Part 81

Solomon, relieving himself against a particularly thick tree with low hanging branches wide from the bark, surrounding him like a sort of shield from the world that had fallen to chaos, had a moment of solitude, and enjoyed the silence, not even the insects made their calls. Breaking his moment alone, Lyra's call came to his ears like a hot branding iron. Before he could think, he found his hands reaching for his weapon and his legs running in the direction of the call. Breaking through the low drooping branch shield, he ran until he found Lyra, standing on a small grassy verge with several think pieces of wood in her arms, raising his weapon and sweeping the area ahead to see what the cause of alarm was, until he paused, frozen stiff. He saw it too. The Evergreen.

Lyra looked at Solomon and gave out a small chuckle and blushed, Solomon returned the gesture with a cheer, feeling she was relieved at the sight of their ship, only to meet her eyes as she looked him up and down, blushing. Then he realised, he never put himself away after he relieved himself against the tree before she called out to him, his hands like lighting tried to put his member away, fumbling with the embarrassment it took him far longer than he liked, then it came as a realisation to him that Lyra had already seen all of him, granted it was a fair few months ago now since their last dance together.

Solomon and Lyra returned to their little camp, and rallied the survivors and made their way to the Ship, that was only a few hundred meters past the tree line. Lyra found two strong branches and strapped Byryl's leg inside them to make a splint. This allowed him to move on his own at least.

Theo opened the virtual ship map, that pinpointed life signs across The Evergreen, easily finding the six small blue dots moving along the lower decks, the blue dots gave him little hope, then he found four more in the landing decks holding their position. Considering the hilariously large amount of red dots roaming the corridors of the ship, Theo considered his options "Eve, can I have a count of contacts aboard, please?" asked Theo, his voice croaking with the stress of the last few days. "ten confirmed Friendlies. six Human, Evergreen Members, and four Gryph. Unfortunately I cannot identify the other ninety seven other entities." Theo breathed heavily as he saw that three of those unidentified entities had made their happy little way to the deck that held the bridge. According to the map, one entity was directly outside the door. "Eve... how accurate is this map of yours, and your readings?" whispered Theo, not wishing to make noise. "accurate to a meter. What you see, is accurate." came her voice, soothingly – but she was aware of the danger, and voiced this throughout the entire ship, where the speakers still worked. This found it's way to Solomon, who with great relief called out to his thought to be dead friend "Eve! You beautiful circuit board! How are you still functional?" he cheered, Eve's response came quickly, but the speaker distorted her once smooth voice. "Sergeant Theo Richmond of The Judgement repaired my power leak, and is currently holding in the bridge." with raised eyebrows at the Judgement for having a survivor Solomon once again increased his speed to the bridge."Eve, are there any other survivors aboard?" he called, making his way down the darkened corridor, flash lights lighting up the length intermittently as they moved with their bodies, some panelling hung from the ceiling, accompanied by loose cables, hanging like veins. Eve answered with uncertainty, "apologies Lieutenant Commander, but I have suffered damage to most of my systems and I am unable to entirely identify entities within myself. I can confirm that including your number and Sergeant Richmond, I have eleven friendlies aboard, the only two I can positively identify are yourself and Sergeant Richmond due to your armour identification chip, however not all of my sensors are working and identification is frequently a problem."

Solomon paused to think for a moment, taking in the his surroundings. If the path was clear, he could make it up to the bridge in about ten minutes. "are the other four friendlies in the bridge with Richmond?" he asked eventually. After a few moments of creaking and complaining from the ships superstructure, Eve finally answered. "Negative, the other four friendlies are in the Landing Deck, however, ninety seven unidentified entities are in various positions throughout the vessel. Sixteen of which are currently residing within the faster route to the bridge." Solomon thought about asking specifics on the entities, but smiled, realising the pointlessness of asking what an unidentified unknown entity is. Then he thought of a much better action. "Eve, are the four friendlies still in the Landing Deck?" he waited as she confirmed this, "Excellent, what are they doing there?" he asked more enthusiastically, Eve came back quicker than before, "Unknown, my communication is too damaged in that area, they seem to want to remain there. I have attempted contact multiple times without success."

Solomon considered his options, he knew the bridge was a dead end physically, but it could offer him many more options. The Landing deck may have a functional vessel they could escape on, but with an impact such as the Evergreen had suffered, he doubted this as a viable option. He decided on the bridge, unable to split his small force because of the injuries many of them had suffered. Byryl complained as his support slipped on the bent and broken metal floor, putting some weight on his broken leg.