Omicron Theta, on the way to the MFE Healing Heart
Dr. Mackenzie Wilson
Mac Wilson gripped the arms of the copilot's chair as Saito's Dromedary separated its landing gear from the concrete pad amid the vibrations of the engines. It had been quite some time since she had flown on a ship, almost since the founding of Faith Haven itself and the last trip from Corfu to the surface, and she was very much out of the habit.
When the vessel came out through the hatch in the roof of the cavern, and the tractor beams stopped supporting it, there was a short moment when the violence of the gusts of wind from the sand storm hit the freighter, making it sway like a little paper airplane. Mac couldn't help but whisper a small curse and squeezed her eyes shut, while she felt the cheesecake they had for breakfast rise to her throat. However, her worries were unnecessary, because Isabella quickly stabilized the Dromedary with a few maneuvers of the rudder, and soon the ship was on its way to the orbital elevator of the docking rings. Isa seemed calm and even left the controls in the hands of the autopilot, getting up from her seat to go to the back of the ship.
Little by little Wilson began to relax as she noticed how the gusts of wind decreased as they elevated increasingly, and was grateful when Saito returned with a couple of cups of tea and offered her one of them. "Thank you Isa." Mac smiled, taking a sip of the hot brew and noticing how a pleasant warmth immediately invaded her. "It has been a long time since I've made any trips by ship. I haven't left Faith Haven in so long that I had forgotten what it felt like on takeoffs. Especially those from Pygar."
The neurologist was happy to know that the trip would not be long, and that they would soon meet the Healing Heart. She was very excited to see the great ship, and to be able to explore it inside. From what Isabella had told her, it must have been a marvel of medical technology, all built inside a Nephilim colony ship. Mac had only been inside a Nephilim once, almost 10 years ago, when the Church still owned their Pontifical flagship, the Unity, and it had seemed almost like magic to her that something so big could move through space. No doubt the Healing Heart would be at least as impressive as the Unity, but probably more so given that it was exclusively dedicated to the practice of medicine.
As the ship emerged from the docking rings into the planet's orbit, Wilson stood up to look outside through the cockpit's front window. Pygar could be seen down there, in all its enormity, its surface covered by curling, flickering clouds from the electrical storms that were active at that moment. Mac couldn't help but feel a little dizzy. What had been her uninterrupted home for the last 7 years was down there, and there she was, watching it from space, heading towards an exciting but unknown future. All of Mac's hopes and fears about what awaited her in the coming months flashed briefly through her mind whereas Isabella sat down again in the pilot's seat to begin the orbit exit routine.
The psychologist operated the controls to reposition the Dromedary and typed on the touch screen of the navigation computer, entering a series of coordinates that would surely be the meeting place with the Healing Heart. Then Saito activated several switches and pushed forward a lever, activating the cruise engines, while Wilson returned to her seat in the co-pilot's chair.
Mac spent the scant hour of travel across Theta reviewing the morning reports on her patients at Faith Haven Medical Center on her portable communications device. It seemed that Matt Brennan had had a good night although his condition remained unchanged, and the rest of the patients were progressing well. She made a mental note that as soon as she settled into the Healing Heart she would have to ask Isa to tell her how to make a telematic communication with the hospital. She wanted to talk to Dr. Vasquez about the next steps in Brennan's treatment.
Wilson was still absorbed in her reading of the medical records when she noticed the slight jolt the freighter suffered when leaving cruising speed. She looked up just in time to see some sort of bright, sparkling black hole forming outside, in the void in front of them. The neurologist unbuckled her seatbelt and stood up abruptly approaching quickly to the front windshield.
"For Deux's sake, what the hell is that?" Her voice came out like a broken whisper, with a mixture of shock and concern.
Mac had never seen anything like it. Actually, her experience as an interplanetary traveler was practically nil. She had only made two long space trips in her entire life, from New London to Gran Canaria, and then from Gran Canaria to Pygar years later. She had spent practically her entire life on dry land, and even on the occasions when she had had to cross the void she had done so in larger ships, in which she had barely been able to observe anything. And she had certainly never witnessed the formation of an exit hole anomaly, produced by a jump drive. Suddenly, a huge, gigantic object began to emerge from the dark hole. It left at a constant speed, slow, as if it were being transported on a conveyor belt. Mac watched in shock, until she realized that what was appearing in front of her eyes was nothing other than the hull of a Zoner colony ship. It was the Healing Heart.
Mac was calmed when she realized that they were in no danger, and that Isabella was smiling, visibly happy to see the Nephilim, as she began the approach maneuver. The neurologist blushed as she sat back down in her seat, feeling like a country bumpkin. It was clear that this technological display was completely normal and even habitual for Saito, and that she had just openly shown that it seemed practically magic to her.
Wilson stammered a few words of excuse, while trying not to continue blushing. "I had never... seen how a jump drive engine works, for a moment I thought that a black hole was forming before us... How stupid, I'm sorry." She tried to change the topic of conversation quickly, and pointed towards the Healing Heart, which was growing larger and larger behind the front windshield. "It's really impressive. I had only seen a ship of this class once in my life, and I think my mind had forgotten how magnificent they are. It's like... a floating city."
While Isabella contacted the hospital ship's traffic control to request permission to land in one of its bays, Mac had the opportunity to admire the exterior of the Healing Heart up close. In general silhouette it looked very similar to the Unity, with the same twin biodomes and its bridge covered by solar sails, but upon looking more closely she realized that this ship seemed much more modern and new. Its hull was polished, shining in the light of the white dwarf, and was beautifully painted, displaying the symbols indicative of the practice of medicine.
The Dromedary headed toward the hangars through the lights of the Healing Heart's forward landing strip, and finally turned toward one of them, the doors of which opened to receive it. Under Isabella's guidance, the freighter deployed the landing gear, positioned itself over one of the marks that were painted on the ground, and finally rested its weight on the metal surface. Mac sighed in relief and returned the smile that the psychologist offered her once the engines shut down, noticing how the muscles in her back and neck relaxed. The trip had actually been very calm, but her lack of habit had made her tense for many moments. She was grateful to be on solid ground, again, or well almost solid ground. After all, the Healing Heart was as big as most space stations, and even bigger than some of them.
The neurologist allowed herself to be instructed by Isa about the protocol for disembarking, and only took a small carry-on backpack in which she carried her portable Neural Net device, her first aid kit that she never separated from, and her toiletry bag. She then followed Saito and Niki outside the ship, through the hangar, and towards the security access controls. Mac noticed the number of people who greeted Isa affectionately, with smiles of affection and respect, and how the doctor responded to each and every one of them, calling them by their names and asking them about their lives and their families. Without a doubt, the psychologist was someone very dear to the personnel of the Healing Heart. Mac remained silent as they walked, smiling kindly at the crew members who looked at her.
The two women soon arrived at the security access room. The barriers, with those double doors in the shape of tube chambers, looked slightly like the ones she had seen a decade ago in the New London spaceport, when she and her family had taken that liner to Gran Canaria, to join the Church. However, like everything she had seen on the Healing Heart, it seemed much more technologically advanced. Mac soon understood, listening to Isa's explanation, that those tubes were more than a simple scanner, because they were also capable of scanning the diseases that the person being analyzed could carry. It was something logical. As she well knew, sterilization was essential in a hospital, to avoid risks to both the medical staff and the patients themselves. Of course, at Faith Haven Medical Center they had means of identifying the illnesses of recently admitted patients, and isolating them in cases that were contagious, but nothing that came close to technology as advanced as that.
The neurologist nodded, admiring those machines. "Tremendously useful for our profession, Isa. It's amazing, I can't even imagine how these things work inside, but I would like to have a couple of devices like that for the main entrance of our Medical Center." Wilson walked over to one of the tubes to take a closer look. "Maybe you can tell me later who I should talk to about purchasing some. It's very likely that Meyer would be interested in having that information."
Mac let Saito go first to show her how they worked. Once the psyicologist came out to the other side, she passed behind her. Mac stood perfectly still as the blue light of the scanner surrounded her and didn't move until the machine's electronic voice reported that everything was fine. She then followed Saito to some double doors at the end of the room, which opened as they approached. As they passed to the other side, the atrium of the Healing Heart appeared before them, making Wilson's jaw drop in pure amazement.
Before her eyes opened a large hall with about seven or eight floors high, which surrounded a vast central space that contained a park of lush vegetation, and with even a pond that could be seen in the background, reflecting the treetops. The lighting there was like that of a sunny day at noon in Gran Canaria, and Mac couldn't help but look up at the enormous glass skylight in the ceiling, through which a light identical to the solar one on any planet with an atmosphere. The neurologist was not able to identify what kind of technology was capable of producing that fiction, but it was practically indistinguishable from the real thing. In addition, the ultra-modern decoration in white and glass colors, and the soft, rounded shapes of the architecture, helped the light to spill throughout the titanic room.
Mac noted that the various floors overlooking the central park were adorned with hangings of vegetation and flowerbeds with trees, among whom it was seen that the ship's personnel came and went, busy with their tasks. That, along with the central park, produced the impression that the construction was directly integrated with the nature that unfolded around it. The neurologist could have sworn, if she were not completely sure of where they were, that they were visiting the atrium of a multi-story building on a planet in broad daylight.
Mac blinked, dazzled, and looked at Isabella. "This is... Frankly amazing. I think my mind wouldn't have been able to imagine a place like this, until my eyes have seen it." She smiled. "I know that coming from someone like me, who I'm little more than a village doctor, it's not a great compliment, but believe me when I tell you that I've never seen anything like it." Wilson's eyes roamed the atrium again, from top to bottom. "It's so perfect that it's hard to remember that we're really in the middle of the void of space, moving through it. I can't wait to see what more wonders this ship holds."
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