"...Strange..."
Quickly stick my hand in the water and take it out. Note how it reacts. If it seems scared or neutral to the action, then try to quickly grab it by the tail, and throw it on the shore.
"...Strange..."
Quickly stick my hand in the water and take it out. Note how it reacts. If it seems scared or neutral to the action, then try to quickly grab it by the tail, and throw it on the shore.
Keep watch over the man as his curiosity takes over
Mark points his smg into water and Jonathan prepares for barehanded fishing. He waits until the creature is very close and then strikes. Water around the creature turns black at the moment his hands touch it. Jonathan can feel it wriggling in his grip, trying to get away, so he pulls it out and flings it on the shore, his grip slipping on its slippery skin.
It lands with hard thud just beyond rocks and it wriggle and twitch for a while there. Mark pokes it with his gun and then flips it on its back. It doesn't have eyes even on its bottom side, only a mouth. At least you think it is a mouth. Considering black liquid oozing from it it may be its ink ejection hole. For all you know it may as well be its asshole, considering lack of any other orifices on it. From this point of view the black liquid might be its feces. Jonathan now notices his hand is dyed black.
Mark:
>You have one new message."Fuck this... Let's go towards the bovines.
"Fuck this... Let's go towards the bovines.
The new head of security greatly agreed with this sentiment.
Fuck this. Head to Bovineville.
Call someone down to collect the corpses.
Go with expedition leader, ready to shoot at certainly hostile bovines.
(In case you didn't bring enough sample containers you can call NPC's on ship to collect your loot or at least drop some containers. I was going to tell you this next turn, but since SilverDragon had to leave might as well mention it this way.)
Theron calls people on the ship: "Hey, someone come down and collect these corpses before any scavengers come!"
"How many corpses?"
"Six and half."
The slaughtering team leaves then to the bovineville, which is moving to west now with slow jog. Now that they are closer they can see their sharp horns, tip unpleasantly just below your sternum. They could easily throw you into air and it definitely would hurt, no matter how well enviro-suits shields you. Fur on bovines is very short near their back end, growing longer near their head. Growth in length is so linear that you could probably use simple mathematics to calculate length in any part of their body and be certain you got it right without checking.
While the herd jogs to west you notice single bovine running to north.
Alex Raman:
>You have two new messages.Cromwell:
>You have one new message.Theron:
>You have one new message.Guni looks up from the controls long enough to see the base taking off. Uh, why is the ship leaving?
Well, the ship won't move without orders so it means someone gave the command. Only ones with authority to do so are expedition leader Alex and that slightly unstable head of security, Theron. It was most likely Theron who gave the order, you bet. During the trip to this system he slipped his unusual opinion about the planet.
The other thing you see is much more interesting. One bovine turns to north and accelerates to quite notable speed while rest of the herd keeps going to west. The pack of hamster headed creatures sprint after it proving them to be predators and give the bovine merry chase up to treeline. There the ox-creature slows down, stops and kneels down on the ground, the predators surround it and very quickly tear its throat open. The ox-creature doesn't even resist, giving in to fate calmly. After waiting about one minute the predators start eating it.
Pray for it to not explode violently, and add some bacteria from the sample to human tissue and watch the results in contained enviroment.
You go to cold storages, retrieve few tissue samples and return to your lab. Praying for non-explosive results you start your experiment inserting the bacterias, and dive into cover. When explosions fail to manifest you thank gods and go back to observing the experiment like a good scientist.
As it turns out both bacterias do survive in human tissues, although they have quite hard time in unusual enviroment. Immune system makes short work of them so you think they would cause to humans a minor fever at best. The doctor, Jonathan Pendle, could make vaccine against them with this data. It might not be necessary, but its better to not take risks.
1: Alex Raman, Theron Drakosen and Cromwell Jackson
2: Jonathan Pendle, Mark Redtail and aquatic creature
3: Guni Debres in personal flyer
4: Pile of dead birds