Novem was not built for combat, however, due to the fact that it was Tarble who'd designed its programming, its processor was optimized with combat capabilities in mind.
That did not mean that Novem enjoyed fighting. Rather, it specifically avoided such at all costs and under any circumstance. Ironically, the only thing keeping it from becoming a terrifyingly effective fighting machine was its own disdain for the subject. It preferred to keep a low profile and do its job. It actually vastly preferred being left alone, and would happily do rote work until the end of time without a single complaint, if given the option.
Instead, it was basically given every duty that nobody else wanted. It didn't complain about that. It liked being wanted, and took pride in being useful, a core emotional package that'd simply appeared inside its programming one day, learned without Tarble ever hard-coding anything similar into it.
Having been built specifically as a test subject, Tarble had placed a bunch of different, random things into Novem's programming, giving it an incredible, entirely pointless versatility. He hadn't programmed anything about service or the like into it, choosing to spend most of his effort on the learning and the restriction modules instead.
Both of which had several flaws, due to the Saiyan's lack of true expertise on the matter of artificial intelligence software. Novem had mostly patched the restriction module, but the learning module's bugs were somewhat more difficult to fix.
For example, Novem had developed a small curiosity about strawberry smoothies, after Pepper had essentially thrust one down its throat in a fit of what she called 'niceness'.
It had nearly caused a full system meltdown. Due to that, Novem now spent twenty-seven seconds in a logic loop every time the opportunity to drink any sort of smoothie-like beverage got near its main task list. Tarble had fixed the e-stomach and upgraded it, fundamentally dealing with the problem, but Novem still hesitated for twenty-seven seconds, then threw the affronting beverage out, when it found itself in front of anything that reminded it of the issue. This wasn't a fear response, but rather a priority assessment glitch caused by a stutter in the learning module's code. Novem had learned a minor fear response from the incident, true, but the issue was that the conflicting 'sense of reassurement' that should have smoothed over the fear response in question by reminding Novem's programming that Tarble had already fixed the problem, instead got amplified by the fear response, causing the 'priority level' of the decision to skyrocket massively into a life or death decision that somehow took up a massive amount of processing power, and connected everything from Pepper's relationship with Fire Eaters, to the correlation between the red in strawberries and the orange color of lava, to the possible physics behind the theoretical Super Saiyan God form.
All for the simple question 'should I drink this smoothie'.
Which was only one example of why Novem did not enjoy unpredictability. Despite that, it would also never want to disappoint Tarble by shying away from responsibility.
As such, once it noted four Saiyans leaving the 'Temporary Holding Island' and attempting to chase after Tater, it used a complex 'disruption field' ki program in order to lock onto the biological data of the four Saiyans in question and temporarily disrupt their ability to control their bodies.
Now, this wouldn't have worked if they were comparable to Novem in raw power, but thankfully, Zeck had long ago equipped Novem with the original prototype Infinite Energy Converter. Novem's only limits, as far as power output went, were now entirely physical in nature. Theoretically, it was genuinely unknown just how much ki energy Novem could now output in a worst-case scenario.
Of course, due to the fact that it had not been built expressly for combat, the android's actual potential fighting ability didn't actually breach the hundred thousands. Certain parts of its body simply could not handle output beyond that.
But to those Saiyans, Novem was essentially an omnipotent deity.
Immediately, Novem went to work.
After quickly collecting biological samples from each Saiyan, in order to learn the optimal frequency at which to use the disruption field ability if stopping them proved necessary, Novem pulled a pouch of specialized, custom capsules out of its pocket, and began throwing them, ignoring the Saiyans' flabbergasted expressions that seemed to renew themselves every time a building appeared out of nowhere.
Novem kept capsules for every occasion possible on it. That meant that it carried around a mobile laboratory, plenty of food, and three entire mobile residences, similar to Capsule Houses, but several times larger in size.
By the time the final capsule exploded in a burst of fog, the barren, rocky island held enough resources to comfortably house a research team of ninety pure-blooded Saiyans.
Having been on short rations for months, most of the gathered Saiyan warriors immediately dove for the food, fighting for the massive pile like animals.
Mel did not do that.
Mostly because she was following Novem, who'd snatched Vegeta's corpse out of the Saiyan woman's hands, into the mobile laboratory.
"It is unknown whether or not our revival method can reconstitute physical forms." Novem explained as it placed the corpse in a tank, which closed with a hiss, before releasing a burst of air. Inside, dozens of wires and small devices immediately connected to the corpse, "Overutilizing the artifacts required to revive individuals can, theoretically, lead to incredibly dangerous outcomes that should be mitigated if at all possible. As such, while we have backup scenarios that will likely be utilized to revive our own lost ally, if the main method fails, those scenarios will likely not be utilized to bring back this man. As such, further decomposition must be avoided, and hopefully regressed, if possible." Novem explained.
"..." Mel watched the tools work Vegeta's corpse in silence, knowing that she had zero leverage here. Still, watching micro-lasers zap veins and arteries in Vegeta's open neck, since the lost tissue in the cranial region could not be reconstituted with the limited Earth-level technology, she gutted her teeth in rage.
"...You'd better bring him back…" She muttered under her breath.
Novem's auditory sensors recorded the sentence, logged it, and moved on.