Zombies In Space

The way back was likewise not very difficult. They didn't need to check every single door they encountered for survivors or more supplies. While they were, for the most part, not entirely sure that the infected were not present in the areas they would be passing through, they still made sure to keep a cautionary stance and watched every hallway they passed in case some seemed to wander over.

Carrying their boxes and weapons took twenty minutes, which was slightly tiring but still doable. Finally, all three made it to the engine room. The area around the door entrance seemed to have been swept clean, and there was also a person outside guarding and keeping watch.

Seeing this, Ridge walked up to the man standing outside, and as soon as he did so, the man saluted, "Sir! Welcome back to the engine room. I am Morad, one of the soldiers on the ship keeping watch. The rest are in the room fixing up the engine or idling around."

Saluting him quickly Ridge nodded, "Good job soldier, for now just come inside with us and we will have a small general meeting about what to do next."

"Yes Sir!"

So the four of them entered the room and were met with the idle talk of Caroline and her team discussing any potential problems with the engine as well as the batteries. Ridge seeing this dismissed the other three with a wave of his hands and put down his box on the left side of the room. Hearing the footsteps and also the noise of the four coming Caroline concluded her conversation and turned around.

"Any luck finding others?" She asked, and replying to her Ridge shook his head no, "There was nothing, we managed to only find supplies like goods and weapons, but other than that we think they may have gone to the front of the ship by the bridge."

"I see, well there is nothing else we can do but keep hoping that more survive whatever it is that happened, what's the next stage or plan now?" Caroline asked and hearing this Ridge simply contemplated for a moment and then nodded to himself.

"Alright everyone gather up," once the group had ended their idle conversation and gathered together Ridge looked around and began speaking about his idea.

"At the moment there are about twelve of us give or take, five engineers including Caroline, and six soldiers, seven including me. It's not a very large amount of people, but it is enough to operate as a pioneer group for starting a colony so don't be discouraged as small as we are. Every one of you has the skills and experience to survive hence why you were put on this ship, as awkward as it is to end up stranded like we are just know it's not our end. Our end will certainly not be this pitiful, I may not be the best leader hence why I was named Vice commander of this ship, but I have led others before and have never once led them astray, so let's survive and make sure our families get to see each other once more."

Taking a breath and looking around see that they were for the most part not depressed and seemed a little more energetic Ridge gestured them in closer, "Okay, now here's the plan, we managed to gather some weapons from the soldier's armory and picked up three plasma rifles with ammunition and two swords, now the swords are the only thing that will come in handy so I have given them both to Geroge and Falley, they will be the vanguard or placed in the front of the group, I have a rifle and I am going to give one to caroline as well as another solider from the group, hmm, morad will have the last one," Morad seeing this nodded with a light of excitement flashing in his eyes.

"The rest of you will be using debris like before, but this time you will stay behind us with Morad being at the very back of the group with the weapon just in case something shows up behind us. We will head to the bridge in this formation and simply check a few dorms quickly. From the looks of it, most of you had managed to put on your emergency space suits so I am not too worried about being in space itself for a time in case something like that happens or is required, but we need to quickly find some extra suits for about," pointing and counting at the few in the group without suits Ridge quickly calculated, " Three of you."

"We should be able to find enough whilst walking. Hopefully, when we make it to our destination there will be more survivors. Anyways enough talking and planning let's get going," getting up from his squatting position Ridge straightened up and pulled Caroline to the side while the rest began scrambling around and picking up the box of supplies as well as grabbing weapons and debris to move out.

"How's the engine looking?" he asked in a somewhat whispered tone, "It's in decent condition, we managed to repair a few problems that were just the cables connecting firmly to the batteries from the core which was causing some power loss using some of the debris from outside the room, something things weren't fixable, but luckily then ended up being only dents on the exterior of both the batteries and core. The federation made sure to keep these things extremely protected and safe so that they wouldn't be easily destroyed," Caroline answered back likewise with a whispered voice.

Nodding Ridge sighed aloud and then walked back to the group seeing that they were all ready and waiting. Caroline also quickly followed him back to the group.

"Okay, let's get moving."

With that declaration one of the crew members picked up the box of supplies and another picked up the excess ammunition, while the two soldiers George and Falley moved quickly to the front of the group and began to leave by opening the door. Caroline had also quickly grabbed her rifle and Morat was positioning himself behind the group. Seeing this Ridge nodded and they all began moving out.

Traveling the hallways this time with a larger group Ridge felt a much more secure feeling and having traversed through the debris before also knew exactly where to walk. The group itself had also been living on the battleship for who knows how long since they were first deployed so except for any newer recruits, most everyone knew where everything was, even with the ship being relatively large and messy now.

The group quickly progressed to the more unexplored region of the ship, the bow, which was nearing the bridge. While walking and keeping an eye out at every dark corner that had the lights knocked out from their original places, they kept up a quick pace and eventually came upon a couple of doors that were directly across from each other.

Being familiar with this side of the ship as it was where his post was Ridge quickly remembered that these were just dorm rooms.

"These are dorm rooms, let's quickly check for any emergency suits that the three of you guys could use," Ridge said while halting the group and pointing out the three in the group with regular attire on, nothing that could help them survive in the vacuum of space for a time.

"George you take the left room with a couple from our group and likewise Falley, you take another two and check out the room on the right," Ridge ordered, "Yes Sir!" Saluting both George and Falley picked out four people to go with them and whilst they were moving to explore the room Ridge moved forward a few steps with the rest of the group.

"We'll just stay here for a moment while they check the rooms, by the way, what's your guy's name," Ridge seeing some unrecognizable faces beside Morat and Caroline quickly asked.

"Hank, I am a regular soldier, sir," a more lanky man named Hank answered first and the other two quickly answered, "Sonny, also a soldier sir," "Aleah, I am an engineer for the ship."

Already knowing the other three he simply nodded and made sure to memorize their names. Typically as a vice commander, it would make sense to be in the know of every single crew member on the ship, but unluckily for Ridge, he missed the recruitment period of quite a few members on the ship due to being busy and after the recruitment ended and they were issued this exact mission to go find out some disturbances in the Coro system colony planet of Vonvion, so he simply hadn't bothered to memorize the hundred or so names of every crew member.

While they were talking and idling outside of the room the left room with George leading came out. Seeing this Ridge quickly looked and was about to ask if they had managed to gather some extra suits and he was quickly surprised before he could ask. 

"Sir! We managed to find two extra suits and also another sword!" George boasted while smiling.

Ridge hearing this also quickly smiled, " Excellent, just give the sword to Sonny for now and he can join in the vanguard position," he ordered while pointing out the soldier whose name he just memorized. While George was handing out the extra sword he also handed a suit to Aleah who didn't have one. One of the people that went in to explore as well also didn't have a suit so they were already wearing one of the ones they found. 

While waiting for the other group Ridge quickly asked the other member for their name that had joined George in exploring. He already recognized Peter the machine operator so he didn't bother asking him again. 

"My name is Juri, I am an engineer under Caroline sir," the man whose name was Juri quickly answered.

Memorizing his name Ridge nodded and continued his idle chatter with the rest of the group. They were now waiting on Falley. Luckily since they were also quick in exploring it was only a few more minutes before the last group came out.

Falley leading them out with everyone wearing suits quickly reported to Ridge, "Sir, we found some more supplies and another suit that one of our soldiers was missing."

"Excellent, with this everyone has a suit, as for the supplies just add them to the box that we were carrying with us. You two behind Falley, what's your name, I want to make sure everyone here knows each other." Ridge replied after getting the small report.

"Zee Sir! I am a soldier of the ship," one of the men answered, and the other a female also answered in quick succession, Claudia, an engineer."

With names memorized and supplies secured Ridge once again ordered the group to get moving. They were nearing the bridge and from what he remembered there were only two more turns before they made it there.