Although the beasts' motions are random, if you're fast enough it seems that you can usually get by them before they block the way. Once you circle around them, at least one of them will have been beserked and they will fight each other, but this isn't enough by itself to save you. Since getting them to the center is fairly easy, jettisoning a gas pack will barbecue all but the raptor, which you can then easily take out with your dual (or single if you played G3 on TC) mercuries. I'm pretty sure it's the raptor that drops the chip, since the beasts were incinerated in this strategy.
The dual term strategy is a bit confusing to experienced players. The first time you talk to Ian, you need to aim to the left of him. When you return you need to look right at him.
Now let's see. You boarded an infected Pfhor vessle and barely escaped, only to find that you brought the infestation back with you. You finally managed to escape your infected ship, but again the infection followed you and you had to nuke the next ship. Now your escape pod is infected and you killed the beasts on board. Hmm, now you're going to land on an inhabited planet? Methinks someone is not following standard procedures for quarantine.
