Chapter 7

The next morning they both woke up to alarms. Cameron set his for five minutes earlier than Alex's, he walked into her bedroom.

"Time to get up, Shrimp," Cam said as he dragged her out of bed.

"But it's early!" Alex moaned.

"Today's a big day," Cameron said referring to the final flight simulation toward earning their pilot's license.

"You don't know the half of it," Alex said, referring to the crash.

Alex and Cameron got dressed and ready to go, they were in the hanger by 0600.

"Good Morning, Mitchell," The commander said nodding at Mitchell, the Alex, "Rivers,"

"Good Morning, Sir," They both said in unison.

"Ready for the big fly?" The CO asked the two pilots.

"Of course, sir," Mitchell responded.

"Ok, then," He shot back, "Get into the plane and wait for the go-ahead.

Alex and Cameron both strapped their helmets onto their heads.

"Ready, Shrimp?" Cam asked climbing into the cockpit.

"As I'll ever be," Alex replied settling herself into the co-pilot's seat.

"Good," Cam said, "Now let's do this."

Alex sat in the back of the plane, hoping the same thing wouldn't happen like last time.

"You have ago, Blue Leader," Flight control announced.

"Got it," Cam shot back at them through his microphone, "We've got this."

"1, 2, 3, Take off," Alex announced from the back and Cameron quickly got the plane off the ground.

Cameron took on the obstacles with ease, fifteen minutes into the test, control came in through the plane's communications.

"All AF planes, time to switch to secondary controls."

"Shrimp, you're turn to shine." Cameron encouraged her as he switched the controls over to his co-pilot.

"Got it, Shaft," Alex said turning the plane around, back the beginning of the course.

Alex flew through the course with ease like Cameron. The flight control chimed in once more.

"Switch over to half and half, pilots,"

"Here we go Alex," Cam said as he took some of the controls back.

In this test, they had to fly the plane together, being in sync with each other. This was the test that they crashed last time.

Cameron and Alex flew through the first half of the course easily. They were about to the end when Alex lost control of the joystick, it wasn't responding to any of her commands.

"Where'd you go, Shrimp?" Cam asked trying to pilot the plane on half control.

"I've lost control of my console, Cam," She replied sounding worried. Not long after, Cameron lost control also.

"I've lost control, Shrimp," Cam said reaching up to the side of his seat, reaching for the eject handles,

"Flight, we've lost control, preparing to eject."

"Copy that, Blue Leader,"

Cam pulled down on the handle simultaneously with Alex, nothing happened, "Yeah, um, Flight, ejection failed, preparing for impact."

Alex remembered hitting the ground, feeling her left shoulder pop out of socket. Now everything was just black. She was back in the holding cell on Ba'al's hat'ack vessel, though she didn't realize it.

Daniel walked over to Cameron.

"She keeps saying 97," Daniel informed Cameron, "She's also holding her should, any ideas why?"

"Wait?" Cameron said, taking a double-take, "97, you said, and which shoulder, left?"

Daniel thought about it for a moment before saying, "Yeah, how'd you know, got an idea of what it is?"

"Yeah," Cam replied pushing passed Daniel and over to his old co-pilot.

Alex sat against one of the metal bars, her arms around her knees and her head down. When he got over there Scott was sitting next to Alex, gently rubbing her back.

"She hasn't said anything yet, just 97." Scott said and stood up.

Cameron sat down next to Alex and asked her, "What did Ba'al do to you?"

Recognizing his voice and the smell of his after-shave Alex looked up, wrapped her arms around him, and starting crying into his shoulder.

"He had me hooked up to some advanced memory recall device, he played one of the most painful memories of my life to try and get me to talk, and I didn't though." Alex replied between sobs.

"I'm assuming you're talking about our crash?" Cam whispered into her ear.

Cameron felt her nod. He pulled her in closer to his body. She cried into his shoulder, and he let her.