((continued from Feb 1st))
The blood sommelier slapped itself and said, "It is my doubleminus fault, sir, so bad, apologies, sir! We doubleplus leapt into the cashless future, sir! It means more efficiency, sir, a decreased risk of theft and more spending. And no hauling large suitcases of cash..." It nodded towards the suitcase, which we have now brought close to the central platform.
Then, things went fast. Idesbald discreetly primed the antimatter bomb. Inside the suitcase, a timer activated. After countdown, it will cut power to the magnetic enclosure suspending the antimatter, causing it to come in contact with regular matter and turn into a blast of pure energy.
Meanwhile, the sommelier continued, still apparently unaware of what was really going on. "We accept credit cards of the four Empires. Sir, do you have HolderCardรค ?"
I decided to use the occasion to buy time for our retreat. "That's too bad. I'll need to do it by bank transfer then. I'll just go back to my ship and contact my agent at the Amarr Trade Registry for the transaction. We'll be right back. Keep the Vektor chilled!"
I began to walk back to the airlock at a brisk pace.
The creature was saying something about the suitcase we were leaving behind, when Idesbald aimed his plasma rifle, and shot it point blank in the chest. The thing screamed, and kept screaming, emitting a high-pitched and metallic sound.
"Run!" Idesbald yelled, shooting the sommelier again as he grabbed the box with the blood bottle and started running himself. From all over the surface of the sphere, spiderbots started to make their way towards us. There must have been hundreds.
I ran as well. Not quite fast enough, I should have kept up training this beep test that Ishta suggested. Luckily I had a bit of a head start. I shouted to Idesbald to drop the cursed bottle. Idesbald, overtaking me while firing at the spiderbots that made it to the walkway in front of us, answered "No way!"
At the airlock, Idesbald turns and for a moment I thought he was going to shoot me as well, but he aimed at the spiderbots, and kept shooting them. As I made it to the airlock, the Indigatrix messages "Bhaalgorn on d-scan, 14 AU and closing in."
((to be continued))
