The doors opened, and with them came the view of more debris and fires that still hadn't been put out. Something of great interest, however, was the fact that there were no bodies.
"Let's head in, search for any bodies or people. It makes no sense that there is nothing in sight, considering the door was locked," Ridge ordered.
The group then entered the bridge, the front window was completely smashed, and it was certainitly the first thing the ship lost for certain, going headfirst into the mountain and all.
When looking right where the navigation tables are typically placed in federation ships, Ridge saw that the table on this one was relatively intact.
Walking over, he reached out to the table and attempted to siphon data from it using his panel. Taking out an attached cord, he plugged it into the data port and waited for it to load.
'No Power'
As expected, there was no power to actually collect the data, smacking his head, Ridge unplugged the port and looked around further. The right side of the bridge, which he was exploring now, usually only held a few extra seats for crew members piloting ship systems and the navigation table itself. Meaning he wouldn't find anything else, but it would be a good idea to rummage through the stuff that could have fallen on the floor.
To the left of the bridge, Caroline had just opened the commander's quarters, which hadn't been locked, and was about to enter when she was suddenly pulled back.
"Wha--"
Shew
A dart-like object zoomed past from the right and entered the wall. Holding her chest, she looked at George, who had saved her, "Thank you, I was not expecting a trap."
"No problem, you develop an intuition for these things, and as soon as the door opened that easily, I knew something was wrong," George said while sniffing and rubbing his nose.
"Ok, you could have just said you're welcome and stopped talking," Caroline said while shaking her head.
"You! Whatever," he said, exasperated.
Caroline ignored him and entered the room once more, looking first to the left, where a metal dart was embedded in the wall. Rubbing her neck, she then went in further. George had also followed close behind after getting one of the other soldiers to enter with them.
The first thing they saw, other than the dart, was the bed and more debris, or rather, more junk. The captain of this frigate seemed to have a bit of character, as there were posters and figurines all over the place.
"Well, whoever lived here certainly had some fun on whatever mission he was assigned to," Caroline said while shaking her head.
"I don't think anyone else is here either. You spot anything?"
George said while looking around. Caroline didn't answer back, but she did feel the same way; regardless, they would have to make sure to be thorough and sift through the junk in case of something valuable.
Meanwhile, Ridge was continuing to fiddle through a bunch of junk, and just as he was lamenting the fact that he had made no progress in finding anything, a mark on the ground appeared after moving one of the metal pieces away.
Looking closer, they were in fact tracks, to be more specific, a trail of blood specks leading straight to where Caroline and George were.
"Let's go to the commander's room; there shouldn't be anything else of interest here for us."
He said as he straightened up, the others were also doing the same thing as he was, and with news of something interesting, they stopped what they were doing right away. Caroline and George had also heard Ridge speak, so they simply kept their search up, only this time paying attention to the ground, where, lo and behold, they found some specks of blood.
Coming into the room, Ridge noticed the dart, but didn't say anything about it besides acknowledging that it was there, and continued following the tracks.
"Over here, some specks of blood are leading into the bathroom of the quarters."
Caroline said with enthusiasm, enthusiasm which was matched by Ridge and George, who immediately entered the bathroom.
Luckily, there weren't any traps, but they did notice the specks of blood leading straight into a wall.
"Must be a secret door of some kind that was installed either by the captain or the federation, hm, I am gonna have to check my own room just in case," Ridge said while chuckling.
"Look around for some kind of switch or button that could be pressed," he continued.
Because the bathroom wasn't very massive, only three people entered to search, this included Ridge himself, Caroline, and finally George; the rest were instructed to just wait outside and also continue searching for anything else that could pop up, like, for example, weapons.
Due to the bathroom's size, it didn't take long for the group to find the mysterious switch that would open the wall, and as it turned out, it was literally right behind the shower head.
"Huh, I should make sure to check mine when we get back to base," Ridge said before pressing down on it.
Ssss
Hissing sounds appeared, and after some mechanical noises sounded out, quite similar in fact to when they manually opened the bridge doors, the wall popped open and fell to the ground.
Before they could process what was inside, a couple of people fell out, following the wall onto the ground. One of them appeared to be holding an open wound that was bleeding, and the other was simply passed out.
"Out, both of you. Get the doctor in here immediately after. Once we stabilize the two people, we will leave. It's unlikely for us to find the others," Ridge sternly told the two.
Nodding to his words, they left, and right after that, Lind entered. Holding her bag, she immediately grabbed two injectors that were applied directly onto the wound of the first person who was bleeding. She then cut a square into the mangled suit that was full of holes and pulled off anything that could be in the wound itself.
Taking a pair of forceps, she dug around in the wound and felt something that could have caused the bleeding.
Before grabbing down on it, she looked to Ridge, "Hold this guy down, he won't feel too much since I already gave him a couple shots of Journy, which will numb a large part of his body and help with the pain, but he will still feel something like this get pulled out of his body," she said quickly.
Ridge also reacted quickly and held down the man's arms. Seeing this, Lind used her left leg to hold down the man's legs and, grabbing onto the object, she pulled up quickly.
With a squelching sound, the newly discovered metal piece was pulled out and thrown to the side. Acting quickly, Lind took a bandage out and applied it directly to the wound before there would be too much bleeding.
The federation's bandages were especially effective in stopping blood due to having an applied medicine on its white patch that could speed the process of blood clots forming, which was imperative for the skin and body to heal outside injuries.
Letting out a sigh, she then double checked the man for any more wounds and made sure to take his vitals as well.
"Vitals are below average but steadily recovering already, I am gonna check the... girl now," Lind said somewhat hesitantly since they hadn't actually identified the bodies' genders or who they were from the start. Looking at the other body, though, it was quite easy to discern that it was a female due to the visual of long hair as well as prominent chest features bigger than most males.
"Ok, got it, we will have one of the stretchers we prepared for this guy ready, and in fact, we will probably have another ready for the girl if need be."
After saying this, Ridge then left the room and spoke to the others, relaying the same message.
As a perk of being prepared, the group had readied a good number of shrinkable stretchers that they could use in case they needed to carry someone, and by the looks of things, they may need to carry two, so Ridge was glad for this philosophy.
One of the soldiers, Sonny, had already taken out a stretcher, and after rolling it out, he activated the button that immediately stiffened the skeleton of the stretcher, which would allow two people to carry it, and then he set it down.
Another soldier also prepared a stretcher, but didn't quite ready it like Sonny since they weren't sure about the other person.
"Come in with me, sonny, we'll carry the male out and then take him out onto the bridge, as for the rest of you, just wait on the bridge as well," Ridge said while going back into the room with sonny following.
"Got it," Caroline said, making sure to lead her subordinate out as well. The remaining four also followed suit.
"Post up at the entrance to the bridge. If there is still any of those things left, it would be best to take care of them outside of the bridge," George ordered while walking out.
Ridge and Sonny went to either end of the guy with the stretcher and began counting down.
"On three, one, two, three!"
With grunts, they both lifted the man and set him down gently onto the stretcher. Despite the pain injectors, the man still ended up grunting in his sleep, signaling that he was still alive and well, relatively speaking. They proceeded to carry him out.
Lind, during this entire fiasco, was finalizing the checks on the girl and concluded that she was simply overexhausted; it was likely that she was the one who had grabbed the man and dragged him all the way to the bathroom. Considering she passed out, it was also likely a far and difficult walk.
Sifting through her bag once more, Lind grabbed another injector, this one had a blue colored tip, however, and twisting it off, Lind stabbed it directly into the girl's chest.
Suddenly, the woman shot up, gasping for air, eyes wide open, she looked at Lind and retreated quickly, readying herself in a combat stance. The woman questioned, "Who are you? What's happened to the man who was with me?"
"I am a scientist from the Coro Federation, I've also studied medicine, me and the crew I came here with trailed the two of you by following the blood specks on the floor, please, calm down, there is no need to worry, we've already treated your friend, and have him waiting outside in a stretcher," Lind said in a soothing voice.
This seemed to work because soon enough, the woman was no longer guarded and significantly relaxed.
"I see, federation folk, I am Officer Reno of the Tung Frigate. Thank you for helping us, though I do have to ask, where exactly are we, and have you found the rest of my crew?"
The woman named Reno announced her identity and immediately asked more questions, but before Lind could answer her, Ridge finally came back after hearing Lind speak to someone.
"We can only answer one of those questions, and well, you're not gonna like the answer, they have all been infected and or have died, maybe even gone missing."
Hearing a voice at the doorway, Reno was slightly startled, but she immediately recognized the commander's colors on Ridge's suit and saluted out of habit, "Commander."
"At ease, as much as we would like to keep talking and answering your questions, we need to get a move on. I want to make it back to base before complete dark," Ridge said while quickly acknowledging her salute.
"I understand, now's not the time, then."
Reno took things with relative ease, luckily, and as such, the three immediately began moving out as soon as Lind double checked that Reno wasn't injured anywhere.
When they finally left the commander's quarters, Reno went straight to the injured man and inspected him, seeing he was breathing steadily now and no longer heaving, she let out a sigh of relief. The others were slightly surprised, but before they could do anything, Ridge entered the room and made sure to wave them down with his hand.
"This here is Reno. She was one of the others found in the wall with the commander here, speaking of, we know your name, but what about your commanders?"
He spoke aloud as he walked towards the stretcher.
"Commander Becke is his name, sir," She answered promptly.
Nodding, he then turned toward the group, "Alright, let's head back to the base. Two of you grab hold of Becke's stretcher here, and let's move!"
"Ah, with all due respect, sir, I can carry him," Reno said just before they started moving.
"No, sorry to say, but you're in no shape right now. Don't worry, you can stay by his side while we travel back," Ridge replied sternly.
Though she sighed in disappointment, she nodded and stood by Commander Becke's side.
Two soldiers went to the front and back of the stretcher and lifted it; luckily, he wasn't very heavy.
Finally, the group set out and began to make their way home.