You walk back through the library and the Ballroom and the dining car to the cockpit, where the Lieutenant is still sitting in his chair. As you reach him, he turns around, his gruesomely stretched body not fitting properly as he tries to maintain his posture with his damaged vertebrae.
"I wanted to discuss something with you," he says, just as you are about to speak. "This is important. I need you to stop destroying the skeletons." You're quite surprised, and ask him why. The skeletons are a menace, after all. "Yes, I know this. But do you know how these skeletons are animated?" he asks.
"Yeah, by something like a runic flow spell from the sorceress."
"And this requires active effort to maintain," says the Lieutenant.
"Yes. What are you getting at?"
"One moment. Do you remember when the ship's computer told you that I was capable of flying the ship, on board, but dead?"
"Yeah, sure," you reply. "But that can't be true."
"Ah, but it is true. I'm clinically speaking, dead. Beyond the grave, I've bought the farm, kicked the bucket, and the rest. The same magic that animated the skeletons distended by body and stopped my heart, but at the same time is the only animating force in my body, other than my thoughts at the moment."
"Wow. I didn't realize. So, why don't you want me to kill the skeletons? Wouldn't decreasing the amount of bodies animated by the spell increase your vitality and such?" you ask.
"Technically speaking, yes, but if the skeletons keep dying and only one body the sorceress animated remains, competently flying the ship, she'd get suspicious. In fact, she might be suspicious as it is, which is why my biological processes are just asking to go out any minute, since she could cut off the flow of magic with ease if she knew what was going on here."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Well, most of the skeletons are actually dormant at the moment, so they won't pose a threat to us, except in the case that they should realise that their mission aboard this airship has failed completely -- that is, if we land. Don't you think that the shock throughout the ship would be enough to alert the dormant skeletons that they had screwed up, and through the mass waking of these animated corpses, alert the sorceress and then cut off all the necromantic magic. Normally, I'd say that would be a great idea, but right now, that dark magic's a bit like my life support. Fortunately, there's really good biomagical care given to Danish Air Force officers, so there's a slim chance I could survive this ordeal.
"I need a Marine detachment to board the ship, bring the medical crew aboard so they can operate on me, but at the same time, keep the Marines from being gun-happy in the rear of the ship; again, there might be other survivors like myself. In order for that to happen, I have to explain the situation fully to them, albeit making the skeletons sound more dangerous than they really are, in order for them to get that they oughtn't go to the back of the ship. Now, I'm guessing that the operation will take many hours to perform, and I can't have you seen in that time, so you have to either be through that hole in the wall you go through, or you have to be in the rear of the ship. It's your choice, but I need you to be back there if you want any chance of finding the other survivor."
"The other survivor?" you ask.
"I did a shipwide bioelectrical reading, and it looks like there's one other survivor like me; the computer recognized him as the Warrant Officer. I tried to look for the man on the cameras, but all I'm getting is occasional blurry shots of some roundish shape as it goes past the camera at high speed. Goodness knows what the magic did to him, or how he escaped it. What I do know, however, is that he's well worth the trouble. Good man, highly skilled in certain practical enchants, and a damn good knippelsuppier, too. Best we've got in the whole division of the Air Force.
"Either way, I want you to wait in the hall of the officer's quarters, which I'm also going to section off from the Marines, and make sure no skeletons come out of their rooms. They shouldn't do anything like that, since they're probably dormant anyway, but in the case they do, you need to stop them. Also, when the operation's done, I'll ask someone to switch the lights in that room on and off, so you know that either I'm okay, or the procedure failed and I'm dead. Either way, go on to the farthest-back part of the ship where the Warrant Officer will be. The most important part of this is clearing a path to him, so he can escape. I assume he's pretty much surrounded by the skeletons, but kill only as many as you need to -- the sorceress can still cut the necromantic rune flow spell at any time, and we can't have him dying on us."
"If you need to restock on weapons, ammunition, runestones, whatever, or buy a spell from the vending machine in the library, do it now, since you can't be seen until you're coming out into the Grand Ballroom, with the Warrant Officer in tow. If the Marines see you before you've got the WO, they'll figure out that I've got a kid in there doing their job and go in there guns blazing. That's best-case scenario. Worse-case probably involves you getting shot. In the head."
"Well, now that I've told you what has to happen, I've also said that it could take me a while, possibly even a whole day, to get the skeleton situation under control and get them confined to the back of the ship. Some time in between kiling the skeletons would be a good way to ease the sorceress' suspicions about the goings-on on the ship, and you can get some well-deserved rest."
"How did you know I'm tired?" you ask.
"Just look at you! You're completely wiped out. For a trained soldier with proper field experience, I'd just say to take a serotonin suppressant to keep you awake, but for one, you're a kid, and secondly, you don't have the look of a child soldier, hardened by harsh experiences in battle to the point where suppressing your body's need to sleep would be cake compared to pains you've been through. You just don't. You're just someone who really wants to help the people around him. Any questions about the plan?"