The day before the departure date, it was time for the assigned staff to depart from the Base to two of the designated airports where volunteers and observers would be departing on the first day of departure.

The assigned staff were walking down the lower corridor, making their way to the airlocks, with the other staff that would be staying at the Base following behind them, with the intention of seeing them off.

The staff had a look on their faces that was a mixture of slight anxiousness, curiosity and anticipation as they walked. The assigned staff were leaving soon for their overnight stay at the airports and they would arrive the next day with the volunteers, and the clinical trial would start effectively.

They chatted casually among each other as they walked. They reached the airlocks where their glass doors opened automatically. They stepped into the airlock in groups of fives, then the glass doors closed shut and the door leading to the bay area slid open.

They stepped out of the airlocks and walked towards the space shuttles already waiting, with a Synth waiting under each one. When they got close, one of the Synths called out four names.

The first was the departing specialist: Dr. Lukas Brenner, Neurologist, then the General Physician: Dr. Yuna Park. The nurse: Thomas Odhiambo and the translator: Marco Villanueva, whose language coverage is Spanish.

"Please step onto the boarding platform. We will be leaving for Benito Juárez International, Mexico City, Mexico," it said.

The four staff called nodded, turned and waved at the other staff with smiles on their faces, before walking forward and stepping onto the platform.

The Synth also stepped onto the boarding platform and it started, carrying the five individuals on it into the space shuttle.

The other staff waved back with smiles on their faces.

The second Synth called out another set of four names: departing specialist: Dr. Chidi Okafor, Oncologist, General Physician: Dr. Yuki Tanaka, Nurse: James Whitfield, Translator: Nadia Petrov who covers Polish.

"Please step onto the boarding platform. We will be leaving for Warsaw Chopin Airport, Warsaw, Poland," it said.

The four staff nodded, turned to the rest of the staff that would be left at the Base and waved at them.

The others waved back.

Then they walked to the boarding platform and stepped onto it. The Synth also stepped onto the boarding platform and it started ascending.

Inside the first space shuttle, the nurse was currently going through the inventory of things that had been loaded onto the spacecraft, to confirm if they were missing anything.

The kitchen staff had cooked more than enough food for each departing space shuttle to last them two days, accounting for both the staff and the volunteers. The kitchen staff had packaged the food in metal containers and loaded them onto the space shuttle with the help of the Synths.

"Food, check," Thomas muttered, tapping on the tablet in his hand, turning his attention away from the cart of food in front of him, to where the beddings and cots were packed.

He checked if they would be enough for both the volunteers and staff, and everything checked out. He tapped on the tablet again and turned his attention to the next thing — the emitter set.

The emitter set is a set of small puck-sized devices, each roughly the size of a thick coin. When placed at the corners or edges of a designated area and activated, they project holographic walls between each other, forming an enclosed private space instantly.

The walls appear fully opaque from the outside, giving complete visual privacy to whoever is inside. From the inside the walls are transparent and double as a display surface, showing the volunteer’s MedScan results, medical history, and documentation in real time pulled directly from the linked tablet.

As for the MedScan, it’s a small handheld device, compact enough to hold in one hand and carry in a pocket. When activated and passed slowly over a volunteer’s body it produces a comprehensive real time scan of their current physical state. Organ function, tissue condition, neurological activity, circulatory status, skeletal integrity, and any acute changes from their previously documented baseline would be visible immediately.

The MedScan, emitter set, and the tablet in Thomas’s hand are linked so that the staff operate as a single integrated system rather than three separate tools. The tablet can also be used to communicate with the staff at the Base in real time, if there’s ever the need.

Thomas tapped on the tablet for the last time, confirming that the inventory was complete and they were ready to leave.

Inside the second space shuttle, the nurse, James, had also just finished confirming the inventory and had cleared them ready to leave.

The pilot Synth received clearance confirmation and the shuttle’s systems initialized for departure, as holographic screens materialised around the Synth, showing the space shuttle’s telemetry data and their flight projection path to the designated airports.

The fusion drives of both shuttles fired simultaneously and a silent blue glow brightened up the shuttles’ drive ports.

The shuttles lifted from the ground simultaneously and started ascending vertically, until they were out of the bay area. The staff watched the shuttles ascend into the void sky with looks of awe on their faces.

Both shuttles shot forward together, like two arrows released at once. The staff watching from the bay stood still, not moving, until the drives disappeared into the black.

They turned to look at the countless other space shuttles parked there, imagining what it would look like for all of them to land on Earth. They knew the world would only take it one way — as an invasion.

They turned to look at each other and made an unspoken decision to go to their positions, especially the staff that would be in the monitoring room, as the clinical trial Medical Director, Nova, was already waiting for them.

Just as they walked to the airlocks, they noticed the change and their eyes went up immediately. They were shocked to see the bay opening closing above them.

It took a few seconds, then it sealed shut completely.

The next moment, the familiar sound of repressurisation filled the bay area, but it was louder than that of the airlock. The bay area was repressurised and gravity was distributed to it.

***

Meanwhile, through the void of space, two dark space shuttles were flying towards Earth at a blinding speed.

Inside the shuttles, the two nurses looked out their windows and saw the other shuttle flying alongside, and they both smiled sheepishly, feeling their inner child awaken.

A/N: Let me know if you want the full volunteers list. There are no names, just age, gender, medical condition and country of origin.