Deja Vu...

Part One

Captain Esme Cronin, callsign ‘Avon’, slumped tiredly in one of the beat-up chairs in VMA 232’s brief/debrief space. Dropping her helmet bag gratefully to the deck next to her, she scrubbed her short black hair, stretched, and got a sniff of her sweaty flight suit. “Ugh. I stink,” she mumbled to herself as she rotated her shoulders and head, trying to ease the sore muscles as the rest of the flight straggled in.

Her wingman, 2^nd Lieutenant Blake Hailey, callsign ‘Nug’, eased into the chair next to her, bent over and put his arms on his knees, head hanging as Lieutenants Jeena Steel, ‘Iron’, and her wingman John Tyler, ‘Joke’, slumped in the other chairs. Everyone was fanning themselves as they drank from bottles of water they’d picked up from maintenance when they turned in the gripe sheets on their AV-12 Skyraider jets.

Esme grunted and sat up. “Okay, debrief time. It’s hot, we stink, and we could all use a shower. Nug, start us off.”