Resting was not exactly crucial, but it would at least leave everyone in a much more flexible mindset.
After a couple of minutes passed the swordsman who took the brunt of the attack were rested enough and sat up from the ground.
"Vice commander sir, they are in perfect condition except for being exhausted of course," Aleah said to Ridge after making sure to check everywhere for injuries.
Hearing this Ridge was glad, "Okay, good, I'm impressed you guys managed to come out of that fight unscathed," he said while smiling.
Falley being the quieter one didn't reply really except for smiling slightly and nodding, but the other two George and Sonny smiled widely and let out a couple of laughs, it was mostly George though.
"Seeing as you can laugh and smile we should be good, let's go and find out how many of us are left," Ridge said which of course prompted the others to become a bit more solemn. After all the crewmates while not buddy-buddy with every person on the ship were still basically a family living under one roof. It was already saddening to have to kill the infected ones, but if there was a visual presentation of how many were left and it wasn't many it would only lead to a more gloomy and dark mood.
With everything gathered up and everyone rested Ridge walked ahead with the group following behind him directly to the door. There weren't any sort of cameras so if there were people inside they wouldn't be able to see them. Thinking for a little bit while standing outside the door he contemplated on how to open it. Should he use the panel and abruptly open it? This could lead to the people inside opening fire considering they likely had weapons. Should he just knock? The question then would be, is that trustworthy?
Fortunately for Ridge, the door abruptly opened on its own and he was met with the view of a crowd pointing their guns at him and his group.
Startled his eyes widened a bit and the group inside were likewise startled. They were expecting a group of infected, but since the knocking sounds had died down they wanted to know what was going on they even heard some laser-like sounds so they grew curious and after some debating they decided to just go out and fight if the infected were still there.
"Vice commander?" a smaller man came out from the crowd and smiled. The others also let out a sigh of relief and Ridge also began smiling, "Yes, I managed to survive whatever it is that happened."
"Come in, it will be good to have someone of authority here to stabilize the others who were beginning to panic," The small man smiled with relief while bringing Ridge and his group in.
A few faces from the ten or so people that had guns also moved forward to greet the names of some of the other people in the crew like Caroline who was popular with a majority of the crew which was also why Ridge knew her especially and soon enough Ridge was brought to the second doorway that led to the actual bridge. For security reasons, essentially two doors were made, blocking the corridor in all ships of the Coro Federation. This design was implemented mainly due to space pirates managing to take down ships by attacking the bridge while boarding, effectively ignoring a great deal of soldiers and other defenses.
The group with weapons numbered around ten or so and with the addition of Ridges's own group, the twenty-two of them squeezed into the corridor and opened up the bridge.
Ridge was met with the view of people looking directly at the noise and silence. The smaller man quickly walked in front of Ridge and shouted out for everyone to hear, " The vice commander is back and alive!"
The others hearing this immediately got up from where they were and began crowding around Ridge the room instantly erupted in noises.
"Sir, do you know what happened," "What do we do now sir?" "Will everything be alright?"
Question after question sounded out and Ridge was slightly overwhelmed, "Enough!" he shouted out while raising his hand in the air.
hearing this the others quickly quieted, Ridge, seeing this nodded, "Back to your spots, does anyone know what happened to the commander?"
The crowd moved back to sitting and making space for everyone else to move into the bridge. Luckily it was a relatively large space so it was just able to comfortably fit the amount of people that there were.
The small man quickly came up to Ridge once again, "Sir the commander ended up dying from one of the infected. He was outside with the group of infected that you killed."
Startled he felt a slight sadness in his chest, Commander Arthur was one of his closest friends, "Your name was Berkay right? The junior navigator?" Ridge asked while making sure to mask his emotions and move on from the abrupt news.
"Yes sir," Berkay responded.
"Understood, your job is to find out where we are, I don't see any planets in sight from this window so we must have gone off course," Ridge ordered after organizing his thoughts. The colony planet they were assigned to go to while still far was technically in sight at all times from the bridge window.
The technology they had in space just wasn't built to be fast so with a battleship it would take a little bit of time to get to the planet and the hyperlanes that could be used for traveling faster were reportedly overloaded so they opted to travel without it. they technically weren't in a rush at the time anyway.
"On it sir," Berkay saluted and moved towards one of the navigation tables that held all of their star maps.
"You, you're Yahya right?" Ridge said while pointing out another member.
"Yes, I am," Yahya quickly responded after being pointed out, "Good, I remember you were the recruiter, I want you to quickly make a list of everyone here and our numbers. this will help me sort out my thoughts easier," Ridge ordered.
Before he could issue another order, Yahya quickly called out to him, "I have already finished the list you want, including your group there are approximately fifty-seven of us left, of course, accounting for the fact that there are no other survivors this should be all of us. Twenty-four are soldiers with weapons, from what I remember looking at your group that came here there are five plus four, so nine engineers in total, and of course the navigator and I the recruiter, as well as you the vice commander, now commander since the previous one died, leaves a total of about fifteen people left that are used primarily for labor or transporting cargo, oh minus two medical staff, so thirteen laborers."
Hearing all this information Ridge was surprised and was able to quickly make plans in his head, " Excellent job!" he complimented.
"It's my job, sir, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't good at it," Yayha smiled. With everything much more organized Ridge quickly came up with a plan.
"Okay, listen up everyone," After shouting and making sure everyone was paying attention he began, "To be frank I don't know where we are," the crowd of people immediately began to murmur but before they could fall into a panic Ridge once again raised his hand, "But, that doesn't mean we won't be fine. The ship has enough supplies and rations to last a couple of years and the engine room was completely fixed by us before we came here so barring any actual attack on it, that can last ten to twenty years. I am not sure where we are exactly, but the navigator is taking care of that. What I want the rest of you to do including soldiers and engineers is spread throughout the ship and begin cleaning up.
You can move plenty of the debris into the cargo rooms as they have space even with the rooms being full of minerals and whatnot. A clean ship will lead to a much better evaluation of what needs fixing and also gives you a task to clear your mind. I won't speak here and spout motivation, especially since I am not good at that, but I want to be realistic here, so until we can find out where we are let's make sure we don't die from the ship being mismanaged first."
Ridge spoke for a long while and after making sure that he got his point across he looked into the eyes of everyone looking up at him from the commander's platform.
"Move out and get to work, also if you find anything make sure to let us know," before the crowd could get up fully he remembered something and let out a quick shout, "Speaking of which make sure to remove the infected bodies and put them into an escape pod to blow up, were not sure what these things are so I would rather have them off the ship. Also, make sure to wear gloves just in case."
The crowd began moving out, although they weren't particularly happy and motivated by Ridge's speech it at least stabilized them and they began to make an effort to clean and repair the ship. A monotone task like this was bound to calm them.
Sitting down in the commander's seat Ridge let out a sigh and rubbed his forehead. Coming up to him Caroline patted his shoulder, "At least everything is stabilizing. Once we find out where we are people will be much happier," she said.
"Of course they will, but we still lost plenty of crew members so there's not much to be happy about," Ridge responded, "Anyways there's no use thinking about these things. We need to make sure everything is being taken care of," he said while getting up.
Caroline seeing him get up nodded, "Indeed," following behind him the pair walked towards the navigator who was hard at work on the right side of the bridge where a holographic table was placed, the table itself displaying many maps that were recorded in the database of the H.C Heart Battleship.