As the last currency bar dropped out of the change machine, all the lights in the casino went out and all the machines turned off. Emergency lighting came on with exit signs and escape routes illuminated but nothing else. We decided to smash in the change machine and then see if the occuli came out again. Gav and Quold had some in depth discussion about the use of occuli in security situations. Quold said that standard protocol for a casino calls for 2 security podules containing cannisters with 12 drones each, controlled via a wireless uplink to the ship's main grid. The wireless uplink would be pretty difficult to hack, but possible if we had the right transmission gear and encryptions. Gav was rather surprised by how much Quold knew about security procedures!
STD-01 scanned the ceiling with the hand-scanner and managed to figure out roughly where the podules were located. He then decided he would have to hack the occuli using Boomeron's cyber-comms gear because we couldn't get a clear line of sight on either of the deployment podules, but Boomeron wasn't too keen on the idea of STD-01 getting inside his head. He suggested that we go to the bar and the admin office to try and find a terminal.
I got bored waiting around so I decided to stop waiting for them to decide what to do and break into the change machine. I tried wrenching off some of the panels and managed to shift them a little bit, but ultimately didn't get in straight away and made quite a lot of noise. A load of zombies started taking notice of us around then, so everyone else formed up in a defensive circle around me whilst continued trying to break in. Wish I'd had a better way to trash that machine, or even actually unlock it, but I'm not too good with machines. It took a fair bit more trying and a lot more noise but I eventually got it open. We found 7000 in 1000cr chits, 800 in 100cr chits and a load of small change, but of course it all spilled out all over the floor.
Just after I smashed the machine, there were 2 bright flashes from the ceiling and a loud creaking sound. I spotted 4 Occuli coming down from the ceiling. One of them was scraping along one of the plastic planetoid decorations on the ceiling and making it wobble in a disturbing way. It looked like it was probably gonna fall down, and maybe take a fair bit of the casino out when it landed; even if those things were plastic and hollow they were still massive!
Gav shouted to take cover and we all ran to hide behind the bar, which looked pretty solid. He was already running as he shouted, shooting at the occuli over his shoulder. Occuli took shots at Quold, STD-01 and me but we managed to get out of the way in time. I got to the bar just after Gav and Boomeron wasn't far behind. STD-01 was having some trouble negotiating his way between the slot machines so he used his turbo boost. He'd never used it before and it didn't seem to make him go that much faster, but he just about made it to the bar before the planetoid fell. Skrood was a bit behind him, guess he's not too good at running!
The bar was shut so we tried to get through the security mesh to take cover on the other side. Gav carried on shooting at the Occuli and took a few more out, whilst another one got crushed by the planetoid. I eventually levered the mesh up, no thanks to Quold and Boomeron trying to help, and had to hold it up whilst everyone else got through. Gav leapt through last so I shoved it up enough for me to fit through, dived over the bar and then let it slam shut. STD-01 was going to have to take care of himself for a while; his tracks would make getting over the bar pretty hard. I suggested he abandon them for now and hope they survived in the planetoid's wake, but he didn't seem keen on that idea.
The planetoid hit the bar just after we got behind it. It shook some plaster loose and dented the mesh but thankfully didn't smash through. It rolled off along the bar, where it seems STD-01 had been trying to find a way to fit his tracks through. It was pretty funny watching him racing the planetoid, smashing zombies and weaving between slot machines. I almost wish the thing had crushed him since he was so keen to kill me when I got infected! It was kinda hard to see much more through the dust, but eventually the crashing stopped and STD-01 emerged from a pile of wreckage. We had a look over the bar and everything was looking pretty fucked up! There was another occulus coming down towards us so I toasted it with my laser.
There didn't seem to be any Occuli coming so we had a look around the bar. STD-01 was still stuck on the other side, but only a few zombies had survived the destruction so he wasn't too worried. I passed him some babycham through the bar and was slightly disappointed that he seemed quite pleased with it, though I guess it was probably the first real alcohol he'd ever had. All they have on most parts of the ship is synthahol, which just isn't the same!
We started looking around behind the bar and Boomeron found a kitchen with a few Zs in. I figured I should cook some dinner with the fancy food that must be in there, so I left the others to help STD-01 through and went to clear the zombies so I could start cooking. I smashed the doors off the kitchen with my sewer scraper and threw them over to those guys to use as ramps, then set about clearing the zombies so I could get on with dinner. Seems my door-ramps got STD-01 over the bar pretty quickly so everyone else helped with dispatching the zombies but then all wandered off to look through the food whilst I cleared away the corpses. I guess it is my speciality, but even so a hand would have been nice and would have let me get on with dinner a bit quicker.
They found some pretty good food in the kitchen, loads of fancy ingredients and seasonings. Boomeron brought me some rancid, disturbing piece of meat with a sharp knife stuck in it. It looked hella rank, but he was pretty insistent I cook it. Skrood said I should let him eat it so I said I'd cook it for him. The others found a load of fresh, real meat! Seems the fridges here don't need external power so everything was still perfectly preserved. It took me ages to boil the meat down to a paste, but my mom always told me that when you cook things you always make a paste first! All this fancy kitchen equipment is pretty confusing too.
We decided to rest there for a bit so we lay down for a while. When we woke up I made some more food to take with us whilst we decided what to do next. I suddenly realised we hadn't checked out the other set of doors leading off from the bar area so we headed down there to investigate. I smashed the door off the hinges and it seemed to be some kind of employee rest area. We grabbed a few medical supplies from the medkit to replace what we'd used up recently but there was nothing else of interest. Well, apart from a few more jazz mags for Chaz's stash. There was another door out of the back. I poked it to see if it was open and it seemed to be locked, but something knocked back.
Quold made me do some kind of tapping code on the door, but I didn't hear anything after that. Gav seemed to hear something and said they were telling us they were zombies, with a big grin on his face. STD-01 said there might be animals in there as we were next to the Menagerie! I love animals but I never get to see any so I smashed the door in straight away. There was a zombie behind it so I stabbed it with my scraper, but then I somehow pulled the door and the zombie on top of me. Not quite what I'd had in mind. When I managed to get a look around the door I saw a shitload of zombies piling through the doorway. So many that the front rank were trampled by the sheer weight of numbers! Everyone emptied as many rounds into them as they could, and Skrood chucked a grenade in. That took out all but one, and Quold somehow managed to shoot it's head off with his pistol! He's not normally quite so effective with firearms.
The dead zombies had formed a wall across the doorway so no more were getting through, but we could see hands waving around above the corpse-wall. Skrood threw a flare over to see how many were left, and Gav took a peek over the top. There weren't too many left, but still more than we'd like to let through into this room, so Skrood chucked another grenade over and Gav followed up the blast with some sub-machine gun fire. There weren't any left standing, or even crawling, after that!
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