Carrie startled awake, thrust from pleasant dreams into reality, the cargo area of a dusty old transport helicopter. Neither the British pilot's notification, nor the grinding guitar riff from her earbuds that forbade her from hearing him had woken her, but as the helicopter began its descent, it hit an updraft that rocked the chopper with turbulence. Far from being uncommon in aviation, and this not being her first time aboard such an aircraft, the trembling steel did little more than annoy her as she stretched her arms over her head and looked out the window. Sand, lots of it, and not much else. The helicopter broke through a cloud, and the seemingly unending golden ocean, barren and lifeless, stretched to the horizon before her. It didn't look too far from Iraq, so as much as Campbell already hated her new home, at least she was used to it, having endured Mosul and Kirkuk's scorching weather not long before.

Campbell wondered what her friends were doing, and even though it'd been less than seventy-two hours since she'd seen them, she felt like an orphan, stripped from her family. Squeak, Hill, Miller, Willis, she even caught herself wondering about Sergeant V. Looking at her watch, already adjusted to local time, and doing a bit of math, she realized that it was nine o'clock on a Saturday morning back in San Diego, and that practically everyone in her unit would be practicing weekend rituals, either nursing a hangover or still face down on the floor.

"Bastards", she whispered to no one, envious. It was only once she'd began reminiscing about her unit that she realize she was no longer a member of it, and her attention was quickly turned to the other bodies sardined into the Chinook, to whom she had paid almost no attention to before this point. She didn't have to look before she knew she hated most of, it not all of them. Her ticket on this chopper was bought by the good-idea fairy, and if she'd had any choice in the matter she'd be dry-heaving into a toilet. Quickly surveying the lot, her suspicions were confirmed; she hated them. A bunch of saps from shithole countries, wasting the U.N.'s money on a goose-chase for aliens, she scowled remembering the artificial smile she forced when her commander informed her of her assignment. 

The buzzing guitar faded away, replaced by a gentle violin with a backing dobro, and she couldn't help but tap her brown combat boot as she went over the group once more, slowly and overtly. Thankfully she wasn't the only American, quickly identifying a U.S. Airman and Soldier, though both sported stubbled faces, an oversight of discipline that would have never been an issue had they been Marines. The rest were foreign, a handful of Chinese civilians bickering away in one corner, an assortment of dark-skinned men in military uniforms she didn't recognize and two other Asians, soldiers that had the appearance and bearing of siblings. An older man with curiously unkempt hair sat with his back to her, sporting a Union Jack on his uniform. And then her eyes caught those of the Asian man sitting across from her. He wore a flashy dress uniform that displayed the flag of China, and had, much like her, been in the process of scrutinizing everyone else. She returned his gaze with a glare of her own for what could be considered a disrespectful time before turning back to the window, the sand growing closer, darkening with the fading sunlight.