Strip 500 -- First Seen: 2010-08-06
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All of this should show up in June.

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
A sort of repeat of the last frame of 179, except that now we are a dozen miles away from Ida, hurtling into the void. Bert is firing off another bunch of rocks, which we can see shooting back towards Ida from the far end of the Mass Driver.
 
SFX: WHOOM!
Ernie: Damn! That was a kick in the ass.
 
Panel 2
Medium close-up of the Brothers in their center-seat. Bert is reaching over to one of the hoppers to pull out a rock. Ernie is reaching into another hopper to pull out another rock. Both rocks are about 30 cm in diameter

Ernie: I guess we have your tinkering to thank for that.
Bert: I simply increased the firing acceleration to the driver's rated maximum.
 
Panel 3
Bert is tossing his rock into the Conveyor chute as Ernie reaches behind them into the third hopper to pull out another rock.

Bert: The kicks are just going to get bigger as our mass is reduced.
Bert: I don't care of my heinie ends up looking like a baboon's butt, if it gets us home.
 
Panel 4
Bert fires again. This time, let's show it from the opposite angle – the Mass Driver leaps away from us (into the right background) as it blows rocks on the near end (into the left foreground).
 
SFX: WHOOM!
 

Panel 5
Medium shot of the brothers in their seat. Ernie is looking ahead of them as Bert is tossing another rock into the conveyor.
 
Bert: How's our heading?
Ernie: Only off by 3 seconds of arc, good enough.
Ernie: How's our speed?
 
Panel 6
Closer 2-shot of the Brothers. Bert is looking at an LED readout on his suit's sleeve near the wrist.
                       
Bert: My suit's accelerometer is showing a cumulative 67.4 meters per beat
Ernie: Um, my ock is showing 66.7 meters per beat.
 
Panel 7
Distance shot of the Mass Driver hurtling towards Dactyl. Dactyl is barely visible as a rock (a bit bigger than just another star-point) at this distance, and isn't dead-ahead of them. It's orbiting Ida and will intersect the Brothers' path, if all goes according to plan.
 
Bert: Er, that could represent an error of several kilometers at the distance of Dactyl's orbit.
Ernie: We'll correct at mid-course.
 
Panel 8
Closer 2-shot of the Brothers. Both look a bit worried.
Ernie: We just have to have faith in our equipment.
Bert: Yeah, Ernie, this is all a 'leap of faith.'