WARNING: FILE RESTRICTED
PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY.

MISSING SQUADRON REPORT

SQUADRON: VFA-146 (Blue Diamonds)

BASE: Classified

STATUS: MIA (soldiers found: 2/6)

STATUS DATE REPORTED: Classified

STATUS TIME REPORTED: Classified

LAST REPORTED LOCATION: Classified

AIRCRAFT INVOLVED: Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet Engine Model 30-D

CREW INVOLVED: Classified

INCIDENT STATEMENTS: Classified

"THE SECOND ACT IS CALLED 'THE TURN'. THE MAGICIAN TAKES THE ORDINARY SOMETHING AND MAKES IT DO SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY. NOW, YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE SECRET... BUT YOU WON'T FIND IT, BECAUSE OF COURSE YOU'RE NOT REALLY LOOKING. YOU DON'T REALLY WANT TO KNOW."

That's what everyone tells her.

Christopher Priest, the Prestige, 1994.

If she had a dollar for every time some form of that passage had been quoted to her (most of the time by outsiders who had absolutely no clue what they were talking about and who were most certainly only quoting Christopher Priest in an attempt to make themselves look smart — spoiler, they didn't), Samantha Corzo would undoubtedly be the richest person alive.

        If she had a dollar for every time she'd withheld a scream when that damned passage had been quoted to her, Samantha Corzo wouldn't be enlisted in the fucking Navy, she'd be on a yacht alone — preferably for the rest of her life.

No one talked about it, yet everyone did. It was spoken of in silence — in knowing looks, quiet tears, pitying whimpers and tight expressions. What a fucking joke. They didn't know shit.

The Lost Squadron, they called it. The patrol where everything went wrong. Couldn't have seen it coming. It was too late. Bullshit. Samantha wanted to grab whoever tokened those few phrases by the collar, shake them into oblivion and scream until her throat bled and her lungs gave out, "The patrol that was my family! The patrol that was fucking human! The patrol that crashed into the fucking Pacific and exploded on the waves! The patrol that burned alive while I watched!"

But, she didn't. Because The Lost Squadron report was classified, kept away in a dusty storage closet, never to be touched again, and as far as the Navy was concerned, Samantha "Sonic" Corzo was never on that mission. She never willingly got into a fighter jet on a simple morning patrol. She never left the runway. She never watched as her fellow pilots and friends exploded in chunks of metal mere meters from her jet window. She never ejected into the Pacific and she never woke in a Navy medical center to find herself completely and suffocatingly alone. As far as the Navy was concerned, Samantha Corzo was in bed, sound asleep, hundreds of miles away.

        And it would stay that way. No one would speak about the families left behind, nor the night terrors that jerked Samantha from sleep in drenching, cold sweats. As far as anybody was concerned, none of it existed.

You don't want to know what went wrong. She does. It'll only cause more pain. There's no such thing. Their families have to be considered. They have been. It's not permitted. Okay.

Three years pass, and Samantha Corzo still lacks an answer — an answer to her terrors, her trauma, and her guilt. An answer to why the Navy fights tooth and nail to keep the truth from her; an answer that could relieve a sliver of the weight burdening her shoulders every minute of every day.

Then, the order comes in — You have been called back to Top Gun. And she knows: this is her chance.

          Samantha Corzo is going to find out what happened on that patrol, even if she has to bring hell itself down upon the United States Navy to do it.

Except, the romanticized idea she has in her clouded mind may not be exactly the reality, and as far as distractions go, it certainly does not help that a certain bronze-haired asshole from her past with an affinity, for quite simply, pissing her off, has been beckoned for duty as well...

Jeanine Mason SAMANTHA CORZO
✧ ──── sonic !

Glen Powell JAKE SERESIN
✧ ──── hangman !

✈️ ✈️ ✈️

Andy Garcia  as  COMM. ANTON CORZO
Rosario Dawson  as  RAMIRA CORZO
Alexandra Daddario  as  BESS ELLIOT
Naomi Scott  as  SHIRA OBOGNO
Margaret Qualley  as  MARIN MADSEN
Emily Van Camp  as  LAYNA LAM
Emma Stone  as  ADM. LESLIE MAZE
Patrick Dempsey as DOMINIC BLAKE

with ...
THE LOST SQUADRON

Harry Shum Jr. as DANNY LAM
"CRISCO"

Brie Larson as KATE BORDREAU
"RAZOR"

Yvonne Orji as GENEVIEVE MORELLI
"RICO"

Florence Pugh as BAILEY CLARKE
"BOWIE"

Lauren German as KATRINA BECKER
"HURRICANE"

& the Top Gun Maverick cast
as themselves

✈️ ✈️ ✈️

warning & disclaimer.
physical & verbal violence, strong
language, alcohol use, derogatory
names, sexual content, grief, assault,
gory scenes, and more of the like.
please read at your own discretion.

i do not own the top gun franchise. all
storylines and characters of top gun
are the right of Joseph Kosinski and his associates. any
original content, including characters,
storylines, or dialogue, not belonging
to donnelly, is owned by myself.

dedication.
to clinquaant for being my go to top gun enthusiast and miles teller fan club president <3

author's note.
my unhealthy top gun phase from middle school has come back in its fullest glory after seeing top gun maverick so honestly who's surprised 😀 this draft came to me last summer but (shocker!) hasn't seen the light of day until now! anywho i'm vv excited about this book and the amount of time and energy i've put into this plot should be embarrassing but here we are.

as far as the actual storyline goes, i'll be changing the time that the group is given for the mission from 3 weeks to 2 months because i cannot and will never find it within myself to write a fast burn

thank you so much for reading, & i hope you enjoy reading as much as i have writing!!