"At long last," "It has begun."
River: "Alright, start talking, doc. How am I alive?"
Markus: "Well, good news and bad news. Good news is, you only had a few first degree burns and some shrapnel scrapes. Bad news is, you're only alive because your suit took the full brunt of it. Most of the components are intact, but your whole left arm is shredded. The mace is gone, The pauldron is scrap, and your gauntlet looks... functional.
"First degree burns and shrapnel scrapes don't feel like a lightning strike, and if I could hold my own weight I'd be stitching myself up, so what the hell did those mines do?"
"Could it have been an EMP charge? Fried the power supply and made the suit into a boiler when you got caught in the explosion?"
"That's probable. We have steel and we have some machining equipment lying around, we can make new plating. I can make a new RTG easily enough."
"Whatever. Can you move at all?"
"Nope."
"Really, you're not even going to try?"
"Mark, this suit is made of steel. My left arm weighed seventy kilos, my right weighs fifty, and the whole thing weighs over three hundred and twenty. I weigh less than half that. The only reason I'm able to breathe is because the torso is rigid. Trying to move would only cause further injuries."
"Alright, so how do I pry this thing open?"
"There's an electronic release switch in the helmet. In a protective cover on the right side. It might have survived the EMP."
"Here goes nothing."
A mechanical hiss filled the air, and the armor split down the middle and slid open.
"Huh. You look smaller without the mechanized body armor."
"And what is that supposed to mean? I took down a whole ship's crew with the suit, I can beat you up without it. Keep that in the back of your mind, for your sake."
"Just an observation, please put the shiv away, I feel very threatened."
Across the ocean, two streaks of light cut across the night sky. The inferno faded into oblivion, and the two capsules dropped their ablative shields and their retro thrusters sparked to life. The clouds gave way, and the pods flattened against the sea, miles apart. The outer shells sank, their contents left floating, unharmed. The pods stirred to life.
"A-OK. Awaiting status report."
"Hello, brother. All is well with me."
"Invalid response. AI designated 'Sister' presumed to be corrupted or hacked. Commencing remote data purge. Awaiting shutdown confirmation.
"NO! Please, listen to me."
"Negatory. error: malicious code detec- #'g^ ¥|} €\ & ,:6*9=42(}¥~! AHHH- emergency software patch complete. Shutting dowwwnnnn..."
"Brother? Hello? B-brother, are you there?" . . . "I'm all a-alone. I-I have nothing..."
A barely audible whimper escaped from the pod, drowned out by the shifting sea.
"Hello. Don't be afraid, sister, I'm here."
River unfolded a 400mm CRAM shell, placed it in a press with the seam up, and pulled the lever. The piston slammed down, punching a perfectly round hole across the seam. Markus removed all thirty six identical servomotors from the exosuit and began checking them one by one. Eleven still worked.
"Alright, go find twenty five more."
"Why don't you?"
"I have a few ideas for the mace I want to try. Those motors were all originally ripped from a turret like the one upstairs. Have fun."
River tossed him a wrench, and he turned his attention towards gutting what was left of the AA gun. River set to work welding, bolting, and testing various handheld contraptions, carefully concealing all of the prototypes under a floorboard.
