The Lathspell of Mithrandir

“Two weeks to get a new ship and get it fitted?” I wasn’t too happy with the news.  I had been in a little scrap which ended in the ship melting around me.  I was in Ignoitton and there wasn’t a Roden Shipyards around, so I docked my pod at the Federation Customs station.  I figured I could get a new ship and get out of there fairly quickly, but I was just told by the station manager that it was going to take two weeks.  I figured that I would hang out here and make the most of it.

In the single room quarters I was offered, there was your typical furnishing – bed, sofa, table, and small refrigeration unit.  What surprised me was the view into the central atrium.  The lush park reminded me of home – the trees, shrubs, and lake made a spectacular site.  I took the communications pad and browsed through the station’s services – repair facilities, but no lab or factory.  The medical facilities had something I had never heard of.  Along with the typical cloning facilities, there was something called a “Pediatric Intensive Care Unit” or PICU.  Were there really children here? I wondered.  So, I followed the station directions and found what looked, at first, to be a normal medical center; however, nothing could prepare me for what I was about to experience.

The doors were hand written with sand carved letters ‘P I C U’.  The halls, stark and cold.  The air was cold as it filled my nostrils.  I walked aimlessly through the hallways.  I found myself at the end of Corridor ‘F’, I showed my ID, and the doors opened toward me.  The tension could be cut with a knife and the silence was broken only by the sound of machines chirping busily away.  I walked around a room full of glass wall partitions.  Inside each area was a bed occupied by a small boy or girl.  As I walked in disbelief, a man approached me.  “Are you a family member of one of our patients?” he asked.

“No, sir.  May I ask — Who are all these children?”

“All of these children are fighting one ailment or another.”  He proceeded to tell me about the two children with fluid in their lungs, one little boy who was badly burned during a pirate attack on a civilian transport ship, and others with different illnesses.  As the individual rooms circled the perimeter of PICU-F, my eyes stopped at one particular area.

I looked through the glass and gazed upon a beautiful brunette.  Her body was swelled, as if she were pregnant.  Her legs were covered with a fuzzy pink blanket  laying in a bed surrounded by cloth flowers of all sorts.  She was hooked up to all sorts of machines and as I looked through the glass, her chocolate brown eyes opened.  I was moved.

“What is her story, Doctor?” I asked.

“This little girl is Kenna.” the doctor began, “She came in a few weeks ago.  Her parents noticed that her stomach was hard and she was pale.  They brought her in and our bio scanners noticed a mass on her kidneys.  We ran a 360 laser scan on her and found that the mass was weighing on a lung and started wrapping itself around her heart.”

“Doc, you make it sound like this mass is a living thing.”

His face turned very serious.  “It is, in a way.  This Malignant Neoplasm is a group of diseased cells which show properties of uncontrolled growth.  In Kenna’s case, it has grown to approximately one third her normal size.  The fact that it is sitting on her lung makes it difficult for her to breathe and if the MN continues to grow around her heart it could choke her to death.”

I could feel a knot form in my throat, “How does this happen? What’s the cure?”

“The type of MN that Kenna has is very rare and little is known about it’s cause.  What we do know is that it is found in children and about 50 percent of the cases are found in children under two years old.  We do not know of a cure yet, but radiation therapy and anti-neoplasm chemicals are two ways of battling it.”

“Doc, I don’t know what to say.  I can’t believe these kinds of diseases exist.”

He put a hand on my shoulder, “There have been some diseases that we haven’t been able to escape.  Modern medicine hasn’t found a cure for this.  If you would like I can show you a different part of the PICU.”

“If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to stay here… Where am I, anyway?” I looked up at the number on Kenna’s glass wall.

“Area 51, young man.” the doctor answered.  And he turned and walked away.

—-

The preceding chronicle was based on real life events.  To read the real story, click here or go to www.hopeforbabymckenna.org

“Mr. Stormcrow!  Mr. Stormcrow!”

I was jolted out a sounds sleep by an excited voice over the comm.  Why did I leave it on the table in the other room? I thought.  I rolled out of bed and dragged myself the ten feet needed to get into the main room of my stark apartment in Iyen-Oursta.

“Do you know what time it is?  Who is this?”

“I beg your pardon Mr. Stormcrow.  This is Tegan and I have some news for you.  You had told me to call you the moment the job was completed.”

“The blueprints?”  Before I made this last trip to Gallente space, I had gathered the Datacores I needed and started a number of invention jobs on a couple of hybrid weapons.  “What’s the word?”

“Of the five jobs inventing Tech 2 blasters, three of them failed and two were successful.  I hope you don’t mind that I started the manufacturing jobs making four Light Neutron Blaster II’s.”

“Good, good.”  A smile began to form on my face.

“Only one of the 75mm Railgun blueprints were successful.  I have started the manufacturing job for this as well.”

“This is great news.  Thank you for the call.  Is there anything else happening that I should know about?”

“Oh yes.  Your Rifter has been fitted and is being flown out to you.  It should arrive in the next day or two.”

“That sounds great.  Thank you for the update.  Get some sleep and tell the crews to go home.  You guys deserve a couple days off.”

“Thank you, sir.  It will be happily received.  Goodbye.”

With a click, the comm silenced.  I took a breath and went to the wall cooler to get myself a Pineapple-Orange Quafe.  The flavors were crisp and refreshing and the star rising over the planetary horizon filled me with energy.  What a great way to start a brand new day…

“I trust you received the data we collected from the Serpentis radar array.” I said to Rear Admiral Alexandros Reinhardt, “And I trust we won’t have any further miscommunications.”

“The Federation thanks you for your cooperation.” His words were filled with contempt, but he was sincere, “When you have a free moment, I would like to ask you some more questions – regarding a more personal matter.”

“I will set some time in my schedule for you, sir.” I answered, “However, at this time I must be away.  I hope you understand.”

“Certainly. I look forward to hearing from you. Fly safe”.  The good Admiral was a man of honor and respect.  It was a relief to see integrity in the Federation.  I stood up and headed to my ship.

The Federation Navy station was not the bustling station the Roden Shipyards Factory was.  The tungsten walls were sanitary and had no decor what so ever.  The lines were straight and the corners defined.  It seemed more like a Caldari design than Gallente.  The walk through the halls was drab and lifeless.  Even the PX shop was stale.  Not a hint of a sales person in sight.  Where was the art?  Where was the free trade?  I guess the Federation had missed the heart of the Gallente designers that first crafted the foundations.  As I arrived to the hangar where the shuttle was docked, I was met my a familiar grin.

“Boss, I have an update for you.” Kenzie started to explain as I walked past him.

“Follow me but hold onto the update. Once we get out of this station, I’m all ears.”  He followed me into the Tiph’arah shuttle and sat down beside me.  We secured ourselves into our chairs – sometimes it feels refreshing to be back in a seat.  The gel in the pods feel completely different.

As we warped away from the station, I turned to Kenzie and asked, “So what’s the update?”

“Well Boss, as you know, when I intercepted the original signal, I saved it to the ship’s log and my own memory partition.  The copy I was able to get was from the Serpentis group to the Federal Freight station in Faurent.  It was to an agent there.  I think it was the one that set you up.”

“What transmissions went to the Federation Fleet?” I asked.

“No transmissions went to the Federation Fleet.  They came in on their own.”

“What did the transmission to Agent Lanercheve say?”

“It looked to be an update on the status of the radar array.  It had just come online and hadn’t intercepted anything too important yet.  Just standard information and docking requests and the like.  I don’t believe we intercepted anything too serious.  My team will keep looking.”

“Good job, Kenzie.”

Our shuttle was in the docking phase at Roden.  We disembarked and I went to my quarters.  With a sigh I opened the door.  Finally back home, I thought and I headed to sleep.  Tomorrow is going to be a busy day…