Chapter 19
NINETEEN
FORT NOVOSEL
The air hit like a soaked towel to the face.
Shannon stepped off the transport shuttle onto the cracked tarmac at Fort Novosel and immediately felt her shirt cling to her back.
Alabama heat wasn’t heat the way other places knew it—it was personal.
The kind of humidity that found its way under armor, under skin, and into lungs.
She adjusted the strap of her issued backpack and fell into step behind the other trainees, boots thumping in staggered rhythm toward the admin building.
Nobody talked. These were the silence-before-the-storm hours when everyone still looked clean and still believed they might be the best in the class.
The building looked like every other structure on base: government-tan, functional, boxy, indifferent to beauty. The glass doors hissed as they stepped inside. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
A man in BDUs barely glanced up from the clipboard on the counter. “Flight Class 12-1A,” he said flatly. “Line up by the wall. I’ll call names.”
The group shuffled into formation. Ten students. Three officers. Seven warrant candidates. No handshakes. Just sizing each other up in the space between instructions.
“Torres, Jacob.”
“Here.”
“Rhodes, Kylie.”
A short, compact woman near the middle of the line tilted her chin up. “Present.” Shannon didn’t look over. She kept her eyes on the wall clock.
“Johnson, Shannon.”
She stepped forward, ID extended. After her name was leaked in the Academy, there was no use keeping things secret anymore.
The man took it and paused. His eyes flicked to her name, then up to her face. Not long but enough to tell her he recognized it. Not from her, but from something older.
He handed the card back. “Room assignment, packet, mess schedule’s inside.”
She took the folder. Nodded once. Moved on.
The barracks weren’t fancy, but they were clean. Her room had two bunks, plain white walls, and two narrow desks beneath the window. A ceiling fan spun slowly like it was pacing itself for August. Her roommate hadn’t arrived yet.
Shannon sat on the edge of the bottom bunk, opened her packet, and started reading. The schedule was tight. Daily PT, flight classroom instruction, rotary systems intro, safety protocols. Emergency procedures. Sim rotations. Four weeks until primary evaluation.
She reread it twice. Folded it back up. Then stood and began to unpack.
By 1600, she’d been through three briefings, two uniform checks, one lunch she didn’t finish, and eight new faces whose names she wasn’t sure she remembered. Everyone moved like they had something to prove, but no one spoke above a mutter.
It wasn’t fear. It was quiet competition.
In the hallway after sim orientation, Shannon heard footsteps catch up to hers. “You the one with the name?”
It was Rhodes. She was compact, confident, eyes sharp under short blond hair.
“I’m sorry?” Shannon asked dryly.
“Johnson. As in Meagan Johnson?” Rhodes asked. “The CSAR pilot from Kandahar?”
Shannon kept her face even. “That was my mother.”
Rhodes let out a low breath, like she wasn’t sure if she was impressed or annoyed. “Didn’t know Air Force pilots trained Army-side.”
Shannon shrugged. “Didn’t know warrant officers opened with family questions.” That got a look.
Rhodes grinned, just a little. “Good. Smartass. Let’s see if you fly as tight as you talk.”
She walked off before Shannon could answer.
That night, Shannon lay on her bunk with the lights off. Her roommate still hadn’t shown. Crickets pulsed outside the window. The room was finally starting to cool, but not by much.
Her phone lit up in the dark. One unread message.
Dante: Don’t burn out before they let you fly.
She stared at it for a long moment, then tapped delete. She rolled over and closed her eyes. Tomorrow, it started.
The next morning began the way military mornings always did: too early, too bright, too loud.
Shannon stood outside Flight Wing 3 in formation by 0450. Her boots were laced sharply, her uniform spotless. Her duffel sat at her feet. Sweat already gathered under her collarbone, but her expression never moved.
Inside, they were shuffled into a briefing room, its walls painted the same beige as every other building on base.
A projector blinked through the names of parts they weren’t allowed to forget: rotor mast, swashplate, tail boom, pitch horn.
The instructor at the front, Chief Warrant Officer Marston, didn’t bother with introductions.
“This is where we start,” he said. “If this looks boring to you, leave now. This is your new religion. You don’t fly unless you worship the systems.”
No one moved. Shannon didn’t blink.
Sim rotation began at 0730. Two-person teams.
Shannon was paired with a man she hadn’t spoken to yet. He was tall, wiry, with steady hands and a Navy tattoo just under his sleeve. He offered a quick nod. “Cruz.”
“Johnson,” she said.
They didn’t talk again.
The simulator was cold and black inside. Every button backlit, every vibration dialed in to mimic reality.
The instructor’s voice filtered through the comms, “Startup checklist, Johnson. Cruz, you monitor inputs. I’m calling out curveballs.”
Shannon ran the checklist with no hesitation.
When the system jolted into a false fire warning mid-start, she tapped the breaker without flinching.
“Good catch,” the instructor muttered through the comm. “That’s how you keep from dying.”
After the exercise, she stepped out of the sim. Sweat dampened the back of her shirt, but her hands were steady.
Across the hangar, Rhodes leaned back in her chair, arms crossed, watching. Their eyes met for just a second. Rhodes gave her a slow nod, not approval, maybe a challenge.
Shannon didn’t return it. She walked past her and out.
Her room wasn’t empty anymore. There was a second duffel on the floor, half unzipped, and a woman sitting cross-legged on the top bunk in a green PT tee, folding her socks with military precision.
Shannon paused in the doorway.
“Hey,” the woman said without looking up. “You must be Johnson.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Carter. Hope you’re not a sleep-talker. I’m a light sleeper and mildly homicidal.”
Shannon gave the barest hint of a smile. “Nope. Silent as the grave.”
Carter finally looked down. She was older than Shannon by a few years, with a tired softness under her eyes that had nothing to do with fatigue. A wedding band glinted on her finger as she tucked her gear into a bin.
“Where you from?” Carter asked.
“D.C.”
“You left a guy?”
Shannon lifted a brow. “That obvious?”
Carter shrugged. “We all leave someone. I left two. One adult, one toddler.” There was no bitterness in her voice. Just fact. “Can’t decide if I feel worse for the husband or the kid.”
“Depends which one makes more noise,” Shannon said.
That earned a low chuckle. “Fair.”
They didn’t talk again that night, but Carter’s presence settled the room. It didn’t feel less lonely, just less empty.
At 2100, Shannon sat on the edge of her bed in a gray Air Force tee, sorting her flight checklists into subcategories. Her phone buzzed once. CALLING: Dad
She hesitated, letting it buzz once more. Then she answered, “Yeah.”
Mike’s voice came, crisp and quiet. “You squared away?”
“Settling in.”
“Any issues? I heard Novosel’s class is lean,” he said. “High attrition.”
“I know.”
“You’ll be fine. You good?” he asked.
It took her a second. “I'm focused.”
“Focused isn't the same thing.”
“It’s what matters.”
He didn’t press. “I’ve got a briefing early,” he said. “Let me know when you’re night-flying.”
“I will.”
She hung up before he could say anything else. She stared at the phone for a while. No new messages. Not from San Diego. Not from Dante. She didn’t need one. She turned off the screen, set it face-down on the desk, and went to bed.
The rotors above them pulsed in a rhythmic thunder, forcing the air down in thick, hard slaps. Inside the simulator bay, the air was colder, but no one noticed. Every student’s shirt was damp beneath the fire-retardant coveralls. No one complained. It was hover day.
And no one wanted to be the one who lost the bubble.
The instructor’s voice crackled through the internal comms. “Next pair. Johnson and Rhodes. Step up.”
Shannon climbed into the simulator, strapped into the pilot’s side while Rhodes slid into copilot. The mock cockpit was tight, filled with artificial tension and a hum of electricity.
Outside, the other students waited their turn. No one was talking. The screen flickered to life with a digital mockup of a desert landing zone, blue horizon above pale dust. A blinking grid hovered six inches off the ground.
The voice returned, “Task: one-minute stationary hover inside the grid. No drift. No sink. Maintain visual reference points. No resets.”
Shannon exhaled slowly as the exercise started.
She brought the bird up. Felt the simulated torque twist against her controls. Adjusted the pedals. Touched the cyclic just enough. They lifted, but too fast. She compensated, overcompensated, and the machine tilted forward, nose dipping slightly. She tapped it back, a beat too late.
Rhodes didn’t speak, just monitored. The drift started. Subtle. Left yaw. Then forward creep.
Shannon caught it. Too much tail rotor. She eased off again, too late. The simulator jittered. The grid blinked red.
The comm cracked loudly, “Down.”
The whole system froze.
Shannon’s jaw locked as the screen went black. The canopy opened, and she stepped out into the blinding light of the bay.
Chief Marston stood ten feet away, arms crossed, mouth flat. “You know what gets people killed in the air, Johnson?”
Shannon met his eyes. “Yes, Chief.”
“Then why the hell did you just demonstrate every mistake on that list?”
Silence.
“You’ve got the checklist memorized, sure,” Marston snapped. “You can recite it backwards. But your hands aren’t faster than your brain. You’re reacting. Not controlling. You want to fly helicopters? Fine. Then learn to do it without thinking.”
“Yes, Chief.”
“You're flying scared.”
Shannon didn’t blink. “No, Chief.”
He stepped closer. “You think anyone gives a damn what your last name is when you’re flipping upside down at sixty knots?”
“No, Chief.”
He stared at her then nodded once to the next student. “Next pair. Reset the sim.”
Shannon stepped off the platform and walked past the other students without looking at them. Rhodes didn’t say anything as she passed, but her eyes tracked her, not mocking, watching.
That night, Shannon didn’t eat dinner. Didn’t sit with Carter or make excuses. She went straight to her room, locked the door, and knelt by the footlocker beneath her bed. It creaked faintly as she opened it.
She pulled the scarf out slowly. Her mother’s navy silk, embroidered wing near the corner. The scent had faded, but she imagined it anyway. Lavender. She held it in both hands.
Then wrapped it around her wrist twice and tied it off neatly.
She stood and began again. She moved through the start-up checklist out loud. Then hover adjustments. Left pedal. Forward cyclic. Check torque. Scan visual reference. She repeated again and again, until the words were breath, not thought.