After all that had happened Cyan felt she couldn't simply leave it like this. Too many had died trying to defend the base to just let those terrorist bastards take it. Furrowing her brow and taking in a deep breath Cyan turned to the back of the hummer and grabbed her M16 as Reginald drove as fast as he could. The sounds of bullets ricocheting off of the rear were enough to let her know that most of the danger was behind them now.
"Don't Cyan!" Reginald commanded. "I know what you're thinking, so don't!" Cyan turned in her seat with all the frustration she could muster and gave the humvee's dashboard a stern hammer blow. "You do it and you'll get us both killed!"
"We can't just let them have it Red! Our unit is still back there! Reinforcements are on the way, we can still win this!" Cyan was beyond the boiling point. "I know we can still save them, if you would just-"
"No Cyan!" Red interrupted. "You heard the Colonel! He wanted us to get out of there! It was no use staying and dying!" Tensions were high between the two. Although they were husband and wife, this was a debate between soldiers on a matter of honor, pride, and survival.
"Whatever!" Cyan wasn't going to have any of it. Taking up her M16 she threw the passenger side door to the hummer open, leaned out and took aim. She could make out three Taliban gunners on one of the nearby sand dunes, and with a large burst of gunfire looked to take all three down for the kill.
Just then Cyan heard a loud, almost defining explosion, and she could feel herself being ejected from the humvee. They had hit an IED buried somewhere near the base.
Everything went black.
"Uggh… What happened?" Cyan was upside-down in what looked to be the remnants of the plane she had boarded for Bermuda. She couldn't remember much of the flight beyond a few interesting looking individuals getting on and some annoying red neck in the back asking for more beer before she went to sleep. She took a moment to assess her surroundings and found there to be others in the plane. In fact, a lot of them were the ones she noticed getting on and sitting near her.
Wrestling with her seat belt, Cyan fell to the ground with a hard thud. She had pulled the belt too quick. "Son of bitch! That hurt…" Rubbing her nose and checking for blood, a man's muscular Caucasian hand suddenly came into her view.
"Need a hand there Ms.?" The man asked. Cyan pushed his hand away with a tinge of frustration at having face planted and nearly breaking her nose.
Cyan stood up patting bits of dirt and debris from her sweater. "I'm fine. How about you?"
"Just fine." He responded. The man seemed nice enough and looked to be legitimately concerned for her well being. As well as others; she could see him scouring the area looking for any other survivors. "There was a crash."
"Yeah, I kind of figured that out. Anyone else here hurt that you've seen?" The man merely shrugged and continued to look around the plane. She could see other people getting up from the front side wreckage. "Okay, go over there and see if those people need help."
Cyan still had to get her bearings. What had happened? Did the plane hit a storm on the way to Bermuda? For the life of her, she couldn't remember what had happened during the flight beyond sparse details. None of that mattered at the moment though; she had to make sure everyone that was with the plane was okay and accounted for. She was still an EMT after all and it was her job to make sure people got of situations like this alive.
As the survivors got together to gather their wits, Cyan left the rear side wreckage to see exactly where they were. Upon leaving the plane she could see a huge trench the craft had made from the crash. It looked like the back end of the plane had come off mid flight and landed somewhere else.
"This isn't good…" Cyan thought aloud. She could see that there were evergreen trees here, as well as a mountain range and a temped degree to the wind. Bermuda wasn't like this at all at anytime of the year. "We must've really gone off course. Rescue may not be able to find us…" Cyan felt it was best to repress thoughts of doubt for the time being. She had been in situations like this before in Afghanistan and she knew she couldn't be of any help to anyone if she were to lose it now.
About an hour had passed with Cyan checking everyone who was there for injury with all the survivors trying to figure out what might have happened to make the plane go down. No one seemed hurt or able to remember what had happened during the flight much like Cyan herself. Nor could anyone identify where they even were. It was agreed on one thing though; they didn't make it to Bermuda.
Eventually the survivors had decided it was time to get introductions out of the way; as it seemed like they were all in for a long haul back home. For Cyan she couldn't have underestimated it more when she thought that the people she'd seen get on the plane were "interesting."
There was Marcus, a young whiz-kid in every sense of the term. Everything this kid said and did just screamed to Cyan "nerd." She couldn't fault him for that though. He seemed to have a better understanding than even she did when it came to figuring out where they all were, and she had military survival training. Marcus seemed pretty convinced that they weren't even on Earth, as his entire math didn't check out with what he was seeing around them. From the curvature of the Earth, to the angle of the sun in the sky, Marcus was set that this wasn't their planet. He also seemed to have a pretty hard time looking at Cyan. Maybe he had issues with women…
An artist by the name of Calvin seemed to have the attention span of an autistic fruit fly. Every time Cyan looked over at the man he was drawling something else in his sketchbook. He didn't talk much, save to add in a witty quip in on things, and generally had this really unassuming demeanor to him. For the most part he seemed to be the least affected by the situation; in fact he looked like he might have even been enjoying it. Regardless of his aloof attitude towards things he did seem eager to help when the need arose.
Billy Jo was the man who tried to help her up earlier when she had fallen out of her seat. She also found out that he was the guy who was yelling from behind her for the flight staff to get him another beer during the plane ride. All said, he was a pretty nice guy but she couldn't help but feel that he was scoping her out from time to time. This was enough to make Cyan somewhat self conscious of her scars, so she pulled her sweater down little further over her right hand. He told her that he was a carpenter and had started work on getting the plane wreckage set up as a makeshift shelter, but for some odd reason couldn't let go of the idea that they were still somehow in Bermuda. Denial perhaps? It happened to a lot of the patients Cyan had as an EMT. No one wants to believe something bad has happened to them.
Edward was a former military tanker that Cyan found the most in common with. Both had served in Afghanistan and both were now living "the civi life." She agreed with Ed that rations needed to be collected, shelter obtained, and tools fashioned to better their chances of survival. He seemed to share a lot of the same interests that her late husband Red had as Ed would talk about how certain things reminded him of an anime he saw or a game he had played, but he was far from being Red. For one, Ed looked sort of like the actor Kevin Smith, or at least a character that actor played… Silent Bob, Cyan recalled. Except that Edward was anything but. He was quite the chatty fellow but seemed to have the best intentions like Billy Jo.
Being with a bunch of men wasn't exactly the most comforting fact for Cyan, but they all seemed to be good enough guys; just really interesting if anything. With a better understanding of who was with her now; Cyan and the rest of the survivors set up shelter and procured as much salvageable items that they could. As the night came and they each fell to sleep Cyan couldn't help but let her mind fall back onto one thought: That no one may be able to find them... Eventually Cyan gave in to the exhaustion of the day's work and she slept as well.
Her hand was burning. It seemed the tighter she held on to Red the more her flesh tore, but she couldn't leave him to burn in that damn hummer; it was her husband for Christ's sake! His screams of pain echoed through the desert night air as the fire only grew more intense. The fuel tank on the hummer had been ruptured and was leaking gas everywhere. It would only be a matter of time now before the vehicle would blow.
"Get out of here Cyan! GO! JUST GO!" Red's voice was writhe with agony.
It didn't matter how much Red begged her to go, she wouldn't let go of his hand. "I'm not leaving you! We're getting out of here together!" As Cyan pulled with what little might she could still muster from her inflamed arm, she could feel Red's grip start to loosen. "DAMMIT RED! DON'T YOU QUIT ON ME YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He didn't respond. She knew she didn't have much time left. Either she got him out of there now, or she wasn't going to do it at all.
Gathering all the strength she could Cyan let out a fiercesome roar and pulled Red towards her. His limp body inched forward little by little while Cyan huffed and screamed like an animal trying to fight for its life. She had done it. Red was out of the wreckage, but wasn't out of trouble yet. The fire was still blazing on the hummer; fuels were still leaking, and nearby enemies were bound to see them out in the open. Cyan took her husband up on her shoulders with every bit of her she somehow still had and ran for the cover of the closest sand dune. Laying Red down on the ground Cyan put her head to his chest and listened for a heartbeat.
Nothing.
She ripped his shirt open and made her hand into a fist. Bringing her hand down onto Red's chest, Cyan gave him a precordial thump. Cyan put her head on his chest, listening again for his heartbeat.
Nothing.
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