| Hawaaon Ke Paighaam | Messages Of The Wind

| Phoenix Flight 505: B |

Aasmaan... tera mera huwa
Khwaab ki tarha dhuaan, dhuaan...

Three Hours Earlier | Five Hours to Doha

Murtasim cracked his knuckles over his lap and rolled out the kinks in his neck. His body, already stiff from his bad mood and headache, was worsened by two hours of sitting down. They had been engrossed in observing the newly installed systems with the flight engineer and hadn't gotten a stretch yet. He looked over as Adam murmured something about the flight path and shook his head in negative. Then looking back, he addressed the other man in the room.

"How is it going back there Kenny?" he asked.

The engineer looked up from the diagnostic tool in his hand and smiled as he gave a thumbs-up.

"You're going to be happy with the results Captain. The improvements in flight time and fuel consumption are exactly as you predicted."

Murtasim nodded and turned back in his seat as Adam got up from his. Signalling him that he was going to stretch his legs, he left with a firm pat on the Kenny's shoulder. Murtasim turned away and took out his phone to check his messages, only to remember that the in-flight WiFi had been disabled due to the test run. The sound of something being unzipped had him look back to see Kenny rummaging through his bag. The other man looked up and smiled, shaking his head at the numerous things he had to carry for the tech-test. Adam returned, taking his seat and instinctively looking over the control panel in front of him to check everything was in order.

A calm blanketed the cockpit and the hum of the plane was the only sound as the three men sat in silence; Murtasim and Adam leaning back, watching the plane eat up the expanse of the clear, blue sky, and Kenny working on his diagnostic laptop behind them. Murtasim closed his eyes tightly and pinched the bridge of his nose to keep another emerging headache at bay. He could've really done with a smoke right now.

It was last thought before an alarm sounded and his eyes flickered on instinct, recognising that the auto-pilot had been switched off; it had been happening on this flight due to the short circuits caused by the continuous testing of the new system installed. In the second that it took Murtasim to open his eyes, a muffled shout sounded from beside him as a sickening thud penetrated the air. As his head whipped to his right, he had just enough time to see Adam's seemingly lifeless body crash onto his controls and a shiny metal object making its way to him; its target being his head. The next few seconds had Murtasim acting on pure, raw instinct tainted with surprise and burgeoning horror. His right flew came up to deflect the metal rod with the heel of his palm. How his left hand went instinctively to the auto-pilot button to switch it back on, he didn't know, but the plane came first. Always.

The hard, cold metal slammed onto the heel of his palm, and with his body already in fight-mode, it was an attack he had been ready for. Hot, burning pain shot through his hand and wrist, but Murtasim had already curled his hand around the strange, layered metal object and using the adrenaline coursing through him, leapt up from his seat to attack his opponent; an aspect of the attack he was yet to process. As the flight engineer's red, taut face came smack-bang in front of him, Murtasim felt the hot tentacles of rage and adrenaline clutch his senses. It was too early to process anything, but this man had just carried out an attack on the sacred heart of his plane, and there was no way his intentions could be misinterpreted in any way.

As the flight engineer faltered on his feet from the force of Murtasim push, his eyes fell to his weapon lying on the floor next to Murtasim's feet at exactly the same time Murtasim's did. His body now working on survival mode, the engineer leapt down for it, only to crash into Murtasim, who used the angle to drive his fist into the man's solar plexus. Both men fell to the floor in a wrestle as Murtasim continued with his assault and the engineer tried regaining his breath and somehow get to the weapon lying on the floor behind Murtasim. They're bodies slid in a circle as Murtasim lunged for his throat and the engineer drove his knee into Murtasim's abdomen in an effort to get him to let go.