After some rest and a quick look at our ship, we went back into the maintenance tunnels. Ash found some condensation. That wasn’t a big issue, but then… centipedes. The big kind. I have just about managed to be able to talk to shirren. The mindless centipedes are still on my Nope! list.
Rae
Ysoki Mechanic / Xenoarchaeologist
I cry wolf
We turned the juvenile wolves in, and I called Venn about the note and bones we found. He was on his way to dinner, so we politely offered to meet him and eat with him. I think he’s always happy to see us.
After we opted to get some rest (and make sure our ship was okay) before returning to the tunnels. I can already sense some creatures close by.
Hungry Like the Wolf
So, we are turning in wolves. Found two more juveniles. Well, Widget did. Thankfully I keep extra parts for him handy. He’ll have to wear his second best feet until I have time to fix him up properly. In addition to also learning we can get a fifty-credit bounty on any electrovores we kill/capture, we found some useful items in a pack near some humanoid bones. I now have a new pistol. I’d give it Widget, but he has better aim than me and this takes physical ammo– maybe not a good choice for him down here.
And, we found a note with the pistol and ammo:
Johdore – make sure the Tashtari are fed and their pens are secure. Maintenance reported seeing Asteroid Louse in the area. We don’t want them chewing on the cages. Arcturus wants specimens that are alive and healthy. We don’t want a recurrence of the Electrovore incident!
So, we’ll be turning that in with the bones and a couple more wolves.
Run for cover Don’t shoot, shoot
Poor Widget, too good with a tranq dart.
We noticed various sparkly things darting in for a look at us, or more likely our “solar” bait in our humane traps. In fact, we caught one. Widget was busy turning down the lighting on the trap we caught one in, as we hadn’t set it up to do so automatically, and certainly didn’t want to make it stronger. He probably didn’t realize, when two tashtari darted out of the closest corridors at us, that we had things in hand. Somehow, he managed to tranq one so well that it dropped over dead, when I couldn’t even hit one. He thinks he saved the crew. Now I have to have That Talk with him before he has photos taken as Big Game Hunter.
Bang Bang
We got tired of asteroid lice setting off our laser wolf traps, so attempted to lower the sensitivity. I think it worked. Widget kept warning me of a colony up ahead, but I didn’t sense anything. Luckily, we saw some flickering lights in a mechanical room. Except, we weren’t looking for that. And suddenly, about half a dozen electrovores burst out of the room and flew past us (explains why I didn’t sense wolves). The room continued to have…. issues. No time to explain! I jumped on Ash’s back and said, “Get me in there!” Thankfully we’ve been crew mates long enough that he didn’t question it.
The mechanical room was a wreck of chewed cables, sparking and touching, and it sounded like it was about to blow up. With a split second to spare, we got the room shut down….