Bridge:
Ashrak quickly settles into a weapons console. Having no training in heavy weaponry, he manages to successfully navigate the menu until the weapons reticle appears over the screen.
By the looks of it, it seems that the console is mostly prepped to target the robot. The screen zooms in to the space where the robot is, a camera follows the foe as it zigzags through space. A control joy stick with a firing control raises itself out of the control console while an armament menu quickly appears, self selects to the underbelly cannon, then quickly disappears away.
Ashrak reaches for the firing control interface, which looks like a pair of retro joysticks side by side. The joystick on the left controls the camera, which the gun follows by design, while the right joysticks controls the reticle and allows for leading off shots for escaping foes.
Ashrak aims and fires away. The controls don't seem too unintuitive. Still, he is unaware of the behavior of the particle beam cannon that Grizzelblak carries on her underbelly so he has no real intuition on how it will behave over the vast distances of space.
Attack 1, strike roll
1d20-6: [9]-6 = 3
, damage roll
20d4*10: [3, 3, 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 2, 1, 3, 3, 4, 1, 2, 2, 1]*10 = 430
Attack 2, strike roll
1d20-6: [7]-6 = 1
, damage roll
20d4*10: [4, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 3, 2, 2, 4]*10 = 470
Attack 3, strike roll
1d20-6: [14]-6 = 8
, damage roll
20d4*10: [1, 4, 4, 3, 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 3, 4, 4, 4, 1, 2, 1, 3, 2, 4, 2]*10 = 550
Attack 4, strike roll
1d20-6: [18]-6 = 12
, damage roll
20d4*10: [1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 3, 4, 3, 4, 1, 1, 1, 4, 2, 1, 4, 2, 3, 2, 4]*10 = 480
Attack 5, strike roll
1d20-6: [17]-6 = 11
, damage roll
20d4*10: [2, 4, 1, 1, 4, 1, 3, 4, 3, 4, 2, 4, 3, 2, 4, 3, 4, 3, 2, 3]*10 = 570
Attack 6, strike roll
1d20-6: [10]-6 = 4
, damage roll
20d4*10: [4, 4, 2, 1, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 3, 3, 1, 4, 1, 4, 4]*10 = 500
As Ashrak is busying himself trying to take down the robot, MOD begins the interrogation while Zilch stands off a small distance, menacingly inspecting the prisoners for any sort of chicanery.
MOD stews over the revelation on the news. Eir thoughts reduce eir loquaciousness to a mere murmur. Starring blankly at the captives, MOD realizes that eir options moving forward have expanded somewhat.
Angry mirror ball of light wrote:
"Ash, we need that robot intact. I think it's a lead to some scumbags we're being paid to slag. Shoot to disable."
Suddenly, MOD catches a few stray thoughts from the younger Silhouette!
"
They better kill that thing. That robot isn't alone and their lot are not mainstream slavers."
"
THEY CAN HEAR YOU STUPID." Zuks Mungu ponders LOUDLY.
Maks turns to MOD, then back to his Uncle and suddenly his mind goes quiet.
Angry mirror ball of light wrote:
M glances over at the two silhouettes. They might know too much. "You all can pretend you didn't hear that last part, neh?" Then ey shifts eir red circle to stare at Zilch. "In fact, why don't you take these two noble corporeals to a holding cell?"
Back to the Mungu brothers: "We can talk about the terms of your liberation after things get settled up here. K? Thanks, and try not to make the guards want to eat you!"
Just Zilch approaches the two, Ashrak's console lights up.
Grizzelblak broadcasts to the crew:
"
Three Direct Hits!!"
Ashrak peers through the gun sight and is surprised to see that the robot is hurtling through space, but it's overall armor is only minorly damaged. Careful examination shows that on every direct hit, the particle beam cannon encounted a personal forcefield of some kind, which allowed the robot to "bounce" off the particle beam rather than stay in the path of the high energy particles for the entire blast. Every time the robot was hit, the forcefield disintegrated and some of its armor was damaged, but it was able to regenerate a new forcefield upon every hit.
Still, the robot seems to moving much slower now.
Attack 1, strike roll
1d20-6: [7]-6 = 1
, damage roll
20d4*10: [4, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 3, 3, 2, 4, 2, 1, 4, 3, 4, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4]*10 = 530
Attack 2, strike roll
1d20-6: [8]-6 = 2
, damage roll
20d4*10: [1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 1, 3, 2, 4, 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 1, 2, 3, 3]*10 = 420
Attack 3, strike roll
1d20-6: [8]-6 = 2
, damage roll
20d4*10: [4, 2, 4, 3, 3, 1, 4, 2, 2, 3, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2, 2, 4, 1, 4, 3]*10 = 530
Attack 4, strike roll
1d20-6: [12]-6 = 6
, damage roll
20d4*10: [3, 2, 4, 2, 4, 2, 3, 4, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 2, 4, 4]*10 = 510
Attack 5, strike roll
1d20-6: [9]-6 = 3
, damage roll
20d4*10: [2, 1, 3, 4, 1, 3, 2, 2, 4, 1, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 4, 3, 4]*10 = 500
Attack 6, strike roll
1d20-6: [10]-6 = 4
, damage roll
20d4*10: [4, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3, 1, 2, 3, 3, 3, 1]*10 = 460
Ashrak's attempt to herd the robot prove to be unsuccessful. There is still chance to catch up to the robot, but Grizzelblak would have to depart quickly.
Zilch has no poker face. His day dreaming is evident; Zilch gently smiles at the two silhouttes, like they are the entree for tonight's meal. The elder Mungu gives Zilch a look, like the older silhouette was trying to size up the cookie monster, but then Zuks recoils in horror. And Maks in turn, follows submissively.
Then without warning, Zilch scoops them up. Maks lets out a little yelp, then covers his mouth. Zuks can only stare despondently off into space as both of them are carried to the holding cell.
Once Zilch reaches the makeshift brig, he finds Vinny in power armor. Her armor is a bit damaged, but otherwise she is in good health. She had decided that every prisoner gets their own room. Locked behind hundreds of MDC worth of metal, Vinny would rather the prisoners didn't communicate, verbally or otherwise.
Zilch deposits each Silhouette in a room by themselves, then closes the hatch behind him.
Vinny nods thankfully at Zilch once the prisoners are stowed away. She says in a volume so that every prisoner could hear: "
Thanks for taking care of that Lanotaur. I hope it was a good snack in between fights."
By the time Zilch comes back to the bridge, he witnesses Ashrak's second attempt to corral the psychic space robot. This time around, Ashrak's beginner's luck has been depleted. After a quick exchange between MOD and Bert, Grizzelblak gets ready to pursue the space robot.
Meanwhile, on the rain of death transport, Bert gets to looking for supplies. After collecting the drone parts, he notices that the cybord has a indicator light on. It seems like his body has put itself into some kind of medical coma.
Meanwhile Bert is able to gather some extra parts in a storage area. He also finds a welding torch, soldering iron, some spare control modules for the impulse engines and their controls unit as well as some manuals for the impulse drive system. He also notices a spare spacer hard suit, as well as an irmss health kit.
Bert estimates that he can go ahead and figure out how to get enough impulse power to move the ship to the asteriod in a few hours. Meanwhile, he also notes that there is enough power from the repaired reactor to turn on the weapons system. If he had the right luck, know how or persistence, he might be able to get the point defense weapons to act as automatic sentries.
Meanwhile on the medbay, Dr. White continues his inspection of the Seljuk. The subject seems really medicated. Despite Dr. White's prodding, he isn't quite stirring. Dr. White will have to perform some additional inspections on the subject and see if there are additional devices that are keeping the Seljuk sedated.
Suddenly, one of the healing pods starts to make a mild alarm noise. The subject is floating inside the liquid recovering. She seems to be recovering well.
Suddenly, the medbay door opens and two ferocious looking things walk in:
One of them starts to speak in a metallic voice:
"
You... are Doctor? We are friends of Grizzelblak. We would like to learn more about your life forms. Will... you... assist?"
