Having already seen everything, the group of three quickly made their way back through the debris-ridden hallways. Naturally, Ridge made sure they had their weapons ready at all times; something could've followed them after all, and if it did decide to pop out, they would be able to respond immediately.
Hauling their loot back to the engine room, they spent a few minutes straight of just walking and navigating trash, the length of the ship in it's entirety was around 200 meters so if they were to walk from one end to the other it would likely take a minute or two, this is of course not taking into account the obstacles and various hallways with all their twists and turns that extend that journey.
When they finally neared the engine room door, they immediately noticed that it had been cleaned and a soldier now stood on watch outside, his guard already up, presumably from hearing their footsteps echo against the now empty passageway. Once he caught sight of them, he visibly relaxed and lowered his makeshift weapon.
As soon as they were near, the man saluted, "Sir! Welcome back. I'm Morad, assigned to keep watch; everyone else is currently discussing whatever it is engineers discuss inside."
Returning the salute, Ridge nodded, "Good job, soldier. Continue your duties; however, keep the door open. we'll be having a small discussion with everyone on our next course of action, and I don't want you to miss anything."
"Yes Sir!"
Entering the room, they were met with the engineering team having a loud discussion on the technical aspects of the ship. Most of which Ridge had no understanding of, so upon seeing this, waved his hand and had the other two put down the loot for now. Caroline, having heard and now seen them, quickly wrapped up her own discussion and also waved off her own people.
"Any luck finding others?" She asked while walking up to Ridge, who shook his head no. "There was nothing. We managed to find supplies like food, medicine, and weapons, but other than that, we think they may have gone to the bridge."
"I see, there isn't anything else we can do but keep hope. What's the next stage or plan now?" She asked, hearing this, Ridge simply sat in silence to contemplate the answer and eventually nodded to himself, gesturing for Caroline to follow him over to the others.
"Alright everyone, gather up!" Looking around to ensure everyone was listening, he began.
"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's enough to operate as an efficient squad. Every one of you has the skills and experience to survive and adapt, hence why you were put on this ship. As awkward as it is to end up stranded like we are, just know this is not our end. Our end will certainly not be this pitiful. I may not be the best leader of mankind, but I have led others before and have never failed them. This won't be any different."
The small crowd let out small murmurs of celebrations before their attention was pulled back to Ridge who waved both of his hands to gesture them 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 most of the time espeically in a spaceship where most open spaces are hallways and small rooms. I gave both to George and Falley, they will be the vanguard, I have a rifle and I am going to give one to Caroline as well as another soldier from the group, Morad," Hearing his name the young male 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 a rifle just in case. First, we will head to the bridge in this formation, then on our way there, check any rooms we haven't searched yet. Taking a look, it seems most of you have managed to wear your spacesuits despite the emergency, which is a good thing, but for the few of you that didn't, make sure you wear one as soon as you find it. With the ship being this stable so far, I don't imagine any major breach in the integrity of the hull, but it never hurts to be cautious."
"Finally, once we locate the remaining survivors make sure to check them for any signs of mutation or infection, though I imagine if we find them and they aren't aggressive, there shouldn't be a chance of that," 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, mainly, ensuring the cables were patched up and usable for the forseeable future, they connect to the batteries from the core which was causing some power loss after taking a little bit of damage so they are pretty important, other things unfortunately weren't fixable, but luckily they 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 luckily," Caroline answered back quitely.
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 bag filled with ammunition and extra food, while the two soldiers, George and Falley, moved quickly to the front of the group. Caroline had also quickly equipped her rifle, and Morat was positioning himself behind the group. With everything ready they moved out.
Traveling the hallways this time with a larger group, Ridge felt a much more secure feeling, and having traversed through the debris also knew exactly where to walk. Naturally being the crew of the ship, even in its current damaged state most knew the way to the bridge.
The group quickly progressed to a hallway near the rear of the ship which would lead them soon enough to an elevator that would take them up to yet another small hallway finally leading them to the actual bridge.
The cargo rooms and soldiers dormoritry were more so near the front of the ship rather than the back so what they were exploring now was unknown in terms of current intel. Because of this Ridge ensured the group remained cautious, checking every dark corner where lights had been knocked out of place or outright broken and of course keeping in ear on the ground for unnatural noises.
Eventually while cautiously walking they encountered two doors directly facing each other on either side of the hallway.
"These are dorm rooms; let's quickly check for any emergency suits," 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.
"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, he quickly asked.
"Hank, I am a regular soldier, sir," a more lanky man named Hank answered first, and the other two quickly followed, "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 due to being busy and after the recruitment ended they were promptly issued a mission to go investigate some type of disturbance in the Coro system colony planet of Vunvion, meaning of course he had no time to get to know them closely.
While they were talking and idling outside of the room, the crew member from the left with George came out. Seeing this, Ridge quickly looked and was about to ask if they had managed to gather some extra suits.
"Sir! We managed to find two extra suits and also another sword!" George boasted while smiling.
Ridge, hearing this was quite stunned by their luck but also quickly smiled, "Excellent, just give the sword to Sonny for now, and he can join in the vanguard position," he ordered. While George was handing out the extra sword, he also handed a suit to Aleah, who didn't have one. Another was being worn by a crew member that had gone with george to explore.
W,aiting now for the other group Ridge quickly asked the other member for their name. 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. A few moments passed by and the door to the right opened leading to the others staring at it.
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 or bag. You two behind Falley, what are your names? I want to make sure everyone here knows each other," Ridge replied after getting the small report.
"Sir! I am Zee a soldier of the ship," the man behind falley 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.