Chapter 1 - The Door That Wasn't My Idea
My name is Megan Holt, and I am a combat medic with the 3rd Battalion training rotation, and I need to tell you about the worst eight seconds of my life.
It happened on a clear blue morning over a national forest, in the back of a matte-black transport helicopter that was flying so high the pine trees looked like moss.
I was supposed to be on a routine air-assault familiarization flight.
That is what they told me when they handed me the manifest.
I had been in the Army for nine years, and I had flown in helicopters plenty of times, so I was not nervous when I climbed aboard and took a seat on the gray metal bench.
Specialist Kyle Brandt was the one who came over to me.
He was a blond kid with a big grin and a reputation for being funny in a way that only he found funny.
"Hey, Holt," he said.
"You're the medic, right?
We need you to check the lower latch on the side door.
It's been sticking all week."
I looked at the open doorway, and I looked at the forest below it, and I told him that was not my job.
"It's everybody's job," he said.
"You don't want that door popping open at altitude, do you?"
So I stood up and I walked to the edge, and I put one hand on the upper frame and leaned out to look at the latch.
That is the last thing I remember doing on purpose.
The next thing I knew, my weight shifted forward, and the safety strap that was supposed to be clipped to my harness was not there anymore.
Someone had released it.
I went out the door headfirst and I caught the lower metal doorframe with both hands, and then I was just hanging there, forty feet of nothing under my boots and the whole forest sliding past underneath me.
I could hear the wind, and I could hear the rotor, and I could hear them laughing.
Brandt was sitting right there in the doorway with his arm stretched down, pointing at me like I was a cartoon.
"What's wrong, princess?" he yelled.
"Can't handle a little helicopter ride?"
Private First Class Dylan Voss was next to him, and Specialist Aaron Reyes was behind him, and all three of them had the same grin on their faces.
"PULL ME UP!"
I screamed.
"YOU SICK BASTARDS!
I'M GONNA FUCKING FALL!"
They did not move.
"YOU THINK THIS SHIT IS FUNNY?"
I screamed.
"HELP ME, YOU HEARTLESS ASSHOLES!"
My gloves were slipping on the metal, and my left wrist was burning where the watch band was cutting into my skin, and I could feel my grip going one finger at a time.
I looked up at them one more time, and that is when I saw her.
There was a woman standing at the far end of the cabin, in the shadow of the rear doorway.
She had dark-brown hair pulled back into a low bun, and blue-gray eyes, and she was standing completely still with her arms at her sides, watching the whole thing like she had been watching it for a while.
She was not laughing.
She was not moving.
She just looked at those men, and then she reached up to her shoulder, and I saw a small black radio in her gloved hand.
She brought it to her mouth and she spoke in a voice so calm it cut through the rotor noise.
"Command, this is Raven," she said.
"I've got the whole damn crew right here."
And just like that, the laughing stopped.
