After the weird bar we decided we should just keep going until we reached the main administration tower complex. You can see it from pretty much anywhere on the surface: it's the big pointy tower towards the bow of the ship. As we got nearer we started to notice a change in the surrounding buildings. They were really posh, a sure sign we were getting close to nob town. Chaz was really obviously awestruck, just staring out the window with her mouth hanging open. I was pretty flabbergasted too but managed to keep it together.
Boomeron made good time driving as always but after a while he needed a break so Quold took over. Unfortunately he insisted on taking mandatory stretching breaks and hourly safety inspections, as per the Marauder of Parth's driving guidelines for inexperienced heavy goods vehicle operators. Boomeron tried to get him to drive faster and even nearly had him convinced, but then Quold stopped to check the regulations on his dataslate and explain all the regulations he would be breaking if he did as Boomeron suggested. While we were stopped I cooked some more of the fancy kibble and it seemed to go down much better this time, less cold and slushy and generally a bit more enjoyable.
Quold eventually carried on driving, satisified he'd fully explained all the driving regulations to Boomeron, when suddenly the road in front of us exploded! Quold stopped suddenly but was only going at the speed limit so it wasn't too hard. We couldn't spot anything out of the windows so we checked the sensors and spotted some kind of flying craft that must have been attacking us. It was coming round for another pass so Boomeron jumped into the driver's seat. Quold pretty much got out of the way in time but ended up sprawled on the floor of the cab and Boomeron did step on his ass on the way past.
The flier came round for another pass but Boomeron did some fancy driving and it missed. Gav shot it with the LMG a bit but it didn't do much damage, just made a few dents in the fuselage. I shot it wit the plasma gun and hit one of the fin thingies on the back. It started smoking and the flier started wobbling a bit, so I think I did some damage. I hit it again, it dropped down even lower and we could see a guy in there piloting it, alive and everything. Looked like a high ranking, fancy pants kinda guy! Fuck knows why he decided to target us. Gav hit him with the MGs again and the flier started coming down towards us, obviously trying to take us out with it. It hit us with its cannons on the way in and some shrapnel hit Quold quite badly, but Chaz managed to fix him up pretty good. Boomeron did some cunning maneuvers and avoided the flier actually crashing in to us, though for a while it looked like we were going to collide head-on. The flier hit with a pretty big explosion, but we went to the crash site and tried to loot it anyways figuring there might be something useful for fixing the shuttle. It was totally trashed by the impact and following explosions and what wasn't already destroyed was on fire.
After dealing with the flier we drove on to the main admin Plex. We got to a barrier where we had to put money in for a parking permit. We thought about ignoring it, but the parking barrier was automated so the enforcement system probably was too. In the end we paid 100 credits for a 24 hour spot! Bit pricey but hopefully it'll be worth it. Maybe if we're lucky the computer will compensate us for it when we get back, though somehow I doubt it. We drove on up to the main spire and headed in towards the Apothecarion. There were a load of swinging doors with zombies trying to get in. Quold suggested we create a distraction to clear some of them out of the way. Boomeron said "Here, play this flute". Quold responded that he wasn't a licensed flautist. We circled the base of the shaft in the truck to check for an easier way in. Most of the doors were shut with zombies trying to get in. A few smashed windows, but the zombies at the other doors didn't seem to notice. Guess at least they haven't gotten that smart yet!
Quold said something about how General Blarg'n Flarg'n would have driven around the Plex and blown up the zombies when they followed so we decided to give that a go. Boomeron drove the truck all the way round the Plex at a bit over zombie running speed and loads of them followed us. Then Skrood made some kind of remote detonated explosive and dropped it out of the back. He set it off when the main body of zombies got to us, which made a lot of crawlers but didn't really kill that many so we had to go back for another pass. The second time definitely did the job.
Quold said STD-01 should hack the doors. STD-01 said he needed to find a computer spur in order to do that so we scanned the area and found an outbuilding with a lotta data traffic. Quold managed to convince the door computer that we were there for a routine audit and we got in. Then STD-01 hacked the computer stack to open one of the doors to the Apothecarion. We were hoping he could set a delay timer or something to give us time to get there and secure the door first but he only just managed to get them to open at all.
Chaz set a big wall of flame behind us on the way back to the Plex and Boomeron backed us up to the doors of the Apothecarion. We managed to get everyone through the doors, but we couldn't fit the security bot out without having to do some serious engineering. We decided to leave it to guard the truck and headed inside. It was mostly a load of cosmetic surgery joints; tit jobs, nose jobs, orthodontistry and so on. A loada zombies but none of the weird ones. The whole place is really bling, like mansions on the tv and stuff. Quold said that all the medical joints would be violating health and safety procedures by having zombies in them, but we figured we were unlikely to find any that were zombie free so we might as well use 'em anyway.
We cleared some zombies and headed into the Plex. I thought we'd better find somewhere that could help us with our radiation exposure, after all the computer's medication was only supposed to lessen the effects, not cancel them out entirely. That's the problem with setting off nukes in a shitstorm, the shit always comes back to haunt you. We found a proper medical clinic down a lightly populated side road. I was gonna smash my way in but STD-01 opened it using the computer before I could. Good thing too 'cause then we could shut the doors again after we were in. There were 2 medical chairs, and Chaz worked out they would take one hour to run a full cycle. Quold and Boomeron were both quite badly injured so we decided they should go first, with the rest of us defending the clinic. No zombies attacked and they came out feeling much better so I decided to go in there and get rid of that rad damage from before. Some zombies turned up outside whilst I was under but everyone else dealt with them fine.
Once I was healed we had a think about where to go next. We decided not to go through Bracuse's Pit Fights, which was directly above the Apothecarion and probably filled with zombified pit-fighters, so we headed through the Apothecarion to the Lifestyle section, skipping along happily and killing zombies as we went. Quold didn't approve of the the skipping.
We hit Lifestyle and there were hardly any zombies. Quold insisted we go to an officers' outfitters shop to get the correct uniforms to go to the Captain's Table, which is some kinda fancy restaurant where the Praetor eats or something. Quold seems to think it's pretty important we go there. The store was all automated so everything was still running as normal. The robot butler greeted us as normal and Quold told it the uniforms we needed. It directed him into an automated booth on the other side of the room. I was a bit concerned it might be corrupted by the enemy celestial, like a lot of the automated systems we've encountered so far. Quold seemed convinced it would be fine so he went in first. He came out with some kind of fancy officer's uniform way above his rank, guess the computer buffed his chit or something, but he seemed pretty pleased to be wearing the uniform of a full Auditor!
Chaz was up next. She was also a bit worried about the robotic tailor and tried to get the robot butler to find some off the shelf uniforms. It got very offended. We were tempted to just leave then, but Quold was pretty insistent that we got the uniforms. He convinced Chaz to go in next and she got a pretty good uniform too, again of a higher rank than she held before the zombie crisis started.
I was still a bit suspicious even though the other two had been fine, so I went in in my armoured sewer suit. It came out all shiny and engraved with fancy patterns and cleaner than any other sewer suit I've ever owned! It felt a bit wrong being in a sewer suit that was so clean. After all, a sure sign of an experienced sewer tech is a good crust of dried on excreta all over his suit. It also seemed to have a sewer technician first class badge on it! Guess I finally got promoted. If only mum were still alive, she'd be so proud. Well, maybe she is kinda alive, but I doubt she'd be proud if she is.
STD-01 went after Chaz and he got a sub-medical officer half uniform, which is definitely a promotion since he didn't even have a rank before! Medical subjects are considered rankless, though of course we don't have any idea what rank he held before he was sentenced to be an experimental subject. I guess maybe he was some kind of doctor or scientist since he's pretty good at medicine, chemistry and computer stuff. Those sound like the kinds of things scientists would know about. The taylor just gave him the upper half, which made sense since he doesn't have any legs. I was thinking just a uniform jacket with his tank tracks would probably look a bit odd, but it had long tails that covered a lot of the non-moving bits without having much chance of getting stuck in the tracks.
Gav went into the tailoring booth next. He came out in a fancy black dress uniform with stripes down the side of the legs and really sharply ironed creases. The jacket had loads of gold braid and even a few medals, and he had a shiny dress helmet with a large black plume on his head and a parade ground sabre at his hip. The rank stripes said he was a security supervisor level 3, so I guess he got promoted as well.
Boomeron went in last and after a while a load of smoke started coming out of his booth. When he came out he had a load of sharp, pink metal spikes sticking out of his pants, kinda like some kind of spiky, metallic tutu. Quold tried to argue with the robot shopkeepers that we should get the outfits for free due to the distress caused to Boomeron, but the machines said it was what his psyche wanted. They offered us 10% off and demanded we pay. Boomeron was pissed and hit the robo-butler with his boom. It said something about a fine and then fired a taser round at him which knocked him out. Quold quoted a load of regulations at the machine and got us out without paying though we did get barred from the store.
After we got outside Chaz managed to cut Boomeron out of his tutu, though it took quite some doing. We carried on through the Lifestyle section without too much more trouble. Most of it was filled with more clothes shops but I did notice a jewellery shop with loads of shiny, expensive stuff. Think of the credits! We were thinking about going in and seeing what we could 'requisition', but if only automated stores are working then anything other than actual credits is pretty useless.
We headed on up to Solus' Casino, where we would definitely be able to find credits. It was planetoid themed with big solar system models on the ceiling. There were loads of slot machines and Chaz decided to have a go. She won 300 credits! I figured all the machines must be full of currency so I smashed up a big looking slot machine and a load of money came out, but a siren went off. I shot the siren with the laser and it shut off, but then a load of occuli with lasers on them came out of the ceiling! I shot one with a laser and Boomeron shot some with an advanced assault rifle he'd somehow convinced Gav to let him use. Then the little flying buggers were on us. Chaz and Quold hid. One occulus flew in close to Boomeron and attacked him but he fended it off. I was trying to get a shot the one I'd seen heading my way but I lost it. I was still trying to find it when it hit my sewer scraper which was stowed on my back! It was going so fast it split in half! Glad it didn't hit me instead. I hunted for another one and saw the one that musta been chasing Chaz. Hit it with my laser but it didn't do much. Fucker shot me though and it burned! Chaz distracted it by screaming at it and then rolled out of the way so I shot it in the back and blew the little shit to pieces.
We started collecting the credits from the machine I smashed but it was all small change. We figured we could put it in the change machine to get some higher denomination currency that would be easier to carry. We found a drinks trolley to put all the coins on and started trying to get to the change machine. While we were making our way there a zombie fell off a glowing planetoid structure on the ceiling and landed right next to Chaz. Fortunately it just missed her and didn't explode into a cloud of noxious spores. We made it to the change machine and started pouring in the change. It was hella loud and a bunch of zombies turned up, but that's nothing we can't handle. We got 1300 credits out of it so it was definitely worth it!
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