Moving towards the barricade and catching a tossed kinetic rifle, he immediately began to lay down fire with the others.
"Try and kill as many of these monsters as you can. The window behind us was smashed open during the crash, so we can use it to try and climb down," The commander screamed out.
"Affirmative!"
One of the men pulled back from the barricade and began to look for some kind of rope or even a good route down the window if they had to just climb. Luckily, before the disaster even started, they had been wearing their suits. Another plus side that most of them had realized right away was that the planet they landed on was breathable.
Unfortunately, they found out the hard way that none of them had their masks on to begin with, just their suits.
The view from the window was almost an endless sight of blue water; however, the soldier did spot some tall trees and solid land that they could run to. Continuing his search for any ropes, he came up with nothing.
"Commander Merpas sir, there is nothing; we're gonna have to climb down," he exclaimed while making his way back to the barricade.
"Got it, we leave as soon as the machine gun runs out of ammo!"
The only sounds that were heard were the intermittent bursts of kinetic rifles shooting and the machine gun shooting in spurts of five seconds. Generally, the model of machine gun they were using didn't overheat much, but it was always best to be safe.
In the shadows of what they were shooting at, the sounds of screaming fungi seemed to die down.
"Hey, two of you grab any junk and debris that you can handle and start blocking this doorway around the machine gun, then in time another two of you join in as soon as your view is blocked. I want this blocked completely before we start even attempting to escape into the unknown wilderness," Commander Merpas ordered.
Following their new orders, two people ceased fire and began to round up whatever kind of metal debris and even furniture they could find. Carrying it over, they slowly began to build a makeshift wall. The machine gun still fired rapid rounds as cover whenever the gunner noticed movement. Finally, another two joined, and eventually they had created something of a wall with only the machine gun peaking out.
"Keep the machine gun ready to fire at all times, and the rest of you look around for extra ammunition or rations. We're getting out of here."
Merpas had also pulled back from the barricade, now wall, and searched for anything that could be of use. What he found was not promising. A simple box of ammunition, primarily for the machine gun, and an extra wrist panel from who knows where, though most likely from a fallen comrade.
Meanwhile, back within the tall trees, Ridge and his group had been travelling for a good hour straight. Slightly exhausted, they took a short rest, and as Ridge sat down, he noticed even now there was still no wildlife that they had encountered. Furrowing his brows, he turned to the others.
"Did you guys spot anything?"
"No, sir, just the same old trees and grass," one soldier replied while checking his gun.
Grunting, Ridge held out his wrist panel and looked at the location of the crashed ship. It had now begun to emit a distress signal automatically after crash-landing. Most Federation ships came equipped with an automatic signal such as that whenever a ship made an unscheduled landing, so to speak.
"It's not far now, another five minutes of walking and we should make it to the beach. From there, I imagine the plumes of smoke from the wreckage will give its location away. Of course, a large mass of metal also helps," Ridge joked.
Chucking the soldiers sat up from their rest, and the group once again began to travel towards the beach. It didn't take long at all, as predicted by Ridge, and after walking from the ridge of the forest and walking through the foliage into the sand, the group spotted the ship.
It looked simply eviscerated, but more than that, there were very large, almost pulsing sploches of color that seemed to indicate a creature was attached to the ship.
Looking at each other, they nodded and kept walking before looking up and noticing the broken bridge window and a group of seven or eight men climbing down from it.
Five minutes before the H.C. Heart crew arrived...
"Let's go, there's nothing else here to scavenge. Jurnti, cease fire and wrap your machine gun around you; we're leaving," Merphi led the group after filling the last hole in the wall towards the broken window, and looking down, he let a breath and began to climb down. The others followed suit. Suddenly, screams began to sound out, and they noticed that their makeshift wall was already starting to crumble piece by piece. It would seem there were more of these creatures still alive than expected.
"Hurry," He shouted.
Now climbing down the very precarious wreckage of the ship in haste, they didn't notice as they began crossing a colored patch of the exterior of the ship that a hand-shaped limb was reaching out to grab one of them.
A plasma bullet suddenly sounded out, accurately hitting the spot, and a tiny hiss was let out from the now destroyed hand that had retracted back into the colored metal. Merphi traced the bullet trajectory quickly after hearing the sound and noticed a group down on the beach waving him down.
"Quick men, we aren't the only ones here."
Receiving this message and having seen the group themselves and recognized their uniforms as being from the Federation, they quickened their pace despite being exhausted and injured.
Down on the beach, Ridge handed the plasma rifle back to one of the soldiers, "We're close enough now, cover these guys as they descend to us and make sure one of you at least has a medical bag ready for use."
The group let out grunts of affirmation, and the ones who had the rifles either crouched or used a fallen branch to steady their rifles before taking quick and measured shots, making sure to avoid the survivors.
Due to the suppressive fire by the others on the beach, Merphi and his men were eventually able to climb down from the bridge and run across the now cracked and damaged exterior of the shape. Waving them down his way, Ridge made sure that the group knew where to go, although in reality he was just trying to keep himself busy while the others did most of the work.
The fungi zombies had at some point appeared near the edge of the bridge where the broken window was, but instead of mindlessly chasing them out the window, they merely sat there and observed. Ridge, of course, noticed this and felt a sense of bewilderment, but by the time he snapped out of it, they were gone, and the group of seven who had survived managed to climb down the broken hull onto the beach.
"Come on!" Ridge exclaimed, after taking one more look back and leading the others away.
Merphi, of course, followed; they had nowhere else to go, and he could tell immediately that these guys came from the same origin as them.
In the forest, which Ridge had aptly named Tall Trees during their journey to the beach, the group walked for a good ten minutes before sitting down and catching their breaths.
It was a much-needed break, especially for the ones who had just survived a crash and being chased by undead fungi.
Sitting down on the cushioned flooring of the forest, Ridge turned his attention to Merphi, the commander of the downed ship, as exemplified by his uniform.
"What's your ship designation and mission? Furthermore, how did you guys end up here?"
"Commander Merphi of the Silverwright battleship. We were tasked with escorting a merchant fleet from the commerce planet of Molara to Vunvion. As for how we got here, I am not entirely sure; it was as if some sort of portal or wormhole opened up in front of the ship. Though something we noticed quite quickly was that not long after we transported into unknown space, we got attacked by whatever those zombie things were," Merphi replied extensively, "I don't even know how they got onto our ship in the first place since there were no indicators of another spacecraft in the area."
Hearing this, Ridge nodded along and made sure to record this information within his wrist tablet.
"Understood, I am Commander Ridge of the H.C Heart Battleship. Like you, we had a mission before it was abruptly put to an end after we also somehow got transported, though we seem to have been much more fortunate since only parts of the ship were damaged and the fungi only managed to infect less than half the crew," he said while examining the gun on one of Merphi's soldiers.
Noticing his stare, Merphi turned and saw he was looking at the machine gun. "We were lucky to have had that gun on board; otherwise, it is very likely we also would have died before you guys even got to us."
"I agree, we only have access to plasma rifles currently, so we very likely aren't gonna have the required ammunition for any kinetic weapons; nonetheless, that gun is definitely an upgrade. Anyways, after resting here, I'll take you guys to our base. It's nothing grand, but we have everything needed to survive on this planet."
Agreeing with him, Merphi began to check himself and his soldiers for any wounds and finally, after a few minutes of rest and catching their breaths, the group of now eighteen soldiers restarted their hour-long hike based on Ridge's estimations. It would have been faster if the survivors weren't obviously exhausted from fighting for who knows how long, but Ridge didn't mind it; at least there were survivors in the first place.
By the time they got back, the sun had already set, and the sky was already darkening. There were no mishaps or surprises on the way back, much to everyone's relief, and after sending out a message five minutes before they returned, Ridge and the group were spotted by a small group of soldiers led by George and a couple of medics.
The survivors let out a collective sigh of relief at seeing the base, and two of them even collapsed on the ground from exhaustion. Luckily, the medics also brought stretchers, and they were the first to be carried into the clinic.
Turning to Merphi, "We can fully debrief tomorrow. I think you and your men deserved some rest; we have a few extra rooms in the main base that can be used, and we'll hand out rations for tonight that you guys can eat," Ridge said. Hearing this, Merphi, of course, had no objections and gave a quick salute to confirm, then dragged his tired body to the base with the others.
Walking over to George after dispersing the group, "Anything else happen in the past two hours or so that I've been gone?" he asked.
"Luckily not. What's the situation with these survivors and the downed battleship?" George replied with a question of his own.
"Not good to keep it short; I'll explain in more detail tomorrow, but to keep it short, that battleship is as good as gone in terms of salvageability for now, and almost the entire crew seems to have been killed," Ridge explained while keeping an eye on his surroundings.
"Also, make sure to set up a rotating schedule for the patrols tonight. I want the soldiers fresh-eyed, no idea if anything followed us back," he whispered.
Nodding, George saluted and returned to base to make it happen, leaving Ridge now on the edge of the forest.
Taking one look back, Ridge let out a sigh and began walking back as well before catching a glimpse of a purplish light coming from the laboratory.