The evening was drawing to a close when the transport plane finally appeared outside the cabin.
"I'm pleased I brought my winter gear now", said Gwen as she wrapped a scarf around her neck and face.
"Agreed," said Ianto. "I came here once on holidays. It gets pretty cold in the evening."
Gwen raised her eyebrows. "Didn't you come for the social life?"
Ianto tutted. "There's more than twenty-four hour drinking here. There's a lot of culture. Things like that."
Owen picked up his makeshift luggage and laughed. "Name one thing worth seeing outside of a beach bar," he challenged.
Ianto tutted again. "Let's just get going. I'm sure it'll be fine on-board the plane." He pushed open the door to the cabin and left, shouting back "Churches and temples."
Owen smiled across to Gwen, pleased to have had a joke at Ianto's expense. He turned to Bruce who was at the back of the cabin. He was pointing at which bags were to be loaded on for him.
"I didn't know we had porters, Bruce," noted Owen. "Better wrap up too."
Bruce kept his gaze on the departing baggage. "You may proceed without further concern, Dr. Harper. I am adequately prepared. But – yes – we should go."
Owen held the door open for Gwen and nodded Tosh to leave too. Tosh mouthed that he should be quiet as she passed him, then giggled nervously.
"No offence," shouted Ianto as he lugged his lighter bags to the hold of the plane. "But this thing looks like it was last used on the set of a black-and-white movie."
"Built to last though, Mr Jones. It'll take a lot to make this thing fall out of the sky." Owen was taking his single bag into the cabin of the plane. He tapped the fuselage of the plane to confirm this, although the sound he heard was more wooden than metallic.
Ianto paused while securing his bag with an elastic rope. "That's not very reassuring, you know."
Owen whispered, "I'm a little more worried about how reliable our big Scottish friend is." He nodded by way of emphasis.
"We have to give him a chance to get us to where we're going," said Ianto. "I think we know that the lead is genuine."
"But this guy, this Bruce," said Owen. "He doesn't fit any kind of profile of 'safe'."
"Well, he works for Torchwood for a start," Ianto noted.
"Precisely my point," Owen replied. "Sometimes I think I might trust the pterodactyl to be more predictable than any of us lot. What a shower we all are."
"Speak for yourself. I'd trust any of you three. Why wouldn't I? Don't you trust me?"
"No offence, Ianto, my favorite office-manager, but noone knows how they'll react when it comes to saving your skin, saving your mind, saving your soul."
After rushing to load the plane, there was then a fifteen minute delay while their plane sat on its corner of the tarmac. "What's the hold-up?" asked Gwen as the cabin manager passed her seat.
"A slight radiation leak at the far edge of the field," he replied with a smile. "Don't worry. We get these alerts all the time. All sorts of ordnance passing thru, bits dropping off aircraft, you know."
Gwen smiled as he walked back to the tail, but she was not reassured. She turned to Tosh with her eyebrows slightly raised. "Hopefully we'll get off the ground without being microwaved," she joked.
Tosh looked concerned. "I'm not so worried about problems with the technology. I always hated travelling when I was a little girl. I feel just the same now, like we're going away from home. Away from a safe place."
"It's been dangerous in Cardiff, Tosh. We've looked for trouble, and we've asked trouble to come find us. It'll make a welcome change not to be fighting from a sewer."
Tosh smiled weakly. She sat back in her chair as she realized the plane was moving off and starting to pick up speed.
"Everyone buckle up. We'll be in the air in a few minutes," shouted the cabin manager. He was very reassuring, and did not make any attempt to demonstrate any safety features.
As the craft lifted into the air, Gwen looked out of her window into the darkness. As the plane tilted and headed up to the clouds, the whole airport below could be seen as a sparkling outline of dots marking runways and cabins, access roads and hangars.
"Look at that, Tosh," she remarked without looking up. In a remote corner, like a crop pattern, a near-perfect circle of light had been extinguished leaving a dark hole in the illuminated area.
"They must have had a power cut of some kind," she mumbled. It was difficult to work out what had carved out such a neatly outlined shape. But the clouds were quickly swirling around them and she became less interested in that particular mystery.
"Oh well," she thought. "It's nothing to do with us now."