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ColorfulCredit (I wanted to try writing something long... and yeah, this is pretty long.)
A spiral flies towards the Bounty Board, a datapad clutched in one of her prosthetic hands. “This is the bounty place, right? Tide told me to look for Ria. That must be you.” She places the pad on the counter and offers it to him. “Proof that one hivemind infected power armour has been returned to containment. The wardens send their thanks. Oh, and Tide’s fine. He’s just got some chores to catch up on.”
“Now- wait, who are you?” Phidi’s eyes lock onto Solaire the moment she notices him. “Tide never mentioned anyone as cool as you on staff! You have to tell me about yourself. Where did you come from? Who made you? Please?” The datapad lay on the counter where Phidi had left it, completely forgotten.
An empty airlock welcomed Tide to his home away from home as he left the star Station. After the ordeal U&P had wrought upon the station, getting away from the constant gossip of visiting civilians was a reward all by itself. He almost didn't need the generous payment Ria had offered as thanks.
Tide wasn't going to not take that reward, though. Nor was he going to sit around any longer without taking on a bounty of his own. Having spent some downtime on the station, he needed to spread his wings for a bit. Get in a couple of fights. Risk his life out on some forgotten planet where the only consequence was whether he lived or not and really get the blood pumping.
He threw open the door to the canteen and found an empty table to review his target at. Not that there was anyone in here. He had his pick of the spotless metal tables. So he grabbed the closest one and got to reading.
"Power Armor infected by the Hivemind."
That was it? No other description of the target? He skimmed the sheet of paper again, but that seemed to be the case. No picture, schematics, or even a short summary of its abilities. The contract said it was infected power armour, and he had its model number, for all the good that did him. Tide checked the mission coordinates next; that gave him a planet and the coordinates for the containment facility it had escaped from. Apparently the power armour had disabled its tracking beacon and simply walked out of the building in the middle of the night. No damage or injuries reported, but in the span of the single day since it had escaped they'd completely lost track of it.
Tide radioed the coordinates over to Solace. She and the passenger still had some artefacts left to examine, so they could set out immediately. No need to go treasure hunting first. The trip would still take some time though, and Tide hated waiting. He drummed his claws on the table for a bit before walking over to a control panel on the far wall. The canteen on this old ship might have been empty and undecorated, but it did have a sound system. The music hadn't been updated... ever, but anything was better than silence and the occasional vibrating of the air conditioning.
---
Tide was bored. It felt like he'd been sitting in the canteen for days, though in reality it had only been an hour or two. The stereo had swapped to some sad ballad that felt like it'd never end and Tide wasn't in the mood for another scolding about shooting the panel to turn it off. Only one thing for it then. Time to bother one of the only people on this vessel who was actually real and not just a holographic extension of the ship.
The engineering bay was down near the hangar, easily identified by the scrap metal piled outside the wide door frame. Tide let himself in, vaulting over one of the many unfinished projects scattered around the room.
"Hey Phi!" he yelled out. "Where are you?"
"Ah, what do you want now?" a voice grumbled from within a particularly large machine. The spiral it belonged to poked her head out from between some metal panelling. "I'm a bit busy maximizing the output of this mining laser, so if you've broken something again it'll have to wait."
"I haven't put so much as a scratch on any of your stuff, Phi," Tide said, brandishing his bounty contract. "I'm going after some rogue power armour, and I thought maybe you'd know something about this model."
"Oooo! Let me see!" All thoughts of arcane focusing crystals completely forgotten, Phidi scrambled to extract herself from the mining laser's casing. Once free, she grabbed the contract from Tide's hands. "Infected by a hivemind? I want to meet it! Imagine what it could teach us! And look at the serial number — looks like it's a GX-series suit, and those things are huge. Obviously it's got to be big enough for a guardian to wear it, but the GX is designed to be an impenetrable wall of metal. They made these things for deep mantle mining and yeah, you could probably fall into a planet's core while wearing one of these and be absolutely fine. It's a masterpiece of engineering. Tide, we've got to steal this!"
"Hey, what? No!" Tide floundered for a moment after that sudden change in topic. "I'm bounty hunting right now, not planning a heist. We're not stealing the power armour."
"But think of the materials we could salvage!"
"No. It wouldn't fit on the ship, anyways," Tide said, taking the contract back.
"Yes it would! There's an entire docking bay." Phidi's eyes were glowing slightly with arcane magic. The contract in Tide's hand tried to return itself to Phidi's grasp, but he could win a fight against a scrap of paper.
"And to make room we'd have to throw out your thopter, among other things."
"Oh..." The magic dimmed from Phidi's eyes as she acknowledged her defeat.
The voice of reason yet again. Star Station was having a bad influence on him. "Well, that was illuminating. But unless you've got a plan on how to take this target down, I think I'm done here."
"Who do you think you're talking to?" Phidi demanded. "If anyone's good enough to come up with a way to take down a GX, it's me!"
---
Some time later, Tide was in the docking bay wiping machine oil off his hands. Behind him, a newly modified hoverbike sat ready for his hunt. Phidi was making the final adjustments to the large speargun she'd bolted to the front of it, poking at some part of the swivel mount while wrapped around the barrel for stability.
Tide picked up the spear they'd selected as the projectile. It was several metres long, but thin and made of a lightweight plastic. "Are you sure this won't just shatter on impact?" he asked.
"Don't worry, it will," Phidi called back to him.
"That's not—"
Phidi put down the tools she was holding and looked directly at Tide. "The spear's survival isn't important, all it has to do is hit hard enough to pierce the outer armour and embed my device."
"Right, that thing." Tide picked up the odd contraption Phidi had left next to the hoverbike. The metal box was small enough that Tide could conceal it in one hand, yet was surprisingly heavy for its size. It was unmarked other than the pattern of jagged pink crystal spikes protruding from one side. Tide nearly cut himself on one trying to pick it up. "How's it work again?"
"On impact, the spikes of the energy leech will grow out and connect themselves to the internal systems of our target,” Phidi recited. “Then they will drain the power, whether electrical or magical, until the armour shuts down or the leech explodes, whichever comes first."
"And which of those two options will that be?" Tide jabbed.
"Don't doubt me!" Phidi snapped, annoyed. She picked up a nearby wrench and tossed it at the wildclaw, who caught it effortlessly. "That casing is designed to convert power to heat and disperse it efficiently, so you should have a least a few hours before the leech detonates and the armour can reboot."
"Should be long enough to tow it back to containment," Tide said. Wrench in hand, he started tightening the bolts holding the speargun to the front of the bike.
"Just make sure we don't have to tow you back to the ship," Phidi jeered. "If you crash this one I'm making you take over my cleaning duties for the next couple of days."
"Like I'd ever do that," Tide said, putting the wrench back where it came from. "That supercharged engine you put in it will explode long before I lose control of it."
"The last one only blew up because you pushed it too hard!" Phidi claimed, but Tide had already picked the wrench back up again before she could throw it. Grumbling, Phidi went back to her work.
With everything he could help with completed, he lay back against the side of the bike and watched Phidi finish her modifications. He'd only ridden one of these a few times before (a bike like this didn't really work underwater), but he'd learned fast. The weapon on front might throw the balance off a bit, but Tide was confident he could handle it.
"It's weird, you know," Phidi said after some time.
"Hmm?" Tide had nearly dozed off while laying there.
"That nobody was injured when the armour escaped. Since when does a possessed robot escape containment and not immediately go on a rampage?"
"Why are you so sure it escaped?"
"You think someone stole it before we could?" Phidi asked, leaning over the edge of the hoverbike to look down at where Tide was laying.
"Stole it, helped it escape, who knows," Tide waved one hand dismissively. "All I suspect is that more than just this Hivemind was involved."
"You going to bring them in as well?" Phidi asked, miming a blaster with her metal fingers.
"Nah, the bounty's only for the armour," Tide replied, pulling his hat back down over his eyes. "No point in doing extra work if we're not getting paid for it."
"Since when was that the case? Usually you get yourself into trouble for free."
"Since Star Station was kind enough to reliably pay me for what I do."
---
Tide left a cloud of mist behind him as he took his hoverbike across a lake. Somewhere behind him lay the top-secret containment facility, hidden among the massive trees of this planet. The wardens there knew what direction the GX armour had fled in, but little beyond that. Wasn't much of a stretch to say that it would've had to go around this lake though, so Tide figured that taking a shortcut across it would be the easiest way to catch up.
Also it was way too much fun. With absolutely no obstacles in its way, this bike was a rocket! Quite literally, too. The arcane tendency to strap rocket boosters to everything was strong in Phidi, and at least for today it had paid off. If only there was a convenient ramp around to get some air off of.
Sadly, Tide had to slow down as the water quickly ran out and he approached the enormous forest. The trees here stretched farther into the sky than he could see, and the spaces between each trunk were more than wide enough to fit the hoverbike through. And by extension, just about wide enough to hide a massive suit of power armour. Even with the advantage of speed, it would take days for Tide to search the entire forest. At least the ship was somewhere above, ready to let him know if the power armour was spotted in the open fields beyond the trees.
And then, while zipping past various lichen-covered rocks and jumping over fallen branches, he saw clear signs of something massive moving through the area. Crushed logs and gashes cut high into the tree trunks. Finding this thing was going to be far easier than Tide had expected. It had even been kind enough to clear a path for him. He let the bike accelerate back to faster than was strictly recommended, and then a bit more, just for good measure. What was the point in riding something like this if it didn’t feel like the wind was going to tear your feathers out?
---
Somehow, Tide didn’t see it coming. And considering that the armour he was hunting was sized for a large guardian, that was an accomplishment. But one moment there was nothing, and the next two metal claws were bearing down on him. He swerved, sliding over to hang off one side of the bike in the hope of turning faster. The armour slammed down inches from where he would’ve been had he not. Tide scrambled to get back on top of the bike as the shockwave bounced it into the air. It was easier than he expected. Apparently Phidi had stabilized the hoverbike for short- term gliding. Wrenching on the controls, Tide spun the bike around in midair. Then he slammed the button for the thrusters, launching the bike around the armour and out of its line of sight.
Having made it out of the immediate line of attack, Tide made some space between himself and the target. Clearly it had known he was coming. How wasn’t much of a mystery. This bike was louder than a rocketship taking off. Tide had earplugs in and it was deafening. Vaguely, he wondered if the hivemind might be trying to communicate with him at all through the armour. If so, he wouldn’t be able to hear it over the roaring engine. Then he looked backwards and saw the armour charging towards him way faster than he thought something that heavy could move and decided he didn’t care.
He kept his speed up, letting it chase him. He just needed to find somewhere where the trees were grouped a bit more tightly together. There! Taking a quick right turn, Tide tried to flank the armour. Hopefully the armour would get caught and struggle to turn around. Two more turns and Tide had a perfect straightaway leading right to his target. Just had to tilt the speargun back and—
The waste of scrap metal wouldn’t budge. Why did Phidi make this something he had to aim manually? Tide put the strength of both his arms into it, but it didn’t move. “Useless junk!” He stood up, precariously balancing on the seat of the bike while he tried to aim the speargun. “Just a bit more…” Digging his claws into the metal, he leapt from his seat and landed on the back of the weapon. The mechanism rotated backwards as quickly as it could, smashing into the top of the bike and breaking Tide’s grip. He tumbled into the dirt as the bike rocketed out from underneath him. Shaking pebbles from his feathers, Tide looked up just in time to see the armour’s tail swing out and smash the bike into a tree, instantly crumpling it under its titanic strength.
“I liked that bike!” Tide yelled, sprinting towards the wreckage. The hoverbike might be totaled, but maybe the speargun still worked. The armour was still caught in the trees, he had time. He wouldn’t even need to lift it, just drag it into position and shoot, it’d— no, the weapon was in about twenty too many pieces to fire.
Miraculously, the spear had survived the impact. And that meant that when Tide grabbed it, it was about four times too long to be easily carried. Well, everything else was already busted, no harm in breaking what was left. He swung the spear at the nearby tree, snapping it. The heavy end with the leech on it spun off into the dirt, and Tide hurried after it. Just less than a metre of the spear remained attached to the metal box, leaving Tide with something he could actually wield. He nabbed that as he ran by, taking a quick glance behind himself before flying into the air.
Just a few trees away, the hivemind’s power armour had freed itself and was back to hunting down Tide. It approached the crashed bike, but Tide was already up in the branches above. He leapt down upon it, resisting the urge to bellow a war cry. He landed hard on the armour’s back, flapping his wings to maintain balance. He wasn’t nearly as strong as the speargun, so he’d need to find a weak point in the armour. Maybe someone who’d been keeping this thing contained had cut into it to get a look at its insides. Yes, up near the base of the neck! Scorch marks, almost impossible to make out against the dark metal. And a loose bit of plating.
The plate had barely enough of a gap to get his claws under, so Tide tried to pull it free. It shifted, barely. The space looked wide enough now. Tide lifted the spear above his head and then jammed it into the components below the armour. The metal below him shook much faster than it had been moments ago. Now the hivemind had definitely noticed him. But hopefully it wouldn’t matter. He was already back in the air, preparing to hide among the branches of a slightly farther away tree and wait for the armour to power down.
---
It took a while of gliding between trees while the armour futilely struggled, first trying to chase Tide down and then simply trying to run away, but the leech did its job. With it out of power and safely disabled, Tide was free to soar back down to the ground and get a better look at it. It was an impressive piece of engineering. Designed so that an entire guardian dragon could wear it. For that to be possible, Tide figured the entire underside would need to be designed in such a way that all the panels could slide out of the way allowing the pilot to wear it like a coat, and then move back into place to completely protect them. Which meant that it would have to open up somewhere around… here.
Tide calmly stepped back to avoid the sword blade that stabbed out of the panel he’d just opened. Electricity crackled around the blade, the wielder hiding somewhere inside the massive suit of power armour.
“Howdy, Keris,” Tide said.
“You again?” the sword’s owner demanded. “How and why are you of all people here?”
Tide shrugged. “Just taking on a bounty. And how about you? Still freeing oppressed AIs? Except instead of an AI, did you find another evil hivemind which trapped you inside the vehicle it was possessing and took the opportunity to escape?”
“This is only the second time this has happened.” Keris climbed out of the armour. The fae stretched her cramped wings, but elected not to deactivate her electric blade.
“I would never suggest we’ve done this more than once before,” Tide said. He unstrapped a bottle of water from his vest and offered it to the fae. “You must be dying of thirst after being trapped in there for a day and a half.”
“The armour has air conditioning,” Keris deflected, but gladly took the water. She stopped channeling her lightning magic and sheathed her sword. “So what, you here to take me in?”
“Nah, I’m just here for the armour. Don’t think they have any idea anyone behind the hivemind was involved.” Tide gestured vaguely upwards, towards where he thought the ship might be. “We’ll give you a lift to wherever you’re looking to go after we figure out how to get this lump of metal back where it belongs.”
Keris had nearly drained the water bottle already. “That works for me.” Then she dropped the water bottle as a sudden loud explosion caused both dragons to flinch. “What was that?”
“A few hours at least, riiiight,” Tide grumbled. “Keris, did you happen to find an emergency shutoff anywhere in there while you were trapped? One we can use before it reactivates and the hivemind can override it again?”
Eventually, Phidi stopped pestering Solaire. “If Tide’s not here,” she realized, “That means I get to pick how we’re getting paid! I’ve got to check if they’ve got any illuminated sashes left in stock, I know exactly who could use one of those.” She sped off, flying as fast as her wings could take her.
