Zlod stretches a little and shakes out his limbs, getting himself ready for any dirty hand to hand combat that might come up. He moves forward into the electrical area keeping himself in-between danger and Bugs as best he can, his fists and his 14’ long tail at the ready. When Bugs gets behind him he will start moving forward towards the cave at a slow but steady rate, always keeping an eye out for movement and ready to react.
Before advancing, Bugs sets his sensors to record at the highest precision he thinks will last at least five minutes…
Bugs crouches low to the ground, ears back, tail low, but still moving with the same frenetic excitement, following behind Zlod. He keeps his senses peeled, and sniffs busily — trying to smell blood, corpses, or remnants of other portions of the creature or the creature’s meals. As he gets into range of the creature he reaches out via empathy to attempt to sense the emotion of the creature.
As soon as he is within the electrical field, he has the “bad idea” feeling, and the excited wagging of the tail slows as it curls back between his legs — but he continues forward.
Xhaiden remains alert, the arrow notched, ready in case the creatures arrive. He moves to the side to avoid potentially shooting Zlod or Bugs should the creature come charging out.
As Zlod crosses beyond the ATC into the cave, the field changes, losing the frequency shift and becoming more akin to radar. Inside the cave the Dreg hisses loudly, steps back, and adopts a defensive stance. A pair of large claw-tipped arms are brought to the fore and the featureless head unwraps like a grotesque flower petal into five fleshy flaps studded with sharp teeth-like nubs surrounding a circular toothy maw. It stands on four smaller scythe-like appendages. From his new vantage point Zlod can see a few things better. First, there are two human corpses within, each of them cut in half as neatly as if they had run into a vibroblade. The second is a pair of powerful legs detached from whatever they had been connected to before. A bloody trail, hidden from view before, can be seen on the floor of the narrow cave.
Bugs reaches out empathically to the creature and touches the alien mind. The psychic touch is slippery and Bugs is unable to get a reading from the creature. As he comes abreast of the ATV, some of the smells from the cave assault him. The awful odor from before is even stronger and is mixed with blood, decay, and another unusual smell he can’t place.
Mace, Reinhard, and Xhaiden each watch, The hissing, movement, and sudden wholly visible creature displaying its weapons causes fingers to twitch on the triggers, but discipline and training reassert themselves immediately and they hold fire.
Mace maintains her overwatch, forcing her breathing to be calm and steady. She shifts slightly on her vantage point to keep the infrared signature of the target visible.
A thin frown forms on Xhaiden’s features as he tries to recall everything he knows of the creature. Sighing, he shakes his head, not seeming to identify any information on the beast. He decides to cover the two differently, prepared to use telekinesis to put a barrier between the pair and their target should it suddenly charge.
Zlod stands in front of Bugs as Bugs collects his samples. Zlod’s eye never leaves the creature as he stands ready for any sort of attack. “You got what you need yet? This super predator needs to be put down already before it kills more people. Hurry up and do whatever you are doing so we can put this thing down.” Zlod says his eyes never leave the creature.
Bugs carefully takes soil samples, collecting what he can next to, and from the bloody trail on the floor, scooping them into sample jars hurriedly and closing the lid.
“Oh my… eating human corpses too… I’d really like a sample of the digestive enzymes… But I suppose now that we’ve confirmed it’s eaten natives, there’s no choice but to put it down…
Just give me a minute to back away….
Bugs closes the box of basic biological samples, and begins backing away cautiously.
Zlod will slowly back away as Bugs is backing away, until he is at the spot where he can retrieve his weapons. “Alright so it is a man eater so lets but this sucker down. Everyone get a shooting vantage, but make sure you are behind me and Reinhard.” Zlod says as he shoulders his particle beam rifle. “When we are all ready we fire on 3.”
Zlod moves forward as the creature collapses, continuing to train his rifle on the creature. He’ll let out one more blast into the creature point blank, to make sure it is dead. "Once he is sure it is dead he’ll cut off it’s head with his vibro sword. “Alright we have proof of the kill. Should we take the bodies with us to see if they have next of kin? Seems like the right thing to do. Reinhard and Bugs can you look at salvaging what is left on that ATV? I’ll look around this cave. Mace cover us in case this thing had friends.”
Far less impressive than plasma riffles is the arrow which soars through the air hitting the creature. There is a bit of surprising force behind it. Followed by a quick shake of Xhaiden’s head. His eyes widen looking around for a moment muttering a strong oath in elven before taking several deep breaths.
Bugs gapes at the sheer, monumental, overwhelming firepower of the combined heavy particle beams and railguns, sensitive ears pinning backwards.
“In over our head again if they’re bringing this out already…”
“ATV? Yes… yes… but… the specimens… I’d love to collect fresh samples… please…?”
Bugs hurries back to his ATV — pausing data collection and quickly scanning the E/M readings to assure himself things have returned to normal — if all is well, he gently sets his first collection in the back, and hurriedly pulls out three more small cases with specimen jars, stacking them on the hood…. and then breaks out a toolkit.
Pausing, he picks up the optics band and unslings the rifle from his back, resting it on the grill of his vehicle “Glad I don’t need this any more…”
“Probably lost all its power and really just needs a jump”
Zlod’s final coup de grace blows a massive hole in the chest of the creature and the vibroblade removes the unnatural head with ease. The cave curves to the left before branching into a ‘Y’ with faint daylight coming from the right-hand branch. Heydrich hastens to the wrecked ATV while Mace repositions herself to cover the area.
The two corpses, mercenaries by the looks of it, are in bad shape. Prematurely mummified, their leathery skin is stretched tight over their bones, all the moisture sucked from them. They weigh very little. Much of their gear is there as well, the creature apparently had no interest in technology. Their body armor is shredded beyond repair. Both have an NG-56 Light Ion Pistol in a holster, still secured. One of the corpses has an NG-R50 Mini-Rail Gun beside it. 8 e-clips are found, in the guns and in vest pouches as well as 14 rounds for the rail gun. 658 credits and standard communication electronics round out the equipment. Two more objects near the creature catch the eye. Powerful legs, each 6 ft long, with skin coloration that matches the creature. They appear to have been torn from the creature, and one leg shows some grievous wounds. The creature’s body has two legs where those would have gone, small and useless, but obviously growing in to replace the lost ones.
All of the electronic equipment is scrap, every power source rendered unusable by whatever the creature was doing. The e-clips likewise are worthless. Heydrich reports that the ATV has some basic camping gear, food rations, and water. The frame is much degraded and unserviceable, many of the mechanical parts and the battery are a lost cause, but some things like two wheels, the electric motor and remaining armor plates, along with any metal that was sealed against the elements is salvageable.
“Ze degraded components and frame could be used, with time, power, und some smelting equipment. Render ze metal und use it in a machine shop to manufacture parts.” Reinhard reports as Heydrich works. “8 hours to strip ze useful equipment. 4 more hours to cut up ze remaining pieces. Oh, he found ze turret gun. In serviceable condition.”
Heydrich removes an NG-202 Rail Gun and sets it aside, as well as 50’ of megarope and a case of ammunition for the Rail Gun.
With the creature killed Xhaiden remains near Zlod trailing off after him as his little shadow. He doesn’t speak observing as the remains inside are discovered. A pained expression as he takes note of the bodies of the mercenaries and served legs of the creature. His hands balling into small fists for several moments the tension releasing with a heavy sigh as he continues following after his older sibling.
“Take what is generally easy to strip. We can come back for the rest later if we deem it necessary.” Zlod tells Heydrich. “Bugs can we use your transportation to take some of this stuff back, along with the bodies? I want to give them a proper burial at least.” Zlod says as he packs up the things he finds. “I hope we can move a few of these things through the General store. If we can we’ll have a few credits to help out. Good job everybody. You all performed well and it shows. Now lets get everything and get back to town for some drinks on me.”
“Burial? Yes yes, of course… after the autopsy. I must check them for toxins, bio agents, pre or post mortem injuries, parasites… when they are back.
I do not have equipment to bioisolate the remains, but they are so dry… one of the equipment cases should do… perhaps we can find a trailer and winch in town and someone can tow the remaining ATV back to a safer spot to dismantle than in the wilds? Perhaps …while I examine the remains ?
I am happy to start dismantling here and now, but 8 hours is considerable time to leave precious specimens to denature…
Bugs looks at his computer almost hungrily, as he begins packing it and the sensors back up and placing them in the safety of the APC, leaving as much room as he can for anything that should be added.
“Bestätigend,” responds Heydrich and he gets to work stripping out the vehicle. Reinhard assists by elevating the chassis when necessary.
“Think it was alone, Cap?” Mace asks, continuing to watch the area.
Bugs is able to gather some additional samples from the creature’s corpse, as well as samples from the corpses after they loaded. The samples are quickly gathered and stored for later analysis, and the sensitive equipment doesn’t take long to pack up securely. With Bugs ’ help Heydrich is able to break down the ATV quickly, the parts and materials loaded up on the other ATV. They are able to extract a bit more than expected from the ATV, the deterioration of the frame was more localized to upper areas, so much of the running gear, motor, and lower frame is still salvageable. With much of the heavy items removed from the frame, Reinhard is confident that he could transport the remainder of the ATV back to town, or at least to his hiding spot. Restoring it to operational condition would cost only about 8000 credits, and most of that would be replacing the battery pack. Replacing the mdc plates would be an additional cost, around 5000. Alternatively, some of the parts could be sold or used to repair Bodeca. Chances are good that Trevor or Gus would be interested in the parts and likely worth around 10k.
