taking part in one such battle, helping to save lives.
Alexis Devereaux remembered a lot of things and now, sending one final message to recent colleagues in that place of desert and sun, she looked, once more, at the neon-lit horizon of Las Vegas. Recalled to headquarters, her missive had said. This was a time of global emergencies and geographical placement was out of her hands, but that she hoped to catch up with some of them in the future and considered herself, yes, even fortunate, to have fought alongside them. Giving what was perhaps her last sight of Nevada, she gave the place a small salute and climbed into her waiting cockpit.