The tank Dawa and Joshua were in shook slightly. Joshua looked at Dawa, “What was that?” He clicked to broadcast on the comm channel, “Was that seismic activity or the tank settling? Please tell me it was the latter…”

“Neither Chief. We’re recording a large detonation roughly 50 kilometers to the northwest,” came the response.

Joshua’s brow furrowed, “Why is there a detonation…” He slapped his commbadge, “Bryant to Tior, are you reading that quake?”

No response.

Joshua tapped it again, “Bryant to Zoff, please respond.”

Still no response.

“Something’s wrong,” he said to Dawa. He clicked to broadcast, “We need out of here now. Mobilize a response team and have the Infirmary prep for incoming.”

“Already done, as per colony protocol. We’re prepping for extrication now.”

Dawa was already climbing the ladder towards the hatch at the top of the tank. “I wonder if ‘more municipal transporters’ was anywhere on that list of theirs,” she grumbled.

Their transport arrived at the infirmary at the same time as Tior and Zoff, who were both being pushed in on stretchers. Dawa lept out before the transport had completely stopped and ran towards their charges.

“Are they responsive? Are they alive?” she asked the paramedic.

Then, without waiting for a response, she gripped the side of Tior’s stretcher. “Cadet Tior, can you hear me?”

The response team moved through the building’s corridors with ease, with Dawa and Joshua following close by. The response team burst into the Infirmary. “Beds 2 and 8,” a doctor said curtly, pointing to the biobeds in turn. “Give your handoff to the incoming triage nurse. These two need to be assessed.”

A few moments passed after the team had brought Tior and Zoff to the infirmary and Dawa asked and gripped the side of Tior’s stretcher he woke up in shock and disorientation shouting, “Zoff run, run!”

With this outburst he was told by Dawa to relax and that he was safe in the Infirmary. With the shock of what happened and the drugs he was given for the pain, Tior passed out again. A few hours passed and Tior came to find himself with a partially burnt and destroyed uniform, lying on a biobed with a low pitch coming from the monitor above his head. He looked around the room to see Cadet Zoff across the room on a similar biobed but with a surgical support frame around her and a monitor above her head. He looked at himself to see a person using a dermal regenerator on his legs repairing some minor damage he had received from the blast.

“What’s happened to me, and is Zoff ok? What are you doing to my legs and why can’t I move them?” He put his hand to his head to feel a cortical stimulator on his forehead.

“Leave it alone,” a nurse said. “It’s helping with the concussion you received from the explosion.” The nurse gave him a shot of pain relief from the Hypospray he had sitting at his bedside and walked off to get Lt Commander Dawa and Dr. Joshua Bryant.

“How much time is left on the kayolane?”

Tolria looked at the chronometer, “24 minutes.”

The doctor sighed, “Fractures to her 4th, 6th, and 7th vertebrae,” he read off of the display. “That’s not to mention the damage to her internal organs and fractures elsewhere. Her bones look like a jigsaw puzzle.” The weight of his words carried in the silence of the surgical suite. “Can someone give me the status of the EMH?”

“We’re working on it, sir.” A voice rang out over the suite’s intercom. “A previous version of the program was installed in the systems. It’s not the most user-friendly.”

Tolira stared down at the body of Xiran, “We were just talking not but 12 hours ago…”

“Focus cadet.”

Joshua and Dawa looked on at the two of them working. The doctor was holding it together, but Joshua noted a tense fear in the man. And while Cadet Kinos specialized in surgery, she was a long way from leading an operation.

A nurse approached Joshua, “Cadet Tior is awake, he’s asking for the two of you.”

“We’re not doing anything beneficial here, should we go see him?” Joshua said to Dawa.

“Definitely,” said Dawa. “I think we’ll be more helpful to the conscious cadet at this point.”

The two of them walked over to Jabir. “It’s good to see you awake. How are you feeling?”

“I feel like I went ten rounds with a Klingon doing hand-to-hand combat training. I’m a bit bruised and banged up but the nurse said I be fine. I’m more worried about Zoff is she going to be ok? I see she’s not looking good because of what’s stuck around her,” said Tior.

Sitting up with a bit of pain. “How much damage was done to the waterways? Can it still be repaired and are there any more undetonated warheads we need to worry about sir?” said Tior.

“One thing at a time, Cadet,” said Dawa. She gave a half-hearted chuckle, her desire to reassure Tior warring with her concern for Zoff. “Zoff is in surgery right now,” she said, but she didn’t elaborate before moving on to the next point.

“So it was an undetonated warhead?” said Dawa. “The clean-up crew had suggested as much, but I guess this confirms it. I think we need to add ‘munitions clearance’ to the top of this colony’s wish list. Tior and I could troubleshoot their planetary defense grid and figure out why it missed that warhead, but…”

Dawa trailed off, a faraway look on her face. Suddenly a lightbulb seemed to go off over her head. “Maybe we can help the crew here get their EMH running, first. Something to give them a helping hand in surgery.”

Joshua nodded, “Agreed. It’s clear Tolria and Dr. Personality over there are in over their heads. Do you feel up to leading their team Jabir? I won’t be much help with engineering, but I can hold a spanner and take directions.”

“Yeah, I’ll take a look at it. I just have to pop to my quarters and I access their system and download the EMH maintenance program and download it to my PADD.” With that, he got up from his bed and to the room he had been allocated, got changed, and downloaded the information. Fifteen minutes had passed and the cadet had returned from the quarters with a fresh uniform and a data PADD telling him the steps on how to repair the EMH program.

“All right then, let’s get started,” Joshua said, falling into step with Jabir.