After their break, the trio got ready to move again. Liushi had a simple idea in mind, and asked Xiaotian for more informations."How well do you know this small town?"
"I don"t know much aside from where my father has been on the few times I was with him."
"I should avoid subject that would remind them of their father" he though as the girls got depressed.
"Too bad. I wanted to know if you knew the streets well enough to take us on a path that would allow us to spiral toward the train station, and cut down the number of zombies on the way, until we got to the military train. "
"Sorry, I don"t know."
"There should be a map of the town somewhere, like in a pamphlet or something" said Lu.
"Right. Good idea."
"Why don"t we just go back the way we came from? Didn"t you build this monstrous truck so you could run over zombies?" she added.
"Yes, we could. If we didn"t have the trailer. It could be overturned if we aren"t careful, and I don"t want to abandon it. You don"t know if they are some survivors nearby that would steal it. Same if we were to leave it in the place selected to make the upgrades. Someone could come and steal it while we are away. Besides, we would need the additional turrets to kill the zombies."
"Let"s have a look at the hostels on the outskirt of the town. We should find a map of the town center there."
It didn"t take long to do just that. Xiaotian chose the path they would take, and Liushi made sure all weapons were ready. Then they moved. On the way, they selected the place where Liushi would make the upgrades. It was in a storage area near the railway station. There were a lot of industrial warehouses, some big enough to hold the Doomsday Ride and its trailer.
30 minutes later, the main streets in the railway station area had become even more grisly than before. They made laps on their selected circuit to kill most if not all the zombies in the area.
On the first lap, at some point the number of zombies being run over was so large that the trailer swayed worryingly as it pa.s.sed over the bodies. Liushi had to lower the plow near ground level to keep the zombies from going under. That meant that most of them were pushed to the sides or ended up on the hood of the truck and hit the windshield. Xiaotian had to swerve left and right to get rid of them, sometimes crushing the zombies that were on the sides against abandonned vehicles.
For the following laps, they ran over as many of them as possible. The streets had become full of corpses with exploded bellies, crushed chests and skulls. Squashed guts and brain matter everywhere. The zombies that weren"t killed had so much damage in theirs muscles and bones that they wouldn"t be a big danger regardless of their number. Those that tried to catch up to the truck from the sides or behind were peppered with nails. The turrets targeted the heads, but due to movements there were many misses.
When they finally stopped, Liushi and the sisters had a constant disgusted expression on their faces. Xiaotian was feeling sick. They were parked near the military train, parallel to it so the turrets could either target anything coming from the train, or coming from the road.
This time, all 3 of them would get out of the truck. Liushi because he needed to scan anything worthwile, Xiaotian to help gather the materials, and Lu to watch over them. It was also because Liushi and Lu weren"t fully recovered. They needed Xiaotian"s help.
They got out, in the air filled with blood scent, each wearing 3 layers of clothes. Liushi"s biker gear was torn, so he couldn"t rely on it anymore. Each had a needler, Liushi had his sledgehammer, Lu had the altered machete, and Xiaotian the axe turned pickaxe. Liushi had enlarged its blade a little, so it was halfway between axe and pickaxe. They also took out the electric rough terrain pallet mover to transport their future load.
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The first thing they did after getting out was clearing the corpses in their immediate surroundings. First, they needed to make sure they were all really dead, and not just incapacitated by broken bones. Second, many of them were former soldiers, with their equipment on them. As distasteful as it was for them, they had to loot the corpses. They aquired some firearms: QSZ-92 9x19mm pistol, QCW-05 5.8x21mm submachine gun, and QBZ-95 5.8x21mm a.s.sault rifle. All with spare magazines. Some of the soldiers were also equiped with flak jackets, so they also got those.
"You know, girls. I"m happy we didn"t come across a corpse with a damged hand grenade. It would suck to get blown up and die that way after everything we survived."
The sisters grimaced and nodded with conviction. After all, some of the corpses had been run over by the truck and had damaged weapons. Still, each of them added a handgun to their equipment, alongside a spare magazine.
After that, Liushi turned toward the main attraction in sight. The tank. It was a ZTZ-79 main battle tank, with a 7.62mm machine gun, a 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun, and a 100mm main canon. This modele entered service in the mid 80s, and used by China until the late 90s when the second generation of main battle tank, the ZTZ-96, entered service. At that time, it was exported. China was already producing its third generation MBT, ZTZ-99, when the outbreak occured. As that date was getting close, the higher ups decided they couldn"t waste any ressources.
Not that Liushi, Xiaotian, or Lu knew anything about it. They weren"t military hardware enthusiasts, and never did any research on the matter (But I, the writer, had to check wikipedia for the People"s Liberation Army Ground Force equipment). They were just happy to have guns and big guns.
Liushi wanted to use the tank armor for the upgrades, and that meant bringing the tank to they place they had selected. They couldn"t just tow it, so Liushi would have to drive it. When the Sta.r.s.eed scanned something, it also learned how that thing worked. After scanning the tank, it would know how to operate it. It would instruct Liushi on what to do on the spot.
"Not as good as Matrix knowledge transfert, but an excellent learning aid... ... Sta.r.s.eed? Can you transfert knowledge directly to my brain?"
[No, host. I cannot. Your nervous system isn"t advanced enough.]
"How come? You bonded to me and we can communicate mentally."
[You should recall that, when I bonded with you, you suffered from headaches for several days. Visual and auditive communication from myself to you is achieved by stimulating your optical and acoustic nerves. That is the most that can be accomplished with your current nervous system. Anything as complex as knowledge upload would result in severe brain damage. You may very well end up crippled, reduced to an idiot, brain dead, or just dead.]
"Ok ok, I get it. I"m too primitive for that s.h.i.t... Can I enhance my nervous system with a gene therapy serum?"
[Yes. However, they will be difficult to make. And you do not have the means to make them.]
"... I get it. I have to upgrade my engineering section and my medical station. On top of the whole truck... And the trailer... f.u.c.k, I have to upgrade everything! ... Enhancement serums will have to wait."
While the tank had fallen from the carriage, it hadn"t been overturned. With a bit of help from the Doomsday Ride mechanical arm, it was easily put back on its tracks. While the weapons were empty, there was some fuel in the tank. Liushi guessed that, when the higher saw they were running out of time, they decided to have the tanks ready to move at a moment"s notice.
Lu and Xiaotian retreated to the truck, wary of the tank engine attracting more zombies. If that happened, Liushi would be perfectly safe in the tank until they cleared the area again. When Liushi started the engine, the sound reverberated throught the deserted area. Not waiting to see if more zombies were going to show themselves, he started to slowly move the tank toward its final resting place.
As expected, they did attract some zombies, but much less than they thought. The Doomsday Ride quickly took care of them. They made 2 more trips, one to take another tank, and the other to take as much military supplies from the train as possible. When they explored the train, theygota few surprises from zombies locked in a room, but Liushi and Lu were ready for them. They got more weapons and ammos, some radios, and military rations. They loaded one of the military trucks for that.
Once the doors got locked and secured, they relaxed. Liushi choose to take a nap before starting to work on the upgrades, and the girls decided to relax and eat some snacks. They were eager to see Liushi"s power in action.