We had landed!
Well, a landing of sorts.
As I came to, a sea of dark red blood surrounded me as I slowly peeled open my eyes to let in the offensively bright light around me. As my surroundings came into focus, I saw that the sea of blood glistening on the isle floor gave way to almost artistic splatters and brush strokes of blood on the interior walls of the fuselage passenger plane I found myself on. Once I had uncrumpled my gangly limbs into a more reasonable position my hand meandered across my face and head assessing the damage. I jumped suddenly experiencing a flash of pain as I pressed lightly on the right-hand side of my head. My face felt tight, like the sensation you get when you are a child at a funfair after your face paint has dried. I looked down at my clothes which were adorned with the same artistic red flare as the inside of the plane. I unbuckled my seatbelt with the familiar click. Unbuckling my seat belt was a very familiar and mundane practice, one that so many passengers before me had done. It was such a banal task that was contrasted with the unique circumstances that I found myself in.
I stood and extended my body, I could sense an internal ache, one that suggested I had been unconscious for some time. At that moment I could feel a strong and warm breeze caressing my face. Turning towards the warm and welcoming air which dulled some of the very strong metallic smell in the air I realised that the cockpit of the plane was missing. The jagged edges that highlighted where the front of the aircraft should be resembled the messy tears of the discarded wrapping of a present that had been ripped open excitedly by a giddy child on the morning of their birthday. In that moment a spike of adrenaline surged through my body as I remembered the potential danger, we had been racing towards earlier that day. A moment of doubt rose to the surface of my mind, making me question whether taking the flight had been a mistake. Had our flight been for nothing?
Gripping tightly onto the tops of chairs which were thankfully rooted to the floor with industrially sturdy bolts I manoeuvred through the sea of what could have possibly been a pathogen filled floor. As I did so I was thankful for my sturdy and trustworthy outdoor tightly- laced boots, which left behind familiar imprints of the soles in the isle as I made my way to the front of the plane. I moved in as stealth-like a manner as I could manage in my current state, tactfully remaining as mute as possible. Not knowing what would be out there to greet me. I reached the first overhead compartment which was still intact and pressed evenly across the compartment door to release the latch. Jennifer had bundled away several military grade backpacks in there during the rushed take-off. Grabbing one of the remaining extremely heavy backpacks packed for all eventualities I slung it across my shoulders and secured the front buckle. As I did so, with my gaze towards the ground I noticed Kai's Black worn leather briefcase in the footwell. I lent down and pulled the briefcase onto the chair nearest to the isle where I was currently planted in a drying soil of blood. I swivelled the combination locks to the correct numerical digits and with a click the two golden coloured clasps sprung forward on the case. As I opened the mouth of the tired leather case a wealth of confidential documents was still safely inside stamped with big red letters "CONFIDENTIAL". The large wad of papers was an unnerving sight, as this meant that whatever violent onslaught had taken place here, it was not carried out with the purpose of stealing our intelligence documents. I pawed the top documents to see information and satellite pictures of our current location, our targeted location, the Taklamakan desert, China. Some of the documents, government documents, were also heavily doctored and censored. Several countries had started to redact huge swaths of documents amidst the newfound discoveries relating to Proxima B, even the British Government. After closing the lid on the sensitive materials, a practice that seemed somewhat pointless in the current situation, I headed to where the cockpit should have been. To meet whatever may have still been tiptoeing across the sands.
As a researcher, I was often out in the field, but under very different circumstances to the ones I found myself in right in that moment. Standing there, all alone, on what was left of our mode of transport, I was suddenly filled with a deep compulsion to find the rest of my team. Images of their faces flashed over my eyes. Most of the team had never experienced being part of such a rushed job. Our team was chaotically melded together by the British Government at, in research terms, an exponentially fast rate. Some of us were acquainted before all of this, but most of us were complete strangers.
Jennifer was the youngest member of the team, one of our designated Physicist, who had only seen thirty-one birthdays so far. I pictured Jen in my mind with her lovely thick auburn curls framing her face and falling to just below her shoulders, complemented by her piercing green eyes and freckled cheeks. Kai was the second youngest member of the team, a fiercely intelligent young mind for the age of thirty-two with a tall and broad frame and shaggy brown hair. Kai specialised in human Biology but also Entomology and had previously spent four years in the British Army. The third member of the team was Dr Henry Derwent who was the most experienced member of our team. Dr Derwent was in his fifties with a welcoming face and the air of a father figure. He had salt and pepper hair and would often be found in cords, a smart shirt, and glasses. Dr Derwent was experienced yes, but he was never arrogant about such matters, he held to his name over thirty plus years of experience in the field of astrology, including his endeavour to find exoplanets. Despite Dr Derwent seemingly struggling with the teams set up at first, this was somewhat alleviated by the fourth member of our team being one of his colleagues, Lava who provided the glue to hold the five-person team together. Lava was in her forties and was an enthusiastic exuberant but also elegant member of the team. Lava was also, along with Dr Derwent, a passionate astrologer. Lava had olive skin and thick dark brown hair with naturally loose curls and beautiful light brown eyes. I made up the fifth member of the team, they all called me A.J. However, it wasn't just the five of us blindly following our egos and academic curiosity into a potentially dangerous situation, that would be foolish. We were accompanied by a military sub-unit of fifteen personnel, who at this present time were nowhere to be seen. The vast amount of blood and the glaring absence of bodies was a curious scene indeed. I could only hope that some had survived the crash and whatever else had happened whilst I was unconscious.
I loosened one of the shoulder straps on my newly claimed backpack and opened the main compartment to pull out the desert camouflage uniform jacket neatly packed in like a sardine in a barrel of many other sardines of varying sizes and shapes. Once I had pulled on my new shirt with my muscles aching and protesting my efforts, I made my way to where the cockpit should have been to make the small jump to the sand below. The infrastructure that remained groaned under my weight as I made the last few steps before the jump. As my feet hit the sand and I made my first sandy steps on Chinese soil, or in this case sand, the unforgiving rays of the mid-day sun started to beat down on me. In that moment I wished we had not abandoned the original plan to touch base at the Lanzhou Zhongchuan airport first, before making the flight to the Taklamakan desert coordinates. An increased amount of time for strategizing would have been welcomed with open arms. However, I am not sure we would have found ourselves in a better situation. Perhaps we would have simply been in a repeat scenario of the one we were in, namely crashed and bloodied.
I squinted to adjust to being outside of the plane, or what was left of it, my eyes tried to deal with the offensive brightness of the natural light, revealing the many frown lines in my forehead. I could see small mounds in the sand, like little mole hills there to ruin the smooth landscape. At that moment a glimmer at my feet caught my eye, like a magpie scavenging for objects I spotted something. I bent down and lightly brushed away the sand to find a dusting of small cartridges on the desert floor. These were from the British Army SA80 A2 weapons the soldiers on the flight were issued with. I only knew that because they were talking shop on the way there. I had had no experience with weapons at that point. I, Lava, Dr Derwent, Jennifer, and Kai had been there to carry out observations, to carry out fieldwork, not to point and shoot weapons. Not to maim or kill. We had not expected to be confronted by any enemy. We were not prepared to enter a fight. The soldiers with us were a precaution., for good measure. The perceived threat had not shown signs of aggression and had not hurt any humans. We hoped for a peaceful encounter but had tried to prepare for the worst.
As I stood up again, leaving the shells where they were, there was a noise coming from behind me. I quickly recognised the voice. I hastily made a sharp 180 turn, but there was no one behind me. The voice was coming from my backpack. It was Kai. I quickly shimmied the backpack off my shoulders, ignoring the nagging pain from the head injury I had sustained and pulled open the side compartment of the bag to grab the military handheld radio.
Kai repeated "Is anyone there? We require an immediate evac."
Kai began to speak again but was quickly cut off by Jennifer questioning his desperate pleads on the radio. "Who is going to answer us all the way out here?" Jen scoffed.
"Hello, Kai? Jen? It's me, A.J.!" I replied in a hurry.
In that moment the white noise from the radio was piercing as I waited for a much-welcomed reply.
Suddenly a steady and purposeful voice replied, "Its Officer Beckett". Officer Beckett was well rehearsed in the duty of combat and had served in the British Army in the Falklands and in Lebanon, and most recently in the Gulf War. There was a pause over the radio, so I filled it, "Where are you? What happened?"
Officer Beckett's reply came thick and fast. "We don't have time to explain. I need you to do something for me, right away". There was another pause. "In the plane there is a high frequency long distance communication transmitter."
Again, Jen interrupted "A.J. won't know what that is! Or what it looks like, you need to give more than that", she sounded out of breath, come to think of it, they all did.
"I am trying my best given the circumstances Jenny" Beckett shouted back. He continued uninterrupted "It's a black box, with several dials on the front. We left it near the back of the plane. Are you still near the plane? You need to get it now; we need an immediate evacuation from this place".
"Ok, yes, I am near the plane still. I will head back in there right now" I replied, as I turned on my heels and started to jog back to the plane.
Beckett replied "Great, hurry". I pulled myself up onto the lip of the newly created unconventional doorway into plane, the 'door' I left through only a few minutes earlier. Once I got to my feet, I rushed down the aisle to the back of the aircraft to retrieve the radio. The radio was at the back of the plane next to the toilet door. The toilet door was dented and had a trail of smeared blood down the front, which snaked off along the floor. The blood pattern on the floor had been skewed by the sliding weight of the radio device, which must have been pushed around in whatever struggle took place.
"I found it" I replied as I took a few deep breaths. "How do I turn it on?" I asked.
Right at that moment I heard an ear bleeding shriek and was thrown forward onto my forearms and knees. I pulled my arms back towards my body and used my hands to cover my ears to minimal effect. What was happening?
Once the shriek had subsided and the ringing in my ears commenced, I realised that not only had the plane shuddered, but it had started to move, and move quickly. My heart started to race, and I could feel another surge of adrenaline course through my body. I clambered to my feet at lightning speed and grabbed the long-range receiver and ran. I ran with as much speed as I could gather with the weight of the backpack and long-range receiver in tow. I sprinted to the front of the plane which was beginning to alter its lens on the outside world, tilting more and more towards to skyline with every passing second. I reached the front of the plane and jumped the now much larger gap between the plane and the sandy terrain below. I propelled my body forward and began to fall to meet the sandy floor below, landing on my feet before then very quickly falling forwards onto my knees and my elbows hitting the sand with a thud as I attempted to save the receiver from any major damage. I quickly righted myself again and ran around about twenty feet away from the spot where the plane had once stood. Ignoring the newfound pain in my elbows I turned and watched the final part of the plane sink into the sand like a shipwreck at sea, being swallowing up in its entirety, with the confidential documents going down with the ship.
I caught my breath and realised how dry my mouth was. I was suddenly aware of how dehydrated I was, and how much I had sweated. With heavy hands I placed the receiver on the ground to enjoy some of the cool water from my backpack, taking a huge swig. The satisfying feeling of the cool liquid was quickly interrupted by the return of the piercing screeching noise cutting through the silence of the desert. Avoiding the instinct to clasp my hands to my ears I shoved the water back into my backpack as the earth trembled like an earthquake and a huge gale of wind tried to push me to the ground. Seconds later there was nothing but silence. It was so silent and still it felt like I could have been in a void. All I could hear was the sound of my shallow and sharp breathing.
In my peripheral vision I could see a shadow to my right, a very large looming shadow. Something which had not been there before. I was not sure if it was just a mirage at first, or some dark shadow over my right eye, perhaps I was experiencing a bad concussion? But as I turned my head to see more clearly the radio sprung to life again. "Are you still there?" "I think we lost contact with A.J.", it was Officer Beckett again.
I grabbed the radio receiver and quickly relayed that I was still in fact there and that the plane had gone. As I spoke, I turned to see what the large overbearing shadow in the sand was out of curiosity and fear. I couldn't help but stand mouth agape. I craned my neck back to see what was casting the shadow, it was a huge hexagon like shape, towering over me like some skyscraper from a hustling and bustling thriving city setting. This otherworldly skyscraper stood tall, proud, threatening and alone in the vast desert that surrounded it. The top half was clear looking almost like a mirror, reflecting the clear blue sky above, an untarnished and unscathed material framed by a bold black boarder at its edges. The bottom half of the hexagon like mass was pure white, whiter than freshly laid snow contrasted against the dusty colours of the desert floor.
The radio rang out at me "A.J." I gave out a sharp breath, as my transfixed gaze on the towering object before me was broken.
"Yes, yes I am here" I replied as I pulled the radio receive closer to my face "A huge object has just appeared".
"Do not focus on that, do you hear me? Do not come towards it. Do not go inside it" Officer Beckett barked the orders over the radio.
"Ok I hear you," I replied.
Within a split-second Officer Beckett relayed instructions in a very stern manner "You will see there is a switch on the left-hand side of the device, flick it on, and the small display screen will light up". I quickly and obediently flicked the switch.
"Ok I have done that," I replied, "What now?" I was eager to get out of this surreal situation. The sooner we could regroup the better.
"There is a dial on the front, above that it states frequency. Turn it to 2.3 and then change the submitting dial at the bottom right to channel 6" Beckett instructed.
Suddenly the receiver came to life, with the calm and collected voice of what sounded like a young woman. "Transmitting to latitude 38.8880, can anyone read me? We are seeing a lot of seismic activity taking place in your location. Do you require assistance? Over."
I knew then that this was directed to us as a team straight away, well one of the small teams anyway. Several teams, like ours had been sent to varying locations across the globe to observe strange patterns of activity in a few locations worldwide. There were several locations in Europe and America along the same latitude that others were currently at.
"Hello, it's A.J. part of Dr Derwent's team," I replied, "We need help at our location. We need immediate evacuation."
As I finished my sentence Officer Beckett came back on the other radio device, "Have you made contact?" I assured him that I had and that I had asked for an immediate evacuation.
Beckett continued, "When the other person talks press down on the radio button so I can hear what is being said, then when she stops release the button so I can talk to you to tell the extraction team what to expect when they land". At that point Officer Beckett took over.
Beckett taking the reins meant that I became more aware of the fact that I was sweating profusely and was aware that my sweaty palms had been wanting to slip from the receiver. I sat down in the sand, saving myself from having to crouch any longer, conserving the little energy I had left. I felt quite fatigued by this point.
Officer Beckett continued to have a conversation with the female on the other line and I caught snippets of conversation every now and then as I zoned in and out in the heat. The adrenaline rush had stopped, and I was beginning to become quite drowsy. Beckett seemed to be stating there were "multiple hostiles," and that the situation was "like nothing I have seen before", and they are "extremely resilient," and he mentioned "plummeting temperatures." After talking for about five minutes the conversation appeared to come to an end and Beckett said, "Sit tight A.J. they are coming for us."
I sat back to the sand and released my cramping hand from the receiver. I was so relieved to hear Beckett's last words that I managed to control my breathing and did not let unnecessary panicking thoughts fill my mind as I waited. I took the time to glance at the strange skyscraper as long as possible, ever thought Beckett had told me not to, it was hard to resist. I know I shouldn't have, but human curiosity seems to win out every time. As I paused, looking at the nonhuman-skyscraper- craft, I sipped the water from my pack and wiped my palms on my trousers, to wipe away the salty sweat.
About twenty minutes later what sounded like the noise of a helicopter fluttering into range met my ears. The sound reverberated, getting louder and louder. I brought my hand up to shield my face from the sun as I searched the sky surrounding the huge skyscraper-like-hexagon form which possessed somewhat perfect objectlike qualities which stood before me. Three large Chinook aircraft came into view. I shot up and waved my arms in the air frantically trying to get their attention. Getting their attention felt extremely improbable as I was sure their eyes were most definitely transfixed on the huge pure sterile looking hexagon shape on first sight rather than at a very small insignificant Black dot in the sand. Suddenly, I could see a red flash. A red flare shot up from near the base of the hexagon like building, contrasting against the pure white backing.
The long-range receiver sparked to life again with the official voice of the young woman stating, "They should be with you in under sixty seconds."
I grabbed the handheld radio and relayed the message to the team "Beckett are you there? Have you got flares?"
Beckett seemed quite slow in his reply, with a fatigued slur creeping into his voice "Yes, that is us, can you make your way over to us? We need all the help we can get."
I grabbed the backpack in case anyone was in desperate need of supplies. I moved as fast as I could. However, trying to rush through the sand was like trying to wade through shallow water. It felt as if the faster I tried to reach them the slower time was ticking by. As I made my way closer to the huge hexagon, I could see several bedraggled people huddled together; covered in blood and cuts. All had sheer shock in their eyes. Dr Derwent was there with his arm around Lava; she seemed to be propping him up. Kai was holding a soldier up from behind him, with his arms under the soldiers armpits whilst another soldier had hold of the wounded serviceman's' legs. Luckily the soldier being carried was still breathing and conscious and talking to Officer Beckett who stood beside him. He looked so young to be in live combat. Jennifer had blood all over her knees and the palms of her hands and she had a cut across her nose, as if she had fallen forward and had to scuffle away from something or someone. As I managed to reach my friends the men from the extraction team ran over to my colleagues to assist them. The fresh batch of soldiers had been cautious at first, pausing to assess the situation before assisting the injured. There were only four of the original military team who had been assigned to our location visible, including Officer Beckett protecting Lava, Dr Derwent, Kai, and Jennifer.
The extraction team asked us all how we were and assessed who needed immediate medical attention. We all made our way to the Chinooks and were instructed to sit down and belt up as quickly as possible.
"Oh A.J. I can't believe it' Jennifer whispered as she sat down next to me "This is far beyond what we had anticipated." I started to frown, once again revealing the familiar frown lines in my face. I tried to read Jennifer's expression. What on earth had happened to them?
Whatever had happened none of the party were forthcoming. None seemed to want to discuss anything on the ride back to safety. Well, what could be temporary safety. Many of my friends seemed to be in a state of shellshock. Not wanting to speak about what they had seen or done. I spent the helicopter ride to the airport quite dazed, staring not at anything or anyone, but into the distance as I was lost in my own thoughts. There were so many questions I wanted to ask but they had to wait. The evacuation team bandaged and patched up who they needed too once we were air-born. When we began our descent to our undisclosed small airport location Dr Derwent let out a long deep breath which seemed like a sign of relief which seemed to translate to 'I can breathe easy again', or easier at least.
As we were ushered off the plane I managed to walk alongside Kai. I wanted to take the opportunity to try and find out what had happened after sitting through a silent flight. "Kai, what happened? I can't believe what I saw, you all must have been gone for hours? The plane was covered in dry blood, floor to ceiling."
Kai looked at me and frowned "A.J. what are you talking about? We were only out there for about twenty minutes before you were on the radio to us, and that was long enough, it felt like a lifetime. I can't believe we made it out alive."
I was confused, how could it have only been minutes and not hours? How could all that blood dry in such a short amount of time, in the desert heat? How come I felt so stiff and achy when I finally moved out of my plane seat? I must have only been unconscious for a matter of minutes.
Before I could reply we were being separated by people wearing full black suits, white shirts, and ties with earpieces in. The curling wire of the earpieces were visible, until they met the collar of the men's shirts and disappeared underneath them.
"Hey," I shouted at one guy who was quite tall and very broadly built. He had started to pull me away from Kai. He hauled me towards the entrance of a large building covered in windows, with what seemed to be an endless number of floors stacking up above me. I had no idea where we were, and I was being pulled away from the rest of my team after only a short time together. Why were we being split up at such a crucial time? These were life threatening times we were living in. We needed to debrief, and work thought this as a group. Being separated just seemed nonsensical. There were more than our own lives at stake here.
I could hear Lava behind me protesting "What are you doing? I want to help. Be careful he is hurt," I made an educated guess that she was referring to Dr Derwent. Surprisingly I never heard Jennifer protest, which was quite out of character for her, as she was usually quite vocal. However, she didn't really speak much on the flight, only talking to tell the soldiers about her injuries and thanking them for water. She did not talk to me after we had buckled up and taken off, despite being sat in the seat next to me for the duration of the flight.
Still holding on to my arm as we went inside the building the suited and booted man pulled me into a room with a wooden table and four chairs. The room was small, nothing fancy, nothing out of the ordinary. There were beige walls, a tiled floor and no cameras, no two-way glass. Not your usual interrogation room, which is what I was envisaging.
"Sit down, on that chair," he commanded, pointing at one of the four chairs which was closest to the far wall away from the door. I pulled my arm away from him and he loosened his grip so I could get free. I complied and sat. He backed out of the doorway and slammed the door behind him. I heard the sound of a lock or some sort of bolt slide across the door. I sat there for a few minutes, scrutinising every inch of the room to double check for cameras and alternative ways out of my new prison cell. I stood up and tried the door. It wouldn't budge. I sat down and tried to stay calm whilst a million things were running through my mind. The magnitude of the events that had just unravelled, less than an hour earlier were starting to sink in. Once again, I found myself focusing on my breathing.
As I sat there, in the small generic room with time ticking by I began to think, mulling over the research that we had been made privy too and the discoveries we had made already. I thought about our many conversations as a research team comprised of me, Lava, Dr Derwent, Kai, and Jen. I had to think logically. This was the only way I could think of centring myself and not allowing panic to take over. What was our next move?
Surely, our captors who were paradoxically also our saviours, whoever they were, had to let us see each other and soon. The authorities needed our help, internationally, there was no doubt about that.
As I only had my thoughts as company, I ran through a few scenarios in my head about whether we went into the situation in the desert ill prepared. Then I reminded myself that the sheer amount of pressure and the impossible time constraints put in place by the UK Government, as well as other governments working alongside them, surely set us up to fail. Or in this case, to fall straight out of the sky. I tried to reassure myself that we did the best we could, with the information we had at the time. The deaths of the soldiers couldn't be on my conscience. If there were pieces of sensitive information the government were not willing to provide us with, classified information, that cannot be on us. Perhaps other countries, besides the UK were not willing to share their intelligence? It was hard to tell who was cooperating fully with who. There was no surprise that certain countries were not as forth coming with each other due to past histories.