Quoted By:
The beast finally starts trying to grapple instead of pummel - to pull you out of position and presumably twist you apart - but now you have yourself anchored with the head of the wrecking torch. It tugs at you with increasing desperation, and eventually manages to pull you out, but the damage is done. The beast is spewing viscera from between its segments and from every orifice it has. At this point, all the worm is doing is trying to wrap itself around you, but it clearly lacks the strength that it just had mere moments ago. You shrug some of the 'arms' off of you and then you plunge the head of your wrecking torch back into the trunk of the worm - boring a new, smoldering hole, even deeper into the parasite this time. Finally, the thing has had enough. With a sudden shudder and possibly the rest of the worm's strength, it manages to give you one final hearty squeeze before going limp for the last time. You extricate yourself from the 'arms' of the animal, then to make absolutely sure that there are no surprises here, you cut the trunk of the worm into thirds, then you put the beast away to the floor of the cargo bay beneath you, spraying a frothy torrent of viscera everywhere on its way 'down'. Taking some fortifying breaths, you check your master readout.
<span class="mu-s"><span class="mu-g">Suit Integrity: 100 %
Suit Charge: 91 %
Boost: 90 %
Air: 88 %
Cutting Gas: 88 %
Cutting Flux: 91 %</span></span>
Well ... at the very least, your suit is still reading as being in optimal condition. Though ... well, you are certainly proud of yourself for overcoming that thing, but the fact is that a large part of your success here had to do with the fact that you were able to get away from the worm at first, then approach it from the best possible angle. And you were only able to do that because you were in a cargo bay. If you were in more cramped quarters ... and for that matter, if a more narrow space, a worm would probably be more comfortable going on the offensive. You are not trying to put yourself down here, but if you were to repeat this exact fight, but in a hallway, a room, a shaft, it -
Hold on, are those eggs?
After you use your torch again to make sure that some of the smaller conduit worms in this portion of the dropped ceiling are well and safely dead, you spend the next few minutes collecting what must be two hundred conduit worm eggs. It goes without saying that by the end of it, you are feeling much better about the EVA. The worm flailing around even pulled off the panels for you, so you didn't need to spend any more time or consumables on it. And while the final count from this section is kind of underwhelming - just another three cubits of clean conduit and another two of not-so-clean conduit - you did end up finding another electronic. This one ... you are not sure what exactly this one is. Well, you'll find out when you get the appraisal back for the haul - assuming you get your two hundred cubits of clean conduit in by the end of the second shift.
