I floated towards the derelict ship in my space suit, aiming for the entry hatch at the side of the ship.

Our plan was simple. I would board their ship and look for their storage room where they kept their space suits and obtain a spare suit before bringing it over to him.

If I fail to find an intact one, we'll need to play by ear. Which I guessed probably involved having Amber join me by bringing a spare suit for him while I cleared the way to the cockpit.

Also, I fully intend to see if there was anything worth my time to loot on the way there.

As I reached the hatch, I tried to look for a way to open the door and found a control panel right beside the entrance.

I connected my Codex to the control panel and started hacking it to unlock the door.

It took a few seconds for me to hack the lock of the door and hear the satisfying click of the locks sliding out before the door started to slide open.

But before it opened fully, it suddenly stopped and made a noisy grinding sound like something was stuck in the gears.

I guess the door was damaged somehow and it was being prevented from opening fully here.

Damnit… This would have been the closest entry point to the ship's cockpit as far as I could see and most of the other parts of the ship were a mangled mess that prevented entry…

I activated my voice comms, "Amber, the door here is stuck. Got any more ideas?"

There was a pause from the other side before Amber answered, "I would say just blow the doors open but I guess the force of that might send vibrations that would shatter the glass in the cockpit… Not to mention it might cause the derelict to spin out of control… Ah~ There we go. There's another entry hatch below the ship, Tera. Try that one instead."

"Under the ship's belly eh? I got it." I answered before turning myself in that direction.

Sure enough, as I reached the bottom of the ship, I found an entry hatch there and it looked relatively intact aside from a few scorch marks.

I guess this hatch managed to survive the explosion somehow.

Connecting my Codex to the control panel, I managed to unlock it and this time, the door slid open completely.

"I got it," I reported, floating through the entry hatch to get inside the ship. "How's the comms?"

"Reading you loud and clear, Tera. Let me know if you need me to join you there!" Amber answered cheerily, almost like we were here on a picnic.

I engaged the suit's magnetic boots and attached myself to the ground, taking a moment to look around to see where I was and quickly realised that I was in a long corridor with several debris blocking the way to the cockpit of the ship.

Also… There's a dead guy half buried in that pile of debris, presumably some poor guy who got crushed by it during the fight with the drones that day.

Unfortunately, seeing that there wasn't any way around it, I had to move a number of the debris until I had a hole big enough for me to pass through.

Squeezing through the gap, I made use of my memory to get to the cockpit which was a series of turns before I found myself standing in front of another door that should lead to the area in front of the cockpit.

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The fortunate thing was that the storage room was also in the same area so my destination was right behind this door.

I once again connected my Codex to the door panel on the side and hacked it to open up for me.

Just as I stepped towards it as soon as the hacking was complete and the door opened a crack, there was a rather loud thump which caused the door to suddenly snap close, blocking me from walking through it.

I frowned at it, using my Codex to hack it open again but the door remaines unmoving even after I tried to initiate it's opening sequence again.

Great… Trying to open it might have broke it…

"Amber? I'm inside now, are you able to see this?" I asked, gesturing to the broken door in front of me.

She should be able to see this through my suit's camera feed which I assumed she had been watching the entire time.

"I'm looking at it. Seems like the mechanism that opens and closes the door might have caused it to be stuck. Is there another way?"

I looked around before answering, "Unfortunately… I don't think so…"

"Eh… Maybe the console just went haywire, try shooting it."

I paused, "There's no way that would solve this…"

"It's worth a shot~"

Ah fuck it…

I pulled out the blaster I had attached to my hip holster and shot the control panel beside the door, blowing it apart.

Electrical sparks flew from the console but aside from that, nothing else happened.

I stared at the broken console silently before Amber's voice came through the comms.

"Hey, you never know, ok?"

I decided not to say anything and just tried to see if there was another way to open the door.

Hmm… Maybe I could just… I dunno… Pry it open?

I tried to stick my fingers in between the gaps of the sliding door and surprisingly, it parted easily enough for my fingers to slide in between.

Bracing myself, I pulled my arms apart and the doors slowly slid to the side, parting open without much effort on my part.

I slipped in between the doors and released my grip on them, allowing the two sides of the door to slam shut again.

"Kyaaaa~ Tera's so strong and cool~" Amber giggled from over the comms unashamedly.

"Remember, we're here to save a Merc who's literally on the verge of dying if I don't get to him soon.

"Eh? I thought we were just there to loot his ship and his corpse?"

"Haha, very funny Amber. Oh, this is interesting… Their storage room is right behind the cockpit?"

Behind the door was what looked like a storage room which led towards the sealed door that I assumed would be the cockpit.

Amber spoke from the comms again, "Yep. There's some ships like this one that was designed to have their ship's cockpit detachable from the main ship itself. That way it could function as an emergency escape pod too and they usually have the storage room built behind the cockpit so that the entire thing could be launched together."

"Why hasn't this guy done that then?"

Probably because of the fact his windscreen was already damaged and launching himself out would just make it harder for him to be found? I dunno."

I then noticed the cockpit door which also had a broken console on this side of the room and shook my head, "Oop, I think I know why. The door to the cockpit is damaged. That guy's stuck inside his own cockpit right now."

I went towards the door and knocked my knuckle against the surface, "Hey, you alright in there?"

There was a gasp coming from behind the door and footsteps rushed towards it.

"Yes! Yes! Oh by the gods! Please help me! Please!!"

I looked around, "You're going to need to hang on for a moment… Your storage room doors are compromised and this room has no air. Is there a way to hand the suit to you from here?"

"You don't need to! Go to the door! There's a manual lock behind the false panel beside the door! Open it and pull on the lever! The ship will do the rest! Hurry! Please!! It's almost going to break already!!"

I did as he asked and went back to the door I had come through, finding the false panel he mentioned easily enough and cracked it open. Inside was a red lever with the words 'pull in case of door malfunction'.

I reached in and gave it a tug, which seemed to cause the doors to push themselves together and some kind of lock sliding into place inside them.

There was a loud hiss coming from the ceiling above and I saw the readings in my suit indicate that the room now had breathable air.

I then went back to the cockpit door, "Hey, it's done. I'm going to try and open the door from this side now."

"Oh gods, please hurry! I think that just made the glass crack even faster!! Hurry!!!"

I could already hear the desperation in his voice and I rushed towards the broken console panel to figure out how I could get it open.

"How about you punch it?" Amber suggested.

I'm just going to say that I was kind of in a small panic mode myself so I wasn't really thinking straight either so I actually punched the console panel like she had suggested.

I was about to comment on how ridiculous that was when the door actually started to open.

Oh wow, that actually worked.

Mission success I guess?