7 Helmet's Evidence 1.1

The climb down was awkward to say the least. Gravity helped to make traversing the "hallway" quite fast paced as well. but the whole dynamic of the situation pissed Michael off a fair bit.

'Who managed to crash this ship vertically? I mean... it probably wasn't done on purpose... but still! How the hell does that even happen?!'

He wanted to lift his hands into the air in exasperation and curse out, but that would risk him free-falling to his death.

Maybe he would land on Carrian...

"Eh..." Michael eventually shrugged, believing that the action wasn't worth its benefits.

They continued the climb downwards, with Michael envisioning how long hallways were a design flaw on every star-ship. His arms; ones he still hadn't completely adjusted to, also began to grow sore.

But before he knew it, Carrian who was holding the small purple orb in one hand, let out a triumphant grunt as his feet clamped steadily upon a newfound foothold.

Michael then hurried himself to achieve the same goal.

As he too managed to reach the bottom, he looked around to notice the surroundings were the same as those witnessed on the climb down, with added nose-stuffing dustiness.

"Hah, would you look at that! Hallways do have an end in this monstrosity, although we reached one sooner than I expected.'

'Wait... how far down was he expecting to go?'

"Never mind all that though, let's see if the U.P.C. left any valuable or worthwhile goods" Carrian's eyes flickered with greed as he began walking down the only available path.

Michael, proceeding to follow the bandit, wouldn't just let new info slip him by.

"U.P.C.?"

Carrian slowed down a bit and looked quizzically at Michael, who asked questioningly.

"You know, those soldiers who were around here up until a few years ago... up until... 'The Incident' "

He spoke the last words with unmatched dread and underlying hatred.

But when Michael still insisted on staring on confusion, a spark of what could only be seen as realization appeared in Carrian's eyes.

"Ah... I forget that you aren't as old as you express yourself. What are you? 3 years ol-"

"I'm not a fucking kid!!!" Michael angrily interrupted.

"... Well anyways... the U.P.C. stands for 'United Planetary Control' or Command or Something. And its one of the two primary factions within this part of the galaxy. The other one is a dictatorship; The Alpha Augusta, bastards known for cruelty, messed up stuff and the like during 'The Incident'. They've got these little minion factions under them, being ordered around like ants. I think the biggest one is the Militant Bastion?"

He shrugged after momentarily trying to pinpoint the name.

Michael began to think that Carrian might be quite knowledgeable for a bandit if he could accurately spout the names of political factions that, from the looks of it, rarely interact with people on planets like this. But he hadn't been on the planet long enough to know for sure... heck, this was only his second day here!

"Aren't you quite smart for a bandit?"

Carrian raised a brow at Michael.

"I think you underestimate the term 'bandit'. Not only the tangible things in life can be stolen."

Michael, thinking about it shortly, recognized that the dirty blonde bandit's argument was intact, with a pondering expression to show it. A question remained in his head, however, that he refused to ask due to the possibility of him not knowing, putting him under further suspicion:

"Just what was this "Incident" for it to involve something on the scale of this ship?"

-----

The walk down the corridor was plenty eventful.

A few broken skeletons bagged up in uniformly designed attire, smashed up against the "floor" here and there, covered in dust. It made Michael wonder if he should feel uneasy, but strangely, he didn't.

According to <<Identify>> they were the ship's crew, but Michael had already guessed that. They were probably killed on impact.

The corpses held nothing of value according to Carrian, who continued on walking after giving them a brief once over.

They also crossed a few doors, but these ones were either on the "floor" below them or above and out of reach.

The flat metal surfaces had small, round peepholes for viewers on the inside, and nothing else. Michael guessed that the ship had to have power in order for these doors to automatically function, unlike the airlock outside which was most likely run on emergency power.

---

Regardless, the two went onward. Along the way, more corpses were encountered, and with them, some better loot.

Besides finding a small handgun on a uniquely bagged sack of bones; which Carrian nonchalantly tossed over to Michael as if he didn't care for it (and had no morals whatsoever), they also found other interesting pieces, which Michael "identified" and found out were components for computing technology.

'This guy can't even build computers can he?' Michael pondered but soon came to the conclusion that it wasn't likely, seeing as how Carrian couldn't or at least didn't fix the airlock panel himself.

Now looking down at the weapons in his hands, Michael reaffirmed that although this world had some game-like aspects to it, there remained the basic reality of life presiding over it all.

That wasn't to say that he couldn't shoot a gun, he very well could... just not a handgun.

Michael's grandfather, on his father's side, and his friend Jack Rickardson, whom Michael most respectfully referred to as Mr.Rickardson were constantly dragging young Michael outdoors to hunt with them, in attempts to, what they told his mother, "breathe a little nature into the boy".

His grandfather was a fine shot, Michael could tell he was a real sharpshooter. But Mr.Rickardson was another story altogether. In terms of looks, he was no different from a haggard looking, thin Santa, near opposite of his grandfather. But when the man had a rifle in his hands and was surrounded by dense green woodland, he became an omnipresent figure. He could tell where an animal was, and was headed, just by "the smell" and could see the individual hairs move on an animal's body a kilometer away, or so he said. And Michael believed him, from what he'd witnessed of the man's skill, it might as well have been true.

That being said, Michael today, was pretty sure that under the teachings of those two figures, he could use a rifle of sorts well, at the very least. But his experience with weapons only went so far, with what he had currently, he was doomed to embarrassment, especially because it was a type of weapon he had never even heard of before: a pledic-based plasma lance generator.

'wtf?'

He identified it, and in doing so, discovered the 3 basic categories of weapons; plasma, kinetic: similar to the weapons humanity used in his previous universe, and force wave: some sound/space-based weapon type.

There was also the make and model of his weapon listed as well on the blue screen.

.

Carrian brought him out of his trance with the shuffle of his feet back in the direction of the way they had come from.

"Well... I managed to get something worthwhile. From what we've seen so far, I don't think it'll be getting much better than all this... It's probably best to turn back now before we get too far in. For all we know, all of this might just lead us to a door we can't crack open." The bandit had a doubtful expression on his face, as if he still wanted to proceed forward, but was using his better judgment.

Michael frowned at Carrian, remembering the original objective in entering the airlock in the first place. However, he did see the sense made by Carrian's logic.

But with Carrian's first step backward, a sudden explosion ruptured from the area behind him. The purple lighting was immediately taken over by an alarmingly bright red.

The blast sent Carrian flying backward, beyond Michael's view, where then milliseconds later, he too was launched backward with tremendous force.

Amidst his painful tumble he could see the metal walls around them bent instantly, coloring themselves white from the heat of the inferno in some places, and simply bursting, sending pieces of shrapnel flying outwards, in others.

'What th-'

Michael's thoughts were cut short as another explosion simultaneously burst out from the wall to his right.