Pain. That was the first thing that registered in his mind. Not the slight turbulence nor the sound of the rotors from the UH-60 Blackhawk he was in.
No, those were realized later.
The overstimulation of nerves was first felt as a blanket of fire that was draped over him, burning all over. It then started to recede into more specific areas. His chest, his right thigh, and… No, this couldn't be right.
His legs were still on fire. The flames of pain still flickered below his knees, testing his resolve. His other senses would now awaken, offsetting the pain somewhat. He now heard the steady thrum of helicopter blades, felt the slight jostle of the Blackhawk as it navigated through a more unsteady air mass. Finally, he opened his eyes, looking up at the cabin of the UH-60. He'd notice a stirring to his right.
"He's awake." Someone said, most likely the person off to his right.
"Heh, it'll take a hell of a lot more than what he's been through to kill a frogman." Someone else would answer.
His eyes would take their time to focus on the finer details of what they were seeing, and he would be greeted a face smeared with black face paint. It would take him a couple seconds to put a name to the face, well, more like a callsign.
Worm.
"Welcome back to the land of the living, Dune," Worm said. "Peasant over here was starting to get a little worried that you weren't gonna wake up." Dune would tilt his head searching for Peasant. He'd find him on the other set of chairs at the back of the Blackhawk. Peasant would simply nod at Dune, the gesture speaking more than words could at the moment.
Dune would still be bothered by the pain in his legs and voice his concern. "M-my legs? Worm, w-what happened to my legs?" His voice would sound worn and scratchy, as if he had been shouting into a wind tunnel for the past hour.
"Uh well," Worm would begin, a slight frown marring his already dirty face."You know that terrorism doesn't take a day off, right? Well after we blew that gulag to kingdom come with those boys form the One-Four-One, Uncle Sam had us tackle a cargo freighter that was shipping possible nuclear materials to our friends in Pyongyang. We wasted all of the fuckers in there and were about to breach the captain's cabin. You opened the door, triggered a claymore, and that's why your legs are fucked up."
Dune would look down at his legs. "Will I be able to walk after this?" He'd ask.
"Unknown, we'll get a corpsman and a doctor to look at you back at base. It looks kinda nasty, but that's what a shit-ton of ball bearing flying at high speeds will do to you. Good thing it fell over 'cause of the rough seas it was travelling through. That and the door took the brunt of the explosion and impact." This time it was Peasant speaking. "We've had enough folded flags as it is. I heard we lost almost a whole team in D.C. when their Littlebird went down."
This statement would bring another question to Dune's lips.
"What about the rest of us? Where's the rest of our team?"
"They're fine, Dune," Worm would answer. "They're just making sure that the good guys get the materials and all that due process is followed. Except for you, we went in and out clean. They'll be on the next chopper back to base."
Dune would think about the other members of his team, Robot and Zach. He remembered their time at BUD/S and how each of them got their nicknames.
Worm got his name after an instructor saw just how well he did at crawling in the mud on the obstacle course, just like a worm.
Peasant got his when the same instructor remarked how thin he was, and that he looked like a peasant. Sure he filled out by the time he was truly a SEAL, but the name stuck.
Robot, well he always followed orders to a T most of the time had no discernible emotions, so it was only a matter of time until someone came up with that one.
Zach was the only outlier in this group. There wasn't anything special about him, so no one though about giving him a nickname. He was just a better-than-average guy who wanted and became a Navy SEAL.
Lastly, Dune came to himself. His name had a bit of a backstory in SEAL lore about BUD/S. Every day the instructors came in your room and checked your bed area. If you didn't make your bed up to snuff, they had you rolling around in the Santa Monica surf with your dress uniform on. They kept you rolling in it until you were nice and sandy, and they called this sopping wet trainee a "sugar cookie".
Now Dune wasn't he neatest person ever, quite the opposite, so it was safe to say that his days as a SEAL trainee were most often spent as a sugar cookie. An instructor pointed out that he spent so much time in the sand he might as well be a sand dune as opposed to a SEAL, and the name stuck. His habits changed, but that didn't stop him from being the SEAL with the most days as a sugar cookie on record. His thoughts were interrupted by Worm.
"Damn, we're gonna miss you, Dune. I mean it doesn't take an expert to see you'll be stuck in the med bay for a while." He said. "Overlord just called, he needs us to take out a Russian sub in the New York harbour. We're running a joint op with some guys from Delta who're going to take down a jamming rig that Ivan has somewhere in the city. Shame we'll be a man short."
"We're thirty minutes out from the carrier!" The pilot would call from the cockpit.
Worm would tap Dune on the shoulder. "Rest easy, frogman." He'd say. Dune would feel something slip into his arm and he'd grow drowsy. He would let all of his worries slip away as he fell asleep.