New Eden: Live to Play, Play to Live

Chapter 1055: Reaching China

 n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

For the most part, the remainder of the trip toward China was uneventful as everyone conversed and rested. There were a few questions about how they would sneak into a country whose borders were all closed and being guarded closely, but Alex swore he had a way.

With how confidently he answered, no one doubted he had something planned, and it stayed at that.

But Kary wasn't as easily satisfied.

Once everyone was busy talking to each other again, Kary took Alexander aside, wanting to know more about his plan.

"You sound confident, but I'm not so sure it'll be easygoing. Could you tell me more about this way you got to get into China?"

Alex grinned at her, knowing she wanted to know strictly because she wasn't satisfied with plans that involved her if she couldn't throw in some input on them.

Kary didn't like the grin he was giving her. It made her queasy.

"Don't worry about it, darling. It's a sound plan. Let me deal with this one and rest up," he replied, trying to put her at ease.

It clearly didn't work; a frown appearing on her face.

"You sure? I would much rather know and help with this one. There is a massive risk for all of us if shit goes south..."

But Alex shook his head in response.

"I got this. Trust me, it will all go well. You were the one to tell me I needed to act more like a leader, right? This is me doing that. I made a call, and I'm sticking by it. Although I love your input, and you regularly make better plans than I do, I'm confident in this one. Let me handle this one alone."

Kary cursed herself for asking him to be more independent, as it was now biting her in the ass. If he screwed up, it was all ten of them who would pay the price.

'I hope his plan is as sound as he's confident,' she mused, leaning back into her seat. He was right that she needed to rest, but with thoughts of them getting captured by the Chinese authorities, her mind felt little solace in the peaceful skies under them.

There was a little more than two hours left to their flight if they didn't count in the time it would take to get authorization to land to deliver Liu Yan home.

They couldn't be left idling too long, as the plane had limited fuel, but, at subsonic speeds, they would easily have fuel to loop around the sky over their destination for two hours.

There was no telling if the authorities wouldn't let them idle there for as long as they could, though, which put some stress on the adults' minds.

When they arrived over China, the Major was ordered to stick over the south of the country until they reached their destination in Hong Kong, where Liu Yan lived, or risk getting taken into custody by the Chinese Air Force.

She obeyed the command, not too keen on trying to escape fighter jets in what was basically a souped-up commercial liner. Given their speed, it stretched their trip by a few minutes at most, so it barely mattered.

Once they were flying over the South China Sea, she started decelerating, reaching speeds that allowed her to go under the ten thousand feet mark. By the time she slowed down to sub- sonic speeds, she was already doing her first loop around the Hong Kong air space.

Air control was already pestering her for her reason for flying over their airspace, even though she'd already given all those details to Chinese air control when entering the country's borders for the first time.

She sent out a data packet with all of Liu Yan's paperwork for the second time, explaining they were bringing home a citizen who had been on a trip before the borders were closed.

It took Hong Kong Air Control almost half an hour to reach back to her with more questions about their cargo and passengers, wanting to know every little detail about the plane before it touched the ground.

She had to explain more than once that even though she had more passengers on board; they were not leaving the plane and were only dropping this one man.

She looped around the sky for an hour before contacting them to tell them she only had an hour left of fuel before she needed to land at the airport, regardless of their instructions. The control tower on the ground didn't like her being pushy like this, but they were duty- bound to keep planes from crashing because of their negligence, too, so they were forced to expedite the verification process on Liu Yan's papers.

Ten minutes later, a tower control manager, speaking in broken English, grabbed the line.

"XB-1061, this is the tower control manager, Chen Yichén. Please standby for landing instructions."

'About time,' Major Schrute thought.

"XB-1062 standing by."

The instructions didn't take too long to come after that.

"XB-1061, direct your aircraft to landing lane three and taxi off to hangar three G. Once inside the hangar, shut down the aircraft, lower your gangway, and await boarding by airport

security."

"Ten-four, control tower. Directing to landing lane three," she replied, starting to bank the plane to see the numbers on the landing strips.

Once she found her target, she pulled away from the airport a little to get a better angle of approach and started her descent.

It didn't take long for her to land the plane; the weather being clement over Hong Kong at the moment, and once she was slowed down to taxiing speed, she started making her way to the hangar section to head into hangar three G, as instructed.

"We've been instructed to stay on board the plane until security has boarded and checked our cargo and passenger roster. I would recommend staying in your seats, but I know you won't listen. Just don't piss them off," she called out on the intercom.

Alex chuckled at her words, knowing they were aimed mainly at him and David.

"She knows us so well, he he."

Kary grunted at his words, knowing he had no intention of staying seated.

"Just don't go looking for trouble, please?" she asked, seeing him unbuckle his seat belt.

"I won't. I want to be in the cargo hold when they inspect to be sure they don't try stealing anything. You know I don't trust people I don't know as far as I can throw them, even if that is quite far now. I want to stay vigilant."

Kary giggled at his comment about throwing them, but she knew better than to trust him at his word. Even though Alex rarely went looking for trouble deliberately, it always had a knack

for finding him, anyway.

"I guess I'll go with, then," she sighed.

But Killian raised his hand.

"I can go. I think it would be better if you stayed with the young ones. They would feel calmer with you around them than with me. Plus, I am very good at dealing with things

diplomatically," he offered.

Kary thought about it for a moment before nodding.

"Fine. Just keep him out of trouble. I don't want to be imprisoned in China just because a security guard got greedy and lost a hand," she claimed, looking at Alex with a knowing gaze.

"I would never!" Alex exclaimed, taking an offended expression.

"Uhuh," Kary replied, rolling her eyes.

Alex had to contain his chuckle, knowing it wasn't a moment to laugh. He wouldn't try cutting off a person's hand for the fun of it, but knowing how trouble always found him, he couldn't put the situation entirely out of his mind, either.

"I'll be as delicate as possible if someone gets sticky hands," he promised before heading

toward the back of the plane.

Kary shook her head lightly.

"Just keep him from heavily injuring someone. And make sure David stays out of trouble as

well. He might look like he cares about nothing, but he gets violently protective of his shit,"

she asked Killian, who nodded and smiled.

"I'll do my best."

They knew they had reached the hangar when the plane slowed to a halt and the lighting

suddenly went up.

With the sun long down over the horizon, Kary looked outside the hangar door into the night, waiting for the lights and sirens to come their way.

"This could have been smoother, but I still think we got a good deal out of it. The plane could have denied access to the country altogether and been left to land outside of it," she mumbled, playing scenarios in her mind.

Sneaking into China on foot sounded easy for anyone unfamiliar with border patrols and their

rigour. Still, China was vehement on their country's land security, on par with Americans, if

not more.

She'd read up on many people trying to sneak in from Vietnam, Laos, and North Korea. The stories always ended in people being imprisoned before being deported back home in less- than-ideal conditions.

Images of her and her friends going through such an ordeal flashed past Kary's eyes, and she

had to shake them away.

"No. Positive thoughts, Kary. You can't think of the worst; it'll only make the chances of it

happening even greater..."

But it was hard not to think of bad outcomes when they were planning on doing something

that could very well lead to them. After all, they never intended to drop Liu Yan off at home

and leave.

They needed to get into China, and that meant breaking laws. Many of them...