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L et’s open her up.
The voice sounded like it was coming from far away, muffled. Audible, but just barely.
Then she saw the light.
Sunlight, streaming in through the massive hangar doors. She could see the aircraft. Not of Kree design. Something more primitive. And yet there was something about them that she was drawn to.
There was a woman, walking. Wearing a flight suit of some kind. She had something over her eyes, shielding them from the brilliant sun.
Was it her?
Where are we?
The unseen voice.
Stand by.
Someone else?
She continued looking at the scene, as if she was a part of it and yet somehow removed from it altogether. There were other people wearing similar flight suits, scurrying about the tarmac, rushing off to their aircraft.
Then she heard another voice.
“Where’s your head at?”
But this voice seemed closer. She turned, and saw another woman, wearing a flight suit and similar coverings over her eyes. She smiled at the woman.
“In the clouds,” she said. “Where’s yours?”
“On my shoulders,” said the woman. “About to show these boys how we do it. You ready?” She seemed eager to begin.
“Higher, further, faster, baby,” came her response without hesitation.
“That’s right,” the woman replied with a grin.
The next thing she knew, she was standing right next to one of the aircraft. She reached up, and touched its nose. It felt so real. Walking a little farther, she put a foot on the ladder that extended down from the cockpit. She climbed right up and slipped into the seat.
She felt right at home.
This can’t be right.
She couldn’t identify the voice that was speaking. Was it to her? About her? It was like an omniscient narrator, commenting on everything she saw. She tried to ignore it, and focused instead on what her eyes could see.
Suddenly the aircraft she was in control of was speeding down the runway, lifting off into the air, the force of gravity pinning her into her seat.
She took a deep breath, and noticed the breathing mask over her face. Then she banked the aircraft, sending it into a roll.
Go back even further.
But then she wasn’t in the cockpit anymore. She was in the seat of another type of vehicle, something open to the air, low to the ground, and speeding around a track of some kind. There were people milling about near a big red-and-white-striped tent. People who looked different from the Kree.
“You’re going too fast!” a voice cried out. “You need to go slow!”
It wasn’t the narrator. It was coming from another vehicle, from a driver. Something about him seemed familiar... like she knew him?
Whatever. She wasn’t listening to him. She pushed her foot down on a pedal, making the small, four-wheeled vehicle go even faster around the track. It quickly dawned on her that she didn’t have the kind of control she needed to make the turn, and her vehicle started to skid across the lanes of the track, slamming right into a series of hay bales that lined the race course.
The cart went flying into the air, and she went right along with it.
Then, strangely, she could see herself... except... younger. Walking away from the wreck. Fists clenched.
Who is this person? Are we in the right... ?
A man came running at her, older, concerned. Angry. “What the hell are you thinking?” he yelled. “You don’t belong out here!”
He was screaming at the young girl. She looked up at him, defiant.
I think we went back too far.
“You let him drive!” she said to the man accusingly.
Let me try something.
Everything went white, and the man was gone. She blinked, and found herself hanging from a rope, like some kind of training course. A few feet away from her hung another rope. Then another, and another. She looked down and saw that she was high above the ground.
There were others, wearing some kind of workout gear with a militaristic look.
“Give up, already!” came a mocking voice from below.
“You don’t belong out here!”
“You’re not strong enough!”
She heard the words, and she somehow knew she had been hearing them all her life. But they wouldn’t stop her. She swung on the rope, shifting her weight, trying to reach the next rope.
“You’ll kill yourself!”
When she was close enough, she let go of the rope, reaching out with her arm for the next one. She clutched it tight, but it wasn’t enough. Her grip slipped, and she fell to the ground, on her side, the breath knocked out of her.
“Damn, that hurt,” someone observed snidely, and she heard the laughter. Cruel. Callous.
“They’ll never let you fly,” gloated someone else.
Am I the only one that’s confused here?
The narrator.
She looked up at one of the men who had been taunting her. She made a fist, and felt the energy welling up within.
Then suddenly, she was in the Subzone gym. She expected to see Yon-Rogg, to be sparring with him. Except Yon-Rogg wasn’t there. There was someone else. It was the man wearing the same gear that she had seen before, when she was trying to climb the ropes.
“You’re a decent pilot,” the man said. “But you’re too emotional.”
She saw a name on the man’s uniform. “Bret Johnson.” Whoever that was, he didn’t know much.
And the next thing she knew, she was lying on her back, soft grass beneath her, a night sky full of flickering stars above. Someone else was next to her. The boy, the one from the racetrack, the one who had told her to slow down.
“A huge rumble throughout the cosmos shook the moon and the sun and the stars in the sky,” he said. “And so, little Alouette flew up throughout the night.”
Then a shooting star streaked across the sky.
“Did you see her?”
The voice didn’t belong to the boy, nor the narrator. It belonged to a little girl.
“It’s Alouette!”
She turned, to find herself now not lying on the grass but sitting on a lounge chair, next to a young girl with honeyed brown skin and a halo of curly dark hair. They were in a backyard, looking up at a starry sky.
She chuckled.
“Get your butts inside,” came another voice. “It’s time to eat.”
She recognized the voice. It was the woman from before, by the aircraft, the one who had asked her where her head was at.
“Prepare for takeoff, Lieutenant Trouble,” she said, swooping the young girl up into her arms. She carried her through the backyard, toward a porch connected to an old house, the familiar woman standing right outside with a mock-weary grin.
Charming memory.
Hang on... I think I’ve got it...
She was leaning against the hood of a four-wheeled vehicle. Red. Something that she instinctively knew could move fast, even though in this moment it was standing stock-still. Looking down, she saw an orange-furred animal—a cat?—rubbing up against her leg. She reached down to pet the creature.
“Goose likes you,” said a new voice. “She doesn’t typically take to people.”
She looked up and saw an older woman. She had seen her before. “Early start to your morning?” she said.
“Late night, actually,” the woman replied, somewhat sheepishly. “I can’t sleep when there’s work to do. Sound familiar?”
She grinned. She was the same way. “Flying your planes never feels like work,” she admitted.
The two women were inside the hangar from the earlier scene. The large doors opened, revealing the rising sun in the sky and the mountains in the distance.
“Wonderful view, isn’t it?” the woman commented.
“I prefer the view from up there,” she said, looking skyward wistfully.
“You’ll get there soon enough, Ace,” the woman replied.
Wait! Wait!
The narrator.
That’s her. Get her back!
Suddenly, everything seemed to shift and blur for a moment. She watched as the woman walked away.
Then the moment seemed to dial itself back, and instantaneously, from the opposite direction, the woman walked right toward her again. A physical impossibility, and yet it was happening.
“Wonderful view, isn’t it?”
She had the most intense feeling of déjà vu, yet she couldn’t help but say, “I prefer the view from up there.” This time her tone was less wistful, more confused. Then she looked upward again.
“You’ll get there soon enough, Ace,” the woman repeated.
What’s that on her shirt? I couldn’t read it.
The woman left, and then entered again.
“Wonderful view, isn’t it?”
“I prefer the view from up there.” She wanted to say something else, like What the heck is going on here , but she couldn’t say anything other than that one statement.
“You’ll get there soon enough, Ace.”
Focus!
She turned, confused. “Excuse me?”
The woman stated again, “You’ll get there soon enough, Ace.”
Look down!
Unable to resist, she automatically looked down, and saw the name sewn on the woman’s jacket.
Focus...
As she stared at the jacket, she heard the narrator read what she saw.
“Pegasus. Dr. Wendy Lawson.” That’s her.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then locked eyes with Lawson. “Do you hear that, too?” she asked the woman, but it was as though she hadn’t spoken.
Do we have her location?
Got it.
Now track Lawson until we find the energy signature.
She couldn’t see Lawson for a second, and then suddenly she reappeared in her line of vision. Except they weren’t in the hangar any more. They were outside, and there was smoke all around them. An explosion of some kind, something recent. There was debris, wreckage of some kind of machine or vehicle all about.
Lawson appeared to be holding a weapon. Then she lowered it.
Interesting...
Something was coming toward them through the smoke and fire.
Something that looked alarmingly like a Skrull.
It, too, held a weapon, aiming it right at her. It fired.
Hold on. Go back right before this. Go back!
She wasn’t on the ground anymore. Now she was in the cockpit of an aircraft, different from the one she was in before. This one was much more advanced. It seemed more like the Kree ships to which she had become accustomed.
Another ship zoomed right past her, firing weapons.
“That’s no MiG, Lawson,” she said. What is an MiG? she wondered.
She piloted the aircraft as best she could, tipping the wings to avoid enemy fire. The ship pursued her, and she took the aircraft closer to the ground.
This is it. Now let me see where you’re headed...
She looked out of the cockpit, concerned.
That’s right. Look at the coordinates.
She looked at the controls, saw a series of switches, buttons, and knobs that said things like
LOFT
BSCU
ELECTRICAL RESET
ICAW DATA
Focus!
Before she knew it, she was surrounded by debris, and she closed her eyes.
Open, please.
She felt her eyes pried open as though against her will, and she was back in the cockpit of the strange craft.
That’s it. That’s it. You’re almost there. You’re almost there. Don’t fight it...
Her hand was clenched around a yellow handle. She pulled it decisively. The seat erupted from the cockpit, sending her high into the air above, away from the smoldering aircraft.
Get her back! Get her back now!
Her mind reeled as the ejector seat reversed, plummeted downward and landed back in the cockpit, as the glass above her resealed itself.
She closed her eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, there was no hangar.
No racetrack.
No training course.
No backyard with a starry night sky.
No strange aircraft, no woman named Dr. Wendy Lawson.
But there were two Skrulls, standing right near her.
Vers knew at least that much, even as beams of pink-hued energy bored into her temples.