While he was staring at the scattered debris and fires on the ship, the others quickly made their way up as well. Besides the scattered debris, Ridge also saw a massive cut on the side of the vessel.
"Looks like it's a federation frigate, no wonder they ended up crash landing, the smaller federations' ships wouldn't be able to withstand as much as we did," Caroline exclaimed as soon as she got up from the ground.
"Let's go, keep an eye out for survivors," Ridge said while grabbing the flamethrower from his back. The others also followed suit. With two swords and two plasma rifles, the group of nine was only using five weapons, including the flamethrower. As such, Lind and the engineers, Caroline and Peter, stayed behind the group, with a soldier who also wasn't equipped with a weapon standing close to them.
Although he also didn't have a weapon, he was trained in close combat, so he would be able to still fight with his suit on, enhancing his punch strength and protecting the others in case of emergencies.
They stepped over pieces of shredded metal and avoided many of the fires, eventually making it to the tear in the hull of the ship. Activating a flashlight on his helmet, he took a look inside.
Sparks and wires were hanging everywhere; there didn't seem to be any recognizable rooms intact. However, Ridge did see a couple of bodies strewn across the ship.
They didn't seem to be infected or anything of that nature, so he didn't mind them too much; however, he did want to check if they had anything on them that could be of use. As such, the group entered the ship carefully, watching their steps and avoiding stray wires.
"Keep an eye out for the fungi, we are wearing suits so it won't be able to infect us, but it could perhaps travel far from a host, attaching itself onto whatever would allow it to travel beyond a normal range," he said while kneeling.
"Fungi typically travel with spores, so if there are any present on this ship, they would very much so travel on you," Lind, the doctor, said while also kneeling to examine the bodies.
"Hm, this body is recent for sure." Adjusting her tool bag in front of her, she grabbed a gun-like object. Then pointed it at the body, "The color of the skin hasn't changed too much from normal and the temperature readings are only slightly below average at the moment, of course the surroundings could have kept it warmer, but given the context of the situation and the color of the skin, its defientely within the last hour that this body has died."
Concluding her quick analysis, she applied the same tech to the other body and reached the same conclusion.
"There seems to be some blunt trauma on the bodies and what looks like a couple of rips in the suit here and there, so it's likely they were just thrown around after the ship had been cut or torn apart."
Listening to Lind as he was essentially looting the body, Ridge managed to find a knife and what looked like ammunition, though he couldn't be too sure where the gun was.
Standing up, he tossed the knife to the weaponless guard who was standing by the engineers and decided to move on.
The others, in the meantime, were looking around and keeping watch while Lind and Ridge got any information from the bodies that could be useful.
"Thanks, at least I feel safer with this knife on me," The guard said, who ended up being Sonny.
"It's better than your fists for sure, knowing your combat skills," George remarked as the group began to walk further in.
"Yeah, yeah, you're not much better, Captain," Sonny said with a smile.
The corridor they were walking through, besides the mentioned wires and debris, was also completely dark and only lit up occasionally by the flames and the helmet lights from the group.
Seeing an intersection of sorts, Ridge held up his gun and had the others quiet down. The soldiers with swords each moved a little closer to Ridge, and the ones with the guns made sure to fall back. In case of an emergency, they wouldn't be able to react as fast or as effectively as those with the swords.
Peering his head over to look right, then left, Ridge noticed that the right hallway was completely blocked off with junk and would likely be impossible to enter. Judging from the orientation of the ship and the way they were walking, the area where most of the dorms and perhaps storage rooms had been built. To the left, there was still junk and the like in the way, but much more movable.
This way led to the bridge and perhaps a couple of other rooms that higher-ranking members of the ship would reside in.
"Let's go left, keep an eye out for any surprises, and once again, don't make much noise; the lights give us away as it is, I don't want your voices to attract anything from further away," Ridge said quietly as he signalled with his fingers to move left.
The others didn't speak, but when he looked back at them, they all nodded in acknowledgment.
Squinting his eyes, Ridge got to the debris and began to move it slowly, handing one piece after another to the person behind him, who in turn did the same. This process would allow them to quietly sift through the junk and set it down in the back in a much more efficient manner. It also cleared up much more space.
With a path cleared, they then moved down the hallway once again, this time towards the bridge.
As they were walking, suddenly a sharp sound was emitted up ahead. Holding his hand up to stop the group, Ridge focused the beams on his helmet and saw movement ahead.
Just as he was about to say something to the others, the moving shadow quickly appeared within his lights and dashed directly towards Ridge.
It let out a guttural scream and knocked down pieces of junk metal as it charged at them.
Crash!
Another sound appeared to the right, and the second undead appeared. During this time, Ridge had already begun to retreat with the group.
"Shoot the plasma rifles now! Before these things get too close," he said while running, keeping an eye on the undead.
Their numbers were starting to grow, and that initial undead was just about to reach them when, luckily, the plasma rifles shot out. Hiss
The sound of the guns immediately cooling sounded out. Looking back, Ridge saw that they hit their targets perfectly. The two soldiers then retreated with the rest of the group.
While shooting, they managed to kill some of the others behind the first undead that was screaming, but alas, there were already ten or more undead appearing.
"Move back outside. We will have a much better chance at fighting these things with space to move and light to see," he barked out.
The engineers and doctor had already bolted with the soldier guarding them as soon as the undead were seen. They know they would only get in the way, but luckily, due to their apt thinking, Ridge didn't have to worry about them.
The walk to the ship and the hallway took them a good twenty minutes, but to get out, they only needed five.
Seeing the light from the outside, Ridge hurriedly rushed past with the zombies crashing and stumbling behind him, emitting growls as they fell or chased.
Outside, Caroline and the others had already created a makeshift barrier using some of the debris. It wasn't exactly a wall, but as long as it was around the height of their thighs, it would trip them up, which it was, of course. Ridge, who was ahead of the soldiers, turned around and waited for them to run past him.
Whoosh
Flames roared from his gun and directly towards the undead that were now running out of the ship. The force of the gun did much more to push them back than the actual flames did in killing them; nonetheless, as time passed, their flesh was starting to melt, and they began to move slower and slower.
Despite this, they continued their advance, pushing straight through the flames, cooking themselves in the process. Ridge also saw this and took slow, measured steps back as he was shooting.
"Are you guys ready back there!" He yelled without looking back.
"Ready to fire!" George yelled in return. While Ridge was slowing the undead down, the others had positioned themselves behind the barricade and once again began to charge up and reload their plasma rifles.
With the gun heating up in his hands, Ridge took his finger off the trigger and quickly jumped over the barricade.
With no force pushing them back anymore, the undead immediately began to rush towards the group once more.
Without taking a few steps, however, zapping sounds were emitted from the plasma rifles, and bursts of plasma rounds shot out at them.
Some were hit in the head, others in the chest; nevertheless, the group of around ten undead had now become less than four. The fire had also ended up killing some of them, so luckily, the suppressive fire by Ridge wasn't completely useless.
"Take the rest out with your swords, and make sure you stay out of biting or scratching range," he ordered.
The two soldiers ran from behind the back of the barricade and quickly sliced the heads off of the remaining zombies, who had become rather slow from all the melting flesh. The fight at this point was just like target practice.
After a few minutes of cleaning up, the fighting died down, and Ridge took a deep breath.
"That's around fourteen people we found, two dead already, and the other twelve infected," he solemely said aloud.
"Which means there are likely only eleven people left, though they also could be lying around dead," Caroline said while the group gathered once more.
"Well, do we still go in to check?"
Hearing George say this, Ridge began to contemplate for a moment, but eventually, he looked up and nodded, "Yeah, let's finish scoping out the bridge after all, it's the only area remaining that we weren't able to see."
"Yes, sir," George saluted.
The others followed suit, the group entered the ship and walked the same path again, this time it was three times faster than before since they weren't as wary of things popping out.
After around five to ten minutes of walking, they had made it to a shut door. With scratch marks all around the door and even on the walls, the closer they got, it was likely the undead were trying to get in here.
Looking back and signaling his head, Ridge had the group hold up their weapons once more and went up to the door. Using the back of his gun, he hit the door to knock and shouted out, "Any survivors still alive in here?"
The gun hitting the door just resulted in a reverberated, empty metal noise, and after a minute of waiting, he received no answer.
"Caroline, you try and see if you can't get this door open, would you?"
He then moved back away from the door and let Caroline and her engineer work their magic.
"I can try," she said while tracing the edges of the door," Within federation frigates, there is typically a latch or button of some sort encased within the walls around the bridge door."
Moving to the left, she continued tracing, "and so long as I can find it, we should be able to ge-ah here it is."
Finding the enclosed latch, she took out a metal tool with a special symbol on it and inserted it into the wall where a small opening was.
With clicks and clacks, part of the wall seemingly fell off and hit the ground with a thud.
A latch was now showing. "Peter, could you pull this latch down for me?"
"What, too lazy to do it yourself?" George said sarcastically.
"That and it's heavy, what can I say?" Caroline replied while shrugging.
Peter exerted some effort in pulling the hatch down, and just like the manual switch that Ridge had used when opening his own room, the doors for the bridge slowly began to creep open, inch by inch, metal scraping against metal.
Finally, after a minute of impatiently waiting, the room was opened.