Hostile Hospital

Posted on Fri Sep 18th, 2026 @ 1:13pm by Lieutenant Jack Lashmore & Captain Nycolas Temple & Lieutenant Commander Christine J'Oh & Ensign Raven DeVine & Ensign Velia
Edited on on Fri Sep 18th, 2026 @ 6:12pm

Mission: A New Day at Midnight
Location: Omipro City - Hospital
Timeline: After "Help Is Here"

ON:

Omipro City, with a population of barely five-thousand, could more likely be described as a large town of sorts. Few buildings were taller than three-stories high and very modular; pre-fabricated designs akin to many colonies of the Federation established in the late 24th century. Streets were orderly in design, rapid growth tree's lined each footpath...overall it would appear idealistic in many terms. That would be the truth if it werent covered in weaponsfire scorchmarks and the occasional small crater in the ground from either airborne artillery or explosives. It was hard for Jack not to have images of Betazed in his head, from when the 11th and 13th Fleets liberated Betazed from Dominion Occupation, with Romulan assistance. Thankfully there were far fewer casualties in the present situation.

As Jack and Velia had crossed the city centre, they were accompanied by a small number of local law-enforcement to be a bracket between the upset locals. They were rarely approached to begin with. Jack noticed, however, the grime on their escorts riot gear and the way they held themselves and moved; they were exhausted and run down to the wire, likely at wits end. He mused that could be a problem, one small incident could possible cause their guard to snap.

Continuing to take in details of the city centre as they walked Jack continued beside Velia and in a soft voice to keep the conversation between them, "you seeing what I'm seeing, Ensign?"

Velia was a little less soft, walking in rigid military fashion her head on a swivel as if a turret searching for targets. "Whoever attacked the city was more than well armed. A two-pronged attack on both ground and light aerial bombardment, indiscriminate. There appears to be no focus point in the attack."

Jack nodded, "I agree. A distraction?"

"That would be the logical deduction, sir."

He sighed and nodded to himself.

As the group approached the Omipro Hospital, there was indeed, as expected, a mass of chaos awaiting them. At the hospital entrance, a line of exhausted police with riot shields were holding back a large flock of civilians who appeared to be suddenly trying their luck to push past the line. Already Jack could see bouts of violence had occurred as several civilians were helping others to their feet and pulling them out of the crowd, baton wounds obvious to the eye.

The sound of breaking glass broke Jack's focus on the riot as glass fell from a shattered window of the hospitals second level, followed immediately by a cloth-masked person jumping through and landing with a roll into a garden bed below, left of the main entrance. Quickly righting themself the person made to sprint away, with a weighted backpack and a further duffle bag underarm. The local police were too occupied to respond.

And Jack deemed himself too slow to respond at the distance, and shooting at his current angle with a phaser could risk hitting someone else.

"Velia!" Jack pointed.

"Sir." The green-skinned Orion/Vulcan hybrid was quick to respond. Her superior speed and endurance on full display as she raced after the runner with unnatural ease, effortlessly shouldering her way through the edges of the crowd with the aid of Vulcan-strength shouldering.

Now, the problem ahead of them...there was no easy way of getting into the hospital without having to meet the mob. Jack sighed then indicated for the attention of his escort. "Stand ground, don't engage." He received no audible reply, though the escort did not move to join the chaos ahead.

Velia was out of sight, still likely in pursuit of the window jumper. Jack realised he would have to be the voice of reason at that moment, for a second he did not quite know how to approach the situation. He was rusty - four years out of service and two of those in jail, he needed to think first before acting. Taking another deep breath he then took the forward strides to approach the mob that was attempting another push against the picket line of guards at the hospital.

"May I have your attention?!"

Nothing.

"I am Lieutenant Jack Lashmore of the Federation Starshi-...PLEASE!"

No matter how much he would project his voice it was not enough to be heard over the chaos. Jack sighed to himself and looked down and swore under his breath, "frontier diplomacy then...damn."

Drawing his Type-1 'cricket' phaser, making sure it was set to stun Jack then aimed in the crowds direction then upward, targeting the hospital walls above the main entrance for all to see the action and fired. The photonic hiss of the beam followed by the light spark against the ceramic tiling of the hospitals wall did seem to get everyones attention. Quite a few rioters ducked, as did soem of the guards on instinct, others turned with fury in their eyes.

As all faced Jack, he knew they could all rush him and he would not be able to stop them all. However, he raised both hands at his sides to shoulder height, defensively then visibly gestured lower, slowly as if to signal calm and non-hostility. "You can continue beating eachother to a pulp as you wish!" He began, "but first, just a few words, then you can make your own choice, hmm?"

He had to show trust, having their attention, Jack approached the mob with all eyes on him and slowly made his way through them with calm, soft "excuse me...sorry," and gentle shoulder squeezes of select random people he passed and nods to each. He stopped midway up the few steps between the mob and the guards lining the entrance of the hospital, turning to face the civilians behind him.

He pointed upward to the sky, casually, in a way that signified he had something to say but also to indicate something above. "Up there, is a capital-class Starfleet Vessel." He let that fact sink in for a few seconds, glancing over the crowd. "For those of you unaware, that size of Starfleet vessel, as modern as it also is, has extensive medical facilities, food and industrial stores as well as a massive power and matter supply. Add those with near-countless food replicators and a handful of industrial-grade replicators...that ship up there is more capable than this colony was before the attack"

Another pause. "What does this mean, besides..." Jack shrugged and forced a chuckle, glancing across the crowd with an ironic smile to address the next fact, "...besides, Starfleet officers are spoiled beyond reason brats?"

"It means everything you need, medical, food, protection...the ability to rebuild, is here." Jack then shrugged again. "The problem is, if we have to go around breaking up riots just to get inside your primary facilities, we're not going to be able to allocate a single resource to help any of you."

Jack then sat down, casually on the stairs. "I'm not here to fight you, just help you...but I need you all to go back to your home, or your places of work. Seeing people where they usually would live or work will aid greatly in being able to allocate resources. But if you're all just going to yell and fight each other, the only thing I'm going to allocate is security forces and overcrowding of a brig. Give my people a chance....if in forty-eight hours things are not improving, then you can throw bricks at my face, hmm?"

On the bridge of the Pandora, Temple raised an eyebrow as Lieutenant Jarok reported the phaser fire. Just the single shot. "What is going on?" He said flatly.

"But first!" Jack added, "Anyone with a serious injury out here, please remain; I guarantee medical relief will beam down when I see y'all cooperating. Secondly, anyone with grievances or reasonable requests..." he gestured to the area before him. "Line up and I'll hear you one at a time."

The Lieutenant's badge chirped loudly and although it was physically impossible to denote intention through a communication device's tone sounds, there was a distinct impatience coming from his badge.

"Pandora to Lashmore, what is your status?" Temple's voice conveyed that same impatience.

Jack raised a finger lightly with a wink to the crowd, signifying he needed a moment and tapped his combadge, "Lashmore to Pandora, we're clear at the hospital for relief teams to beam down behind my location."

"We've detected phaser fire at your location, is everything okay?" Temple asked.

Jack eyed the crowd, they seemed to have had the wind taken out of their anxiety and were mumbling, some dispersing others lining up, the police seemed to have caught the drift of the calmer situation and began sorting any injured into a seperate group calmly. Jack rolled his eyes with a soft smile at those in the crowd still watching him as they would have heard the comms chatter. He did not want to make the civilians sound worse than they were nor point any fingers to their violence. "The colonists and I agreed a ceramic tile was looking relatively offensive, sir...folk at the hospital are calming down now sir." He hoped that would relay some truth in the lie.

The Captain chose to accept the explanation, at least for now. “I hope the tile won’t pose a risk to Lieutenant Commander J’Oh and the medical team?”

"The Commander and her cohort should be safe to beam down just..." Jack looked to the sky, still sitting on the stairs, he was judging the sun and what he recalled from the planetary maps. "...South-east of my position, Hospital Lobby. Though I would suggest sending a half dozen more of my department as a precaution, I'll distribute them when they get here. Sir."

“We have both teams standing by.” Liana confirmed, stepping in. “Transporter rooms one and two.”

"At your leisure, Lashmore out."

Appearing in the hospital foyer, Lt. Cmdr Christine J’Oh and Ensign Raven Devine beamed down with the medical team, and began to assess the situation. Christine was looking at her PADD, “Emergency Room is in the left wing; intensive care upstairs. I want everyone to triage their patients with their tags. Anything critical gets transported straight up to the Pandora.”

Raven nodded, “I will verify their identities on the colony database.”

Christine looked at the crowd outside, “Find a way to notify family members if they get taken up to the ship.”

“It’ll bring them some comfort.” Raven agreed, as she pulled out her own PADD and began typing away to access the hospital’s files.

The Commander shrugged, “Also good for blood transfusions if needed. I’m assuming the hospital supply will be spoiled.”

“Right, right.” Raven nodded, she pocketed her PADD and lifted up her medical bag. She was a little disappointed that she hadn’t thought of that herself.

“Lieutenant Lashmore.” Christine called out to the Security Chief. “We’ll need your help organising family members.”

Jack whistled to the security officers who had beamed down with the medical staff behind him, gesturing for them to join him as he stood then called back to the Doctor, "Will delegate promptly, ma'am."

As the six junior officers approached him he nodded to the group. "Right, you know the basic regulations for this. Every possible mercy, every possible restraint and call me for any hard decisions. You two..." Jack gestured to two by random, "stay in eyesight of Commander J'Oh and assist as required, but primarily be a buffer if needed."

He gestured to another two, "you and you, secure the perimeter, inside and out, and plan out a rotational repeating patrol between you, overlapping at key points." Jack then nodded to the final two, "you two examine the wounded outside here, light injuries you're more than trained to treat yourselves. Request a battlefield medical kit from the doc each. Also, anyone claiming to be family members of patients inside, send them to the two security inside, who will then filter them further."

"Okay," Jack nodded, "get to it."

A chorus of "yes sir," sounded in reply.

It was then a relatively satisfied-with-themselves greenskinned woman with dark purple hair approached Jack, guiding a skinny, unkempt man in dark clothing before her with an arm twisted behind his back and held there with a firm grip of a green fist. Velia had two bags, each slung over her shoulder, which she had seized from him. "As you requested sir."

"Good job, Ensign..." Jack eyed Velia's prisoner, then arched an eyebrow at Velia.

"The bags have basic medical supplies, seemingly stolen from inside, sir, he was unarmed."

"Get her off me! I was ju--ahhh!" Velia's grip tightened on the man's twisted arm. "What are you a robot?!" He yelled over his shoulder, between grit teeth.

"Just stealing from your own." Jack finished for him. "Let him go, take the bags inside and deliver them to Commander J'Oh."

Velia almost pouted in silent protest before unhanding the man in near disgust, as if she was holding a bag of leaking rubbish. "Sir." The Orion/Vulcan hybrid nodded once and proceeded inside with the recovered goods.

The Emergency Room was chaos. The lead attending and three staff members had been working almost round the clock to keep the most dire parents alive, forced to ration medical supplies when the power went out. Christine smelled death in the air, like a turgid, heavy scent in a stale room. Patients were lined up in bio-bed, gurneys, and on the floor. It was evident they had become overwhelmed and could not deal with this many traumas at once.

Arriving at the first bed, she was confronted by a patient with severe plasma burns covering the right side of their body. The patient had been covered in medical gauze and sedated but without the medical replicators to create a proper skin graft, her wounds would not heal.

“Raven, cat one, bed one.” Christine called out. She clipped a transporter beacon to the patient’s foot.

“Pandora, initiate transport to Sickbay, tag zero-zero-one.” Raven commanded. She tapped at her PADD and accessed the medical files. “Patient name Gwyen Bach. One registered family member.”

The patient disappeared in a flurry of blue lights, up to the Pandora where they would receive urgent treatment. Christine noted the information and confirmed the transfer on her PADD. She looked over to a Nurse. “Strip the bed and reset. You have two minutes.”

“One down.” Raven remarked, more to herself. “So many to go.”

Stepping back, Christine tapped her badge. “Lashmore, locate a family member last name Bach. B. A. C. H. Send them in to speak with medical.”

"Understood." Jack sighed to himself, he was thinking of doing his best to move away from the hospital and clear out other trouble spots of possible rioters and then setup a secondary relief center but sighed again and approached the two security personnel triaging those outside the hospital, as he passed a forming line of civilians whom, admittedly he requested to form to speak of grievances and needs, a civilian grabbed Jack's right arm by the elbow.

This caused him to stop midstride and grit his teeth as he turned to face a rather burly looking man, almost akin to a well-fed heavy-set miner of sorts. "You said you would hear each of us out!"

Jack stared into the mans eyes, "And I will." He then gestured to the secondary group of civilians. "...but do you not think the wounded and those missing their loved ones come first, hmm? Let go." His voice was calm and even, yet stern.

There was a pause followed by a slow and looking downward nod before Jack felt his arm was released. Clenching his jaw for a split-second Jack then turned his attention to the task at hand. "BACH?! BEE AY SEE HAYCH! BACH?"

No reply from anyone.

"BACH?! BEE AY SEE HAYCH! BACH?"

It was then an elderly woman came forward, not frail but with white windswept hair and the smudges of soot across her face approached him. "Mr. Lashmore! There are none of the Bach family here, the Husband, Jaycen, works at the Museum, his wife Gwyen is an administrative assistant."

Jack nodded, "thank you." He then reminded himself to be of federation care and mercy and held then squeezed the ladies hands for a moment before nodding and jogging toward the hospital interior.

Doing his best to ignore the carnage within, at least mentally, Jack navigated his way to within earshot of Christine and called out. "No Bach outside!" Then shot a question the same direction, "Battlefield Medical Kits, where?"

“Lieutenant!” A nurse called out from a biobed across the room as the patient in front of her began seizing violently. “Blood pressure dropped rapidly, lost consciousness.”

“Damnit. He’s hypoxic.” Christine cursed as she rushed over. She initiated the bed restraints which curved over the patient’s arms and legs. “Hypospray. Pheno. 20 mils.” The nurse tapped at the dispenser next to the bed and pulled out the loaded spray. Christine held it to the man’s neck and a sharp hiss could be heard. The man’s convulsions slowed somewhat, much to their relief. But the patient wasn’t out of danger yet. “Raven, show Lashmore’s team where the kits are. We need to get this one to the Pandora.”

Raven did as she was told and ran out of the Emergency Room, heading back into the foyer. There she came across Ensign Velia as she was returning the stolen goods. Raven felt her breath catch as she saw the stunning, tall, very green woman. But it was only momentary and she quickly cleared her throat to regain her professionalism.

The Ensign pointed to a row of field medi-kits that had been neatly set up and prepared by the team. “Here are the field kits for Lieutenant Lashmore. What’s that in your hand?” Raven asked Velia.

Velia unslung the two bags off her shoulders and offered them to Raven, "medical supplies stolen from the hospital." She then felt a hand clasp her shoulder and almost stiffened before noting Jack had stood ty her side.

He nodded to Raven once quickly, "Ensign Velia here will operate as my liason, whatever you need go through her." Jack then approached the rows of kits and claimed three. "I'm going to try and setup a basic relief hub between this hospital and the capital building and take some heat off both sides' hands with coordination from the Pandora."

Raven looked up at Veila with furrowed brow. 'Did she say 'stolen' supplies?' she wondered to herself, unable to fathom the desperation one would have to reach to steal essential medical supplies from a hospital during a crisis. She began to look through the goods and noted they were all Federation stamped; enough to help treat the crowds of people.

Velia frowned but nodded.

Jack then stood and called over his shoulder to roughly repeat, loud enough for J'Oh to hear. "With your permission Doc, I'm going to help the Pandora setup a food and basic supplies relief hub in the centre of town; it should help get the crowds massing at your door? Use Velia as if she was me."

Velia continued to just stand there, muttering to herself under her breath, but turned to stand ready and at attention for any of the Doctors needs.

"We need power on so I can treat people here." Christine called out, "I'm sending everyone I can up to the Pandora and we can keep funneling people through, but we'll hit capacity again soon. Are you sure you won't be swamped if you start treating outside? I don't want to risk you or the supplies."

"People need food and water whilst their replicators don't have power, anything beyond cuts and bruises I'll send your way. I'll see what I can figure out about power..." Jack sighed to himself then nodded several times. "Right..." He turned and lightly jogged outside the hospital and called to his two officers sorting civilians into groups there. "Heads up!" He tossed each a battlefield medical kit and kept one for himself.

Passing the formed line of civilians wishing to speak to him about their needs and greivances Jack indicated in their direction, "okay you lot, follow me, lets give medical room."

Continuing forward towards the cities central open-air plaza Jack tapped his combadge. "Lashmore to Pandora."

"Temple here." The Captain responded immediately; sitting quite literally on the edge of his chair on the bridge.

Jack did some rough calculations in his mind. "Sir. I'll request a need for a few of our emergency pop-up structures at the city square, plus some pop-up tables and chairs. As many units of field rations as you can mass-replicate, preferably 7500 units, water rations in same numbers...a dozen more battlefield medical kits, blankets..." He blinked a few times as he continued making his way to the central plaza. "Four more of my security personnel, send as many you have left onboard after that to bed, I need them ready to rotate out and swap with those I have on the ground here in the next twelve hours. We need an engineering team at the Hospital with a portable power unit...what else...once we have all that setup I'll secure and ascertain the damage to the colonies power-plant. I could use the ship's Counsellor to help run food and supply relief we're going to set up in the city-centre, perhaps a Diplomatic Officer to hear grievances and calm nerves."

Jesus Christ...Jack's mind was buzzing; he was sure he forgot something. To be fair, he was trying to keep his mind busy otherwise, he risked getting flooded with images from the Dominion War that the colony was conjuring in his head.

"We have the industrial replicators already working." Liana cut in for the captain. "Send coordinates and we'll start to beam down what you need."

"It sounds more serious than we anticipated, Lieutenant." Temple remarked, "We don't have a Chief Diplomat but I can come down."

Jack sighed, "regulations would have me state that we have not one-hundred-percent secured the city and as such, you as the Captain, are not clear to come down. However, I won't put it in my report if you don't, sir. You will, however, come down with no less than two armed security officers who will be forever tied to your hip...sir."

He looked over his shoulder as he continued his way into the city-square, as expected, there were civilians following him. Glancing around Jack approached a small park-like area, flat-ground, grass. "My location sir, for the relief and supply center. But beam the Engineering team with power supply to the hospital first."

A few moments later and the first drop of supplies materialized in the chosen spot. Liana was working quickly to transport the prepared equipment, as soon as they were ready to go.

Already Jack had more than half of his department made busy...things were going to be tight.

It wasn't until the next drop of pop-up chairs appeared in a blue light glow that the Captain also appeared, sitting on one of the chairs. He looked around himself, a little perplexed at being transported off the Pandora like this. "Liana." He cursed to himself.

"No sitting on the job, sir." Jack approached the captain and nodded to the two security officers who had beamed down with him. He then turned to the civilians following him and held up two hands. "I understand the frustration of having to wait to be heard! Please bare with us as we get things setup...the more patience you display the faster we can get to you."

With that said Jack then turned to the captain, "Sir, I admit I forgot one primary thing. We do not know if the hostiles are still active in the area or not. I wish to add a request for Operations Department teams to setup transporter inhibitors around this supply camp and the hospital, and give the frequency codes to Commander J'Oh and whoever else needs at maximum so they can control exactly what can beam through. We cannot afford to have any of this stolen or infiltrated."

"The Pandora has that covered," Nyx said reassuringly, "Liana, before she decided to shanghai me off my own ship, had completed extensive scans and set up necessary protections. We know you've been busy on the surface."

Jack nodded twice to the captain then continued nodding as he stared about the area as more equipment and supplies were beamed down. "Well, sir, it is all hands-on deck, could use a hand setting up." With that said Jack turned and approached one square, white hip-high object and pressed his palm firmly upon it after adjusting its location a few meters, the object then sprang open and self-folded out into a several-square-meter ceramic-like plated tent of sorts. The fold out caused him to step backward quickly and blink a few times. "Ok...these are new, nice."

Nyx nodded as the Lieutenant got the encampment set up. He moved ahead to the crowd of people waiting, grabbing a bag of supplies that he saw on the grass. He pulled out a water container and a Federation standard snack ration. Moving to the first person he saw lining up, he held them out to the civilian with a broad smile. "I'm Captain Temple of the USS Pandora. What's your name?"

"Gael." The man replied, clasping his hands around the captain's as he received the rations.

"Thank you for your patience, Gael. We'll get you treated right away, okay?" Nyx said warmly. "Please, drink and eat."

"Thank you, Captain. And thank you, Lieutenant!" The civilian called out to Lashmore. He had been one of the most vocal in the crowd, now he was gracious enough to thank the officer.

Jack paused a moment and blinked. "Just...doing my job." He blinked several times again before prepping several more tents, slowly getting them setup into a mock square formation surrounding an open center. As other officers, soem security and others operations, beamed down Jack began delagating. "Six rows of the chairs in the center, a meter apart, tables and chairs line the front of each tent. Food and water, give the captain another crate of each...the rest in the two largest tents along that line." Jack indicated the two forward central tents that the rows of chairs would be facing. "Blankets in the side tent to the left, medical supplies to the right side tent. I want an operations officer in each tent tracking inventory, we get to ten-percent of anything, request more from the Pandora."

The operations crew nodded and got to work. Jack then gestured to two security personnel. "You two, one mans the medical tent, it'll only have battlefield basics...you guys have the training to handle light injuries, anything worse off- send to the hospital."

From there, Nyx continued down the line, taking a moment to ask each person their name, to reassure them that they would be treated, and that Starfleet was now in control of their recovery. The food was taken readily and with gratitude, some less so than others, but a stillness had washed over the crowd now that they were seeing Lieutenant Lashmore's promises come to fruition.

Jack then tapped his combadge, staring upward toward the skyline, judging how far the mountains were from the city. "Lashmore to Pandora."

"Go ahead." Came the reply.

"I need two shuttles launched, one constantly patrolling the area with a grid distance of no less than one-hundred square kilometres, repeating patrol. The second shuttle flying slow and low above the city itself, overhead speaker repeating to inform the locals to report to the city centre for any needs, requests and supplies." Jack took a breath. "Have the patrol shuttle report to me via comms every thirty minutes. Lashmore out."

Not allowing himself to pause Jack then tried to think of what next, nodding several times to himself as his eyes darted about the area. "Sir!" he called over to the captain and gestured in the direction of where he thought the power plant of the colony was. "Permission to inspect the power plant and assess?"

"Let's wait until we hear from Commander Llewellyn." Nyx replied, as he approached to retrieve another bag of rations, "Last report, they were getting repairs underway. I want to focus on keeping the civilians here happy and accommodated. That'll help us get everything else back in order."

"Acknowledged." Jack replied, then tapped his combadge again. He did not wish to distract the doctor, so he decided on another angle. "Lashmore to DeVine."

"Yessum?" Raven's voiced cooed back, though she was currently struggling to help lift someone onto the bio-bed.

"Has an engineering team arrived at your location to install a portable power unit?"

"Some yellow shirts came through not long ago." She called out, voice straining. "They were carrying something, didn't look like the mini-bar I ordered, so I'll assume it's power unit related."

"Thank you, Lashmore out." Jack sighed then stared over his shoulder to the captain handing out food and water. Glancing over to the relief camp set-up he noted the layout he intended was mostly prepped. Nodding more times than he would like to admit in rapid succession, he took a few deep breaths before making his way to the centre and beginning to organise two water rations and two food rations to be placed under each chair of the six rows of chairs facing the main tent.

That did take a few minutes, once done Jack whistled once in the captain's and civilians' direction before gesturing to the chairs. "No need to stand out there; come over, rest your legs...eat, drink and let's talk."

Nyx moved in with the crowd, hand around the arm of one of the survivors. "You did excellently to defend yourself, ma'am. You did the right thing." He was saying.

With everyone seated, some eating, others drinking, most just allowing themselves to sit pensively and wait...with the occasional glare stare forward Jack sighed. He had hoped the captain would step up and lead the speaking; instead, he was being the good PR, which left Jack to lead the sequence of events. Damn...okay, what now? Standing before the rows of seated civilians Jack sighed inwardly and nodded once. "I..."

Still did not know where to begin.

Jack clasped his hands together and allowed himself a humiliated smile. "If you cannot already tell, I'm winging this..." Another sigh. "The one thing I am not going to do is offer platitudes...when things get rough, words usually come across as hollow and an easy thing. What I do want to do, and I need your help with this, is figure out who did this to you and if possible, give them more than just words. With your help I intend to identify the attackers, their purpose and goals. Can any of you describe to me the events of the day the attack took place? The attackers' description, how they arrived, what they arrived in...any demands they made or contact at all?"

As if on queue, almost every hand in the crowd shot up simultaneously. Where there had been a quiet contentment amongst the gathered masses, now there was a fevered, noisy pitch to grab the Commander's attention, as the civilians began to shout all at once about what they had seen.

"They came from the East!"

"Dropping bombs. Exploded right there!"

"I had to dive into this house!"

"I lost my shoes!"

Nyx tried to hide a smile as he saw their enthused yelling, knowing this is exactly what the Lieutenant didn't want to happen. He took a moment to decide whether or not to let Lashmore handle the crowd himself before slowly rising to his feet. With a sharp, short clap of his hands together, he called for quiet in his loudest booming voice.

"One at a time." Nyx then said gently after he had gotten their attention, "As you receive supplies and some treatment, we'll take your statements." He looked over to Lashmore with a shrug, "This is going to take a while."

OFF