After his talk with Yayha and his work around the base, Ridge eventually called up ten soldiers and started organizing a patrol. This time they would be travelling outside of the base rather than just the top of the walls. Previously, when they had first landed, he had taken the initiative to scout the surroundings, and his findings weren't spectacular. Other than managing to create a map that had, at this point, been redrawn, so to speak, with the ship's scanners.
Typically, barring the Scoon-class ships of the Federation and perhaps merchant ships, every ship had planet scanners that were quite literally as named: a secondary scanner on the ship, built specifically for scanning planets and creating maps of them. This feature was heavily promoted, as during the early days of the Federation's expansion as a spacefaring civilization, the time it took to scout out and map a planet was slow and delayed the construction of colonies or mining outposts.
Really, it was an idea built on convenience; after all, a civilization that relied on automation was used to the efficient style of allocating as few people to a task as possible. This innate nature of the federation, of course, allowed for scientific research to prosper and entertainment to become much more prevalent.
Unfortunately for them, Ridge thought to himself, the scanner was damaged and only barely fixed, so its capabilities were unable to do an actual full scan of the planet. Another downside for the planet scanner, at least on the smaller ships, including the battleship-class ones, was that only the Colossus-class ships were able to pick up not only land, but living beings and, if directed enough, even ore spots.
Meaning they would have to do it the hard way, manually scouting.
The group of ten he had organized were soldiers that he didn't know on a personal level; however, he did know their skills in reconnaissance. In comparison to the others, including George, Ridge trusted their skills more.
It took all of twenty minutes to not only ready their weapons and supplies, but for Ridge himself to also notify Yayha, Caroline, and George that he would be going out scouting.
He had Yayha watch over and inform Becke of any information regarding the base itself and how things were currently run.
Something that was concerning to Ridge was the fact that they were going to be scouting with plasma rifles. These were generally high-heat weapons even if only shot in bursts of three or so. To be more specific, Ridge knew that the materials used to create the ammunition for it were highly limited, especially on this planet.
They could use the refinery to create the alloy needed for the casings, and things like that, but the actual material that makes a plasma rifle a plasma rifle was compressed gases that were further refined at much more advanced industrial facilities than the ones they currently had built.
Some good news that Ridge had heard a while back from Lind was that, besides using it for power production, they could maybe use parts of the crystal after processing it to create plasma rifle ammunition, which would be immensely helpful. Though with such a different material, they may need to somehow redesign the weapon itself slightly.
For the kinetic rifles, the bullets themselves were also somewhat difficult for them to produce since they utilized advanced chemical propellants. They could technically make it currently with the refinery, but not at sufficient scale. The matter of expansion will likely have to involve this as well, Ridge thought to himself.
Waiting at a gate in the walls, Ridge accessed his panel and sent out a message to his vice commander, Yayha.
"I will likely be scouting out for longer than a day, meaning our plans for the base will be put on hold for now. Just accumulate resources. Furthermore, inform the others that when I get back, we can hold a meeting with all of us to discuss what the base needs to expand on."
The final soldier was ready and joined Ridge alongside the others who had trickled in when he was sending out the message.
"Okay, let's go." He waved his hand, turning to walk into Tall Trees. The first destination for them was going to be north of the base in the mountainous region. He wanted to check on the downed ship in case it suffered a similar fate to the frigate and was being used as a base for the fungi species to grow from.
It was unlikely, considering they cleared it out for the most part, so he wasn't too worried. While he was in the mountains, he also wanted to see if there were animals that lived up there.
After the scuffle in the cave, he at the very least knew that this planet wasn't completely without life. In fact, with such similarities to planets within the federation that were breathable after terraforming, he believed it would be a complete surprise if nothing intelligent lived here. No matter how low that intelligence was.
Exiting the base, they could quickly make their way through tall trees at a brisk pace. They weren't in a real rush, but Ridge felt they should try to reach truly unknown territory rather than keep walking through the same old places they'd already marked and explored. As usual, the foliage occasionally got in the way, and when not on paths they had already cut down, they had to use one of the swords Ridge brought with him to clear a path.
Ten minutes turned to twenty, and finally, after some time, the trees began to thin in number, and the mountains they were walking towards got bigger and bigger. Reaching the familiar wall of stone in front of him, Ridge turned to the group. "As much as I'd like to climb this wall again, I know a different path. Come on."
Chuckling amongst themselves, the group then made their way northwest, which was the general direction of the path they needed to take to avoid an exhausting climb.
Luckily, it didn't take long at all, and they followed it up to the downed spacecraft. It was no longer smoking and on fire; from what Ridge could tell, nothing seemed to have changed with it either. The makeshift wall of debris was still intact and pretty much untouched. Ridge couldn't remember if they burned the bodies here from their fight.
If they did, that was good; if not, though, the missing bodies could definitely pose a problem for them down the line.
"There may be bodies that we didn't burn here, so be cautious. I want you all to split into groups of three; I'll take one with me. Spread out and search for not only anything interesting, like weapons or maybe even an extra suit, but traces like recent footprints or moved debris in case these bodies weren't actually burned and were taken or moved off by something not human," he ordered.
"Yes, sir," echoed from them along with a quick salute. Ridge pulled a soldier from the group to search with him and let the others form up themselves.
The cliff they were on was relatively wide, so Ridge decided to start the search on the edges of the fallen debris. This way he would be able to notice if anything external to the ship and the infected within it had done something. Like wildlife, for example, though even with the dead infected, Ridge wondered if they would actually eat old corpses like that.
Something to think about for sure. The others had begun to search the debris itself as well as inside the ship.
Fortunately, it seemed like the hull of the ship, despite being torn apart, didn't fully collapse in on itself, blocking the entrance that the initial rescue group took a while back.
While searching the perimeter, an occasional status report came in from the ones inside to indicate they were all right and that they found nothing of value. This was to Ridge's disappointment. They also reported that the two bodies that had been there previously were gone as well. This, of course, made him frown, but they found no traces of what could have taken them or if they moved on their own.
At least that was until after a few minutes of searching, Ridge noticed something off immediately. A slight drag mark on the ground just further north from the crashed ship, seemingly leading deeper into the mountains.
Crouching down, he rubbed his hand on the dirt slightly and looked up with a frown and furrowed brows.
In deep thought, he examined the mountain wall until finally he spotted a rather small opening just off to the right. It wasn't big, which was what made it hard to spot right away, but it could definitely lead to whatever dragged the bodies off.
Tapping his communicator, he connected with the other nine who were still looking for anything of value.
"I found some tracks that could lead us to an animal or an escaped animal; either target is valuable." he paused. "Discontinue the search and regroup on me."
The others responded in agreement, and they began to regroup once more. The group inside would take a little longer, so in the meantime Ridge continued looking around the mountain to spot anything else.